Page 8 of Vienna Betrayal

Chapter 2

Alena focused on her breathing as she knelt before him. Inhale for a four count, exhale for eight.

“Nervous?” Alexander asked softly as he circled her.

“If I said I wasn’t, I’d be lying.”

“No lies. Not in a scene.” As he looped around the front she couldn’t help but stare at the riding crop. It had been a long time since she’d been cropped.

“I agree, Sir. This is no place for lies, but I’m not exactly nervous. I’m…trepidatious.”

“Trepidation is appropriate, but not what you’ll be feeling soon.”

“Oh?”

Rather than reply, he made a noise halfway between a hum and a grunt. He’d stopped behind her, and Alena had to resist the urge to bunch her shoulders up around her ears as her hindbrain registered him as a threat.

She might know how to submit, but it had been years. Her instincts were sounding the alarm, insisting she shouldn’t be passively kneeling when a predator was so near. The fact that she found him attractive was inconsequential according to her intuition.

The tip of the crop brushed her hair, and she shivered.

“Cold?”

“No, Sir.”

The crop trailed down her back, moving from bare skin at her upper back, to lace, to bare skin and more lace. She held her breath as the crop danced over her ass. He hadn’t been specific about how she should kneel, so she’d opted for the most comfortable position, which was kneeling and seated, her butt resting on her heels.

“You should be barefoot or in high heels.” The crop tapped against the bottom of her ballet flats.

“I can’t wear heels due to an injury, Sir.”

Most clubs had guidelines that both protected participants and helped define and maintain the “otherness” of the club space. A common rule was that submissives either wore fuck-me heels or went barefoot.

“You need the shoes?”

“No, I can go barefoot.” The Orchid Club had far fewer rules than the small clubs she’d been to when first exploring the submissive aspect of her sexuality. Tonight, with no rule to force her into heels, she’d decided to wear flats rather than go barefoot. It was a small thing, a meager defiance.

And Alexander had homed in on it. Interesting.

“Then remove them. Now.”

Alena’s breath caught at the darkness in his tone. It hadn’t been there a moment ago.

Rising up on her knees, she reached back, pulling off first her right, and then left, shoe. She set them aside, where she could still see them, but out of his way.

When she started to sink back onto her heels, he stopped her by pressing the crop against her ass. “Stay up.”

“You’ll begin with a cropping?” Her voice wavered a little, and she hadn’t meant it to. She cleared her throat.

“And if I did?”

“That would…certainly be one way to start a scene. Sir.”

He circled around to face her. Dropping into a squat—the crop dangling loosely from one hand—he stared at her with a heavy gaze.

Alena took a few breaths, reminded herself that he knew her limits. Crops were designed for use on horses, a small movement of the handle able to create enough force that a horse would feel it. In that light, a crop was perhaps on par with a cane or single-tail whip, but the crop he held was short. Designed for BDSM play.

“You disapprove.”

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