When at last they had them as far as they were going to take them, an attendant stepped forward with a harness, and Jon strapped them in place. She thought she’d been trembling hard before, but now she was like a woman in the midst of a seizure, her body racked with convulsions.
“Thank you, gentlemen.” Jon nodded to them. “I’ll take it from here. Rachel, meet each of their eyes directly and say thank you.”
It was harder than anything else, surprisingly enough, because she was stripped so raw. But she managed it with Peter first, mumbling the words incoherently against the gag. Her nipples were as stiff and aching with arousal as they’d ever been. She thought of Dana, being the beneficiary of that adept mouth whenever Peter wanted to torment and pleasure her both.
Then Lucas. He’d given her a taste of the cleverness of his mouth, but she believed without question that he could drive a woman to complete insanity with it—and she’d embrace it. Her p-ssy contracted, just from passing her gaze over those firm lips that would still have her scent on them.
They were both well aroused, two powerful men who reminded her of the holograph, each man waiting his turn with intent, hot gazes, but after she completed the etiquette, they nodded, acknowledging her, and moved back to the chairs. The hickory switch slid over her shoulder, curved around her throat, lifting her chin as Ben bent over her shoulder, pressing his body against her ass so that thick plug seated even more deeply.
“I didn’t hear my thank you, darlin’.”
She said it one more time, and when his hand descended, gripping her ass, she wondered at how it stimulated both the lingering pain and the pleasured nerve endings. It surprised her when his lips brushed her neck with far more gentleness. “Jon’s right,” he purred. “You’re a pure treasure. Unlike Jon, I’m going to hope you forget this lesson, so one day I have to help him repeat it. Harder.”
Jon exchanged an unfathomable look with his friend that she wasn’t sure was accord or warning. Her mind couldn’t wrap itself around anything that complex. Two plus two was far beyond her right now, though she was sure that the answer being four wasn’t a coincidence, given what had been happening for the past…however long it had been.
It wasn’t over yet. The section of the platform that held the pillars was marked by a circle on the carpet, but it wasn’t merely a design. It was a dais that could be rotated. As Jon moved to the control and flipped it, engaging the motor, alarm flooded her chest. Instead of a mirror reflection, with his shoulders mostly blocking the view, she was about to come face-to-face with the wall of strangers witnessing her punishment.
Chapter Sixteen
May all the gods help her, she wondered if the entire population of the club had moved to this spot. It was a sea of attentive faces, the measuring eyes of Masters and Mistresses, the rapt, intent faces of submissives and every range of flavor in between. She now understood, in every quaking, aroused nerve, the significance of administering this kind of punishment in front of an audience. The stares, the energy of the dense half circle of bodies around her, underscored how exposed she was, displayed for them this way.
In the mirror, she’d seen that the men had aroused her so her nipples were large and hard, her cunt dark, flushed and dripping profusely. Not only did her thighs glisten with the wet tracks, but a tiny, embarrassing puddle marked the platform between her legs. Her p-ssy was stretched by that dildo, the other deep in her ass, both of them harnessed there so that Jon could keep her impaled as long as he felt necessary. The way she was restrained, her arms stretched out and back, she looked like a bird pinned in the position of flight, her breasts thrust forward like tempting fruit to be handled, her ass pertly in the air as if inviting animal coupling.
Aroused, terrified at every level, there was still another component to it. Every part of her was attuned to the fact this was Jon’s will. Jon had done this to her, she’d surrendered to whatever Jon desired, because his desire was in fact the same as her own, impossible to tell where one began and the other ended. He’d given her a full-flavored taste of what he’d indicated earlier. When it was like this, it was the way it was meant to be, both what the Master and slave wanted, needed, craved. Demanded and begged for at once. Though she was in a state she’d never before experienced, her emotions a mix too complicated to track, fear warring with desire, she felt like she’d come home at last.
When he turned her, she was staring into the crowd, but that was far too much, so her eyes flickered over their heads. Since she was on a raised platform, it put her in line of sight with the elevated mezzanine and the bar, all the additional faces there. She would have retreated swiftly to the safety of a lowered gaze and the hope Jon wouldn’t make her raise it again, but one of the people at the bar caught her attention and held it like a polar magnet.
Dana.
The blind woman was not alone. From the second her gaze landed upon them, Rachel had no doubt who the women with her were.
Apparently, with the exception of Dana, blondes were favored by the Kensington men. Dana sat to the left of two exceptionally beautiful females. Both wore tailored skirts, thin blouses and tasteful, expensive jewelry that suggested they’d come straight from work. However, something about the way they were worn suggested what was beneath them was far less office-etiquette. Or that the women were simply responding to their environment.
The blonde next to Dana gripped her hand. Her lips moved, perhaps describing everything to the blind woman. While the crowd before them were voyeurs, that wasn’t what Rachel felt from the unwavering regard of the three women. They were witnesses, bound to her in…solidarity.
That blonde had to be Cassandra Adler, Lucas’ wife. Her reasoning skills were not at their best at the moment—she gave another moan as Jon made an adjustment to the plug in her backside, stroking the rim—but other levels of perception were on high volume. She expected if she could see her chakras, they’d be like disco strobe lights, open and vibrant, receptors on maximum sensitivity.
She identified the blonde next to Dana as Cass because the third woman was intimately flanked by a man leaning against the bar, a relaxed but obvious escort to all three. He was standing, not on a barstool, since she didn’t imagine he was the type of man who’d ever take up a seat when a woman might need one.
Just as she’d recognized the two women, she knew who he was. The Italian-Texas parentage showed in the dark eyes and close-cropped hair, the handsome yet rugged features. The mantle of power he wore on his shoulders didn’t need the enhancement of the business suit he wore. He’d shed his tie, the shirt open at the throat, but if he’d stood there naked, it wouldn’t make him any less intimidating, or mesmerizing. This had to be Matt Kensington.
So therefore, the woman to his immediate left was Savannah. She was everything Rachel had read about. Cool, breathtaking, intimidating in her own right. Yet when Rachel’s gaze tripped over the still, porcelain features, she found herself unexpectedly trapped there…in recognition.
Maybe everyone else would see reserve, but Rachel saw a history in those eyes, a history that mirrored her own. This woman knew what it was to live for years thinking she was falling short, that she’d never be good enough. Feeling like a failure inside, even as everyone told her she was successful.