Star of Wonder (17 page)

“Ground rules,” he stated. “You already know the criterion for speaking, so I trust we don’t have to review that. Your attire, for the moment, is—” He cracked a small smile. “Ideal. But most importantly, let’s talk limits.”

In the pause he inserted, she lifted a confused look. Limits? Holy shit. Limits to what? She thought of the Moores again. Saturday night’s “fun” had been in a high-end bondage club with huge equipment and trusses. Why did they need “limits” here in Dante’s bedroom?

Again as if his brain had smart-synched to hers, Dante emphasized, “You get limits, cara, no matter where we are or how we play. We
always
go only as far as you say. You have words to use if you’re too overwhelmed to go on. They even call them safe words. You say ‘star’ if you need everything to stop in full. You say ‘sky’ if you need to simply slow down. Got it?” He cut short the little nod with which she responded, directing her face to him with two fingers under her chin. “Why don’t I believe you?”

She met his gaze directly. “That’s a direct question, right?”

He sighed. “Yes, cara. And I want it answered.”

“Are those words really necessary? Why don’t I just tell you to stop?”

He stepped back again. “Because there’s a good possibility you
will
use that one.” A small smirk again tilted his lips. “But you’ll be too hot and wet to
mean
it.”

She could tell he expected a crack from her at that. She didn’t have one, because her imagination proved him right. She saw herself on the bed beneath him, his hand smacking her backside and her fervent screams of “Stop!” filling the air. He was right. It pumped her sex full of heat.

“I’ve got a few surprises for you, stellina.” Neither his face nor his voice lost their overlay of sensual knowingness. “Why don’t you get up on the bed and make yourself my star there?” He used a hand at the side of her head to fix her gaze once more to his face and its darkening intent. “That means I want you on your hands and knees, head low, ass high. Are these instructions clear? You may answer ‘Yes, Sir’ or “No, Sir.’”

The storm mist invaded her senses again. Hot and cold fronts slammed together in her body. She shouldn’t love those words, and yet the harder edge to them sizzled to her sex like lightning bolts to a grounding point. “Yes,” she answered, hating the breathy edge of it. “Yes, Sir, that’s clear.”

His touch tightened by a fraction. “That’s my good girl.”

Forget the lightning in her pussy. Her whole body became live electricity now, the excuse she used for walking to the bed on legs that wobbled like a baby’s. She shook even worse as she got up on the plush cover and maneuvered herself into the position he’d dictated.

Head low. Ass high.

Oh
hell.

The instructions, even issued from his incredible lips, had sounded like a first-class invitation into humiliation. But kneeling here with her body like this, in the middle of this luxurious bed and its shah’s share of pillows, she felt like a jewel. No, wait. What was that word Mark Moore used on Rose? A pet. A gorgeous, loved pet, waiting for her master to return and—

She swallowed hard as her mind filled in the rest of that thought.

She heard water splashing, some drawers sliding, and a closet door being slammed shut. Finally, Dante came back in with a purposeful stride. He’d taken his shirt off, which should have been an incredible distraction, but he took care of any appreciation she’d give his muscled torso with the kink arsenal he bore. The rolling waist-high rack riveted her stare and made her heart pump to the point of pain. Or maybe that was her body’s way of telling her what was in store for her. Hanging from a vertical top bar, about two feet across, were a hanging collection of things she recognized, like wood paddles, leather floggers, a riding crop, and even something that looked like a feather duster, but it was the tiered shelf next to the hanging toys that dealt her the blow of fear. Ohhhh hell…so many of those things would never possibly fit inside her body. Their pretty turquoise glint didn’t fool her, especially with the large tube of lubricant that sat next to them.

“Stellina.” Dante’s tone was thick with reprimand. “I believe I said head low, not face tilted around and sneaking peeks?”

“Y-yes, Sir.” She snapped her head back down, though the mental explosion had already started. She’d already seen Dante begin to reach for the rack. Shit, shit, shit; what had she gotten herself into?
Safe words
. She had to remember she had those. Star and sky. But even those were teasing little things. They sounded more like a couple of new anime toys for Sami rather than words to make him stop with
his
toys. This was insane. What was she doing here, and why did it still make her deepest folds quiver with anticipation and tighten with need? And why oh why did she shiver all over, in all the best ways, when she felt one of his hands cupping her ass…then slowly caress its way up her spine…then run its way through her hair?

“Ssshhh,” he murmured, now backtracking that hand. He pulled her hair out of the way with it. Only then did she realize she was breathing like a sprinter. “You need to trust me, cara. Take some deep breaths. Trust me.”

“I—I do.” She hoped her earnest tone told him how strongly she needed to say it. His deep hum conveyed his approval. She actually did begin to breathe easier—

Until he slipped something over the top of her head. Something with a tight band around it. Seconds later, the world went blacker than his eyes.

Oh God. A blindfold?

“Remember how you trust me?” His voice flowed around her as she felt him rustling toward the headboard, seeming to rearrange the pillows. Then his touch descended on her again, gentle yet firm, sliding down one arm. Celina almost reached up with her other hand to rip the eye covering away, but his fingers felt so good, so commanding, so encompassing as they circled the insides of her elbows and trailed like whispers to her wrist, right before he wrapped something around that too. The binding was soft and possessed the naughty scent of leather.

Leather.

Shit.

She jerked her arm, trying to move it. And got nowhere.

He’d tethered her to the bed.

By the time the conclusion hit her, Dante had already secured her other wrist.

“Stellina, you really need to breathe.”

What did he
think
she was doing? Celina shot the silent retort between her lungs’ effort for air. “I—” she managed out loud. “This—Dante, this is—”

The press of a strong hand came down to her head again. “Didn’t you say you trust me?” His grip tightened, pulling at her scalp a little. “That was a direct question, cara.”

“Yes.” She drew out the last of it in a fuming hiss. “Yes I do trust you, but—”

“And didn’t I tell you we were going to take this to mach five tonight?”

“In the first ten minutes?”

She tensed, half expecting him to direct some attention at her ass again because her inner smacktard couldn’t keep a lid on it. Instead, she felt him dig his other hand into her hair, then pull hard enough that all the inner chitchat was silenced too.

“Celina, we haven’t even taken off yet.”

She said nothing to that, and probably couldn’t if she tried. She fought another rush of dizziness, then wondered why. Where was she going to fall? Onto this cloud of a bed? Oh damn it all if
that
happened. She was, whether she wanted to admit it or not, truly safe.

With the acceptance of that, her senses were suddenly free to recognize other things. She trembled and sighed as she did just that. The scrape of the bra as her nipples now pressed at the edge of it, pouting in hard arousal. The exposed line of her body, ready for any touch from him. And oh God, the kiss of her moist panties on her sensitive labia.

“All right, sweet girl. I’m going to ask nicely just once again. Do you trust me?”

His question came in a voice she’d never heard from him before. He drew out each syllable like a caress, deliberately taking his time with them, the tone so different from his urgent commands during the other times they’d been together. There was a pressure beneath in these sounds too, but it lay tethered and coiled, waiting for its moment to strike, becoming a force all its own even through the darkness that defined her vision, perhaps because of it.

She couldn’t see him, so she imagined him. He swirled to life in her mind as an even more magnificent satyr of sensuality. She saw his arms bunching as he pulled her hair, then envisioned his sculpted bronze chest looming over her, and his hair tumbling against his beard. He surrounded her with his touch, his presence, his hands, his focus. A rough rumble emanated from him as he moved onto the bed with her, his weight dipping the mattress behind her.

“I’m waiting, stellina.”

“Yes.” It felt like a giant weight tumbling out of her mouth. He’d ordered her not to talk, but now it felt like dragging her tongue through mush to get simple words out. “Yes, Sir. I trust you.”

Another growl, heavier and harder, vibrated from him. “My sweet cara. Do you know how much that pleases me? How beautiful it is, coming from your lips?” With a quiet slip of movement, he tucked two fingers beneath her panties from behind. “And apparently, you’re ready to be pleasured as well.”

She groaned as he instantly found the sweet spot of her clit. In tandem to her reaction, Dante delivered a sharp swat to her backside. The sound in her throat became a shriek at her lips—but it was a sound of surprise, of wonder, perhaps a little delight. The double whammy of sting and stimulation was incredible.

“Shit,” she blurted before knowing she’d even done so. “Dante! Ohhh yes!”

His answering spank, now dealt to the opposite ass cheek, came with a grip on her pussy that punished this time. But the pinch of his fingers was a mild preamble to what came next.

“In the way,” he said tightly, before twisting his other hand into her thong. With one fierce jerk, he tore it away. She barely had time to gasp in surprise when she felt something like a small chain brushing her backside—just before something else, hard and tight, bit into one side of her labia. Before she could yelp at the shock of that, the same treatment was given the other side. The chains jingled against her ass cheeks as Dante extended them from between her legs, wrapping one around each thigh, before clasping them back on themselves. The chains hit her thighs where the fishnets had just been. The irony of the change didn’t escape her. The stockings had helped land her here, where she wanted to be, but she hadn’t fathomed it would be like this. She had no idea he was going to open her like this, plunging her eyes into darkness while his saw everything, exposing her to him in the most basic and primal way…

She had no idea it would spin her brain so far from her body.

“Damn it, Dante!” She clung to the words as much for sanity as a furious release.

“You mean damn it,
Sir
?”

“Fine. What the hell is this,
Sir
?”

The man actually chuckled. “A little reminder about controlling your verbosity, stellina. Marker Man told me how effective these little devices could be.” To add insult to injury, he trailed a finger between her ass cheeks, then farther, gently stroking the tongue of her clit again, now totally exposed with her pussy lips stretched back. Her body sent back a wave of arousal, pounding more blood against the tight clamps. “What he didn’t tell me was how perfect you’d look like this, with your gorgeous cunt clamped and your clit held hostage for me. You are perfect, my stellina.”

She whimpered, digging her head into the bed, not wanting to enjoy this humiliation at all. But God help her, she did. The constricting pain went to battle with his merciless strokes, turning her pussy into a wild mess of resistance, then need, every second sending a new impulse to her brain. Like she could even form a coherent thought now. She was conscious of her hips rolling and bucking, alternately fighting him and needing him. Dante’s gruff breaths were a visceral goad, especially because she could focus so clearly on them. She nearly felt them vibrate through him as he started to meet her thrusts with both his hands, delivering little slaps and finger scrapes to her hot, tingling skin.

Soon his smacks turned into spanks. The scratches turned into tougher rubs. Celina gyrated harder into his rhythm. The clamp chains jingled on her thighs. Her mind whirled even more like the wind outside, yet a tiny part of it still screamed at her. It bellowed that Celina Kouris didn’t do things like this. Celina Kouris didn’t bump and grind to the point that bondage chains banged against her thighs. Celina Kouris didn’t moan in delight from behind a blindfold as her lover murmured what a good girl she was and how hard she was making his cock.

Screw Celina Kouris.

For now, for tonight, for just these few beautiful hours, she just wanted to be stellina.

“Stellina?”

“Yes,” she sighed. “Yes, Sir.”

“Are you still with me?”

How did he know? The question filled her with more awe for him. How did he know to ask that as if he knew exactly where her mind was, flying higher by the minute, lost to this ether where thought evaporated and she was just a ball of raw sensation? She decided she didn’t care. She was only grateful. Deeply, profoundly grateful.

“I—I think,” she managed to stammer.

“Good,” he said. “Very good,
bellissima. Lei è la mia buona ragazza. Merda, vorrei montarti
. I’m so damn hard, looking at you like this.”

Between the fuzz in her ears and the heat through her body, she had an even worse time trying to pick through the music of his foreign words. It didn’t matter. His graveled tone spoke his meaning clear enough. Whatever he wanted to do to her, she was more than ready.

Except what he did next.

“Time to come down for a little bit, baby. Take a deep breath.”

He waited just three seconds more before reaching and freeing the pussy clamps.

“
Dante!
”

Her rushing blood hit in an agonizing rush, making her pull against the cuffs. She clenched her thighs and writhed, thinking surely things would get back to normal down there in a second. No such luck, damn it.