Knowing the Ropes (25 page)

She inched away, wanting to be far away from his touch but at the same time wanting to throw herself at his feet and beg for mercy. “I’m sorry, sir. No, sir. I won’t…”

“Stop it!” The anger in Nick’s voice made her jump. “Don’t cringe at me, dammit. I’ve had to put up with Natalie cringing and apologizing and making herself small all the time. Don’t you start.”

Fine. He didn’t want cringing and small, he’d get what he wanted. “You don’t want me to cringe? Don’t yell. I don’t deal well with yelling.”

“And I don’t deal well with being made to feel like a pig or a cheater for wanting to help a friend get back on her feet. You’re supposed to be the big advocate for battered women. Can’t you see she’s not ready to strike out on her own?”

“I agree she’s not, and it’s a good thing to help her. It’s another thing to have her cooking for you and cleaning and acting like a 1950s housewife. Serving you, like she was your slave.”

Nick blinked. “She’s not serving me, not in that sense. She’s being a good…housemate.” His voice trailed off on the last word. “Do you think I’m taking advantage of her?”

“I think it’s more the other way around.” Selene held up one hand and started ticking things off as she ranted. “She makes dinner every night unless you actually tell her we want a night on our own. She cleans the goddamn bathroom, and trust me, a woman does not clean a grotty bachelor bathroom unless she thinks she’s getting something for it. Maybe that’s just trying to pull her weight when she can’t pay rent, but I think there’s more to it. Her posture changes when you’re around. She lowers her eyes and raises her tits. Maybe she’s not even conscious of everything she’s doing, but on some level, she wants you back. Or at least wants to serve someone, and you’re here.”

Selene bounced to her feet. The movement tugged on the nipple clips, but this time it didn’t feel good. This time it was just pain. “Someday she’ll wind up in bed with you, and it’ll seem like she’s always been there! You’ll let her because you can’t see how she’s just trying to get herself with someone more dominant because she can’t deal with taking care of herself. She has to learn to stand on her own, and you’re just encouraging her to cling to you.”

“Do you honestly think that’s what I’m doing? Trying to lure her into being my sub again?”

Selene had to stop her rant and think about the best way to answer that. She wasn’t convinced the way she came up with was particularly good, but it was less whiny-jealous-unreasonable-girlfriend than the first few things that came to mind. “I don’t think you’re trying. I think she’s trying, and you’re not telling her no. It’s flattering to have someone want you, and hell, if someone wanted to cook and clean for me and spoil me rotten, I’d find that pretty seductive. Extra points if it was a hot half-naked guy doing it.”

“To repeat myself, a half-naked you is seductive. Random half-naked women, not so much.”

“But she’s not a random woman. She’s someone you slept with for years. Someone you loved.”

“And I still do, as a friend. But I wouldn’t want to…she doesn’t want to, and even if she did…” She could see Nick taking a deep breath. “Damn it, listen to me. I don’t want her. I want you. I love you. Do I have to be any clearer?”

No, he was crystal clear.

Crystal clear that he was angry and probably confused by the way the hot, sexy evening had suddenly taken a left turn into relationship hell. Crystal clear that he was at the point where he’d say anything to get her to shut up. Even tell her he loved her in a totally unconvincing way, at a moment when, even if he did love her, he would have been thinking,
Oh, for God’s sake, shut up!

She shook her head, fighting back the tears that threatened to overwhelm her.

She’d opened her big stupid mouth and pushed him, just like Will had done to her. And Nick had said what he figured she needed to hear, just like she had with Will.

No one would possibly say
I love you
for the first time in the middle of having a remarkably stupid argument. In this context, it was the last resort of a guy who didn’t know what else to say to appease an angry woman.

She wanted to believe he loved her, wanted to with all her heart and soul and body.

She didn’t dare.

Selene pulled herself together, forced back the tears she wanted to shed, the damn female tears of someone who yearned to believe herself loved but couldn’t. “You don’t need to say that stuff about love. You want me. I want you. That’s good enough. And I’m sorry I’m getting frustrated with having Natalie around. I’ve gotten spoiled. A week or so without a good beating, and I get all grouchy and weird.”

He still looked dubious, concerned, but he managed to laugh as he said, “Maybe I have spoiled you, but that’s the kind of spoiling I want to keep up.”

She wrapped her arms around Nick’s neck, pressed her body against his, trying to will herself back to the state of mindless desire he could usually get her into with a glance.

“We’ll take advantage of the privacy, then.” Nick pulled her close, rubbing against her so the movement yanked the fine stainless-steel chain connecting the nipple clips. His voice became molten, dark chocolate laced with whisky, and his eyes darkened to something close to navy blue. “You can scream all you want tonight. And I’m going to push for it. See how much you can really take.”

God, she wanted that, wanted erotic pain and hard use to turn off her overly busy brain, wanted to come like a banshee and lose herself and her worries on a tide of red-hot pleasure. Wanted to lose herself in Nick and what Nick could do to her so she wouldn’t obsess about what that careless declaration of love really meant.

“Yes,” she said, shuddering, rubbing against him like a wild thing. “No mercy. Break me. That’s what I need tonight, Nick. Sir. Please.”

His only answer was a slap on her cheek. More a tap, really—it didn’t even sting—but it did something very strange to her already muddled brain.

She felt as though she were divided into two.

Half of her was just plain pissed. It made her feel small. Lesser. Like a kid who’d been smacked for sassing her grandma.

Humiliated.

Nick’s games of sex and power had embarrassed her in the past, in a way that made her blush and squirm and flood with arousal, but had never humiliated her. She understood on an intellectual level that some subs craved humiliation, but she’d always been sure she wasn’t one of them.

Now she wasn’t so sure, because the other half of her had been rocketed into another world, a world where Nick was her dark god and she was a small creature whimpering at his feet. A world of nakedness and pain and lust where he ruled and she obeyed. Where she was unworthy but honored that Nick would deign to claim her. Where she knew she would take whatever he gave her, however unnerving, however brutal, because she was his toy and nothing more.

The rational, pissed-off half didn’t think much of this half. It seemed broken, pathetic, a little too much like Natalie at her worst moments, or like an abuse victim rationalizing her situation because she was too cowed to escape it.

Nick grabbed a thick handful of her hair and dragged her to her feet. “Inside. Now,” he barked, handling her as if she were either a sturdy parcel or an unruly kitten.

“But I haven’t finished eating.”

“Yes, you have, because I’ve said you have. Are you questioning me?”

Obviously she had been, but it struck her as unwise to continue doing so. “No, sir,” she said, trying to make her voice sound respectful and humble, but not the small and cringing that Nick hated—even though she felt like cringing at this harsher side of Nick. “I’m sorry, sir.”

“You will be.” Somehow the menace in his voice didn’t sound as enticing as it usually did. “And tonight, call me Master. It’ll be good practice.”

Was this the face of Nick Natalie had craved? The one she apparently hoped to see again?

For the first time with Nick, Selene felt frightened rather than pleasantly nervous. She remembered the lingering bruises on Natalie, her stories of what had happened when she angered her former master.

Still, she let Nick half drag her to the door from the roof and push her inside, still trotted ahead of him into the apartment.

Obedience had become, if not instinct yet, at least habit.

And some traitor part of her, the part that had utterly meant it when she begged him to break her, wanted to experience whatever he had in store.

She might love it, she might hate it—but at least she’d know if she could take it.

She might, on some level, scorn Natalie as confused and weak, but she suspected the little blonde could handle and enjoy levels of pain that would make her dissolve into a whimpering wreck.

And being wimpy would be no way to win Nick’s heart.

She had to show that she had Natalie’s depth of submission, Natalie’s ability to take pain, as well as all the qualities that Nick admired in her that Natalie lacked.

Only that combination might convince him that love and BDSM could coexist, with the right woman.

With her.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Nick was doing his best to ignore it, but he was pretty sure his heart was breaking. Cracking, at least.

He’d just told the most incredible woman he’d ever met that he loved her, and she’d told him he was talking bullshit. Told him that she wanted hot kink and plenty of it but didn’t exactly want him. She wanted him as a hot-and-cold-running dominant, a playmate who would hurt her exquisitely and use her and make her feel both trapped and free—but would never show her his heart, show her anything but the storybook master.

Just like Natalie.

But damn it, he wasn’t going to make the same mistake he had with Natalie. If that was what she wanted, he wouldn’t force his feelings on her. He’d do his damnedest to give her what he
could
give her, what she needed, and maybe in time she’d learn to care.

At the very least, she, unlike Natalie, would be safe with someone who treasured her.

Even if he had to push all Selene’s limits—and his own—to keep her that way.

Earlier in the evening, when he’d first threatened to tie her, he’d had in mind something like a rope bra and her hands secured behind her back, something more sensual than stringent.

But his plans had changed.

Now he wanted her to be pushed, to feel not just the security and sensuality of ropes but the strain of holding a challenging position.

“Lie on the bed,” he commanded. “Face up.”

Then he started arranging her.

Arched her over so her thighs rested on her chest.

Made her hold herself in place with her arms.

Tucked a pillow under her ass to keep it raised.

Tied her that way, ass in the air, pussy open and exposed, muscles straining. Helpless. Her eyes were wide, glancing about frantically like a panicked animal, but her labia were swollen, her pussy slick.

Just as he’d suspected.

“You love this,” he said, and it wasn’t a question

“Yes,” she replied in a small, confused voice. “Yes, I do.” She sounded like she didn’t quite believe it herself.

Slap to the face. “Yes what?”

This time, to his own surprise, he left a pink handprint on her cheek. He hadn’t meant to give her more than a tap, but apparently his hindbrain had different ideas.

Her eyes screwed shut, and for a second, he thought she might start crying. This was harder than he’d pushed her before, harder than he’d wanted to push her. Maybe harder than she could handle being pushed.

Part of him wanted to cradle her in his arms and beg forgiveness.

But that wasn’t what she needed, wasn’t what would win her over.

And to be honest, it wasn’t what he needed or wanted at this minute. He needed to prove to her that, whether or not she was ready to call it love, Selene belonged with him.

Belonged to him.

“Yes what?” he repeated, letting all the hurt he was feeling transmute into harshness, arrogance.

Selene took a deep breath. “Yes, sir,” she said. After a slight pause, she corrected herself. “Yes, Master.”

“Very good.” He forced an evil smile, found as he did so that he didn’t need to force it. Despite his mood, there was definitely something to be said for a beautiful woman, securely bound, at his mercy and not sure whether to be more aroused or alarmed.

The fear in her eyes was painful to him, because it looked like it was approaching real panic.

But she should trust him by now, should know that he wouldn’t harm her. Even knowing she didn’t care, didn’t give a damn about anything but the sex, the kinky games, he still loved her.

And even if he didn’t, he wasn’t Derrick the Dick.

Just a man who needed to make a point.

He picked up the NAUGHTY paddle from the bedside table, admitted to himself as he did that, hurt or not, angry or not, he was also hard, despite his recent orgasm, straining against his fly at the thought of what he was about to do.

Nick had never been comfortable with dishing out the level of pain Natalie craved, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t enjoyed it. On the contrary, he’d enjoyed that aspect of things a little too much—and that was what scared him, that he might go too far, might step over the line from good pain to damage, and, wired as she was, Natalie would just take it.