Page 25 of At Her Pleasure

“Most people see that scar at my throat, and they think that’s where it started. Not…”

“Over your heart.”

She kept stroking the scar, noting how his muscles tightened, his attention upon her getting more intent. It was having that effect on her, too.

“Are we done with chitchat?” Whether he was or not, she was. “Take off your clothes. Everything.”

When she stepped back, he unlaced and removed his oxfords first, then the thin socks. Through his naked soles, he’d feel the gravel mixed with the packed dirt.

His slacks got pushed down next, though he removed a small flashlight from the pocket and offered it to her. As he bent to remove the pants, the skeleton dangled over his furred chest, his thigh and calf muscles flexing with the movement.

To take off the boxers, he had to guide the elastic waistband out and over the head of his thick erection. She drew in the sight as he put the clothes to the side and straightened. His fingers were curled at his sides, hinting at the self-restraint he was exercising.

He’d yielded, but his primal desires hadn’t abated. A lion didn’t lose the desire to hunt just because he took a break to fuck a willing lioness. The two needs were wrapped together, drawn from a similar source.

He was complicated. But he’d serve her. What she felt from him simmered, a conflicting mix.

“Clasp your hands behind your back. Fingers interlaced.”

She often denied a sub the right to look at her when she was studying him. But with what she had in mind, being able to look and not touch was going to be more difficult for Mick, and that was what she wanted to test.

For her part, she looked her fill, clicking on the flashlight to help her. Christ, he was beautiful. The quality cut of the clothes hadn’t misled her eyes. The broad shoulders and wide chest tapered to his waist and straight hips. The velvet skin of his cock was stretched to smoothness, the head flushed. His balls looked like a weighted handful. He groomed himself but kept hair there. He also had a nice mat on his chest, narrowing to the gleaming trail past his navel. His arms and legs were dusted with dark strands.

She moved around him, taking her time. She put her fingers on his back, learning the landscape there, and dug her short nails into his neck, under his ear. His pulse accelerated under her touch. He dipped his head toward her.

He had an ass she wanted to mark with her teeth, all day long. The slight shift as he looked her way offered a flex of the left buttock. She imagined burning a brand into the flesh, leaving it dark and angry. Something permanent.

But she wouldn’t be the first. She noted several shiny round scars. Bullet holes. A burn on the back of his thigh had left a scar the size of her hand. Leaning forward, she put her palm over it. As she did, she pushed her thumb into the seam between his buttocks, stroking.

“Spread your legs wider.”

When he did, she caressed his sac and played over the perineum. She was right about that weighted handful. His buttocks quivered, and a ripple went through the burn scar. She noted other marks. Knife, maybe.

How had he turned his body into this scarred battlefield?

He’d knotted his hands at his back like she’d ordered. She noted there was more tension in the left shoulder than the right. An old injury there, she suspected.

She stepped back. “Down on your stomach. Right cheek to the ground and put your arms out to either side, fully extended. Every inch of you pressed flat.”

When he did it, she knew when his cock contacted the gravel, straw and dirt, because his movements became more tentative. She straddled him and sat down on his ass with a comfortable thump. She braced one foot outside his legs, one between them, and used that booted foot to spread his legs wider, with an insistent push. She wasn’t heavy, but over a hundred pounds of woman sitting on his ass put pressure where she wanted it. She heard the muttered curse.

“Do you want to know how I choose my subs, Mick?”

“I don’t give a shit about your boy toys.”

She chuckled. “I call it a flag test. If you stay hard through the minimum level of pain I like to inflict, then we can play. If you don’t, you’re not what I want.”

“A pass-fail.” His strained voice held a wry note.

“Yes. Shut up now.” She removed the Freyja pendant, palming the smooth, flat stone in her hand. About the size of an egg, it had some weight to it.

It didn’t take much to hurt a man’s testicles. It just required access. She dropped her hand holding the pendant down between her legs, to where she could reach what was between his. “This is one of those moments when a man might wish his balls weren’t as impressively big as yours.”

She swung the stone by the cord and hit him where she intended. The impact made him flinch, but he held, through that contact and the dozen times that followed. She savored every shudder.

When she considered him properly sensitized, she set the stone aside and used her fingers, doing a flick against the tender area. A harder flick, then a pinch.

“Fuck…”