The crack shot Jay’s shoulders to his ears. Beside him, Charlee didn’t flinch.
“I spoke at length with her Dom in New York. She’s a masochist.” Seriousness smoothed Conrad’s expression. “This means she processes pain differently than we do. She feeds from it, eroticizes it.” He closed the distance and stared down at her. “She may not have an ache for it every time, but if she’s struggling with something, if she’s having a bad day, she’ll need it. If you’re open with each other, she’ll tell you when and how severe to make the discipline.”
Were they open? Jay considered the days following the San Francisco murders and the grief she carried over the death of the nineteen-year-old girl. She’d erected a wall and refused pain during sex. Dammit, he should’ve prodded and recognized what she’d needed.
“BDSM is a trade of power. Many are driven to the lifestyle because of unhealthy power dynamics in past relationships.” Conrad thinned his lips and scrutinized the top of Charlee’s head. “Submitting to a Dom in a safe and consensual environment can help her prevent bad dynamics in her current relationships. It trains her how to control her responses to power, and she can find a great deal of freedom and triumph in that.”
He had to give the guy credit. Conrad illustrated a logical perspective on kinksters. In fact, shit was a whole lot clearer. Since the power in BDSM play was consensual, it made it superior to the systems of power experienced in everyday life. Anyone working a job under the rules of a boss was forced into a position of nonconsensual power. Hell, the regime at Windsor Records dictated how he smiled and what songs to write. Discriminations on social castes, gender, sexual preferences, and race were other forms of power. All nonconsensual.
Jay placed a hand on her head, sifting fingers through her satiny hair. Abuse and rape, the most potent case of nonconsensual power, was why she was there. Time to find out if he could give her the control she sought, in an authentic dungeon, under the watchful eyes of a professional.
No pressure. He steadied his breath, relaxed his limbs, and sat on the edge of the low mattress. “Charlee. Come here. On your knees.”
She crawled the distance to Jay, her eyes locked on his rising cock. As if her stare had cast a hardening spell, he swelled to full length.
He skimmed a finger over her bottom lip. “What’s your safe word?”
“Huntress.”
“Suck me.” Imparting those words pumped determination through his veins and a throb to his groin.
Kneeling between his legs and flattening her back, she circled her lips around him, flicking her tongue and sliding up and down in a slow rhythm. A tremor raced over his thighs and his breath caught. Fuck. Focus. He met Conrad’s eyes.
Conrad shook out the whip, and the tail skated across the wood floor. “First lesson, Jay Mayard, is understanding the difference between good hurt and bad hurt.”
Jay lay back on the mattress and gathered her hands on his chest, restraining them there. He understood bad hurt, knew it deeply, but he would listen and watch intently. He needed to give her the required pain without harming her. When Conrad finished his verbal instruction on how not to use a whip, he reared back his arm.
Crack.
Her gasp swathed his dick. He tilted his head and glimpsed a pink line blooming on the rise of her ass. The hurt she experiences is relative.
Crack…crack.
Her mouth glided over and under him, her breath steady, eyes closed. Fucking hell, she was magnificent. The cracks of the whip continued a steady pace as did the suction of her lips. A dozen or so strikes later and his orgasm was simmering, too fast, too soon.
“Straddle me.” Jay sat forward, coughing to clear the thickness in his voice.
She unfolded in a smooth rise and stood before him, gaze resting on his. Pushing her hands through his hair, she climbed onto his lap. Her face dipped, closer, closer, and he arched his neck to meet her lips.
She parted her mouth and rolled her tongue with his. It wasn’t one of her blistering, fuck-me kisses that stole his breath and tightened his balls. Instead, her lips moved over his with apology and gratitude, so yielding and peaceful, his throat tightened and the backs of his eyes ached.
When the kiss ended, he pulled her to his chest and they sat in silence, bodies molded together, neither of them making a move to loosen the embrace. Call him a man, but it was a treasured closeness, with his erection trapped between their bellies, her swollen nipples rubbing through his shirt.
After a few shared breaths, he gripped her waist and raised her, working his fingers inside her. So fucking wet. He replaced his hand with the head of his cock and entered her, gazes fused in a helpless lock. Slowly, effortlessly, he slid her down to the hilt and her groan rivaled his.
Arms hooked around her hips and ass, he held her immobile. “Master Conrad, can you strike her back in this position?”