Hers To Cherish (Verdantia Book 3) (9 page)

“
Oh! Yes, Sir, I didn’t think. Of course it cannot be pleasing to look at me.”

“No, that’s
not – ” He closed his eyes and inhaled, letting it out slowly. “Thank you for your service, Pansy. Please see to Steffania and come back in three hours. Make sure both of you eat and drink something.”

“Sir
,” she acknowledged. Head downcast, she slowly rose from her knees and left the room.

Gods!
Give him a certain sarcastic, tempestuous, insolent, disobedient—and self-sufficient—redhead. What could any male find attractive in someone so submissive and subservient as Pansy? He just found it draining. What the fallout from Steffania’s whipping would be, Ram didn’t know. But if Strom Kella had broken Steffania, he’d break Strom Kella. The last bastard who fucked with those under the protection of Ramsey DeKieran was cosmic dust. He had seen to it personally.

Seventy-two hours later, an almost completely recovered Steffania stood at the front door to the villa and impatiently watched for DeKieran and Pansy to return. Steffania had lived in hell the first twenty-four hours. Her back had felt as if molten lava bubbled on it and every small movement tripled and quadrupled her agony. The ointment Pansy soothed on Steffania every three hours around the clock worked miracles. But, Steffania’s barely muffled screams of torment during the initial applications had drawn a grim-faced Ramsey to her bedside. He had held her tightly to his chest, cradling her and murmuring words of encouragement through each brutal ordeal. Somehow, his presence had given Steffania comfort and the strength to endure the treatments.
I wanted to be strong for him. How pathetic is that?

The ointment that worked such miracles on
Steffania’s back did the same to Pansy’s face. The petite
slaaf
was stunningly beautiful and worse, lit up from within when in Ramsey’s presence. Steffania rolled her eyes.
She looks at him as if he’s a fricking god.
The doll-like beauty could not do enough for Ram, leaping to anticipate his needs and worshipping quietly at his feet in between times.
Like a faithful pet.
Gratitude to Ram for her rescue filled Steffania, but she couldn’t ever picture herself fawning over his every need. She needed sexual submission to satisfy her own particular appetite for carnal fulfillment, but she’d never be any man’s slave.

Ram had not slept in the bed with
Steffania since the day of the whipping. Other than holding her for treatments the first twenty-four hours, Ram had remained remote, aloof, ordering her to stay in the bed and recover. And truly, why would he need her?
The horny bastard has the shrinking violet.
She wondered if he enjoyed Pansy sexually and delighted in having his every whim anticipated.
Probably.
Men.
She snorted. Melancholy pervaded her at the thought of Pansy in the scenarios Steffania had played out with Ram and that furthered her smoldering resentment.
Groveling midget.

Pansy served him in the bath and
brought him delicacies to eat and drink. Pansy massaged oil into his tired body in the evening and dressed him in his practice armor. It was Pansy who left with him in the morning and Pansy who returned with him at night.
Pansy, Pansy, Pansy!

Steffania felt indebted to the woman, but
an entire constellation of discontent filled her, worsened by the awareness she was jealous.
Jealous over the horny bastard!
Steffania snarled quietly.
I’ll get over it. This assignment will end, and I’ll move on.
And yet, here she was, standing at the front door peering out like some dutiful housewife, waiting anxiously for her lord and master to return.
Well, fuck this!

She whirled angrily from her post at the door and marched to the bath. Turning the faucet
on full, she adjusted the temperature and poured a generous dollop of oil into the water pounding into the tub. As the bathroom filled with the sound of running water, she stripped and sank into the foam. With arm gestures punctuating her statements, she expressed herself vociferously about stupidly subservient women and infuriatingly arrogant men.

“
I see you still have not grasped the efficacy of guarding your tongue.”

Steffania sat up with a gasp and turned. She hadn’t heard Ram come in.
I can’t believe I’ve done this again.
Her shoulders drooped. She dropped her head into her hand and then looked up. “Evidently not. Just kill me now.”

Ram shook his head slowly, a tiny smile c
urling one corner of his mouth. “I wouldn’t dream of killing you, sweetheart. For what I have planned, I need you alive.”

The wicked look in his strange blue eyes set her heart beating faster.

Shit, shit, shit.

Ram spoke over his shoulder to the
ever-present Pansy. “Bring me something to eat and drink then you may have the evening to yourself. Don’t disturb me until morning.”

“Sir,”
Pansy said and disappeared.

Ram walked into the
center of the room and began to undress

Steffania
watched the easy play of his muscles revealed clearly by the cyber-suit as he stripped off the heavy, padded guards on his legs, abdomen, groin and shoulders. He dropped them in a pile in the middle of the room.
That unkempt, feral look works for him.
Dirt and sweat streaked his face and collars of dark grime filled the creases of his neck. Sweaty curls of dark hair brushed cheeks that were in sore need of a razor.
And he really needs to shave twice a day.
Ramsey raised his head and lifted one eyebrow then rubbed at his shadowed chin thoughtfully.

Right. Comm-linc. Damn-it-all!
She was discovering the hard way that if their proximity was close enough it didn’t take much to “direct” a thought to Ramsey.

Accompanied b
y the ripping sound of the hook-and-loop material that sealed the cyber-suit, Ramsey stripped nude. He left piles of dirty gear and sweat-stained clothes strewn about the marble floor then sauntered to the edge of the tub and stepped in. Sinking slowly back into the water he submerged himself, then rose to the surface in a splashing cascade and scraped the soapy water from his face. Extending his arms on the ledge of the huge tub, he leaned back and closed his eyes with a soft groan. He circled his right hand, opening and closing it in a fist.

Steffania hadn’t thought past the fact that Ramsey had stopped
the man whipping her. The pain from her own lashing had consumed her entirely. But in the last day or so, she had noticed Ram favoring his right hand and the “shrinking violet” rubbing ointment into it. Her memory belatedly supplied the picture of a hand grabbing the falling lash—Ramsey’s sword hand. Knowing how it had affected her, Steffania shuddered at the thought of the agony that Ramsey must have gone through, not just from the lash, but from the practice bouts since
.

“Does your hand still pain you?”
Ram opened his eyes and silently studied her. Steffania began to squirm as the silence lengthened. “I am sorry,” she offered. {DeKieran, look, I know I blew it. I’ll be a good little
slaaf
from now on. I swear it.}

Ramsey grunted and began to soap himself.
“I’m sending you home, Steffania.
You have passage on the
Estrella Racha
. It leaves in three days.” {I’ve notified DeTano. They’ll send a shuttle to Triton for you.}

Paralysis set in and she forgot to breathe.
{DeKieran, don’t do this. Sent home from a mission? I’ll lose my captain’s bars. I’ll have a permanent black mark on my record. Don’t do this.} “Please, don’t do that. I’ll be the best
slaaf
you’ve ever had. I promise,” she whispered.

His gazed locked on her. “I don’t believe you
can. Your temper is too volatile, and you lack self-discipline.” {It’s better you get busted to private than all the way to dead. Your recklessness endangers both of us. I don’t care how egregious a crime you witness on this suck-ass planet, you don’t drop your cover.}

Steffania shook her head. “I’ll prove it to you. Give me three days
.” {Do your worst. If I take what you dish out, let me stay? Please? I beg of you…} She examined his face for any sign of softening. His harsh features revealed nothing.

“A
ll right. Three days.” {Whatever I want, whenever I want—you fully compliant. The first hint of disobedience, one murmur of complaint and you’re on that liner back to Verdantia. Understood?}

Steffania dropped her eyes.
{Understood.} “Thank you.”

Ramsey gazed at her unmoved. “
Since you seem to be fully-recovered, there is still the matter of
my
punishment for your disobedience.”

She looked at him warily.
“Yes?”

“Dry yourself and wait for me in the bedroom. Stand, center of the room, feet apart, shoulder width, hands behind your back.”

Steffania stood up from the water and nodded her head. “
Dominus.
”

“Oh, and Steffania, leave your hair up
off your neck. One of the things I will do is bind you.”

She felt as if she had been standing in the damn bedroom for an eternity. The wait was part of her punishment, she was certain. Her shoulders ached. Temptation whispered to drop her arms to her sides and shake them out. But the way her luck had been running, that’s when Ram would enter the room. A ponytail high on her head held the heavy weight of her hair off her neck. Ram’s final comment that he would bind her fired her imagination into creating endless scenarios, each more erotic than the last. Hot arousal thrummed through her. The longer she stood there, the hotter it burned. 

At that thought,
Ram walked into the bedroom, nude, carrying a large black satchel. She gave thanks she hadn’t moved. “At ease, Steffania, but remain where you are.”

“Yes
,
Dominus
.”

He dropped
the bag on the bed. The contents clinked softly inside. Opening it, Ram pulled out a number of items and arranged them on the bed. From where Steffania stood, she could only imagine what items that bag might hold and the heat inside her flared higher. He turned to her, holding a black cloth.

“Resume your stance. You may let your arms hang at your sides.”

When she was still, he blindfolded her. “Sometimes, being blindfolded disorients people. If you cannot remain balanced, tell me and I will provide you a support.”

“I’m fine.”

“Good. If that changes, tell me. I require you to control your reactions. Whatever I do to you, I require you to remain silent and unmoving. I will take you sexually for my pleasure. This is punishment, so whether or not you receive satisfaction is entirely up to me. Do you understand me, Steffania?”

“
Whatever you do to me, I don’t speak. I don’t move. I am being punished and should expect no pleasure. Sir,” she added as an afterthought.

“
I will wrap parts of your body in
téad de ghrásta
for my pleasure. I could bind you so that movement was impossible, no matter what I did to you—but that would defeat my purpose. The only restraints you will wear for the next three days will be your desire to please me.” {Your desire to complete this mission.}

“Yes,
Dominus
.”

Ram
could not have spoken words that frightened her more. For all her brave promises earlier, Steffania didn’t trust her self-control.

“
All you need say to end this is
Estrella Racha
and we stop immediately.”

“And I go home,” Steffania whispered.

“And you go home,” Ram echoed.

Steffania felt the now-familiar sensation of rope wrapping her waist. Once again, with careful, patient movement, Ram encased her in a tight rope corset. This time, instead of leaving her breasts free, three strands of rope bound the base of each breast, thrusting them outward in a firmly constricted cone. The flesh between her legs responded to the tight constraint of her upper body. Her folds swelled and grew slick with arousal. Her breasts felt hot, swollen by the blood trapped in them. Her nipples stood rigidly erect, hypersensitive and engorged.

She was aware when Ram moved away and returned. She heard the soft “chink” of a light chain. A warm hand cupped her right breast and she gasp
ed as Ram’s hot mouth drew her nipple between his lips and suckled hard. She moaned softly at the spears of carnal fire that coursed to her clit. When he drew back, the cool air on her nipple ruched it harder. It pulsed with an itch she could not satisfy.

“
Sensitive nipples, sweetheart?” Ram’s low rumble vibrated in her gut.

“Yes
.”

“Then this will probably hurt.”

Steffania felt an excruciating bite on her right nipple that didn’t let up. She choked back a scream and started to pull away but stopped and resumed her widespread stance. She sank into the lancing pain, embracing its dark pleasure.

“Do you know what that is?”

“Yes. A nipple clamp.”

“I’m going to remove the ring on your left nipple and replace it with a bar bell.
It is less likely to tear your flesh. You will wear that for the next three days.”

“Yes
,” she whispered.

His warm fingers deftly replaced the ring with the straight bar and then that nipple was sucked into his hot mouth to receive the same treatment as the right. When Ram pulled her wet, tingling
rosette from his mouth, Steffania felt the bite of another clamp. She sucked in a gasp of air as pain rendered her knees unreliable. Her contrary body didn’t perceive pain as others did and to her horror, she felt the slow trickle of her arousal begin a halting slide down the inside of her thigh. For a brief instant, her hands fluttered upward toward the clamps. She forced them to be still. Agonizing lances of sensation streaked through her and she welcomed them, reveled in them. It took concentration and some effort to restrain the undulations and writhing of her torso in response to the provocative agony. Her shallows pants deepened to long, shuddering inhales.

A low
, masculine chuckle filled the bedroom. “Finding it hard not to move, sweetheart?”

“Yes
,
Dominus
,” she whispered, uncaring that Ramsey read her so easily.

“Imagine. And
you and I have just begun.”

Her
mind reeled with the implications of his statement. She heard him step away and for many long moments, her world narrowed to the blackness of the blindfold, the binding of the rope corset and the twin stabs of discomfort from her nipples – an uncanny blending of licentious pain turned pleasure.

“Your thighs are wet with your arousal, Steffania.
” An unhurried fingertip traced the track of wetness up her inner thigh to her swollen, slick folds. The gentlest of strokes tickled the flesh hiding her inner core and then a long, broad finger slipped within and teased with a deliberate, unhurried mimicry of intercourse. The pad of his thumb leisurely circled her clit. Unchecked arousal gnawed at her control. She bit back a wanton moan. Remaining quiet under his knowing touch tested her brutally.

“Such a needy
slaaf
.”  

She
whimpered a protest when his fingers slipped from her. His low hum of amusement answered her and his warm breath on her thighs located him in her mind. He knelt in front of her. Gentle fingers separated her swollen folds, and pressure bracketed her clit, pushing the small bundle out from the protection of its hood. Steffania exhaled sharply as Ram pulled this focus of sensation into his mouth and suckled just as he had done with her nipples. The strong pull of his mouth and the warm swirls of his tongue on the hypersensitive nerves of her bud catapulted her to within milli-seconds of climax. “Stop!” had just formed on her lips, when he withdrew and she felt the painful bite of another clamp at the base of her clitoris.

Her
choked-off screams echoed against the walls and when she would have bent and closed her legs, Ram’s hands braced the insides of her thighs, holding her apart, forcing her to remain still. “Stay in your position,” he growled.

With
muted keens at the clamps’ teeth biting the most sensitive parts of her, she stood trembling, legs outspread, hands at her sides compulsively rubbing up and down her upper thighs. Tears soaked her blindfold at the pain but her contrary, treacherous body again responded and the wetness rolling down her inner thighs increased. She jigged in place but stopped immediately when the clamps swung, intensifying her torment. She stood immobile and whimpered softly as the roiling pain escalated into hopeless arousal.

A
broad hand caressed her cheek. “You are doing well, sweetheart,” Ram murmured. He took her hand and held it to a stone-hard erection. “Feel how much you please me.”

Her hand closed on his cock and she started to stroke him.
She desperately needed him to fill her, to assuage the clamoring want he’d created. A choked, “Please,” gusted past her lips.

With a small laugh, he pulled her hand away. “Hmm. Later. For now, stand where you are and be still.
I am going to sit in this chair and enjoy the sight of beauty suffering.”

Stand where you are and be still.
He had set her an impossible task. Deprived of vision, legs outspread, her clit pounding with painful intensity, her nipples throbbing with their own separate life, Ram could not expect her not to move, not to touch. Failure loomed.

“
Dominus
?”

“Yes?”

“Please, gag me…at least bind my hands.”

“No.
This is a lesson in self-control.”

She sobbed softly
for several minutes with her palms firmly pressed to her thighs, trying not to panic. She heard him sigh.

“Steffania.”

“Sir?”

“It’s only for ten minutes. I’m certain you can do ten minutes.”

She sniffed repeatedly. “Yes.”

“I will push you,
sweetheart, but I won’t ask you to do the impossible. You can trust me.”

Her smile was a little wobbly.
Strangely, she did trust him. She nodded mutely.

“You have
nine minutes to go, vixen.”

They
were the longest nine minutes of her life.

Until
Ramsey released the clamps on her nipples and clit. Standing motionless for another fifteen minutes while her abused nipples and clit pounded viciously with returning blood?
Those
were the longest minutes of her life.

The entire while, proof of her extreme arousal trickled down her leg in an ever-increasing flow. The smell of her musk perfumed the room
, announcing her state to the most uneducated. When it came to dominant sex, Ramsey didn’t have an uneducated bone in his body. Steffania had no doubt he knew her precise condition.

His warm
mass stepped into hers and Ram removed her blindfold. “Your time is up, vixen. Come here.” Ram motioned to the low chair he had been sitting in. “Lean over and brace on the armrests. Arch your back and raise your ass. Spread your legs.”

With a
tremble of craving, she did as he asked, still confined in her movements by the roping she wore. Ram moved behind her. He kicked her legs further apart. A cool waft of air hit the pulsing flesh between her legs and she shuddered slightly at the vulnerable sensation of being so open, so exposed. A pull on her hair bit into her scalp and he wrapped her ponytail around one strong hand, taking control of her head.

His hard cock
filled the crease of her buttocks and descended in a taunting slide to stop, nestled at her opening. His shaft nudged the gateway to her channel, stretching the blood-rich flesh, penetrating a scant, tantalizing inch. The heavy weight of his muscled thighs inside of hers held her completely open to his invasion. He bent his knees. His hips pulled back and the fat head of his cock slipped up and down in her body’s lubrication, teasing her clit and then returning to the entrance of her inner core.

“You are very
swollen, very wet, sweetheart. I think you enjoyed our brief session.” He slammed into her with no further warning, momentarily lifting her off her feet.

She grunted
at the detonation of pleasure within her as Ram ruthlessly penetrated, hilting himself in one violent surge. “Ramsey!”

Soft shudders wracked her
as his thick cock rubbed an exquisitely sensitive place high inside her. She couldn’t contain her mewls of gratification. Ram began a regular, surging thrust and then a long, slow glide out. Her tender breasts bobbed with each plunge. Her nipples throbbed in time with each bounce. He shoved her off a cliff of sensation and the free-fall to climax built with astonishing speed.

“You are not to come, Steffania. This is for my pleasure, not yours.
You are being punished.”

She panted
as he thrust forward over that same place. “Then I must tell you, your cock...oh, god...your cock hits someplace incredible.”

He grunted and bent his knees
more, changing the angle of his thrusts, no longer pounding against that intensely gratifying spot. Her fierce arousal didn’t abate, but her climb to completion halted and she hung in a tortured limbo of unappeased flesh. After some minutes, his slamming penetration became choppy and with a low growl, Ram surged forward and ground his hips into her buttocks. Warmth flooded her insides. Her swollen pussy gloved him so tightly Steffania felt the heavy jerks of his cock as he released. Her inner flesh twitched with sympathetic, involuntary spasms. Ram stilled for long moments. His heavy pants washed the skin on her shoulders with hot breath. Steffania’s threatened orgasm quieted to the all too familiar, smoldering frustration.

Wetness
ran from the corners of her eyes and soaked into the chair cushion as his organ shrank and then slipped out. He left her empty, aching. Her pussy pulsed with small fibrillations protesting its vacancy. She desperately needed to come. It would take so little – just a breath, a finger stroke. In the past, she’d been tortured for information by those skilled in their craft. For the infliction of unresolved agony, she’d place Ramsey at their head. If this was only the beginning of what he had planned for her, she gave herself little chance of lasting three days. The man fed every carnal fantasy she possessed. He sat her lustful appetites before an array of the finest of delicacies, ordered them to feast, then commanded, “Don’t swallow.”

She felt his hands working the rope at her back and several strands came loose.

“There, I have undone several of the knots. You should be able to get yourself out of it now. When you have all of the rope off, coil it neatly. Make sure there are no kinks and replace it in my bag. Then we will have something to eat and end this night.”

She
nodded and straightened slowly, resigned to the firestorm of abandoned desire devastating her body. Wretched, with eyes downcast, she began to unwind the rope corset and recoil it neatly. Her throat thickened and she blinked rapidly, trying to dispel the treacherous tears that welled in her eyes
.

“Steffania.”
Ramsey cupped her face and raised her chin. “Give me your eyes.” She gazed into crystal blue eyes that held some emotion she couldn’t define. Gratification? Tenderness? She didn’t know. He leaned in and gave her the sweetest of kisses, then murmured against her lips, “I am immensely pleased with you, vixen.”

At that moment, she would have done absolutely
anything
for him.

Of course, the feeling didn’t last. She lay in bed in the early dawn hours cursing the day she had ever set eyes on Ramsey DeKieran. The bastard had sprawled in the bed and pulled her to him, nesting her against his hard body. Sometime during the night, he had rolled over and tucked her underneath him and she had lain immobilized, desperate to relieve the growing pressure in her bladder. What to do? She waited for him to shift position, but finally her situation became critical.