Page 20 of Hard Discipline

Becausethisis her, I know that already. The real her. Panting and shivering, yet strong and determined, so fucking determined….

“N-no,” she stammers, but there is iron in the word.

Brave sub.

I check her over, to make sure she’s physically okay, then I nod. “More it is, then.” And I tug on the chains, pulling at them with a controlled force, enough to cause her a little more pain and a little more pleasure but not hard enough to cancel the pleasure out entirely.

Another shaken cry escapes her, the tears sliding down her cheeks. She lifts a hand to wipe them away, but I grab her wrist, stopping her. “No,” I order. “I want your fucking tears, sub. I want your screams and your cries. I want your strength and your determination. I want everything, understand?”

She takes a sobbing breath and nods jerkily, but I don’t let go of her wrist. Instead I bring her palm to my mouth and press a kiss in the center of it, watching her as I do and tugging again on the chains with my other hand. She rewards me with another cry, her eyes glazed, her cheeks wet.

Her skin tastes salty and sweet and delicious, and again desire kicks hard inside me, unexpectedly powerful. A part of me wants to give her a climax, because she’s so fucking hot and sofucking strong. This is all new to her, the clamps, the obedience, the pain mixed with pleasure, and she’s taken it and dealt with it all with courage.

A lesser woman, knowing what was in store for her, might have disappeared the moment I left the room, but Odette didn’t. Her curiosity and strength were stronger than her fear and they won that battle. I have nothing but respect for that.

She was wasted on Lucas.

The thought comes without prompting and I find myself agreeing, because yes she fucking was. He didn’t see what I see right now, burning in front of me. An iron strength. The passion of a woman who’ll go out and get whatever she wants, and fuck anyone who gets in her way.

Gabrielle wasn’t like that. She was gentler, kinder. Gave me a fuck-load more grace than I deserved, not that I’m the same young punk that I was back then. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve gotten harder, more selfish, less tolerant of bullshit. If Gabrielle met me now, she’d probably think I was the world’s biggest asshole.

This woman, though. I’m intrigued, I can’t lie. With all of this spirit, why did she drop out? Why did she let some asshole strip all of that away from her? And what is she looking for so desperately that she thinks she can get it from me?

“Do you want to come, sub?” I demand, tugging again on the chains

She gives a hiccupping sob. “W-whatever you w-will, M-master.”

Satisfaction surges inside me, a lick of heat that lights a fire in my veins that I always get when a sub bends herself to my will. But this is more intense somehow, and I realize it’s because she’s not a practiced sub who knows what to say in order to get what she wants, or a familiar play partner spouting a rote response. And I’ve forgotten what it’s like to see a sub say the words, and mean them. To know that she wants to please not only the Dom,but me. It’s a gesture of trust, whether she knows it or not, and it’s honest. She’s listened to me, taken my lesson on board, and while she’s still afraid, she’s saying it anyway, because she means it.

That in itself deserves a reward. So letting go of her wrist, I slide my hand behind the back of her head and pull her forward, until those soft red lips meet mine.

And I give her more of the kiss that we’ve both been wanting.

11

Odette

I’m in agony, but I don’t know whether it’s an agony of pain or an agony of pleasure. Both have become one, so intertwined I can’t separate one from the other. The pressure of the clamps on my sensitive nipples is bad enough, but the one he settled around my clit is almost overwhelming.

He told me it would hurt and it does, yet I feel as if I could also come at any moment and I can’t get my head around that. It’s weird how pleasure and pain can be so locked together, because I always assumed pleasure was pleasure, and pain was only pain. Yet when he attached those clamps and pulled on the chains, the pain and pleasure fused, becoming something so intense that part of me wants to scream my safe word, while the rest of me wants to screammore.

His blue gaze was everything, the whole world, and when he told me he wanted my tears I couldn’t stop them from falling. It was kind of liberating in a way, because it was clear my tears didn’t bother him. They bothered Lucas, though. Henever said anything explicitly, but I know he didn’t like hearing about the attack or about my feelings around it, because it made him angry. He didn’t understand that I didn’t need him to do anything, I only wanted him to listen.

My parents, too, had no patience for my fears and so I learned to keep them bottled up and to distract myself with school, sublimate my anxieties into getting good grades, and pushing harder to get better. I never took failure well and neither did my parents, so Mr. Fairfax sitting there watching me weep without judgement just felt…freeing.

Then he grabbed my wrist when I tried to wipe my tears away and the kiss he pressed into my palm felt like he’d lit a fire inside me. The warmth of his mouth on my sensitized flesh added to the agony of sensation, and then that look in his hard blue eyes, as if he could see something in me that I hadn’t known was there…

God. I was ready to do anything he wanted. Anything at all. And I remembered what he told me so when he asked me if I wanted to come, there was only one response I could give him. Yes, I fucking wanted to come. I burned for it. But only if he wanted me to.

I wasn’t expecting him to kiss me again, so I’m in shock as he pulls me in and his mouth covers mine. But it’s not the same kiss as before. That was light, gentle, and this is… not either of those things. His tongue pushes into my mouth, taking what he wants the way a conqueror takes a castle, without mercy and without quarter. His fingers wind into my hair, holding me in place as he ravages me. I sense that he doesn’t want me to respond, he only wants to master me, and that’s good because even if I wanted to, I can’t kiss him back, not with him exploring my mouth as if he owns it. He tugs on those fucking chains at the same time, too, the heat of the kiss and the agonizing pull of the clamps making me burn like I have a fever.

I give a sobbing moan against his mouth and then his teeth are sinking into my bottom lip, giving me a sharp nip that turns my moan into a wail. I can’t bear this and yet I want more. I want more of his kiss, more pressure on the clamps, more pain, more everything, because this is the most intensely alive I’ve ever felt. And despite being under his command, I’m also so inexplicably free.

I have pleased him — I saw the glitter of heat in his eyes when I saidyour will, Master— and the way he’s kissing me…

I think he likes this as much as I do and a burst of confidence fills me. A confidence I lost two years ago, that shattered and broke that night outside the bar. It’s not the same pure confidence that I would conquer the world like I did when I graduated high school, but it’s there. A fragile hope of something better. So, I lean into the kiss, not demanding or insisting, but taking what he gives me, letting him know that I am here for his will and his alone.

He tastes of the alcohol he was drinking earlier— a good scotch, rich and strong— and something else, a flavor intrinsic to him and it makes me hungry. Everything about him makes me hungry.

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