According to Mark Page 6

“You live here?” Her voice carried a note of awe as she walked farther inside and inspected the large fireplace on the right side of the room.

  “Well, in theory, anyway.”

  “In theory?” she asked, arching an eyebrow.

  I shrugged. “I spend a lot of nights at the hospital, as you know.”

  “And a lot more at The Rack.”

  “Lately,” I admitted.

  “Well, it’s beautiful.” She spun in the center of the room, her pale blue skirt billowing around her to display her shapely calves. “If I lived here, I’m not sure I’d ever want to leave.”

  If she lived here, I wouldn’t want to leave, either.

  “Will you show me the rest?”

  For the next ten minutes, I did just that, leading her from room to room but with a single goal in mind—getting her to my room. Not that I was in a hurry, really, since once this night was over, I was going to make a clean break of this. I couldn’t go on pretending this was only about sex, but I couldn’t allow it to be about anything more.

  That didn’t mean I didn’t want this one night to last as long as possible. Especially since it was going to have to last me a lifetime.

  As Allison oohed and aahed over the elaborately tiled guest bathroom on the second floor, I couldn’t help imagining myself rattling around in this house alone as an eighty-year-old man. Maybe I could hire a hot, buxom nurse in the tradition of Young Mr. Grace on Are You Being Served? to keep me company when I got to that point.

  I gave myself a mental shake to dispel the depressing image. There were worse things than being a confirmed bachelor. One of them was marrying your best friend’s girl after you maybe accidentally-on-purpose killed him.

  Allison drew her head out of the bathroom and headed down the hall in precisely the direction I intended. I almost called her back, suddenly wanting to stall, to extend the anticipation, but then she was pushing open the door to my inner sanctum, and it was too late.

  She drew up short at the threshold. “Oh,” she breathed. “Wow. It’s so…”

  I came to a halt behind her, close enough that I could feel the warmth radiating from her skin and smell her apple-cinnamon scent.

  “Normal?” I supplied.

  “Actually, yes,” she admitted. “But I was going to say something like cozy, except it didn’t sound quite right.”

  “Hey, just because I’m into kink doesn’t mean I have a dungeon. Although I do have a wine cellar downstairs that could double as one if you’d prefer that.”

  She laughed. That laugh—rich and honest and entirely feminine without being remotely grating—was one of the first things I’d noticed about her. Allison never gave anyone a courtesy laugh. Her laughter was one hundred percent real.

  Just like the rest of her.

  “I think I’ll take a rain check on the dungeon. That bed looks like it has possibilities.”

  It did have possibilities. That was one of the reasons I’d chosen it over the interior decorator’s objections that it didn’t suit the Victorian character of the house. I happened to disagree. For starters, the wrought iron headboard and footboard reminded me of the balcony railing, but I’d have chosen the bed even if that hadn’t been the case, and not just for the obvious reason. Quite simply, I liked the look of it: solid and masculine and a little imposing, yet still inviting when made up with a plush quilt and plenty of pillows.

  To appease the designer, a friend of Matthew’s whose feelings I didn’t want to hurt, I’d allowed the introduction of a few froufrou elements—dark red curtains with a subtle but period-appropriate print, bell-shaped lampshades with fringe, and an off-white carpet with a darker beige pattern stamped into it. I’d been able to keep the rest of the furniture from straying into the precious, though. The walnut dresser and matching end table had clean, simple lines, and the dark grey leather loveseat at the end of the bed was plain, square, and surprisingly comfortable.

  “So,” Allison asked, turning to look over her shoulder at me, “do you keep the toys in a box under the bed?”

  “Where else?” The truth was that I didn’t keep much in the way of gear at home. Most of the women I’d dated long enough to bring home were either not into that kind of thing or only dabbled in it. Besides, what made sex good for me wasn’t the paraphernalia. Whips and chains could add to the experience, but my particular brand of kink was all about taking control of a woman’s deepest and most frightening desires and making them my own.

  “Can I see?”

  I slipped my arm around her waist and dragged her back against me so that the crack of her ass cradled my rising erection. “I think that can be arranged. But before we start, I need to know what it is you want from me tonight.”

  She leaned her head back against my shoulder, relaxing against me. “You already know what I like. So well, it’s like you know it before I do.”

  Emotion swelled in my chest. “That’s not enough for tonight,” I said roughly, nuzzling her cinnamon-scented hair. Funny how the color of her hair and its fragrance were so nearly identical. “What can I do that will really turn you on? Something I don’t already know, haven’t already done.”

  With a shake of her head, she pulled free of my grasp and walked toward the bed. “I don’t know.”

  But she did know. I could tell from her tone of voice that it wasn’t that she didn’t know what she wanted, but that she was afraid I wouldn’t agree.

  “Tell me, pet.”

  Her eyes widened a little at my use of our playroom language because she knew it meant I had gone into Master mode. I expected an answer—an honest one—and I was going to get it. One way or another.

  “You won’t like it,” she said softly, wrapping one hand around the metal bedpost.

  “It doesn’t matter whether I like it or not. Tell me.”

  She sighed and sat down on the bed, scooting her ass backward until her feet dangled off the side. “I want you to make love to me like you did that first night. Not the first night at The Rack, but the night that…you know.”

  I swallowed. Hard. She was right. I didn’t like it. It made me think of Clint and what I’d done to him, and that was pretty much the opposite of sexy.

  But then she added something that sent both shock and lust corkscrewing through my gut. “I want the full kink experience. But with no limits. No safe word.”

  Chapter Eleven

  For a few seconds, I could only stare at her, uncertain that I’d heard her correctly.

  “No safe word?” I repeated stupidly. Ah, Mark, you’re a fucking genius.

  She nodded.

  I swallowed hard. A part of me—yeah, that part—was more than intrigued by the prospect. But the other part, the part that was still sane and rational, was appalled by the suggestion. The one cardinal tenet of all D/s relationships was that the sub always had a way out, a safety valve. Play without a safe word was pretty much the equivalent of skydiving without a parachute. It might be thrilling, but someone was going to get hurt. Maybe not quite as seriously, but dangerous nonetheless.

  I walked to where she sat on the end of the bed and placed my hands on her knees. “I don’t think you understand what you’re asking for, pet. You haven’t been in the life long enough—”

  “Don’t patronize me.” Her tone was acidic. She pushed my hands away and pulled her legs up underneath her so that her face was nearly level with mine. “I may not have your experience, but I know what I need. For a long time, I thought I was defective because I didn’t like sex very much. Turns out, what I didn’t like was vanilla sex. I need to have that edge of pain—but even more, of fear. Being afraid gets me off, Mark, but as long as I have a safe word, as long as I know I can stop you any time, the fear is muted. And it’s not enough. I want you to use me in any way that pleases you, and I don’t want to be able to stop you.” Her hands closed around my biceps. “I need it to be real.”

  Real. Wasn’t that what I wanted, too? One night with her where I didn’t have to pretend that it was
just a scene, just a fuck? That I didn’t care about her as anything more than a body to slake my lust and appease my need for control.

  Because if fear was her kink, control was mine. Once upon a time, I’d nurtured the notion that becoming a doctor would give me the power I craved. I’d be able to heal the sick, raise the dead, defy God. In retrospect, it was the stupidest fantasy ever. If anything, being a doctor made me more aware of my limitations, not less. I did some good, certainly. I made many sick people well and prevented death from coming too soon for some. But in the end, I wasn’t in control of who got better or who lived or died. Any illusion of control was just that…an illusion.

  As was any illusion that I had control over Allison or any other submissive. That was something outsiders never truly understood—that however the power dynamic might appear, nothing happened without the consent of the submissive. No one was ever spanked, whipped, tied up, chained, humiliated, or fucked unless she—or, in some cases, he—wanted it. At least not if the people involved were doing it right.

  And now here was Allison, all but begging me to do it wrong. To throw the rules of consent and power exchange out the window.

  Rules mattered to me. It was one of the reasons I made a good doctor as well as a good dominant. Whenever I stepped outside the rules—as I had when I’d agreed to take Clint as a patient—that was when things went south. I didn’t want to make that mistake again.

  But her desire for something real, for what we did together to be more than a game, didn’t feel wrong. Like bringing her here tonight, it felt inevitable, critical, even essential. As if denying her the inability to withdraw consent would be denying her the opportunity to experience and express her deepest desires. And by asking me to be the one to fulfill that craving, she was showing me just how much she trusted me. Because safe word or no, she knew I’d never take her anywhere she didn’t really want to go.

  As if reading my thoughts, she trailed her fingertips along my tensed jawline, sending a fiery burst of longing straight to my balls. “Please, Mark. You’re the only man I could ever trust to do this for me.”

  I grabbed her wrist and pressed my lips to the center of her palm. “All right. If that’s what you want.”

  “You know it is.”

  I believed her. I loved her. I would never, ever cause her actual harm. I could read her too well for that to ever happen. And I’d be heartless not to give her this one chance to fly without a safety net.

  “Hard limits?” I asked, although I already knew what her answer would be.

  She shook her head. “None.”

  “Fine.” My blood pounded in my ears as my body geared up to play my role. She’d never used her safe word before, but I planned to get her as close to wanting to than I ever had before. And the idea made me undeniably, unmercifully hot. “Get naked, slave.”

  Her eyes widened with surprise. “But you never—”

  I yanked her from the bed and smacked her ass. Hard. She trembled, blinking back tears.

  “Slave,” I repeated. The word didn’t feel as ugly on my tongue as it had in the past. In fact, saying it made my dick throb with need. “I own you, Allison Hoffman, body and soul. Mine to use and abuse. My slave.”

  She cast her eyes down toward the floor. “Yes, Master.” Her tone was meek and subservient, but I could hear the undercurrent of glee beneath it.

  This was what she’d wanted all along. What an idiot I’d been not to see it. Not to give it to her before now. Before I could never do it again.

  Don’t go there, I cautioned myself. I’d be useless to her if I turned maudlin.

  “Now, take of your clothes. And close your eyes,” I added as an afterthought. Her fear would be enhanced if she couldn’t see what I was going to do.

  While she stripped, I went to the other side of the bed and pulled out the low trunk that contained the few items I kept on hand in the unlikely event I brought a sub home. Opening it, I selected a blindfold, a ball gag, and a pair of cuffs. On the bed, I laid a flogger, a sling-style restraint system, a tube of lubricant, and several anal probes of varying sizes.

  I’d learned early on that anal sex was Allison’s Kryptonite. Although she’d never stopped finding it painful—even with lube and plenty of preparation, her ass was always incredibly tight and slightly resistant—, it was a pain that induced intense pleasure, getting her to subspace faster than anything else I could do.

  It didn’t hurt that fucking her ass was just as pleasurable for me as it was for her. Of course, fucking her anywhere was so pleasurable, it damn near took me to subspace.

  I ignored the burning ache in my loins at that thought and carried the first three items back to where she stood, now naked, eyes still closed, awaiting my next command.

  The blindfold was my first order of business. She bent her head to assist me in putting it on. Oddly enough, I’d never used a blindfold on her during the past six weeks. Somehow, that particular element of surprise had never worked itself into our sex play, but now I was glad it hadn’t. That difference alone would make this experience memorable. And a touch scarier since she’d have no idea what to expect.

  Once the blindfold was in place, I pulled her arms behind her back and cuffed them.

  “Now, slave,” I instructed, “open wide.”

  Although her eyes were covered, I could see the look of confusion cross her face, and I knew she was trying to imagine how on earth I planned to get my cock in her mouth when we were both standing up. I couldn’t suppress a malevolent chuckle at that thought as I placed the ball between her teeth. Her confusion morphed into surprise and then a hint of panic. This was new, too, and clearly heightened her sense of vulnerability, and with it, her arousal. The musky scent of her pussy was unmistakable.

  “On your knees.”

  She shook her head.

  “No?” This was new. I suppose with my new role came a new role for Allison. Fortunately, I understood what was required. “You know better than to resist, slave,” I said, carefully keeping my voice devoid of either humor or anger.

  Control was my middle name tonight. It had to be.

  Grasping the nape of her neck in my hand, the strands of her hair sliding beneath my fingers like silken thread, I forced her down to her knees and then pushed her head farther, all the way to floor. Once I’d bent her in this position, I stopped to admire the graceful lines of her submissive posture and the lovely view it provided of the crack of her ass and the folds of her pussy before strolling to the bed for the flogger.

  At least she had given me a good reason to use it.

  The first thwack of the leather strands across her back made her flinch. She didn’t seem to react at all to the second or third, but on the fourth, I heard a muffled panting. Her ass wiggled, and she pressed her thighs together. The actions were as good as words, telegraphing her desires as surely as if she’d begged me for more.

  More was what I gave her, until a fine pattern of pale pink lines traced her back and bottom. When I was finished, her respiration was shallow and erratic, and her nether lips glistened with fresh moisture.

  “Are you going to resist me again, slave?”

  “No, Master,” she managed to say around the gag.

  “That’s too bad,” I said with an exaggerated sigh. “I do so enjoy punishing you.” Because you enjoy it even more than I do. “Then again, I enjoy fucking you even more.”

  Her skin all but vibrated at those words. I tossed the flogger onto the bed and reached for the lube and the smallest of the three probes. Settling in behind her, I popped open the cap on the tube and squirted the cold, slippery gel onto the probe and then released a generous dollop into her crack.

  “‘At’s cold.”

  “It’s okay,” I said with an evil grin I knew she couldn’t see. “It’s going to get really warm, really fast.”

  I spread the lube between her cheeks and over her hole then, then before she had a chance to consider what might be next on the horizon, I slid the probe into her
ass. As always, her muscles tensed immediately against the invasion, but this time, because she wasn’t fully prepared for it, she didn’t clamp down until after the entire four inches were embedded inside her.

  She moaned, whether in pain or pleasure I couldn’t be sure, but since I knew they were pretty much interchangeable for her, I wasn’t going to split hairs.

  I ached to tear off my clothes and bury my cock in her pussy. But I didn’t. Instead, I got up and went to the kitchen for a glass of ice water. I waited so long before going back, I thought I would explode—both with anticipation and curiosity. In the past, I would have been certain that she’d be waiting for me in the exact position I’d left her. She’d always been nothing but obedient.

  Tonight, I wasn’t so certain she’d play by the rules. After all, we had no rules.

  Taking the glass with me, I returned to the bedroom.

  As I suspected, she wasn’t exactly as I’d left her, but she hadn’t moved much. At some point after I left, she’d straightened her torso. Kneeling with her weight resting on her calves, she bounced her ass on her feet, the better to intensify the sensation of the probe.

  As soon as she heard my footsteps, she stopped and tried to get back into the position I’d placed her in before, but it was too late. I’d seen enough.

  “Did I say you could move, slave?”

  She shook her head.

  “Did I say you could enjoy that probe in your ass alone?”

  “No.”

  “No, what?”

  “No, Master.

  I stood over her, the glass of ice water in my hand. “Did you come while I was gone? And don’t lie to me. I’ll know the truth.”

  “No, Master.”

  I had to admit, I loved the way the ball gag muffled her words. Something about it was incredibly sexy.

  “But you did get hot, didn’t you?”

  She nodded miserably.

  “Well, I have a remedy for that.” With those words, I bent over her and turned the full glass upside down.

  Chapter Twelve