Brat and Master by Sindra van Yssel Page A

breasts, and his thumbs drew little circles around her nipples, willing her peaks to hardness. They responded eagerly to his touch, tightening, lengthening, tingling.
    “My toy responds very nicely,” he murmured into her ear, his voice low and rich, with a hint of roughness behind the velvety softness.
    “Thank you, Sir. I’m glad you are pleased.” She turned her head and smiled at him. He caught her lips in a kiss that started out soft and nibbly. Then he put his hand on the back of her head and pulled her against him, taking her breath away.
    “Damn, you’re a good kisser,” he told her.
    “Me?” His kiss had left her weak in the knees.
    “You.” But when he said it, his face clouded over in a way she couldn’t figure out. Being a good kisser was a positive thing, wasn’t it? Yet it didn’t seem to make him happy.
    “Let’s go see if we can find a cross,” he said. “I’ll get my bag.” He pulled her gently from the rail and then turned. His “bag” turned out to be a small metal suitcase, resting against the wall not far from where Blackie had accosted her.
    “Best place for a cross is the dungeon room. They probably have two in there now, since they don’t have one set up in the middle.”
    He smiled at her, but it was more politeness than warmth. The heat that she’d felt moments before seemed to have gone completely.
    What did I do wrong?
     
    A SIMPLE SCENE had been all Jeremy was after. He’d been urged into more that morning in the park, and he needed to keep his head clear. The thing with Amanda wasn’t about romance. It was about kink. He ought to be able to keep the difference straight.
    But something had flipped when he’d seen the big man put his hands on Amanda. It had been foolish to physically confront him—he needed to protect his fingers, and he didn’t doubt the man could have broken them to shake his grasp—but he couldn’t help it. I was being protective, that’s all. But he knew it was more than that. He was possessive too. That was why he’d grabbed Amanda afterward, fondled her in front of everyone, and kissed her until his lips bruised. He’d been staking a claim he had no right to. He had wanted a fling, a distraction, not a relationship.
    He already felt he didn’t want to let Amanda go.
    He wasn’t going to douse those feelings by kissing her. He owed her a good time, but he needed to maintain some distance. A simple scene with her strapped to a cross would do the trick nicely. He walked toward the dungeon, trusting her to follow. The click clack of her heels on the shiny wooden floor was confirmation.
    There were indeed two St. Andrew’s crosses in the dungeon room, as well as shackles on the wall, a table that resembled a rack, and another small table that held safer sex supplies: condoms, lube, dental dams, and gloves. One of the crosses was unoccupied. The other had a naked, athletically built young man strapped to it. His top, a bigger, older man, was flogging his back with hard, deliberate overhand strokes, using a big mop of a flogger. The swings looked vicious, but the flogger appeared to be a soft one. The technique was about as far from Amanda’s beautiful patterns in the air as one could get, but it was still effective, as the young man’s moans indicated. He saw Amanda move to get a peek at the sub’s front, and chuckled.
    He walked to the empty cross, which was set up so as to face the other way from the one the men were using, and was slightly off line so that Jeremy wouldn’t be backing up into the other top. Amanda came with him.
    “So,” said Jeremy, quietly enough that the men wouldn’t be disturbed, “was he hard?”
    Amanda blushed. “Yes. Did you mind me looking?”
    He shook his head, wondering if he was being completely honest. Cheri had been so devoted, so focused on him that he couldn’t imagine her path deviating to look. He’d always wondered if that was entirely healthy. It seemed to work for her. But Amanda was not