I removed them quickly and stood there, skin prickling in the cool air. I wasn’t embarrassed of my body. I knew I’d lost weight, as he had so rudely pointed out. But since I was so short, I had soft curves that I was proud of. And I was fit. Being a wolf made our genetics predisposed to physical fitness if we gave the slightest bit of work at it.
He circled me, just once. “Good. Now over here.”
He guided me to the bench and put a hand on the back of my neck, pressing me down until my chest and belly rested on the padded leather, which made me ass high. The bench was warm, the surface faintly tacky with whatever he’d used to disinfect it. My thighs straddled it as my short legs caused my feet to rest on the lower supports.
He leaned over, so close I could feel the heat coming off him. “You want a safe word?”
The question caught me off-guard. I’d read about them, sure. I’d imagined using one, but never thought I’d have to make the decision for real.
“Yeah,” I said, voice tight. “How does that work, exactly?”
He didn’t hesitate with his instruction. “Many people prefer the traffic light system. Green for good, yellow for mildly uncomfortable but want to keep going, and red for stop. You give me your stop word, and I stop what I’m doing and we do not go back to it, so be certain.”
Being theextreme book nerd that I was, I settled on different words. “Okay, I’ve chosen my own words.”
“Of course you have. Let me have them. And be sure they are not words you could accidentally say, because I will take them to heart and follow them.”
“Dumbledore, for everything is good. Snape, for I’m unsure if I like what you’re doing. And Voldemort, for stop, I don’t like this.”
He patted my head. “Little bird, just when I thought you couldn’t surprise me, you come up with something like that,” he chuckled. “Those are good. I doubt you’d accidentally say any of those words.”
I watched as he walked to the wall of implements. He’d removed his shirt and was only wearing a pair of low-slung jeans. His body was a fucking masterpiece. He turned and walked back after choosing a flogger from the rack. He held it up so I could see—long tails of suede, soft and flexible, nothing harsh.
“First time, so we start light.”
He walked over to me and lowered the bench. He pulled me back a bit, so I was no longer straddling the bench, but bent over at the hips, my feet on the floor. With no more warning than the slow sound of his breathing, he laid the first stroke across my ass. It stung, but more than that, it woke up every inch of skin. I gripped the sides of the bench with both hands.
He worked methodically, covering the tops of my thighs, then the curve of my hips, then the arch of my lower back. The sound was less a crack than a heavy sigh, the tails biting and then fading to warmth.
After a few rounds, I realized I was clenching my jaw so hard I thought I might chip a tooth. He noticed too.
“Relax,” he said, and ran his hand down my spine, then over my ass, the touch more soothing than sexual. “This isn’t punishment, Wren. It’s calibration. I need to know what you can take.”
He kept going, the rhythm changing, sometimes slow, sometimes two quick strikes in succession. At first, I tried to count thestrokes, but I lost track after ten or twelve. The pain blurred into heat, the heat into something I couldn’t name. My eyes started to water. Not from pain, but from the tension that had nowhere else to go.
He stopped, and for a moment, the only sound was the hiss of the air vents and my own ragged breathing.
He set the flogger aside and cupped my ass with both hands, kneading the muscle like he was testing the dough of a loaf he was about to bake. “You’re shaking,” he said, almost curious.
“Am I?” I asked, but my voice gave me away.
He stroked the backs of my thighs, his fingers tracing the patterns he’d left. “Are you wet?”
I blushed so hard I felt the heat at my hairline.
“Let’s find out,” he said, and slipped his hand between my legs. His fingers found the slick, and he hummed low in his throat, a sound of approval.
I thought he’d take me right then, but instead, he stood, wiped his hand on a towel, and walked to the far end of the room. He fiddled with the chain on the swing, adjusting something in the rig, then turned and beckoned.
“Here.” He pointed at the ground in front of him.
I stood, my skin alive with pins and needles, and walked to him. Heavy straps dangled from the ceiling, each one anchored by a quick-release carabiner. The swing was made of two wide strips of thick, padded leather; one to support my shoulders and one for my ass. There were two loops for my legs to fit through up to my thighs. Two arm supports swung freely.
He turned me gently and helped me up. “Just lean back. Feet through these loops.” He guided my legs apart, slipped each thigh into a support. With my shoulders cradled by the top padded strap and my ass resting on the bottom, the feeling was strange. My body weight was supported at my lower back and under my knees, arms held out and up by the angled cuffs. It felt less like bondage than like a surrender to gravity.
He adjusted the swing so my hips were level with his waist. He bent over, his face level with my cunt, and inhaled deeply, like he was breathing in the best air in the world.
He licked me once, flat and slow. The swing rocked just slightly under the motion.
