Truly Helpless: A Nature of Desire Series Novel Read online

  Every time she buckled a collar on a sub, it reminded her of that soul-deep wish. With Marius, she wanted to keep her fingers under the strap, hold and tug him to her lips. Indulge in his sweet mouth, feel his hunger grow with hers.

  To keep that compulsion at bay while she strapped the collar around Marius’s thick, corded neck, she ran through her domestic to-do list. The Mercedes needed to be serviced. She should add detergent and dark cherries to the weekly online grocery order. Her fingertips might be lingering on the faint rasp of a few hours’ growth of beard, but that was permissible.

  It was done. She withdrew her touch. Aware of his gaze on her face, she tugged his hair, an absent affection, though what she really wanted to do was take a handful and yank his head back. She’d pull on his scalp, letting him feel the sharp edge of her nails.

  Shifting behind him, she ran a hand down his back, slow, learning the shape of him, all the way over the rise of his ass.

  “You could keep going,” he said. “I’d prefer to feel your hand on my cock rather than any of this horse stuff.”

  “Hmm.” She brought the additional tack to the platform. First the shoulder harness, which she enjoyed securing over that broad terrain. Then the saddle. She cinched the chest strap but left the one that went across the abdomen dangling, for now. And resisted the compulsion to reach beneath him and caress his cock, aroused and stiff. His erection had grown from the moment she started to restrain him, but a significant extra jump had happened when she’d put the collar on him. It probably explained the mouthing off. He didn’t want her to notice that.

  Tough, baby. I notice everything.

  She picked up another piece of tack with a clink of metal, the straps falling together as she lifted it. She asked him to open up the same way she would a horse. Not with words.

  Inserting her thumb in the corner of his mouth, she pushed the bit against his teeth. Before he could resist, she’d forced the piece back to the furthest set of molars it could reach and tightened the head straps to keep it there. When he tried to pull away from her, she merely jerked his head down, forcing him to an elbow while she finished the adjustments. The bit had a port, a flat piece to keep his tongue from getting over the bit. It also enhanced the bit’s ability to prohibit speech.

  “Now, where was I?” she mused. “Before my horse decided he was Mr. Ed and could talk?”

  What she was doing wasn’t going to work. Marius wasn’t into this pony bullshit. He wasn’t going to “become a horse” just because she slapped tack on him like one. He for sure wasn’t going to let go of the million-and-one calculations his brain was doing to stay on top of the situation.

  She connected the rings of the bit to cross ties hooked to his left and right on the wall in front of him. Now he couldn’t turn his head. She returned to the supply cabinet, because he could hear the faint squeak of the doors as she opened them and slid something off a shelf.

  “Here we go.” She hung a mirror on the wall in front of him. It was like a locker mirror, about a foot square, but it let him see what she was putting on his head.

  He’d seen the full pony masks employed at the club, which were mostly featureless. This was not that. This was a custom-made fetish piece. As she slid it over his face, the mirror before him showed a proud stallion. The rakish fall of mane and the molding of the features around the eyes and long nose conveyed a badass attitude. The decorative browband across the forelock was embellished with silver chain and spikes.

  The mask blocked his peripheral vision. Now he could only see directly in front of him. The mirror provided him a scant few inches of rear view on either side.

  “Yeah, you’re realizing I’ve taken care of those wandering eyes, haven’t you?” Her fingertips slid down the valley between his shoulder blades. “Putting blinders on a horse narrows his distractions, minimizes what makes him nervous.”

  He wasn’t nervous. If she couldn’t read him any better than that…

  “You’d deny this makes you nervous, and I’d agree. That’s not the word I’d use for you. Any emotions you perceive as weak—nervous, afraid, defensive—you merely channel into aggression, taking the offensive tactic. You seek the high ground, in the battle sense, not the moral one. It’s what a predator does.”

  She used additional straps to secure the mask to the harness she’d put around his shoulders, and did the same with the saddle, so it couldn’t slide back.

  Her fingers slid over the collar on his throat as she did that, but didn’t linger. He’d looked for some hint of her feelings about putting that piece on him, because most Mistresses went a little starry-eyed over it, even if they only intended to keep him for a night. He hadn’t picked up anything from her but efficiency in getting the task done. She appeared so not-engaged in the act, she could have been going through a laundry list in her head. A stab of disappointment about that irritated him. Why should he care? He didn’t get starry-eyed over that kind of shit, either.

  Whatever she’d done to secure the mask had also locked his head in a raised position and increased the tension at the corners of his mouth. Now, in addition to being unable to move his head side to side, he couldn’t drop it down, either.

  She shifted back and attended to the stomach strap she’d left loose. A clink of metal, a whisper of straps against his leg, and he realized she’d threaded the band through another strap. He grunted as she tucked his cock beneath the crisscrossed pieces and bound his rigid organ to his belly with the girth. She then pulled the other piece up between his legs, his balls and buttocks before securing it to the back of the saddle. When she tugged on it, he bit back an oath as it compressed his hardening cock against his belly further and dug into his ball sac, separating his testicles.

  He growled against the bit as she positioned a wide ring, sewn into the strap, between his cheeks, right where it would give her access to his rectum. He didn’t need a fucking safe word for this? Okay, yeah, everything she’d said had been right. He wouldn’t use it, but skipping it, not giving him the choice, that was wrong. No matter how stubborn he was, she was supposed to be the responsible one. She didn’t usually go this route. He thought he’d known what to expect from her.

  She put her hand on one of the lines running to the bit, so he felt the tug on it, the degree of restraint. It tilted the stallion’s head toward her. His head. Bent in such a way that it looked like he had it bowed to her. “Your only task is to obey my commands, heed my touch. You are not Marius, the man that fucks with Mistresses’ heads for reasons that don’t bring you any pleasure or peace. You are a horse. My horse.”

  Now what was she doing? She retrieved another thing from the cabinet. As he watched, gagged from speaking and mostly blinded, he saw only glimpses of her face when she bent before him. He did feel the incidental brush of her body from her movements. She curled his hand into a fist, her fingers too-briefly upon his flesh before she released the cuff on his arm and replaced it with a glove-like piece that enclosed his fist and forearm up to the elbow. Hoof mitts, designed to look like a horse’s front hooves, depending on how much the pony player spent. He expected these looked pretty damn realistic. When he shifted, the bottom piece, where the knuckles of his fist were resting, clopped against the boards of the platform.

  Velcro straps secured the mitt to his wrist, arm and elbow, effectively restricting the use of his hands. She’d given him hooves.

  Now that he was properly outfitted in mask, hooves and tack, she returned to touching him, a thorough and maddeningly dispassionate evaluation of his shoulders, biceps and forearms, as if she were a trainer testing the soundness of his “legs.”

  It made him feel restless and he tossed his head. The lifelike reaction of the mask and hooves were unsettling, melding with his physical movements. Damn if he wasn’t feeling like a damn horse. She crooned to him, her big, powerful animal, her stallion, one that would need a good rubdown after she gave him a hard workout. She slid her hand from his shoulder to his upper back above the saddle, fing
ernails scraping his flesh there before moving to his buttocks and upper thighs. She pressed gently on the fading bruises, and somehow she seemed to know which ones were from Siren and which were from the fight, because she passed over the former, refusing to acknowledge another Mistress’s attempt to claim him.

  He could assume that possessiveness was there, use it to his advantage, but he didn’t have enough information. He tried to lower his head, throw it back, adjust his hips. The visual seemed to please her, because she chuckled softly, a hint of her throaty laugh that went straight to a man’s cock. She slapped his flank, a stinging blow.

  When she followed it up with a caress of his side, she came so close to his stiffening cock that his hips flexed, trying to force himself into her hands despite the binding straps. A breath later, a riding crop popped his flank, hard enough he jumped and hissed. “None of that now,” she chided.

  He pulled against the restraints in angry reproof. All he earned was her amused chuckle and the uneasy confirmation of how securely he was tied.

  “You’re a spirited mount. I’m going to enjoy that while I’m fucking you. I need to go and change, but there are cameras. I can see you in the dressing room. You’re not alone.” Her fingertips slid in one more lingering caress over his shoulder and backside.

  Good. He knew how to handle fucking. She’d be done with him after that, and she’d let him go. She wasn’t so different from other Mistresses. But he didn’t like this. He was becoming far too aware of the restraints, the quiet she’d imposed on him, how little she was asking. He needed the bitch to ask for more, hurt him, demand everything from him. Then he could take all the pain, give everything to her she thought she’d wanted and spit in her face. Laugh at her, and let her see he’d given her nothing. What the hell was the matter with her?

  What the hell was the matter with him? Reining in the odd surge of emotion—and ignoring how he was falling into horse metaphors—he focused on baser interests. He wished those cameras were two-way so he could see what she was doing, how she looked as she removed that tit-alicious tank. She had a powerhouse figure. Generous breasts and a taut, round, high-set ass. She didn’t have stick legs, her thighs strong and healthy, toned pillows to cradle a man as he was plowing her cunt. Her slim auburn and black dreadlocks reached the middle of her back, the beads she seemed to like to use as embellishment clicking when she moved. She had long, elegant fingers, but her hands were surprisingly strong.

  Her eyes…so dark. They were a rich maple syrup kind of color that had a touch of red when the light hit them the right way. Then they were back to being dark, coated in shadows hard to interpret, but sucking him in regardless.

  Okay, he wasn’t thinking about sex. He was thinking about her freaking eyes.

  He stared at himself in the mirror. For a blink he forgot it was a mask and saw himself as a restless, angry horse, one that yanked against his bonds. The pull on the bit made his cock harder, and he stomped the hooves. He imagined covering her, driving into her, baring blunt teeth and latching onto her throat.

  A peculiar feeling was coiling and uncoiling in his belly, like an agitated snake. Horses didn’t like snakes. He stomped again, harder. He shook his head. The mane pattered against the mask and the tack jingled. The hooves made the dais vibrate, thanks to the wood beneath the thin rubber mat. His trapped cock convulsed beneath him, balls hanging heavy and loose on either side of that cutting strap. He had to suppress an animalistic urge to hump air, his rutting need to mate. Where the hell was she?

  The bite of the bit at the corners of his mouth, the hold of the ropes keeping his head up, increased his agitation. He rocked, trying to loosen things, but she’d secured him too well. He was held fast.

  It seemed like she’d been gone forever, but he knew it was only minutes. He needed to calm down, get a grip. He couldn’t. Fuck it, what was happening? He didn’t panic over hardcore shit, and this wasn’t even half hardcore. He needed…

  “Easy…” Her voice came through an intercom near his head. She’d said she had cameras in the room. She’d neglected to mention the audio function, but it was welcome. Too welcome. His senses strained to absorb her words.

  “Settle down.” Her tone became firm. “Your Mistress will be back with you in a minute. Behave for her.”

  He behaved for no one. He wanted to lay back his ears and pluck the intercom from the wall, smash it under his hooves.

  Then he heard her coming back and need lashed him harder. He tried to see more of her in the mirror, but he could only see a piece of her. It confused him. Pink latex, black rubber.

  She was moving. Her heels made a delicate clip, clop sound, a measured, echoing rhythm he understood when she moved into his field of vision and stood before him. She was moving like a horse, one foot up, then the other, a subtle prance that made her breasts quiver.

  She was wearing a pale pink latex mini dress, sleeveless but with a high neck. It clung to her breasts like a second skin, showing off large, firm nipples that made him have to swallow several times to keep drool from escaping around the bit. The skirt creased high up on her thighs. Her stilettos were designed to look like hooves in the front, ladies’ heels in the back, showcasing her long, toned dark legs all the way to the upper thigh. Her body was everything he’d want to fuck, even as it looked too good for him, inaccessible. No mortal man was worthy of fucking a goddess.

  Snapping himself away from that crazy thought, he lifted his attention to her face. She wore a horse mask, too, as detailed as the stallion’s head she’d put upon him. Only hers had a long elegant nose and feminine lines, including a long, silky forelock that fell along the jaw of the mask, emphasizing the column of her neck beneath. The dark eyes he’d been describing to himself were even more unsettling, the shape of the eye holes emphasizing how much her liquid brown irises and large pupils were like a mare’s, vibrant with life and intensity.

  She was an erotic meshing of horse and human. He’d said he didn’t get this. She’d just forced him past that line and shown him that he could get this. All he had to do was let it happen…or have a Mistress who gave him no other choice but to do so.

  He’d gone rigid. He had no ability to talk, to get loose, to even utter a freaking safe word, if he used one. He could handle pain and fucking. He didn’t like this unfamiliar territory. She was testing the boundaries of what he normally was with a Mistress. She’d made him into a horse. A stallion that chewed on the bit, stamped his hooves, pulled against the reins, snorted his anger and lust. If she let him go, he’d be on her in a heartbeat, just like an animal, taking whatever he wanted. She was a physically capable woman, but she was still a woman. He was stronger. He could take her by force, make her submit.

  He suspected she knew all that, and yet she showed no fear. It made him hotter, harder. It made him want her more.

  “You asked me what I thought when I watched you fight.” Her voice was a muted purr from the confines of the mask. She moved behind him, that feminine clip clop gait. She was placing an object on the dais next to him. She must be leaning against the platform, because he felt her body as she did something, slight rhythmic movements. In the mirror, he could see a piece of her smooth brown shoulder, the tilt of the mare’s head.

  “I was horrified. Worried about what would happen to you. Worried you would be seriously hurt. Yet I was also aroused by your strength and raw ferocity, the beauty of how you fight. That primal part of woman that responds to certain kinds of strength and violence from a male? I wanted to bind all that power beneath me, feel it plunging. I wanted to take you to your hands and knees and make you my mount. So that’s what I’m doing.”

  He chewed on the bit and made a strangled noise that sounded a little too much like the angry snort of a steed for comfort, especially when he did it again, warning her. She gave him that soft laugh and struck his flank with the crop once more.

  She stepped up on the dais behind him. This time, he caught enough of a glimpse to understand what she’d been doing. She�
�d been oiling up a black rubber phallus, one she’d strapped over her hips and waist. This was what he’d anticipated, but he resisted, yanking against the ropes. She ignored him.

  “I’m glad I made sure your head has to stay up. I want you looking at yourself while I fuck you.”

  Taking the phallus in her hand, she pressed it through the ring that had kept his ass accessible to her. At the first touch of it against his opening, he clenched up and fought her in earnest, but she’d left him no way to refuse her. His cock was pulsing, leaking pre-come he could feel dampening the tip. The sudden explosion of physical response as she began to enter him was so unexpected, he was afraid he might spew. He’d been so much in his head he’d ignored how his body had been readying itself, reaching for this, wanting it. Which lessened his control with her even further.

  “You know, when a mare is being bred, and there’s concern that she might resist the stud to the point she’ll do him damage, they sometimes temporarily hobble her, or strap one leg. It’s to ensure she’s receptive, get things moving in the right direction.”

  She dropped forward, her hand between his shoulder blades, and teased the valley of his spine with the tip of her tongue, sending a starburst of sensation through all his nerve endings. It converged on his cock, making him groan as the straps bit cruelly into the thick shaft.

  “I can feel how much you want me, Marius, when I strap down all your shit, inside and out.” Her other hand slid beneath his belly, traced the side of his steel cock. “Feel how big you are. My beautiful stud.”

  She straightened and kept working the dildo into him. He’d been fucked up the ass before, but not recently, so he was tighter than usual. Staring at the small part of her he could see in the mirror, he imagined the rest. The arch of her back, the jut of her nipples. The quiver of her breasts and crease of latex over her undulating hips. The way she was probably moistening her lips beneath the mask. Her cunt would be gushing, blissfully wet.