Page 80 of At Her Pleasure

His blue eyes met hers. Elle would be telling him about drowning in fire, and how Lucifer was going to be the path to freedom.

He didn’t smile. She leaned in, mouthing, “Don’t move,” and bit his bottom lip, teasing it with her tongue before letting go.

Moving to her table, she picked up a knife. The blade was so sharp it could go into human skin like room temperature butter. As she came back, she issued her second command.

“Don’t move,” she repeated.

She put the blade against his nape, her hand on the back of the corset, a steadying safeguard. When his rib cage lifted with his breath, it created a red line that swelled with tiny drops of blood.

“Man’s got to breathe, Mistress,” he murmured. Causing another small scratch, forming two parts of a triangle.

“You said you didn’t breathe around me. And you breathe if I tell you to breathe, Mick.”

His constrained chuckle created a star, lopsided as if it had been scribbled by a child. More tiny drops of blood.

She took the knife away and leaned in to lick and nip. She held off on the pleasure of a deeper bite. She’d wait until he had more exposed skin.

Moving closer, she put the heel of her free hand against the front of his slacks, rubbing his cock. The playlist was on “Ex’s and Oh’s.” Perfect. He thought he could taunt her, but she could kick sand right back at him.

“I like having a stress toy. Maybe I’ll have you come to my office and stand with your dick on my desk all day. I’ll squeeze and play, trace those pulsing veins with my letter opener. When someone comes to the door, I’ll have you tuck that big cock in the top drawer of my desk. I’ll push it closed a millimeter at a time, until you tell me you need me to stop.”

Her eyes half closed. “Look at you, getting even bigger against my hand. You like pain and threats, Mick.”

“I like your hand, Mistress. Your cunt. Your mouth.”

“I like yours. Open up.”

In the time it took to issue the order, she’d moved to stand in front of him and had the tip of the knife there. As he complied, she slid the blade in, holding the flat of it on his tongue. “Did you just imply my mouth was made to serve your dick?” she asked pleasantly.

His flashing eyes held hers, and he sealed his lips over the blade. If she twisted it a fraction when she pulled it free, she would slice into his tongue or lips.

The steadiness and swiftness of the hand holding the weapon would determine how severe the cut would be. She enjoyed her knife play, how sensitive the skin was to a sharpened blade.

Holding his gaze, she pulled it out, smooth and easy, but a deliberate minor degree away from level. He didn’t flinch, but the knife was so sharp he wouldn’t feel the cut during execution. Blood welled, two drops, one on the bottom left, one on the top right.

She rose on her toes and tasted that, too. Then she took the earbuds and her phone from him to walk them back to the table.

When she returned, she put the knife to the first X of the lacing. The ties separated. She followed the track down. “Take off the corset, then put your hands back up on the cross.”

When he did, he twisted enough to hand it to her, rather than letting the garment drop to the ground. Their fingers brushed. His mouth was a straight line, his eyes focused on her in that “you’re the only thing I see” way. Not artifice. She was literally the only thing in his world right now.

She took the corset back to the table. “Put your arms back up, Mick,” she reminded him.

His shirt creased over his shoulders as he complied. She gestured toward two staff members, waiting for her cue outside the circle. “I was going to bind you myself, but you haven’t proven yourself worth that attention.”

He hadn’t been expecting that. He’d assumed she’d do it herself, indulge that intimacy.

“I’ve been soft enough with you today,” she told him, coming back to flick his nape with her nails. His shoulders tightened, his jaw flexing. When she stepped away, he stared forward at the cross’s vertical beam.

The staff members, Greenman and Janus, were strong and tall, on par with him physically. She handed Greenman a set of manacles for Mick’s ankles and Janus two pairs of handcuffs. Fast to put on and uncomfortable. Metal cuffs dug into wrist bones when a sub pulled against them.

Janus clicked one bracelet of the first set of handcuffs on Mick’s right wrist, looped the chain over the cross’s horizontal bar, and clicked the empty cuff through the bolt. The arrangement held his wrist securely against the cross. He did the same to his left wrist.

Greenman fastened one of the ankle manacles to Mick’s leg, threaded the short connecting chain behind the anchored bottom of the cross and attached the other. Mick could keep his feet braced a few inches on either side of it, but no further than that. The more stress she put on him, the more he’d have to rely on the cross and the pull against his bindings to maintain his balance. When she removed his socks and shoes, the manacles would put the same uncomfortable pressure against his ankle bones as the cuffs would against his wrists.

Mick held still, but her man didn’t like being touched by men. At all. When they were done and exited the ring, she moved in again and put a hand on his shoulder. It was just them again.

“You won’t turn your head to look at me anymore, not unless I say I want you to do that. You don’t deserve to look at your Mistress until you’ve served her pleasure. Do you?”