Page 43 of Irish Brute
“Don’t touch me!” I bellow.
She doesn’t believe me, doesn’t understand. Her fingertips brush the hidden ridges, the twisted stripe that will never truly heal. I start to crack, because she’s too gentle.
So I find her bra beside the bench. I’ve known all along where she dropped it. I lash the cloth around her wrists, yanking it tight enough to make her yelp. I tie a vicious knot, one that will never slip free.
She’s fighting me now. She’s realized I’m no child for her to comfort, no boy for her to tease.
My fist finds her hair again. Furious, I tug hard, forcing her to her knees. I use my weight to shove her onto the honeysuckle, levering her onto the bed of bruised and broken flowers.
She twists beneath me, her fingers jutting like Donny’s broken hands. She goes for my face, my crotch, anywhere she can reach, but I know how to stop that. I strip my belt free from my pants and loop it under her bound wrists. One tight knot, and she’s bound to the cast-iron bench, her arms stretched over her head.
She’s gasping like she just broke free from a forest fire. The hollow of her belly rises and falls. She tosses her head, her eyes wild as she tests her bonds.
They hold.
Standing over her, something shifts deep inside my brain. My rage is gone, the blind fury that burned beyond my control. It’s replaced by a familiar cold calculation, by the balance of the Dom part of my brain.
I’ve left her just enough give with that bra that her fingers won’t be permanently damaged. I’ve cut an angle with my belt that secures her arms, but her shoulders won’t be torn. I’ve centered her on the bed of honeysuckle, cushioned her back and her lovely arse, which I’m sure is still marked from yesterday’s work.
Now I have all the time in the world. I can undo my shirt, button by button. I can shrug it off, tossing it toward the bench.
She gasps when she sees my scar. It’s red and wrinkled, a full hand-span of ruined flesh. It turned to lava as I stripped the honeysuckle, but now it’s settled back to the old, familiar fire of regret.
Her fingers flex, but she can’t reach me. I can toe off my shoes. My socks. I can work the button on my trousers. The zipper. I can shuck my pants and my boxers too.
And when I’m standing over her, my cock at full mast, she’s finally got something to gape at besides my ugly scar.
“Same rules as before,” I tell her. “Red, and I stop. Anything else, and you’re taking all I have to give.”
18
SAMANTHA
Ibarely understand the rules of this game we’re playing. But my husband has come to me because he needs me. Because he’s hurting, and I’m the only one who can ease his pain.
When he stormed into the clearing, I saw the lithe tiger beneath his skin, the rage slipping its leash. And I watched him wrestle it back under control. I witnessed his transformation from animal to human—to the raw, dangerous man who stands over me now.
His reminding me about my safeword means he won’t hold back. He trusts me to protect myself, even though I’m the one tied up, even though I’ve submitted to his power.
So I’m not surprised when he straddles me, dropping to his knees to cage my body beneath his. I somehow expect him to spit on his palm before he strokes his cock, pulling long and hard. I’m ready when a pearl of precum beads on his tip, silken liquid that he spreads with his thumb. And I’m braced when his thighstighten around my ribs. I expect him to paint my face with hot, sticky ropes.
But that wouldn’t be punishment enough for the rule I broke. I defied him intentionally. He won’t rest until I’m truly sorry.
When his hands close over my breasts, I squawk in surprise. The pressure sends an electric wire straight to my clit, and I buck beneath him, rocking my hips to ground my need.
He’s straddling my ribs, though, too high on my body to give the release I long for. Instead, he starts pinching and pulling my nipples, rolling them between finger and thumb. He takes his time, alternating left and right.
The sizzling path inside me grows sharper, brighter. Incandescent blue darkens to purple. To crimson. To scarlet.
“Breathe,” he says. “Don’t forget to breathe.”
I didn’t know my lungs were burning. I didn’t know my head felt light. But breathing presses my aching breasts closer to his hands, and I moan with the temptation to whisper,Red.
I can’t take this anymore. I can’t do this. I can’t be the woman he needs me to be. My lips purse to form the letter R.
But just before I surrender, just before I breathe the word I know will set me free, he shifts his weight. He strokes his cock, which is longer, thicker, for having been pressed against my ribs.
This time, when he squeezes my breasts, his fingers are so tight I feel ten matching bruises bloom beneath my skin. He presses my flesh together, building a path, a channel.
