“Yes, Mr. Cavendish.”

He positioned me just in front of the swing.

“Don’t move,” he ordered, grabbing my wrist and fastening it with a thick leather cuff. He pulled it tight with it’s belt loop fastenings. He tested it to be certain it was nice and snug. The material touching my wrist was soft as down, whereas the leather on the outside of the cuff looked stiff and unyielding. He fastened my other wrist with sure, economical movements. He placed my hands around a metal bar above my head.

“Lift yourself,” he ordered.

I did, and he settled thick supportive straps against my lower back and my ass. He knelt down to my ankles, and I watched him fasten similar leather restraints to the ones at my wrists there. He cinched restraints just above my knees, as well, though they were a softer, more pliable material. The area just above my elbows got the same treatment.

He straightened, then began to adjust all of the straps above me. He seemed to know exactly what he wanted, his hands moving from one to the next with no hesitation.

Finally, he stepped back, shrugging out of his suit jacket and loosening his tie impatiently.

“Let go of the bar,” he ordered.

I hesitated, feeling as though I would just spin to the floor if I did so.

“Now,” he barked.

I hesitated just a fraction longer, but let go. I felt weightless as I fell back. The straps caught me in a strangely light embrace, the strap against my back and butt more comfortable than I would have imagined.

My arms were suspended nearly even with my shoulders. My back was arched, displaying my chest and stomach decadently. My legs were splayed wide, my sex exposed.

I tried to close my legs, at least a little, but it was impossible. The ropes held them tight.

James approached me, placing my feet into soft stirrups that parted my legs impossibly wider.

I whimpered low in my throat.

He just pulled at my nipple clamps lightly before stepping away.

I saw him unbuttoning his dress shirt impatiently as he strode behind me. I tried to turn my head to watch him, but I was suspended too tightly for that. I thought this must be what a fly felt like when it was caught fast in a spider’s web.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Mr. Wonderful

I couldn’t tell where he went from my prone position, but it sounded like he’d gone to the other end of the room.

He was gone for several agonizing minutes before I felt him behind me, stepping close enough for his now bared chest to brush my back.

“Just a taste. For not trusting me when I told you to let go,” he whispered in my ear before adjusting the strap at my ass until my backside was fully exposed to him.

Something slapped against me hard enough to make my eyes sting with tears. He repeated the action twice before he readjusted the support strap until my butt was again covered, and my sex was exposed.

He circled around until I could see him again. He was shirtless and shoeless now, but his slacks remained on, his erection straining against his fly. The expensive cloth against his perfect, bare skin made his muscular physique even more starkly apparent, his muscles bulging as he folded his arms and stood, legs apart, just looking at me.

His eyes were hungry, but so stern.

He held a rectangular paddle in his hand casually. It reminded me of the kind they used to say were used at schools for punishment, though this one was black.

He walked between my parted thighs. He bent and kissed my forehead.

“Exquisite,” he said against my skin, then pulled back.

I writhed, becoming impossibly impatient in my need for his physical contact. He placed a hand on my inner thigh, just shy of my cleft. It was torturous, watching that hand touching just above where I needed it. The flesh beneath his hand quivered.

In a flash, he slapped my other thigh with the paddle just hard enough to sting.

He took a step back, grabbing my wrist and giving the swing a hard shove, sending me spinning in circles until I was dizzy. I gave an embarrassing little scream of surprised distress.

He stopped my spinning with a hand on my wrist, and he was suddenly between my legs, thrusting into me in a smooth but brutal motion. His hands kneaded the flesh of my breast around the nipple clamps firmly. Those were our only two points of contact. Cock to cunt, and hands to breasts.

He thrust in and out, only a half a dozen slow strokes, before he pulled out of me, stepping back and spinning me again.

He was stepping between my legs as I came to a halt, right onto his well aimed cock. He gave me a longer taste this time before pulling out. My head had just stopped spinning when he whirled me again.

He stopped me with a grip on my ankle this time, and thrust into me harder, working in and out like a jackhammer. He massaged my clit with one hand, the other getting rough with the clamp that held my nipple.

“Come, now,” he ordered, and it worked, as it always did.

I came with a scream, my head thrown back.

He pulled out, flipping me around before my walls were even done clenching in orgasm.

He had me repositioned, face down, ass up, in a blink. He worked in slowly, and I shivered around him, still having little aftershocks.

“Fuck,” he cursed. “Those little clenches are gonna make me come.”

“Yes,” I sobbed. “Come.”

He slapped my ass, thrusting agonizingly slowly inside of me.

“I won’t come until I’ve shown you more of the delights this little swing has to offer.” He wrenched out of me, sending me spinning again.

I whimpered.

He jolted into me hard when I stopped this time, moving with a purpose now. He reached around me, his talented fingers collaborating to bring me to my next release.

I sobbed out his name as I came again.

He flipped me in a flash until my face was only inches from the floor. He began to suck at me with his mouth, the soft contrast to his previous treatment making me beg brokenly. For what, I wasn’t sure.

He pulled his mouth away, and a moment later he was working his stiff cock into me again. It was a slower process in this position. He had to squeeze in inch by inch. I heard him cursing. I was stuffed so full that I held my breath in alarm at the sensation. He made little rough strokes for only a moment before pulling out.

He rearranged me upright, taking several minutes to suspend me just above him. Our mouthes were on a level for the first time.

He kissed me passionately as he thrust into me, letting loose and thrusting wildly.

I was keening in my throat. I couldn’t touch him with my restraints, but he touched me.

His hands were everywhere, caressing and pinching and soothing with incredible skill.

“Fucking come,” he said between gritted teeth, as his head fell back with his own release.

It was mesmerizing to watch him lose it like that, and so my eyes never left him as I came at his command. I moaned his name.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he cursed, again and again, as he poured into me.

He unfastened me masterfully and cradled me in his arms. He carried me to an oversized bed in the corner. He laid me on top of the spread, sprawling at my side.

I saw that he was completely naked, a fact that I had somehow overlooked before.

He must have stripped out of his pants while I was spinning, my dazed mind noted.

He removed my nipple clamps, sucking gently at the red flesh. He took his time, giving equal attention to each abused nipple. After long moments of drawing on them with special focus, he straightened to study my face.

He loomed over me, a hand pressed flat to my lower belly, just watching my face for long minutes. He kissed my forehead. He seemed to be waiting for something.

I asked him what.

“I was waiting to see if you were falling asleep. Are you in the mood for an information exchange?”

I stretched, feeling languid and exhausted, but strangely, I was far from sleep. I thought about his question. It was strange, but the thought of answering his questions wasn’t troubling to me at that moment. I supposed a half a dozen orgasms had something to do with that. I figured he probably knew that. He was far more familiar with post-coital feelings than I was.

I felt oddly open to him, uncharacteristically free of my usual reserve. I hoped, in a distant kind of way, that this was a temporary insanity, and not yet another symptom of my growing obsession with this man. I gave the little shrug that drove him crazy.

“Fine,” I said, running a hand along the chest that loomed over me. “Ask me something.”

He smiled at me softly, then bit his lip as though he was nervous.

I watched the action in fascination. I’d never seen him do such a thing. James doing anything that vulnerable just didn’t connect in my head.

“I found out what sotnos means. I want to know why a term of endearment became your safe word.”

I wasn’t shocked. I’d known by the look on his face that it would be that, or something just as personal. The words were leaving my mouth before I could talk myself out of it. I wanted to know him, so perhaps it wouldn’t hurt to let him know me a little.

“My father used to call me that,” I said. It was true, and it was the simplest answer.

His brow furrowed. He had been hoping for more of an answer, I could tell. “That doesn’t really explain anything to me. Why would an endearment from your father be a good safe word for you?”

“You’re gonna owe me one hell of a revelation after this,” I told him, poking his chest.

He nodded solemnly, and with no hesitation. It reassured me, for some reason. I took a deep breath to begin.

“He used to beat the shit out of me,” I began.

James tensed, and my hand stroked him absently.

I continued with a sigh. “Not spankings, or a slap on the wrist, or whatever normal kids get. He beat me senseless. He would wail on my mother and I with little thought for the consequences. And there were none, not for him. The only reason I knew that he had even an ounce of control was that he didn’t hit our faces. He thought we were pretty, and he was proud of that. He wanted us to stay pretty, I guess.”

I stole a glance at his face. It was ashen, his pallor suddenly gray. But I continued, feeling a weight lift as I let out some of the gory details. “He was a cold brute of a man. And huge. God, he was so huge. As a child, I thought he was a giant. Stephan fought him once. You wouldn’t know it, since he hates violence, but Stephan is a hell of a fighter. Stephan managed to overpower him, but only barely. My dad has to outweigh him by at least fifty pounds, and it was a close thing. But Stephan was a quicker and much more experienced fighter. Stephan used to literally feed us by fighting, and he was barely sixteen at the time. My dad was only used to beating on women and children, I suppose. But seeing how those beefy fists nearly sent a large man like Stephan to a hospital, I can’t imagine how my mother and I survived them for so long…”

I shook myself out of my musing, and got back to the point. “He was not an affectionate father. He was just cold, and then brutal and angry when he lost his temper. But even his rages were cold. He often addressed my mother and I with the endearment sotnos, in this cold, mocking way of his. So when you asked me to pick a safe word, for when things went farther than I could handle, I just thought of it. Nothing terrified me more than those words on his lips. It seemed perversely appropriate.”