Yes, Master, page 20
He spoke so slow and low she had trouble concentrating on what he was saying. She was melting a little, losing touch with her various body parts.
“How long have you been running?”
A question. Something she was supposed to respond to. “Since junior high.”
“You’ve been injured, right? Torn cartilage, pulled hamstring, trochanteric bursitis.”
“All three and more.”
“What did you do then?”
Exactly what the trainers and coaches told her not to. “I ran through it.”
“How did you handle the pain?”
“I lived with it.”
Instead of giving her the lecture she expected, he concentrated on her temples. His oversized hands on the sides of her head felt wonderful. It was more than his heat and competence, more than his professional understanding of her body. She’d had a few massages over the years but those had focused on the areas of strain and injury. None had reduced her the way this one was doing. However, in contrast to the rest of her, her pussy remained on alert.
“There was no working through my broken collarbone.”
She tilted her head back, but saw nothing in his expression to hint at what that had been like for him. “How long were you laid up?”
“Forever.”
Before she could ask for an explanation, the answer came to her. That broken bone had spelled the end to his pro career. He might be a stranger, but she knew he didn’t want her sympathy. This hour was about her, which was how she wanted it.
“You might not wind up the way I did,” he said. “I hope you don’t, but eventually competitive running will end for you.”
She clenched her fingers. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“You’re afraid.”
Angry, she tried to sit up but he easily held her down. She gave a brief thought to struggling, only his hands felt so good.
“Right now,” he said, “you’d like to kick me where it would do the most good, but my intention isn’t to get you on the defensive.”
“What is it then?”
Even though she’d relaxed, he continued to hold her against the table. And she let him, said nothing about not wanting to be restrained. “Runa, I went through a damn hell of a rough time when the rug was pulled out from under me. I drank too much and drove too fast.”
And you probably bedded every woman who couldn’t get away. “But you got past that. Otherwise, you wouldn’t now have your own business.”
“Yes, I did. I’m not sure it’ll be the same for you.”
“You don’t know me.” Do you?
“I know what you think you are. Jeff told me about you losing your mother. It’s understandable that you want to hold on to your youth. You—”
“I’m not old.”
The pressure on her shoulders let up, and he started massaging her upper arms. The man had magic in his fingers. It was impossible to remain upset, to think of anything except simply being. Feeling alive and sexual.
“I’m not talking about physical age,” he continued. She wondered if he knew how hard listening was becoming. “Kids believe they’re invincible, that they are superhuman. Unlike most children, you learned how wrong that thinking is, but you keep driving your body. You demand to live up to your expectations.” He leaned down and exhaled so his breath spread over her throat. Heat settled between her breasts. “You’re scared to death of releasing control over it.”
The only control she cared about was not pressing her thighs together again. Damn, but the man knew where her turn-on buttons were.
“Aren’t you?”
What are you talking about? “I guess.” She couldn’t think of anything to add because, even though it wasn’t happening, she half-believed she felt his hands everywhere. How amazing that would feel! Worth the assault on her nerves.
His low chuckle caught her attention. Determined to bring herself back to reality, she again tried to bring his upside-down features into focus. Just then he reheated her throat with his breath. She barely stifled a gasp. Her pussy hadn’t felt this alive since she couldn’t remember when.
“You’re out of your element,” he said. “I understand that can be a little disconcerting. Trust me, you won’t have any objections to the end result.”
“Oh. Good.”
He made a sound somewhere between a chuckle and a grunt. “My immediate plan is to introduce you to aspects of your body and mind I don’t believe you’re aware of. Your task is to honestly respond and share those responses with me.”
Hopefully he wouldn’t ask if she knew what he was talking about because she didn’t have a clue. What she wanted was for him to continue showing her what his hands were capable of. She’d experience, enjoy.
Wallow in sexual anticipation.
Was he deliberately turning her on? Preparing her for seduction?
She tensed when his fingers left her arms but relaxed as he walked around the table and positioned himself at her feet. Humming, he removed her left sandal. It clattered to the floor. He started in on the right shoe. “Let me guess. You don’t ever wear heels because you want to avoid the strain that would put on your calf and thigh muscles.”
“High heels are a stupid invention.” Usually she had no trouble pontificating on her opinion of heels, but right now she could not care less. He hadn’t asked permission to remove her shoes. He’d simply taken charge.
Her other sandal hit the floor. “Why did you wear slacks?”
“What?”
“You thought you were coming here for a massage. Why didn’t you wear something that would make things easier for me?”
This hour wasn’t about a massage? What then?
Sex maybe. Bonking this big man.
Fighting the images accompanying her thoughts, she told him about having just gotten out of class, but he had a point. She could offer to strip out of her slacks, but that would leave her wearing only her practical underpants from the waist down. Her running shorts weren’t much more modest, but she wasn’t in the habit of stripping—
What was she thinking about? It wasn’t as if she intended to strip herself naked for the physical therapist, and he wouldn’t ask.
Would he?
She was still asking herself the question as he went to the front door and locked it. “You’re going to want privacy,” he said as he returned.
Swallowing took effort. “For—what?”
“That’s what you’re about to find out.”
Oh crap! What have I gotten myself into and when is it going to start?
As he’d done before, he positioned himself at the foot of the table. He picked up her right leg, rested her heel against his shoulder, pushed up her pants leg, and began massaging her calf. The linen over her crotch wasn’t enough. She felt exposed there—and increasingly aware that she was a woman in a man’s grasp.
Despite the strain in her leg, she closed her eyes so she could concentrate on what he was doing and how it made her feel. The locked door would prevent anyone from bursting in on them, but it would also slow her down if she felt the need to escape.
Later. Maybe.
For now she’d float. Experience and anticipation something she couldn’t put a name to.
“A psychiatrist might feel fulfilled psychoanalyzing you.” He’d dropped his voice so low she had to concentrate to hear. “You watched your mother lose command of her body. Others dictated what would happen to it and when, and the disease itself—”
“It was bad,” she muttered. Her fingers slowly opened and closed. “Finally Mom said she’d had enough. She wanted to be left alone.”
“Good for her.”
Her father hadn’t wanted to talk about that, and the few times others had broached the subject, she’d closed up, but that was years ago. The pain wasn’t as intense, and she had her memories of the good times.
“I was proud of her.” In her mind’s eye she saw herself placing flowers on her mother’s grave and giving thanks because her pain was over. “She controlled the final chapter of her life.”
“And you’ve tried to manage every aspect of your existence since then.”
His observation made enough sense that she wasn’t angry at him. If she wasn’t so interested in his knowing fingers now traveling from her calf toward her thigh, she would have told him he was right.
“I admire you,” he said. “Just as I know you admired your mother. But, Runa, she was dying. You aren’t.”
Believe me, thanks to you, I know. “Your point is?”
“I’d like you to answer that yourself.” He pressed and released, stroked and practically tickled. Her earlier massages hadn’t felt anything like this or brought her this close to her sexuality. Her leg might never be the same. “Something you should think about, for two people who have just met, we’ve touched on a pretty serious subject.”
She frowned. “I don’t know how that happened.”
His lack of a response made her wonder if he had the answer that eluded her. A floating sensation overtook her in waves. Much more of this and she might tell him her deepest secrets, whatever they were.
“You have personal and professional goals,” he said. “That’s good.”
“The, ah, personal one has been pretty all-consuming. I’m not sure how I’ve kept my grades up.”
He covered her thigh with both hands until she felt trapped despite the layer of linen. “So blowing away the competition on the track is the only thing that matters to you right now?”
“I guess.”
“You’re a young woman, Runa. Even in today’s liberated world most women your age want a lasting relationship and children.”
Don’t go there. “My clock isn’t ticking yet. When it does—that isn’t why I’m here.”
“Right you are.”
He lowered her leg and planted both hands on her hips. The way he pressed down she knew she couldn’t escape.
Escape. Running for freedom.
From what?
A simple shift placed a masculine hand over her belly. The other made short work of her slacks’ waist fastening.
“What—”
“What am I doing? I’m showing you there’s more to life than what you’ve experienced so far.”
She made a halfhearted attempt to push his hands away. “I’m content with my life, thank you very much.”
“No, you aren’t. If you were, you wouldn’t constantly be looking for another mountain to climb.”
She was aiming at an 800-meter school record, not the top of Mount Everest. “Why would you care?”
“Hopefully before today is over, you’ll understand. Here’s a hint. I’m either what you’ve long been looking for without knowing it, or someone you never want to see again.”
“Is that a challenge?”
“Maybe a promise.”
The pressure on her stomach let up. A moment later she heard her zipper let loose. She opened her eyes and discovered a blurry world.
“This is your one chance, Runa. Do you want me to stop?”
“Stop what?”
“Seducing you.”
Oh God!
“You haven’t answered me.” He rested both hands over her hip bones, his fingers toying with the elastic on her newly exposed panties. “Is this the end of it between us?”
“No.”
“You’re sure?”
4
It took work, but she managed to bring him into focus. Her feet were so close to the end of the table that they pressed against his thighs. Her legs were discreetly together, but she didn’t trust them to stay there. Add that to her swelling breasts and hardening nipples, and things were rapidly going out of control.
“I don’t know how to answer you. I certainly didn’t expect this.” She ran her nails over whatever material covered the table.
“I’m sure you didn’t, but it didn’t take you long to put me in charge.”
“You’re the physical therapist.” Her argument would hold more weight if his hands weren’t heating her stomach and much of that warmth hadn’t already traveled to her crotch.
“Which you don’t need, at least not the way real patients need me.”
Usually she enjoyed discussing semantics, but she could not care less today. There was something about him—she couldn’t begin to grasp what it was—that made keeping his hands and her opinions to himself impossible. It could be his size, but she suspected it was more than that.
Bottom line, Ken Paro knew how to command.
He also understood her body.
“I need to understand what you have in mind,” she said. “How can I say how far I want things to go until I’ve experienced. . .”
“Point taken. All right, Runa Mullan, I’m going to teach you some new things. The potential already exists in you. It just hasn’t been tapped, in part because you won’t let it. In part because you haven’t known anyone like me.”
She needed a simple conversation, not the complex thoughts swirling through her. Her eyes kept wanting to close so she could go somewhere she’d never been before. She also needed him touching her everywhere. Experiencing his hands everywhere.
Turning her inside out.
“You have a beautiful body.” He grasped her slacks at the ankles and began tugging. “You see it as a tool, the instrument you must maintain in order to accomplish your goals.” He jerked on the right side until it slid under her buttocks. “Too bad you haven’t fully acknowledged what else it is, a woman’s form.”
Using her elbows to brace herself, she lifted her buttocks off the table, and he tugged again. When he stopped, her slacks rested over her thighs so her legs pressed against each other. It was almost as if he’d tied them together.
“At your core you’re a sexual creature.” He pulled on the waistband as if trying to refasten it. If he succeeded she wouldn’t be able to move her lower body. “Keeping busy twenty-four/ seven makes it possible for you to hide from that part of your nature, which is a crime against yourself.”
“I don’t hide from anything.”
“Yes, you do. I just need time to show you how wrong you are.”
“You sound awfully sure of yourself.”
“Just experienced.”
His words sounded vaguely ominous. They also held notes of promise. She didn’t know which to believe.
“Ready for the lessons to begin? This is your last chance, Runa. Yes or no?”
Yes or no what, and why am I trembling? “I’m not afraid of a damn thing, not even a man who weighs what, three times more than I do?”
“My physical size has nothing to do with today’s lesson. Right now is about introducing you to your submissive nature.”
Submissive? Hell, he couldn’t be more wrong.
She’d been looking at the ceiling in an attempt to slow her rushing thoughts and reactions so she didn’t see what he was doing until his hip pressed against her thigh. He’d moved to her side without her hearing or sensing anything. He continued to hold on to her slacks.
What have I gotten myself into?
“I want you to describe, not just what I’m doing, but how it makes you feel. Your response will let both of us know whether you’re being honest with yourself.”
There he went with the convoluted sentences again. Thinking to tell him she didn’t appreciate it, she turned her head toward him. He truly loomed over her, a tree of a man. Instead of making a fool of herself by trying to push him away, she raked the table with her short nails. Having something to do helped, a little.
If he believed she had a submissive bone in her body, what did that make him? Dominant? Hell, that went without saying, and yet the word stood for more than physical stature.
“Good,” he said. “Very good.”
“What is?”
“You’re losing it, Runa. Letting go of the person you’ve been until now and becoming what you need to be.”
She had to keep an eye on him. Otherwise he’d catch her unawares. Spin his strange logic and seductive presence around her. Despite the warning, however, she simply watched as he bent over her and pressed his mouth against the belly he’d recently exposed.
Suddenly her hands were on his forearm closest to her. Out of breath, she dug into his flesh. If she was hurting him, he gave no sign. Instead, he licked and nibbled. Fire danced through her, and she practically drenched her panties’ crotch.
“Oh God, oh God.”
“Not God, me.”
He’d spoken with his lips still on her, so every syllable reverberated. This was crazy! Insane. Her world turned on end.
“I’m a pirate, Runa, maybe a white slaver. I’ve captured or bought you. You belong to me.”
She licked her unexpectedly dry lips. “You, ah, sound sure of yourself.”
“I am. Feel the collar around your neck and the cuffs holding your arms together. Even before I put those things on you, you dropped to your knees in surrender. You know your place, slave.”
Slave! Yes! Yes.
“What’s that?” he challenged. “Why aren’t you insisting I’m talking crazy?”
“I—don’t know.”
He’d kept his mouth close to her belly while he spun out the insane tale. Now he straightened, smiling a cool smile as he did. He ran a slow gaze over her. “You look good in bondage, slave. Leather and metal on your flesh changes you, turns you into something new.”
“You can’t mean . . .” She’d wanted to tell him he wasn’t just crazy, he was certifiably insane, but she couldn’t get the words out. The man didn’t just dominate the room, his words and touches ruled her.
“That’s all right.” He sounded as if he felt sorry for her. “You’re in uncharted-for-you territory so I understand your inability to fully comprehend the transformation, yet. One thing you must remember. I can and will gag you whenever it pleases me to, so I suggest you speak while you can.”
Gagged. Tape or cloth or something else pressing against her lips and forcing her into a silent world. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Have you ever fantasized about being abducted, taken against your will?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
I started to a few times, but it scared me. “Why would I?” she demanded. Even as she asked, she knew her words would have more weight if she wasn’t stretched out on his table and his hands weren’t holding her in place and she hadn’t resisted him doing so.
