In Flight (Up in the Air #1)(30)

“Yes,” he answered, and didn’t elaborate.

My eyes caught on the object they had perhaps been avoiding. A black riding crop lay on the ramp. “Is that a riding crop?” I asked, my voice catching, but I knew the answer.

“Yes,” he answered, moving for the first time since we’d entered the room, nudging me forward by his grip on my hair until I was several steps closer to the bed. “I have more toys that I want to use on you, but I didn’t want to intimidate you by laying them all out.”

I laughed, and it was a desperate kind of noise. So this was how he tried not to intimidate me?

“You need to pick a safe word,” he told me. It was an order.

I took a deep breath. “I assume you know I’ve never done any of this before?” It was a question.

“Yes,” he breathed, his voice thick and intense.

My mind went blank. “Sotnos,” I said finally. It was as though my mind had worked independently of my brain.

“Sotnos?” he asked archly. He imitated the accenting of the word perfectly on the first try.

“Yes.” I wouldn’t tell him why. I was shocked at myself for choosing it, though it made a sick kind of sense. But I certainly wouldn’t explain it to him.

He tugged on my hair, hard, tilting my head back and to the side until I looked at him. His gaze was hard. “There are rules in here. I become your master in here, and I will punish you when you defy me. I will read your reactions, and try not to go too far, but if I do, or if there’s something you just can’t handle, that’s the word you use.”

“What about outside of here? Didn’t you say you would punish me for lying to you? But we weren’t in here when I lied to you.”

He smiled at me, and it was wicked. “There are exceptions. I will never lie to you, and I expect you to learn to do the same. Tell me what your safe word means.”

I shook my head stubbornly. “No.”

“Would you rather take more lashes than just tell me what that means?”

I nodded. “Yes.” I tried to sound sure, but I wasn’t. I had no concept of how hard he would hit me, or how much it would hurt, but I had spent my formative years being conditioned for pain, and I couldn’t imagine that I wouldn’t have a higher tolerance for this than most.

He ran a tongue over his teeth. It was incredibly hot, watching that skilled tongue run across his straight white teeth. I hadn’t seen it before, but the teeth on the outside of his canines were a little sharp, almost faint fangs, the four teeth between them straight and perfect. Even his teeth were impossibly sexy.

Figures, I thought, almost resentfully.

“How about an exchange? Is there something I could give you in exchange for that information? Something you want to know about me? Something you want in general?” His voice had turned to velvet as he spoke.

I wasn’t even tempted. I was not talking about it. I shook my head. He gripped my hair, hard.

“You’re driving me crazy,” he said softly, then nudged me towards the bed. “We need to talk. We need to figure out this arrangement. But I can’t wait any more for this. Nothing has ever made me feel this wild before. I need to mark you. I need to own you. I need to punish you. I need to open you up and strip every detail out of you. And I will get you to tell me what that word means to you.”

The last two sentences made my heart beat the fastest. That was never going to happen, but I couldn’t find the voice to tell him that just now. I couldn’t find the breath. It was panting out of me in a harsh rhythm of mindless fear and anticipation.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Mr. BDSM

“Lift your arms,” he told me, when we were a scant foot from his forbidding bed.

I did, and he lifted my dress off in one smooth move. He sucked in a breath and circled me slowly. I barely noticed how he perused my body. I was too busy drinking in the sight of him.

His exquisite torso was even closer now, and the lighting was much better. He was even more perfect than I had realized. There wasn’t an ounce of fat on him. Just hard, rippling muscles roping his tall form.

His hair was the color of caramel in the soft light. It trailed into his stunning face temptingly. I wanted to touch it, I wanted to touch him, but he had said there were rules in here, and the thought gave me pause.

He bent down in a swift move when he reached my left breast, biting me hard through my lacy black bra.

I made a little yelp at the sharp bite, and he pulled back, continuing to circle me. He snapped my thong as he reached my hip.

“You are too much,” he told me. He stopped at my back. “A virgin with the sexiest body I’ve ever seen in my life. Too f**king perfect.” As he spoke, I felt him kneel behind me. I puzzled over what he was doing only a moment before he bit my butt, hard.

I sobbed in a breath. It had hurt. I glanced back. He was kissing the wound now, his teeth marks clearly imprinted into my skin. I glanced at the nipple he had bitten. Teeth marks were clearly imprinted there as well, though he hadn’t bitten me there anywhere near as hard.

“I want to cut all of your clothes off, but I love everything I see you wear, and I have no idea where you got any of it, so I don’t know how to replace it.” He fingered my panties as he spoke.

“The thongs are from Victoria’s Secret. So is the bra,” I told him. Just trying to be helpful.