A Smile as Sweet as Poison Page 9

  It was unsettling in a way that had everything and nothing at all to do with chains and collars, and giving up control. She squirmed, heart thumping a little faster against her ribs.

  Above her, Dylan hummed his approval. “Mm, I think you’re right. Look at her, naked and ready for us…just begging to be fucked.” He used the hand that clutched the leash to give her right nipple a twist.

  Hazel cried out, both in pain and surprise, bucking uselessly against the mattress.

  “Let her up.” Ward’s order brooked no argument, but it was far from a change of heart.

  No sooner had Dylan risen than they turned Hazel over, forcing her arms behind her back. With her mouth free, she gulped down breaths into her air-starved lungs, insides churning. “What—what are you doing?” It wasn’t playacting that forced a shaky, apprehensive twinge into her voice. She really was afraid.

  Her safe word rose to the tip of her tongue, begging to be uttered.

  But what was there to be afraid of? Ward and Dylan?

  Even as they snapped leather cuffs around her wrists, cinching her bonds tighter than was strictly necessary, Hazel didn’t doubt for a second they were doing it for her. I asked for this. And now they’re giving me what I want.

  “On your feet,” Dylan growled, pulling her upright. He fisted the leash in one hand and used it to tilt back her head so Hazel could barely see where she was going.

  Light filled her vision, so bright it hurt. She squeezed her eyes shut, stumbling drunkenly along, until suddenly she was being pushed to her knees and the world righted itself around her. She made out the hooks on the wall, loaded with floggers and crops and paddles of different sizes. She saw the padded spanking horse along the far end of the room. They were in the playroom—familiar, comforting territory. With her hands bound behind her back, Hazel couldn’t rest a hand on the floor or cradle her head. She went down with a whimper as Ward nudged his foot between her shoulder blades.

  “Eyes down, slut. You don’t look at us.”

  Dylan seemed to share the sentiment. The chain clicked and clanged, links rearranging as he loosened his hold. It made no difference for Hazel’s harried breathing.

  Cheek pressed against the cold floor, Hazel tripped over her frazzled thoughts. “W-what will you do to me?” She didn’t have to feign the tears that sprang to her eyes.

  “What do you think?” Ward asked.

  “I don’t—please, please don’t hurt me.”

  Someone laughed. It took her a moment to realize that the voice belonged to Dylan. He was fiddling with a chain by the far wall, next to the St. Andrew cross. Hazel couldn’t tell what he was doing at first, the broad span of his shoulders blocking her vision. Then he moved aside.

  The playroom was fitted with a great number of hooks and pulleys, handles bolted to the walls seemingly without rhyme or reason. It wouldn’t have occurred to Hazel to thread the long chain fastened to her collar through one of those—probably because it wasn’t her job to come up with new and ingenious tortures.

  When Dylan tugged on the lead, the chain tensed, collar twisting around her neck until the O-ring faced the wall behind her.

  Hazel gasped.

  “We’ll do whatever we want,” Ward intoned over her head. “And there’s nothing you can do to stop us.”

  The certainty in his voice was chilling and exciting all at once. Why would I want to stop you? Why would I mind? Hazel flexed her hands, pulling at the cuffs to test their resistance. The leather bit into her skin—enough to chafe, perhaps, but not to cut. Good.

  She stilled when Ward removed his foot, the pressure on her ribcage lessening at once. It was so tempting to straighten and let her breaths come soft and easy, but he hadn’t said she was allowed. Not yet.

  The tell-tale sound of a zipper coming undone pierced the fog of her guesswork.

  “Up,” Dylan ordered. He yanked the lead as added incentive, forcing Hazel to raise her head off the floor.

  She knew better than to meet their eyes without permission.

  “Ever sucked cock before?” Dylan wondered.

  You know I have.

  Hazel shook her head. For this, she was all innocent, all new. She wanted Dylan to treat her like a stranger he didn’t particularly care to see again. Bruise me as much as you like.

  “Time you learned, then,” he growled. But it was Ward’s hand in her sleep-matted hair, making her look up.

  He had already unzipped his fly and pulled out his erection, the tip pearling with pre-cum. Hazel’s mouth watered. She wanted to wait for the order, but hunger got the better of her. She leaned in as far as the chain would allow, touching her lips to the shiny cockhead. It wasn’t far enough.

  Ward hissed out a breath. “Son of a bitch…”

  “She’s got a sweet mouth, doesn’t she?” Dylan chuckled, almost tenderly, before tugging once again on the chain.

  The collar dug into Hazel’s windpipe, more suggestion that threat. If she couldn’t stand it, she could always lean back, take her weight out of the makeshift noose. Contingency was built into Dylan’s every plan, no matter how rough.

  She didn’t. A whimper catching in her throat, Hazel held out her tongue, touching Ward with only the wet, flicking tip. It wasn’t enough for her and she knew it wouldn’t be enough for him, but it was better than nothing. The thought of giving up altogether never crossed her mind.

  “Oh, fuck,” Ward moaned, carding fingers through her hair. “That’s good. You dirty little bitch—ah, more.”

  The chain clicked, one more link sliding through the wall-mounted hook—Dylan’s doing.

  Hazel threw her weight at it, sucking as much of Ward’s cock into her mouth as she could and swirling her tongue around the mushroomed head. She didn’t know how to pretend she’d never done this before, so she didn’t try. The game wasn’t worth sacrificing her desire to please them.

  Wordlessly, Dylan gave her another half-inch, a gift she swiftly put to good use by sinking further down Ward’s cock. He didn’t warn her before tugging on the chain. The effect was immediate and less than glamorous. Hazel choked on her breath, sputtering wetly as Ward’s length slid completely out of her reach.

  “Again,” he commanded.

  “I can’t,” Hazel whined, the tension in the lead holding her back.

  “Again.”

  There was no give, at first, and Hazel squirmed in her bonds, the corners of her eyes prickling with effort. Then Dylan offered her another reprieve. His silence should have been unnerving, but all Hazel could think of was that he was watching. It wasn’t just Ward she had to satisfy, it was Dylan, too, the two of them ruling her in ways she’d been terrified to allow.

  She needed no orders to sink down Ward’s dick once more, using every trick she knew to make the most of the privilege. The opportunity was snuffed out abruptly as Dylan jerked her back. Again they fought—she leading fruitlessly with her upper body, Dylan holding her back with a clenched fist—and again he decided when to let her tip forward. Gradually, a rhythm formed with fewer and fewer interruptions.

  No sooner did it occur to Hazel that she was being used as a weird sort of proxy, her mouth doing what Dylan wouldn’t stoop to do, that Ward was pushing her away and stepping back, his erection arching away from his belly. “Get her up.”

  Dylan granted Hazel a second to collect herself before tugging on the chain. Hazel straightened, her gaze flying up to meet his. There might have been repercussions if Dylan wasn’t so intent on hauling her all the way back to the wall to notice. Each pull forced her to shuffle back on her knees, each telegraphed curl of muscle in his forearm told her that she needed to brace herself. Too soon, Hazel touched her toes to the brick wall. End of the line.

  “Up,” Dylan rasped and tensed the lead again.

  This time, the scrape of the collar was all too real. Hazel spared a distant thought for marks she would have to cover up at work tomorrow, struggling to get her feet under her. Her thighs ached as she staggered to full height a
nd pressed her palms against the wall behind her.

  “Please,” she murmured, intending the words for Dylan’s ears only.

  The playroom echoed, though, and Ward rounded on her with a cruel smirk. “What are you begging for? You think he’ll let you go?” He crowded her against the wall, his body a long, ropey line of muscle and wicked intent against hers.

  Suddenly, Hazel was transported to Dylan pinning her against the bedroom door just a few nights before and bringing her off with his fingers. Heat fused at her core, an ever greater reminder of just how desperate she constantly was for them.

  “Perhaps I should gag that pretty mouth,” Ward said, grabbing the lower half of her face in a brutal hand, “so you won’t be tempted to use it for whining.”

  Hazel shivered, the right amount of fear stealing through her body. This was Ward as she had never seen him, all pretense of a tease gone.

  This, she realized suddenly, was the man Dylan had known, before she came along. Before all those other women.

  She squeezed her thighs together at the thought. What might it be like, if both of them were to surrender to Ward?

  The hiss of a cane through the air made short work of her fantasies.

  “Think someone needs a lesson in discipline,” Dylan mused.

  “Think you might be right…”

  Ward stepped elegantly out of the way, leaving Hazel alone and unprotected before Dylan’s heated gaze.

  “No,” she choked out, trembling. “No, please—”

  The first swat of the cane struck her thigh. Pain radiated outward with an almighty echo, seizing hold of Hazel’s insides like a tight fist. She cried out, half in agony and half in relief.

  Her head had always been a confusing place to be during a scene, but this was the first time Dylan had brought her to the brink of a howl.

  “No?” Ward hissed.

  He interposed so smoothly that Hazel almost didn’t notice him protecting her with his body until he’d grabbed her chin.

  “Are you telling us to stop? That you can’t take it?” The fierceness in his voice walked the razor edge between contempt and threat, but there was another question shrouded in his bullying.

  Is this you safe wording out?

  Hazel took a deep breath, taking mental stock of the sensations coursing through her body. It wasn’t in her nature to cry wolf. Her pride rebelled against the thought of balking at punishment. Training had cured her of cowardice long ago but one lesson she’d absorbed well since taking up with Dylan and Ward was that her first task as a submissive was to keep their property safe—even from their actions, if the impact play went too far.

  As much as the cane hurt, it wasn’t worse than the flared end of the riding crop. And it’s not a hairbrush, either…

  “Do you…do you think I can take it?” Hazel forced out through chattering teeth.

  “Yes.” Ward didn’t even hesitate.

  Prove it. Her shaky nod was all the confirmation Dylan waited for. No sooner had Ward ducked out of the way that he struck her again, on her other leg, layering the blows with exquisite precision.

  Hazel squirmed and shook with every single one, her cries fading to mortifying, wet sobs. She mistook a breather for the end of her torment, heart sinking when Dylan said, “Your turn.”

  The final half-dozen blows left her cheeks tear-streaked and her body limp with exhaustion. A sunburn sting, ten times worse than anything she’d ever gotten herself at the beach, spread liquid fire over the abused flesh. There would be bruises, she was sure—perhaps as bad as those left behind whenever Dylan took a paddle to her ample ass. She jerked away from him when he approached, a knee-jerk impulse she aborted a half-second too late.

  Dylan was already pulling away, lead in hand. “Bend down,” he ordered, gesturing her to face the wall.

  Hazel dithered, afraid of scraping her mouth against the brick wall. She couldn’t stop trembling.

  “I said bend the fuck down!” He twisted a hand in her hair and mercilessly nudged her into position, shoulders against the wall, the notches in her spine slowly peeling away toward the tail bone. Her knees locked to hold her upright. Incredibly, her feet remained flat on the floor as Dylan detached the cuffs around her wrists and fastened them to two lower handles protruding from the cinderblock on either side.

  Hair curled around Hazel’s face, tangling in her mouth. She spat it out and flexed her toes against the hardwood boards. It was a weird pose, close enough to the forward fold she’d attempted once in the yoga class Sadie had dragged her to not to be unfamiliar but less strenuous on her hamstrings. The biggest inconvenience by far was seeing her thighs up close and personal.

  As if he could sense her thoughts straying, Dylan groped her breast none too gently before standing.

  “What do you think?” he asked lightly.

  Ward hummed. “Could leave her like this for an hour or two, see how she likes it…”

  Hazel whimpered.

  “Or we could use this?”

  With the world upside down and her field of vision severely restricted, Hazel only caught a glimpse of the device they meant. Her cunt clenched in response.

  “Tight pussy like that? We’d split her open,” Ward scoffed.

  No. No, you wouldn’t. Fuck, please… Hazel bit down on her lips to keep from speaking. Her word meant nothing. She would take whatever they elected to give her.

  “This, then,” Dylan decided. The inflatable dildo was set aside—to the tune of Hazel’s dejected sigh. He took up a curved plug instead.

  The synapses in Hazel’s brain shorted out. They’d talked about anal once or twice, always as a possibility, never as something she absolutely needed to feel fulfilled. Dylan had mentioned finding it hot, but it wasn’t a must for him, either. Seeing him now with that shiny toy had Hazel wondering if perhaps she hadn’t been too quick to brush aside the possibility.

  “Don’t you look scared,” he snickered, tracing the bulbous head of the toy along the inside of her thigh. “Never had one of these, I bet.”

  “Oh, I think she lets all the boys plow that ass…” Ward swatted her hip as if to underscore the point. “Probably lets them fuck her loose and sloppy, saving her pussy for the right man.”

  Hazel sucked in a startled breath when she felt the touch of slick between her cheeks. This is really happening. Her sense of reality was already a little shaken and the blood rushing to her head wasn’t helping, but the thought of Ward and Dylan claiming that part of her unraveled the final tethers she had on her self-control.

  She didn’t resist as Ward prepped her with a careful, practiced hand, layering slaps on her hips with the other while Dylan raked fingernails down her back. They talked about her as if she wasn’t even present—a mere tool for their satisfaction.

  Yes. Hazel stopped fighting that bone-deep need to surrender herself to them. She stopped worrying about what she looked like, or what they expected from her next. She didn’t beg for another finger as Ward stretched her. That wasn’t her decision to make and never should’ve been.

  Too far gone to clench against the alien pressure, Hazel curled her toes into the floor and sucked in a breath. Tension leached out as they pressed the toy inside her, a slow sharp burn awakening every cell in her body. In it went, then out, then in again, lubricating her insides along the way. She welcomed the torque of her limbs, the effort it took to catch her breath between one thrust and the next. Pleasure found her like the latent kick of a powerful drug, sweeping her up in an unexpected undertow.

  “Maybe you should fuck her,” Dylan mused, his voice soft and faraway.

  “Yeah?” Ward sounded breathless. Hazel couldn’t see him from the waist up, but what she could see of him confirmed that he was still aroused by the body under his hands.

  Dylan moved into his personal space, speaking too low for Hazel to discern the words.

  A moment passed, the plug finally bottoming out and the stretched ring of muscle closing tightly around the base. Hazel tried to a
cclimate to the sensation. The familiar fumbling of condoms and lubricant seemed to be happening somewhere far, on another plane. Then Ward aligned his cock to her throbbing cunt and thrust into her, holding her by the hips as though Hazel could try to get away. As though she had anywhere left to run to. He was both thicker and warmer than the toy, a change of pace that Hazel, in her dizzy delight, welcomed greedily.

  “That feel good?” Dylan asked, running a hand down her spine. “She as tight as you imagined?”

  Ward panted. “God, yes…”

  “She’s gonna make you come, isn’t she? All tied up like a present and you still can’t say no…”

  Excitement raced down Hazel’s back to coalesce behind her throbbing clit. This was new. Dylan and Ward usually teased and tormented her, not each other. Too much history between them, she’d always assumed.

  Before she could give more thought to their weird, impenetrable dynamic, Ward thrust deep, groping her hips with both hands, and came. Hazel could’ve sworn she felt him ejaculate into the condom, but it was probably her imagination. Her inner muscles clawed at him, drawing out his release. Hazel was too weak to control her own body.

  Spent, he withdrew with a groan, taking longer to unclench his fingers from her flesh.

  “That looked good,” Dylan murmured, low and meaningful.

  To Hazel, it sounded as though he wanted Ward to know he’d been watching every second.

  Ward huffed out a laugh. “You’re up.”

  Dylan didn’t need to pry out his dick or suit up. He was ready to go as soon as Ward allowed it and he entered Hazel’s cunt with an achingly slow thrust.

  “How’s that?” he purred. “You like it?”

  Hazel didn’t bother nodding. They couldn’t see her anyway.

  “Looks,” Ward choked out. “Looks good.”

  It wasn’t until he’d staggered back far enough for Hazel to see him that she realized he was stroking his spent cock as he watched them. Something inside her snapped at the sight. She jerked in her bonds, rutting between Dylan and the wall despite her limited range of movement. They’d had her on the edge of the tripwire for so long, the plug in her ass and her flesh smarting from her earlier caning, that when Dylan finally found the sweet spot inside her to push her over the edge, Hazel all but crumbled to the floor.