Boston Avant-Garde 5: Bellicoso Read Online Free PDF Page A

one of the nylon straps resting against the wall, making the harness jingle.
    Her slightly sassy tone dragged him back to the here and now. She’d discovered the sex swing hanging near a set of wall restraints. A collection of floggers, whips, and canes were arranged in an open-fronted cabinet made of polished oak, and a tower was pushed off to one side, but the table seemed to interest her the most.
    She ran her fingers across the padded, leather-covered surface. The design was custom. It had been fitted with stirrups that allowed a sub to keep their legs up, spread, and held out of the way without the use of manacles. In place of the straps generally used to tie a lover down, it had handles.
    Selena wiggled a stirrup. “Looks like something I’ve seen in the gynecologist’s office.”
    Malachi studied her in silence. She didn’t seem apprehensive. There was curiosity mixed with a good bit of skepticism in her voice. Any other time he might have been concerned that a potential submissive didn’t even seem to anticipate the experience, except he was starting to realize Selena was extremely adept at hiding her emotions. She had repression down to an art form. Even with Wilhelm threatening her that night, she’d only exhibited defiance.
    He took a deep breath and wondered if he would regret this later on. “Are you willing to obey me for the next, say—half hour? Will you do as you’re told and allow me to pleasure you?”

Chapter Three
    Selena wondered what Malachi would do if she outright laughed in his face. This place looked like it had been copied straight off a bad movie set, probably some kind of cheap porn flick, but why shouldn’t she give him a measly thirty minutes? She didn’t have anywhere else to be anyway. She was starting to think she’d been overly fanciful about what had happened that night. At least thirty minutes of dungeon time would tell her that much.
    She shrugged, making sure to let her body language show him exactly how skeptical she was. “Sure. Whatever. Thirty minutes of doing what you say.”
    “Strip out of the dress, please, Selena. Being naked will make this experience better for you.”
    The low, commanding tone of his voice made her fingers twitch. Her brain didn’t make one argument when she grabbed the stretchy red material of her dress and yanked it up and over her head. She wasn’t wearing anything else since her panties had been sacrificed to the incident with James What’s His Name. She’d gone out with the intent of having some sort of no-strings-attached encounter. This wasn’t precisely what she’d expected, but so far her expectations had only been met with disappointment, so what did it matter?
    Cool air raised goose bumps on her skin, and her nipples beaded into tiny points. Selena wasn’t uncomfortable with being naked. She’d spent far too much time in dance-school dressing rooms for that.
    Malachi’s gaze raked her from head to toe. He’d already seen her without her dress when he’d freed her from the stocks, but this was different. She was utterly aware of the way he looked at her. Her confidence wobbled. Did he like what he saw?
    “Climb on the table and lay faceup. Place your feet in the stirrups.”
    Following orders wasn’t her thing. She’d spent almost her whole life governed by a code of behavior. In the last month she’d tried whatever she could to do the opposite. She waited for the feeling that had become so familiar, the desire to thwart the rules. It never came.
    Something happened when she mounted the table and settled her feet into the stirrups. It was as if she quit thinking. Her mind calmed, stilled to a steady thrum of awareness and anticipation. She’d felt like this while she was dancing. Until right then she hadn’t realized how much she missed it.
    Malachi approached the table. He was carrying some sort of whip with multiple tails. It looked surprisingly soft. “In a moment I’m going to touch you. I’ll use nothing but