The Darker Side of Pleasure (15 page)

CHAPTER TWO

W
AKING WAS CONFUSING
. H
OW LONG HAD SHE
slept? It took her several moments to remember where she was and that it was dark because she was still blindfolded. She wondered if this was done on purpose, this enforced sense of disorientation. She thought Master Robert wanted her to be a bit off balance, and she had to admit that this would probably make her more compliant. It already had.

She was calm lying there, thinking about how she had ended up in this place, in this situation. About the books she had read, the years of empty longing, the sense of isolation that had kept her from socializing with other people for so long. She had always felt different, alone in her dark yearnings. After only her first night in a place where those yearnings were understood, catered to, she was suffused with a sense of peace she’d never felt before.

She didn’t know what would happen to her today, tomorrow. It almost didn’t matter. What mattered was that she was here, and she knew already she would endure whatever Master Robert wished her to.

The faint squeak of a door being opened brought her more fully awake. Immediately the soft, feminine hands were on her, at least four of them, pinching her thighs and reaching beneath her to pinch her buttocks. The pinches weren’t too hard at first, merely sensitizing her skin, but they quickly escalated into real pain, and came in a dazzling flurry of torturous fingers.

She began to squirm. She couldn’t help it. Her breath came in sharp gasps. Their rough little fingers hurt, yet at the same time she was as wet as a cat in heat, and just as needy. Even as she wriggled to avoid their hands, her body arched upward, asking for more.

She had a brief, passion-induced, hazy moment where she wondered if it were possible to come just from this. She almost felt that she could. If only they would touch her breasts, put their punishing fingers between her thighs.

She was working into a real frenzy, panting and writhing in pain and pleasure, when they stopped.

She could hardly breathe. This is what she had wanted, waited for, searched for. Her blood surged hot through her veins and came to rest just beneath the surface of her raw, abused skin. She had never felt so alive, so sexual. So aroused.

And she knew this was only the beginning.

The cuffs were unhooked from the bed, although they still dangled from her wrists, and she was lifted roughly to her feet. Her hands were pulled behind her back and the cuffs snapped together.

She was left to stand alone for a few moments, and then they brushed her hair very thoroughly. Even that felt sensual to her. And then she was once again led away.

Down the hallway and through several turns, and she thought perhaps she was in that same room with the Persian rug she had crawled into when she’d arrived.

One of the women pushed down on the back of her neck as Master Robert had, and she knew this time to lower to her knees while one of them steadied her arm.

She smelled the clean, strong, masculine scent of him as he entered the room. And someone else, another scent, this one woodsy and dark. Lovely. Who else was there?

Then hands were on her again and she was pulled roughly over Master Robert’s lap. She knew him by his scent, by his thighs solid beneath her. Her naked breasts were pushed into the wool of his slacks, and before she had a chance to appreciate being so close to him he said quite calmly, “I’m going to spank you now.”

The blows started immediately, only stinging at first. But it was enough, along with the realization that this was her very first spanking with him, to have her trembling and so soaking wet she was afraid the moisture would drip down her thighs. And all the while she couldn’t help but remember those other spankings, years ago, the wooden paddle wielded by the old priest who had run her school. She had secretly loved it even then, that pain rendered through the innocence of her white cotton panties.

Master Robert played her skin in an even tempo, which built up slowly. The pain increased, and all she was aware of besides the pain was the sound his palm made as it smacked her flesh, the insistent pull of wanting heat in her sex, and the feel of his hard thighs through the fabric of his slacks.

The wool scratched a bit at her nipples, which were rock-hard and throbbing. When he paused for a moment she thought he was done, but then his hand came down in a really hard wallop that brought tears to her eyes.

She cried out, and heard from him a soft, satisfied, “Yes.”

And from the other man in the room a quiet laughter.

Then the spanking began in earnest. He slapped her already sore flesh harder and harder, the sting of contact turning to fire. The heat of it burned through her body in spearing lances that began on the surface of her skin and traveled quickly to every cell. When she squirmed he ordered her to be still, but how could she? Between the instinctive reaction to escape from the pain, and the seemingly irrational response to strain toward it, it was impossible.

The rain of blows came fast and furious over her buttocks and the back of her thighs, with no time between to recover or to catch her breath. She was dimly aware of her mind slipping away until she was nothing but sensation, until she could no longer differentiate between what hurt and what felt good. Her head reeled.

When he stopped she felt like crying. She didn’t know why. Because it hurt—it still hurt. Because she was so grateful. Because she needed more!

He ran gentle hands over her heated flesh, whispering to her, “That was good, Cassandra, very good. I’m very pleased.”

And then she did cry. She couldn’t help it.

She had no idea what would come next. She couldn’t think about much of anything. She was happy and exhausted and warm all over. And half in love with Master Robert’s evil hands.

He moved her until she was kneeling on the rug, and then he gently pulled away the blindfold. She blinked in the light. And saw him.

The stranger was dark, so beautifully dark, sitting in a big leather chair, watching her carefully. His hair was black, his skin a light golden brown. He had one of those strong, angular jaws that she knew would be shaded with stubble even right after he shaved. A wide, lush mouth that made her want to touch it with her fingertips, to feel its softness, to kiss. Her sex tingled. She was too worked up for this man not to affect her. Did she dare look at his eyes?

When she did she found they were a deep shade of whiskey. His hair fell over one of them and he pushed it back with a large, capable hand. What would that hand feel like on her burning flesh?

Her heart was absolutely hammering in her chest.

Who was this man? Was he there simply to watch? She couldn’t stand the idea that she might never feel his hands on her, might never see him again. He was too fascinatingly beautiful, his dark eyes mesmerizing.

The man leaned forward and surprised her by wiping away her forgotten tears with his fingertips, as though she were a frightened child. She felt like one. So completely vulnerable it scared her half to death.

But still needing him to touch her. She needed someone’s hands on her, needed release. Especially now, looking into this man’s calm gaze that seemed to see right through her. But she suspected it was not going to happen.

“You did well, Cassandra,” Master Robert told her again, distracting her. “You’re probably feeling a bit lightheaded now. And wide open. Yes?”

She could only nod her head.

“This is perfectly normal. It’s an aftereffect of all that adrenaline and then endorphins running through your body. You’ll be very tired; I’ll make sure you’re rested, then given a good breakfast. Here, you feel cold.”

He wrapped a soft blanket around her shoulders, then held a glass of water to her lips for her to sip. She felt utterly cared for. They sat quietly for a while, leaving her to wonder again through the dreamy haze of endorphins and burning lust what would happen next and who the other man was. No one seemed inclined to introduce her. And then the women came in, lined up in a row next to Master Robert’s big leather wing chair, and she saw them for the first time.

They were all three lovely—and all three naked, except for the collars around their necks. Two blondes: one tall and willowy with large, beautiful breasts and long flaxen hair that gently waved halfway down her back; the other a petite woman, with a perfectly proportioned frame. Her pale, curly mop of hair and her pink baby mouth made her appear doll-like. Her sex was completely shaved, making it look all the more naked and vulnerable. If it weren’t for her high, pointed breasts, her dark, rosy nipples pierced by fine silver hoops, she would almost look like a child.

The third woman was really stunning. She looked to be Japanese, with a sheet of jet-black hair that fell to her waist. Every inch of her golden skin was flawless, unmarred by a single pore. Her body was decorated with a most unusual tattoo of a dragon done in classic Japanese style, all gold and black. The design started on her right hip, and wrapped around the small of her back; the long tail twined down her left leg, ending at her ankle, all of it done in exquisite detail.

Her face was masklike in its perfection. Her almond eyes were a deep, rich brown, fringed in thick lashes, and her perfectly bow-shaped lips matched the dusky shade of her small, pink nipples.

Cassandra was instantly fascinated with her, and wondered if she had been one of the women to attend her.

“Mika.” Master Robert nodded to the tattooed woman. “See Cassandra back to her room.” He didn’t bother to introduce the other two, who stood silent with hands clasped behind their backs, heads bent, and eyes riveted to the floor.

Master Robert helped her to her feet and Mika’s surprisingly strong grip held her elbow and guided her into the hall.

She couldn’t bear to leave the dark, beautiful man behind. Without a word, without knowing who he was. And Master Robert’s brand on her skin, making her shaky with unslaked desire. To be sent away like this!

Mika led her silently back to her room, and for the first time Cassandra could see what it looked like. It was lovelier than she had imagined when she’d been blindfolded and drifting to sleep the night before. The stucco walls led to high, beamed ceilings, and a fireplace took up one corner. The same arched windows she’d seen from outside were covered in heavy wood plantation shutters. The room was dominated by a four-post bed, an enormous piece she recognized as being Spanish, and probably an antique, as was the high bureau in one corner. The silk and velvet patchwork bedding, all in shades of deep golds, browns, and reds, added a luxurious touch of color.

The only other furnishings in the room were what she thought of as “play” furniture: a leather-covered spanking bench—she recognized it from stories she had read—stood at the foot of the bed, while a heavy-timbered frame against one wall had several sets of thick metal hooks from which hung leather cuffs. Just knowing she had slept in a room with such objects made her shiver in delight.

Mika guided Cassandra with a hand on her back to sit on the edge of the bed. When she started to lie back, Mika quickly grabbed her arm. She took that to mean she was to hold still. Mika left the room then, with one last glance over her shoulder.

Cassandra waited, her sore bottom tingling and raw against the bedspread. She wanted to lie back on the bed, to rest. She was so tired from her busy morning. And there was so much to think about she didn’t know where to begin.

She had lived with this void inside of her for the longest time, had felt these urges since childhood. She remembered being perhaps twelve or thirteen years old, remembered that first awakening of herself as a sexual being, becoming aware of what she wanted when the priest or one of the teaching nuns paddled her. And once she recognized her desires, no amount of petting with clumsy teenaged boys could quench the pure need raging inside of her.

Her college boyfriends had been no better. After she’d asked one of them to spank her, he’d told her she was a freak and never called her again. And that’s how she’d thought of herself for a long time: a freak. It had been a relief, finally, to find other people like her on the Internet and in the books she’d read. People who felt these same dark urges, who needed the same things she needed.

But now she knew. She knew what she wanted, and it appeared as though she was going to get it—in ways she hadn’t even imagined.