My tremendous thanks to my three critique partners: Sheri Fogarty, Ann Jacobs and Angela Knight for going above and beyond to help me with this series. As many of my readers know, writing novellas is not easy for me. I love writing long, involved stories! Fortunately, my CPs have much more expertise with novellas, and they kept me from making a disaster out of this series. They not only helped me tear down and rebuild the first book to make it FAR better, but gave me invaluable advice and direction on the rest. I don't know what I'd do without you three!
I hope my readers enjoy the results, but any shortcomings that remain are the fault of this thickheaded author, not the exceptional talent of these very patient ladies. Thank you all for taking the journey with Logan and Madison.
"I've got you. You're all fucking mine."
He had his hand wrapped in her hair, holding so tight her scalp ached. He moved his mouth against her throat, against a vital artery pulsing with adrenaline. Pressed up against her back the way he was, he allowed her no personal space. His thigh was thrust between her legs, his cock a bar of steel branding itself on her buttock, even through his jeans. When she sucked in a breath, it was all him. Spiced aftershave, heated male. She wanted to turn, put her face right against his throat, nestle in that scent, in his strength.
He controlled everything, and she felt safe. For the first time in her life. If only he wasn't a dream. But in her mind was the only place where she could give him control.
"You're thinking again. You get punished when you think."
As he stepped back, she wanted to reach for him, but she couldn't. He had her bound against a cool cinder-block wall. Embedded manacles held her wrists and ankles, and dozens of taut, thin lines crisscrossed her body from shoulders to feet. The bindings were threaded through two vertical columns of hooks, outlining her against the stone. When he released her, until normal, mundane movement restored her skin, she'd bear the impressions of those lines. And other marks as well.
She yelped as the flogger hit her buttocks. The rough, braided strips bit into skin, left marks like a bird's sharp toes.
"Beg for punishment."
"Please . . . hurt me."
"No."
She moaned as he threaded his hand through the crisscrossed lines to push between the wall and her body. He caressed her navel, then dropped down to probe her clit, work it with a single firm fingertip, an excruciating and pleasurable tease. "It's not about hurting you. It's about you letting go. Ssshhh . . ."
He soothed, even as he tormented. She struggled like a moth in a web, made tiny cries as he kept flicking and tweaking. The orgasm was as close as the prayer for mercy when he stepped back.
"I don't care what you think. Tell me how you feel. The first word that comes to mind."
The flogger struck and she jumped. "Afraid."
He did it again, and she gasped. "Wet."
He gave a dangerous chuckle. "Trying to get me to play with your pussy again, aren't you? You'll have to earn that."
Whap!
"Hot . . ." "Alive . . ." "Need you" . . . "Aches . . ." "Stop . . ." "Don't Stop . . ."
"Free." She said that one several times. Each stroke made the feeling more real. The flogger cut into her, but instead of cringing, she was arching, trying to lift her hips, spread her arms wider, a swan taking flight, fighting what held her to the ground. She licked her lips. "Master. Please."
He kept punishing her until she was a quivering mess, then he closed in on her again, took hold of her hair in that tight hold she loved. He bit her neck and she trembled more. "Say it."
"I'm yours, Master." She believed it. There was no doubt. No fear. No thinking. She heard that delicious sound of him unbuckling his belt, unzipping his jeans, then she let out a sigh of relief as his cock probed between her spread legs. He rubbed the head in her overflowing juices, getting himself slick before he started to push up inside her.
He'd fuck her like this, while she was helpless against the wall. She'd come so hard her flesh would be scraped by the cinder block, because she'd writhe against it like a snake shedding a skin. He'd take her home, rub soft lotions into her flesh, make her sleep naked next to him so he could play with her body whenever, however, he wished, all night long. His long, strong fingers would stroke those whip marks, the scrapes, push inside her. Anything he wanted, she'd give him, because she trusted him with everything. At least in this moment.
Dawn would come and dread would return. Along with a hundred other emotions wrapping her up like those crisscrossed lines, only these imprisoned her mind and denied her heart.
Only by being his was she truly free.
"Madison, are you ready to go? Earth to Madison?"
*
Alice's voice, pulling her out of the fantasy. Or memory. The man and the dungeon wall were fantasy; Alice's voice a memory, because Alice was dead. It was Madison's subconscious, recalling her to the present.
Madison blinked through the car windshield. She was parked in the alley behind Naughty Bits, looking at cobblestone pavement, a set of Dumpsters and an early morning sky, the clouds made smoky and gold-edged by the sun starting to come up somewhere beyond the row of buildings. Why'd she get out of bed this morning?
Because it was time to get moving, do what needed to be done. After weeks of being closed to the public, Naughty Bits needed to be reopened, but she didn't have to face that this morning. She was here to clean, evaluate inventory. Surely she could handle that.
Taking her purse and coffee cup with her, she locked the car. As she moved toward the back door, she fished out the key. So focused on getting the door open, she didn't understand why the lock turned easily but the door resisted, until she looked down.
A UPS package was propped against the door. It was the size of a cinder block, and obviously weighed the same. As she lugged it inside, precariously balancing her coffee, Madison wondered what kind of item with that poundage would belong in a lingerie store, but then Naughty Bits was far more than a lingerie store. The BDSM section had plenty of things that belonged in a medieval dungeon. Maybe it was an engraved ball and chain. A special order gift for the Master who had everything.
Hefting the box through the stockroom, she took it up front. It'd be easier to have it sitting behind the counter, ready for whomever had to be contacted to pick it up. She left it there as she went to unlock the front door. No, she wasn't opening today, but she didn't expect customers this early in the morning and she didn't like the trapped feeling of a bolted door. Turning back toward the display counter, she saw the envelope.
Everything else vanished.
To MadGirl was written on the outside. It looked like it had been placed in its current location weeks ago, bearing a light layer of dust, same as the display counter glass beneath it.
Leave it to Alice to think of doing something like this. Fishing out a letter opener from the drawer beneath the cash register, Madison slit the envelope. She ran tense fingers over her face, a reassuring hard stroke, then unfolded the pages.
Sell doesn't have to be a four-letter word. You used to know that.
Madison blinked. Now, of all times, her sister would choose to be snide? Alice had great hook lines, though. She never started a letter with the traditional "Dear Madison." Her handwritten script had flourishes like Thomas Jefferson's. She'd done cursive that way since the eighth grade.
I'm not being snide. Sell connects to two other really important four-letter words. Want. Need. But I think the word that best describes it is provide. Did you ever look that one up in the Encarta dictionary? The legal term means to require something in advance as a condition or as part of a contract. The non-legal term is to supply somebody with something, or be a source of something wanted or needed by somebody. Sets off something in your gut, doesn't it?
Madison swallowed. "Stop it, Alice," she muttered.
Fuck is another four-letter word, and it gets a bad rap. Cock, cunt, come . . . Do you think God and the Devil were playing a word game that day? "See how many naughty words can start with C, and whoever wins gets to handle everything connected to sex. Go!"