Anwyn had an amiable retort for that, but she saved it, because he'd reached the red zone. He hadn't expected this degree of restraint, and now he knew just how caught he was. He snarled and jerked, flinched as he forgot his cock and balls were fastened to a ring in the floor. When Ella put the blindfold over his eyes, taking away sight as well as voice, his low-level growling turned into a desperate roar around the gag.

“He's all yours,” Madelyn said. “Don't know if you're lucky or a fool, but watch your step either way.

There's such a thing as pushing a man too far.”

“Mmm.” They both turned as another staff member slipped in, bringing Anwyn the long-sleeved, formfitting stretch top Madelyn had requested over her headset as she administered the first aid. As Anwyn donned it, she knew Madelyn was right. She also knew the most delicious point of pleasure clung to the edge of going too far, that hovering line where pain and pleasure balanced, and the mind surrendered. She was better at finding it than anyone, maybe because she'd had to find it to save her own soul.

She wondered if she could help Gideon save his.

That bitch. Conniving, manipulative, let-me-the-fuck-go-now bitch.

His breathing was like a hurricane in his ears, blindfolded and gagged as he was. Everything told him to go postal, to rip the chains from the walls. The three rings on his cock were snug, disturbing and arousing at once, as if someone had metal fingers wrapped tight around it. But the collar, feeling that restraint as he tried to move his head, was the most disturbing thing of all. What the hell had he been thinking? He knew he couldn't handle being trapped like this.

He'd been caught twice by vampires, and in both instances had had the good fortune—or misfortune—of them trying to torment him instead of killing him outright. So he'd had to learn to keep his wits about him when restrained, boxed in. But he was in a different mind-set tonight. This wasn't about vampires. She'd raked those sharp, razor-laden nails over his defenses, shredded them so he wasn't sure what to do or be in this situation.

Normally, he was fine with the fury that could erupt from him. It was a deadly tool he could use against his enemies. But Mistress Queen Bitch was a mortal woman, and he could hurt her. He reminded himself of that, but it was lost in the red haze. The restraints had become the suffocating walls of a coffin, his lack of ability to see or speak increasing the sense of claustrophobia. He'd shaken off the soft, female bodies pressing against him, snarling and spitting at them, letting them know he was no longer playing along, and they'd retreated. Were they still here? He needed to calm down, listen, try to get a grip, rather than turn into a berserker who would do something irreparably stupid.

“You aren't in control right now.” Her voice, only a few feet away, had him stiffening. He hadn't even heard her. Was she still wearing the heels? “You need to accept that. I have all the control. All the decisions to be made are mine.”

Yeah, she was still in the heels. That hollowtap ,tap came across the tile, a rhythm that easily brought to mind how her hips swung with the help of those fuck-me-blind shoes. She was sauntering, the bitch. He couldn't talk. He needed to talk.

When her palm slid over his slick shoulder, he jerked, but it was that same soothing stroke, as if she understood how close he was to losing it. Her knuckles drifted over his chest, drawing little circles in the oil over his nipples, teasing them, then up to his jaw, painting that same slickness over his lips, stretched over the ball gag. The caress sent electricity straight down to his groin. The oil had a tart lemon flavor.

“Easy,” she crooned. She moved her fingers along his nape as she shifted behind him, following the curve of his spine, down the oily line of one ass cheek. His cock bucked hard in its restraints; then he tensed up like a virgin as her fingers probed. “Nice and tight.” He made a helpless growl, a denial, as her fingers eased in, then . . . oh, holy Christ. The blunt end of a dildo. “No, no!” He shouted it against the gag, yanking against his restraints. The rings tightened against his cock, biting hard enough that the pain rocketed up his body.Fuck. He groaned.

The dildo continued to fondle his rim. She wasn't trying to push in, just caressing, stimulating, making his cock ache in a decidedly disturbing way. “I see scars on your back here . . . and here . . . and here.

Everywhere. Terrible things, terrible moments. Yet you fear this? Though you've obviously never had anything in your ass, you know this little cock won't hurt you as badly as these things did.” Her other hand settled on a jagged knife scar, eased down to press on two shiny bullet marks. “What you fear is what it might do to you. What you might reveal to me about your desires. Your needs.”

“Fuck you.” The gag interfered, saliva sprayed, but he was pretty sure she got the drift. Her laugh was soft, mocking.

“That has to be earned.” Both hands went up under his hair, gripped and pulled back so the collar put pressure on his throat. “Behave, angry man.”

The fact the dildo was still at the lower level told him she was wearing it as a strap-on.Fuck. He didn't realize how hard he was clenched until she gave his buttock a playful pinch, setting him off balance. “You know,” she said, “if a child holds his breath, all you have to do is wait for the body's survival instinct to kick in and force him to breathe again. Sometimes you have to wait until he passes out for that to happen, but I don't think that will be necessary.”

It was as if they were holding a casual conversation in a park, rather than her circling his completely restrained naked body in a room that echoed every purring word. “Easy, Gideon. You're going to want how this makes you feel.”

Subjugated. Dominated. Nothing. Used. And yet, under her touch, those words seemed different, more provocative than condemning. Even so, he couldn't get himself to relax. Every muscle remained rigid, his buttocks clenched tight. He made another furious, strangled noise of protest.

Her palms pressed on his buttocks like wings, her thumbs teasing the seam before they moved up his back again, slow, firm, a thorough massage that traveled up to his shoulders. Leaning into his body, despite the oil, she pressed hers against the planes and valleys of his torso and ass. The phallus slid innocuously between his legs, stroking his testicles. Her thigh pressed to the inside of his, making his balls draw up at the friction.

“Do you understand what you're looking for here, Gideon? We have men who seek pain and restraint for one reason. To give themselves permission to be helpless, to cry for what they've lost, what they can't control. But you'd rather die than be that vulnerable, right?” He was swaying into her touch, that erotic kneading. It was as if she was individually assessing every muscle in his shoulders, his back, then along his nape, pulling his head back onto his shoulders again, tugging at his scalp, reminding him of the collar around his neck and stimulating nerves there as well. As she shifted, her breasts rubbed beneath his shoulder blades, her nipples a distinct, tantalizing pressure beneath a thin, stretched fabric. He realized she'd changed shirts, a fabric that didn't seem to have any trouble sliding over the slick surface of his skin. But he wanted the intimacy of her flesh.

“If it was only sex you wanted, you'd jerk off in whatever dive you burrow during the daylight hours.

From your clothes, your body, I can tell you don't give yourself much. But for some reason, you've given yourself this. Which means it's a very, very powerful need. You hate that, believe that it's weakness that brought you here, searching for something you don't understand.” Her fingers dropped, closed around his cock, and he made that strangled, involuntary sound again, even as he grew more solid in her hand, every nerve ending straining toward the touch of slim, firm fingers.

“You sought the darker levels of my club, like you seek the darker levels of yourself. Down here, sex is merely the gateway to what the soul wants.”

She didn't need implements of torture. Her tongue was sufficient, and with his pressed down by that ball gag, he was helpless to stop her. Letting him go, she moved around to his front. Her fingers glided wherever they wished, in no pattern he could anticipate, another torture. Up, caressing his throat beneath the collar. Down to a nipple, skirting it to explore his rib cage. Then a serpentine, lazy path across his abdomen. Her thigh brushed his again, the hard rubber of the dildo a vague threat. His cock leaked more fluid, and a drop splashed against his foot.

A soft, moist tongue licked it away, making him start as it teased the sensitive crevice between two of his toes.

“Janet is still here,” his Mistress said in a conversational tone. “I could tell you particularly liked her. Men may look at supermodels, but that's not what they want beneath them. When it comes to fucking, males want the full, big tits, the soft belly and generous, ripe ass.” Gideon sucked in a breath as Janet's mouth closed over his cock with a blissfully flexible tongue. She teased the base ring, sucked on the length of his shaft, a slow, easy rhythm that made him groan with the friction of the metal against straining flesh.

Was she going to watch him totally lose control, be blown off?

His Mistress laid her head on his shoulder now, her arm sliding under his to stroke his back in broad, drifting sweeps. From the shift of her body he thought she might have passed an affectionate hand over Janet's hair as well. The strap-on was pressed to his belly, where his own cock would be, hard and tall, if it weren't chained down.

“You're looking for more than that generous ass, though.” She moved again, another circle of touches, the occasional treasure of her mouth, sipping here and there on his neck, his shoulder, the tender skin between his shoulders. Which tensed as his Mistress leaned in behind him again. Meanwhile, Janet sucked away at his cock, so that his legs were trembling. She was too damned good. He was going to explode, and he didn't want to do that. Couldn't do this.

His tormentor rubbed her face between his shoulder blades, wound her arms around his chest. It was a gesture of comfort, reassurance, that lasted one breath before she scraped across his nipple with that razor blade.