Page 165 of Boardroom Mask

“Already breaking the rules,” he tuts. “We haven’t even started.”

I close my mouth. My pulse is hammering everywhere. But I wait.

He takes my hand and leads me out of the bathroom and into the bedroom. I know the layout by heart, but blindfolded, every step feels new.

“Stop,” he says. “Right here. Don’t move.”

I stop. The carpet is soft under my bare feet. Then he lets go of my hand, and I hear him moving around me. His footsteps are slow and heavy. Predatory. I shiver uncontrollably, but I don’t dare make a peep.

Leather fingertips drag across my bare shoulders. Down my right arm to the wrist, then gone. Pause. Breath. Then up my spine, one finger tracing each vertebra through the thin fabric.

The zipper at my back comes down tooth by tooth. He peels the costume off my shoulders, works it down past my ribs, and stops at my waist. Cool air kisses my bare skin. I’m half-dressed and half-not, caught somewhere in between, with a masked monster stripping me at his leisure.

His mouth finds my ear. “Your fear looks so pretty in the dark, little fox.”

I hear a sound of rustling fabric, and then something rough and fibrous loops around my left wrist. Rope, I think. He winds it twice, pulls it snug, then guides both wrists together behind my back. His fingers work fast and sure, threading and cinching, and I feel knot after knot lock into place against the bones of my wrists.

The binding forces my shoulders back and my chest forward. I’m standing blind and bound in my own bedroom, breasts bare, spine arched, and completely unable to cover a single inch of myself.

I am also soaking wet.

But Kir—sorry, the Masked Man—doesn’t touch me where I want. His gloved finger traces the rope instead, following its path from wrist to wrist, pressing into the gap where braided fiber meets skin. He checks the tension against the inside of my wrist, right over my pulse. Two fingers. Measuring. Adjusting.

Then, with no warning, he shoves me forward onto the bed. My cheek smashes into the sheets as I land facedown.

The Fear threatens. Once upon a time,facedownmeantgone. Ceiling crack. Gray sock. Lights out, nobody home.

Now, it means here. Right here. I’m present in a way I used to never let myself become. Why wouldn’t I be present? Everything I’ve ever wanted is with me in this room.

He tugs the costume down over my hips, past my thighs, off my ankles, then sets it aside. I’m facedown in nothing but lace underwear and a blindfold, wrists bound behind my back, helpless,alive.

Behind me, I hear him moving. There’s the clink of a buckle and the harsh whisper of leather sliding free from belt loops.

I have to bite my lip to stop from yelping when the belt touches the back of my thigh. He paints it gently down to the crease behind my knee, then back up, slow, letting the leather warm against my skin. Up over the curve of my ass, across to the other thigh, down again. A lazy, patient figure eight that makes every muscle in my body coil tight.

The waiting is the worst part. Or the best part. They’re kind of the same thing.

Until the first strike cracks across my ass. I gasp into the sheet, fingers clawing at nothing but empty air. The sting spreads outward in a hot wave that I feel all the way to my toes.

His mouth presses against the welt he just gave me. Warm lips, then his tongue, flat and slow, tracing the line of heat he just put there. My hips jerk involuntarily. Pain then comfort, punishment then reward. It’s so nice to relax into a world with clear rules.

In the dark, good girls get to cum.

Bad girls are forced to scream.

The second strike comes harder. As before, Kir’s mouth follows immediately to soothe the fiery pain. “Who do you belong to?” he rumbles against my skin. His deep voice oozes up my bared body like liquid fire to reach my ears. He’s so effortlessly seductive, sex incarnate. I want to give him all of me.

But it wouldn’t be fun to do that right away.

So my bratty ass decides to answer, “Gee, I dunno… the mailman?”

Therefore, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised when the third strike nearly takes my ass cheek off. My back bows off the mattress and a moan rips out of me before I can clamp my teeth shut.

His breathing changes behind me. Just barely. A fraction of a hitch, a tiny crack in that ironclad composure, but I savor it like the greedy slut he turns me into. I fuckinglovethis. I love knowing I can make him slip, even for a second, before he pulls himself back together.

“I’m going to give you one more chance,” he snarls. “Who do you belong to?” The belt rests against the back of my thigh like a leather warning.

“You,” I breathe into the sheet. “I belong to you.”