Page 145 of At Her Will

“Yes, Mistress.” When the flogger fell against his back, the significance of it, of why it was happening, why he was here, came home with the first strike. The tips were knotted, so there was pain. The right kind.

The scents that had anointed the strands reached his nose. He’d ask his Mistress to do this ritual upon him on the anniversary of this commitment, as a reminder of it, to renew it, to make evident his willingness year to year to respect everything it required of him. Everything she required of him.

He didn’t count the strokes. That didn’t matter. He would stand here for hours if that was what she wanted. By the time Abby relinquished the flogger to Skye and Skye finished, his skin was burning. Then Cyn took over.

Their group sadist took that manageable pain and ramped it up three levels with a different stroke and force. Rev kept his gaze on his Mistress, lying on the table, watching him from behind the veil, the inside of her spread thighs brushing the outside of his. Everything under his skin was coiled and ready for her. The mounting pain only made his cock stiffer, straining for what was so close, the ability to plunge inside, join with her.

He wanted to touch her, hold her. He’d suffer any pain for that.

It was Ros’s turn. While she wasn’t as forceful as Cyn, his skin was sensitive enough now it shuddered at the slap of every individual strip and knot, his buttocks and thigh muscles tightening to keep him in place.

Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.She hit all those places, including his shoulders.

A pause. Veracity’s eyes glittered with silver light as Ros moved to the side table and picked up the one unused bottle there. When she returned to stand behind him, he discovered it wasn’t an oil, but a lotion. She smoothed it over his back, his buttocks and upper thighs with a firm, caressing hand that appreciated him without taking anything away from his Mistress or his commitment to her.

He wasn’t surprised he could read that from her. With Veracity, he’d learned touch had its own language, like the gestures Skye preferred to use.

He smelled cocoa in the blend, witch hazel. It cooled the sting of the flogger without taking it away, which he liked. He wanted to keep feeling it.

He was being cared for and directed by five Mistresses. There was no earthly—or maybe even heavenly—way he could hide his carnal reaction, but what kept him in such a state of need was Vera’s gaze upon him. Watching him stand for her. Waitingupon her command to finally serve her the way every cell within him wanted to do.

Ros put the bottle back on the side table and lifted the chalice. Cyn picked up the athame. She came to Rev, offering it to him, while Ros placed the chalice in Veracity’s hand. As Veracity lifted her hand to take it, the veil shimmered over her. She spoke the next words.

“By putting the athame into the chalice, the Lord and Lady’s Love is symbolically confirmed, fulfilled and honored.”

Rev put the knife blade in the chalice, touching the tip to the bottom. He and Veracity held it that way for several long seconds, his hand so close to hers, holding the cup. Then Cyn and Ros reclaimed the ritual items and put them back on the side table.

Had he preferred the symbolic version of the Great Rite, he knew that would have been the pinnacle of the ceremony. But now all four women moved to their places at the quarters. Ros at Earth, the North. Skye at Water, the West. Cyn at Fire, the South. And Abby at East, the Air. His thundering heart, the energy pulsing through the room, told him the time had come.

Veracity removed the cloth veiling her, once again revealing her chestnut brown skin, her dark hair in a cloud around her face. The light in her eyes was no longer shadowed, and he saw the Goddess there.

“Removing this veil symbolizes the opening of my heart, mind and soul for our Joining, and for our life together.” Her tone had been firm and clear at the wedding. The sureness was still there, but he heard the woman, too, in trembling emotional notes. “Give me your wrists,” his Mistress said.

When he did, she tied the veil around them, tucking in the ends. Her lashes lifted. “I have waited a long time for you, Karman Leone,” she said.

“I sorry I couldn’t be here sooner.”

“I think you came just when you should.” Her lips curved. “Now you will come into me, and the Lord and Lady, if They bless and wish to do so, will come down in us and be part of this union.”

As he’d suspected, feeling it, living it, helped him understand this part even better. They would be vessels for divine purpose, as well as for their own hearts.

As above, so below. Like the picture in her bedroom said.

The Lord made Himself known in the works of his creations, and had seen fit to give them a direct line back to Him, if they just quieted everything else to see it, hear it. Yes, she was right. It had happened all just as it should, when it should.

“You’re beautiful, Veracity. I see all that you is, and I glad to be yours. Grateful, and full of love. I also want to be inside you. Right now, if I’m not being too demanding about it.”

“Your demand is you and the Lord being what male energy is supposed to be in a moment like this.” Her smile was female and mysterious. And sexy as he’d ever seen. “It’s all part of it. Just as me wanting you inside me, here and now, no matter if the world was collapsing around us, is what the Lady and I want.”

As he put his knee up on the mat and rose above her, she lifted her legs and clasped them around him. He had no self-consciousness about the other women. They were supposed to witness him honoring and pleasuring his Mistress.

He’d waited for her, too. Known she was there.

When he entered her, a groan of utter bliss tore from his lips. She tightened her legs around him, encouraging him. This moment wasn’t about special breathing or that kind of deliberate thought. The energy driving them would dictate the pace, the urgency.

Rev slid his arm beneath her, needing her even closer, needing her hips to tilt and take him deeper. She cried out herpleasure, her hands moving to his shoulders, nails digging in, her cheek brushing his as he put his face down to hers.

The energy wrapped around them, taking them higher, farther inside one another. Divine energy. Whether he called it God or she called it the Lord and Lady, it was there to bless and carry them, to give them this memory throughout their path together. They had the blessings not only of her family, present here and in spirit, but of the Divine.

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