“I want your dark ways,” I admitted. “I need them. I need all of you.”
He looked up at me and simply nodded.
Panting and out of breath, I didn’t resist when he turned me around to face the wall. My pussy was still stuffed full of the dildo. As expected, I felt the tip of the now familiar lube enter my back entrance, and the warmth of it spread inside me in a wave. Instead of feeling a plug at my ass, I felt nothing until Zane lifted me off my feet.
He unhooked my arms from the wall above me and carried me in front of him to the edge of the bed where he settled me on my knees. As soon as I’d gained my balance, his hand wrapped around my throat, softly, gently, and I arched back as the memories of Anne’s claiming flooded me and his hard chest pressed to my back. Yes. I wanted this.
“Do not move, mate, or I will have to discipline you.”
I couldn’t speak, my voice completely gone as I waited, breathless for the inferno of power I felt building in him. He wasn’t holding back. This was Zane, the real Zane. Finally.
He pulled my hands behind me and wrapped them with soft but unbreakable bonds, forcing my breasts to jut out. The ties were snug, but not too tight and I gasped as a blindfold descended to cover my eyes.
“To heighten your senses, and of course to wonder what I will do to you next.”
My breath came in short spurts but I was ready and eager for him to take me, to own me. I was near tears, and I didn’t understand how the salty fluid had found its way to my eyes. I wasn’t in pain, but I felt like I was about to explode into a hundred pieces of broken glass and only Zane could hold me together.
Just like I remembered from the bride protocol simulation, Zane’s heated flesh pressed to my back and his deep, commanding voice filled my ear. “Will you accept my claim, mate? Or do you wish to name another primary mate?”
Zane’s voice was thick with lust, and the explosion of his need blasted through my collar like a blowtorch. I’d never felt this, never felt him. At last he was letting me in, showing me what he needed me to be, what he would truly give me.
“I—” Words failed me. I couldn’t say yes. Not yet. What if he stopped? What if this was just some sort of sick and twisted game to fool me into accepting him and Dare—and then he’d go back to his old ways? I had to know where he would take me. I needed to know if I could trust him, or if he was just going to use me like the others, but never show me his true self.
When I fell silent, he growled in my ear.
“Very well. I understand. I feel your doubt, Hannah. I earned that mistrust by not being honest with you about my needs.” His hands slid down to cup my breasts and I moaned. He pinched them hard, and my moan turned to a sob as the stimulation flooded my system. I pressed my ass back against his cock, trying to force him to take me, to end my loneliness.
“No.” He stepped back and I swayed on my knees as his voice circled me. “Tell me what you need, Hannah.”
“I don’t know.”
His hand was suddenly at the back of my neck, forcing my face to the bed. Ass in the air, he held me there as I squirmed, fighting his hold with my hands locked at the small of my back. One hard strike on my naked ass and the first tear fell from my eyes to soak the dark red satin.
“Tell me what you want.” His hand rubbed the tender spot where he’d just struck me. “But don’t forget to address me properly, mate. What do you call me?”
“Master.”
“Very good.” One hand at the back of my head, the other he moved to spear my ass with two rough fingers. I cried out as he spoke again. “Tell me what you want.”
“I don’t know, master.” It was a lie, a bald-faced, full-out lie, but I didn’t trust him, not yet. Not. Yet.
“Oh, my sweet little mate. You’re lying to me.” I shuddered as he finger fucked my slick and well trained ass. He lifted his hand from my head and stood. A fe
w seconds later I felt totally empty as he slid his fingers from my ass and left me on the bed with my arms tied behind me and my ass up in the air. “Do not move, mate, or your punishment will be much, much worse.”
Frowning, I tried to imagine what his punishment would be, but was quickly distracted by something solid on the inside of my right ankle. A heavy strap was tied around it. Once that was secure, Zane moved to my left side and pulled my legs wider, strapping something between my ankles.
Oh, shit. A spreader bar. I couldn’t close my legs, couldn’t kick or fight or squirm. The idea flooded my pussy with heat and made my breasts achy and heavy where they hung down. I couldn’t see Zane, but I could hear him moving around the room. The anticipation, not knowing what was coming next made me force the air in and out of my lungs in short bursts.
With no warning, Zane lifted my hips and slid some kind of hard cushion beneath them that lifted me enough to take most of the weight off my knees. I wouldn’t be able to lie flat or pull away from him. I tried to bend my knees, to lift my feet a bit, but discovered that they were tied down.
I’d never been this vulnerable before. Ever. My heart raced as panic started to form in a cold, dark pit in my gut. What if he hurt me? What if I wanted to get up, needed to get away, and he wouldn’t allow it? What if he fucked me and left me here for hours, or days? Would the alien technology in my body keep me alive if he left me here?
They were stupid thoughts. Zane had never been anything but courteous and caring. Demanding and curt, but never cruel. But that didn’t matter right now, not to my heart or my body, both of which were working themselves into a full on panic.
God, what was my safeword? The word that would make it all stop?
Lemonade. Did I want to stop him now? I’d asked for this and he hadn’t hurt me, not yet. If I stopped him, then what? Then what?