Playing With Pleasure (4 page)

She smiled a bit nervously. “I had no idea you had a penchant for whips and chains and all…
this
,” she said, waving her hand to encompass the room and all its BDSM devices.

He moved toward her, slowly and cautiously. “Sweetheart, I’ve
always
had these tendencies,” he drawled, the revelation surprising her. “I just didn’t want to scare you away.”

He stopped in front of her, and she swallowed hard, trying to wrap her mind around the fact that he’d embraced vanilla sex with her while they’d been dating—
amazing
vanilla sex with hot fudge, whipped cream, and a cherry on top—because he’d been more worried about her reaction to his other sexual vices.

“And now?” she asked, wondering if he still had those concerns.

He lifted a hand and rubbed his thumb along her bottom lip, the caress sensual and erotic at the same time. “Are you scared?” he asked.

It sounded like a dare, and she answered with the truth. “No.” If anything, she was fascinated and, deep down inside, excited.

“Then that’s all that matters right now.” He strolled to a dresser drawer and pulled out what looked like a coil of red rope. A wicked light flickered in his gaze as he returned to her. “Are you ready to step into my world of pleasure for a while?”

The moment of truth had her heart fluttering, but there was no denying the desire gathering force inside her. “Yes.”

“Give me your hands, wrist to wrist,” he instructed, and when she lifted them, he began wrapping and looping and knotting the silken cord with expertise. Once he had her hands bound, he checked to make sure he could fit two fingers between the rope and her skin to maintain her circulation. “Your safe word applies here. If, at any time, you’re uncomfortable and you want me to stop what I’m doing, just say
red
.”

She suddenly felt extremely vulnerable, and a moment of panic surged through her. “Red,” she blurted out, not wanting to go any further until he assured her of a few things.

The fingers skimming across her wrists immediately stopped, and he raised his gaze to hers in surprise. “You want to end this?” he asked, his deep voice giving nothing away.

She shook her head, realizing just how serious he was about her mental and physical well-being, which she appreciated. “I didn’t mean
stop
, stop,” she rushed to say. “I just wanted you to wait a minute so I could lay down my hard limits.”

He let go of her restrained hands and crossed his arms over his chest. “Okay. I’m all about respecting limits.”

God, he looked so in his element in here, and she was undeniably attracted to all that power and control emanating off him. She wanted this, wanted
him
, but she wasn’t going into this encounter without shoring up her defenses the only way she knew how. “I want to wear a blindfold, and you can take everything off me but my corset. And no kissing on the lips.”

A flicker of emotion crossed his features, gone too fast for her figure out what it meant. It was quickly replaced by the quirk of his mouth as he oh-so-casually pulled the hem of his shirt from his pants.

“Okay,” he agreed easily enough, though the slight narrowing of his gaze made her shift anxiously on her heels. “So, just to reiterate and make sure I have all this straight, you want a blindfold because then you can pretend I’m anyone you want me to be and make this a fantasy, instead of reality.” He began unbuttoning his shirt, distracting her with the slow reveal of his muscular chest all the way down to tight, washboard abs. “You want your corset left on because it makes for a good, solid physical barrier between us.” He shrugged out of the shirt and tossed it onto a nearby chair, then reached out and trailed a lazy finger along the lace-edged top of her bustier, making her nipples peak hard against the brocade fabric. “And no kissing on the lips because that’s just
way
too intimate.”

Her face flamed with embarrassment that she was so transparent, but she refused to back down. “Those are my rules. Take them or leave them.”

“Oh, I’ll definitely take them, sweetheart,” he said with a bad-boy grin that shot heat straight to her core.

P
aige watched Sawyer
walk away again. He opened another drawer and retrieved a black silk mask, allowing her to look her fill of his backside before he concealed her vision. His shoulders were broad, the slope of his spine toned, and he had such a great, firm ass. When he turned around, her gaze was level with the front of his pants and what was hidden behind that impressive bulge in his fly as he strolled back toward her.

She dragged her gaze higher, her mouth watering as she followed the dark line of hair above the waistband of his pants to his belly button and all the way up to the light stubble on his face and the hot, carnal look in his dark brown eyes. Every single thing about Sawyer was so virile and heart-stoppingly male, and a part of her almost regretted having her hands bound because she would have loved touching all of him. Everywhere.

He slipped the blindfold over her eyes, adjusting the silky fabric so that everything was pitch black. He grasped the knotted rope between her wrists and gave it a light tug, signaling her to follow his lead. Belatedly, she questioned the wisdom of demanding a mask, because she realized just how much trust it required on her end not to be able to see or anticipate what he planned to do to her. But she felt no fear, just a quickening desire and breathless excitement.

He brought her to a stop, then lifted her arms above her head and clipped something around the cord securing her hands so that her body was stretched taut. Any higher and she would have had to balance on the tips of her shoes.

“Are you comfortable?” he asked, his voice drifting in her ear from behind her. “Wrists feel okay?”

Other than feeling a little nervous and exposed, even though she was still completely dressed, she was fine. “I’m good.”

She heard him move around her again, sensed him in front of her before his voice confirmed his position inches away. “Then let’s get rid of this skirt, since it wasn’t on your do-not-remove list.”

The humor in his voice relaxed her, but the moment his fingers traced the waistband of her skirt around to her back, her skin tingled with awareness—awareness of the fact that the front of his body was now pressed intimately against hers as he unfastened the button, then of the subtle brush of his warm lips along the side of her throat as he slowly lowered the zipper over the curve of her ass.

Her breathing hitched and she tensed. Sawyer hadn’t violated any of her rules, but she suddenly realized it didn’t matter how she’d tried to protect herself. This man was a master at seduction and adept at making her burn. Despite any restrictions she’d tried to implement, he’d find a way to unravel every one of her defenses and lay her desires bare.

And the only thing that would stop him was her using the safe word.

He didn’t push her skirt off—yet. Instead, his hands came up and threaded into her hair, tugging gently on the strands. He tipped her head to the side and kissed his way along her neck until he reached her ear.

“Sweetheart,” he said in a soft, cajoling tone that calmed her skittish thoughts. “I need you to get out of your head and let go. Give yourself and your pleasure over to me. Don’t think. Just
feel
. I swear, it’ll feel so fucking good if you do.”

She shivered and moaned, believing him. Trusting him. She exhaled a deep breath, and along with it, she released all the tension in her body. Determined to
enjoy this
, she relaxed, allowing her limbs to go slack.

“Good girl,” he praised and skimmed his hands back down to her skirt. His fingers slid into the waistband and slowly pushed the material down her hips and over her bottom, until it loosened and fell to the floor around her feet.

He shifted away, and the next thing she knew, he was kneeling in front of her, his fingers wrapping around one ankle to lift her foot, then the other, so he could get her skirt out of the way. He braced her feet wide apart, then smoothed his hands up her legs, his palms creating a delicious heated friction against the silk stockings she wore until he reached the lacy edges.

Her stomach tumbled when she felt the soft brush of his lips along the sensitive patch of skin of her inner thigh, and she moaned as his hot, wet tongue leisurely licked a path upward. He nuzzled her through her panties and nipped at her swollen flesh through the thin silk fabric, making her shiver with renewed hunger.

She might have made kissing her lips off limits, but he clearly had no qualms about putting that mouth everywhere else.

“The way you smell, especially after you come, always makes me so damn hard,” he said, a dark, forbidden kind of lust infusing his deep voice. “I’m dying to taste you but not yet.”

The fact that he remembered something so intimate surprised Paige, and her entire body went liquid at the wicked images that flitted through her mind of him burying his mouth between her thighs and exploring every inch of her pussy with his lips and tongue.

“First, you need to be punished,” he said, instantly dissolving those sinful thoughts as she felt him stand back up. “So, what’ll be, Paige? A paddle or a crop?”

Shock rippled through her. He’d never used any kind of discipline-type toys on her before, but hadn’t he just warned her that he’d always had these kinds of sexual preferences, that he enjoyed adding a bit of pain to the pleasure? And what did he need to chastise her for? she wondered in confusion.

“Tell me now, or I’ll choose for you.” His tone was a sharp, demanding order.

“The crop,” she said quickly, selecting what she thought would be the lesser of two evils. She’d seen and touched both in Raina’s shop, had even been curious how they’d feel on her flesh, and decided the sting of a crop’s leather tip would smart less than a wide wooden paddle.

When she heard him retrieve something from the nearby rack, a rush of adrenaline amped up the anticipation of the unknown. “Why do I need to be punished?”

The footsteps on the wooden floor came to a stop beside her. “This is for you taking away the opportunity to look into your eyes when I slide deep inside of you,” he said and snapped the leather crop in quick succession against the back of both of her thighs, right at the curve of her ass.

It felt as though she’d been stung by a bee,
twice
, and she sucked in a quick breath, her body instinctively jerking away. But there was nowhere to go with her arms restrained so securely above her head, and her heart pounded hard and fast in her chest as he slowly circled her.

“And this is for not allowing me to take off the corset so I can see your beautiful body and touch your breasts and suck on your nipples.” The leather tip landed on the upper swell of each of her breasts—
twack, twack
—stunning her with the electrifying sensation that spread like wildfire all the way down to her tight, aching nipples.

“And this is for your worst offense,” he murmured huskily as he slid that small patch of leather between her legs and flattened it against her clit beneath her damp panties. “For denying me the pleasure of kissing your mouth.”

She bit her bottom lip as he lightly tapped that bundle of nerves a few times, preparing her mentally before firmly swatting her
there
.

She cried out in shock at the flinch of pain, which didn’t last long and gave way to a slow, arousing burn that spread throughout her sex and made her flesh tingle. He swatted her again, with a bit more pressure, and this time she moaned long and loud as her clit swelled and pulsed. The pounding need between her thighs grew from an ache to pure desperation. A phenomenal orgasm shimmered just beyond her reach as he teased her once more with an expert sliding pressure of the crop.

She was panting, her body on the verge of detonating in a way it never had before. It was a terrifying and thrilling feeling to be on the edge of something so powerful and overwhelming.

“Sawyer,” she whimpered. “I need…” Realizing she was begging, she let the words trail off.

“I know exactly what you need.” His voice was as rough as sandpaper, but his touch when he released her from the hook above was gentle.

Without her sight to ground her, she swayed on her feet, certain she was going to topple over without the use of her hands to catch herself. Her world spun completely when he swept her up into his arms, cradling her against his chest as he walked somewhere. She wasn’t a small, petite woman, and she couldn’t stop the mortification at the realization that he was
carrying her
.

“Sawyer!” Her voice was tinged with panic. “You can’t…you shouldn’t—”

“I can. Very easily,” he said, cutting off her protest. “I bench-press more than what you weigh on a daily basis. Say another negative thing about your body and I will paddle your bare ass.”

Soon, she felt the mattress and cool sheets against her back as he laid her down on the bed. He grasped her bound hands and once again raised them above her head and attached them to some kind of clip.

His fingers slid in between the rope and her skin, testing the fit. “Wrists and circulation still okay?”