“You motherfucker,” she muttered, only it came out sounding likeoo mudda puppa, which unfortunately for her, wasn’t quite garbled enough.

Jack cocked his head, eyes gleaming. “Sorry, what was that?”

She hesitated a moment, her self-preservation instincts warring with her sense of humor,then she thought,oh, what the hell.“Oo. Mudda. Puppa,” she repeated slowly, throwing caution to the wind and tugging the tiger’s—or in this case, the sadist’s—tail.

“That’s what I thought you said,” he replied, his lips curving into a smile that she felt all the way to her toes. And in certain parts along the way that she was currently doing her best to ignore.

“If you’re going to gag your partner,” he said, pitching his voice to the audience, “you’ll want to make sure they still have a way to safeword. So Sadie’s safeword is now three hoots. Demonstrate for our friends, please.”

Feeling ridiculous, and with embarrassment and arousal warming her cheeks, Sadie let out three short hoots.

“Thank you, Sadie,” Jack said, lips twitching, and turned to stride to the table that held all his bargain torture devices. “Now, as I said, the hair clips don’t make very good nipple clamps. But I’ve got something else that does.”

Son of a bitch,Sadie thought, and with her pussy throbbing and her tongue going dry, braced herself for more.

Jack glanced at the clock, then refocused on Sadie. Her left nipple sported a wooden clothespin, and the right was trapped between two wooden chopsticks held in place by the elastic hair bands he’d wound around the ends. He’d placed a dozen smaller, plastic clothespins on the tender undersides of her breasts, and used a wooden yard stick to flick them off.

Her screams, though garbled, had been highly satisfying. And though it had been a bit difficult to decipher with the hair clip still on the end of her tongue, he was certain he’d heard the phrase “dick weasel”. He gave her points for inventiveness, and an extra flick of the yardstick as a reward.

The tiny red marks left behind by the clothespins weren’t the only indignity her breasts had suffered. One of them was reddened and swollen from repeated slaps of a miniature spatula, and wax clung to the smooth slope of the other, dripped from the single candle he’d lit to splash onto her skin.

She’d squealed when he’d done that, squirming and writhing so the chain in the spreader bar rattled while her eyes shot fire. They’d changed colors like a chameleon as he’d worked her over, going from hazel to brown to green and back to hazel, and watching them change with each new sensation had been unexpectedly fascinating.

They were a soft hazel now, and still spitting fire. Her skin was flushed, her breathing slightly ragged, and her mouth was no doubt dry with the clip on her tongue. He was surprised it was still there, as he’d have bet money on her flicking it off immediately. The fact that she hadn’t pleased him enormously.

If he’d thought to negotiate it beforehand, he would’ve rewarded her with an orgasm.

Since he hadn’t, he put the idea out of his mind and turned his attention to the table. He'd demonstrated almost every tool he’d brought on her, from feathers to zip ties, and the only things he hadn’t were the ones he’d brought only to show the audience. Tiger Balm, a finger of ginger root, plus a few other things that could wreak havoc on the delicate mucous membranes of a pussy or anus. Nikki hadn’t been comfortable with that level of exposure, and though he’d thought about including them for Sadie, he’d decided to stick with the original plan and simply explained the various ways to use them.

Though when he’d peeled the ginger with his pocketknife, her mumbled threats and fierce glare had been so entertaining that he deeply regretted that it was going back into his crisper drawer instead of her asshole.

He laid a hand on her lower back, wanting the connection of touch. Her skin was damp and warm, muscles rippling under her skin. The signs of arousal were there in her flushed cheeks and dilated pupils. He could attribute the hardness of her nipples to the implements currently attached to them, but the gleam of wetness on her thighs was an unmistakable sign that even the most novice of Doms couldn’t miss.

The urge to continue was strong. He wanted to draw it out, give her a little pain, a little pleasure, increasing the intensity each time to see how much she could take. To push her right to the edge of what she thought she could handle, then hold her tight as he eased her over it, so he could feel every shudder and jerk, every pulse and throb of pain, of pleasure that wound through her.

But they hadn’t negotiated a scene, and he was out of time.

“Our time together is about up,” Jack said to the audience and savored the flash of disappointment in Sadie’s eyes. “I hope you enjoyed the demonstration, and thank you all for coming. I’m going to get Sadie undone and settled with a snack, then I’ll be happy to answer any questions you might have. Even if you don’t have questions, I’d recommend sticking around for a minute. This is the fun part.”

He turned to face Sadie, delighted with the suspicion in her narrowed gaze, and reached for the clip on her tongue. “Coming off,” he warned and popped it free with one quick movement.

She winced, pulling her tongue back into her mouth and working her jaw.

“All right?” he asked.

“No,” she mumbled, her shining eyes defying the grumpy tone, and licked her lips. “Need water.”

He bit back a chuckle at the garbled demand. “Let me get the rest of this off you first.”

He didn’t wait for her acquiescence before reaching down and without warning, plucking the clothespin off her nipple. Her eyes flared briefly with relief, then the pain came flooding in as the blood rushed back into the tortured little nub. She yanked at her hands, instinctively trying to reach for the pain to rub it out. But she was still cuffed, so all she could do was writhe and mumble curses.

Enjoying himself, he removed the chopsticks from her other nipple, and this time she let out a muffled scream.

He crouched to deal with the hair clips on her labia. Half of them were already gone, unable to stand up to all the wiggling, and he quickly removed the rest. Ignoring her squirming, he ran his fingertips over her to assess the damage. She was slick with arousal, and though the clips had left little dents in the tender flesh, they hadn’t caused any real damage.

He plucked the last clip from around her clit. It was engorged, and he was tempted to slide his finger through the wetness coating her labia and give it a stroke.

Forcing himself to focus on the task at hand, he unclipped the carabiners from the cuffs at her ankles, pulled the spreader bar out of the way and rose to his feet.