Chapter Eighteen
She went rigid, but not from dismay. She remembered how he’d gently stroked her with a flogger when she’d been bent over his desk. How the lashes had warmed her bottom, providing a surprisingly sensual pleasure.
“Tilly, nothing painful, I swear, but a little harder than what I gave you before,” he said softly. “The first slaps of leather will surprise you. Once you’re past that, relax. Enjoy.”
“And after that?” she asked, hoping he’d at last take her. She didn’t want to seem impatient, but her body was already wildly aroused.
“I might use my hand to spank your p-ssy,” he said, his voice deepening into a gravelly rumble.
She let out a surprised laugh. “Seriously?”
“You’ll be hot and moist. Your folds engorged. The slaps will feel sexy. Push you higher.”
“But I’m already hot and…wet.” She squirmed, her thighs tensing.
“See? Just talking about it excites you.”
She shook her head, but then said, “All right,” letting her reluctance bleed into her voice, a subtle resistance he would note. “We’ll do this. But, Boone…”
“Yes, sweetheart?”
“If I don’t like it…?”
“Don’t you mean if you get scared?”
He moved off her to the side, and immediately, she missed his weight.
His teeth nipped her ass. “You won’t. But you also won’t be able to tell me. I’ll be watching you for signs. If you’re too tense, I’ll know to stop. While I’m stroking you, sweetheart, be thinking of a safe word for those times you can speak. Something not in your usual vocabulary, so I’ll know you didn’t accidentally use it.”
A safe word. Funny, she didn’t think she’d need one. She couldn’t imagine him ever doing something so extreme she’d need one. He might embarrass the hell out of her, but she did trust him to know how much she could take. For such a strong, dangerous man, he was gentle with her. Controlled. Questions answered to her satisfaction, she opened her mouth.
Boone slid a hard knobby ball inside, pushing it against her tongue. A strap was fastened around the back of her head.
For a moment, she panicked, unable to breathe.
“Through your nostrils. Take a deep breath.”
Quivering, she did as he instructed and instantly calmed.
“Good girl. Another.” And then he left the bed.
A few moments later, something soft glided along her back and her buttocks, strands of something. The flogger. He was introducing the implement to her. Letting her know he was about to begin, giving her a feel for the material so she’d know that what he’d promised, that this would be another gentle introduction, was true. The strands were soft and pliable, although not as velvety as the last, sliding over her, a caress that made her skin retract in goose bumps. The moment the strands lifted, she held her breath.
The first stroke felt like the brush of a palm frond. But she didn’t have time to consider how disappointingly soft it really was, because another stroke landed, coming from the opposite direction. He laid the flanges on her skin, swiping side to side, entering a rhythm that drew not a single moment of anxiety, because the strokes, while warming her skin, also soothed.
Light swats. Targeted swats, she realized when each lash landed in a different place. High on the left buttock, high on the right. Lower, and then lower still, until she wriggled because now, she hoped a flange might touch her sex.
But he passed her sex, stroking the creases between buttocks and thighs, the backs of her thighs, the tender interiors…
Tilly floated, her body warm and open. Her mind releasing all her worries, all her fears. For long moments, she forgot the man behind her, concentrating solely on the friction warming her bottom.
And then the strokes grew harder, a little sharper. She could hear the change in the sounds—no longer a soft whoosh, but a more insistent thwack. The first jarred. The second nearly stung. She held her breath, wondering if she could take this for long. Then the repetition of the motions lulled her again.
Only this time, surprisingly, the soft bites pulled at her core. Liquid filtered down her channel, leaking down one thigh. Her p-ssy pulsed, just loud enough she heard the juicy sound.
Her own sounds aroused her. With her mouth stuffed, hard plastic muffling her voice, every murmur sounded like a guttural whimper. Slightly animalistic.
Whimpers that came more quickly the hotter her bottom grew.
A soft knock sounded at the door. She heard it but couldn’t muster any concern.
That is, not until the slapping leather halted.
Rousing, she lifted her head and heard Boone pad to the door. When the door lock snicked, she jerked. No, he had not!
“I brought what you texted, Boone.”
The voice was Serge’s, and he was stepping inside the room.
Tilly made a squeal behind her gag, but the guys didn’t seem to notice.
“Heard from Alejandro,” Serge murmured as he drew closer. “The trade’s going down in two days.”
Boone said something, but she couldn’t hear what over the pounding in her ears.
A hand patted her rump.
Was it Boone’s? Why wasn’t she more shocked at the possibility it wasn’t?
Every sense alert, she startled when the mattress dipped.
“Boone asked me here, Tilly,” Serge said from right next to her. A hand smoothed over her back, down to the small dip and over her rump. “He thinks it’s better to acclimate you with his best friends now than to just thrust you into the life at a more public outing. He thinks you’re ready.” He tucked her hair behind her ear and tugged her lobe. “Remember the welcome dinner? Remember how you spread your legs and let us all watch you come apart? That didn’t feel dirty, did it? And we haven’t embarrassed you with reminders since. This is for you. Not Boone. Whatever he said. When one of us is here, we’ll watch out for your well-being and satisfaction. Do you understand?”
She didn’t, not really, but she nodded anyway. Questions screamed in her mind. Her throat tightened. Was Boone going to let Serge do something intimate? Would he let him f*ck her? For just a moment, she worried she was just a toy to be passed among his men, and the thought made her tense.
“Relax, sweetheart. We won’t f*ck, Tilly,” he whispered near her ear. “You’re Boone’s. That’s something special between you and him. I won’t even stay that long. But I have a gift for you. A set of anal plugs in graduated sizes. Something that helps prepare your pretty ass for use. I’ll start with the smallest. We’ll work our way up. Start slow. Keep one in for an hour a couple of times a day. And there’s a cleanser under the sink for washing them when they’re removed. Understand?”
Understand? Sweet f*ck. Tilly’s mind filled with images.
Although she’d felt the scratch of his shirt when he’d leaned near, she imagined him nude, from his burly, muscular chest to his toes. Of Boone hovering nearby, his gaze raking her body, spread for his enjoyment, her bottom red, her sex engorged. Why didn’t that picture send her into paroxysms of humiliation?
The answer was simple. Boone wanted this. He believed she’d derive pleasure from it. If only she’d allow herself to. However foreign this was from anything she’d ever dreamed might happen to her, she had to trust he knew her better than she did herself. He’d been right about so much already.
Serge moved, and the bed rose. Then his hands, a little cooler than Boone’s, smoothed over her bottom. He parted her cheeks. A finger glided through her crease, rubbing even cooler gel into her a*shole. A moment later, something pressed against her puckered hole.
Behind her blindfold, she clenched her eyes tight and moaned with embarrassment.
A hand petted her hair. Boone’s. “Breathe, baby. Serge will be gentle.”
With her breaths coming noisily through her nostrils, she inhaled, slowing her breaths, deepening them until at last she released a little tension.
Serge slid the lubed plug inside. It was narrow, nothing to worry about, not even as large as the circumference of Boone’s finger, but as it sank deeper the gadget swelled.
“It widens and then narrows again,” Serge said.
Maybe because she’d tightened in rejection.
“You don’t have to clench around it to hold it inside.”
She rolled her closed eyes. That wasn’t why she’d clenched. Having Boone prod her ass was one thing. Having another man do the same, someone she had no intentions of being intimate with, was a little too much to bear without puckering up.
“Easy there,” he said, patting her ass like he might a horse’s.
But the pats against her fiery skin worked, reminding her of the lassitude Boone had created with his gentle strokes.
The plug eased inside, at last narrowing, and lodged. His hand drew away.
“I’ll put the box of plugs under your sink. Later, Boone.”
She heard him leave, and then sank against the bed, groaning again. Her shoulders ached because she’d been unconsciously fighting the ropes while Serge had been there. Her thighs throbbed from pressing inward against the bar spreading her thighs.
Tilly’s mind was awash with everything that had happened. She hoped with all her might there would be no more “surprises.” She thought maybe she’d had enough. Her mind drifted for a moment, thinking ahead to the pleasures Boone would introduce her to.
Barataria. That would be her word. The name of the bay that held the bayou captive in a storm.
Not something she’d ever think accidentally during one of Boone’s sexy sessions. She whimpered and pressed her forehead into the mattress.
The ropes tightening her arms eased. Hands turned her shoulders and the clamps were released from her breasts.
As blood rushed into the tips, she cried out. A mouth covered one breast and a hand massaged the other. The sting lessened, soothed away by Boone’s tender actions. Then he walked around the bed, loosening the straps above her knees.
The moment she was freed, she pressed her thighs together, but her p-ssy felt too puffy, and she opened them again, just not as wide.
Hands gripped her waist and pushed her to the center of the bed, following her there. Fingers slid under her head and unlatched the strap holding the gag in place.
She widened her jaw and spat it out, and then reached up and shoved away the blindfold. Blinking against the light, she swung her gaze to Boone, who knelt beside her.
His expression was neutral, but his ice-blue eyes glittered darkly.
She couldn’t read his expression, but she knew he waited for her response.
“You let him touch me,” she whispered. A complaint, but she’d earned the right to utter it.
His head canted, his gaze studying her. “Did it revolt or please you?”
Tilly lowered her brows. “Can I put a check beside both?”
“What put you off?”
Swallowing hard, she glanced away, afraid to reveal her insecurity. “I know I’m just a novelty, but—”
“Wait right there,” he said, his tone lowering. “Do you think I don’t respect you, that I was passing you around to a friend for kicks?”
Her chin jutted. “What am I supposed to think?” she said, her eyes tearing up, because the answer was important—would determine how much more of her heart she’d invest in this curious relationship.
A fingertip slid along the side of her cheek. “Tilly, it’s true. We’ve shared women. Women who like to play. But that wasn’t what this was about.”
Even though she felt painfully exposed, she turned her face toward him and let him see her emotions. “Please explain it to me, because right now, I’m feeling…I don’t know….naked.” She paused to swallow and wet her dry mouth. “He saw me like that. Hell, they all saw me come. I spread my legs at dinner, wet a chair, and they all saw me do it. And I was all right with that. And I accepted what Serge did, even felt a little…” She clamped her mouth shut.
“Pleasure? And now you’re on overload?” The gleam in his eyes darkened, and he reached up for a pillow, which he put beneath his head, and then he signaled for her to come to him by opening his arms.
Not for a second did she consider refusing. After everything, she needed reassurance she meant enough to him that he’d want to comfort her. When she was snuggled against his warm skin, his hand stroking her back, her confidence seeped back.
Reflecting, she realized that Boone had soothed her every step of the way. He’d guided her, reading her body and looking past the things she’d said to find what she really needed.
There’d been pleasure, so much she was truly on sensory overload, but there’d also been something awakening inside her. Some secret part of her, deep inside, that reveled in the feelings he’d drawn from her and betrayed by every embarrassed whimper, every shocked gasp.
For Boone to have the patience to draw those feelings to the surface had to mean something.
Soft glides of his hand soothed up and down her back. Boone blew out a breath. “I don’t know why I am the way I am. I was raised pretty much like you. Mom and Dad pretended to be faithful while they both chased their pleasure elsewhere. Dad took me to a whore for my twelfth birthday so I could become a man.”
Tilly snorted. “I wasn’t raised anything like you.”
Boone grunted. “No, I guess not. Your dad didn’t bother keeping up the appearance. He ran off with his whore and left your mother to raise his kids.”
The truth stung, but he’d nailed it. She didn’t bother arguing. Instead, she rubbed her cheek over his heart, liking the way the beat thudded in her ear. Strong and steady.
“We’re a pair, Tilly. Given how we were both raised, you’ll understand if I didn’t see a whole lot of value in doing things the expected way.” His hand smoothed down her back and cupped her bottom. “I also discovered pretty early on that I like to control my partner. Celie taught me that.”
She lifted her head, afraid to hear more, but needing to. Letting him know by her silence that she was ready.
His expression was bleak. “She liked me to tie her up and tease her ’til she came. She also liked a heavy hand on her bottom.”
His hand rubbed her bottom in soft caresses. Tilly wondered whether he was even aware, because the motion was slow, and his hand paused now and then.
“I liked giving it to her that way.” He swallowed, his gaze flicked to her face and then focused on the far wall. “Once she was gone, I drifted into the BDSM scene. Tried the clubs. Every one of my guys, by their own preference, is in that lifestyle too. But we have rules we abide by. We never infringe on another’s woman. Never play where we’re not invited.”
His hand left her bottom. Fingers combed through her hair then tugged to center her face over his.
Escaping his steady gaze was impossible. His face was more open than she’d ever seen it. Somehow younger. Maybe it was opening to her, letting her see the turmoil inside him.
She touched his cheek, encouraging him to continue.
He turned his head and gave her palm a kiss, then cupped her hand against his cheek. “The dinner party was a revelation, Tilly. If you’d shied even the littlest bit, I wouldn’t have taken it so far. But you blossomed. Everyone could see you’re meant for me. For this.”
A thrill ran through her at his praise. Tilly met his somber gaze. “I don’t want to be a plaything, Boone. A toy you set aside when you get bored.”
He gave a short, sharp shake of his head. “Won’t ever happen,” he said, his voice gruff.
“But what if I don’t like everything you do?”
His mouth curved slightly. “We’ll find things that give us both pleasure, and that’s the point. Not everyone shares the same tastes. But just because we’re different doesn’t mean I’ll go looking for someone else who’ll give me that one thing you won’t. You’ll give me everything I need. I promise I’ll be more than satisfied.”
She warmed to his promise. Something inside her gave way. She’d stop worrying about where they were going, and let him take the lead. Because he needed that from her. But for now, she’d had enough of deep conversation. While her chest was still knotted from everything she’d said, she pouted her lips, wanting to make him smile. “I can’t believe you let him see me that way.”
Boone arched a brow. “Do you know what it does to me? And how much he enjoyed that? You spread and tied, your sweet ass pink and hot? It’s a glorious thing for men like us.”
She shook her head. “I don’t understand you. You turn propriety on its head and make it sound so natural.” And feel as natural as breathing.
“Because it is.” His hand sifted through her hair, then curved to cup the back of her head. “And you feel it too. You haven’t gone running. You’re right here in my arms. Letting me comfort you after I pushed. This is how it works.”
She let her gaze drop, watched the steady rise and fall of his chest as he waited again for her response. From under her eyelashes, she glanced at him. “Was that the whole lesson?”
A smile stretched across his face. “Lessons are over for now. Do you need to come?”
The knot loosened. She spread her legs over his hips and bore down on the thick ridge trapped between their bodies. “Feel how wet I am? How hot?” She pointed a finger and tapped his chest accusingly. “You left me like that.”
“Is this you complaining to your Dom?”
“I’m complaining to the man who owns my pleasure.”
Boone sucked in a deep breath, his eyelids dipping as he scanned her face, gaze settling on her mouth. The hands surrounding her head pulled, bringing her down.
She tilted her head a second before their lips touched, loving the soft pressure of his firm lips, the slight suction that pulled her closer still.
“Take me, Tilly,” he whispered against her mouth. “Take your pleasure. However you want. Your reward.”
“I don’t want to take you, Boone.” She pressed a kiss against his bristly cheek. “I don’t want to be in control. I want to be completely in your thrall.”
A growl rumbled from his throat and he let go of her head. Arms encircled her body and he rolled, taking her underneath him.
Tilly let her hands fall beside her head on the pillow, staring upward, telling him silently she was his. However he wished.
He came up on an elbow and leaned away to rake her body with a hot gaze. “How’s your ass feel?”
She wrinkled her nose. “It burns.”
“Mind leaving the plug in a little longer?”
“You’re the expert here. If you think I should…”
“You’ll like the sensation. The extra pressure. But don’t come—”
“Until you say so. Got it.” She grinned.
Boone shook his head, the corners of his mouth beginning to curl. “I like you, Tilly Floret.”
Warmth spread through her chest. “I like you too, Boone Benoit,” she said, her voice as smooth as honey.
He pushed up on his arms, then crawled down her body. The moment his lips latched onto a nipple, she closed her eyes, expressing her joy in a soft sigh as he gently sucked the turgid tip. Fully engorged, they were sensitive to every pull and curl of his tongue. Her legs moved restlessly, trapped beneath his body. But he took his time, treating each nipple with lavish affection.
And then he moved lower.
Tilly cupped her breasts and warmed them with her hands while he settled between her legs. Fingers traced the length of her slit. Hands slipped beneath her and cupped her bottom, raising her to his mouth.
When his tongue slid between her folds, she moaned and closed her thighs around his head, holding him there.
With every swipe of his tongue along her smooth labia, she lifted her hips higher, tilting to give him access to her depths. Fingers pushed inside, twisting inward, rubbing toward the front of her channel until he found the sensitive place that made her body tremble.
He rubbed and swirled while his mouth closed around her hooded *.
Tilly mewled, then reached down to twine her fingers in his short hair. She dug into his scalp and rolled her hips, the movements instinctive. Her pleasure rose; her sighs deepened.
Boone drew away and knelt between her thighs. “Turn around, baby. I want you on your knees. Your ass in my face.”
For once, she didn’t mind his crude words, rolling, then getting onto her hands and knees, letting him guide her into position with her chest lowered and her rump high.
Again, fingers traced her slit, parted her, and then the round, wide knob of his cock pushed against her entrance.
On her elbows, she clutched the bedding, her body growing tense as he eased inside her. So much of him, so thick and hot. He crowded her walls, but pulled back, then pushed again. His girth stretched her tender tissues, making her ass tighten around the plug lodged inside. The burning was more intense now, but not intolerable.
Moisture flooded her channel as he eased his way inside. He churned his hips in short, measured bursts, taking her an inch at a time until he was seated deep inside. Holding still, he shifted behind her, his body folding over hers, his hand reaching around, sliding between her legs.
She loved the heat of him pressing against her back and bottom, the thickness lodged inside her. She was surrounded, connected. His.
Forking his fingers, he pulled up her stretched labia, exposing her * to the cooler air.
Tilly hissed between her teeth, but widened her knees and tilted her ass higher. The first wet swirl atop her engorged knot set her belly and thighs quivering.
“Can you feel the plug?” he asked, his voice a deep, soothing rumble.
“Yes, I’m on fire, Boone.” But she rolled her hips to let him know her discomfort wasn’t something she wanted to end.
“It’s going to get a little rough. You’ll feel the jolts against the plug. Can you take that?”
Tilly moaned. “Please, Boone. Stop talking.”
A graveled chuckle sounded. His fingers left her *. “Play with your *, baby. I’m going to be busy.”
She lowered her chest to the mattress and reached between her legs to swirl her fingers on her *.
Boone straightened behind her, his fingers digging into the hot, tender skin of her ass. The first thrust was smooth and gliding, pushing all the way inside before he withdrew, the slick sound he made lewd and exciting. But then he moved faster. His motions churning in her creamy depths, building friction with his movements.
Tilly’s breaths chopped apart. When he withdrew, she pulled air into her lungs only to feel it leave in harsh gasps as he shoved deep again. Faster and faster…deeper…harder.
He parted her cheeks, and the next flurry of thrusts were so deep his groin touched the base of the plug, jarring it inside her.
Taken in two places now, her mind was set free, overwhelmed by sensation—sharp slaps skin-to-tender-skin, deep thrusts that overfilled her hot, slick inner walls, blunt raps against the plug that excited the nerves of that sensitive orifice.
“It’s too much,” she moaned, letting her fingers fall away from her *.
Boone pulled free, turned her body and eased down over her. “Wrap yourself around me, baby.”
Limbs and torso trembling, she slipped her hands around his back, digging her nails into the deep indention of his spine and lifted her legs to ride the hard edges of his hips. When he began to move, she kept her eyes open, watching his face, excited all over again by the feral heat, the tightness of his jaw, the way his lips pulled away from his teeth.
Boone was relentless, pistoning quickly, each thrust a deep targeted lunge that caused her breath to gust. She grunted inelegantly, but dug her fingers deeper, her heart beating wildly inside her chest. Desire coiled deep in her belly, building that familiar tension she knew was poised to explode. “Please, Boone. God, please.”
“Now, Tilly. Come for me now,” he growled. He leaned closer, his body forcing her hips to tilt higher.
She raised her legs, letting them fall wider, opening herself to his powerful strokes until at last, her breath caught, her back arched, and she splintered apart.
The room darkened around her; her breaths were harsh, but distant. Sweat melted between them, letting their bodies rub and glide with ease, their opposing motions a wild dance.
When his head jerked back and he gave a guttural roar, she smoothed her palms over the tense muscles rippling in his back until he fell against her, his face nuzzling into the corner of her neck while he dragged in ragged breaths.
She rubbed her cheek against his hair, cupped his head, and soothed him with nonsensical murmurs until his breaths evened out and his body relaxed. Below, she felt the last pulses of his cock releasing semen inside her.
Neither of them had thought about protection for a while, something that surprised her, because she’d always been cautious about unprotected sex. But Tilly wasn’t worried. She trusted that since he knew everything about her, he knew he needn’t worry she had anything to be concerned about. She trusted he had shown the same care for her. Boone wasn’t a careless man. And if their coupling resulted in a child…Tilly smiled at the thought.
A groan sounded in her ear, and her smile widened. “I can’t move. I have this large immovable object anchorin’ me to this bed.”
“Can you breathe?”
She nodded against his hair.
“Then it’s all good. Not moving. I like where my dick is,” he muttered.
She snickered softly, pressed a kiss against his shoulder, and then closed her eyes.
As she drifted off to sleep, the niggling worry in the back of her mind resurfaced.
Denny. What would Boone do with what he’d learned about her brother? Boone wasn’t a monster, wasn’t without compassion. He’d shown her plenty when he’d had cause to hate her.
And yet, here she lay, content and sated. Happier than she’d ever been.
Was she selfish not to be more concerned? Tilly took as deep a breath as she could manage, then let it go.
Tomorrow. She’d worry tomorrow.