Thorpe sent Callie a hard grin that she would find impossible to interpret as comforting. “Fine. I’m all over this.”

“Glad to hear it. Breakfast should be ready in five.” Sean set a few pieces of bread into the toaster.

But Thorpe wasn’t listening anymore. He had a few precious minutes to put his hands all over Callie. He didn’t intend to waste even a second.

“Drop the towel. Every hesitation, bratty remark, or lapse in your manners is only going to make my discipline more unpleasant. Are we clear?”

“Yes, Sir.” Her eyes went soft and wide as her fingers loosened the towel.

The terry cloth unraveled from her body, slithering to the ground. And there Callie stood before him, her petite form shaking and blessedly bare. Need seized his insides. She belonged under his hands, his body, his command. He’d fought it for years. But as her gaze clung to him now, silently pleading for both his hard boundaries and his mercy, he couldn’t deny how badly he wanted the right to touch the girl.

“On your knees, pet.” He’d dreamed of saying those words to her forever.

Slowly, gracefully, she knelt before him, her stare unwavering. Without a word, she pleaded. Her desire and anticipation were a punch to his gut.

Thorpe never took his eyes off her as he yanked a small chair from the little table and sat in it, leaning forward with elbows on his knees to drill her with a hard stare. He steadied himself with a deep breath, finding his balance and center. Knowing he had so few boundaries right now with Callie was immersing him in the most heady Dom space. One wicked idea after another raced through his head.

“Good. What I say will be absolute, Callie. No arguments. No questions. No comebacks. This isn’t a demo, and I’m no longer playing. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Sir.” Her voice sounded so breathy and acquiescent. Need seared itself on her face. This passionate Callie was the one he knew—and loved. The one he burned for.

He sat back in his chair and patted his thigh. “Sit on my lap.”

She rose. It wasn’t quick. Nor was it so slow that he could call it a hesitation, but close. Her lips parted and questions nearly tumbled forth. Callie stifled them. Instead of asking whatever she wanted to know, she merely perched her pretty bare ass on his thigh gingerly, then looked to him for reassurance.

“Yes, like that.” He swallowed back the command to kiss him, to tug down his zipper, to stroke his straining erection before she eased him into the blistering silk of her pussy. But all of that would be what he wanted—not what he’d been granted. Not what she needed. “Now turn to face Sean and put your legs on either side of my knees.”

Callie responded more quickly this time, rotating on his lap, then settling her back against his chest. Thorpe hissed in her ear as she rested her bare skin against his thin, damp shirt. He gripped her hips, barely restraining the urge to shove his cock against the ripe curves of her ass.

He widened the stance of his thighs, parting her legs at the same time. Sean looked up from the eggs, watching raptly. His face told Thorpe that he didn’t really give a shit if the eggs burned.

Settling his lips against her ear, he whispered, “Tilt your head back on my shoulder.”

Callie shivered, but she obeyed without pause. Her shaky little exhalation left him no doubt that his domination aroused her. Unable to resist anymore, he ground his dick into her pert backside, then caressed his way up her waist, her ribs, until he palmed her breasts and trapped her nipples between his thumb and forefinger, turning and tugging.

“You touched yourself to torment me. Didn’t you, Callie?”

“Yes, Sir.” Her breathy reply made his gut and his need tighten.

“Why, to taunt me with what I shouldn’t take or to seduce me?”

He felt her draw in a deep breath, then undulate on his lap, sending hot sensation skittering through him again. He tightened his grip on her nipples, and she gasped.

“Lovely?” Sean prodded.

“Both,” she admitted with a little cry. “I hated the thought that you wouldn’t show me whether you want me or not.”

“So you tried to corner me. Very naughty.” One hand left the soft curve of her breast.

“But—”

“Not a word.” His voice reverberated through the little room. “Running away, stripping in public, staying in hellholes, fighting me, frustrating me . . . You’ve done nothing to earn an orgasm.”

“Good point,” Sean conceded. “Scratch that off the list.”

She moaned in protest.

“You’ve earned this, pet.” Thorpe spanked the pad of her pussy with his fingers in a stinging blow that awakened and inflamed.

Callie gasped, arched, thrusting one breast deeper into his grasp. He gritted his teeth. She responded to him even more beautifully than he remembered, way beyond his wildest dreams. Despite her craving for tenderness, she seemed completely capable of taking the edgy side of his nature—and still asking for more. At the thought, what little blood remained in his body rushed to his cock until he felt staggered and dizzy.

Again, he lightly smacked her pussy enough to sting sweetly. And again. Each time, her folds plumped and slickened a bit more. He couldn’t miss the way her clit swelled and hardened. So he kept on.

“Please, Thorpe . . .” she panted.

“That’s Sir to you right now. And I promise, you’re going to beg, little girl. For my mercy and for the pleasure I can grant you . . . if I choose. Eventually.”

She shuddered, and Thorpe tried to hold it together, fighting the urge to bend her over the little table and work his way into her tight cunt until she’d taken every throbbing inch he had.

“Yes, Sir,” she moaned.

“Better.” He settled his palm over her swollen folds, gratified to feel her slickness coating the slide of his fingers onto her clit. Gently, he circled her sensitive nub. It hardened to stone. Then he slowed his caress, plying with a swirling, stroking, downright leisurely brush of his fingers. Her breathing grew more labored.

“You’ve played with me for the last time, pet. First, you left me without so much as saying good-bye, despite the years I spent sheltering you. Then I found you stripping, of all things, in a place not even clean enough to house rats. I chased you down a fucking alley and told you never to run from me again. What did you do the minute you woke up this morning?” When she hesitated, he barked, “Answer me, Callie.”

“I ran, Sir.”

“Yes. You’re in a shitload of trouble, little girl.”

Callie grabbed his thigh, whimpering as he curled a pair of fingers into the snug depths of her cunt. “I’m sorry.”

“I didn’t give you permission to speak. I’m not done listing all the reasons I’m displeased with your behavior so you’ll understand exactly why I’m going to make this punishment difficult. Don’t interrupt me again.”

She writhed and trembled in his arms. “I won’t, Sir.”

“Then you teased me while you showered, driving me to the brink of sanity. If you’d had any idea just how exasperated I’ve been—worried out of my mind and chasing you all over the damn place, wanting you so fucking much and knowing you were just out of my grasp . . . I’ve reached my limit, Callie. No more.”

He plunged his fingers deep inside her, rooting around until he found the bit of smooth, sensitive tissue high on the front wall of her passage. He rubbed in mercilessly unhurried circles.

Toast popped up. Sean plated food. Thorpe gritted his teeth. He wasn’t ready to let Callie go. She hadn’t been punished enough for all her transgressions . . . and he couldn’t bring himself to stop touching her.

“Breakfast,” Sean said as he set her plate on the table.

“Did you happen to buy clothes pins or chip clips when you went shopping?” Thorpe snapped.

“No, but I found some while prowling around in the drawers here,” Sean said.

“Perfect. I need two.”

Sean turned and rummaged in a drawer as Thorpe shoved Callie’s hair from her neck. As he continued to drag his fingers ruthlessly over her most sensitive spots, he swept his lips up her neck, then nipped at her lobe. On his lap, she gyrated restlessly. Moisture gushed all over his fingers. Her breathing ramped up. She had to be getting close. Now it would get fun . . .

After a slam of the drawer, Sean turned back. His stare fell on them, his blue eyes turning dark with arousal. “She looks beautiful.”

“She feels like the most exquisite hell,” Thorpe groaned.

“Callie always does.” With a little smile, Sean held up the clothes pins. “Where do you want these?”

Chapter Fourteen

“ON her nipples,” Thorpe instructed Sean. “Suck the buds first. Get them good and hard. Make her feel every pull of your mouth all the way down to her clit.”

Callie thought she might explode. Thorpe was doing everything in his power to drive her beyond her ability to endure his sensual torture, and now Sean was pitching in to help out. Having both of their hands on her, their bodies crushed to hers, had been a fantasy nearly beyond her wildest imagining for weeks.

A big smile stretched across Sean’s face. “I like the way you think . . .”

“I’ve got a ton more ideas,” Thorpe assured.

She’d just bet.

Callie panted now, every breath a labored cry as he worked her pussy, fondled her clit, and breathed across her neck. He made her suffer, ache. She wanted to cry out, but held in the need. In every way possible, Thorpe was reminding her that he was not only a Dominant, but a Master—the sort of man who would crawl into her head, read her every need, dangle it in front of her until she knelt and pleaded and submitted, then he’d turn her inside out as he fulfilled every dark fantasy.

Drawing up the other kitchen chair and dropping into it, Sean looked completely on board with that plan.

“Excellent,” he murmured as he leaned forward, closer. “Give me your breasts, lovely. Arch to me.”

With a whimper, she did. She couldn’t help it. Sean grabbed her sides, pulling her closer. He didn’t pounce on her aching nipples right away, though she wished he had. Instead, he hovered over her, palmed back the damp hair that had worked onto her face and plastered to her breasts, then fastened his hand around her nape. He plowed his way past her lips, seizing, taking, wildly devouring her mouth. She melted, gasping into his kiss as Thorpe’s fingers plied her clit with ruthless efficiency. He backed off again when she held her breath. Perspiration sheened her skin, and she keened out with unfulfilled need.

Sean lifted his head, and he gave her a lopsided smile of triumph. For good measure, he fondled her breasts, pinching her nipples. “Not so eager to run now, are you, lovely?”

Wasn’t it obvious? She couldn’t move now if she wanted to, not when satisfaction was so close and they held the key to her pleasure. To her heart.

“Answer him,” Thorpe barked in her ear, then grazed his teeth over her sensitive shoulder.

Callie shuddered. She thought she’d experienced pleasure before, but this . . . Poems and songs were written about the sort of ecstasy they suspended just out of her grasp. Wars were fought. Kingdoms fell. She had no idea how to do anything but plead and beg for them to put her out of her misery.

“No, Sir. Please. Please . . .”

Sean chuckled but didn’t answer her directly. Instead he bent to one of her breasts and took her nipple in his mouth. His suction pulled on the sensitive crest, then zipped a line of fire all the way down to her pussy. Oh, gawd. She only thought she’d been on the knife’s edge of need before. Now?

Unable to help herself, she filtered her hands through his hair and tugged him closer, wishing desperately that she could make him suck more. Or less. Or whatever would ease this relentless need driving her to madness.

Instead, Sean backed away and inspected his work. His smile tightened, and he lifted one of the clothes pins to her. Callie’s eyes widened, and a protest sat on the edge of her tongue. The little wooden implement would act like a nipple clamp. She had so little experience, despite living and working at Dominion. She’d never been clamped in any way. No doubt, it would sting at least a little or they wouldn’t bother.

“Please . . .” she begged.

Thorpe stiffened, his voice a dark growl in her ear. “Take your punishment, Callie. You’ve given us no choice for days. Now it’s your turn.”

“Exactly,” Sean agreed as he cupped her breast and applied the first clothes pin.

It pressed down on her nipple. Not pain exactly, but a constant, somehow tugging pressure that jolted straight to her clit. Callie gasped.

With rough fingers, Thorpe pinched her other nipple. The second he released it, Sean sucked it into the burning oven of his mouth and pulled. She dug her fingers into Thorpe’s thighs, trying to take in all the sensations at once. The arousal climbed yet again to something dizzying she’d never imagined possible. Callie groaned, mewled. Neither man heeded the sounds. They seemed intent and eager to keep pushing her. Thorpe set his greedy fingers back over her clit, his circles on her flesh even more torturously slow. Gawd, she couldn’t take much more.