Grounded (Up in the Air, #3)(67)

I tried to protest even through his hand, but his eyes stopped me.

“Don’t. Just because it didn’t happen doesn’t mean that you were safe. You weren’t safe. A man with a gun wants you dead. It would only take one f*cking bullet.”

His eyes were terrible with anguish, and I knew that the fear was getting to him. He was doing everything he could, and I was still in danger. He felt like he was failing me, and it was eating him up inside.

He uncovered my mouth.

I spoke quietly. “I’m sorry. I thought I’d be there and back before you knew. I didn’t mean to do that to you. I swear I won’t ditch my security again. At least, not until my father is found.”

He shut his eyes and nodded. “When I couldn’t get ahold of you, and Blake told me she’d found your phone by our bed, I thought you’d left me.”

My brow furrowed. “Why would you think I’d left you? I don’t understand.”

The hand at my neck moved and gripped into my hair. “No. No answers until you’ve been punished.”

I licked my lips nervously. “That cell back there wasn’t a punishment?”

He shook his head. “That was a nap. And a chance for me to work off some aggression at the gym. No more questions.”

His other hand began to tug off his boxer briefs, and I tried to look down at what he was doing, but the hand in my hair held me fast.

He pushed my head down to his bared erection. He pushed himself into my mouth, and I sucked at him, thinking that this part was no punishment at all.

He guided my head up and down no more than four times before he was coming deep in my throat. I nearly gagged, I was so surprised. It was unusual for him to come so fast. His control over his own release constantly amazed me, though I supposed that it shouldn’t have, since he was so good at controlling mine.

He pulled me off him mid-cum, pulling me up to my feet while I could see his cock still twitching with his orgasm. I murmured a protest.

He slapped my ass, hard, then hooked his finger into my collar. He began to pull me, but not to the playground. He headed in the opposite direction, back to that cell. I had to swallow a protest. I didn’t want to be left in there again, but I knew that it was all in his hands now.

“Kneel on the ground,” he told me as he let go of my collar.

I obeyed, watching him. He moved to the small bed. He had it retracting into the wall with one touch of his finger. I hadn’t known it was that kind of bed.

One touch to the wall and he had something large descending from the ceiling. I watched with wide eyes as a large X lowered in front of me. It was the same height as James, which gave me a good idea what it was for.

“This is what’s called a St. Andrew’s cross,” he told me quietly. That was all.

He pulled me up with a finger in my collar and a fist in my hair. He pressed my front hard into that ominous X. He strapped my wrists and ankles to it nice and quick, before pressing his body hard to my back. I felt his erection against my butt and tried to arch into it. He slapped my ass hard before moving away.

I laid my head against my arm, tilted forward as I waited and listened for what he would do next.

I started as something hard but smooth stroked against my other cheek. I turned my head to see a thick black oval paddle that was patterned with holes. He pulled it away before I could get a better look.

He struck swiftly and repeatedly along my butt and thighs. I was still sore from the roses, which added to the pain, but he was relentless, not holding back a bit. He worked me over hard.

I had nothing to hold onto, nothing to grip on the cross, so my hands curled and uncurled as the blows struck me.

My legs were spread wide, and a few rough blows to my sensitive inner thighs had me gasping with the pain. He had been the reticent Dom since he’d picked me up from the café, but the force of his blows were telling me plenty, communicating so much that he hadn’t. He was furious and hurt and scared, and that pent-up, frustrated emotion was all for me.

My flesh was on fire when he finished. There was no pause between the last blow and him thrusting into me roughly from behind.

“That wasn’t your punishment, Bianca,” he rasped into my ear. “Do you want to know what your real punishment is?”

I nodded, unable to speak as he thrust into me again and again. I was on that fine edge when he pulled out of me abruptly.

“You don’t get to come until tonight, Love. Not for hours. I’m going to work you over, f*ck you thoroughly, and you don’t get an orgasm. That’s an order. And if by chance you disobey that order, you won’t get to come for a week.”

I wanted to scream in frustration, but instead I gasped as he thrust back into me, pounding inside of me, again and again.

“Don’t,” he said, knowing that I was so close.

He hit the end of me, coming with that rough little groan that I loved. I hated it right then, sobbing in frustration.

“Please,” I begged as he pulled out of me.

“Not until tonight,” he said firmly.

He left me there for long minutes before coming back to unfasten me. I didn’t move after I was loose, instead I just lay against that X and waited.

He sighed and swept me up into a cradle hold.

He carried me to the playground, laying me onto a firmly cushioned surface. At the first touch of my back to the table, I began to look around. There were two such tables in this room that I knew of for sure. I saw from where I was positioned just what he had in mind, but not before he had my wrists and ankles strapped tightly to the corners of the table.