In her moment of distraction, Peter turned the screw once more.
She sucked in a breath, her nails digging into his arm. The pressure did send a little zing of pain through the nipple, but after her mind sorted through it, she realized it was bearable. Uncomfortable, but not horribly painful. And that discomfort, a Master imposing that upon her, seemed to feed into her resurging arousal, something she realized as anxiety died away.
Swallowing, she made herself return her hand to a laced position behind her head, her gaze flicking up to briefly meet Peter’s. “I’m sorry, sir.”
He caressed her breast. “Jon told us everything we need to know about you tonight, a lot of which we already knew, but some we didn’t. He’d rather go over information we know, than take the chance that he missed something we didn’t. Your pain threshold, your hard and soft limits.”
Peter tweaked the chain in an admonishing way. “He knows most of that. Not because you told him, but because he makes it his job to know it. So, you need to say it now, because he needs to hear that you know it. To every Master here, it’s the most important thing.”
His words told her who she needed to be looking at. Her heart was still doing that irregular pounding, but for different reasons now. Jon sat at the other end, his gaze fixed upon her. Her handsome-as-sin Master, with his penetrate-to-the-soul blue eyes.
“Taking care of me is my Master’s job,” she said, her voice trembling a little.
All these years she’d been learning to trust him, she hadn’t always thought about Jon’s side of that, but she was reminded of it in the slight easing of his expression now, which tilted her heart in a poignant way. There were things he needed from her, every bit as much as she did from him. Another hard lesson for her. Enough that she still had these kinds of stumbling points.
“Good,” Jon said. There was more behind the word, and she bit back an odd desire to say something, though she wasn’t sure what. However, after a moment of looking at her with an unfathomable expression, he swept his glance around the room. “Everyone else have what they need?”
At grunts of agreement, she let out a shaky breath. Her body might not survive another infraction. As if he’d read her mind, Peter gripped her waist, a reassurance, but when he didn’t immediately let go and his serious look became even more so, she knew he wasn’t finished.
“Another thing you need to know, Rachel. Every man here also considers it his job to take care of you. They feel the same way about Dana.” He laid his free hand on his wife’s hip, stroking. “And Savannah and Cassandra. Which means, even if your Master hadn’t told me your pain limits, I would have been watching your face, your body, every clue you gave me, to make sure I was hitting the right note for both of us. Understand?”
“I do,” she said quietly, and suddenly tears pricked her eyes, her throat thickening, because she knew he meant it. They all did. And that was more of the miracle that her being with Jon had brought to her.
“Nope, none of that kind of crying tonight,” Peter admonished her gently, reaching up to press his thumb to the corner of her eye. “It’s poker night. Only kind of crying that can happen here is when we shatter you with too many orgasms, or when Ben throws one of his girly tantrums from losing.”
“Yeah, that’s exactly how I’d react. If I ever lost, which I never do.”
Peter winked at her, rather than responding to Ben, and then gave her a nudge, telling her she could go back to Jon.
Jon had taught her it was okay to follow her heart. In a way, Peter had just reinforced the message. So, despite being adorned in sex toys, at a male poker game as a sex slave, she leaned forward and wrapped her arms around Peter in a grateful hug, whispering “Thank you,” in his ear. “Thank all of you.”
He rose to fully engulf her in the embrace, giving her the kind of hug back that would make any woman feel safe, cherished and strong, all at once.
“Do not grope his ass, or I’ll break your fingers,” Dana said, her voice strained yet containing a trace of her normal sauciness.
Rachel smiled, leaning down to press a kiss to Dana’s temple. “I love you,” she said, and meant it.
But when she looked up, she saw Jon’s eyes upon her, and knew she owed him something more. She wasn’t sure how to show him, give it to him, but she’d do her best not to falter again tonight.
He was another man who knew how to hold a woman in all the right ways. When she returned to him, her Master folded his arms around her hips, holding her close to the side of his chair. As he nuzzled the tip of one breast, she gripped his shoulder for support. He ran his tongue around the clamped area and then reached around her to play with the plug, twisting and pulling it partway out before seating it deep once more.
At length he drew back, and took her hand from his shoulder to kiss it, caress her fingers. “Return to your service pose at the door, Rachel,” he instructed.
Dana, in her spread and penetrated pose, was obviously reaching peak levels again, her body shuddering with her effort not to work the dildo or arch into the hold of the plug and clamps. Peter reached a long arm over the table to stroke her flank. “Doing all right there, Sergeant?”
“Yes, sir,” Dana said, her voice a little shaky, too, but with a humorous desperation to it. “My Master’s job is to take care of me, too. Any time he’s ready. Just saying.”
The men chuckled, and Matt shook his head. “She’s about ready for that ring gag, Peter.”
Rachel bit back a smile. Dana did like to push boundaries. That was her and Peter’s thing.
She moved to the doorway as Jon had ordered and knelt, spreading her knees and lifting her arms to clasp her hands behind her head, the pose Dana had assumed while Rachel kissed her. Rachel straightened her back, her breasts tilted up, as the position required, and swept her gaze downward. Jon knew just staying in the position could arouse her, and since she was already well on her way there, she could relate to Dana’s desperation, though Rachel wasn’t quite as worked up as the other woman. Yet. Ben’s next words helped close the gap.
He was shuffling the deck of cards that Lucas had turned over to him. “So here are the rules,” he said. “Each winning hand can dictate what he wants our slaves to do. They have to keep doing it, until someone different wins the next hand. Then that winner can change it up, or have the women keep doing what they’ve been ordered to do. It’s up to the man in question.”