Electric Engagement Read online

  She was his girl.

  His.

  No one else’s.

  She glanced down, barely able to make out the angry red trail in the dim light. Her heart clenched and she knew that the marking would stay with her for at least a week, if not longer. She’d be wearing a sweater to teach in for a while, but the classrooms were cold. No one would notice.

  “Thank you, Sir.” Adrenaline had her panting, endorphins flooding her system.

  Ryan stepped through the ropes and cupped her face with his hand. The roughness of his skin grounded her. He studied her for several moments. She pushed her cheek into his palm and closed her eyes, loving this mix of tender attention and unforgiving demands. The complexity that was Ryan. Her Sir.

  It used to unnerve her how he’d study her. Months ago, she’d have pushed him to hurry up, to get on with his bad self, but as they’d stripped away the barriers between them, she’d grown to cherish these quiet moments when he really saw her for who and what she was.

  A woman once broken, on the mend and pushing forward with her life.

  “Tell me why you like this.” He traced the mark he’d left with a finger.

  Carla hissed at his touch. Yup, he’d definitely left a mark.

  “Why?” she asked. She blinked at him. Didn’t he know?

  “Answer me.” His hold turned hard. He held her jaw in his big hand and glared at her.

  Words slipped through her mind like water over stones. She couldn’t capture the ones she needed to save her life. What she wouldn’t give for the chance to open her heart and just show him.

  Carla spoke in a rush, trying to put emotions into words that didn’t quite fit. “B-because when you aren’t here it gives me something to remember you by. Something no one else can ever have, because it’s on my body. Sir.”

  Ryan released her and stepped back. The shadows disguised his features so she couldn’t discern his thoughts. He’d accepted her occasional jealous streak, so long as she owned up to it, and he’d never begrudged her perceived neediness, even laughing it off as normal. Had her answer displeased him this time?

  She wiggled her shoulders and focused on the feel of rope holding her, the burn and sting of his marks. Her tactile memories of tonight would have to last her through the holiday visits with family that started tomorrow now that school was out.

  Ryan folded the straight razor and shoved it in his back pocket. He cupped her face with both hands and laid his lips against hers. She sighed, craving his touch, and kissed him back. Her toes curled as he suckled her bottom lip and gently bit down. He slid one hand into her hair and dug his fingers between the strands until he had a good grip. Carla’s body was nearly limp. She was his plaything. Completely at his mercy.

  He pulled her hair, tipping her head back, and kissed down her throat to the mark he’d left.

  Oh, God, she wanted his hands on her. Everywhere. Early on, when they’d begun to play, he’d started with his hands and they’d quickly tumbled into bed. Now he used toys, keeping his hands and control firmly in check.

  Her pussy clenched in anticipation. He might push and challenge her, but deep down she knew he loved her.

  Why aren’t we fucking already?

  She couldn’t remember.

  Ryan leaned through the ropes and grabbed something from behind her again, but hid it with his body before she could see whatever toy he’d selected. He studied her face again, his brows drawn slightly down, a little wrinkle marring his forehead.

  “I was going to use the butterfly knife, but I think you prefer the straight razor. Is that correct?” he asked, his gaze intent on her.

  “Yes, Sir.” She nodded.

  The butterfly was as dull as a butter knife. It had freaked her out, at least until she knew it just a pretty piece.

  Carla craved the bite of the blade.

  He kissed her, a gentle touch of his lips to hers.

  “That pleases me,” he said.

  Remember, you asked for this. Oh, fuck. What was I thinking?

  Carla shuffled her feet and watched as Ryan brought the violet wand out from behind his back. She gasped and threw her bodyweight against the ropes, drawing on the last reserves of her strength, because holy hell—

  “What the hell are you going to do with that?” she asked.

  “Wouldn’t you like to know?” Ryan chuckled and turned the dial on the wand until the dildo-shaped electrode glowed a brilliant purple.

  Oh, shit. Oh, shit. Oh, shit.

  Right.

  She’d asked him to play her with electricity and knives, somehow thinking that her newfound love of steel would help her to get over the zap. This was not what she’d had in mind.

  While she was busy staring at the purple glowing dildo, Ryan flicked the straight razor open and ran it up her arm toward her shoulder. She flinched and hissed, glancing between the two implements, unsure of which she should be more apprehensive of.

  He continued the line down her other arm and stood back to study his work. The hum of the wand was a constant reminder that he had something else in store for her. The knives weren’t the only thing they had going for them. Ryan crisscrossed her body with the razor, sometimes using the dull side, sometimes the sharp, until she flinched and sucked in a breath at either. She couldn’t see any redness, any indication that he was actually marking her, but she felt it.

  Carla let her eyes close and her head sag forward. Her heart raced, nearly exploding in her chest. She’d be sore for days and have marks for weeks.

  Silence.

  Did she want to know what he intended to do with the wand?

  “Don’t forget you asked for it.”

  “Huh?” It was a struggle to pick up her head. She gulped, afraid to move.

  Ryan slowly brought the tip of the violet wand to kiss the peak of her left nipple. The hum turned into a small zap and the purple light intensified. Carla squirmed as much as she could, but there was no getting away from it, no matter how much she tried.

  She froze, feeling rooted to the spot.

  Stop. No, keep going.

  Carla didn’t know what she wanted him to do.

  Ryan lifted the blade until it almost touched her other nipple. Electricity arced from the wand to the sensitive bundle of nerves on one breast, through her chest and out through the other nipple, jumping to the blade. It felt as though he’d touched her spirit, branded her heart and marked her all at once.

  Carla tossed her head back and screamed. Her nerves were practically vibrating, almost as if she were being sliced open, yet he was inside her on a spiritual level, conducting her pleasure, pushing her outside her comfort zone.

  “Fuck you,” she sobbed between breaths.

  She’d never felt anything so intense, so toe-curling. And yet Ryan wasn’t leaving a single mark behind as the wand and knife played havoc on her nerve endings.

  He knelt, bringing the wand down one leg and the knife down the other.

  Carla wiggled in place, the delicate tendons and ligaments in her ankles and feet twitching as electricity surged through her left foot.

  Ryan pulled back, relieving her of the electricity as he switched hands. “Fuck, you’re beautiful under my knife.”

  “Fuck you,” she spat.

  He merely chuckled and turned the wand up a notch higher.

  Carla trembled and bit her lip as he brought the wand back into contact with her skin while drawing little patterns on her with the blade.

  “Tell me how this feels.” Ryan reached between her legs and zapped the back of her knees, making her legs go weak and rubbery.

  “It hurts so good. Fuck you.” Her voice sounded like a whimper to her ears and her head swam in the haze of her arousal.

  “Oh, that can be arranged. You’re awfully wet right now.”

  One thick finger passed through her folds and she swallowed her desire to beg him to stop and just fuck her. Begging got her nowhere with this man.

  “Perfect,” he muttered. “You can tell me
to stop whenever you’d like.”

  Not yet.

  Carla pried one eye open. The sight of Ryan on his knees in front of her was too rare to miss. He spread her folds with one hand and her heart stopped.

  Her mouth screamed No, while inside she shouted Yes. Her muscles were liquid, the ropes unforgiving, and her strength to fight had vanished.

  Ryan touched the head of the dildo electrode to her pussy and her spine went rigid as the charge raced up her core into her body. She sucked in a breath and clenched against the penetration, but she was too wet, too aroused.

  Carla’s moan turned into a scream as the glass slid into her slick channel. The most sensitive nerves in her body were stimulated in a whole new way as Ryan pumped the wand in and out. It was impossible to think, to form thoughts, to do anything beyond feel as the electricity licked in and out of her. Her muscles fluttered, unaccustomed to the rigid thickness.

  “God damn it.” Carla swiveled her hips, squeezing her eyes shut against everything else. She was already on sensory overload. And yet it wasn’t as intense as with the knife. Small blessing.

  Ryan increased the speed of thrusts and upped the intensity of the wand. The hum grew louder, as if echoing the tension building inside her.

  The increase of power flooding her pussy was enough to make her legs lock into place. It was hard to draw breath, and even her heart seemed about to explode out of her. The wand was an innocent toy, incapable of real injury. It was all in how you used it, and Ryan played it like a master. She gripped the ropes above her head and arched her back, wanting to find some escape from what he was doing to her.

  The sensations coursing through her body were good and wicked and bad. She wanted to crawl right out of her skin.

  “Fuck you. Fuck you, Ryan.”

  He ignored her words, or maybe he replied. She couldn’t tell.

  Ryan had forced her to orgasm enough times that she knew the sensation, even savored it, but this was something else altogether. If she came like this, it might destroy her. It was like riding a freight train into a concrete wall while strapped to an electric chair.

  The hum increased again. She tossed her head back and whimpered as the muscles in her abdomen began to tremble and jump at each pass of the dildo. She was going to come. He was going to make her.

  Ryan’s rough fingers brushed her clit, the touch gentler than when he used his hands to make her come. And yet her overworked nerves coiled tight. Carla tossed her head back and screamed, uncaring if her nosy neighbor heard. Her orgasm rippled through her body, dragging on and on as electricity saturated her nerves, working her synapses overtime. It felt as though it would never end, growing in intensity like a building tsunami until the pleasure crested into pain.

  Carla sobbed and sagged against her restraints, unable to take any more.

  “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Red!”

  Ryan dropped the violet wand. He didn’t care if the electrode shattered or if it scratched Carla’s gleaming wooden floors. She was his one and only concern. And she’d just called red. That one word put him on high alert.

  He grabbed the rope knife he’d hooked on his belt loop, flicked it open and sliced through the ropes holding her left hand over her head. She brought it around his neck and pressed her face into the crook of his shoulder. Even after he’d done wicked things to her, she still reached for him.

  “I’ve got you,” he whispered, clutching her to him with his other hand.

  The knife slid through the rope as if it were butter. In a matter of seconds she was free, save for the bits trailing from her limbs. Carla sobbed and her body twitched at irregular intervals. Electrical play did that. The overstimulation of the muscles and residual electricity made them pulse, so to speak. It was unlikely the ropes had hurt her, but he would check over every inch of her body himself. It was his responsibility to care for her, even when she didn’t take care of herself. As her Dominant, lover and an EMT, he took her wellbeing seriously.

  “I’m right here. You’re amazing. You did so good.” He whispered words she probably didn’t hear as he sliced away the last of the rope. He grabbed the blanket he’d placed next to the wall and wrapped her up in it. The house was too damn cold for his liking, but she’d insisted it was fine. Now he listened to the chatter of her teeth and cursed the moment he’d caved. He had a problem with telling her no when she got determined—which was how he’d wound up in an edge-play scene he wasn’t sure she was ready for. Knives and electricity were a delicate combination, one he enjoyed, but it was harder on her body.

  Carla was such a little thing in his arms as he carried her to the sofa in front of the fireplace. The big Christmas tree wrapped in hundreds of bulbs cast enough light for him to see by for now.

  He’d never met anyone who pushed their boundaries as much as Carla. He was in awe of her raw determination not only to stick to what she wanted, but to take ownership of her desires. When he’d met her, she’d been scared of herself, reeling from the emotional abuse of her ex-boyfriend and one second from bolting from the private party she’d been invited to by his friend. Their host had introduced them so Ryan could act as her guide that night since he was unattached, and that had been that. Ryan had known the moment he met her that he wanted her. That she was something special. And she’d felt it too.

  The rational part of him knew things were moving too fast—her old-money family never failed to mention it—but he would never let Carla think for a single second that he wasn’t completely in this with her. Which was how he kept finding himself in this position; picking up her pieces after a soul-shattering scene. He wanted to guide her slowly, but she had other ideas.

  Carla had found her real self in his arms. He could remember the moment as clearly as if it were yesterday. It had been their fifth scene and the first time they’d agreed to put sex on the table. He’d flogged her and fucked her with a vibrator before laying her on the bed and taking her sweet body. Something about that night, her acceptance and vulnerability, had opened a door between their souls. She was part of him. So how could he tell her no when she told him she wanted to play until he made her call red?

  She was amazing and crazy all at the same time. And damn if he didn’t love her for it.

  He tucked her head under his chin and she snuggled close, splaying her hands against his chest and side. For long moments neither said a word. He just held her, ignoring the way his dick throbbed. There was nothing more arousing than watching Carla lose herself, trusting him so completely. She’d wormed her way into his heart. He might not deserve her, but she was his.

  “Water?” she croaked.

  “Right here.” He grabbed a bottle off the side table. Electrical play could really dehydrate a person. He cracked the seal on the bottle and held it to her lips. She didn’t even try to take the bottle from him anymore. This was one point he’d never concede on. She was his to care for. To love.

  Carla sucked down half the liquid before turning her head away. She inhaled deeply and he wiped the lingering wetness off her lips with his fingers. She smiled and rested her head on his shoulder once more.

  “How you feeling? Was it too much?” Ryan steeled himself for her answer as he placed the bottle back on the table.

  “I feel like a Jack-in-the-box about to pop out at someone.” She giggled and nuzzled his neck. He was willing to bet she was still lost to him on a cloud of endorphins. “Electricity scares the hell out of me, but I liked it.”

  The tightness in his chest unfurled and he sighed, not quite relaxed yet. Someday they were going to find something she didn’t like.

  “Show me your wrists.” She’d yanked on the ropes pretty hard. He hadn’t expected her to fight so much.

  Carla held out her hands, palms up, for him to examine. There were deep marks, but the skin wasn’t broken and she didn’t appear to feel any discomfort. Despite her pixie size, she didn’t mark or bruise easily.

  Ryan pressed a kiss to her forehead and picked up another object from the table. It
glinted in the colored lights.

  “I take it you want this back, then?” The emerald tones glittered with a depth the electric lights couldn’t recreate.

  “I feel naked without it.” Carla held out her left hand, fingers splayed.

  He slid the antique gold band onto her finger and watched her smile spread as she wiggled her fingers. It was one of the rare things he’d been able to give her that she couldn’t buy herself. The ring had been in his family for generations, and now it was hers.

  “What do you say? Do you still want to marry me?” He’d begun asking the question after each play session. Their relationship had begun so intensely and right on the heels of her break-up. He had to be sure. He’d never reject her for admitting her desires to him, unlike the piece of shit who’d dumped her after going shopping for engagement rings. Ryan couldn’t complain too much—she was his. He couldn’t live without her.

  Carla sat up, frowning at him. They were the love story that shouldn’t have happened. The girl from money, the guy from nothing. He couldn’t keep her in the style in which she’d been raised, but he’d make her a hell of a lot happier than she’d been before him.

  She placed one hand against his chest and leaned a bit closer. With her regal bone structure, the slightly upturned nose and her bright gray eyes, she could have been a queen. A naked queen, but still a queen.

  “When are you going to learn?” Her gaze narrowed. “I’m never going to run from you, Mr. Big Bad Dom Boy. I need what you give me. I crave it.”

  An invisible hand clenched Ryan’s heart and it skipped a beat. Carla might be a submissive as far as kink went, but she was a woman of steel. Her family had her pegged all wrong. They thought of her as quiet and a bit of a doormat. He knew her for what she was; a beautiful submissive with strength that far outmatched his.

  Ryan dug his hand into her hair, pulled her forward and took her mouth. He nipped her lower lip and kissed her roughly. She’d had the chance to pick a softer, kinder lover, and she’d chosen him.

  Carla’s hands slid down his chest and her fingers hooked into the waistband of his pants. Her deft little fingers slid the button through the hole and he inhaled when she lowered the zipper. She straddled his lap, pushing the blanket off. He thrust his tongue into her mouth the second before she wrapped her hand around his dick. She groaned and squeezed him lightly.