I felt his mouth on my breast, trailing kisses toward my nipple. Would he torment me as he had on the plane, avoiding the tips . . . ?

Yet as he licked the globes of my breasts, he pinched both nipples. Hard.

Harder. Tightening down on the peaks. It was painful--blissfully so.

He rasped, "You like that."

"Oh, God," I moaned as he pulled on them--

Only to abruptly release them.

He leaned down, mouth and tongue wrapping around a nipple, softly suckling as if to kiss away a pang. When he released it, I twisted to arch my other breast to him.

A dark chuckle sounded against my skin, but he obliged me. Once he began tracing his lips down my torso, he left both of my nipples aching and damp in his wake--and me already on the verge of coming.

He reached my navel, circling it with flicks of his tongue, then kissing it as if he were drinking from me. As his mouth dipped lower, he laid his hands flat over my upper thighs, his fingers stretching to my mons. Like he'd done in the cornfield.

Reading my mind, he said, "I've imagined that night ending differently. I fantasized that you wanted me to fuck you there, under the moon." He pulled my lips apart with such a sure touch. I could feel how soaked I was, how my folds flared.

His finger followed my wet seam, making me shudder. "Ty takaya nezhnaya." You're so soft. "So beautiful here." My hips thrust hungrily, my exposed pussy empty. "How could I not want to devour you at every chance?" He cupped my bottom. With his ringed fingers splayed across my ass, he lifted me like a bowl to his mouth, then ran the tip of his tongue from my core to my clit.

"Oh, God, yes!"

One finger entered me as he licked. Then he wedged a second one inside. But he removed them too soon, too soon--

"Do you want to know what heaven is for me?" Those fingers briefly dipped into my mouth for me to suck.

My taste! My taste was heaven for him. How could that turn me on so much? Again he took those fingers away too soon.

Attention fully on my pussy, he nuzzled me, then tugged my clit between his lips, nursing on it so softly. My entire body was quaking. He'd imprisoned me with his bonds--and his mouth--keeping me on the verge of coming with an expert cruelty.

When his suction finally increased, the bud swelled till it throbbed against his tongue. So close . . . so close . . .

He released it with a wet sound.

"No, don't stop!" It was a bundle of such unbearable sensitivity, I could feel mist alighting on it.

As if it was his toy, he blew on it. He played with it. Tormented it between his teeth. "So tiny, so luscious," he said in a gravelly voice. "And it will make you do things for me that you've never dreamed."

My toes curled, my fists clenched. How long had he kept me in this misery? I didn't know if minutes had passed or hours. "Too much!" How could boundless pleasure be so excruciating?

He drew on me even harder. At last! Should I tell him that I was about to trip over the edge? He would deprive me of my orgasm, just as he had everything else. Hide how close you are. Don't let him know--

"If you come before I give you permission, you'll be punished."

I writhed with frustration. Orgasm denial, just as I'd read about. "I-I need to come. Please."

"Say that in Russian. I love that word from you."

"Pozhaluista!"

"Enjoy more of my kiss." I felt his ragged breaths against my spread opening. "But do not come."

Fierce licks over my clit forced a desperate cry from my lungs. Too late. I couldn't withstand this. The wave was crashing over me--

"You're coming?" With a growl of irritation, he sucked harder to finish me, tonguing me at the same time. My body twisted against my bonds, legs spread, hips bucking wantonly to his mouth. Fuck. Fuck. Sucking me so hard. Wringing from me the most powerful orgasm I'd ever imagined.

Just as he'd promised.

As before, my mind was . . . reset.

I lay, recovering from the staggering pleasure--but not sated. Instead of putting out the fire, that release had just taken the edge off, enough for my thoughts to briefly clear. The better for me to appreciate what he was doing to me.

To appreciate my submissive position. My helplessness. His mastery.

As I squirmed with after-shudders, he continued to lave me, savoring. "I taste your cum . . . could lick you forever." His voice sounded strained. "But you orgasmed before I wanted you to, moya plohaya devchonka." That meant "my bad girl." As in naughty or . . . wicked.

And I was. For him, I was.

He pulled away. "I'm going to have to start over, to get you wild again. Are you ready for your punishment?"

In a dim part of my brain, I recognized that he'd set me up to be punished, that it was always going to fall to this--because he played games.

Was he playing for higher stakes than I could afford to lose?

Chapter 20

"I'm ready." I think. I didn't recognize my whiskey voice. Gone scratchy from my screams?

I heard a rustle and my eyes shot wide behind my blindfold. Was that a venik? One of those mini leaf brooms? What would he be doing with that . . . ? My questions faded when he ran it over my chest.

The wet leaves slithered over the contours of my breasts, the texture just this side of rough across my stiffened nipples. With a cry, I arched up--

Slap. He'd whipped one of my breasts! "Sevastyan!" Then the other. "What are you--"

And again! The sting continued to intensify, but my nipples hardened even more, as if to tempt another slap--which he promptly gave.

Slap. Even as he fucked my pussy with the handle, he whipped my tender breasts. At that moment, I couldn't decide which stimulation I would kill for most.

I did crave the brand of pain this man delivered.

"Bend your will to mine." The strain in his voice made my toes curl. He lashed me; he thrust into my clinging channel. He maddened me. "When I order you to come, obey."

Thrust, thrust, thrust to the staccato sounds of my whipping.

I sobbed from the intensity. Gone light-headed. Euphoric. "Sevastyan, oh, God, please." A keening moan burst from my lungs.