Servicing the Target (Masters of the Shadowlands #10)(55)

His hands gripped the black chains as if he were fused to the metal.

“Time for something new.” She smiled at him sweetly and picked up a…thing. An evil, steel, ring-like device filled with a couple of dozen metal studs. It looked like a f*cking miniature iron maiden. A mouth with teeth.

His own teeth clamped down on his protest.

She opened the hinged band, closed the damned thing around his shaft, and screwed the studs inward until each steel point barely poked his dick.

Not too bad. He realized he’d frozen in place. Carefully, he exhaled.

And then she reached past his shaft to scrape her fingernail over the sensitive skin between his balls and *.

As the searingly sharp pleasure scorched through him, his cock thickened …and the f*cking studs hurt like hell. His hands fisted around the chains as he fought the need to yank the torture device off.

And somehow, the agony only made him harder…which made the pain worse. “Fuck.”

Her eyes were bright with pleasure. “That’s what I want to hear.”

She flogged him again, ruthlessly. Pain upon pain.

And yet, the murky swamp air that had been suffocating him was lightening into a sunlit fog. His cock didn’t…quite…hurt, but felt surrounded by a dense heat, as if a wet mouth held him sweetly. Each stroke of the flogger sang across his skin with a heavy liquid pressure like a warm tongue.

He realized…eventually…that she’d stopped.

“What a good Benjamin,” she was murmuring, her cool hands stroking over his body, easing the fires.

She kissed him, long and slow, even as he felt her hands on his distant cock, removing the steel ring.

And his shaft billowed with heat, bobbing like a balloon over a bonfire. Pulsing with his heartbeat. The whole room was moving up and down.

His arms were suddenly at his sides. Had he let go of the chains? As he tried to reach up, she laughed—f*ck, he could get off just listening to her—“Come here, Benjamin.”

With a firm grip, she guided him into a chair. Nice big chair, a soft blanket beneath his trembling legs. He was floating in a cool sea.

“Benjamin.” Her hands on his face were sweetness itself. “Look at me, my tiger.”

His eyelids were heavy, but she had the most beautiful eyes. He could look into them forever.

When had she sat on his lap? But she was. She’d straddled his legs, her knees bracketing his thighs. If he could have lifted his arms, he’d have held her.

“You remember my brother Travis? He left the Marines because he couldn’t cope any longer.”

Her brother. Yes, he’d met her brother. Somewhere. Nice guy. Ben’s skin burned, his cock throbbed so oddly, and her eyes were so, so blue.

“Why did you leave the Rangers, Benjamin?”

He wasn’t in anymore, was he? Was discharged. No military career for him. The loss made his eyes prickle, but the fog wrapped around him, kept the grief back. “Got hurt.”

“And that’s why you didn’t go back.”

“Nooo.” He managed to swallow, and oh, she was stroking his shoulders, his chest. Such little hands to be so powerful. “Not why.”

“Why, Ben?”

“Couldn’t kill more. Too many. Each one worse. Like a weight. Got jumpy…”




Anne nodded as his voice trailed off. Yes, there was the reason. She ached for him, for his unsolvable dilemma. Because this warrior who was so good at killing had a caring heart that had probably been sliced open with each shot he took.

And then he’d had PTSD to top off the unholy brew.

He’d recovered. In fact, he was the most even-tempered man she’d ever met. But loyalty and duty could create blind spots. “If you’d stayed in, you think you’d have kept your teammates from dying. Is that right?”

His eyes dulled. He nodded slowly.

“Travis wanted to return, but he didn’t. He said he’d freeze at the wrong time. Or panic and shoot up his team. How about you?”

His reactions were slow, his mind still in the twilight world of subspace. His gaze had focused somewhere…else.

“What do you see, honey?”

“Rockface freaked. Shot our medic.”

“Rockface stayed too long, didn’t he?” Anne asked softly. “Maybe he should have gotten out?”

“Yeah.”

“Each person hits a point where he can’t process anything else. Can’t keep up. Then it’s time to get out. Or you risk hurting your teammates.”

She waited. Waited some more.

Added another fact. “You did the right thing, Ben.”

“They’re dead.”

“And you’re alive.”

“Should’ve died with them.”

God, what more could she do to help him see?

She gritted her teeth…and picked up the steel cock ring. She set the cold metal against his throat…right over the artery. His mind was slow, his senses messed up. He’d feel the coldness, not how blunt it was.

He’d feel the threat of a knife.

His entire body jerked, his muscles tensing.

The risk nauseated her. “What if you could be with them now, subbie? Do you want that? Or will you fight to live?”

Wide, stunned eyes met hers. And yet…he didn’t move.