Page 61 of Rock Bottom
It was time for me to show him some affection.
* * * *
Julian
I didn’t know what to expect when I stepped into the playroom, but Silver with his hair in a ponytail, wearing men’s jeans and nothing else, wasn’t it. He wasn’t hiding his breasts, and yet there was no doubt I was facing the male version of the love of my life.
In moments, I was bound — wrist and ankle cuffs snug and locked behind my back, body bent over in the center of the dungeon like an offering. Silver worked the winch until my arms were pulled high, the strain wrenching my shoulders, and I breathed through the sharp pain, the helplessness, the vulnerability.
But that wasn’t enough. Silver added a spreader bar between my ankles and anchored it to the floor. I couldn’t shift, couldn’t brace, couldn’t protect myself. I wasn’t going anywhere. There was no way I could stop Silver from doing whatever he wanted.
No, that wasn’t true. I could go into his head and stop him, but doing so would shatter everything between us. Trust was everything to Silver.
Which took us back tothis: me, helpless. Vulnerable. Totally at his mercy.
My stomach flipped when he walked into view holding two long, six-gauge stainless steel skewers, glinting malevolently in the dungeon lights.
I wasn’t expecting him toskewer my balls like a fucking shish kebabright off the bat. The first spike punched through and I screamed, high and raw, total reflex. The second was worse because I knew what was coming. My knees nearly gave out, but I managed to hold steady, legs shaking, breath ragged despite the fact vampires don’t need to breathe.
And under it all, arousal beneath the pain — the reason I was here.
I’d been baptized in pain when I was eight years old, the day my balls were destroyed. The agony had etched itself into the deepest parts of my psyche, and whether I wanted it or not, I was wired toneedthis at least occasionally.
When I managed to stand more solidly, no longer in danger of crying like a baby, though it’d been close for a few moments, Silver spoke from behind me, calm and composed. Entirely in control.
“I’ve never been able to torture someone who could magically heal before. Thank me for giving you pain, Julian.”
“Thank you, Sir, for giving me pain.”
He settled his small, warm hand on my hip, and it anchored me to him. Approval for taking the pain. For thanking him for it. For being honest.
My shoulders screamed back to life, layered under the pain of my throbbing balls, the skewers weighing them down, every nerve ending raw, temporarily forgotten while my balls had been pierced with the thick, sharp spears.
When I was human, no one tortured my balls beyond the initial destruction. After I healed, they were flat, empty, useless.
After I was made vampire, once they regenerated, my new Mistress had learned how sensitive they were, and how much more it hurt me to torture them than anything else. It became her favorite pastime.
Centuries later, they were still hypersensitive, still a pain focal point, and Silver hadn’t taken it easy on them. He focused right in on the place I was most vulnerable, and I respected the hell out of him for it.
My Mistress had exploited my vulnerability with cold calculation, breaking me down for her own pleasure. Silver, though, used the same vulnerability to reach me, not to destroy me.
Silver held the car antenna to my lips, and I strained against my restraints, wrenching my shoulders harder to lean forward and kiss the cold steel.
“That’s it, my big, strong vampire.” A gentle touch to my cheek before he stepped behind me to, I assumed, use the antenna as a cane.
The first strike landed sharp and fast — the steel biting deep, splitting skin, spilling the scent of my blood into the room — and my scream bounced off the dungeon walls.
When the echoes died and I went quiet, Silver spoke again, calm and conversational. “I read a historical romance once, a palace guard and the king’s sister, who I guess was free to fuck whoever she wanted, since her brother had heirs.”
Another slice of the antenna. This one didn’t split the skin, but it lit my nerves just as fiercely.
“The guard was in charge of keeping her safe. Her protector, so much bigger and stronger than her, but she was completely in charge of him.”
I heard the antenna whistling through the air a split second before impact. Sharp, deep agony. The scent of my blood stronger again. My bellow filled the room, but I found control, breathing through the pulsing pain. The fire.
“Behind closed doors,” Silver continued, “she could hurt him, order him to fuck her, deny him orgasm for months andmonths, which she did, and wow, was that hot.”
Another slicing blow, more screams from deep in my body. When my screams faded this time, Silver asked, “How intriguing that I might find a way to duplicate some of that? My big, strong vampire who’ll keep me safe, but who’ll go to his knees and obey when we’re in this room?”
