Three-Part Harmony (24 page)

His gaze intensified. Dasha held his stare, tried to look into him through it, to comprehend him as he always did her. He slid his fingers to the side of her face. “But because of another woman, I realized it was time to put the lightsabers away.”

She swallowed. Or thought she did. The emotion flowing off him thickened, so intense she almost couldn’t bear it, yet she wanted more. So much like his domination. She wondered if being with him would always mean this push-pull of feeling. And if she would ever want it any other way.

“What was this woman’s name?” she asked softly.

“Sophie. She was young and hungry for a D/s dynamic. I was her first Dom. We clicked—at first. She liked it. A lot.”

Despite the irony of his frown, Dasha smiled. “I relate to that.”

“No,” he retorted. “You don’t. You’re nothing like her.” He shook his head, took in a deep breath, stroked her cheek again as if apologizing. “Sophie… There was a lot in her life she was running from. She started using our dynamic more and more as an escape valve. She went sub frenzy faster than anyone I’ve seen.”

Dasha crunched her brows. “Sub what?”

“Sub frenzy. It’s…an addiction of sorts. Some submissives, once they get a taste of the endorphin rush that D/s can bring, hunger for it like a six-year-old in a candy store. And some of them start acting like that six-year-old too.”

“You’re serious?”

“Wish I wasn’t. At least not in Sophie’s case. She got lost, really lost.” He squeezed his eyes shut. “Needy is just the tip of the iceberg to describe what happened to her. She couldn’t stand being apart from me and got more and more demanding of everything. She insisted on floggings and fuckings on a daily basis, even when she wasn’t healed from the previous day, physically or emotionally. When we met, she was a brilliant PA at Fox. She quit that job and started hanging around the house to be my slave whenever I wanted her there.”

Dasha sat up straighter. “Whoa. You’re still serious.”

His jaw scissored. “Oh yeah.”

“Well, most men would call that a dream come true.”

His gaze became a knife. “Dream? I don’t want a goddamn slave, Dasha. I want a woman who knows her mind, heart, and her body and gives them to me freely. Who makes me earn her submission. Who makes me want to earn it.”

She couldn’t control the little smile that rebloomed. “Okay, Tarzan.”

“You’re fucking right, Tarzan.” He pushed up, launching into pace mode. “Any overbearing ass on this planet can have a slave.”

An awful lightbulb snapped on in her brain. “Oh God. And Josh became that ass for Sophie.”

“No. Josh thought I needed to be that ass.”

“Now I’m really lost.”

“I know.” He released a hard breath. “Time to back up.” He slowed the pacing a little. “I began trying to force Sophie back to reality. I couldn’t exactly release her, but I started to make it damn hard for her to be little domestic slave girl.”

Dasha frowned in confusion. “Release her?”

“The Dominant’s version of a breakup,” he clarified. “But like I said, I couldn’t go there. Not then, not in the state she was in, not when I was the one who’d put her there to begin with. But I could make it difficult for her to be stuck there. I had the locks changed on the house, ordered her to come over only at times I designated, set a crapload of limits on our time together. I also stopped helping out with her bills. It killed me, all of it, but I figured a week or two of real-world challenge would be the bucket of psychological ice she needed.”

“And somehow that’s where Josh came in.”

He’d turned away, and his shoulder muscles bunched. “Yeah. That’s where Josh came in.”

“He supported her side?”

“Supported it? Hell, he gave her the idea in the first place.”

“
What?
”

He pivoted back with a dark smirk on his lips. “Yeah, baby, the Dom gene runs high in the Pennington DNA.” The smirk dropped. “Only Josh got a few thousand more strands of it than me.”

She sat back, trying to take in all that information, imagining what insanity his life must have been. Loving that girl…feeling bound not to mess up her life, even though she’d turned his upside down…then finding out his own brother facilitated it… God, no wonder he didn’t just ask for honesty but commanded it.

Suddenly, perplexity latched onto her brain. “Wait. Hate to repeat the obvious, but why didn’t Josh just—” The words felt awkward, but she finally got them out. “Well—take her as his own—um—slave?”

“Full plate,” David replied. “He already had one, and they were training another together. Besides, messing with mine was like another conquest to him. What better way to justify your alternative tastes than by converting your own brother to them?”

She tamped down a bizarre urge to laugh at that.
Alternative tastes.
Three weeks ago, she couldn’t imagine anything more alternative than sexually dominating a woman in a Madison Square Garden dressing room. To think of David being called a prude about anything… It seemed unreal.

That’s when the mirth got replaced by irritation. Protective, clawlike irritation. “Tastes?” she snapped. “Wait, it’s not like freaking ice cream.”

Of course, that’s when David jumped on the humor bandwagon. “No.” He chuckled. “It’s not, sweetheart.”

His grin, huge and dazzling and heart-melting, persisted after the laugh. It grew as he crossed to her, then yanked her head back and shoved the hair from her face. He bent his head and slammed a long, adoring kiss on her mouth. She sighed beneath his assault. If this was D/s prudeville, then so be it. She’d die here and be happy.

“What were we just talking about?” she stammered when he finally let her go.

He laughed again. “My splendid brother and the fact that he wrote checks to my submissive for two months before I found out.”

Dasha returned her hold to his knee. “Wow.”

“Yeah. Wow.”

Sadness weighted her chest. “So
that’s
when the lightsabers came out.”

His shoulders stiffened again. They braced for the heavy energy that settled on him anew. “And a lot more,” he stated.

The words spoke a dozen volumes of meaning, but Dasha had seen his mouth make that line before. It was a line you didn’t cross. And for now, that was all right with her. For now, she just wanted to help with the healing he’d begun with that phone call, an act of courage to which she related with crystal clarity. After all, she’d had recent experience with finding it in herself. But the chasm that had widened between her and Dad…like the erosion of time, it hadn’t been intentional. What had gone down between David and Josh was wrought by intent, deliberation, ego, and stubbornness. On both sides.

“That phone call took guts.” She stroked his hand. “I’m proud of you.”

David lifted his other hand to her hair. “No more than I am of you.”

Dasha huffed. “Two different scenarios, Mr. Pennington, and I think you know it. Dad didn’t intentionally hurt me. What Josh did to you, going behind your back
and
enabling someone with scrambled eggs for brains, took more heart to look past. It took—”

He cut her off by palming the back of her head, dragging her up to his lap, and ramming his lips to hers again. “Hush,” he said. “We’re done talking about it for now.”

Dasha licked at the sting he’d left behind. She wanted more of it. Equally bad, she yearned for the voice she’d gotten with it too.
That
voice. The one with no more mystery but plenty of darkness. The one that sluiced arousal through her in brand-new ways…and injected her with a rush of boldness.

She jerked her chin a little at him. Then arched her own brows in open challenge. “Who says we are?”

A strange scowl took over his face. His eyes narrowed at the outer corners. His mouth, grinning at her just moments ago, now pursed with focused intensity. He looked…dangerous. For a long moment, she was certain he debated on whether to roll her onto the couch or drop her to the floor before he stomped out of here. She braced herself for it.

Instead, David coiled his hand tighter into her scalp. He pulled, fast and forceful, baring her face completely to him.

“Games don’t become you, D. Say what you mean with me. Especially right now.”

After all his introspection and calm, the move came as a surprise. And an irritation. Still, she flung back with quiet decision, “I’m not the one who was playing hide-and-seek.”

Just like that, he whipped his other hand around, bracing it at the corners of her jaw. “You’ve got a little bug in your panties tonight, don’t you?” He traced his touch down to the V where her robe closed. “What is it?” He flattened his index and middle fingers to her skin. “What do you want, Dasha?”

Against her efforts otherwise, she shivered. His touch sent heat straight to the apex of her thighs, and she quaked in trying to hide that from him. Thirty seconds ago, she’d been terrified he’d leave. Now his nearness wreaked three times that havoc.

She loved it. Every second of it.

“Say it,” he commanded in a rough rasp. “I have nothing to punish you for. This time, you
have to take the steps. What do you want, D?”

Did that ragged inhalation belong to her? Her tight lungs said yes. “I just want to please you.” She ran her tongue over her lips again, before adding, “Sir.”

“Thank you.”

So now he was back to being Gentleman Jim?

Dasha considered what kind of a glower she’d fling for the mixed signals. It was a costly moment of distraction. She never saw his next move coming, flipping everything back into raw animal territory. He turned his two fingers into hooks, securing them into her robe, then ripping it from her shoulder in a single slash. Not wasting a second, he tore off the other side.

Once again, all was silent. If nobody counted the adrenaline pumping in her ears.

“Well. This is a good start.”

His tone descended to deeper shadows of meaning, again taking her mind and body with it. Dasha rejoiced in the journey, her breath quickening, her pussy throbbing. Judging from the way David’s hands ran up her rib cage, following the patterns of silver thread to the base of her breasts, he did too. Oh yes, seeking him out had been the right choice. This was where they both needed to be, physically and mentally, especially tonight. Leader and follower. Panther and gazelle. Dominant and submissive.

She let out a long breath, letting her brain dip into that wonderful mental space of surrender. “Thank you, Sir,” she said as he rolled his hands up to her breasts, coaxing her nipples into hard beads against both piercings.

“Shhh.” His voice grated on the reproach as he suckled the curve of her jaw. He lowered his touch onto her areolas, squeezing harder there, making her gasp and writhe. Half an oath tried to spring free from her, but he cut it off with a long, full, savoring kiss. “No more words,” he commanded, just before stepping back. “Now…hands locked behind your head, please. You may nod if you understand me.”

Dasha did as he said and bobbed her head. She hoped his fascination with her chest was over, but it was a dim hope; her new position only lifted her sparkling nipples higher for his view. He hummed in appreciation just before dipping his head to one swell and biting it gently just beneath the glittering letter embedded there.

“Owww!” she yelped, trying to jump back. But he caught her around the waist, anchoring her against his body, continuing his assault on the flesh below his initial.

“David! Shit!”

“Mmm,” David countered, smiling with controlled, sadistic beauty. “I’ll forgive you for the words—only because you’re so pretty when you’re in pain.”

As if to prove the point, he let go of her left swell, only to flick his finger against the diamond P there. If she was pretty in pain, then she must’ve been gorgeous now.

“Damn it!” she cried, trying to escape again. “Bastard!”

To her shock, he let her get free. But she’d no more than whirled and stumbled a couple of steps when he caught her around the waist, his muscles bunching as he stopped her and let her momentum propel her forward and down. He wrested the robe all the way off, then tossed it across the room. Cool air blasted her upturned ass. Her heartbeat tripled in a second. She knew what was coming next, dreading it and wanting it in the same heady rush.

Sure enough, without warning or pause, he pummeled her backside with a series of brisk spanks. Dasha dug teeth into her bottom lip, taking the discipline in silence. She’d invited the punishment with her outburst. But, hell, her breasts still throbbed from his torment, especially now with blood following gravity and filling her nipples. What was that she’d just been thinking, about making the right choice to come get him?

The swats continued, increasing in strength until she squirmed, though she knew the effort was futile. He held her with an indefatigable grip, exposing her purely for his pleasure—an admission that, crazily, made the spanking a little easier to endure. A
little.
Her gasps turned into whimpers, but just when she felt more choice words bubbling to the surface, David finally stopped. She got in half a breath of relief before he flipped her back to her feet. Dasha thought she’d crumble to the floor again, but he didn’t let that happen. He hauled her back against him, hard and tight. One arm bound her in. With his free hand, he caught her jaw again. He locked it with steady fingers, cinching her head into the crook of his neck. Her pulse thundered in her neck and echoed in all her senses. The tumult of it grew as he took the skin beneath her ear with his mouth, licking and kissing and biting until her eyes drifted shut.

Brain, meet goo. Body, meet surrender.
This was why she’d sought him out tonight.

He gnawed his way to her ear, where his growl filled it. “Bastard, hmm? Well then, tell me, sweetheart…what bastard owns you tonight?”

“You.”

The word left her on a breath and filled her with dizzy delirium. A gasp took its place as his other hand slipped to the folds between her legs. With expert precision, he honed in on her clit, pulling the sensitive nub between two fingers.
Goo
really had been the perfect description. Her pussy dissolved, melting into glorious, throbbing heat around his touch.