Page 56 of No Going Back

“I haven’t finished with you yet. Be ready to give me your tears, pet.” He pressed his lips to her skin, anointing her with a chain of soft, drugging kisses. “I need to check how wet you are first.”

Without waiting for a response, his hand moved even lower. His middle finger slid between her slick folds and tested the pulsing, tender nub of flesh they protected. She shuddered, whimpered when he applied more pressure, and her arousal drenched his finger.

“Half a dozen, Madeleine,” he whispered close to her ear. “Are you ready to wear my stripes?”

She gave a jerky nod. “I’m ready.”

“Give me a colour.”

“Green, Sire.”

Guy stepped back, his sense of control ice-cold and absolute. It was time to cement their connection, to prove he could be the man she needed. He was still the man who loved her beyond all reason, had never stopped loving her. He was the man who’d be there for her into eternity and beyond.

With the greatest of care, he stroked the back of her thighs with the cane. A little tap here and there helped to build the sense of anticipation. Then, without warning, he raised the thin rod and brought it down with a gratifying snap across both cheeks of her bottom.

“Count for me.”

>>><<<

“How do you feel?”

Wonderful. Refreshed. Renewed. Invigorated.

Free.

A stream of adjectives swirled in joyous celebration through her mind. So many years of denying her longing for a scene, her longing for her Master. Maddie tumbled through a soft haze of remembered pain—the good kind, not the kind that had broken her heart over and over again. Echoes of it still rippled over her skin where she’d welcomed his expert use of the cane. She shifted a little, starting at the sensation of the chain’s links between her folds. The makeshift chastity device spoke to the most basic of her submissive needs, the desire to be owned.

Maddie understood the need behind the way he’d pulled it tight before locking it into place. It was what had made them fit together so perfectly—his need to be in control, and her need to hand it over. And for both of them, the degree of control could be as extreme as this, the chain between her legs that meant she’d have to beg for permission to use the bathroom. It reminded her of those crazy, idyllic weekends they’d spent at his London apartment, where he’d kept her naked and fucked her hard.

“At peace, Sire.”

A hand planted on her hip turned her on her side. Inexorable pressure brought her into intimate contact with a familiar hardness. Guy was still a force to be reckoned with. She longed for him to take her. His palm slid down her thigh to her knee and lifted her leg over his hip, opening her up to him.

“Enjoy it while you can, pet—I haven’t finished with you yet, not by a long chalk.”

Maddie shivered at the hard edge to his voice. Back then, he’d known her limits, and time after time, he’d demonstrated his skill as a Dominant by taking her to the very edge of those limits. What else had he lined up for her now?

She gasped at the tight pinch he applied to her nipple, every bit as vicious as the clamps he’d preferred earlier. He rolled the fleshy bud between his thumb and forefinger, applied a twist savage enough to send delicious splinters of razor-sharp pain between her legs. She whimpered—God, how she wanted to touch herself.

“You don’t have to go back to work till Monday. You’ll stay here till then, and take whatever I choose to give you.”

Submissive need squirmed low in her belly at the dark promise underscored by his words. She shivered with the memory of him telling her he’d given the household staff the weekend off, and they were alone. When she went back to work, would her bottom still be wearing his stripes, the way it had so many times before? Would her throat still be sore from the screams she had no doubt he’d wrench from her soul?

And yet… His words shone a glaring spotlight on an even deeper secret she still kept from him, something he’d unknowingly given her a long time ago. How it had ended… even now, the sense of grief could choke her. She could never tell him—it wasn’t the sort of thing she could drop casually into a conversation. Besides, if he found out that truth, he’d never forgive her.

“Madeleine.”

The sharp undertone to his voice jolted her out of her thoughts. “Yes, Sire?”

“You disappeared into your head.”

A sharp smack landed on her thigh. It smarted like hell, but she didn’t dare rub it. “I’m sorry, I won’t do it again.”

“Bullshit. We both know you will, but I’m in too good of a mood to do anything about it right now.”

His first kiss was on her forehead, full of caring and without a hint of sexual desire. The second came when he tilted her chin up and crushed his mouth against hers with a passion bordering on incendiary. The scrape of his beard added a delicious tingle of sensation.

At the end of the kiss, he stroked her cheek, looped a stray strand of hair around her ear.

“One day, Madeleine,” he said. “One day you’ll trust me with whatever it is that’s bothering you so much.”

She hardly dared breathe. She could deny the words, but that tone… it was a tone that would never entertain the notion of defeat. It belonged to a man who was certain, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that he’d get what he wanted, and sooner rather than later.

At all costs, she couldn’t let that happen. He could never know the truth. He could never know about their child.

If she ran, the threat to her and Yana need never become a threat to him.

If she ran, she could protect both Yana and Guy.

And if she ran, she would lose him forever.