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

hand, cool and wet from the beer’s condensation, drew a line down the outer curve of her breast, slow and easy. “No. You’ll drink from mine, if you ask nice.”

Yeah, he knew she was naked. As flustered as she was, she detected full awareness of it in the sexy intensity of his voice. “But first, we’re going to get that business out of the way I was talking about.”

He shifted to set down the beer, then straightened to bring both her hands up to the piling.

Looping a coil of line around her wrists, he guided her hands to a metal hook embedded in the piling before he drew up the slack, locking her wrists against it.

Well, at least if she was tied here, she couldn’t fall into the water. But her breath was still getting short, the restraint doing funny things to her insides, anticipating what he was planning.

“I’m not sure I’m ready for this.”

He let his hand slide down her arm to her back, down to the curve of her buttock. Then, as he had the night in the club, without preamble or permission, he eased his fingers between her legs. She gasped as he stroked the wetness there, brought it back out and painted the moisture over her lips before he took her hand to his mouth, let her feel him taste his own fingers, a quick swipe of his tongue. “You’re ready, Sergeant. Now, I gave you one clear order when you left. What was it? You’d better remember it.”

A few hours ago, she’d been huddled in a dark room. In a way that didn’t ignore or minimize her physical limitations, he was nevertheless acting as though they had no bearing on how he intended their relationship to progress, as if she’d returned whole and wanted to try out a 24/7 Master/sub relationship with him.

Holy God. She yelped as a strip of heat sizzled down her backside. The switch.

“Yep.” His voice held dark satisfaction, a thick stew of lust. “Liked the results so much last time, decided to get my own. Answer me quick, Sergeant.”

“You told me to keep my ass down, sir.”

“And did you?”

“No, sir.”

“There are a couple soldiers who likely wouldn’t be alive if you had. You did your duty as a soldier, but you overrode your Master’s command. You did right, but you still have to be punished, don’t you?”

“Yes, Master.” Her fingers gripped the post, her mind whirling.

“How many lashes do you think you deserve for risking what belongs to me?”

She swallowed again, feeling a fear different from any she’d felt in the past long months, fear wrapped up in building need. Slick arousal was trickling down her thigh.

“Five,” she stammered out, sensing that hand getting ready to flick again. With his strength, she didn’t think she’d last more than five before screaming her lungs out. How close was the nearest neighbor?

“Really? Hmm.” He shifted to her other side, and when his hand ran down her flank, she jumped, anticipating the switch. “I’ll ask you the question again, after I give you the five you prefer.”

Oh, son of a bitch. She was wrong. Not only in her answer, but in how many stripes of that branch she could take without screaming. Her skin was tender from too much sitting, too few workouts, and the next one felt like bacon grease in an open wound. Two, three .

. . The cry ripped from her throat, so loud she heard the echo. The faint frog and bird sounds disappeared. He didn’t pause. Four and five.

Gasping for breath, she whimpered with shock and relief as he rolled the cold brew over her buttock, slow, easy, taking out the stinging throb. Back and forth, as the hand holding the switch took a firm grip of the other cheek, kneaded it with casual, indulgent pleasure.

“It’s softer, Sergeant, but it’s still a nice ass. Now, you going to try for the right answer to that question?”

She nodded. “However many my Master feels I deserve.”

“Bingo, sweetheart.” He pressed against her back then, and she sucked in a startled breath as the switch bent across her throat, below the collar, hauling her head up against the side of his jaw. He pressed his groin against her aching backside, and he was hard as a rock, making her want to widen her stance. Her nipples ached below that restraint, every reaction she had responding to the demand of his body.

“That suspended second in time, when I didn’t know if Jon was going to tell me if you were dead? There aren’t enough lashes in the world to make up for that feeling. Then there’s not telling me what was happening, not calling for my help. I could stripe your ass bloody in a heartbeat, Sergeant, for those things. I mean that.”

“I didn’t want you to come to me out of pity, damn it.” His anger goaded her pain, her heart wrenched between emotions and lust.

“I would have come because you belonged to me the second you met my gaze at The

Zone. Which is why, tomorrow night, you and I are going to visit my local club here. I’m going to remind you of that, open those eyes of yours to what you’re more than capable of seeing. If you do that, maybe, finally, you’ll be ready to take cautious steps toward embracing a new life for yourself. The way you should have been doing, all these months.”

A fetish club? Was he crazy? With lots of people and noise, and ways to fall and run into things and not know where she was or . . .

His hand settled on the collar. “You’re already worrying. Dana, how long have you been a sexual submissive?”

“Most of my life,” she whispered. “I’ve known about it since high school.”

“And like a lot of them, you have trust issues, until the right Master takes you in hand.”

One of those large hands dropped, squeezed a sore buttock again, earning a gasp.

“Between now and tomorrow, you’ll feel better