Bound and Determined (3 page)

eyes bright as he passed his tongue over his lips. “God, I'd forgotten how horny

this place makes me feel…” He made a sound very close to a satisfied purr and

then turned his attention back to the conversation still occupying the table.

A minute later, though, everyone's focus was drawn to the couple in the

center of the nearer of the two dance floors, and when Sterling glanced in that

direction to see what the big attraction was, it felt like the bottom of his

stomach dropped out.

Owen Sawyer—sometimes professor, sometimes Dom, if the way the

woman with him kept her eyes cast downward had anything to say about it—

stood there, some kind of flogging implement in his hand, eyes cool and

distant.

The woman had straight dark hair, long enough to fall an inch or two past

her shoulders, and she turned at Sawyer's direction, crossing her wrists behind

her back and letting him bind them with a silky-looking scarf. Everyone near

Sterling's table had gone quiet, so he was able to hear it when Sawyer

murmured something in a low voice, something approving in the same tone of

voice Sterling had heard him use in the classroom. He used the woman's name

too: Carol.

Panic and excitement fought for ascendancy in Sterling as he stared at

Sawyer. He wanted to be him—didn't he?—so completely assured, so in charge.

Wanted to feel the cool, soft leather thongs of the flogger slide against his palm

and through his fingers, wanted to make a gesture, just like
that
, and have a

sub kneel instantly, a smooth, graceful movement that ended with them

perfectly positioned for whatever he had in mind.

Sawyer's hand slid under the flowing dark hair and closed around Carol's

neck. Sterling felt the echo of that possessive, claiming grip on the back of his

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Jane Davitt & Alexa Snow

neck and closed his eyes in despair and defeat, engulfed in an intense longing

that made everything fade to gray.

God. He could barely keep himself together, painfully aware of how it

would feel to kneel on that floor, the wooden surface hard against his knees, a

sparking ache of fire traveling from bound wrists to shoulders. He could picture

with perfect clarity the view from that position, the upward gaze along the line

of Sawyer's body to his face.

His hands were trembling as he watched Sawyer take control of Carol. The

man unbuttoned her blouse one button at a time, casually, as if he had all the

time in the world and wasn't particularly interested in what he was doing.

Sterling knew that part was an act, though. Carol's eyes, wide, tear-wet and

dark, were mostly downcast, but occasionally moved up to look at Sawyer's

face, searching for something there.

The audience was mostly quiet now, an appreciative murmur humming

through the air. The music was muted so gradually that Sterling couldn't have

said exactly when it ceased to be audible through the seashell roar in his ears.

He heard the small, throat-caught sound Carol made as Sawyer slipped her

blouse off to tangle around her bound wrists, though; he heard that clearly,

and it brought an answering moan to his own lips that he hoped went

unnoticed in the ripple of comment that went around the room.

Carol's small, rounded breasts were held in a wisp of white lace and silk,

delicately feminine and concealing nothing, but Sawyer still took it from her,

unhooking the clasp between her breasts with a deft flick. It was strapless, and

it fell to the floor behind her, a pale splash against the dark wood. Carol was

wearing tailored pants, and her feet were bare; the image she presented was a

jarring mix that left Sterling unsettled. She didn't look like anyone else in the

room; fully dressed, with her hair in a neat bun, she would have looked like an

executive, a lawyer, maybe.

Half-naked on the floor, her breathing quick and ragged, slowing when the

strands of leather were dragged over her shoulder, the only caress she'd been

given, she looked like a fantasy come to life.

Not just any fantasy; hers, had to be—or maybe it was Sawyer's and he

only went for women? Sterling stared at Carol and envied her without jealousy

for what she was about to receive and for the way she'd gotten Sawyer's

attention.

Even staring at her bare upper half, her flushed-pink nipples, did nothing

for Sterling physically—he'd never been attracted to women—but at that

moment he was so spellbound that he could almost imagine what it would have

felt like if he was.

“What do you think?” Alex asked in a hushed voice, leaning closer. A

shiver went through Sterling, all the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck

prickling with it.

“How—” His breath caught in his throat, and he had to try again. “How far

will he take it?”

Bound and Determined

9

“As far as she told him that she wanted to go,” Alex said. “He might give

her less if he thinks she's reached her limits, but he wouldn't cross them.”

I know that
, Sterling wanted to snap at him. That was basic, and the

reading he'd done online, researching a kink that had made parts of his life go

from confusing to clear in an instant, had spelled out all the steps of

negotiation, all the rules. The words had blurred as he read them, so aroused

that he couldn't continue without jerking off right there in the computer chair

as if he'd been reading porn, not dry, matter-of-fact bullet point lists.

“I mean, will he—right here in front of everyone—” He swallowed dryly as

the flogger swung through the air and struck the curved back waiting for its

kiss, answering his question.

After the first glance at Carol's face—calm, though her eyes were

squeezing shut with each stroke and she was starting to breathe heavily—he

looked only at Sawyer.

Sterling had seen that intent absorption in the classroom; Sawyer gave it

to anything he read and any conversation that interested him. This was

different though; Sterling was pretty sure that Sawyer hadn't been hard when

he'd discussed symbolism and Sylvia Plath, a flush rising in his thin, strong

face.

“Jesus,” he whispered under his breath. He could see Sawyer's erection,

outlined clearly under the khakis that might very well be one of the same pairs

from freshmen lit. It was a thought that would have made Sterling hard too, if

he hadn't already been—as it was, his cock gave a heavy throb, constricted as

it was in jeans half a size too small.

Sawyer brought his arm back and swung again, quicker; Carol gasped,

flinched, but didn't cry out. Her pale skin was red across her upper back and

along her spine. God, what would it feel like to be the one kneeling there,

waiting for the leather to strike? Knowing that Sawyer was the one in charge?

Sterling could feel sweat on his palms. He wiped them on his thighs and

swallowed, shaken to his core.

Finally, and Sterling didn't realize that he'd been waiting for it until it

happened, Sawyer spoke, his words directed at Carol, as if she was the only

person who mattered and the watching audience didn't exist. It wasn't because

Sawyer or Carol would have preferred to do this alone; if they did, this would

be happening in one of the private rooms that Alex had said were at the back of

the club, but it added a spice of voyeurism to the scene—not that Sterling

needed it to get any more intense.

“You're doing so well, Carol.”

She sobbed for the first time, as if Sawyer's cool words, spoken without

emotion, were harder to endure than the stinging flick of the leather.

“You earned this attention from me by failing, though, and I don't really

think that we should lose sight of that fact, do you?”

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Jane Davitt & Alexa Snow

If Carol answered, Sterling didn't hear her. As gradually as the music had

faded, the lights in the room had dimmed, until the only illumination shone

down on the woman kneeling and the man standing over her. It gave him the

opportunity to stare at Sawyer openly, greedily, and he took it.

Sawyer had a strong jawline and a perfectly straight nose—the better to

look down it at other people, Sterling thought—and though he was probably

just over average as far as height went, just about the same height as Sterling,

he gave the impression of being larger than life. His hands, though, when

Sterling looked at them… His hands were solid, his fingers long. Sterling

wanted to feel them on his body, that roughened palm against his cock,

clutching his ass.

God.

Unthinkingly, Sterling reached out for Alex's knee and gripped it. He

needed something to hold onto, and Alex seemed to understand, because he

didn't ask questions or move away, just let Sterling hang onto him. It felt like it

had been going on forever—each time Sawyer drew his arm back, Sterling's

heart stuttered in his chest, and he could feel sweat beading on his upper lip.

Tears were streaking Carol's face now, but she held the position she'd

been placed in by Sawyer's hand on her neck, the tight clench of her fingers

betraying her emotions more than her expression.

“But we all fail from time to time,” Sawyer said and stepped back to study

the marks he'd placed on Carol's skin. “And if we learn from that…” He walked

to stand in front of her and used the handle of the flogger to tilt her face up to

him, tapping it once underneath her chin and then taking it away. “What have

you learned, Carol?”

“
What have we learned today
?” Sawyer had often finished a class with

that final question, sometimes targeting a hapless student who hadn't been

paying attention and then, when they floundered, summing up an hour of

discussion with a few brisk, incisive sentences.

Carol wasn't going to be one of the lucky ones who got a rare, approving

smile. She blinked up at Sawyer, her eyes filled with a panicked desperation as

if she knew that this was what mattered most, not how well she'd behaved

during her whipping, and bit her lip.

“I'm waiting,” Sawyer said and made it sound not like an accusation or a

reminder, but a flat statement of a fact that disappointed him.

Sterling shivered. He'd tried to make Sawyer angry from time to time,

driven by an impulse he'd never examined deeply, but he'd never wanted to

disappoint him and be on the receiving end of a dismissive, contemptuous

stare. Carol wasn't getting that; she was getting something worse, because

Sawyer untied her wrists and turned to walk away.

“No! Wait.” Carol twisted her upper body to watch him leave, wincing in

pain, and then called out, “Owen! Please!” her voice cracking on his name. “I

can do better, I will, I promise, I just—” She looked around at the people

Bound and Determined

11

watching as if she'd only just seen them, and ducked her head with a gasp, her

hair falling forward to shield her face and the tears that were sliding down.

A man and a woman emerged from the shadows around the dance floor,

both dressed similarly in black leather pants and vest, hanging open over the

man's bare chest, buttoned up tightly on the woman. They walked over to Carol

and helped her to her feet, gathering her blouse from the floor.

“Staff,” Alex said into Sterling's ear. “They, uh, tidy things up. And that

just got
messy
.”

“I think I've seen enough,” Sterling said and stood, knocking his chair

back onto the floor with a clatter that went mostly unnoticed among the voices

of all the patrons who were now talking, creating a buffer for Carol, an illusion

of privacy. He didn't wait to see if Alex would follow, just headed for the door

that was closing behind Sawyer.

He burst out onto the sidewalk. Sawyer was walking away, in the shadows

now that he'd stepped out of the circle of light shed by the streetlamp above.

“Wait!” Sterling said, desperate,
needing.

Sawyer turned at once, rounding on him in a way that made Sterling

hesitate before closing the gap between them. He got to within a few feet of

Sawyer and then stopped, searching the man's face for some acknowledgement

of the way he felt. Sawyer
had
to know what watching that scene had done to

him, had to have felt Sterling's arousal build to the point where he was fucking

hurting.

“This,” Sawyer said, his voice clipped and furious, “is not a good time to

annoy me with more clumsy attempts to get my attention. I don't appreciate

them, and if you're serious about becoming more than an onlooker, you're