It tickled like a line of bugs crawling over her skin. As she tried to squirm away, he laughed, then moved to her back, using the wheel up and down the muscles along her spine, then down, pressing harder over her butt, drawing burning lines over her body. Her focus constricted as the wheel created a fine tapestry of pain. Over her stomach, upward to the tender undersides of her breasts, around her nipples. The tracks flamed through her, lassoing her with the wonderful bite. Her breasts grew heavier, and her nipples contracted as if trying to escape their fate.

When he paused, she looked down to see thin red lines on her pale skin. Despite the wheel’s cutting sensation, she saw no blood. Her gaze lifted to the toy, to his hand, to his face…to his eyes. He was watching her intently, studying her responses.

A tremor started from her toes, working upward to her scalp. How could his single-minded attention be more arousing than the pain?

The sun lines at the corners of his eyes crinkled. Then the wheel circled the perimeter of her left areola, turned, and ran straight over the tip. The slash of pain was like he’d drawn a knife over her. She gasped, her back arching, pressing forward as the brilliant heat burst inward.

His rasping chuckle scraped over her nerves, arousing her in an entirely different way. “Love those tits, girl.”

By the time he did her right nipple, her skin was on fire, sensitive and throbbing. After tossing the wheel onto the table, he cupped her breasts and firmly rubbed his calloused thumbs over the abused nipples.

Glorious, erotic rawness. Unsure if she hurt or felt wonderful, she whimpered.

Delight filled his eyes.

He switched to the palm-wide, leather-covered paddle, smacking her bottom over and over. The pain was—as Goldilocks said—just right. A lovely impact with not too much of a sting, and when he started hitting hard, the sensation reverberated straight through to her core. Her clit swelled and throbbed.

When he paused, she made a sound and pulled at her restraints in protest. Don’t stop.

He stepped in front of her, his face filling her vision. His grip on her hair pulled her head back, and he kissed her gently, luring her into responding before turning rough. Wet. Removing control from her in a way that took her willpower as well.

Her eyelids were heavy, but she couldn’t look away from his hard face—the dent in his square chin, lines around his eyes, strong nose. A five o’clock shadow darkened his jawline.

His firm lips quirked as she stared at him. “Like the paddle on your ass, do you? How about other places?”

He moved behind her, and light slaps ran down the backs of her thighs, then around to the fronts. To the insides. Stinging followed in the wake. Up and down and back up, arousal blossoming as the strikes approached the open area between her legs. Her whole body tensed with need. With fear…

Without speaking, he swatted the narrow paddle three times right on top of her labia and clit.

Oh God! The fireball turned into shockingly exquisite pleasure. She went up on tiptoes, hovering at the edge of release. The noise she made… She’d never heard that sound before.

The paddle dropped onto the table, and his wide hand covered her throbbing pussy. Heat on top of heat. “Almost went over, little girl.” His skilled fingers slid across her burning tissues in a purely erotic caress.

One digit circled her unbearably swollen clit. Moved down. As he slowly, slowly pushed a finger inside her, his keen blue eyes held hers trapped. She stared helplessly, unable to speak, only feel, as he pressed deeper. Fully in, he rubbed his thumb over her clit until her hips arched forward.

His laugh rumbled like the bass drum in an orchestra. “Soon enough, missy. First, I want to make you suffer.” His voice dropped. “Hear you scream.” The pale fire of his gaze held hers as he pressed down on her clit, making the swollen tissue hurt. Throb.

“Sam,” she whispered, and his eyes crinkled.

When he picked up the short two-tailed whip thing from the very end of the “bad” side of the table, her hands closed into fists. She hadn’t liked its looks before and liked it less now.

Slowly, repetitively, he lashed up and down her bottom, and the horrid stinging made her flinch and try to escape. Tears sprang to her eyes. Overflowed. Hurts.

When he stopped, she pulled in a shuddering breath. His beard-scratchy face rubbed against her wet cheek as he murmured, “Figured you wouldn’t like the quirt.”

The intense afterburn shimmered over her skin as if she’d slid headlong into a hot springs. She pushed the question out: “Why then?”

“Because I like seeing you squirm. And cry.” Gently, he kissed the tears from her cheeks. His voice dropped to a low, merciless rumble. “Because when you know that I can—and will—make you take more than you wanted, even when it hurts, you slide far deeper.”

Her body shook as she stared at the resolve—and satisfaction—in his face. The truth dug into her with pinpoint claws, because he was right. She wanted that ruthless part of him. With him, she wouldn’t have to beg for more, because he’d force her to where the sharp edge between pain and pleasure slipped away, and he’d keep her there, where her soul was bared to him.

As he read her surrender, his lips curved in a hard, hard smile.

When he released her from his gaze, she managed to draw in a breath.

After donning the furry glove she’d tossed on the “good” end of the table, he stroked her shoulder with the back of the glove. Fuzzy and soothing, yet her skin was so incredibly sensitive, she felt every tiny, soft strand. Her eyes half closed as he caressed her whole body.

“Like the glove?” The amusement in his voice pulled her eyes back open. “You didn’t really check it out, though.” He turned his glove-covered hand over and slid it, palm side down, across her collarbone to the top of her breast.

She sucked in a hard breath of air at the scritchy-scratchy feeling. When he lifted his hand, she saw the fur had concealed thumbtack-like points.

Alternating between the innocent fur side and the evil palm side, he glided over the tender places left by the quirt and the flogger. As her stomach muscles flinched, he pressed harder. “Don’t move, girl.”

“Mmm.” She should move, do something, but as the glove created swaths of sparkling pain all over her body, she was sliding down, down, down into her happy place. Into the shadow world where decisions were made by someone else. Where her body wasn’t really hers. Where the hurting and the yearning wove together into a basket that held her safely inside.

The glove spiraled up her inner thighs and, before she could tense, covered her pussy. A million spiky points pressed into her labia, ricocheting through her clit. God, she needed to come. Every cell in her body throbbed with burgeoning need, sharp and sweet, and she heard a long, husky moan. Hers.

The deep rumble was Sam’s laugh. “There’s a good girl.” Something pinched her chin, and she dragged her eyes open to see Sam’s icy ones. “Give me a color, Linda.”

Color? Oh, there was supposed to be a color. One to keep going. Her mind floated like foam on rolling waves. Continue or stop. Must continue. Like a stoplight. “Green. More. Green.”

He snorted. Then his lips touched hers in a gentle kiss. “For a little while, then.”

Something slapped against her bottom, and it hurt—maybe it hurt. She couldn’t even tell anymore as the molten sensation flowed through her. Caning. He was caning her, mostly on her bottom, light taps on her thighs, flicking at intervals between her legs hard enough to make her cry out. Hard enough to make her shake with need.

The wonderful edgy pattering continued on and on until her body felt so full of sensation that she was rocking. Humming. Her tipped-up lips tasted of the salt from her tears.

“I think you’re done, missy.” His voice splashed like rain into her warm pool of bliss. “I’m letting you loose.”

“More. Green. More.”

He chuckled, and his rough voice shivered over her, far sweeter than the whip. “You’re past the point where you can decide. No more.”

Coolness ringed her ankles when the cuffs came off. His fingers traced over her clit, circling, sending her to the edge, before he drew her legs together over the throbbing tissue.

Her whimper of protest got a laugh. He hooked an arm around her as he reached up to her wrists. Her shoulders seemed to groan—or was that her?—as her arms lowered.

“There we go,” he said. Her head bounced off the clouds as he lifted her up into his arms, but he was warm and solid and so very safe. Her eyes closed again…or had she opened them at all?

“Ask Peggy to clean up for me, please.”

Was he talking to her? She rubbed her cheek against him, listening to the low reverberation of sound in his chest. His musky fragrance sent need washing in hot waves over her.

A voice murmured.

“The toys go into a plastic bag. It all goes behind the bar.”

“Yes, Sir,” someone answered.

“Thanks, Tanner.”

He was walking. Carrying her. The noise from the clubroom was a lovely song of torment and joy. She tried to lift her head, to see what was happening. A railing. Stairs. They were going upstairs.

Okay.

When a door shut, she opened her eyes again.

One of those sawhorse things was in the center of the room. Sam deposited her, stomach down, along the length of the padded surface, moving her until her forearms and knees rested on lower supports on each side. The cold leather on her burning skin sent a chill through her.