I shook my head. “Just musing on how extensive your operations are throughout the city, and wondering how you’ve managed to integrate yourselves into so many of the different gangs.”
Rian’s gaze was sharp. “We need to get you smart on our business, but it’ll have to wait until after Luca’s done getting you smart on the Russos’ operation.” Unbelievable that after all the turmoil of the last few days, it was that simple.
“Anyway, fight?” I said, shifting in my seat, aware of my nakedness under my dress as all of their gazes fixed on me.
“I host Saturday Fight Nights at one of my clubs,” Liam said. “And I’d like you to come with me.” His grin was easy, but I could see the undercurrent of anticipatory violence to him. He relished the fights, I realized.
I shrugged. “Sure.”
He rubbed his fingers over my knuckles. “Good girl,” and I fucking melted right there at the dinner table. These men were going to be the end of me.
Too soon, we finished eating, and the conversation slowly quieted as their attention turned to me. “Funny,” Rian said, grinning. “I just ate, but I find myself absolutely fucking famished.”
My nipples pebbled, clearly visible under the green silk of my dress. There was probably a puddle between my thighs, too. I didn’t know how to act or what would happen next, now that I’d agreed to play their games.
Cormac held out his hand as I stood up. He twined his long fingers in mine, comforting my jangling nerves. We followed him upstairs, and I could feel my thighs slipping against one another as the evidence of my growing desire dripped down my legs.
I didn’t know what I was expecting, maybe a stereotypical dungeon, like I’d seen on TV. Cormac’s room was nothing like that. It was soothing gray and navy blues, full of well-read books with cracked spines, and dominated by a king-sized bed with four posts and a canopy.
When I paused at the threshold, he pulled me in, his eyes dark and hooded with desire. “C’mon, love. Let go for an evening. Let us show you how pleasurable being our slut can be.”
“And painful,” Liam added, not at all helpfully.
“Pleasure and pain complement each other,” Cormac murmured as he untied my dress, slipping it off my shoulders and folding it neatly over a chair.
Liam cuffed my wrists together in front of me with silk-lined leather, then guided me to the foot of the bed, turning my body to face it. He lifted my arms, hooking the chain between the cuffs onto something above my head, just high enough to raise me up on my toes. When he pushed my feet apart, I felt the stretch in my calves.
I couldn’t see any of the men. It wasn’t as disorienting as if they’d blindfolded me, but I fought to contain my panic as I listened to fabric rustling behind me, the soft slide of drawers opening and closing, and then the whipping of something through the air behind me.
“Easy,” Cormac soothed me. “What’s your safeword?”
“Pineapple,” I said, my voice breathy as I squirmed in the air, hanging before them, unable to escape the awareness that I’d exposed my ass and my soaked pussy to them.
A breeze whipped behind me andcrack!A thousand delicate points of sensation lit up the top of my back. It didn’t quite sting, but my stomach clenched, knowing it could, that it no doubt soon would. I gasped as I felt the same impact on the other side of my spine, warmth spreading out from the point of contact. The sensations floated up and down my back, to my ass, and the tops of my thighs, until my skin was sensitive and hot, aflame at each stinging touch, and I floated in a euphoric state.
Untilsmack!The tips wrapped around my thigh, and I cried out, pain slamming me back down to earth.
“Don’t space out on me, Ginevra,” Liam said. Liam? Liam was holding the whip, or whatever it was? I trembled in fear, aware of his penchant for blood. Expertly, he peppered my back and my ass with strokes of the straps lightly, then with more and more strength, bringing me back to euphoria. I moaned and whined at the pain as endorphins flowed through me.
When he paused, I whimpered in protest. As much as it hurt when he hit me with the straps, I could feel a pull in my core. My nipples pebbled, and I whined with need. The heady mixture of pleasure and pain felt so good, I didn’t want it to stop.
I needn’t have worried. Rian slid in front of me, naked, his blue eyes dark with need as he settled onto the bed, pushing his knees between my thighs. He bent forward and took one of my breasts into his mouth, sucking hard on the nipple, and then releasing it with a pop before doing the same to the other.
Cormac’s voice was hot and raspy beside my ear. “You’re such a perfect slut, built just for us. Look at you, your pussy clenching around air every time Liam flogs you. You’re drenched and dripping, waiting for one of us to fuck you hard.”
I moaned at his words as Liam resumed his slow and careful heating of my back. In moments, I was whining and writhing in need, jolted from my floating euphoria by the immediacy of the ache deep in my core.
Rian slid two fingers into my mouth.
“Suck on his fingers, slut,” Cormac instructed. He didn’t need to. I knew what Rian was looking for. I moaned as Rian moved his fingers in and out of my mouth, the way I ached for him to pump them in and out of my needy pussy. As if he read my thoughts, Rian reached down to circle my clit.
“God, please,” I begged, jerking against my bonds, pressing harder against his hand and reaching the limits of how far I could lean toward him with my arms bound above my head and my feet on the ground. Rian grinned at me and ran his fingers through my folds, torturing my aching entrance.
“Please,” I begged.
“Liam’s going to mark you, so you don’t forget whose slut you are,” Cormac said, his voice low and soothing, calming me even as my eyes grew wide with worry and I jerked on my bonds.
Once, twice, the flogger lashed into my upper back. I screamed at the pain, then shocked myself by pressing into Rian, searching for friction as the combination of pain and pleasure drove me higher and higher toward bliss.