Marion served us quickly, withdrawing with a smile. We ate the delicious omelets in silence. James finished before me. I could feel him watching me as I took a drink of water. He stood the instant I swallowed my last bite. He led me by the collar through the multi-floored penthouse, heading to his bedroom without further ado.

I was more than happy to go. I had been living in a world of tortured anticipation since he had pinched on my nipple clamps, just waiting for him to get me alone like this.

He took me into his colossal bedroom closet.

“Take off your clothes,” he commanded, shrugging out of his shirt, his back to me. I obeyed without a word, taking off everything but my jewelry. He took off my watch and cuff, putting them on a little tray on the huge dresser in his closet. My eyes had moved to his feet as soon as I was undressed. He was barefoot now, wearing only his slacks. I thought about how even his tan feet were sexy.

He threaded a silver chain through the hoop at my collar. It attached to each of my nipple clamps, raising my nipples.

I winced, rubbing my thighs together restlessly.

He fastened a sheer black half-slip over my hips. I had worn it just once before, in his playground. It covered nothing, but the sight of it turned me on. It made my body look sinful, with just that touch of black. I bit my lip, arching my back a little.

To say I was turned on was a vast understatement. I was so far past that point. I raised my gaze just enough to see the hard ridge pressing against the front of his navy slacks. I moaned at the sight of it.

“Don’t try to tempt me, Bianca. You’ll be punished for that. Is that what you were trying to do?”

I shook my head, out of my mind with wanting him.

He led me by my collar to the elevator that went directly from his bedroom and into his private playground. I mewled at the cruel pressure that pulled at my nipples. He slapped my ass hard as we descended to his 4th floor. For making the noise, I thought.

He pulled a length of black cloth from his pocket, stepping behind me in the elevator. It was a blindfold, I realized, as he covered my eyes, tying it firmly in the back. The material was silky and luxuriously soft.

The elevator stopped, and he pulled me forward by the collar. Our footsteps seemed loud in the hallway, but the padded flooring once we got into the playroom made a softer, muffled sound. He led me only a few steps into the room before stopping.

“Get on your knees,” he told me.

I obeyed, raising my chin. I heard him move away.

I heard him opening drawers across the room. Some sort of machinery whirred softly, the sound of chains clinking together following immediately, and I had no idea what would make such a noise.

I sat back on my heels, my hands flat on my thighs. I began to rub them slowly over my own skin as I waited, anticipation and fear a palpable feeling along my skin. As my hands rubbed, I shifted my arms, moving them against my breasts, pushing the round globes closer together to rub against each other, craving contact, even if it was just the contact of my own skin on itself.

“Stop that,” James snapped from across the room. “If you pleasure yourself, then that’s all you’ll do.

All you’ll get is a dildo to relieve your ache, if you keep that up. Which would you prefer? My cock, or a dildo?”

I gasped, and stopped moving, though I wanted more than ever to move after hearing his words. “Your cock. Oh god, I want your cock, James.”

“It’s Mr. Cavendish, or Master, in here, Bianca.”

“Yes, Mr. Cavendish.”

There was a noise, like chains clinking together, and then he was pulling me to my feet by the collar. I gasped at the rough pull on my nipples. They seemed to be getting more sensitive, not less so, the longer those mean clamps stayed attached.

He pulled me across the padded floor. He pulled me maybe twenty feet before stopping abruptly.

Finally he touched my skin, pulling my wrists together in front of me. The action rubbed my breasts together, and my back arched. He placed something soft around my wrists, closing it with a loud metal clink on first one wrist and then the other. Padded handcuffs, I thought.

He moved very close to me as he reached above me, pulling down a metal chain that clicked loudly with each link. He dragged the length along my cheek, my collar, against the side of one breast, and finally to my joined hands. He attached the chain rather noisily to the handcuffs, stepping away. I heard the links clinking again as the cuffs were raised above my head agonizingly slowly. My arms pulled up high until I was stretched taut onto the balls of my feet.

“Grip the chain,” James told me.

I tried, but obviously did it wrong, because he adjusted my hands until I had a firm double grasp on the chain that held me up. He jerked suddenly on my neat little work braid, arching my head back. It pulled at the chain between my clamped nipples, as everything seemed to.

I whimpered loudly.

“I want you to be silent,” James told me, his voice a hoarse rasp. “Don’t make sexy little noises. Don’t beg me to stop. Be as quiet as you can, unless you need to safe word.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

I gave a little nod, since I couldn’t speak. I felt him move away. He was gone for long minutes, and I felt bereft. I couldn’t move or speak, because he’d ordered me not to, so only my mind was active. It was the most torturous part of all, as I imagined what he would do to me, what he was planning, and all I could do was wait.

Soft music began to play, the notes of a dark song drifting through the room. It had an ominous tune.

I didn’t even sense him move but just suddenly felt something soft brush across the skin of my back. A feather, I realized, as he trailed it down my spine. He removed it, but it was instantly replaced by something else, something rougher, with thin strands that caught at my skin as he stroked it where the feather had been. The feather came back, stroking along my butt and down my thighs.

I shivered as he softly stroked it over the back of my knee and down to my foot. He moved the feather back up my body via the other leg. It covered every inch of the back of my body before he pulled back.

The rougher object began to move across my skin, mirroring the feathers trail exactly. Where the feather had made me shiver all over, the rougher trail made me writhe, fighting to keep from making noise.

The rough little tails were absent, and the feather was back, brushing just below my shoulder blades. It lingered there, slowly whispering over that skin oh so carefully. The feather pulled away and the instant it left my skin he struck, flogging me with those rough little tails viciously.

I bit my lip so hard I tasted blood, my back arching, spine bowing.

He struck again and again, only striking those tender spots that the feather had paid such special attention to. My heart was trying to pound out of my chest, and tears ran down my cheeks silently but freely before he stopped.

I felt him unclip the tiny slip at my waist, felt it drop to the floor, the feather lightly caressing my naked ass. I wondered if he was timing the feather contact to the timing of the flogging. It seemed that way to me, and it was a torturous realization, because he lingered for the longest time on my rear, that soft feather relentless. Of the two touches, I thought the feather was the cruelest.

The feather’s absence was immediately replaced by the sharp bite of the tails. It went on and on, striking again and again, and I began to move with the strikes, circling my hips, the pain taking my mind to a little fuzzy place, and I thought I would come if he so much as touched my sex.

I heard his ragged breaths when he replaced the tails with the feather on my thighs. When the feather touched my inner thigh, a scant breath from my sex, I nearly came. I didn’t know if I could stop myself when the tiny whips replaced that cruel feather. I wondered, very briefly, if I would be punished for that.

My breaths were so ragged that I worried I would be punished for the noise when the tails replaced the feather, slapping at my sensitive thighs relentlessly.

My back bowed, my feet pushing on my toes as the whips hit that spot on my groin, and I came, gyrating on my chain and biting on my bloody lip. At least I had kept silent, if you didn’t count my loud panting breaths.

“Fuck,” James panted, and that was all. He replaced the little whips with a feather on my calves. This was a shorter touch, and a shorter flogging.

He seemed to finish with my back, stepping away. I felt him studying me for impossibly long minutes.

My release had been involuntary, and done very little to ease the ache. My pulse still beat in time to the blood pounding in my veins and every inch of me wanted him inside of me, against me, touching me. My hips made little circling thrusts as he watched me.

Finally, I felt him moving to the front of my body. He studied my front for nearly as long as he had my back.

Abruptly, he released my breasts from the mean little clamps. I took deep breaths, counting to ten, trying to keep the noises in my throat. He began to move the feather along my front, starting with my cheek. He circled my lips with the feather.

He stopped abruptly, walking away. I wanted to scream at his abrupt absence, but he returned almost instantly, placing some type of strap against my mouth.

“Bite down on this if you need to,” he ordered. “Don’t bite your lip anymore. You’ll need stitches if you keep that up.” I bit it. It was an instant relief to have something firm to bite down on.

He started in on me with the feather again, covering the front of my body with those soft caresses. He mirrored the movement with the tiny whips. The pattern was already familiar, but still I agonized over what he would do next. The feather was back again, and I knew what to expect when the whips had a turn, every touch telling me sadistically just where and for how long I would get the attention of those mean little tails.

He softly caressed my upper thighs first, using his foot to part my legs, snaking that little feather in dangerously close to my wet core. I felt the feather drag a little through the moisture there, and heard James suck in a gasp. But there was still no pause as he pulled back the feather and struck with the whip in almost the same motion, as though they were two sides of the same object. I wondered, rather distantly, if they were.

He struck my thighs again and again, stopping abruptly, but I knew that if I had been counting, it would have timed the same as the feather.

My head fell back, and I sucked in harsh breaths when the light touch made contact with my breasts. He caressed the fleshy globes for long moments, thankfully only briefly teasing at my tortured nipples. When he began to whip me there, I shuddered, my body on the brink of release when he stopped.

He stared at me for the longest time, until I heard him unzip his pants.

I wanted to sob in relief just at the sound.

He moved to my back. “That’s enough of a lesson and a punishment, I think,” he said, his voice rough and affected. Just how I wanted it.

His smooth chest moved against my back as he leaned into me from behind. “Grip the chains more tightly,” he told me, his hard hands settling on my hips.

I obeyed eagerly.

“Arch your back. More.”

I felt the tip of his cock at my entrance. It poised there for long moments, quivering against me. He entered me, but not how I wanted, not with a hard thrust, as I was wishing for. He worked his large length inside of me, inch by thick inch, working into my tight wet sheath agonizingly slowly. I wanted to cry. I wanted to beg.