The Professional (The Game Maker #1)(39)
Author: Kresley Cole

My toes curled, my fists clenched. How long had he kept me in this misery? I didn’t know if minutes had passed or hours. “Too much!” How could boundless pleasure be so excruciating?

He drew on me even harder. At last! Should I tell him that I was about to trip over the edge? He would deprive me of my orgasm, just as he had everything else. Hide how close you are. Don’t let him know—

“If you come before I give you permission, you’ll be punished.”

I writhed with frustration. Orgasm denial, just as I’d read about. “I-I need to come. Please.”

“Say that in Russian. I love that word from you.”

“Pozhaluista!”

“Enjoy more of my kiss.” I felt his ragged breaths against my spread opening. “But do not come.”

Fierce licks over my clit forced a desperate cry from my lungs. Too late. I couldn’t withstand this. The wave was crashing over me—

“You’re coming?” With a growl of irritation, he sucked harder to finish me, tonguing me at the same time. My body twisted against my bonds, legs spread, hips bucking wantonly to his mouth. Fuck. Fuck. Sucking me so hard. Wringing from me the most powerful orgasm I’d ever imagined.

Just as he’d promised.

As before, my mind was . . . reset.

I lay, recovering from the staggering pleasure—but not sated. Instead of putting out the fire, that release had just taken the edge off, enough for my thoughts to briefly clear. The better for me to appreciate what he was doing to me.

To appreciate my submissive position. My helplessness. His mastery.

As I squirmed with after-shudders, he continued to lave me, savoring. “I taste your cum . . . could lick you forever.” His voice sounded strained. “But you orgasmed before I wanted you to, moya plohaya devchonka.” That meant “my bad girl.” As in naughty or . . . wicked.

And I was. For him, I was.

He pulled away. “I’m going to have to start over, to get you wild again. Are you ready for your punishment?”

In a dim part of my brain, I recognized that he’d set me up to be punished, that it was always going to fall to this—because he played games.

Was he playing for higher stakes than I could afford to lose?

Chapter 20

“I’m ready.” I think. I didn’t recognize my whiskey voice. Gone scratchy from my screams?

I heard a rustle and my eyes shot wide behind my blindfold. Was that a venik? One of those mini leaf brooms? What would he be doing with that . . . ? My questions faded when he ran it over my chest.

The wet leaves slithered over the contours of my br**sts, the texture just this side of rough across my stiffened ni**les. With a cry, I arched up—

Slap. He’d whipped one of my br**sts! “Sevastyan!” Then the other. “What are you—”

And again! The sting continued to intensify, but my ni**les hardened even more, as if to tempt another slap—which he promptly gave.

Over. And over.

I almost demanded that he stop—but everything he’d done to me in the past had been too earth-shattering to be missed. So I gritted my teeth and took the pain for him.

While my mind struggled to assimilate my . . . my whipping, he swatted those soft leaves over me repeatedly, the slapping sounds loud in the cocoon of the sauna.

As I gasped and shook, pain began to morph into a peculiar kind of pleasure. I couldn’t . . . crave this? I’d ended up enjoying his harsh spanking on the plane, but having my br**sts thrashed with an implement was seriously upping the ante.

So why had I started rising up to meet each stroke?

He lashed me until my tautened br**sts ached, my ni**les throbbing as badly as my clit had.

But I couldn’t reach the brink like this. He was withholding any contact below my waist—more punishment for coming; I knew this as well as if he’d told me.

“Touch me, Sevastyan!” My inner walls clenched only emptiness. “I have to come again.”

“Do you want me inside you?”

I moaned, barely recalling why it was so important not to have sex. “Oh, God . . . I don’t . . . I can’t . . .” My lust-stupid brain spun its wheels, gained no traction.

“If you became mine, I wouldn’t let you go.” His words were clipped, as if he was biting back frenzy. “Understand me, if I’m your first lover—I will be your last.” The ringing tone of finality chilled me. “And I would kill any man who thought to touch what was mine.”

Permanent.

“Beg me to f**k you.” He lashed my right breast.

Trap!

In my mind, I saw him at the ready, about to capture me, to chain me forever. The hunter about to strike. This was what he’d awaited.

This. Why now? Why me?

“Beg, Natalya.”

Can’t think! “N-no?”

Silence. Finally: “What did you say?”

“I can’t. Not unless you can tell me it’ll only be sex. With no strings attached.”

“I said you controlled this situation.” Tone gone sinister, he grated, “But I control you. I can make you beg.”

I whispered, “I know.”

My admission seemed to temper some of his anger. “Then why deny us, milaya?”

“It’s all too much. I just . . . can’t.”

“Then I won’t f**k you till you beg me to—outside of this torment. Because I’m playing to win.” He makes the rules. “This is more to me than just pleasure.” Another slap of the venik.

“Sevastyan, I don’t . . . I don’t know how much longer I can stand this.” Just when I was about to plead for mercy—or faint—I felt pressure at my core. A warm, bulbous object nudged against my opening. Despite what he’d said, was he going to f**k me?

No . . . that wasn’t his . . . oh, dear God, was it the polished handle of the ladle? I whimpered, “Y-you can’t.” I couldn’t think—because he’d begun to slowly penetrate me. “You’re . . . you’re doing this to spite me?” Diabolical man!

“I promised you unmatched pleasure, yet you took away my most effective means. Come now, pet, you said you needed something inside you.”

I did. And I wanted it deeper, but he merely thrust with shallow pumps, until my head lolled. He avoided my clit completely—more punishment. Still, I was about to come.

Slap. Even as he f**ked my pu**y with the handle, he whipped my tender br**sts. At that moment, I couldn’t decide which stimulation I would kill for most.