Speak of the Devil (35 page)

“Yes,” I said, and I could see the effect that single word had on him.

His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard. Then he grinned, a wolfish expression I’d never seen on his face before. “Let’s see what’s in the case of goodies, then.”

Brian picked up the suitcase and headed for his bedroom. I was lucky I didn’t fall over as I followed him with my shaky knees and my insanely high heels. He plunked the suitcase on the bed, then turned down the dimmer to bring the lights to a more atmospheric level.

Nervously, I came to stand beside him as he unzipped the suitcase. I was actually holding my breath when he flipped the top open. But there was nothing to see—yet—except for a length of black velvet that was tucked around the suitcase’s contents, and an envelope with Brian’s name on it and the words “for your eyes only” underlined.

“Why do I have a feeling I’m going to want to kill Dominic when this is all over?” I muttered under my breath.

Brian gave a huff of laughter as he picked up the envelope. “Go stand on the other side of the bed,” he ordered. “I don’t want you reading over my shoulder.”

I tottered my way over, holding the bedpost to
help my shaky balance. It seemed to take Brian about three hours to read whatever it was Dominic had written, and the expressions on his face as he read it sparked both curiosity and terror in me.

Brian was grinning evilly when he finally looked up at me. “It’s mostly an explanation of what everything is and how to use it. I guess he thought I might find some of them a mystery.”

I raised an eyebrow. “And would you?”

He laughed. “Yeah. I’m afraid in this arena, I’m a babe in the woods.”

“That makes two of us.”

“I can’t believe you actually talked to Dominic about this. Wish I’d been a fly on the wall for
that
conversation.”

The fire in my cheeks burned higher. “Just another indication of how serious I am.”

Brian flipped the black velvet out of the way, but in the low light and from across the bed, I couldn’t see into the case well enough to identify anything other than a bunch of lumps. To clarify things for me, Brian lifted each item out of the case one by one, laying them on the bedspread for my inspection. I was really,
really
glad I had the bedpost to hold onto, because Dominic had taken me at my word—and then some.

At first, the items Brian laid out were easy to identify and no more intimidating than I’d expected. Black velvet ties; lengths of silky-looking rope; fur-lined cuffs; a blindfold; a—gulp—ball gag.

Then came some of the scarier items I’d expected. An oblong paddle, punctuated by scary-looking studs; something that looked like a short whip but with lots of thongs; a riding crop; dildoes in a variety of sizes and shapes.

After that, I had trouble figuring out what the hell you were supposed to do with the objects Brian continued
to lay out on the bedspread. Lots of little clips and clamps and bars and strings and springs. Something that looked like a miniature pizza-cutter with teeth. A black leather glove with lots of prickly metal barbs on the fingers. And a long, fluffy feather, of all things!

I thought the case was completely empty when Brian looked up across the bed and met my eyes again. There was a warning in his eyes, and he held my gaze as he reached into the case and pulled out one last item. An item I knew all too well: the hellish whip Adam had used to tear my back to shreds.

I swayed, and for half a second, I thought I was actually going to faint. I gripped the bedpost with all the strength in my body and bit down on the inside of my cheek until I tasted blood. There was a challenge in Brian’s stare, and I knew he was waiting for me to tell him to put that particular item back in the case. I also knew there was no chance he’d ever use it on me. The only reason it was in that case was as a challenge to my will and commitment. A challenge I was determined to meet.

When I didn’t balk or otherwise object, I saw a hint of what might have been approval in Brian’s eyes. Then he rubbed his hands together like a cartoon villain. I might have laughed if I weren’t scared shitless. I held my breath as he slowly perused all the items on the bed, then reached for the blindfold.

I can do this
, I told myself as Brian stalked around the bed toward me. My every instinct urged me to flee, but I stayed put.

“You know you’re courting disaster if you expect me to move in these heels while wearing a blindfold,” I said with a nervous laugh. “Maybe I’d better lie down first.”

He didn’t answer, moving behind me and sliding
the blindfold down over my eyes. It was thick and heavily padded, the padding conforming to the shape of my face so that no hint of light seeped through. Brian adjusted the elastic band behind my head, then slid one hand slowly down the length of my spine. Goose bumps immediately peppered my skin, and I shivered. I tried to tell myself that I wasn’t really blindfolded, that I was just in a very dark room. I wasn’t convinced.

I expected Brian to lay me down on the bed—the image I had in my mind was of being tied, spread-eagled, to the four posts. Instead, he put his arm around my shoulders and guided me around toward the back of the bed. I kept hold of the bedpost, because even with his arm around me, I felt weak and disoriented, and I didn’t want to fall and break my leg. He turned me so that my back was to the room, then let go.

He must have made a special effort to move quietly, because I couldn’t hear a thing, and I had no idea where he was. For all I knew, he’d left the room and I was just standing there like an idiot waiting for the ax to fall. But no, I was pretty sure he was picking out the next “toy.” I tried not to imagine just what he might select, or why he’d positioned me with my back—or perhaps more importantly, my backside— to the room.

I jumped and let out a choked scream when his hand landed on my shoulder again. I hadn’t heard the faintest sound of his approach. He laughed at me, and I summoned a little surge of indignation.

“Let’s change places and see if
you
don’t get a bit jumpy in this position,” I grumbled at him.

“I’m the only one allowed to do any talking,” he informed me, his lips inches from my ear. I could feel the heat of his body against my back.

I opened my mouth for a snappy comeback, but
before I managed to say anything, Brian shoved something into my mouth. I realized instantly that it was the ball gag, and my veins were suddenly flooded with enough adrenaline to jump-start a semi. For the first time, I let go of the bedpost, my arms flailing with the surge of panic.

Brian put his arm around my waist, balancing me when my sudden move almost toppled me. He made no effort to trap my arms, and when the worst of the panic faded, I realized all I had to do was spit the damn ball out and yank off the blindfold if I was ready to call it quits. I shuddered and pressed into the heat of Brian’s body, calming myself by inches. The straps that were meant to fasten the gag behind my head hung loose, the ends tickling my collarbone.

“I like the idea of you not being able to talk back,” Brian murmured in my ear. “But when you’re ready to wave the white flag, you can let me know by dropping the ball.”

Yes, I was nervous, uncomfortable, even scared. But I was still
me
, and I bristled at his use of the word “when.” So I let my fingers do the talking. Only one finger, actually. He made a tsking sound, and I tensed, waiting for him to do something S&M-like, like spank me or pinch me. But he didn’t.

He moved away again, but my senses had adjusted a bit to my blindness, so I heard the faint whisper of his feet brushing the carpet, and I heard him when he came back. Even so, I jumped a bit when his hand circled my left wrist. Then it wasn’t his hand circling my wrist, it was something decadently soft—the fur-lined cuffs, I gathered. I hadn’t taken a real close look at them, but from the sensations, I gathered they closed with buckles. He put first one, then the other on me, but they didn’t seem to be attached to anything. Yet.

“Are they comfortable?” he asked. “Nod if they’re okay, shake your head if they’re too tight.”

I flexed my hands and wiggled my fingers. The cuffs felt like soft, furry bracelets, snug, but not uncomfortably so. I took a deep breath through my nose and nodded.

There was a strange whispering sound I couldn’t identify, and then Brian was lifting my left arm up toward the bedpost. Even when he let go, I couldn’t lower my arm, and I realized the sound I heard was probably one of those lengths of silky rope being attached to the cuff and then tied to the bedpost. My heart fluttered, and I swallowed awkwardly, the gag making the latter difficult.

When Brian started lifting my right arm, I felt another surge of panic. This was it. Once he’d secured that arm, I would have no defenses left, no reassurance that I could remove the blindfold myself. I would be completely dependent on Brian to free me, helpless to stop him from doing anything he wanted. Even now, I’m amazed that I found the will and the strength to let him do it.

He smoothed his cheek up and down my neck, his stubble abrading the sensitive skin there. “Remember, you can always drop the ball, and everything stops.”

This was a test of my trust and of my resolve. If I dropped the ball, I failed the test. Period. I bit down on the ball between my teeth. I had no intention of failing.

Once again, I heard the whisper of Brian’s feet on the carpet. Even with the gag in my mouth, I managed a little groan of discontent when he turned on his CD player. He put in something mellow and classical, but it was just enough to mask the sound of his footsteps, as I’m sure he intended.

Time got a little wonky on me, my senses completely
out of whack. I have no clue how long I stood there, my entire body tense enough to make my muscles quiver, waiting to see what Brian would do next, and
when
he would do it. That wait was pure agony. I
knew
that he wasn’t going to hurt me, at least not in any but the most minor of ways. He was too gentle a soul to be really brutal with me, no matter how vigorous he wished this test to be. But bound, gagged, blindfolded, and helpless, I couldn’t help letting my imagination run away with me.

I was strung so tight after waiting I don’t know how long for something to happen that I actually jumped and shrieked at the feel of the feather caressing my ass. The gag kept the shriek from being terribly loud, but Brian certainly heard it. His laugh told me he was enjoying himself despite my misery.

The tip of the feather tickled first one cheek, then the other, then followed the line of my thong downward. I squirmed at the sensation, my skin twitching at the tickle that was at once sensual and annoying. It was probably a good thing for Brian I was gagged, because I don’t think he’d have wanted to hear what I thought of him at that moment.

The feather started tickling the insides of my thighs, and I squirmed some more. Brian chuckled softly, and I wondered if it would violate the spirit of things if I were to aim a kick backward. He hadn’t, after all, bound my legs. I managed to restrain the impulse, even as the tickling drove me mad.

I wasn’t exactly relaxed now that Brian was tickling me to death with the damn feather, but I wasn’t braced for pain as I had been during the excruciating wait. Which made the sudden smack of his hand against my ass all the more startling. He didn’t hit me hard, the blow more like the kind of playful smack you’d give a lover who’d just teased you about
something. But in the context, it was a shock to my system, and I gasped as if it had been brutal.

He followed up with more strokes of the feather, easing the faint sting. He repeated the process several more times, waiting until the tickle of the feather was driving me so crazy I forgot to brace against the spank. I jumped and squealed every time, only belatedly realizing that he hadn’t really hurt me.

Somewhere along the line, I recognized the similarity between this situation and the erotic dream Lugh had created for me, but I was way too tense for this to be erotic. Of course, it also wasn’t a dream.

When the tickle of the feather finally ended, I was momentarily relieved even as my cheeks clenched in anticipation. The relief dissolved into anxiety when nothing happened, and I realized that once again I had no idea where Brian was. Had he gone to pick out another “toy”? Was he standing there staring at me, watching me squirm and loving every minute of it? Hell, for all I knew, he’d gone out to watch a ball game on TV! For the record, being blindfolded sucks!

Once again, my sense of time got seriously distorted as I waited in nervous anticipation for whatever was to come next. My jaw muscles were getting tired from the gag—I felt like I’d been sitting in the dentist’s chair while someone kept telling me to “open wide” for an hour. And I was more than ready to lose the fuck-me pumps that were forcing all of my weight onto the balls of my feet—and not, so far at least, getting me fucked.

I was surreptitiously trying to wiggle my ankles around to restore circulation to my toes when a new tickle made me jump for the millionth time. Was it possible to run out of adrenaline? Because it seemed like I should have done so by now.

At first, I didn’t know what was causing the tickle.
It was something bigger and more diffuse than the feather, and Brian was dragging it up the side of my body. I had to stifle a laugh, because my sides are super ticklish. Then I started going over in my mind the items Dominic had put in the care package, and recognition shivered through me. This was the multi-thonged whip.

Nope, definitely not out of adrenaline. I started breathing hard, and I forgot all about the discomfort of the gag and the shoes. I did
not
want Brian to hit me with this thing! He was dragging it over my back right now, the long suede thongs paradoxically soft against my skin. I let out a little whimper.

“Remember,” Brian said, “you can always drop the ball.”

My jaws tightened reflexively on the ball. I was not going to chicken out now. I’d survived the hell that Adam had put me through; if I could survive that, it seemed almost silly to be afraid of anything that Brian might do.