With This Collar (Mastered) Read online

  She shook her head. The scene was horrifying, and yet she was morbidly curious. She couldn’t believe the woman was taunting her Dom, couldn’t believe he was threatening to withhold a beating in order to gain her compliance.

  The Dom grabbed Lindsey’s cunt and squeezed.

  Julia saw a combination of pain and ecstasy on the sub’s features. Julia wondered if she had looked like that when Marcus had been torturing her nipples.

  Lindsey continued to look at the man’s face as if to say, ‘Is that the best you’ve got?’

  He continued the pressure, and eventually Lindsey screamed.

  “You drenched my hand, bitch.”

  Lindsey’s whole body sagged but she was smiling.

  “I ought to take you home right now.”

  “Whip me,” Lindsey said. “I want it.” She pulled her head back up and looked at the Dom. “Fuck me or whip me. But do it now. Please.”

  “Didn’t I tell you to keep your mouth shut unless you were screaming? Don’t you ever learn?”

  Marcus had been right. This was an intense scene. But she’d seen Lindsey’s expression. The woman had wanted everything she’d got. As Marcus had said, things were consensual.

  “Let’s go,” Marcus said softly.

  She nodded with some reluctance.

  He freed her shoulders and walked from the small area. Julia followed but, hearing a sob from behind her, she glanced over her shoulder.

  She wasn’t sure what had happened in the last few seconds, but Lindsey was smiling.

  Marcus indicated she should proceed into a private alcove.

  Julia could hardly breathe. She definitely couldn’t string two cohesive thoughts together.

  “Was that too much? I probably should have found a different couple for us to watch.”

  “Actually, it was fine,” she admitted, reluctant to tell herself, let alone him, the truth.

  “Really?”

  She tried to look at it from a scholarly angle. “I get what you mean about certain things working for different people. The way you made me…” She trailed off, then reminded herself she never had to see him again after tonight. “The way you made me come in the sunroom… What we did… It wasn’t like the scene we just watched. You did what I wanted.”

  “You’re a quick study,” he said with a smile. It lit his eyes and melted her resolve.

  This man got to her on so many levels, physical and emotional.

  “And you’re right. I watched every one of your reactions. As I was telling you earlier, Lindsey and Nate have been together for years. She’s a masochist, and Nate makes sure she gets what she needs without things getting out of hand. Sometimes she provokes him, trying to goad him into giving her more. She’s a woman who truly enjoys pain. She gets off on it.”

  Julia tried to take it all in.

  “When she loses control, he gives her a time out.”

  “Like you do with a child?”

  “Do you think a spanking would work with Lindsey?”

  “I suppose not.” She shook her head. You don’t give more pain to someone who likes it.

  “You need to know what to expect from your punishment.”

  She finished her juice in a single drink.

  “Since it’s your first time, we’ll start with a simple over-the-knee spanking. I think a hand is the most intimate way of punishing a sub. I can feel how you respond. The heat of your skin keeps us connected. I can get a sense of how much pressure you need.”

  Julia said nothing. Her mouth felt as if it had been stuffed with cotton wool.

  “But I also want to introduce you to my tawse. We’ll do that over a simple punishment horse.”

  A server passed. Marcus took her empty glass from her nerveless fingers and placed it on the tray.

  “I have no idea what a tawse is.”

  “It’s one of the most perfect things for beating a sub.” He brushed back his blazer. A long leather implement was attached to his belt loop.

  She went still. She’d grown up in the cultured east, and so being in the Wild West still shocked her at times. That a man went out in public with that thing hanging from his side, like a cowboy might have had a six-shooter strapped to his thigh a hundred years ago, made her shiver.

  Marcus unclipped the leather strand and offered it to her.

  In horrid fascination, she stared for a moment. The thing was about a foot long. The handle was also leather, and the outside was stitched with a lighter shade of thread. Just below the handle she saw a design, a brand of sorts. About a third of the way down, the leather forked into two wicked-looking strands.

  “It won’t bite.”

  She looked at him, trying to decide whether or not he was serious.

  “Until later,” he added.

  “You’re not reassuring me.”

  “Get acquainted with it.

  She finally accepted it. The tawse weighed more than she’d expected and the brown leather felt supple.

  “Smack it on your palm, on the outside of your leg. Get a feel for it.”

  She flicked her wrist, and he shook his head.

  “With a tawse, you keep your wrist straight. It’s a whole different action than wielding a flogger or whip. Flicking your wrist allows the leather to wrap, perhaps catching flesh where it’s not intended, and I don’t want to catch you with the flat part of the blade.”

  “Does that matter?”

  “I believe pain should always be deliberately inflicted. I want my stroke to land with precision. Try it again.”

  She kept her wrist locked and smacked her calf. It stung, but in a different way. “I see the difference.”

  “We’re going to the end of the hall,” he told her, holding out his hand for the tawse.

  Knowing that the leather would eventually connect with her ass was sobering.

  “It’s the last door on the right. Whenever you’re ready.”

  He held out his hand, indicating that she should go first.

  She thought of the man she’d seen earlier, the one being leashed. At this point, she almost thought that would be easier. Having someone guide you surely had to be easier than this.

  She was overly aware of him walking behind her. His footfalls sounded firm and menacing, and a bit thrilling.

  Once inside the room, he shut the door. Courage deserted her and she froze in place.

  Like the place where Lindsey had been tied up, this room was plain. God help her, there were shackles on the brick wall.

  Paddles, some with holes drilled in them, and all sorts of implements she didn’t recognise hung from hooks on another wall. A couple of items resembled wooden spoons like she used in cooking. Surely that couldn’t be possible?

  One corner had a small pedestal sink next to a shelf. A few small towels were artistically arranged on top

  “This is the spanking room,” he told her. “It’s set up slightly different from some of the other spaces.”

  A plain chair dominated the centre of the floor. As he’d mentioned, there was also a type of horse. It looked similar to ones she’d seen in gymnasiums. Only this one had all sorts of threatening-looking ties affixed to it. Ties he wanted to use to keep her in place while he reddened her ass cheeks.

  Even though she’d welcomed privacy, having the door closed startled her.

  “Please face me,” he told her. “And remember, I told you to breathe. We can leave the door open if you are more comfortable with that. Or we can play in public.”

  The idea of someone witnessing her humiliation didn’t sound that appealing, either.

  “There is a window in the door, and I guarantee you either Master Damien or Gregorio will look in on you. As Master Damien said, he takes the safety of the house’s subs seriously.”

  He took another step deeper into the room. “I take your safety seriously. You may have some red spots on your buttocks tomorrow, perhaps even my handprint. A small bruise or two is unlikely, though certainly possible.”

  She shi
vered but, just in time, remembered not to cover her nudity.

  “Nothing will happen between us that you don’t agree to.”

  “That seems odd. You’re talking about punishing me, and you’re saying I have to agree to it.”

  “I will walk you to your car any time you ask. You have your safe words, and the house safe word. On the other hand, this will hurt. It’s meant to. There are several different kinds of spankings. One is punitive. Another is erotic. Another can be for reinforcement.”

  “Erotic?”

  “It can be enjoyable, a way to warm up a sub for a night of hot sex.”

  She realised he’d done it again. He’d kept her talking, engaged her brain to the point that she was thinking intellectually rather than descending into fear. He was making this matter-of-fact. “And reinforcement?”

  “If I were administering a reinforcement spanking, we would discuss my rules and your understanding of them. We’d agree to a number of strokes you’d receive. It wouldn’t be as painful as a punishment, but it would sting enough that you would associate breaking of the rules in future with how bad it would hurt your butt.”

  “Let me get this straight, you’re telling me this will hurt—”

  “A great deal.”

  She scowled.

  “And understand this, Julia. You have to ask me to do it. Tell me your safe words.”

  “Do we have to do this again? You heard me go through it with Master Damien. And I remember the house has a safe word, too.”

  Implacably he crossed his arms.

  After sighing, she said, “Green is for everything being okay. Yellow means slow down.” It also meant they had to talk, something she was getting a bit weary of. “Red is for stop. Halt is the house’s safe word.”

  “Will you saying the word stop prevent me from continuing?”

  She thought about that. “No.”

  “Will you saying no prevent me from continuing?”

  This time she blinked at him, understanding dawning.

  “A lot of times, subs will shout no when they don’t mean it. If you need no to mean stop immediately, you need to tell me now. We have to both understand the way you’re communicating.”

  “I get it.”

  “If I discontinue the scene and ask if you want to proceed, the only answers I will accept are yes, Sir and green, Sir. Yeah or uh-huh will not work. Neither will nodding. Anything less than yes is equivocation, and I will not proceed. Do you understand and accept these conditions?”

  “Are you always so formal?”

  “We’ll go through this every time we play.”

  “And since we’ll never play again…”

  “Then you only need to hear them once. Tell me what colour you are on.”

  “Green, Sir.”

  “In that case, kneel and place your hands at the small of your back.”

  Her pulse raced. Here was the moment of truth. She’d insisted, to herself as well as to him, that she would never do that.

  “I can force you,” he said. “That little trick you saw Gregorio perform? He taught me. Your choice.”

  She regarded him in silence.

  “I prefer you to do this of your own free will. You have five seconds.”

  Deciding there would be something slightly more humiliating in being physically overpowered, she swallowed her pride and lowered herself to the floor.

  If there had been any doubt in her mind that she was submitting to him, it disappeared in that moment. Being on her knees while her Dom claimed the space above her changed her state of mind.

  She stared up at him, mesmerised as he shrugged from the leather blazer. He moved methodically, hanging the garment on a hook near the wall that held the spanking instruments.

  He unbuttoned the top two buttons on his shirt then unfastened the ones at the cuff. He rolled the material to his elbows, exposing the sinews of his strong forearms with an appealing scattering of dark hair.

  Her mouth dried. His hands were huge. And he intended to use them on her bare rear. And he’d been matter-of-fact that it would hurt.

  Fear nearly stopped her heart.

  He moved in closer until he stood directly in front of her. She had to tip her head back uncomfortably in order to see his eyes.

  “I’m going to sit in the chair,” he told her. “And then I’m going to ask you to stand, walk over to me and drape yourself across my lap. How many spanks do you deserve?”

  She didn’t know how to answer that question. “Uhm, how many is customary, Sir?”

  “Excellent question.”

  He was so masculine, so powerful standing above her. She had never been more aware of her femininity than she was in this very moment. “A better one is how many do you think I deserve, Sir?”

  “You are a natural,” he said. “You know you’ll crave this from lovers in the future, and you won’t get it unless you seek it out.”

  He hadn’t phrased it as a question, rather as a statement. It would rankle if she didn’t intuitively know he was right, even though she didn’t want him to be.

  “A sub who misbehaves generally rates twelve over-the-knee spanks, and another dozen on the horse. And in a punishment spanking, I generally deny him or her an orgasm. But tonight…”

  “Tonight, Sir…”

  “I think eight and eight. And if you take them appropriately and ask nicely for each, I might give you an orgasm at the end.”

  Damn him, damn it, he had done it again, scrambled her brains so that she wasn’t objecting to what would happen. She was thinking about the fairness of whether she would orgasm or not instead of the pain she’d have to endure. She was recalling the climax in the sunroom and desperately wanting another.

  Her nipples ached. Her pussy felt wet where minutes ago she’d been dry.

  “The first eight will be with my bare hand. The second will be with my tawse.”

  She watched as he crossed to the horse and placed the strap on top of it.

  He sat in the chair, and terror returned. He looked so imposing, so threatening. She knew she could end this at any time, and, with a flash of insight, knew she didn’t want to.

  “You are welcome to hold onto the chair leg and me for balance. Since you’re new, I will trap your legs with one of mine to stop your thrashing. In the future, I’ll make you control your own motions.”

  “There will be no next time, Sir.” Wildly, she wondered if she were trying to convince him or herself.

  “I will wait until you ask me to begin the spanking. Please count each and then ask for the next. A little gratitude will go a long way to ensuring my good nature at the end of the beating. Any questions?”

  She had at least a dozen concerns, but she couldn’t find her voice. Trepidation swam in her. Goosebumps raised on her arms. Now or never.

  Chapter Four

  Marcus regarded her. They both knew she’d soon be across his lap. He wondered how quickly she would she do it, how much fuss would she put up, how much would she endure to get to that elusive orgasm.

  If she truly had submissive tendencies as he suspected, she’d be across his lap within the next thirty seconds. If she was doing this only out of curiosity, she’d need to ask another dozen questions first, and she’d bolt as soon as the first stinging slap seared her skin.

  He remained silent and watched the silent struggle wage on her features. Waiting was easy when you knew you were going to win.

  Finally, without another word, she stood. Their gazes met. She looked away first.

  He offered his hand, and she stared at it for several seconds before accepting his help. “Perfect,” he said.

  He expected her to say something, anything, but she didn’t.

  She held onto the chair with one hand and gripped his trousers with the other. As he’d promised, he secured her lower body with his legs, and he placed his left hand, fingers spread wide, in the centre of her back.

  She looked so appealing, wriggling on his lap, trying to get comfortable. Her
blonde hair tumbled down towards the floor. Her breaths sounded more like tiny gasps. He would happily watch her for hours, but he wasn’t sure his cock could take the torture.

  Ever since he’d reached his hand beneath her skirt to play with her pussy, he’d wanted to sink himself in her hot, wet depth. Generally, restraint wasn’t an issue for him. But he knew how responsive she was.

  Finally she stilled.

  “Oh,” she said after another few seconds. “I’m ready, Sir.”

  Instead of immediately spanking her, he ran his fingers up her thighs, feeling the softness of her skin. Women in general appealed to him with their soft curves. But Julia, a heady combination of beauty, innocence and sass, made it difficult for him to focus. “Keep still,” he told her. “Remember to breathe. I’m going to warm up your skin a bit so that you don’t bruise as easily.”

  “Okay,” she mumbled.

  He rubbed her ass cheeks, slowly at first, then more vigorously to stimulate blood flow to the area. After a few moments, she no longer held herself rigidly, and he felt the tension ease from her body.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Okay, Sir.”

  Honestly, he could do this all day. “You are very pleasing,” he told her.

  “I wish you’d get it over with.”

  Who was he to deny a needy woman?

  Without any warning, he delivered the first smack, just below her ass cheeks, on that tender spot where her thighs and buttocks met.

  She gasped and tried to pull up, but he held her still. “Good fucking hell!”

  “I’ll take that to mean it hurt.”

  She thrashed for long seconds, swore again, but she didn’t use a safe word, nor did she try to really get away.

  Oh, yeah, this woman was terrific.

  She reached back to soothe the ache, and he let her…for a few seconds. “Stalling might earn you extra reprimands.”

  “Then do it,” she said.

  “Do what?”

  “Hit me.”

  “Spank you,” he corrected.

  “Fine. Spank me.”

  He waited for a moment, giving her time to collect herself. “How many was that?”

  She fisted her hands. “One,” she answered. “Sir.” She settled her nerves then placed her hands where they were supposed to be. “May I please have the next one?”