“You’re beautiful,” she said. “I could beat your ass all night long.”

He gave a half chuckle. “Is it crazy that I understood that?”

“No. But don’t talk anymore until I say so. Feel.”

She rolled the stick over his ass a few times, let him feel that. She thought about sliding it vertically between his buttocks, making him tighten those luscious cheeks and hold on to it while she strapped him, but in the end she put it aside. She liked keeping it simple. Plus, if the muscles stayed loose, the nerves were more sensitive. She rolled her shoulder, let the belt dangle from her hand then folded it over, tucking both ends into her palm.

The first several strikes were to get him used to the feeling, but then she started ramping it up. She loved the red prints left by the strap, loved knowing he’d put the belt back on tonight but never look at it the same way again. He shifted and flexed from the blows, but otherwise held still. When he started lifting to them, she knew he was responding to her obvious arousal, the way she passed her hand over his tortured flanks, cupping his balls and squeezing, pressing her thumb deeper between his ass cheeks, against his rim, teasing him there so he jerked. But he didn’t say anything, didn’t warn her against that part of him, an intriguing potential.

He was right. He had an enormous capacity for discomfort, but she saw the body language change as he got deeper into his head, letting go of whatever analysis he was doing of what was happening between her and him. Lust started rising up, hot and hard, his cock getting stiffer, the tip getting glossy with thick fluid. The rippling of his back and ass muscles made her hungrier and hungrier, and she started hitting harder and faster, ignoring the ache in her arm and back, shifting on her tired feet, willing to go on until they were stumps.

When she circled him, he lifted his head to look at her. She was completely naked, sauntering around him with the brazen sensuality of a siren. She stopped in front of him, cupping her own breast, idly fondling it as she considered him.

“Come here,” he growled. “I’ll suck on that for you, Mistress.”

She allowed it, coming close enough her knees brushed his knuckles, locked on the edge of the chair seat. Then his mouth was on her nipple, his hands remaining in that restrained position, his ass available for more punishment. She was glad she’d had him take off the condom, because the floor was marked with the drip of his pre-come.

Her cunt clenched hard at the skillful touch of his mouth and she tested herself, giving him the other one as well, until both nipples were glistening and plum-colored, tight points. Then she drew back enough to pivot. Cognizant of the lion in the cage once again, she slowly bent, arching her back in a sensual tease, lifting her ass in front of his face. “My pussy, Max.”

She’d gauged her distance so he had to reach for it. He chose a devastating tactic to bring her closer though. He lifted his head, nuzzled between her buttocks to tease her rim with his tongue, sending a wild spiral of sensation through her that made her drip on the floor. She arched her back farther, and his tongue slid down over her slick labia, teeth nipping at her clit. The rocket of response through her cunt was so strong she knew she’d come in no time, so she stepped away and straightened, giving him only a taste.

She made a tsking noise, pointed at where her arousal had dripped on the floor. “You should have caught those drops. What a mess you’re making.” She sauntered around behind him once more, prepared to punish him properly for his carelessness. He watched her in his peripheral vision, and she shivered at the glitter in those gray eyes, the promise and threat of when he’d no longer restrain himself, no matter the strength of her will.

Thwack, thwack. Again and again, as her body shuddered as if he were thrusting into her with each blow, his ass lifting and falling in the rhythm as if he were imagining the same. When she won a grunt from him, she changed tactics, landing several stripes in a diagonal line from shoulder blade to rib cage, like flogging a gladiator before he entered the ring. That change in stroke brought his head up, and his fingers dug into the chair, making it creak.

He was powerful, could turn and take her to the ground in a moment. A weak, crazy part of her wanted to taunt him, tell him to take her down, fuck her the way they both wanted to do it, without a condom, hard, visceral, a branding of her cunt with his seed. She’d never been a Mistress who’d wanted a possessive sub, the very idea a turnoff. It made her think of her unexpected thoughts about owning him, that night at the club. She liked the idea of him considering her his far too much. And that was new, scary territory for her. Because she’d been a man’s possession before.

She pushed away the darkness before it could rise up and interfere with this. It was time to go a different route. He hadn’t flinched, hadn’t once done anything that would shield himself. She heard both of them breathing, rasping for air for different reasons.

“Turn the chair away from me and sit in it,” she commanded. “Put your hands behind you, hold on to the lowest rung in the back.”

She watched him do it, how he had to fold his elbows almost into a box position since it was a small chair and he had long arms. Though his ass had to be sore, he didn’t hesitate to press those choice buttocks into the wooden seat. He didn’t look back at her, obviously realizing that was part of it. A form of blindfolding, following her commands without sight.

After retrieving another condom from his coat, she moved around to his front. He carried three, a man with confidence…and stamina. She held the belt in her other hand. His chest expanded and contracted, eyes molten steel, lips tight. Her gaze moved down to his cock, thick and hard.

“Fuck…Janet…” He muttered it. He had his attention on her face, which she was sure showed her keen pleasure at his display. Opening the condom, she bent forward, slid the thin latex down over him. His eyes closed, all those muscles bunching in impressive restraint. Then she put her hand on his shoulder, steadying herself to straddle him. A more reverent oath tore from his lips as she positioned herself, slid down on him slowly, clutching her muscles on him as she descended.

When she got to the hilt, her cunt started quivering. She was so stirred up it would take very little to drive her to climax, and what she was clasping inside her wasn’t little at all. Nothing about this man was small, inside or out. She slid the belt over his shoulders, put the tongue through the buckle and tightened that noose briefly around his throat, keeping three fingers between it and his windpipe as she held on to it, used it to rise and fall on him, a slow, torturous movement that caused both of them to shudder. She moaned, her pussy convulsing on him. Damn, she didn’t want to go so fast, but it was going to happen. Her thighs trembled, her legs running out of strength, though if arousal alone was needed, it could carry her through a triathlon.

“Game over, Mistress.” Letting go of the chair, he cinched his arm around her, pushed her down hard on his cock, making it pleasure and pain both, stretching and filling her. She continued to hold on to that belt, but he gave her his strength, thrusting deeper into her, increasing the power of the movements, which pounded her clit against him. The undertow started to drag her out, her body flushing. He was close as well, she could tell, but she remembered his vow. She wanted him to break it, wanted the chance to punish him again, but she also wanted to feel his seed spurt inside of her. She wanted it all. Wanted everything from him, wanted to do everything to him.

“Come for me, baby,” he muttered. “Trust me.”

Had he sensed that as well? It didn’t surprise her at all, but as he worked himself up inside her, she clutched his shoulders and took the leap, arching back to scream, the room echoing with her passion as her cunt milked his cock, trying to force the issue. Every muscle stood out on his upper body as he resisted it, as he gave her every pleasure and held back his own.

Let me punish you again, Max. Give us both that pleasure. It was so fervent a thought, it was almost a prayer, a plea, and then that prayer was answered.

He went over with a roar, thrusting up into her so powerfully she had to cling to the belt and trust him to hold her. With brutal, blissful finality, they drove one another home.

Chapter Eight

She liked tormenting a guy, that was for sure. After that pretty fucking incredible night, Janet made it clear she’d be the one who initiated another date. She’d said no texts, no flowers, no chocolates, no temptations. He’d grinned at that, but he’d decided to respect her need to hold the reins. He had some intel gathering to do after all, a big part of which was why, two days later, he was standing inside the kitchen of a tiny house in a crappy New Orleans neighborhood. One about a step up from where he himself lived.

“Dale, where the hell are you?”

“I’m back here, Ack Ack.”

The response came from somewhere at the back of the house, so Max moved through the four-room box of less than eight hundred square feet, discovering the voice had filtered through the back screen door. The man he sought was standing in the open doorway of a potting shed, which took up most of his postage-stamp backyard.

Dale gave him a look. “Fucking pathetic. You’ve been ten feet under water at o-dead-hundred in the middle of the night, found a single boat in a marina overflowing with them and yet you can’t find one crip hanging out on his own property?

“It was a warning, bro. Can’t believe you leave your door standing open in this shitty neighborhood.”

“A SEAL looks to get a workout where he can. The bastards just won’t cooperate.”

“They probably know a guy who plays with flowers and looks like a brick shithouse is a fucked-up mother with an assault rifle under his mattress.”

He’d come to see Dale before he started the rest of his day, so it was barely past sunrise. Dale didn’t seem surprised he was here, but then it was that way with them. Even when they were no longer in active service, SEALs often anticipated one another. Dale had been one of Max’s BUD/S instructors and then later his MCPO, Master Chief Petty Officer.

Despite the house being barely more than a matchbox size, it was clean and neat, well tended. As he’d driven down the street, Max had seen improvements in the houses around Dale’s, evidence of the assistance he was providing to his neighbors, building some community pride. Flower boxes with Dale’s carpentry style hung on porch rails, and there was less garbage in the yards. A whole gaggle of kids had been playing in Dale’s front yard, waiting for the school bus. It didn’t matter whether it was in a questionable NOLA neighborhood or in Iraq, kids gravitated toward those they knew could keep them safe.