Bunny and the Beast(Divine Creek Ranch 22)(78)
She snorted. “Easy for you to say. Relaxed is not what I’m feelin’ right now.”
She paused on her hands and knees, looking up at him for direction, and he crowded in behind her just a bit.
“I need to know, fiammetta. Did you think I would beat you with my belt?” She flinched. “Bunny, has someone beaten you in that manner?”
“Just an ass-preservation reflex, Sir.” She tried for humor, but he heard the underlying emotion.
He was glad he’d chosen the bed…and the flogger.
He placed his hand in the center of her back and applied light pressure until she lay down on her stomach.
Chapter Seventeen
Bunny let out a deep sigh as he gathered her hair and moved it forward in front of her. She’d watched a few flogging scenes in the club and reassured herself as she recalled the looks of bliss on some of the faces of the flog-ees. But what had they experienced in order to get there? Was there a wall of pain they had to push against until it propelled them somewhere else where pain felt good? Could she handle that? Especially when she’d been freshly reminded of what it was like to be on the receiving end of a belt? Few things could set her on alert like that telltale sound.
“You’re thinking so much, fiammetta, I can practically hear the gears grinding in your head,” he said as he reached down to the corners of the bed, lifted ropes that had cuffs at the ends, and began cuffing her arms into a spread-eagle position.
“Sir, do you sometimes think we’re making a mistake, you and me? You said yourself, several times, I have a background you don’t know much about.” She worried that all kinds of messy stuff would come out if they took this step, but the greater part of her heart ached to have this experience at his hands, to give him what he wanted.
“True. I know enough to take you where I want you to go tonight, and I trust you to give me the rest in your own time.” He paused as he slipped the garter and long sock from one lower thigh and calf and then cuffed that ankle. His fingers trailed along her skin in a slow caress, which relaxed her a bit. She grinned, recalling the notion she’d had early on that Doms were likely to withhold touch or affection, not a belief he’d subscribed to, evidently.
“What if I’m just too complicated?”
He removed the other sock and garter and cuffed the other ankle, and then his warm hand slid from her shoulder blade to her hip in a soothing arc. “You’re one of the most complicated women I’ve ever known, Bunny, no doubt. But I won’t complain about the process of getting to know you, understand you, although I could do without the working with heights the way you do. That’s my own personal opinion.”
She chuckled, recalling his bulgy eyes when he’d seen her on the tower. “I appreciate that, Sir. About the other…stuff, though, I’d like to just forget it all.”
“Does it affect the way you live now?”
“Not really.”
“Except for breaking ties with your family.”
“That was strictly self-preservation, Sir.”
A shiver raced up her spine as a light, tickling sensation crossed the bottom of her foot and slid up her calf.
“Eyes closed now, Bunny.”
She complied and shivered as goosebumps followed the trailing cool strands of the flogger as it drifted up her thigh. She pressed her cheek into the silky fabric of the bedspread covering the massive bed.
He repeated the motion on her other leg, and the shivers became waves, rushing in and receding like a tide as he lulled her. It almost tickled, and her flesh grew more sensitive with each leathery stroke. She inhaled a shaky breath and then let it out.
“Tell me why your hair is red,” he murmured, running his hand along the inside of her thigh, his palm feeling rough and heated against her skin.
“To be different. Tristan and I are both pale blonds, just like our parents, if you hadn’t guessed that I’m a natural blonde by, well you know… Right after I moved Tristan out of my dad and stepmother’s fancy house and cut ties with him and the rest of that family, I wanted to make a visible change. I found a reasonably priced salon the next day. Tristan helped me pick the red. He said it was a happy color, and he wanted me to be happy again. Sweet boy.”
Joseph paused his stroking to massage the large muscles in the backs of her thighs. “You’re a strong woman, Bunny. Where did your father live?”
That one took her by surprise, considering all the obvious questions he could’ve asked. “The Dominion, Northern San Antonio. It was my stepmother’s house. After my mother died, my father remarried. His wife and her family were all wealthy.”