“Owned.”

No use denying simple truth. It was the word that had come to mind when he’d stared at those fading marks. In a totally different but similar way, it was like carrying a picture of his mother and sister with him whenever he’d been able to do so. That invaluable sense of belonging, of connection, no matter how far from home he got. Which was probably why he was having that crazy thought about the tattoo.

“A nice answer.” She put her mouth between his shoulder blades and worked down his spine with heated lips and moist tongue. Her hands curved around his waist, following the line of the belt until she reached the front. She loosened the tongue, unbuttoned the jeans, worked the zipper down, her body still against the back of his. Her leg hooked over his thigh and she rubbed her mound over the seam of his ass, making him harden, his muscles tighten. He had to quell a desire to thrust forward, show her what he wanted to do for her. Then she shifted, bringing both feet back to the floor so she could slide her hand into the open jeans.

“No underwear. You’re a tease, Max. Who would have guessed? And the area around your cock so smooth and neatly trimmed. You really did make yourself presentable for a lady. You didn’t pick up that tip from your mother, did you?”

He strangled on a half chuckle. “No, not that one.”

She gripped his cock in a loose curl and slid upward, working the velvet skin along his shaft. A wave of sensation rushed up through his balls, following her touch. She kept doing it, up and down, showing a skillful knowledge of a man’s body. He tried not to thrust into her hand, but it required tightening his buttocks so the muscles were hard steel. She rubbed herself against them, her scantily clad breasts pressed to his bare back. Her nipples had turned into aroused stiff points as she used the friction between their bodies to arouse herself.

Releasing him, she worked the jeans off his hips. She untied his shoes, had him lift each foot so she could remove them. He could have toed them off. He didn’t like the idea of her having to bend down like that. He bit it back before he spoke though. He didn’t want to be gagged. He was doing well with the blindfold thing, better than he’d expected, but he was still tense enough to know he wouldn’t maintain as well if he lost another perceived freedom. The more he capitulated to her as a Mistress, the more he suspected that would happen. He needed to control the pace as much as possible.

While she was down there, she wrapped cuffs around his ankles, attached tethers of the same length as the one at his throat and snapped them to hooks in the wall as well. Now he was naked except for collar and cuffs. She straightened, her nails trailing over his ass. One finger tunneled between his buttocks, despite his reflexive tightening there.

“Open up for me, Max. Relax.”

He recalled what he’d thought about in the car. Ground rules, safe words. Janet had done none of those things with him, relying on their innate understanding of one another, the trust he was attempting to grasp. He could call a stop to it now, but he didn’t. For one thing, she changed her mind about her direction, stroking his flanks briefly before stepping away, leaving him there.

He couldn’t hear her footfalls over that wave score, but a moment later he heard the cabinet open and close, the clank as she likely went through what was in that velvet bag. His fingers flexed on the handles and he shifted his weight.

“Oh that was nice. Do that again. You have a superior ass, Max. Dana’s right about that.”

He grimaced but obeyed, feeling a little foolish until he heard her hum, a note that made him think of a cat eyeing cream. Or in Janet’s case, a lioness eyeing a bull calf.

When she touched his back again, his muscles eased a fraction. She noted it, pressing her fingers more firmly into his flesh. “I’m here, Max. I’m not leaving the room. I promise.”

“I know that.” He didn’t mean to sound impatient with her. He didn’t want her thinking he was weak, nervous. He just wasn’t great with being blindfolded and that damn wave track masking noise. The speakers must be embedded in this wall. “Don’t worry about me. I’m fine.”

“Yes, you are. More than fine.” She stroked his buttock again, nails scraping his flesh. “If I had my way, I’d put you just like this against the wall across from my desk. Of course, there wouldn’t be a K&A female employee who’d get any work done that day, and that would include me, since they’d all be making excuses to come to my office.”

“Not to mention what Matt would have to say about it.”

“We’d do it when Matt and the others were traveling. It would be a girls-only day on the executive floor. Maybe I’d invite Savannah, Dana, Cassandra, Marcie and Rachel for lunch. Strap you down on the boardroom table. Do you know the new one converts to a St. Andrew’s Cross of sorts? Designed by Jon, of course. I’d blindfold you like this, and they’d tease, taste, bite. Feed you bits of their lunch. Perhaps I’d talk to Peter about it beforehand, so I could order Dana to wrap her lips around your cock, make her suck you to orgasm but deny her one of her own, punish her for taking liberties with you.”

“It’s not like that. She’s just… It doesn’t…”

“Mean anything? No, perhaps not. Until you belong to a Mistress. And then it’s a serious infraction.” Her palm slid down his side, over the trident and skull tattoo, down to his hip, then back to his front, stroking his groin, his stiff cock, fingernails tracing the corona, thumb pressing against the slit as she took hold of him again like the gear shift of her Mustang. “She and I will have to talk about that.”

He groaned as she eased under his arm, bringing her body between his and the wall. A scraping noise, like heavy plastic, and then he realized she’d brought a small footstool, because when she stepped onto it he felt the touch of her breath on his brow, meaning she was a couple inches taller than him. Unhooking his tether, she wound it around her hand so that he felt the pull of it against the collar when she rested the point of her wrist on his pectoral. She allowed the strap enough slack to turn her back to him, put it over her shoulder, tugging upward so he lifted his jaw. A moment later, she rubbed her ass against his abdomen.

His immediate desire was to thrust his cock up between her legs, because he could feel the brush of her thighs against his aroused sex. He suppressed the desire, having enough sense to know that was going to be a punishable offense. A warning tug on that tether reinforced it. However, another second of that delectable ass against him and he might go for it.

She put her hands over his on the wall, rubbed her ass in a slow circle against him, making that little teasing purr in her throat again. “The tie to my bikini top is in front of you, Max. Pull it loose with your teeth and you’ll get a reward.”

As he leaned forward, she caught his cock between her thighs, squeezing down on it and making him thrust involuntarily. Fuck, she felt good. She chuckled, a dangerous sound.

“Behave, or you’ll wish you had.”

First, though, he pressed his lips between her shoulder blades, where the drawing was. He could smell the faint scent of the ink. “I really like this.”

“I really like you.”

The simple, whimsical response made him smile. He tugged the tie loose, grateful for that slippery fabric that made bikinis easy to remove when dry. She started to turn, so he leaned back, but not very far. He knew just which part of her anatomy would be within reach of his mouth on that turn, and he wanted to be ready if she gave him that reward.

The beep of the door made him stiffen. He jerked back reflexively, forgetting he was bound, and the cuffs pulled against his wrists, the tether holding him like a dog on a short leash.

“It’s all right. It’s a staff volunteer. I pressed a button requesting a few minutes of assistance. It’s Rita. You know her.”

“Mistress Janet.” At the female voice, he didn’t relax, but he did stop pulling. He didn’t like this. He hadn’t heard the door close. The wave sound emitting from the speakers above him might have drowned it out, or it might be standing open.

“Turn the soundtrack off. Right now.”

“I will in a minute if you want me to do so, but think it through. It’s just you, me and Rita. The door is closed and locked, I promise. Can you trust me, Max?”

He set his teeth. That was the point, he got it. But as much as he might trust her, there was no way he could relax like this. He couldn’t pleasure her the way he wanted to do it, not with half his mind caught up in the vulnerabilities of the environment. But every environment had vulnerabilities. Hell, a well-placed sniper could take out half the tourists in Jackson Square on any given day, and he could have a cup of coffee there without freaking out. The restraints and unfamiliar scenario had shifted him into a defensive mindset, but this wasn’t a third-world country, and he wasn’t here as a SEAL on a mission. He was in a BDSM club in the middle of New Orleans, with a beautiful Mistress demanding only one thing from him. Trust.

“I was promised a reward,” he managed. He sounded sullen. A little mean.

“Yes, you were.” Her fingers buried in his hair, pulled his head forward. His lips brushed her nipple, and he needed no more invitation than that to latch on and suckle, tease, nip. He licked her breast all around the tip, wanting to arouse every inch of her. He rubbed his face between them, attacked the other one, giving it the same treatment, rough, aggressive, demanding. She dug her hands into his scalp, her body arching into his. His cock pressed between the seam of her thighs, but that was as far as he could get. She had his ankles cuffed to the floor. He couldn’t angle his hips to drive into the naked, eager pussy under that barely there sarong.

“Rita is going to touch your back now.” Janet’s voice was satisfyingly strained, breathy. He pulled on the right nipple so strongly she cried out in pleasure and discomfort at once. Her foot had hooked around his left thigh again. She liked to hold on with her legs. It made him think of that ballet pose where the ballerina stood on one toe, gripped her partner with her other leg like that while he turned them both, their bodies melded together. He’d like Janet to teach him that one.