the balls of his feet, still crouching, to look at her.
He considered her for a moment, then said, “Fascinated.”
Progress! He was talking again.
“You’re not wrong,” she said mournfully.
“Of course I’m not.” The corners of his eyes crinkled as he smiled. “I’m the Dom.”
Alena laughed, genuinely amused.
Alexander rose, holding a short riding crop in one hand, a flogger in the other.
Alena’s laughter died. She tensed, taking an instinctive half-step back. The chain connecting her wrists clanked against the hook, and the sound, coupled with the uncomfortable pressure on her wrists and shoulder joints, was enough to short-circuit the panic.
She wasn’t some fainting virgin. She could handle, had in the past handled, impact play from both those implements. What she’d told him was true. She could handle pain, but that didn’t mean she found it pleasurable the way a pure masochist might have. For her it was the Dom’s choice to hurt her, to push her, that aroused.
“Two at once, Sir?” Her tone was softer than it had been, and not by design.
Alexander walked towards her, but it wasn’t just walking, it was the arrogant prowl of a Dom.
He raised the flogger and let the tips of the falls dance over her breast. Made either of suede, or perhaps deer hide, the flogger was soft against her skin.
One strand slid against the very tip of her exposed nipple, managing to touch her with such exquisite precision that she rose up onto her toes in reaction to the jolt of pleasure.
Alexander tucked the flogger and crop under his arm as he circled around behind her.
His fingers were warm on her back, which was chilled from exposure. That didn’t stop her from shivering as he pushed her hair over her shoulder so he could see what he was doing.
He undid the uppermost closure of the corset bra. Alena’s blood heated, her body warm with arousal.
Though he worked with brisk efficiency worthy of a healthcare worker, having him undress her felt intimate. It was intimate, and trying to pretend it wasn’t was stupid.
BDSM wasn’t always sexual, in fact most people played in ways that either weren’t sexual, weren’t about sex, or both. However, BDSM was always intimate.
In the next moment the bra fell away, leaving her breasts bare and vulnerable.
He tossed the undergarment aside where it landed atop her discarded shoes and cloak. She took careful breaths, counting to five as she inhaled in effort to keep herself both calm and focused.
Approaching him as a submissive had been a calculated risk. This moment, bare-breasted and in bondage, was the first time it felt like the risk outweighed the benefits.
He gathered her hair into a single tail at the back of her head. She felt him lean in. When his warm breath washed over the sensitive skin behind her ear, she shivered.
“I will not be gentle with you.”
He pushed her gathered hair forward over one shoulder, leaving her back bare and accessible.
The first strike hit her upper back, just right of center. She flinched, tiptoeing forward a few inches in an instinctive desire to get away from the source of the sensation. A moment later her brain registered what she’d felt. A thump. The flogger, not the crop.
She settled down on her heels, her arms stretched painfully up and back because she’d shifted forward. Quickly, she backed up, taking the pressure off her shoulders.
Thwack. Again the flogger struck her upper back. This time she didn’t shift away. Instead she inched her feet apart, bracing herself.
“Very good,” he murmured.
“Thank you, Sir.”
Around them dozens of people engaged in various debauched and taboo pleasures.
There were more sexual activities on display than there had ever been at the munches she’d attended or clubs she’d visited. Then again, those had been populated by ordinary people, who, if not exactly normal, were far more likely to feel constrained.
Rules didn’t apply to the uber wealthy.
A couple was scening several meters away, the submissive woman facedown over a sawhorse as her male Dom worked a series of anal plugs, in graduated sizes, into her ass.
The flogger fell again, snapping Alena back into the moment. Her back felt warm where he’d struck.
“You’re good with a flogger, Sir.”
“How would you know? I’ve only placed three strikes.”
“Two sentences in a row?” She tried to look back at him, but with her arms pulled tight alongside her head she was only partially successful. “How unusual, Sir.”
His lips quirked. “A brat? Unexpected.”
In her peripheral vision she saw his arm rise, the tails of the flogger swaying gently.
Thwack. This time