Honor Bound by Joey Hill (speld decodable readers .txt) 📕

“There you are, baby,” he murmured. “That’s the sub in you, rising to the top like cream.

Like this kind of cream.” His fingers passed through the honey of her pussy. “You just needed some focus. Got to get your mind on your proper business.” He traced the eagle tattoo again, following the ripple of the gathered flag; then he made a wide loop to cruise up her back. She had two other tats, not as visible through the sheath’s mesh, because they were simple pen and inks. He was resting on one now: the Lord’s Hands. Dog tags were inked in a wrap around them, inscribed with In God We Trust.

Doms usually stayed away from that one. Too spiritual or personal, and the clubs weren’t a place for strangers to get close in that kind of way. Only for pain and pleasure, and losing yourself in a place far beyond the mundane.

“Looks like you made a promise to your grandmother.” His touch descended to the script below it. I’ll never forget, Gram. “No matter what shit you see, you told her you’d keep Jesus and His teachings in mind. Let Him help you with every hard decision a soldier has to make. I like that.”

Breath shuddered through her lungs as he moved to her final tattoo, a rendering of Athena. “This one’s all for you, though. You call on her to forget the fear, give you a warrior’s courage. Mixing the Christian and pagan together, because a soldier needs tactical support wherever she can get it. The devil never lacks for representation out in the field.”

What was he doing to her? Slow, sensuous circles on her stung buttocks, words that were stripping away shields most Doms never touched. But she’d known, hadn’t she? He

didn’t need the dungeon. This was what he did to a woman. He flayed away the skin, left her completely exposed. Was this what she’d signed up for?

Apparently so. Because despite the fear and uncertainty, “freedom” had never felt more unappealing to her. Her fingers closed infinitesimally where they were hooked over his.

So slight, it might be taken for a simple involuntary twitch of her body. She cursed herself for a coward. She had that Athena tat for a reason. Closing her eyes, she tightened her grip, passed her fingers back and forth over his knuckles. If she was being the sub she was used to being, she’d provoke him with a grip suggesting what those fingers would do if they were on his cock. Instead, she moved in a tender caress on his curved fingers, tracing the calluses, the tough male skin.

“Oh, sweetheart, you’re a treasure. You don’t even realize it, which makes me harder.”

He turned her, lifting her in the cradle of his arms again, and stepped right into the fountain, unconcerned about his jeans or the scuffed-looking cowboy boots he wore under them.

He took her to the Aphrodite, which Dana realized was not sinuously posed without purpose. Peter set her down against the statue, so her bottom rested on the goddess’s bent knee. Stretching her arms up and back, he laced the extra gauntlet ties to a discreet ring embedded at Aphrodite’s throat, part of her jewelry. The alabaster folds of her artful dress formed hard curves through which he threaded Dana’s feet, pointing her toes with fingers caressing her arches and the sensitive ankles. When he stepped back, gravity and resistance kept Dana firmly restrained. Aphrodite’s ample cleavage pressed into her back so her own breasts jutted out.

When his hands closed on her there, she could tell in his absorption and touch that her captain was an avid breast man, making her wish she had more to offer him there. But he was so thorough, exploring the way they molded into his palms, testing their weight, tugging the nipple clamps and staring at her stimulated nipples in a way that had them aching. It left her feeling as though they were more than enough for him.

“My favorite thing, sweetheart,” he murmured. “Suckling pretty tits until I make you come. But there are some other things we need to handle first.”

He shrugged his shirt off his shoulders, his gaze drifting up to her mouth, the way she continued to hold his tags. But when he turned to toss the shirt over the fountain wall, letting it flutter to the grass, she drank him in greedily, glad he wasn’t a Dom who required her to lower her eyes. One set of biceps bore the Don’t Tread on Me flag with its coiled serpent. Celtic styled letters formed an arch over the massive breadth of his shoulders. PEACE.

She understood why he’d put it there, because it had the same meaning the Lord’s Hands did to her. They fought to protect and preserve, but any soldier who’d seen the carnage of war yearned for the day when love would prevail. And hoped there’d be some

recognizable vestige of himself left when it finally arrived.

The soul of this man was strong, strong enough to surround her and carry her through anything. The unexpected thought startled her. She’d heard from subs who’d been broken down to the point their most vulnerable needs and truths were revealed. She hadn’t thought she was there, but her heart was telling her something different. He’d barely touched her physically, but she already felt owned by him, through and through.

He hadn’t moved, holding her gaze as if he knew something intense was going on with her. Maybe for him as well. Reaching out, he traced her mouth, taking away

embarrassing saliva with a knuckle. There was a softness in his gray eyes, something that made the coil in her lower belly pull in two directions, toward her heart as much as the throbbing need between her legs.

Please do something. Hurt me. Fuck me. I don’t care. Just don’t strip me like this so fast.

She should spit out the tags, take whatever punishment