Chapter 46

“It’s not enough.” The words were faintly baffled, and he wasn’t sure if she was talking to him or herself.

Xavier rose and stared down at her. “You came.”

Mae’s storm-filled eyes met his. “It’s not enough.”

Grabbing her head, he kissed her savagely. The need he’d held in check slammed against his control, causing cracks in the armor he wore to survive. “No, it’s not.”

He flicked open his pocket knife and cut through the ropes that bound her to the chair. With her hands still tied together he jerked her up, then dragged her a few feet and forced her to kneel on the seat of the armchair facing the back. Standing behind it, he pulled her upper body down so her midsection was on the padded back and her abused breasts hung exposed and vulnerable below her.

Xavier jerked on the fastenings of his pants, shoving them down just enough to free his cock. He was wet with pre-come, so hard it was almost painful.

He wrapped her braid around one of his hands. “Open your mouth.”

The head of his cock slid past her pink lips and into her warm mouth. Xavier thrust, pushing deeper until he felt her throat close around him. He held there then withdrew just enough for her to take a deep breath through her nose, then thrust back in. Mae adjusted her position, bracing her elbows on the chair so her head was higher and at a better angle to accept his cock. Another submissive wouldn’t have dared move, but not his Mae. He realized for her the rules weren’t as important as the pleasure…

and the pain.

He started fucking her mouth in truth, using the hold on her hair to guide and control her. Mae swallowed as his thick length pushed deeper into her, past the point of comfort, to the place where there was no doubt that this was about control and domination.

Xavier reached under her with his free hand and pinched one of her nipples. Mae gasped around his cock, and he took advantage of the moment to pick up the speed of his thrusts. The wet sound of his cock sliding into her mouth was punctuated by her muffled moans as he abused her nipples.

Xavier looked down at her—her lovely body submissively bent before him, her red hair coming loose from the braid to spill around her shoulders. Along the edges of her panties he could see a few marks from the flogging. She was lovely in her submission—not helpless, because even now he sensed that in her core she was still in control. Not of her body, because that belonged to him, but of her mind. He’d opened the door, showed her the darkness on the other side, but it had been her choice to step through. Very few Doms were ever privileged enough to feel this—the humbling power of mastering a submissive who only grew stronger the more he or she gave.

Xavier came, one hand tangled in her hair, the other grabbing the waist of her panties and jerking them up so the fabric ground against her pussy. Mae shuddered through her own orgasm as she sucked the last of his come from his body.

Xavier’s legs were trembling when he stepped back. A blessed peace filled him. It was like silence after a lifetime of throbbing noise, or dawn heralding the end of a ceaseless night. He dropped to his knees and rested his forehead against the chair. Mae’s cheek dropped to rest on his head, her still bound arms dropping around his shoulders.

She held him as he shuddered and shivered through the emotional release that he’d come here looking for, and that had been building inside him since he first touched her.

For the first time he didn’t think about her—what she needed or was feeling. He took rather than gave.

Took the release, took the comfort of her touch. He didn’t know how long he knelt there, but when he finally sat back he could not pretend that this had been just another session with a sub.

A rush of fear made him get to his feet and turn away from Mae. He’d meant this to be a simple breast whipping, a primer to what he’d planned to do to her in the courtyard. It should not have affected him like this. He should not have felt as if he’d been turned inside out.

He looked back at Mae. She was still kneeling on the chair, elbows propped on the back. She opened her mouth, but when their gazes met she dropped her eyes and closed her mouth. She slowly lowered her upper body until her midsection rested on the back of the chair, resuming the position he’d first put her in.

She’d given him everything he’d asked, more than he could have hoped for, and now she was willing to give him more.

Xavier bowed his head. He was a coward, something he’d sworn never to be. It was time to stop pretending that what he had with Mae was simple, or that he’d be willing and able to give her up when this was done.

He helped her off the chair, taking a seat and pulling her into his lap. She cuddled her head against his neck and rested her still bound hands on his chest.

Xavier kissed her forehead. If it hadn’t been for the game, he might have ended the scene here, taking her to a bed where he could fuck her at his leisure. The overseers had said that this checklist game was about pushing themselves. There was almost nothing on the checklist he wasn’t willing to try or do, so he’d assumed that Mae was his challenge. Mistress Faith must have seen that she was more than sweetly submissive, and in need of a guide to the darker end of the spectrum. Once he’d seen her masochistic tendencies Xavier had understood why, though they seemingly had nothing in common, he and Mae had been paired.

He knew now that she wouldn’t use her safe word, wouldn’t back out. She’d take all he’d give her, and she’d be a better submissive for it. But being pushed that far, that deep, could take its toll, and Xavier feared that though Mae would submit to what he had planned, she’d hate him for it.