Soul Rest Read online

  "Nine times. At bedtime every night, once when I woke up past midnight on Wednesday. Three times in the shower. And once in the park, when I was eating my lunch. I put my coat over my lap so anyone driving by wouldn't know."

  "Moved your hand nice and slow to stroke your cunt?"

  "Yes. Oh..." He pressed another kiss to her mouth, almost chaste, but she was so revved up, she shuddered from it. "Leland..."

  "Do you know why I waited for you down the hall from the restroom? I wanted to see the way you move when you know I'm watching you. When you're thinking about all the things I'm making you do that you fight but won't refuse."

  Fortunately, he didn't require a response to that. He tucked her against his side, holding her there as he removed his credit card from his wallet, swiped it to pay for two tokens. An older black woman with a name tag that said Betty waited at the gate counter to take the tokens. Celeste kept her face averted, sure that she looked obviously close to a climax.

  "Don't get too many adults riding for their own sake." Celeste heard the smile in Betty's voice. "Wish we had more."

  "I can't imagine anyone passing up the chance to ride it with their sweetheart," Leland responded. "How often do you bring yours here to do that?"

  The woman chuckled. Celeste was sure Leland's warm tone had given Betty a head-to-toe tingle, the way it would a red-blooded woman of any age. It kept attention off of her, which she appreciated, but she still had to give him crap about it.

  "Sweetheart?" she muttered as he guided her along the outside of the carousel.

  He gave her a discreet pinch on her ass. "Which one would you like to ride?"

  With arousal beating between her legs like a marching band, that question had a no-brainer answer. Pushing the hormonal response down, she pointed. "The horse between the rabbit and the cat."

  The steed had the body of a blood bay, though the dark face and nose suggested a roan. He had his head tossed up in fiery defiance, the ears laid back.

  "One with attitude," Leland observed. "I'm not surprised. No docile mares for my girl." He lifted her up on the platform and then steadied her as she put a foot in the stirrup, swung up and over. As she landed, she bit back a gasp. His eyes glinted with male satisfaction as he discreetly eased her forward with a hand on her hip. "Press your clit against the saddle pommel. Heels down, so your ass is pushed into the saddle. That's the way you stay."

  Leland uncoiled the strap belted around the pole in front of the pommel and wrapped it around her hips. "The rules say everyone must wear a seatbelt, no exceptions." When he cinched it in one decisive movement, she swallowed a sensual noise at the provocative restraint that put her more firmly against the pommel. He hooked his thumb in the strap, his fingers curved loosely over her ass as he put his hand on the pommel again, under the coat.

  "Not a twitch," he said. He spoke softly, but the look in his eye said it was a direct order. She held his gaze, not sure she dared to breathe.

  Others were coming onto the carousel. Kids, teenagers, adult couples. Fortunately, none of them decided to ride the cat or the rabbit this round. The cat made sense, because Leland was standing between the cat and the horse, and there wasn't a lot of space there, such that his large body was against both animals.

  "I'd like to touch the rabbit."

  She bit her lip, surprised she'd spoken the desire aloud, but when he nodded, she leaned over. Despite the hold of the belt, he shifted, putting his arm around her waist to be sure she stayed secure.

  She ran her hand up one long ear, her thumb sliding along the smooth inside, down to the rabbit's brow. "I've always wanted to do that," she said. "I love his ears."

  What was it about him that she'd say these childlike things aloud, things she wouldn't think of saying to a date? Maybe because he wasn't a date. He was something different, something that had her opening up in odd, disturbing ways.

  She straightened, making a pretense of studying the other riders, until Leland's hand moved under the coat. His thumb glided down her pubic mound to the clit bullet. As he made it roll and twitch against her, she bore down on the stirrups as he'd directed, and the reaction was electric. God, there was no way she could stop herself from coming if he did what she was worried he would do when the ride started.

  "Leland, I don't want to...be embarrassed." Though her body didn't seem to give a rat's ass what she wanted. It just wanted to release.

  He stroked her back from nape to waist, then gripped the belt again, fingers caressing the upper rise of her buttocks. "I won't let that happen, Celeste. This is for me, not for anyone else. I tend to be a selfish Master and pretty damn possessive. Your pleasure belongs to me and me alone."

  It was the first time he'd referred to himself as that. He'd also just stated in unequivocal terms that he saw her as his submissive. A step closer from theoretical to actual. She should be worried about that, should be thinking about limits and safe word discussions, because that was the smart thing to do, the right thing to do. Never mind that she'd felt safe around him before Jai had told her he could be trusted. She felt so safe with him, it was terrifying, because safety made surrender almost inevitable. She couldn't think of safe words when her mind was full of what he might do to her when they were behind closed doors

  "We need to stop this. Stop it. I don't want this. I want to get down."

  A shrill ringing like a school bell signaled the beginning of the ride. She gripped the pole as the horse started to rise. Leland adjusted for the horse's movement, but the tall horse only rose a foot or so, allowing him to keep that steadying hand on her backside and the other less steadying hand under the coat, on the pommel. When he moved the hand from her back to his pocket, she didn't have time to protest. The vibrators started humming again, the sensation rippling over her cunt and deep into her ass. She clutched the pole.

  Up...up... Down...down... As she came down each time, his thumb would press against the clit bullet, work it in circles. Whenever her hips tried to jerk in coital response, the hand he'd brought back to her hip would tighten on her and the belt, keeping her still. Like roaring surf, the sensations drowned out everything else, the carousel becoming a blur of lights, sounds, childish laughter. The calliope music that could only be heard when on the carousel because of the outside mall noise played its plinking tune. She inhaled the smell of popcorn and cookies in the food court, Leland's peppermint and wood aroma, his flesh that she needed to taste. She wanted to bite him as he drove into her, leave marks on him the way he'd left on her shoulder.

  "Oh...no. Oh...help..."

  Her desperate whisper was lost in the noise and sound. She fought for control as the climax starting to sweep through her, her pussy and rim contracting and throbbing against the bullets. She held her forehead hard against the cool pole, her eyes shut, head down. Just as she was afraid she wasn't going to be able to stop a scream from ripping from her throat, the vibration stopped. The climax stuttered and hummed through her body. Aside from a few seizure-like twitches, it made self-control more attainable, but left her needing so much more. Her wild eyes found his face, saw how closely he was studying her. His expression was back to being unreadable. Not distant. Just in charge.

  When the carousel stopped, he slid an arm around her waist, pulled her off the horse. She had to rely on his strength to guide her to the ground, because her knees were too wobbly. Her fingers trailed along the glittering rhinestones embedded in her mount's side, the purple and teal embellishments on his saddle. Leland didn't ask her where she wanted to go, didn't speak to her at all. She was barely cognizant of the time it took them to walk through the mall and head out to his vehicle. He drove a dark blue pickup truck with tinted windows. Other than that, "shiny" was the only word her keen reporter's mind could muster as he opened the passenger door and boosted her into the seat.

  Whereas she would have had to use the running board to step in on her own, he was tall enough he didn't need any extra height to reach over her and fasten her seatbelt. Opening the glove
compartment, he produced a pair of fleece-lined cuffs with metal links. He wrapped one around her wrist, attached the link to a clip around the seatbelt at her right hip, then did the same to her other wrist, attaching it to the left side of the seat.

  He gave her knee a light squeeze, closed the door. She flexed her fingers in the cuffs, heard the rattle of the metal rings. God, she needed to come. To really come. One long, hard, lung-squeezing, full cardiovascular workout orgasm would help her find her brain again. Right now it was immersed in a boiling cauldron of her own lust. She wasn't even alarmed that the man had tied her up in his truck.

  He'd circled around to get in the driver's side. After he closed the door, he put his hand against her headrest to stroke a knuckle down her cheek. "Look at you, all stirred up," he said, his eyes like molten gold. When he passed a finger pad over her lips, they parted and she teased him with her tongue. "Yeah, you're on fire, darlin'. You want to come the right way, don't you, Celeste?"

  Her breath was shallow pants. "Yes."

  "All right then." He put a firm hand under her ass to lift her up and pull the stretch fabric of her leggings down to her thighs. With the same economy of motion, he hiked her skirt up to her hips, leaving her sitting on a towel he fished from the back and put under her bare buttocks. He wasn't done, though. Lifting the front of her shirt, he drew it over and behind her head, tucking it back behind her neck so the sleeves constricted around her shoulders.

  When he sat back to study her, his eyes slid over her breasts quivering in lace cups, her thighs bare and spread, showing him the slick crotch of the vinyl thong. She licked her lips. "Leland, just do it. God. Make me come. Please."

  As he continued to watch her, the emotions started to rise. "Damn it, don't fuck with me. Just do it."

  He reached into the glove compartment again, removing a rubber ball and a sheer nylon fabric she recognized as a cut piece of sheer hosiery. Putting the ball inside the tube, he brought it up to her face.

  "Don't you..."

  The rest was muffled as he pushed the rubber ball into her mouth. It was large enough to hold down her tongue. She could make noise, but coherent words were out of the question. He tied it snugly behind her head, sat back and started fondling her. Calm, steady. He was just...taking over. With cool confidence, he pushed the bra cup out of the way and replaced it with his hand, thumbing a nipple. She dropped her head back, gasping at the searing sensation as he pinched her, rolled the tight peak. Then he pulled out the remote, laid it on the console and turned it on.

  She came the right way, as he put it, in a couple seconds. As she bucked on the seat and screamed, her head banging against the headrest with her thrashing, he continued to stroke her breasts, pushing the cups out of the way so he could hold them in both hands, flicking his thumbs over her nipples. While he did that, he watched her as if he would never take his eyes from her. His silence was as potent as a stream of dirty comments. He absorbed her every reaction as if it was a private performance only for him. Just as he said he preferred.

  "Please..." That was a word she could make him understand through her pleading gaze alone. The climax was ebbing but the vibration wasn't, and her hips were bucking at the discomfort, her pussy and clit over stimulated.

  "Please, what?"

  "Please, turn off...please..."

  "Sir."

  She managed a glare, an "in your dreams" look. He reached for the controls, turned it on maximum vibration.

  "No...no." She protested through the gag, called him a bastard, her hips bouncing on the seat, her lower abdomen muscles twitching. She told him to go to hell, tried to jerk away when he slid his hand from her breast to her hair. Her reward for that was him seizing a handful of it, holding her head against the headrest as he bent and took her exposed nipple in his mouth, beginning to suckle and nip with sharp teeth. The vibration, too much and vastly uncomfortable, nevertheless started her up that peak again, especially with her writhing against it, creating a stroking friction. In a matter of minutes, with him suckling her and his other hand working and playing over her clit with the vibrator, another climax tore through her.

  "Please...oh God. Please...sir. Please stop." Yet some part of her didn't want him to stop. As soon as she managed to make the word "sir" understood, she wanted to retract it. Not because she wanted to disobey him, but because he'd keep doing this, forcing her out of her mind with incomprehensible pleasure so intense it was an insidious torture.

  "I'm sorry, Celeste. It's hard to understand you with the gag in your mouth. What was that?"

  He lifted his head, and when he did, she swung hers around, making solid contact with his cheekbone. He let out a muttered curse, followed by a snort.

  "Fucking brat. All right, we do it the hard way."

  She was dying, transcending, going insane. He yanked her head back against the headrest forcefully enough her throat arched and she was staring at the ceiling of the truck. Then he went after the other breast.

  He turned the vibrator down, but it wasn't to give her relief. He put his hand back between her legs to play with her cunt, rub slow circles over her throbbing clit. As he did that, his other fingers slipped under the thong and pushed inside her, began to thrust. The vibration on her rim connected the three points of contact, all while he licked and bit her other nipple, suckling hard, nipping when she least expected it so she'd jerk against him.

  The next climax was worse. She'd heard about forced orgasms, how they were agonizing and unforgettable at once, a way to break the mind, and she had no doubt of it after the third one crashed over her.

  "Stop...stop..." It was a plea, a demand, a snarl and a curse.

  Leland did stop, but he left her as she was, her breasts exposed, the bra cups pulled back, her leggings at her knees, mouth stretched over the gag, and sat back in his seat. He was revved up himself, his breath short, those golden eyes now like embers, his arm muscles bunched beneath his shirt sleeves. Her gut twisted when he fished a condom out of his console, laid it on the dash and opened his jeans. As she watched hungrily, he closed his hand over himself beneath cotton boxers and stretched out a sizable cock before her eyes. Beautiful and thick, the butterscotch-colored skin taut over its length, the slit of the broad head marked with pre-come. Her pussy, still throbbing, contracted on itself, and she felt way too empty. She wanted him inside her.

  Tearing the condom open, he rolled it on and then gripped himself again, beginning to stroke. His eyes rested on her exposed breasts, her bare thighs, the small swatch of black vinyl covering her cunt. Being tied up and used as his personal pinup while he gave himself release should have been insulting, humiliating. Instead she felt anything but. She was hot, needy, angry and wanting him, even as she wanted to tear into him.

  "Got to give myself some relief, darlin', because I'm not anywhere near done with you."

  As he stroked himself, cupped his balls and rolled them, she imagined her mouth there, imagined him forcing her facedown in his lap to make her suck him off. Which shocked her in some distant part of her overwhelmed mind, since she hadn't given head much in her life, for plenty of good reasons. Down on her knees, helpless to a male...

  Right now, though, it didn't seem to matter. She wanted her mouth on him. When she tried to lick her lips despite the gag, he chuckled.

  "Oh, no. Won't tempt me with that maneuver. I can tell you're in full fight mode. I'd be taking a trip to the emergency room."

  He was right. She couldn't explain it. Some part of her was ashamed, no idea why she was fighting him, trying to hurt him, why all these feelings were raging inside her, at war with her sexual response though they'd been summoned by it. Her body was still twitching from those forced climaxes, but her mind seemed to be sinking below the level of pleasure, into a darker place. She started to feel like shit about herself, about the whole situation, but he saw that, too.

  "No, not going down yet." He turned the vibrator on a slow hum and when she whimpered in protest, he made a quieting noise. "If you're go
od, I'll take out the gag. Can you be good?"

  She shook her head, and he smiled at that, though there was no humor in his gaze. He extracted the gag anyway, put it in the back. While his cock jutted between his thighs, waiting for his attention, her eyes clinging to it, he took the time to remove a handkerchief from the console, dry the corners of her mouth.

  Only then did he sit back, take himself in hand again. "Make me harder, Celeste," he ordered in that stern voice, a contrast to how he'd just cosseted her. "Roll your hips, arch your back. I can smell your come soaking that towel. Nine times. You're going to come for me nine times before I get you home, because those are nine climaxes that belonged to me."

  "This is just our first real date," she managed lamely. "You didn't tell me..."

  "I told you I don't date. You're looking for a Master, Celeste, not a date. You want the type of Master who can handle all that fear and anger you're carrying inside you. Bring it to the surface, let you get past it to feel what you need to feel."

  She refused to answer that, an answer in itself.

  His breath shortened. "Don't take this as an indication of my staying power, darlin'," he said, flashing a feral grin at her. "I've been fucking steel since I sat down on that bench. I just want to get this out of the way so I can get back to playing with you. Christ, you're gorgeous, tied up and helpless, your clothes half pulled off."

  Just like that, he started to come. He'd pulled his shirt up out of the way, so she saw the muscles of his lower abdomen ripple in response as come started to spray inside the tip of the condom. The tissues between her legs contracted against the low hum of the vibrator, and she found herself doing as he'd demanded, rolling her hips against it, arching her back. When he reached out to touch her breast during his climax, his hand flexing against it in involuntary response, she cried out, working her hips more furiously. Christ, it was happening again. It was short and intense, but watching him come, his mere touch on her breast while he self-pleasured, tipped her over again.

  She wanted to see him naked. That large body, all muscles and honey-gold flesh, the impressive cock erect. She wanted to be lying on his bed, spread for his pleasure, trembling the way she was now, feeling overpowered not by restraints or orders, but just by his sheer size and the power of his gaze, which seemed to keep her locked in place as he stared at her. His eyes never left her throughout his release, telling her she was the center of it, the cause of it.