He stroked her cheek. “Brave little cat. Trust isn't easy for you, is it? Because you don't fully trust me, we'll stay here in public. The club safe word is 'red.' Do you understand what it's for?”

“Yes, but—”

“Yes, what?” He frowned at her, recalling her to his rules.

“Yes, Sir.”

“Good.” He rose to his feet with her still in his arms.

“Hey!” She wiggled. What was he going to do?

“You don't have permission to speak, little cat. You may use your safe word if you need to.” He walked across the room to a leather-covered table and laid her on it, then whipped a strap over her ribs to hold her in place. She'd thought he meant to control her by using his hands to hold her. Like he had been.

She struggled to sit up, and he pressed her shoulders down. “MacKensie. We have a deal. If you became aroused, I could continue, right?”

Heart pounding, she sucked in air as she stared up at him. His hands were warm on her shoulders, his eyes level. Patient. She had agreed. She gave him a short nod.

“And you agreed to submit to me, knowing what BDSM involved. You also agreed to continue a minute ago. Right?”

Oh God, she had agreed. Okay, okay. This was just part of BDSM, and he wasn't paying her. I'm not a whore, just someone doing kinky things. Kind of. She nodded again.

“Good.” He smiled slightly, cupping her cheek, then touched her lips lightly with his. “I'm going to restrain you, little cat, because your mind, for whatever reason, thinks you shouldn't do this and tells you to stop. But I'm not going to stop, and there will be nothing you can do about it.”

Even as he spoke, he pulled leather straps over her arms, her wrists. Then one across her hips over her skirt. To her shock, he flipped her skirt up and wrapped a Velcro cuff around her lower thigh. Bending her knee, he pushed her leg toward her shoulder and clipped the thigh cuff right beside her wrist. He did the same on the other side, and she lay on the table splayed open like a frog about to be cut up.

What was sexy about that? Yet the feeling of having her most intimate parts bared and vulnerable sent a shiver through her. She could see a few people around the edge of the scene area, watching.

Alex chuckled and rubbed his knuckles over her cheek, pulling her attention back to him. “Take a breath, sweetheart.”

She pulled in a deep breath.

His eyes were very blue and seemed to fill her whole vision. “Good.” He kissed her again, gently, lightly, coaxing her to respond. When she did, he pulled back, then ran his hands up and down her torso to the tender undersides of her breasts. To the nipples that had again started to pucker. When he sucked on the nipples, the tightness turned into a tingling ache of need.

Then she heard someone in the crowd laugh, turned her head, and saw their faces. She stiffened and made a useless attempt to move.

Alex lifted his head and studied her for a second. “Little cat, do you trust me not to leave you? Not for a second?”

Why was he asking her that? But he didn't say more. She bit her lip. Would he stay with her? Well, he'd saved her from that man and then held her. He hadn't abandoned her. She'd seen that he had his own code of honor. “Yes, Sir,” she said.

“Ah.” He smiled at her. “I like the trust I see growing. Now, I promise I won't hurt you while you're restrained here on the table. Do you trust me to keep my word?”

A whore learned to read people well. She usually knew when someone lied to her. He wasn't lying. “Yes, Sir.” She swallowed. “What are you going to do?”

“I'm going to take a little more control from you, MacKensie. I will ask you to keep your eyes closed.” From under the table, he lifted headphones. “You won't be able to see or hear, just to feel my hands on your body. My mouth on your pussy.”

Her breath hitched at the image.

“You have your safe word, little cat. Now close your eyes.” She did. When the earphones covered her ears, she heard the rhythmic sounds of the ocean: a low roar, then hissing. All she could hear was the ocean; all she could see was black. Had he left her? Her eyes popped open, and she looked right up into Alex's amused face. Like he knew she'd panic.

She caught a breath of Alex's rich aftershave just before his hand cupped her cheek, and he kissed her, gently, coaxing the response he knew she could give. After a minute, he lifted his head and touched her temple in an unspoken command.

Dammit, she wanted to be able to see.

He waited.

After giving him a glare that made his lips quirk, she closed her eyes.

His mouth covered hers again. As he toyed with her lips, nibbled on them, her anxiety diminished. And after a minute, many minutes, he moved. She had a second of panic. Then his hands touched her breasts, the feel of his slightly rough fingers already familiar. His lips closed around one nipple, his tongue hot against the sensitive tip as he sucked.

His mouth withdrew. Coolness over the wet nub, then…a pinching sensation. Not his fingers. The compression tightened right to the edge of pain and didn't loosen. A clamp. Like that other sub had worn. The steady pressure created a sizzling river of sensation between her breast and her groin. His hot mouth sucked on the other nipple, then the pressure again. The ache in her pussy increased.

His hand stroked down her stomach, trailing across the top of her skirt, then past and over her bare leg. He'd moved to the foot of the table, she realized, as his hands massaged her hips. When he stroked the exposed undersides of her thighs, it brought home how high and wide he'd parted her knees, leaving her open.

She tried to move her legs, and none of the straps gave, and the ocean rolled through the darkness as his hands moved closer to where she ached.

His hand pressed against her pussy for a second before stroking her thigh, leaving a wet trail in its wake. His silent way of showing that she was aroused, and he could continue. Oh frak, how could she want to run so badly and yet be so excited?

He returned to her pussy, a finger stroking through her folds. She kept waiting for groping, for his hand to rub her crotch as if sanding wood.

He didn't. Instead he used just a slickened fingertip, ever so slowly. Featherlight, it circled her clit, clockwise, then counterclockwise, never actually touching the aching nubbin of nerves. Her hips tried to push up, and the restraints held her completely still as his finger circled, then stroked down through her folds, making a figure eight, circling her opening, then up and around the increasingly sensitive nerves and back down in a rhythm that rolled through her like the ocean sounds rolled through her head.

She could actually feel her pussy swelling, engorging with blood until the tissues became painfully distended. Until…

Something touched her clit, right on top, a shocking warmth and wetness. She cried out, and the waves drowned the sound; she could only feel as his tongue stroked over her, lapping one side, then the other. Right over the top.

A seething tension grew inside her with every maddening, burning repetition.

He stopped, and then she felt something prodding at her opening. She drew in a breath, the muscles in her legs tightening. She knew this feeling. He was going to fuck her now, shove his cock in and—

It slid in, and she pulled in a breath at the exquisite feel of him sliding through her sensitive, swollen tissues. Her hands closed on the edge of the bench as the in-and-out movements sent her higher.

Then his cock somehow doubled in size, and his mouth came down on her clit again.

The piercing shock flamed through her. Her back arched, jostling the nipple clamps and sending electric sizzles to her pussy where his tongue flicked over her clit and his—not his cock, she realized with a startled breath—his fingers. He had his fingers in her and was pumping them slowly in and out as his tongue stroked her up and down.

The pace slowly increased, as did the wet pressure over her clit. His tongue drew an agonizing line of heat up one side as his fingers pushed deeper into her.

The sensations from his mouth and her insides merged, forming one desperate bundle of nerves. Another stroke of his tongue and slide of his fingers. Each ruthless touch sent her higher. The muscles in her vagina contracted until they ached, and her fingers scrabbled at the table as she tried to arch higher to his mouth. Needing, needing…

His tongue flicked directly on top of her clit.

The coiled-up ecstasy released as if launched from a cannon, shooting heat and pleasure through her in shattering spasms until her toes curled and her neck arched.

He licked over her again. And again. His fingers thrust deeply inside her, and her pussy clamped around him. She shuddered as more waves of pleasure broke over her helpless body.

When the fingers inside her could no longer elicit a quiver, he patted her thigh, and she felt the strap fall away. He did the other restraint and lowered her legs. For a minute, he massaged her aching muscles, and then he closed her thighs over her wet, swollen pussy, making her moan.

When he pulled the earphones off, all the noise of the club burst over her like a storm of sound.

“Look at me now, MacKensie.”

She opened her eyes and stared into a gaze of molten blue. He stroked her hair back from her face, his lips curving in a faint smile.

He would want to get off very badly by now, she realized. He needed to take her, and she'd let him. He deserved it.

“I got off,” she whispered, as if he didn't know. But she still couldn't believe it. Or what it had felt like, like the boundaries of her universe had expanded in the chaos of coming.