Breathe (10 page)

“She doesn’t know enough about any of this to choose a scene.” Elijah’s irritation boiled over, and he turned his scowl to Samantha. He wasn’t happy that she was here with another Dom when he’d made his desires known to her.

Instead of appearing happy to see him, his redheaded goddess glowered at him.

“Excuse me?” Samantha yanked on her cuffs, anger flooding her features. “I’m here. I can speak for myself.”

Angelo turned to Samantha, placed a hand on her shoulder. Elijah ground his teeth together at the sight of another man touching her.

“Samantha, give me a minute. I’ll uncuff you, and then we’ll find a dungeon monitor to get rid of this guy.”

Elijah was momentarily gratified that Samantha didn’t appear to like that idea, either.

“Angelo, it’s okay. I know him.” Samantha still didn’t sweeten her expression for Elijah, though he noticed that her nipples had hardened beneath the thin material of her nightie. It seemed that she felt just as he did: that one taste had only led them to a desire for more. “What are you doing here?”

“I went by your house and found this card.” Fishing the crumpled card from his pocket, Elijah waved it in front of Samantha’s face. “And save the attitude. I was worried that you were getting in over your head.”

Her face reddened further.

“You must think I’m a naive idiot.” Her words softened, but Elijah could still hear the upset in her voice. “I would never come to a BDSM club for the first time by myself. Angelo is a friend. He’s doing me a favor. Helping me . . . helping me test something out before I make a decision.”

Elijah studied her face, employing every skill he’d used in his years as a Dom to read her.

She was telling the truth. And he knew then that she had come here to see if she was truly interested in this kind of lifestyle before the deadline he had set for her. She’d seen through his offer of the commission, then.

He did want a sculpture of hers—he would never lie about that. But he was more interested in the fact that it would put the two of them in each other’s space for a prolonged length of time.

“I want you again, Samantha.” Ignoring the other man, Elijah focused entirely on the woman he desired, catching and holding her gaze. “You want me. Let me do this scene with you.”

Elijah expected a knee-jerk
no
from the fiery woman. Instead, she caught her breath, her eyes widening as she took him in.

“Is this what you want, Samantha? You can say no. You don’t have to listen to him.” Angelo cast an agitated glance Elijah’s way before returning his attention to the beautiful sub that was chained in front of them.

Samantha inhaled deeply, causing her breasts to rise and fall enticingly. It was a full minute before she replied.

“Yes.” Her voice was husky, her stare focused on Elijah. “Yes, I want this.”

Pleasure washed over him in a surge of desire. She had said yes. She wanted him as badly as he wanted her.

No matter what many believed, in a D/s relationship it was the sub who had all of the control.

Easing back now that Samantha had made her choice, the man she’d called Angelo pulled a sheaf of papers from his back pocket. He handed them to Elijah, nodding curtly.

“I’ll leave you to it, then.” Turning, the man cast one more look at Samantha. “You’re sure? You can use your safe word.”

Samantha’s eyes never left Elijah’s face, and in that moment he felt bigger than the entire world.

“I’m sure.” She spoke softly. And then Angelo was gone, and Elijah was faced with the goddess who had somehow managed to capture his every thought for the past two days.

“I’m going to cuff your legs.” He felt the incredible need to see her in
his
bonds, to put his mark on them. “What is your safe word?”

“Glass.” Her face was turned against him as she spoke the word. He savored her shiver as he knelt before her, clasping her left ankle, then circling it with hard steel.

He repeated the process with her right ankle. Unable to resist, he pressed a kiss to the inside of her thigh before again rising to his feet.

She shuddered, and he drank in her response.

Elijah took a quick moment to scan the papers that Samantha had filled out. His mind whirled with all the things he wanted to do to her, but he pushed them aside.

This first time had to be all about her.

“No sex?” This had been marked as a hard limit. It often was on a sub’s first visit, until they felt more sure of themselves and their partner. He already knew what it felt like inside her, but he still couldn’t presume, no matter how much he was already aching to return to her wet heat.

Samantha hesitated, then nodded. “No sex.”

“All right, then.” He tilted her chin up so that she looked directly at him. Those glass green eyes were full of defiance and heat.

“I need to say something,” she announced.

He paused, his hands inches from her shoulders. His fingers itched to touch.

“What do you need to say, little cat?” Though there was still a thin ribbon of space between them, Elijah swore he could already feel the warmth of her skin pulsing in that empty space.

“Just because we’ve already had sex, and just because I’ve agreed to do this . . . this scene or whatever it’s called with you . . . it doesn’t mean that I’ve agreed to your deal.” Though she didn’t clarify, Elijah understood what she was referring to.

She wasn’t just talking about her resistance to accept his commission—and he knew that there was more to that resistance than she was letting on.

She was referring to the
other
thing that lay between them. The sexual connection that drew hot and tight between them.

If she had been any other submissive, Elijah would have used this opportunity to introduce some discipline
.
Her tone was one that many other Doms wouldn’t tolerate.

He wasn’t most Doms, and he found that he had no desire to quell her attitude. Not yet.

She was acting out, certainly, but it wasn’t to get him to pay attention to her. It was a part of who she was, and a very large part of what had attracted him to her.

When concocting the idea of the commission, he had intended to seduce her slowly into an affair, to savor what he still wasn’t convinced would be any more than vanilla sex. Amazing vanilla sex, but vanilla all the same.

But chance had put her in his arms right now. He was going to take the opportunity and run with it.

“Close your eyes.” Since he hadn’t intended on going to a club when he’d left the resort that evening, he didn’t have his bag of toys with him. He would have to make do with nothing more than his hands.

He intended to push her a bit tonight, to see if she really was interested in what she thought she was. He was already in deep enough with Samantha that, if it turned out she wanted nothing more than sugar kink, he needed to protect his heart.

“Hold on to those chains, and no matter what I say, what I do, don’t let go.”

•   •   •

N
o matter what I say, don’t let go.

Samantha’s heart began to pound double time in her chest. She’d closed her eyes when he’d commanded her to, but at these last words, she popped them open again.

Her disobedience earned her a sharp swat on the hip.

“Ow!” Eyes fully open now, she looked over her shoulder and glared at Elijah. “What was that for?”

Cupping his palm, he spanked her again, this time fully on one of her ass cheeks. She felt the skin beneath his blow spark to life, heating and tingling.

“You opened your eyes. I told you not to.”

She’d read about spanking when she’d done some research. The mere thought of it had turned her on. But she’d expected—somehow she’d imagined—that it would be discussed beforehand, and that there would be some kind of . . . warm-up, maybe, before it happened.

She’d never dreamed that he would simply spank without asking. Would simply lay his palm across her flesh while she was restrained and could do nothing about it.

His palm again met her ass, and she jolted, swaying in the chains.

“Close your eyes.” Elijah’s commanding voice held nothing but confidence, as if he expected no other outcome than that she would obey.

It was really freaking hot. The blows had brought her skin to life, had focused her attention fully on Elijah. But they hadn’t excited her, not the way that being restrained had.

As if he sensed that, he stopped the spanking. Her eyes were closed tightly, but she could still sense his movements as he circled her, disturbing the air as he walked.

“My options tonight are limited, Samantha. I don’t have my toy bag with me.”

She turned her face in the direction his voice came from, letting it wash over her.

His voice was warm and powerful, and she would never have admitted it to him, but it made her a little bit weak in the knees.

“I could spank you some more. I could release you from the chains, could turn you over my knee and lay my hand flat on that pretty pale skin.”

Samantha inhaled sharply at the words, sensing he was searching for something.

She couldn’t give it to him, because she had no idea what it was.

“I could borrow a crop from someone. Or a paddle. Maybe a whip.” His voice was calm, as if he was discussing what they would have for dinner. Samantha’s body tightened, partly with anticipation and partly with dread.

The pictures she’d found during her research had been titillating, and she’d found the idea of being whipped . . . intriguing. But in the moment, right then and right there, the thought didn’t sit well.

“Not yet, hmm? Well, what else can I do to you?” Samantha sensed him stop in front of her, guessed that he was looking down at her face. She understood then what he was doing.

He didn’t have the toys to play with, to discover what she liked and what she didn’t. So he was using words, watching to see how she responded to the ideas he brought up.

She wanted nothing more than to have him grab her, to do what he would to her.

She couldn’t find the words to ask, and didn’t think she was supposed to, at any rate.

“I think I know.” These words were whispered directly into her ear, followed by a light nip on her earlobe with his teeth. A small moan escaped her lips.

Elijah chuckled, and she frowned.

“Frowning at a Dom can be risky business, Samantha.” A hand swept over her shoulder, and she felt the strings holding up her short nightie fall down.

A sharp cry escaped her when, with both straps sliding down her shoulders, the bodice of the nightie dropped, revealing her breasts and her stomach. His hands cupped the mounds of flesh with just the lightest of touches, but it brought every nerve in her body sizzling to life.

She started to pant when his thumbs brushed over her nipples, which contracted tightly, almost painfully. She felt the touch all the way down to her pussy. It lit a fire that made her ache.

“How can I possibly be frowning at you when I can’t see you?” She made sure her voice was light and sweet, not testing him, even though his hands on her breasts were driving her wild.

There was a long moment of silence. A knot in her stomach grew as she wondered what on earth she’d done that was so wrong.

She dared to open her eyes just enough to peek at him, and instead was confronted with the sight of Elijah trying to suppress laughter.

Repressing a smile herself, she closed her eyes all the way again.

“I saw that.” Elijah’s voice was mild but stern, and Samantha cursed under her breath. How the hell had he seen? She’d opened her eyes only the tiniest crack. “For disobeying yet again you’ll receive one more punishment.”

“Are you going to spank me again?” She hoped not. She felt on the edge of something—something big—and another tap on the ass wasn’t going to help her find it.

“No, I have something else in mind this time,” he said. Samantha heard mischief in his voice. “You can open your eyes.”

Her eyes flew open to find Elijah kneeling before her. He looked up at her with a grin so wicked it transformed his angelic countenance into something dark and dangerous.

“I’m going to taste you, Samantha. I’m going to use my tongue on you.”

Samantha’s entire body jerked at the very idea. “That, uh . . . that doesn’t really sound like a punishment.”

Elijah looked up at her with something enticing in his eyes.

“That’s not your punishment. Your punishment is that you’re not allowed to come until I say you can.”

Samantha’s mouth fell open with incredulity. She watched as, with sure fingers, Elijah pulled her lacy bikini panties to one side and bared the triangle of russet curls that lay beneath.

“Very pretty.” His murmur was so close to her flesh that she could feel his breath misting warmly over her lower lips.

She barely had time to register what he was about to do, and then his thumbs were parting her flesh and his tongue was sweeping into the crevice in between.

“Oh my God,” she choked out as her entire body rocked, pulling on the chains that held her legs apart, her arms above her head. The clanking of the metal reminded her that she couldn’t do anything but accept what he was doing to her, not unless she wanted to use her safe word.

As his tongue swirled over the hard nub of her clit, Samantha discovered that she
really, really
didn’t want to use her safe word.

“That’s right,” Elijah murmured against her, his tongue flicking over her with a teasing touch. “You don’t have the control here. All you can do is accept what I give you. It’s not your choice. Your body is not yours right now. It’s mine.”

His words worked at something inside her. They released the feelings that she had been storing away, the ones she hadn’t allowed herself to fully explore. They exploded free, combining in a dizzying arousal that washed over her and made her shake.

“So responsive.” Elijah swept his tongue through her cleft again. “You like that. You like the idea of not being in control.”

Samantha liked it so much that she felt the tensions that signaled climax already coiling inside her. She was amazed—he’d brought her to climax quickly the day before, but she’d thought it was a onetime occurrence. But once again she found herself so aroused by the touch of his hand that she knew she could come again, and soon.