Free Transcendent by Anne Calhoun Page B

will thank me for the privilege before he leaves.
    The thought sends a rush of hot pleasure coursing down my spine, trickling in rivulets to every nerve ending until my body feels like licking, flickering flame.
    I stand, walk around him again, moving slowly, the click of heel-to-sole audibly reminding us both of our positions. The tanned skin of his back lightens abruptly at his hips. When I’m finished with him he’ll be a dark, vibrant red from the backs of his thighs to his waist.
    â€œShall we begin, Cole?”
    â€œYes, Miss Banks.” The words are firm, but low. I don’t envy him the struggle he feels inside, and I don’t pity him, either. That’s not my role tonight. Tonight I’m implacable, diamond hard, so that the only way out is through the shame of succumbing to his fears.
    I point to the bed. “Facedown, please.”
    He stretches out, arms and legs wide, positioning his wrists and ankles near the leather restraints attached to the bed frame. Lord, he’s
big.
In a rustle of silk I kneel beside him and begin at his feet, buckling the brown leather first around one ankle, then the other. There’s a bit of give in the chain joining cuff and post, but not much. When I’m finished with his wrists, I seat myself on the bed, the silk whispering as I do.
    â€œAre you comfortable, Cole?” I ask as I trail my index finger from the nape of his neck to the base of his spine. Shivers chase each other over his skin and his hands close into fists, then open again.
    â€œYes, Miss Banks.”
    I brace one hand on his shoulder and slip my finger under the wrist cuff closest to me. His pulse thumps along, elevated, strong. He’s not lying. At this moment he’s very comfortable, body fully supported, arms and legs secured in such a way that he can’t grip anything. This position leaves the mind with nothing to fixate on except the searing, unavoidable pain. Other postures can quickly grow uncomfortable. I prefer Cole suffers no distractions from the agony.
    Tonight
I
am distracted. With each increasingly captivating encounter, Cole slips a little deeper under my skin. He is unlike any other man I’ve played with, and despite the facade of anonymity we’ve maintained, I need to know more.
    I flatten my hand at the base of his spine. “Why do you do this, Cole?”
    â€œTo please you, Miss Banks.”
    He gives me the ritualistic response, but he stiffens as he speaks. I don’t doubt the authenticity of his answer, but there is something underneath. A deeper truth. But diving deeper into Cole requires offering more than I’m willing to give.
    I get to my feet. He waits. He can only lie there as I pick up his belt, fit the buckle end in my palm, and take up position beside him.
    To test how much movement I have in my fitted dress, I give him a few warm-up strokes. I start with the taut curve of his buttocks, the sweet spot, the lighter lashes driving his hips forward, mimicking the motion of plunging into a hot, wet body underneath him. He shudders, turns his face away from me, into his shoulder.
    A tremor rolls through me. The sound, his big body completely under my control, the involuntary movement of his hips all meld into a dark, hard pulse in my core. Wetness surges between my legs.
    Without warning, I begin in earnest, the first truly hard, truly uncompromising stroke in perfect rhythm with the others across the tops of his thighs, and from then on, I don’t let up. I keep a slow, steady pattern of lashes, moving up and down the only truly tender curve in his otherwise hard-planed body, watching, always watching as he first winces and endures, then subtly tenses and fights what I’m doing to him.
    This is a fight he cannot win. It is as inevitable as it is exquisite, that pain will course along his nerve endings as the blood rushes through the layers of his skin, the sensitive underside of his cock stroking against the fine