The Pet Shop (16 page)

He held her there, rocking gently, thumb caressing her clit to its own heavy erection. He watched her, fondling her with a gaze so hungry it burned over her skin and flayed her to the depths until she was sure she could come just from his gaze. And she was so close, so fucking close.

But just when she was about to slip over the delirious precipice he’d led her to, he held her hips, held her very still on his cock. ‘Hold it, Stella, make it last. Hold your heat. I don’t want you to come yet.’

She squirmed and mumbled something incoherent. Pets don’t speak, and in truth she felt as though she had totally forgotten how. And as he held her there, unable to move, her tears became tears of frustration.

‘Sh, Stel, sh! Just hold it there, tight in your little cunt. Hold it for me.’ Then he slid his hands down and gave her stinging arse cheeks a hard knead, hard enough to make her gasp and cringe. The cringe tightened her grip on his cock and made him groan in reply.

‘Ah! There, you see? You feel it, don’t you?’ He gave another squeeze, and she saw red and would have bucked off him, had she not been so deeply impaled.

He held her unmoving, frustrated and aching, while he suckled his middle finger until it glistened with his saliva. Then, still holding her, he pushed and wriggled it into her back grip, causing her to pull a deep breath. With the other hand he squeezed her arse cheek in warning. ‘Don’t come, not yet. Hold it.’

She breathed in shallow little pants, trying to hold still against the invasion of her arsehole that only made the buzz in her cunt feel more urgent. Vincent’s hands were large, his fingers thick, and the one up her anus felt nearly as big as his cock. It made her want to squirm and thrust against it like a cock. And yet at the same time it made her want to be still, like she was holding something in her that shouldn’t be there – and yet something she didn’t want to let go of.

‘Relax for me.’ His voice was calm, focused. ‘Good girl, now push out. That’s it.’ She felt him manoeuvre his hand to catch the gush of her pussy juices from where his cock penetrated her. Then the well-lubricated second finger slipped into her tight hole, and this time she did squirm with the discomfort of it.

‘Sh! Hold still for me, Stel, sweetheart, just a little bit longer then you can come and it’ll be so good.’ As the second finger slipped past her back opening to join the first, the sound that escaped her mouth was somewhere between a growl and a cry. He no longer prevented her from moving. Instead he now returned to circling her distended clit with the thumb of his other hand while the two fingers in her back-hole began to scissor ever so slightly, ever deeper inside her. Until at last they were able to reach forward just enough to stroke the thin wall of her rectum that separated them from his cock. He sighed his satisfaction, and she held her breath. For a second neither of them moved, everything felt suspended, heavy, like syrup too thick to pour. Then, with his gaze locked on her face, he began to stroke and press, and she felt the pressure of his stroking against his cock. The shudder of breath that ran up through him told her he did too.

‘Now, Stel,’ he forced the words out over a tightly held breath, and for the first time, she became aware that she wasn’t the only one struggling to hold back the flood. ‘Now we’ll come together.’ Then he began to thrust beneath her, somehow managing to keep his rhythm perfectly timed in both her stuffed holes and still press upward with his pubic bone enough to rake her clit with each thrust. The cocktail of feelings rushing through her dwarfed the pain of the spanking. She fucked him with anger and shame and lust and hurt and pain and need and other things she had no name for. She rode him down hard into the mattress in spite of the pulling stretch of her anus, in spite of the burning of her arse cheeks. And he took it, all of it. And when she passed the point of no return and shuddered as though she would break apart into a thousand tiny pieces, he came in tremors that shook the bed, that shook his body, that shook her to the core. Then he pulled her down against his chest and smothered her face and throat and shoulders in breathless hungry kisses.

They never did get around to a real meal, but it didn’t much matter. Sometime in the hours before dawn, she woke to find him standing naked in front of the sliding window and she thought how beautiful he was standing there bathed in moonlight, but the thought barely surfaced above consciousness before she slept again.

In the morning, she awoke to find Vincent gone and a smiling female handler waiting to bathe her. ‘I’m sorry, Stella, darling, but Mr Evanston got called away unexpectedly. He’s asked me to apologise to you for his untimely departure and to see that you get safely to the airport and back home to London.’ In the gut-punch of emotions that followed, Stella couldn’t keep from thinking about Audrey saying that withdrawal of affection was the worst punishment of all for a Pet.

T
HE PAIN IN HER
bottom was lessening by the time she returned to work on Monday. The one in her heart, however, hadn’t diminished at all. She wanted to believe – desperately wanted to believe – that Vincent really had been called away unexpectedly, but she didn’t. If that had been the case, he would have at least woke her up to say goodbye.

According to the manual, punishment never resulted in a rift between the Pet and the keeper, but rather it was a bonding experience. She wouldn’t have believed it had she not felt it for herself. If it were possible, the sex had been even better after Vincent had spanked her, and she was sure that there had been an openness between them that hadn’t been there before. In fact, when they fell asleep in each other’s arms, she felt closer to him than she had ever felt to anyone. And yet in the morning he had been gone. In the end there was no denying the pathetic truth. No matter what rubbish the manual spouted about bonding, she had still been nothing more than a glorified prostitute.

During the week, she had been busy with even more work than usual, for which she couldn’t have been more grateful. Working to the point of exhaustion helped keep her mind off Vincent, off wondering why he had left. Most of her week was spent in research at remote sites, which also kept her blessedly free of Anne’s unwelcome questions. Though strangely, Anne hadn’t called, and her phone conversations with the Boss had been completely Strigida-focused with no mention of the Pet Shop or her ruined weekend with Vincent. There would be a confrontation, she was sure of that, but at the moment she just didn’t have the heart for it. Maybe Anne already knew what had happened between her and Vincent and had the decency not to humiliate her further by prying.

It was Friday before Stella actually had a day in the office. Anne was always there by 8.30 a.m., but by nine o’clock she was still the only one at her desk. She was just beginning to get worried at 9.30 a.m. when the door opened and Anne entered with the Boss at her side.

There was a blush on the woman’s cheeks that Stella hadn’t seen before. A surreptitious look passed between Anne and the Boss, resulting in a hurried, if unnecessary straightening of jackets and collars, as though they’d just been caught having a quickie in the copy room. It was enough to tell Stella all she needed to know. The two had been together as sure as they were standing there, and the smile that passed between them said it was no one-night stand. Stella offered a shocked nod as they both greeted her. She had never suspected that they were more than just business associates.

‘Stella, could I speak with you, if you’ve got a minute,’ the Boss was saying as she jerked her attention back to business as usual.

She grabbed the Vanguard folder and followed him, wondering what the hell was going on as Anne headed off to her desk actually humming.

Inside the Boss’s office, Stella barley got seated before he spoke. ‘So, you’ve had your first weekend with a keeper.’ He didn’t bother with any preamble or any explanation as to why he was at the Pet Shop fucking Tino up the arse. Clearly he didn’t consider it her business.

‘Yes, sir.’

His smile was effusive, ‘Then why so glum?’

She felt her face burning, felt the lump growing in her throat at the thought of waking up to find Vincent gone. ‘It’s just that ...’ She looked down at her hands folded over the file in her lap. ‘I don’t think I did very well.’

‘Nonsense!’ He waved his hand as though he were about to conduct an orchestra. ‘I have it on the highest authority that Mr Evanston was extremely pleased with you, extremely pleased.’

For a brief moment there was a flutter of hope in her chest, but then she reminded herself that of course Vincent would want to spare her any embarrassment. His praise of her didn’t cost him anything, and didn’t commit him to anything either.

The Boss didn’t wait for her response. ‘You’re free to go home at noon today.’ He looked down at his watch. ‘A handler will be picking you up at six to take you to your next keeper.’

Stella felt heat flash up her throat and neck accompanied by a sudden wave of dizziness. ‘So it’s official then, I’m a prostitute now.’ The words were out before she could stop them.

The Boss looked as though he’d been slapped, but he recovered quickly. ‘You’re a Pet, Stella. That’s a far cry from a prostitute.’ He held her gaze until she looked away. ‘And your training isn’t finished.’ He rose and came around his desk to stand in front of her. He settled a curled finger beneath her chin and lifted her face so their eyes met. ‘Besides, we both know what your motives are, and they have nothing to do with prostitution.’

She pulled away and lowered her eyes, fearing she might cry, wanting to tell him that she was pretty sure that motivation was no longer a valid one. She was pretty sure that this coming weekend all she would be was just a glorified prostitute, and she wasn’t at all sure she could pull it off. But she said nothing.

He reached out his hand again and stroked her cheek then returned to his desk. ‘Noon, Stella, then if you’re not gone, I will physically escort you to the nearest taxi stand, are we clear?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Good. I expect you to go home and get some rest so you can actually enjoy the weekend. Are we clear?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Good.’ He nodded to the door. ‘Then send in Annie, if you would.’

She didn’t miss the fact that, for the first time she could remember, he called his secretary by her first name.

‘It’s not bad enough they saddle me with Tino, now I get his female counterpart.’ The familiar handler in his black suit pushed his way in and started tugging at Stella’s clothes. ‘Do I have “Torture me” written across my forehead? Is it bad karma? I swear I don’t know what I did to deserve you two.’

She tried to shove his hands away. ‘Look, I just can’t do this. I’m just not cut out for the Pet Shop. I was told if I spoke to a handler it would mean one thing, that I wanted out, and, well, I want out, all right?’

‘Bullshit! Of course you can do it, and it’s not all right, now get out of your clothes and stop talking or I’ll have to spank your arse, and don’t think I won’t do it. Fuckin’ hell, first Tino, then you, and now both of you. They don’t pay me enough for this.’

Suddenly she stopped fighting him, and he continued with the disrobing. ‘Did you say Tino? Tino’s with you.’

‘I’m speaking English, aren’t I?’ He gave her a resounding smack across the arse he’d just bared and shoved the trench coat at her. ‘Get into this, and you’d better manage to at least act horny ’cause I don’t have time to strap you into the Foreplayer.’ He smacked her bottom again, then wrestled her into the coat and jerked the sash tight. ‘Now let’s go unless you want both your arses spanked by your keeper for being late. Tino might like that just fine, but I’m not sure how your tender little bum would hold up.’

She was trembling so hard by the time she got to the van that the handler had to help her. He had taken the trench coat and practically shoved her into the large pet carrier before she realised she was sharing it with Tino, who scooped her to him in a tight embrace. The delicious scent of the big Pet filled her nostrils, made her cunt clench and her pulse race. But it was Vincent’s scent too. Her nose couldn’t be fooled now, no matter how differently the two of them behaved. And the clench in her cunt was followed quickly by an even harder clench in her heart and a knotting in her stomach as she thought of waking up to find him gone. What the fuck kind of game was he playing at?

With a growl that sounded too wild to belong to a Pet, she shoved her way out of his arms and elbowed him in the stomach generating enough momentum, even in the confined space, to make him grunt. The look of hurt on his face made her even more angry. How dare he be hurt? She wasn’t the one who ran away, and she’d had just about enough of this emotional bait and switch. When he reached for her again, she bit him, hard. He sucked air and flinched. She wasn’t certain, but she thought he might have actually had to wrestle back a curse.

She shoved her way to the far corner of the carrier, banging her head on the side as the van took off. The handler, who stayed in the back with the Pets, pounded on the top of the cage, misunderstanding what was going on.

‘Tino, you keep your cock to yourself, you hear me? If I see any sign of spunk, or smell it, I’ll tell your keeper to tie your pecker in a knot and make you hold it all weekend, don’t think I won’t.’

Not if hell freezes over will he find any spunk, Stella thought. At least not any having to do with her. She could see Tino’s pulse pounding against his throat. His chest rose and fell like he would hyperventilate. And he was hard. He was always hard, damn him!

She pressed her cheek to the side of the pet carrier and tried to ignore the way his gaze bore into her, tried to ignore the press of their legs, which was unavoidable in the tight space. And the smell of him. My God, how could she ignore the smell of him? She dreamt of his scent. She masturbated to thoughts of his scent, and here she was trapped with it, and aching for it, and still so furious she could barely breathe. She wanted to yell and scream at him, she wanted to hit him with her fists, she wanted to know why, why he had left her. Instead she sat with her back pressed as tightly to the slats of the carrier as possible and tried to ignore him.

The next time he reached for her, she slapped him, slapped him hard enough to make her hand sting.

‘What the hell are you two up to?’ The handler rattled the pet carrier again. ‘If I have to drag you both out and wear the spanker out on your bottoms, don’t think I won’t. Now knock it off.’

Stella pulled herself as far into the corner as she could get and tried to ignore the smell of Tino’s arousal, made even more obvious by his erection bobbing against his thigh, the thigh he made no effort to pull out of her space. She shoved at him. But he didn’t budge. She tried to turn her back on him as much as she could, but he pushed in still closer, not allowing her to ignore him.

He kept pushing at her and pushing at her until she kicked at him, which was useless with bare feet in such tight quarters. But he took the opportunity to pounce, nearly upsetting the pet carrier. The handler cursed and uttered a string of threats, most of which Stella didn’t hear because she was fighting to keep from being pinned under Tino.

The van screeched to a halt with both pets being shoved by the momentum to the front of the carrier. Then the carrier door flew open and Tino was wrestled out by the handler and the driver. ‘Goddamn it, I said knock it off!’ The handler shoved Tino into the seat next to his, clamped his hands into cuffs attached to the side of the van, then snapped an equally attached short lead into the D-ring of his collar. Satisfied that the Pet would cause no further problems, he stormed out of the van and Stella could hear him shouting into his mobile something about all hell breaking loose.

Tino ignored it all, as though nothing else in the world had his attention but her. His gaze was now unreadable, a little more like Vincent, but then how the hell could she tell who he was playing at. The van driver stepped out to have a smoke, and she took advantage. ‘You left me, you son of a bitch. You left me without telling me why.’

She swallowed the last word as the door to the van burst open and the handler shoved his way back in to sit down next to Tino. ‘Lucky for you two miscreants the Professor assures me he’ll have no trouble handling misbehaving Pets. I think he rather likes the idea. The thought of you two being soundly disciplined definitely warms the cockles of my heart.’

The driver got in and started the engine and they were off again. This time the look on Tino’s face was utterly wounded, a look she couldn’t bear. She closed her eyes, fighting back tears.