Going Down (15 page)

Because that was what the man under her wanted.

Hot and shaking, she arched her back, her gaze now fixed on the wall instead of the man she intended to skewer herself on. With every inch of descent, a new shiver attacked her body.

Reeve's silence was as dense as her own, his hold on her unrelenting. When she guessed she was within three or four inches of her goal, he steadied his cock with one hand and guided the last of her descent. At the moment of contact a new and fleeting thought distracted her. There'd been nothing forceful about his role. In contrast to the way he'd bound her, he'd let her take the lead and control the tempo of their mating.

Ah yes, mating. Fucking. His cock relentlessly penetrating and filling her.

Unlike her earlier descent, there was nothing controlled or graceful about the way her buttocks settled on his groin and her inner thighs scraped his hip bones. He'd bent his knees and splayed his hips, and as a result, she was fully impaled on him. Taking that knowledge with her, she started rocking forward and back. Feeling him move within her took her even deeper into the world they'd created. They weren't separate human beings. Maybe, in ways that defied explanation, they'd never be again.

This wasn't role playing or a game devised by two people who'd grown to trust each other. Insane or not, she'd willingly turned her cunt over to her captor at the same moment that she'd captured his cock.

When he lifted his head and stared at her, she ended her perusal of the wall and answered his gaze. Those were a cougar's eyes, a wolf's.

Time spun around her and took her back to a forgotten childhood memory. Her parents had taken Hayley and her to a wildlife preserve dedicated to the care and rehabilitation of predators. While her sister had been fascinated by the lions and tigers, she'd stood frozen before an enclosure holding a wolf with its broken hind leg in a cast. Although she'd been assured that the wolf would recover, the look in its eyes spoke of a profound loneliness.

Reeve was lonely, a loner who'd let down his barriers enough to allow her to venture where maybe no one ever had.

Shaken by what she'd just learned, she redoubled her efforts. Back and forth, back and forth, her pussy muscles clamping down on him, her thighs straining and relaxing only to do so over and over again. Her labored and loud breathing blended with his, and when he began lightly slapping her jiggling breasts, she howled her delight.

“You like this?” he demanded, raking his nails over her taut thighs.

“Yes, yes!”

Reaching behind her, he gripped her buttocks. “And this!”

“Yes!”

A slap, nails on her belly, fingers clamping around her hips and forcing her against him as he powered himself up and into her. “Fight me, slave! Show me how much you hate this.”

“I can't. I can't!”

“What's this?” Capturing her nipples, he forced her down so her breasts now rested on his chest. Looping his arms around her, he held her in place. “You like not being able to move?”

“No.” Although it would do no good, she tried to fight free. And as she suspected it would, struggling brought her within a breath of climaxing. “I can't—let me—”

“What's this?” Squeezing, he again drove his cock deep. “The slave is trying to order me?”

“No. No. I'm sorry, Master.”

“As you should be.” Leaning to the side while still holding her, he ran his teeth over her shoulder. “Take your punishment. Take it!”

“Yes, yes!”

Sweat from both their bodies threatened to seal them together; she loved the hard scent. In truth she loved everything about her body pressed against his. Although she managed a quivering action that allowed her pussy to sing and cry, it needed more—harder—if she was going to find the release she so badly needed.

“What's this, slave? You aren't strong enough to satisfy your master?”

“I'm sorry. So sorry. Please, let me try—”

“Try? It's time for results.” That said, he shoved her upright. “Get off!”

Although she could barely comprehend what he'd just ordered her to do, the creature she'd become hurried to obey. As soon as the union between them was broken, he sat up, all but knocking her off the bed. Fortunately, he caught her, holding her in place while he planted his feet on the floor and stood. He didn't have to explain what he had in mind as he guided her to kneel at the edge of the bed with her back to him and her legs spread.

His hand through her ropes in back now, he pulled her upright and then forced her to lean forward until her cheek rested on the bed. “What's it going to be, slave? This or the night alone?”

“Master! You know what I want.”

“I want to hear it.”

“I need you to take me like this, from the rear.”

“You won't fight?”

“No. Never.”
Never?

“Good.” The word rolled slowly out of him as if he didn't want to say it. “As for why I'm doing it this way, I'm the master, not you. I don't do on the bottom.”

She could have pointed out that having her pummel him while all he had to do was lie there and enjoy hardly made him subservient, but if he wanted to plow into her this way, it was fine with her. More than fine.

Leaving her with her head down, he spread her ass cheeks. “What a sight,” he said as he drew her cunt lips apart. “So swollen. Hungry.”

“Yes, Master.”

“You're so dark in there, the ultimate mystery.” He buried his thumb in her pussy. By turn he pushed even deeper and swept his finger about as if judging its contours. Mentally leaving her body, she stood beside him. Because of the way his hand was positioned, she could barely glimpse her external sex. Each time his thumb pressed against her inner core, she moaned and tried to lift her head. Her legs trembled, the smell of her arousal permeated her nostrils.

“You're so easy to control, slave. Your responsiveness is your greatest weakness; you can't deny that, can you?”

Despite the battle raging inside her, her cunt muscles closed down around him. “No, Master, I can't. Master, please, I need—”

“I know what you need”—he slapped her right buttock with his open palm—“better than you do. Don't you ever tell me what to do, do you understand?”

“Yes, yes.”

“I figured that was what you'd say. And if I had no interest in fucking you, I'd spend hours forcing you to be patient. Your lessons will come, never doubt that. But the one thing you have to do now is please me. You're going to do that, aren't you?”

“Yes.”

“And why is that?”

“Be—because it's what you commanded.”

“Not good enough,” he muttered, massaging her ass with his free hand. “Go into yourself for the truth. Why are you pleasing me?”

“Because it's what I want.”

He didn't speak for just long enough that she sensed her answer meant a great deal to him. “We want the same thing.”

“Do we?” she ventured. “Your thumb—surely you can't be content with that in me when it could be your cock.”

“Content, no.” On the tail of a low sigh, he pulled out. The sudden loss of all that warmth shook her, and although he hadn't given her permission, she sat up so she could look back at him. Watching her pensively, he wiped his thumb on her buttocks, then took hold of his cock, the message unmistakable. She responded by shoving her ass at him.

“An incredible sight, all that soft, white flesh waiting for me. You are patient aren't you, slave.”

“If you wish me to be.”

“Ah, a slave's proper answer, but is it what you want?”

“No, Master.” She inched as close to the edge of the bed as she dared. “Master, I offer my cunt as my gift to you. Please take it, please.”

Planting his hand on the small of her back, he forced her down again. Her vision started to blur so she closed her eyes and waited. Scant seconds later, he spread her labial lips and touched his cock to her opening. He grunted, perhaps in response to her unbidden gasp. When he grasped her around her hips and anchored her in place, she silently thanked him. The whisper-soft touch became an inch-deep penetration. And although she'd started trembling again, she willed herself to be patient.

He slipped in so smoothly that for a moment she wasn't sure. Then, although she readied herself for a fierce assault, he simply remained in place. Taken aback by his self-control, she stopped concentrating on her own battle. His hard and hot arousal buried in her said something about closeness, but she knew better than to read too much into the message.

There it was, that primal rolling strength charging throughout him. Caught off guard by the timing, she gasped. As the sound broke free, she fed off it. Reeve was power and possession. Something she'd been searching for her entire life.

More an extension of him than a separate human being, she offered her sex to him. He held her in place via the hand around her middle while the other clenched the ropes at her back and turned her into his mount, his animal. Head thrashing, she whined her desperate need. He kept plowing into her as if punishing her for something, and yet she fed off that power. Her head nearly bursting and her pussy in flames, she lost touch with reality. In her mind she became the slave he'd called her, not just a slave but willing feminine flesh under assault.

He kept coming at her, driving into her as if his life depended on fucking her, grunting and growling. Feeding off his energy, she screamed. Although her throat felt raw, she continued screaming. Otherwise everything that had backed up inside her might drive her insane. Despite her useless arms, she found a deep-seated strength. There was power in captivity, courage and joy.

One moment he'd pulled her up off the bed, the next, he'd flattened her onto it. It didn't matter. Only him on his way to explosion did. Her release was right there, less than a heartbeat away and yet just out of reach. The why didn't matter, and despite her screams, she loved the anticipation, the sweet pain of frustration.

Something shifted. It had no definition or form, no beginning. All she knew was that
it
had slammed into her. Feeling as if she'd been caught by a sneaker ocean wave, she let go. The wave pushed her up, then slammed her down, threw her skyward again and kept her there. Her climax became an endless downhill ski run with the wind tearing at her.

“Master, Master, thank you!”

“I
t's not working.”

“What the hell do you mean?”

“It's me. I'm not as much of a bastard as I thought I was.”

“So what are you saying?”

As little as possible.
Restless, Reeve stepped outside, his cell phone at his ear. The moment he did, the afternoon's heat slammed into him. How the hell anyone survived living in the desert in the summer was beyond him. Oh yeah, there was AC but who wanted to spend months locked inside?

“I've been thinking about the trade-off,” he told Agent J. Much as Reeve wanted to go back inside, he also didn't want to take a chance on Saree hearing. Just because he'd left her in the training room didn't mean she might not somehow pick up on what he was saying. Besides, thinking was marginally easier when he wasn't near her. “All our focus on shutting down The Slavers, we didn't adequately address the issue of what would happen to the woman we needed to get us in the door.”

“You're doing it.”

“Doing what?”

“Giving me that
we
shit. I've never met the subject. What is it? She's putting up more of a fight than we anticipated? Maybe having to put your hands all over her is asking too much of your cock? Damn it, Reeve. You said you could handle it.”

Because I believed I could.
“I was wrong,” he admitted, his eyes on what he took to be a solitary buzzard high above. From where he was standing, it didn't look as if there was a single other living creature for miles. Maybe the buzzard was waiting for him to keel over from the heat.

“What do you mean, wrong? Damn it, Reeve, don't make me pull this out of you. Play that damn silent macho role with someone else. I need honest.”

No arguing there, which whether he wanted to admit it or not was why he'd called J. One of the most complex operations The Clan had ever been involved in called for complete cooperation between the various players.

“She's getting to me.” He forced the words. “Never saw it coming.”

“Shit. Okay, back up here. You've been trying the techniques we agreed to, taking her through the same steps we know are being used on the women The Slavers have gotten their hands on, right?”

“Up to a point.”

“What point?”

“I stopped at hurting her. I'm not going to put whip marks on her, I'm not.” An image of Saree getting off on the whip play they'd indulged in floated through him.

“Reeve. Damn it, do you think I like this any better than you do? You know how many strategy meetings we had discussing this. But no matter how many ways we twisted things, it came down to believability. The Slavers are going to see right through an act. Fear and defeat can't be faked.”

He knew that in spades because he'd been in on all of those strategy meetings. Back then, feeling the eyes of other agents on him and believing he was dead inside, he'd agreed that one woman would have to be at least temporarily sacrificed if others were going to be saved. There'd be counseling for her afterward of course, they'd all agreed. As for whether the counseling would help…
Find another subject,
he wanted to throw at J. “There has to be another way. The video feed made it into their site; we know that. What's so damn hard about locating the physical operation?”

“Because they're that good,” J said, as Reeve knew he would. “Just because they roam the net for recruits doesn't mean they're going to open a real door. Damn, it's too late to change plans. Get that through your head and do your job. Go to confession or whatever you have to once it's over.”

“What about you? No trouble facing yourself in the mirror knowing you had a hand in ruining Saree?”

J's silence lasted just long enough for the point to be made; this devil's decision hadn't been any easier on him. “She's not going to be in any worse shape than those we hope to save. Never forget, they can be salvaged, if we get there in time.”

“Maybe.”

“All right,” J allowed. “Maybe. That's up to the shrinks.”

“Yeah, it is. The thing is, we didn't have a hand in what's being done to those other women. We're the solution, not the problem—except with Saree.”

For the second time, J didn't hurry his reply. Leaning against the door and sweating, Reeve wondered what Saree was doing. He'd untied her within moments of their explosive fucking and then watched as she half stumbled, half walked into the bathroom. As intriguing as the idea of joining her in the shower was, he'd been unable to summon up the energy to get off the bed.

When she finished, she'd returned to him. She'd made sure he saw her looking at the locked door before climbing onto the bed next to him. Only then had he given into the need for a drink of water and a pee. She was more asleep than awake by the time he'd finished. Knowing he wasn't in any better shape, he'd chained her foot to the bed before stretching out on the bed next to her. She hadn't touched him but then neither had she turned her back on him.

“Look, I didn't want to have to tell you this yet,” J said. “You have enough of a job getting her prepared.”

“Tell me what?”

“A certain video has shown up on the net.”

“What are you talking about?”

Because he'd never professed to be a computer or Internet expert, Reeve missed some of the details of how a techno-geek member of The Clan had found the video that had recently been released to several underground sex sites. So far the geek hadn't had any luck tracking down the video's source, but one thing J was adamant about, the contents had shaken everyone who'd seen it.

“I've already sent it to your computer,” he said. “Watch and then tell me you're turning your back on your part of our operation.”

“Don't do this to me.”

“I don't have a choice.”

 

Reeve turned on his computer and went on the Internet but not before pouring himself a drink. He'd seen and participated in some things he knew would follow him to his grave, but that didn't mean he'd just sit back and calmly wait for the video to begin.

The quality was better than he expected, proof that expensive equipment had been used by someone who knew what they were doing. There was no slow pan across the opulent room furnished with leather recliners and heavy drapes. Instead, the first thing Reeve saw was four men with their faces in shadow, each with a naked woman kneeling at his feet. The men were all in recliners, drinks and cigars at hand. Because of the way the chairs had been grouped, each man could see what the others were doing. When the camera closed in on the women, he saw that they all had collars on their necks and S brands on their left hips. Unlike the men, no attempt had been made to hide their identities. Chains led from the collars to their
owners'
hands. The fact that they weren't restrained in any other way told Reeve they were intimidated—that and their trembling bodies and fear-filled eyes.

They were beautiful, at least they'd been back when they'd cared for their hair, worn makeup, and pampered their bodies. Every girl bore signs of having been whipped, ranging from red-laced backs to legs, even breasts. Looking too much like well-trained dogs, they sat on their haunches with their hands resting on their thighs as they looked up at their masters. Although the men seldom paid them any attention, the girls' gazes remained locked on those they believed would punish them when and if it occurred to them to do so.

As for why the men were otherwise occupied—

Pushing
PAUSE
, Reeve took a deep and hopefully calming breath. A fifth woman who'd been in the process of crawling on hands and knees from one man to the other was frozen in midcrawl. A few strands of dank hair had fallen over her face, but he could still make out her features.

The dead woman whose body had shown up a few days before he'd captured Saree.

Hating everything with a cock, himself included, he forced himself to hit
PLAY
. The woman wore both handcuffs and ankle restraints designed for visual appeal as much as practicality. The metal around her slender wrists and ankles was at least twice as wide as necessary and included large, serious-looking locks. As for the chains binding her limbs together, unless he didn't know what he was looking at, they were gold. Nice touch, unless you were on the receiving end.

Like the docile pet-women, she'd been fitted with a collar to which a good five feet of chain had been fixed. He'd already seen one man hand the chain to the man on his left.

The final touch to her captivity, or maybe it had been the first, consisted of an O-ring gag. The damnable thing wasn't going anywhere as witnessed by the elaborate leather harnessing around her head. The ring itself had been shoved deep into her mouth, keeping it open. Thanks to the O's generous size, the average man would have no trouble fitting his cock inside it. That done, all he'd have to do was sit back and relax while she struggled to suck him. She'd already enticed one man to climax and was making her way to the second so she could repeat her earlier success.

She'd been crying as witnessed by the dried tear tracks on her cheeks, and her eyes had a defeated look he'd never be able to forget. She too had been whipped, on her back and buttocks and maybe elsewhere.

But she was alive. Back then, damn it, she'd been alive!

 

The moment Reeve walked in the room, Saree knew something had changed in him. The complex man she'd had sex with had disappeared. In his place was the near robot she'd briefly believed him to be earlier. No, she amended as he stared at her, he wasn't a robot after all. And complexity was there all right, only it was different from what he'd revealed before.

Despite what had taken place between them, they weren't equals because of her restraint and lack of clothes. Yet that wasn't what kept her silent. Making no attempt to hide her scrutiny, she stared as he locked the door behind him, folded his arms across his chest, and stared down at her.

“What happened earlier isn't going to be repeated.” His voice held no warmth. “My task is to train you. That's what I intend to do.”

Although she tried to prepare herself for whatever he had in mind, he only continued to stare at her. Both unnerved and turned on by everything he represented, she willed herself not to move. After what seemed like a vast stretch of time, he stalked over to the dresser and selected several items. She spotted more of the short leather straps that he'd fastened to her wrist and ankle cuffs earlier.

Why are you doing this? There was something between us, I know it.

He was on her before she knew what he'd intended, easily knocking her back before forcing her onto her back. Instinct took over, and she fought his hold on her arms, but of course he won. Deceptively quiet clicking sounds told her what her muscles already knew; he'd cuffed her hands in front.

When he lifted his weight off her, she turned onto her side in preparation for sitting up. He reached for her free leg.

“No!” she yelled, and aimed her bare foot at his crotch. The blow missed its mark but connected with his inner thigh. Taking a deep breath, he clamped a hand around her calf. Pain marched up her leg. By the time she realized he'd driven his thumb into her calf, he'd fastened leather to the anklet. Using the leather as his anchor, he forced her leg close to the one already fastened to the bed. She sobbed when she heard yet another click, didn't have to see her legs to understand that he'd hobbled her.

“You don't have to do this,” she snapped. “Don't you understand, I wanted what happened between us.”

“I don't.”

Liar. You can't mean
—Stifling the words that would make her sound even more vulnerable than she was, she forced her thoughts off herself and onto him. Shorts again masked what made him a man, but he couldn't completely hide the look in his eyes.
Something
had happened while they'd been apart, and all she could do was wait for him to reveal whatever it was. In the meantime—in the meantime, what did he intend to do with her?

“You suck cock,” he said. “I've seen you do it.”

Did he expect her to respond? Suddenly something she'd long enjoyed and saw as yet another element of job security seemed shameful.

“That's what you're going to do to me, now, the way I tell you to.”

Since he'd seen her at work, he surely knew she'd been told that or versions of that particular line any number of times, and that although she'd usually pretended to put up resistance, in truth she'd loved the act.

Leaning over, he freed her from the bed but left the hobbles in place. “Follow me,” he ordered. That said, he headed toward the door. After a numb moment, she slid off the bed. Forced to shuffle, she was torn between anger at him for putting her through this and wondering if she deserved her treatment.

Was that it? He might have wanted sex as much as she had, but in the aftermath, he'd come face to face with how many other men there'd been. As a result, had she become less than human to him, a piece of garbage who needed to be taught her place?