For His Desire (Full Trilogy) (9 page)

“You can let go,” Michael said, a smile on his face.

Elena was confused for a quick moment and then realized that she was still holding on to the carpet.  When she let go, she had carpet impressions on her palm and fingers.  Michael took his hands and held them to his lips, placing soft kisses in her palms.  Her fingers were sore from clutching the carpet so hard, but she had not noticed until she finally let go.

She looked over at Michael and as always, she was overcome by his good looks and easy charm.  She felt content just being with him, enjoying him.  She smiled, feeling warm and satisfied as Michael lay with his arms around her.  The carpet beneath them was soft, cradling them as they lay together, lesson learned and needs met.

Each day with Michael was an adventure and she was looking forward to the next one.

(For His Desire Book 3)

Elena crossed and uncrossed her legs, feeling restless and trying to chase away the thoughts that haunted her brain.  As she grew closer to Michael, it became harder for her to deal with the fact that he had a past.  Elena knew that there were others before her.  Even though she and Michael had not had that discussion, Elena knew that there had to be.  Michael was just too good at eliciting responses from her, at making her feel things she had never felt before.

Though she tried not to focus on that aspect of Michael’s life, sometimes the thoughts crept into her mind.  She couldn’t help but feel inexperienced and in her mind any girl that Michael had been with before was somehow superior to her.  She hated this insecurity and she twirled strands of her red hair around her fingers trying to distract herself.

Elena tried to remind herself that the past was the past, but that didn’t stop her curiosity.  She couldn’t help but wonder what other girls had passed through his house, had shared his bed.  She couldn’t bring herself to actually ask Michael, though.  Instead, she tried to push the thoughts out of her mind completely – though she was not at all successful.   

Elena looked around Michael’s office.  It was enormous and immaculate, just as the other rooms in his house.  Michel had left her alone in his office while he was dealing with an urgent matter with his staff.  She fidgeted in her chair, just not able to sit still.  She had too much on her mind and she stood up, deciding to look through Michael’s files. 

Elena just wanted to know him better.  He was intensely private and she thought perhaps if she could just learn one thing from his office it would be worth all of her searching.  She left the door ajar so she could hear Michael’s footsteps when he returned.

All she knew of Michael’s work was that it involved the military; he never gave specifics about the job and he did not encourage questions in that area.  She didn’t want to invade his privacy but she still began looking through Michael’s desk.  She was frustrated to discover that most of his desk drawers were tightly locked. 

Elena listened carefully for Michael’s footsteps as she approached his large credenza.  Michael had obviously been inside of it recently as it was unlocked.  Elena dug through the files, not even sure what she sought, but knowing she wanted to find something about Michael.

She flipped through the files, not taking the time to read anything in particular.  There were so many and Elena was not certain how they were organized, though they were neatly arranged. 

In the back of the credenza in a plain, unlabeled file, Elena found pictures.  The file was crammed full of photos and seeing the file’s contents made Elena’s heart stop.

Inside were photos and photos of submissive women.  Some of the women were wrapped in rope and blindfolded and gagged.  Others were restrained with cuffs and chains.  It was all beyond anything she and Michael had done and she was upset to see some of the things Michael was capable of doing.  They were in a variety of positions, a variety of different bondages, but all quite helpless. 

Her heart sank as she looked at them, at all of the restrictive bondage and the marks.  Elena saw welts and red marks, scratches and bruises on otherwise unblemished flesh.  Had Michael been angry when he did this?  Was it play?  She was shocked at what she saw, but beneath that was a huge undercurrent of jealousy.

“What the hell are you doing?” Michael demanded and Elena turned, startled.  The file fell from her hands and the photos scattered onto the floor.  There was no way for her to hide what she had been doing.

“Michael, I . . .” Elena began but she looked down at the pictures, too ashamed to say anything further.  She had found pieces of Michael’s past and now she was regretting that she had looked.  The gorgeous man standing before her was also the man who had caused the pain to the girls in the pictures.  Part of her thought she should flee the room, but even as the thought came into her mind, she dismissed it.  She had wanted to know and now she did.

“Michael, there are so many pictures.  All these girls . . .” she whispered and Michael cut her off.

“Are not your concern.  This is my past, Elena.  If you wanted to know something, you should have just asked.”  She heard the reprimand in his tone and she knew he was right.  She should have just talked to him, but it had been so hard for her to ever bring up the subject.

“I’m sorry,” Elena said, kneeling down to pick up the pictures.  She felt that she had completely violated his privacy and in the process learned something that made her uncomfortable.  Why did Michael have these pictures?  She felt that she had stumbled upon something incredibly intimate.

“If I can’t trust you, Elena, this will not work.”  Michael’s voice was still calm and even, but Elena knew he was angry.  Yet he remained in control.  Michael was always so in control, so in control of his job, his life, his staff – and his new submissive.

She felt a stab of sudden, irrational jealousy of these women she didn’t even know. 

She knew that Michael had been in control of these other women, other submissives from his past and she did not know if she could do the things she saw in the pictures.   

But she was also aware that seeing the women in bondage made her excited and aroused.  It confused her that she could feel jealous and aroused and afraid all at once and she was afraid that Michael would be able to read all of those emotions on her face.  She kept her head down as she put the pictures back into the folder.

“You can trust me, Michael,” Elena said, anxious to reassure him.  The experiences she had had with Michael had all been incredible and she wasn’t willing to give that up.  She knew she had made a mistake but she would find a way to make it up to him. 

“Elena, you have no idea what you’ve done.  You cannot spy on me, especially here in my office.  I know it sounds dramatic, but in these cabinets are classified files and you could be in danger if you found them.  Even if the wrong person discovered that you were looking around in my office, it could be bad for you.  I need to keep you safe.”

Elena apologized again, feeling terrible for having spied on him.  Elena felt the strong need, though, to turn the subject back around to the girls.  She wanted to understand more about this side of Michael.  “These girls, all tied up . . .,” she said, tears stinging her eyes.  “This is all way beyond anything we’ve done together.”  Elena felt inadequate in her inexperience.

“They’re in the past, Elena,” Michael said.  “If I had tried to whip you or lock you into a hood, how would you have reacted?”

Elena’s mouth was dry, her throat tightening.  “How could you do that though?  How could they stand that?”  Her heart was racing and she felt afraid not only of what she saw in the photos, but also what she felt inside thinking of herself in those positions.

“All consensual,” Michael assured her.  “Some girls need the pain and bondage as much as I need to give it.  I would never push you into doing something that I don’t think you could handle.  That doesn’t mean I don’t want to have experiences with you, Elena, but when you submit to me, trust is essential.”

Elena’s heart began racing at the thought of being one of those girls in the pictures.  Tied up and completely helpless.  This was the picture of submission to Michael.  It made her afraid, yet she felt the growing wetness spreading between her legs.  It scared her and yet she was drawn to it.  It made sense to her in a way that she could not articulate.  Even though the subject still scared her, she had to admit that there was a beauty in all of the pictures.

“Elena, you need to be punished for this,” Michael said.  “I need you to know how serious this is and I need to know you’ll never do it again.”

Elena felt nervous flutters in her stomach.  Somehow she knew that Michael wasn’t talking about a simple spanking, what he had in mind was probably something that was more in alignment with what she saw in the pictures.

“What does that mean?” Elena asked.  Again she was treading in unfamiliar territory and if she were to go ahead with Michael, she would need to trust him, trust that he knew what he was doing.

“It means I’m going to punish you and you agree to submit to the punishment.  I believe it is the only way to get past this for both of us.”  He put his hand under her chin, tilting her face up toward his.  “I know it is scary, Elena.  It is supposed to be.”

It was hard for Elena to wrap her mind around the thought of being punished, but it was worse for her to think that she had disappointed Michael.  She was still mortified at the thought of Michael catching her with the photos.  She knew that trust had to be mutual; if she was asking him to trust her, she had to trust him as well. 

“I’m sorry,” she said again, swallowing hard.  She knew that it had begun and that she would submit to Michael.  She had to know how that felt and had to know how they could get past this issue.

“You don’t know what sorry is,” Michael said.  “But you will.”

Elena felt her face flame red and she felt her throat get drier.  He was still completely in control of himself and though she felt nervous, she nodded her head.  She knew she could not leave, couldn’t walk away from Michael.  She was drawn to him and this need to know him, to know about this side of him.

And to know about this side of herself.

“Get undressed,” Michael said.  His tone was low and controlled, but beneath that Elena knew he was angry at her for the first time since they met.  She struggled with the need to make things right. 

Fingers trembling, Elena unbuttoned her shirt and skirt, sliding them off and tossing them into a pile.  She stood naked on front of Michael and his desk and she chose to focus her attention on the desk.  Michael’s desk was enormous and sparsely furnished.  Michael’s laptop and phone were on one end of the huge mahogany desk and there were neat piles of files next to the laptop.  Michael had cleared the other end of the desk so that half the desk was completely cleared. 

When she was naked, Michael looked at her and she shivered.  Elena was used to being naked in front of Michael, but this felt different.  The office was warm, but the look on Michael’s face was anything but.

“Lean over the desk,” Michael ordered and Elena complied.  The surface of the wood was cool against her bare breasts.  Elena felt Michael wrap ropes around her ankles, tightly binding her legs far apart to the desk legs.  Already she could feel an ache in her thighs from her legs being pushed so far apart. 

He stretched her out onto the desk, tying her hands together and then used long lengths of rope to secure the ropes at her bound wrists to the underside of the desk.  The position was uncomfortable, but not unbearable and she was amazed at how quickly Michael was able to secure her. Even before she tried them, she knew that the knots would hold.  Her ass was thrust up into the air and there was no slack at all in the rope.  Elena froze, terrified as she braced herself for whatever would follow.

Elena felt a hard smack on her ass and she cried out in pain.  There was no warm up and no teasing:  just the hard whack of the wooden paddle against her naked ass. 

Again and again Michael struck her.  There was nothing playful in this paddling; Elena could feel that he was trying to teach her a lesson and she was determined to be strong and take it.

The rain of blows upon her bare flesh was intense and brutal and she cried, tears flowing down her cheeks.  “It hurts,” she cried, not able to stop herself.  She couldn’t hold in her feelings and though she cried, Michael continued with the paddle.  She lost track of the number of times the paddle came down.  It was not slow and sensual; it was quick and punishing and Elena tried to squirm within the tight ropes but she could not move.  She was stuck in place, her ass an effective target for Michael’s paddle.