The Dangerous Hero Page 14

  The frame looked old, but she could tell that was an illusion. Now that she was accustomed to the dim lighting, she could see that the entire space had been designed to look like something from the interior of an ancient castle. The walls appeared to be made of stone blocks, old and crumbling. There were spots where there appeared to be algae or lichen blooming on the stones. Artful painting, she realized. There were iron rings pounded into the stone with chains hanging from them. "This is, um, realistic," she said, her voice a bit unsteady.

  "I wanted a medieval-style dungeon. And I like to collect historical artifacts when I can get them."

  Okay. She glanced around nervously, half-expecting to see a rusty iron maiden, a charcoal stove with burning irons, Bartholomew Giles' torture devices.

  Her heart was pounding, but she was wet between her thighs, and the moisture there was increasing with each device he showed her. She wasn't sure why, exactly. This was scary, and she began to think, as she had a few times before, that deep down Stephen might be as twisted as his dangerous hero.

  A spanking bench was next. A wooden contraption that looked like a pillory from an earlier century. A set of strong chains hanging from the ceiling. She looked up. This ceiling had hooks. Bars. Rings. Some kind of pulley type device. They came to a place where the wall had been studded with iron pegs. Various implements were hanging there. Whips and floggers of all shapes and varieties. Paddles. Riding crops. Rods and canes were standing upright in a wooden barrel. There were shelves with cuffs and harnesses and leather collars. There was stuff she couldn't even identify, some of which looked dark, sharp, and ominous.

  "In case you're wondering, I have safety equipment, too, including powerful shears that will cut through rope or leather instantly. I won't do anything that could cause harm, and I'm prepared for emergencies."

  "Have you ever had any emergencies?"

  "Minor ones, yeah. A sub who had an asthma attack. That could have been serious, but we had her inhaler and she was okay."

  So that was why he'd asked her if she had any health issues.

  "Then there was the time," Stephen went on, "when I must have left the door a little ajar, and Rusty trotted in at an inappropriate moment. I started laughing and that pretty much wrecked the scene. It's hard to be a cruel, vicious master when you're laughing your ass off."

  "I like it when you laugh."

  "I like it when you laugh, too." He caught her wrists and pulled them behind her back. "No more laughing now, though. You're supposed to be intimidated, you disrespectful brat."

  "I am," she assured him. "This place is wild. Scary. You really are deviant, aren't you?"

  "Oh yeah." He pushed her over to the X-frame device. "Let's start here. Your basic standing bondage. Strip. I want you naked and ready to be fucked."

  She didn't have many clothes on, so they were easy to shed. Stephen stripped at the same time. His dick was fat with arousal, and they hadn't even done anything yet.

  He was quick and efficient in finding soft leather cuffs that fit her wrists and ankles. They fastened with Velcro and were snug but comfortable. She was grateful that these, at least, looked contemporary; she had been a little worried that he might put her in those heavy iron manacles she could see resting on one of the shelves.

  There were heavy steel rings in both the wrist and ankle cuffs, and equally heavy clips that he used to attach her cuffs to the four points on the X-frame. When he was done, she was bound with her back to the X, her arms high and spread and her legs spread about three feet apart. A thick leather strap went around her body at the waist, locking her more firmly against the frame.

  "You look incredibly hot," he told her, running his fingers over her helpless body. "There are so many things I would like to do to you."

  She swallowed hard, feeling exposed and helpless. "Do them, then."

  "I intend to. Not all at once, though. And not in a way you expect."

  When he blindfolded her, she protested. "I want to see."

  His fingers bit down hard on her nipple, prompting a cry of pain. "We do this my way. And the next time you fail to call me Master when you speak to me, I am going to whip your pussy."

  She moaned out a "Yes, Master."

  "I'm going to flog you. We'll try some different whips so you can get the feel of them."

  She tested her bindings, but found herself well and truly locked to the frame. "You're going to whip the front side of me?"

  His hand moved over her breasts, then slid to her belly and thighs. "I'll never strike a part of your body where an injury could result." He leaned close. Both his hands moved around behind her to grab and caress her ass. "A spanking back here is safe. It's an area of fat and muscle with no internal organs near the surface. But I won't strike you here..." his touch moved up to just above the small of her back. "Your kidneys are too close to the surface. Higher up on the back is safer because of protective muscle and bone." His hands returned to her breasts. "It is also safe to strike the breasts, which are largely fatty tissue. Within reason, of course." The caress moved to her thighs. "You can whipped here." His fingers touched her between her legs. "And even here. As long as the top is careful. It would of course be painful."

  She was quivering all over, but she was not afraid. He hadn't actually done anything but talk and caress her lightly, but she felt as if she was almost ready to explode. She had known she had dark fantasies, but she had never realized she wanted his kind of loving so damn much.

  His hands returned to her breasts. "Arch your back for me a bit." When she did, her breasts were thrust more deeply into his hands. He ran his fingertips lightly over her nipples and she tensed, waiting for him to squeeze the way he loved to do. But he caressed and teased instead, and then he dipped his head to kiss her breasts thoroughly, sucking each nipple into his mouth and tonguing until they were both hard as pebbles.

  She moaned with delight. "Your breasts are beautiful," he whispered. "So many ways to play with beautiful breasts." Sucking one nipple into his mouth, he bit down until she tried to pull away, but her bonds made it impossible. Before the pain built, though, he soothed the spot with his tongue and slid one finger down to delve into the wet folds between her legs. "So wet for me." He moved the finger in and out. He angled it up against her clit. "Roll your hips, love. Ride my finger."

  Wet heat blossomed in her core as she obeyed. The restraints holding her legs apart made her all the more vulnerable and the strap around her waist binding her to the X-frame prevented her from moving much. But it felt amazing, and her excitement quickly spiraled. He kept moving his finger down there, then added a thumb on her clit. His other hand compressed one of her nipples, sending pain-pleasure radiating down into her clit and making her whole body arch as much as the bonds would allow. Her moans grew louder as everything built toward a crescendo.

  "Don't come," he said sharply, eliciting a cry of protest from her.

  But he didn't stop the stimulation. It continued, both of his hands busy, as he sucked and nibbled at her other nipple. She gasped, trying to hold herself back from the monumental climax that was building in her belly.

  "If you come without permission, I will have to punish you," he said in a soft, low, threatening voice. Instead of stopping her, that sexy growl pushed her right over the edge. She stiffened and howled as the orgasm crashed through her, making her pulse madly on his still delving fingers. Through her fireworks of pleasure she heard him softly laugh. "My sweet sexy angel, I am so going to make you suffer for that disobedience."

  She would have clung to him and laughed, had she been able to free herself. He'd made it impossible to obey, as he damn well knew.

  "You did that on purpose," she gasped, when she could speak.

  "And you," he breathed in her ear, "have a lot to learn about following orders."

  He moved away from her and she realized he wasn't going to let her down from the frame yet. When he came back, she heard the faint clink of some kind of metal. He plumped out one of her breasts a
nd tugged on her nipple, rolling it between his fingers. Then she felt a harsh bite of pain. "Nipple clamps," he said, adjusting the metallic clamp that was now squeezing her right nipple. "How does that feel? Too much?"

  Still pulsating from her climax, she tried to make sense of the feeling in her right nipple. It hurt, yes, quite a lot, but it felt kinda good at the same time. "I think it's okay."

  "I think it's okay, Master," he reminded her, and gave the clamp a tug that made her squeal.

  "Sorry, Master," she quickly said.

  "You're forgiven. Try to remember. Don't make me deduct points from your grade, Professor."

  She giggled at the idea of being the student, not the teacher. "I'm not such a cruel taskmaster with my students, Sir."

  "I'm sure you're not. You're nowhere near as sadistic as I am, are you?" He was playing now with her left nipple and she tensed, realizing what was coming. "You ready for the second one?"

  She nodded, taking a deep breath. But she still jerked with pain when he attached the second clamp.

  "There's a chain connecting them," he told her. She felt a jerk that stretched both nipples and caused more sharp sensations to radiate through her.

  "That's kinda intense."

  He made some sort of adjustment that lowered the tension in both clamps a small amount. "Better?"

  She nodded. They were still hurting, but not as much.

  "It'll lessen a bit as you grown accustomed to the feeling. In fact, they'll get slightly numb. When the clamps come off, though, blood will rush back and nerve signals will fire. Clamps actually hurt more coming off than going on. D'you want to see what they look like?"

  He ripped the blindfold off when she nodded. She blinked; even the dim light seemed bright after several minutes with her eyes covered. She looked down at herself, her body naked and spread out, her waist banded with a thick leather strap and her breasts sticking out, the nipples hard and compressed between the two small shiny clamps.

  The chain that ran between them was thin but sturdy. As she watched, Stephen held up something small and metallic that she couldn't identify. It had a tiny clip on one end, which he attached to the chain between her nipple clamps. "It's a weight," he said casually, letting it go. The cold metal dropped between her breasts and tightened the chain. The pain in her nipples increased. Watching her with a devilish glint in his eyes, he poked the hanging weight with his finger, making it swing and delivering new jolts of agony to her breasts.

  "That's harsh," she whispered, even as she became aware once again of the link between her nipples and her clit, and the strange way that pain stimulated her down there, making her wetter, and building the pressure and need for more pleasure, more release.

  "Don't forget your safeword. You can use it anytime. If you want me to take it easy but not actually stop, you can say yellow instead of red. I'll be monitoring you, always, but I want you to get used to the idea of having a safeword, okay?"

  She nodded. "I'm fine. It just takes some getting used to."

  "I know. Do you feel sexy, or is it all too weird?"

  "Sexy."

  "Sexy, Master," he corrected, giving the weight another tweak.

  "Ow! I feel sexy, Master. Are you going to fuck me now?"

  He laughed softly. "Oh no. I have all sorts of other plans for you before we get to that."

  He unbuckled the strap around her waist and unhooked her wrist and ankle cuffs from the frame. "Come," he said, tugged on the chain that ran between her nipples. She gasped as she realized he was going to lead her by her breasts. She made haste to follow him. The pinch on her nipples escalated with every step he took.

  He bound her in the clear space in the middle of the dungeon to chains that hung down from the ceiling. Her arms were stretched up over her head, but he left her legs unfettered. She felt sharply conscious once again that she was naked and totally vulnerable to him. He could do anything he wanted, and she wouldn't be able to stop him.

  He stepped away for a moment. When he came back he had a whip in his hand. No. He had three whips. She looked on nervously. "How much do you know about different kind of whips?" he asked her.

  "Um, nothing?" The three he was holding all looked similar. They had handles and a series of long tails. She estimated that the tails varied from about a foot and a half to two feet long, depending on the whip.

  "One of these whips is gentle. I would have to swing it hard to cause pain with it, and even then it wouldn't hurt much. Another is vicious. If I hit you with that it would hurt like hell and leave marks on your skin. The third is somewhere in between." He paused. "Pick one."

  "I'll take the light, gentle one, thank you."

  He smiled wickedly. "If you can select the light gentle one from among these three, then that is what you'll get. But if you choose one of the others, I will use it on you."

  Oh, fuck, one of his kinky games. She had no clue which was which. "You choose," she whispered.

  "Oh, no. I'm going to make you do it. Let me show them to you." He separated a rather beautiful whip from the others and brought it closer so she could see it. The handle was made of intricately plaited leather in two colors, red and purple. The tails were narrow and long. He held the whip close to her face and she could smell the leather, a scent she had always liked. It looked like a woman's whip, and she wanted to hold it.

  He switched to the second one, which was black and shinier. It didn't smell leathery; it looked more like rubber or perhaps some synthetic. She regarded it with some suspicion, although she wasn't sure why. The third was also leather, although the hide looked more supple than the first. It was coffee-colored and the tails were a little wider than the others. Would wider tails hurt more or less? She had no idea.

  One was gentle, one was vicious and one was in between. Dammit! She should have read up on whips on those web pages she'd looked at with the BDSM information.

  "I don't know the difference. If you showed me something with barbs or knots on the end, I'd be pretty sure that would be vicious, but among those three, I have no clue."

  "Choose," he said in a harder tone. "Now."

  She was drawn to the red and purple one, which looked pretty and benign, so with her luck, it would be the harshest. What the hell. "I want the pretty red and purple. I just hope the colors don't represent blood and bruises."

  He smiled. "Whip lessons: pay attention now and maybe you'll do better next time." He held up the brown whip with the broad tails. "Deerskin. Very soft." He trailed the tails of the whip over her bare breasts so she could feel how soft. "This is the gentle one. See how light and delicate the tails are? It would be hard to hurt you with this." He set the deerskin whip aside and held up the black scary-looking whip. "It's a good thing you didn't choose this one. It's not leather, but rubber. The tails are heavy and they hurt like hell. Rubber is extreme. If you had chosen that one, I'd have had to go easy on you. I wouldn't want to mark you up too badly."

  As he said this, she became more aware of the phenomenon she'd noted before—Other Stephen was speaking. Scary Stephen. She wasn't sure what she thought about Other Stephen. Was he just Regular Stephen acting, roleplaying? Every time she caught a glimpse of that darker self, she felt a strange combination of fear and excitement. It was Other Stephen who took her to places where she'd never been with any other man. He was the one who did things these darkly sexual things. He loved whips and chains and dimly lit medieval dungeons. He shared something with Bartholomew Giles.

  Stop thinking that.

  "So I picked the middle-of-the-road whip?"

  "Yeah, you did. This one is moose-hide. Still supple, but tougher and heavier than deerskin. It is a beautiful whip, one of my favorites. It will hurt and it can mark, but it will not cause the kind of excruciating pain the rubber whip would cause. You should be able to handle it, but you'll have to be brave. Initially, it will feel intense." He looked deep into her eyes. "I want you to endure it. You can cry, you can scream, you can beg, but I am going to do this. I want you
to ride the sensations. Feel them. Inhabit them. Let everything else go and just feel."

  "Okay," she whispered, torn between dread and arousal. He's going to freaking whip me.

  "Do you remember your safeword?"

  "Yes."

  "Use it if you need to. You ready?"

  She nodded, her entire body tense as a board.

  He walked around behind her, swung his arm and struck.

  Chapter 18

  Stephen knew how to use a flogger; he had practiced his technique for years. It was his favorite BDSM activity, and he wanted Viola to learn to like it, too. He wouldn't have used the rubber whip on her, of course; that was no beginner's implement. The deerskin whip wouldn't really have done much more than caress the surface of her skin. She might not know it, but she had chosen well. A whipping scene should feel like a whipping, but it should also feel erotic.

  He didn't use any dramatic flourishes the way he might if he'd been doing a scene in a club; this wasn't a performance. He would keep eye contact as much as possible so she would have something to hang on to emotionally. He wanted her to see that he was pleased with her for enduring his scene.

  He kept it light, striking her first on her buttocks and being careful that the ends of the whip didn't wrap around to the front of her body. She would initially feel more sting than thud. Although she gasped and reacted to the blows—something he loved to watch—he could tell she wasn't uncomfortable—not yet.

  He was damn uncomfortable himself, though—his dick swollen and aching. Getting more distended with every stroke as her body jerked and arched. After four strokes on her ass, none of them too hard, he stopped briefly to soothe and caress the area he'd been working on. "How's it so far?" he asked her.

  She tossed her head. "Not too bad. I was scared, but I feel a little calmer now."

  "Your body will react by sending endorphins out. Those are powerful chemicals...they'll help you cope and they may even give you a bit of a high." He slid his fingers down into her cleft and found her wet. Passionate Viola, she was always wet when he touched her. It was one of the things he loved about her. He caressed her for a minute or so before stepping back and swinging his flogger again, switching to her upper back. "Count for me, love. I'm going to give you a dozen strokes in various locations, each one will get a little more intense."