Caressa's Knees (24 page)

“If you would pay less attention to trying to rub one out on that fence and more attention to me, I wouldn’t have to worry so much about you falling.”

“If you
uncuffed
my hands we could both worry less,” she muttered.
And then “
Owwww
…” as he whipped her again.
Ow
.
Damn, switches were vicious. She sucked in a deep breath, wanting to pull away from his grasp on her arm, but knowing she’d fall if she did so. “Please. That hurts, Sir.”

“It does, doesn’t it? You’re going to have a sore bottom for the trip back to Dallas. You’ll probably squirm all the way over the Atlantic, just the way you’re squirming now.”

Caressa sobbed softly and shifted on the rail, wanting to hump it into oblivion at the same time she wanted to run away screaming. “I’ll definitely never, ever call you an
asswipe
again.”

“Damn right.” He laid another stripe across her bottom with the switch, right over the toy in her ass.

“Oh, God.
Please!
Ow
, Kyle! Sir! That fucking hurts.”

“I miss the gag.”

Caressa laughed and then yelped in protest as he hit her again. Her ass felt like it was on fire. “Please, Sir!” His only answer was to hold her arm harder and really start whipping her in earnest.

She danced on the rail, horny but tortured, as her bottom was subjected to blow after blow. She tried to process the stinging stripes at the same time her clit rubbed against the towel and her pussy ached to be filled. No matter how violently she struggled, he held her, and when he finally stopped she was pressed against his side, her tears flowing into the soft cotton of his tee shirt.

She felt wrung out from within, and her ass seemed to throb in concert with her racing, thudding heart. He took her face in rough hands and thrust his tongue in her mouth. She kissed him back, still half-sobbing, sucking on his lips and rubbing her face against his. He pulled back and licked up one cheek, then the other, gentling her, soothing her.

“
Shhh
…” he whispered, reaching back to squeeze her sensitive cheeks. She cried out again and humped against the rail, shameless with need now. With a muttered expletive, he lifted her off the fence and rearranged her, bending her over the same towel, so she could feel her own wet juices against her pelvis. He ripped open his shorts and thrust into her pussy with them still bunched around his hips.

She groaned at his sudden, rough invasion. His thick cock battered against the anal plug from within and Caressa felt unbearably full and helpless. Arousal surged all over her body, from her tingling clit to her sensitive breasts and thighs, down to her toes. Her ass ached as her pussy was ruthlessly taken. She loved being used by him this way.
Being conquered.

Her hands were still bound, her ass cheeks were still sore, and his pounding strokes subdued her into his mindless vessel.
Hurt me. Take me. Do whatever you want to me. I'm yours.
Still, his hands grasped her hips, protecting her from being battered against the wood, and one slipped down to slide over her slick clit until she thought she would die. A shimmering shivery feeling grew and expanded between her thighs, up to her full asshole. The pain and pleasure melded into one excruciating song, and then she heard him urging her on. “Come for me. Come for me, Caressa.”

The insistence in his words and his magical touch tipped her over the edge and she reached a dazzling, clenching climax that left her limp and sagging against the rail. He came at the same time, lifting her feet from the ground as he surged into her. With some small functioning part of her brain, she worried for a moment that the rail might break right down the center. But no, the fence was as reliable and strong as him. Kyle was nuzzling against the side of her neck now, dropping kisses down to her shoulder and over her back. He gently unfastened the leather cuffs and helped her up, holding her tight until she regained her balance. She pressed against him, wanting to sob as he ran whispering fingertip caresses over her ass.

They collapsed on the blanket and she clung to him, slowly coming down from whatever high he’d led her to. His fingers trailed up and down her back, and they drowsed for a long time. She was still plugged, but she didn’t mind it. It was like some continuing submission to him, some intimate mark of ownership she was happy to bear.

Finally he rose to get the towel and help her clean up and dress, and still he didn’t let her remove it. “I want you to walk all the way back plugged like that, with your ass aching and sore. Do you know why?”

“Because you like to torment me?”

“Guess again,” he chuckled, bending to pick up the switch and twirl it between his fingers. “And guess well.”

“Because you love me?” she said, eyeing the whippy implement.

“Damn right.”

* * * * *

Caressa didn’t want to nap, but she was exhausted, so Kyle made her. He said he had a little work to get done anyway, plans in Europe to check on,
emails
to write. He had a few things left to set up for her birthday party, and some friends who needed tickets to one of the Paris performances.

And then there were his plans for tonight, for this “surprising” Burger’s Pond. So she slept, or tried to, shifting on her sore ass cheeks and trying not to get turned on all over again in her small country room with the frilly curtains.

Kyle told her that Burger’s Pond wasn’t really any good until dusk, so Caressa had plenty of time to spend with his family, including Great-Grandma Winchell, who seemed to have taken a liking to her. After a long, jovial dinner with his family during which he obviously enjoyed watching her squirming and shifting, Kyle finally managed to steal her away.

They made the hike to Burger’s Pond in twenty minutes or so while Kyle told her funny stories about his childhood. She still hadn’t quite pinned down how many brothers and sisters he actually had. It was all made more complicated by the fact that the people of Spur often called each other “brother” and “sister” even when they weren’t related. She finally gave up stressing about it when they arrived at an open field and Kyle pulled her through the knee-high grasses.

“Come on, it’s almost time,” he said.
“This way.”

Time for what?
She hesitated but she followed. God, she trusted him. She hoped he was worthy of that trust, because she was steadily losing the ability to deny him anything at all. He led her down a low rise to a cluster of trees, and then they passed through a protected clearing to a still country pond. “Look,” he said.

He didn’t have to say “look”. Caressa stared into the small grotto-like meadow, at dancing flickering lights, thousands of them. For a moment she thought of fairies and make-believe.
Miracles.
A universe of brilliant pinpoints flitting and blinking among the trees and reflected in the surface of the water.

“
Wh
—
What
is doing that?”

“Lightning bugs.
Fireflies.”

Of course.
She immediately felt unbalanced by such a pedestrian explanation. Oh, fireflies. But this was fireflies
extraordinaire
. She still couldn’t really put into words the way the beautiful display affected her.

He led her deeper into the woods beside the pond, over to a boulder he said he used to sit on as a child. He pulled her into his lap and they looked out at the display. The darker it got, the more fireflies appeared, until the whole world seemed lit up with their brilliant, fleeting light.

“It’s amazing. How many do you think there are?”

“A hundred thousand, maybe?
I don’t know. They peak in August, but they’re like this all spring and summer. They cluster here. No one knows why.”

“I wish I could take a picture. I wish I had a camera so I could save this.”

“I’ve tried taking pictures before, but you can’t really capture it. The lights aren’t bright enough or something.” A bug blinked close to her head and he caught it in his hand, and held it in front of her eyes.
A moment later the bug lit up, nature’s sorcery in the cage of his elegant fingers.
“Do you want to hold it?”

“Yes.” Her voice felt tight, like the wonder of this whole secluded pond was lodged in her throat. He gently transferred the small black bug into her palm and she closed her fingers around it.

“Careful,” he said. “Hold it loosely. Don’t crush it.”

She peeked through the small gaps she’d left in her fingers, holding her hand close to her eyes. “It got away.”

“Wait,” he said, and then the world lit up in her fingers. She opened her hand without meaning to and the insect flew off in a blur of tiny wings.

“Oh.”

“Do you want me to catch you another one?”

“No.” She hated that she was about to cry. She hated that he would know it.

“Caressa?
What’s wrong?”

She buried her face in her hands, still seeing the blinking lights behind her closed lids.
“Nothing.”

He pulled her closer, which only made her cry harder. “Tell me what’s wrong.
This afternoon?”

“No. I’m just… This is really…”

She snuck a look at him, dashing away unwanted tears. “This is really cool, Kyle,” she said, forcing a smile.

It was an excruciating moment for her. She didn’t mean to be crying. She didn’t want Kyle to freak out about it. She fluttered a hand in front of her eyes, not wanting the worried concern in his gaze. “Just ignore me. Please. This is just…”

“Hey, let’s go swimming,” he suggested. “It’s fun to swim in the dark with the fireflies everywhere.”

“Swimming?”
She laughed, glad for something else to talk about. “How are we going to swim? I don’t have a suit.”

“You don’t use suits in Spur, honey,” he said with a smile.

“But it’s dark. How can you see what’s in the water?”

“You don’t need to see in the water. It’s just a small pond, rainwater. No sharks in there. Minnows maybe, but they don’t bite too hard.”

He was pulling her up now, tugging her toward the shore. She dug in her heels. “I don’t want to, Kyle. How deep is it?”

He stopped, looking at her with his hands on his hips. “You can’t swim, can you?” It was that look again, that reproachful disbelieving look that made her want to scream. “You can’t swim, right? No time for swimming between cello practice and getting ready for more cello practice.”

“Just don’t, Kyle. I don’t want to swim anyway—”

“How much of your life are you seriously going to sacrifice in the name of this music of yours?”

He said music like an epithet, like a swear word. She glared back at him.
“Sacrifice?
Swimming in a dirty pond in the middle of nowhere?
Some fucking sacrifice.”

“Why do you do it, Caressa? Just explain it to me. Why does it come before everything else?”

“It doesn’t!”

“It does! There’s a whole big world out there. This earth is spinning and time is going. You’re turning twenty-one next week and your life has been
this big
.” He held his hand in front of her face, his fingers spread a scant inch apart. “There’s so much more to life, don’t you get that? Look!” he yelled, waving his arm around.
“One hundred thousand fireflies, Caressa!
A million! Do you even know what you’re missing?”

“Yes,” she shrieked. “Yes, I know! What do you want me to do? I have a gift. I’m not going to throw it away because you think I should be…whatever.
Going fucking shopping.
Catching fireflies.
Eating god-damned biscuits with your great-grandma.
All of this was a fucking set up, wasn’t it?”

She started to stalk across the field, the grass whipping at her knees. She turned back, pushing at him when he followed her. “You wanted to bring me out here just to shove this in my face. Everything I’m missing. Well, you’re an asshole.” It was a punishment word. She didn’t care. “You’re a
jerk,
you’re a stupid country hick who doesn’t understand anything about music. You say you love me but you’re not even trying to understand—”

He took her arms and pinned them at her sides. “And you’re a stupid city girl who doesn’t even understand why you’re still playing. Tell me why, Caressa. That’s all I’m asking.” He nuzzled against the tears on her cheek, his chest rising and falling in deep breaths against hers as he held her close. “Just tell me so I can understand.”

She took a deep, shuddering breath. “I just don’t feel like I can stop. Not yet. Can’t you let me figure this out for myself? Can’t you give me more time?”

He sighed, looking grieved. He ran a thumb down her damp cheek. “But life is so short, Caressa. Look at Jacqueline du
Pré
.”

“I’m not her. I’m Caressa Gallo. You have to let me write my own story. In this, you do.”

He stepped away from her, in a wrenching movement that she felt as a physical pain. “I didn’t bring you here as some ploy, Caressa. To make some point. I just thought you would enjoy it.”

She took her own deep breath and reached for his hand. “I’m sorry I said those things. I didn’t mean them. I flipped out.”