Savannah turned her head. Even with the falcon mask hiding her eyes, he could tell she’d sensed his mood shift.
These were emotions he’d dealt with, but which still had the ability to resurrect themselves with the right triggers. But Matt wouldn’t let himself be used by his own head. He’d use those emotions the right way. For her.
His fingers still penetrating her silken heat, he leaned over her, bringing his mouth to her neck, her shoulder.
“I won’t harm that fortress,” he murmured. “Not a single brick. I will build one all the way around it, so you can open the doors and windows, come out and still be safe. Until you know for certain you don’t need your walls anymore.”
Her lips parted. He thought she might have whispered his name, the way she said it when her heart spoke to his. Matthew.
She felt that overlap, too, between past, present, and this. But he wanted her to have the best of all of it, so he changed his tone, bringing her back into the fantasy. “I’ve heard you cry out from my belt, slave queen. Now I’ll hear you cry out in pleasure.”
“Never.” The cold scorn in her voice brought a smile back to his heart.
“You will deny me nothing.” He stroked his thumb over her clit as he began to move his two fingers in a slow, thrusting rhythm, slipping another finger in to add to the sensation. His other hand, spread out over her back, moved up between her shoulder blades and then to her nape, curving over it and holding her down at that point, a pressure that added to the reminder that she was overpowered. Dominated.
When other sensations started to rise within her, she started to struggle again, resist the arousal. He tightened his grip. As he kept fondling her, she found and clutched his booted foot, still pressed down on the tether to her wrist cuffs. He kept fucking her with his fingers, teasing her clit with feather-light brushes of his thumb. A moan escaped her.
“Your cunt is clenching around my fingers, my lady. It knows what it wants. What do you want? Tell me you want me to make you come. Call me Master.”
“I…would…rather…die.”
Despite the words, she was so aroused, she needed little else to bring her to the brink of orgasm. The desperate note to her defiance revealed it.
“I’ll settle for hearing you scream. Be sure and call me a bastard again as you go over, my lady. If you dare.”
She didn’t, though he expected it was because she didn’t have the time or focus left to test him. Her voice broke over cries that grew in volume, his thrusts and the rubbing pressure on her clit becoming even more aggressive.
As she teetered on that edge, he shifted his hand from her neck, sliding his touch beneath her hips to lift her off his lap, enough that he could dip his head and sink his teeth into the globe of her enticing buttock. He didn’t miss a single stroke with his fingers from the adjustment.
He tightened his jaw, increasing the clamp, and she broke. Her cries transformed into that scream he craved and demanded. Her pussy rippled over his fingers and gushed further cream as the climax gripped her. He held her firmly while she writhed and bucked, her hands all the way around his ankle and calf, a counterpoint to his grip around her hips and between her legs.
As much as he loved to come inside his wife, he thought he might love this even more, listening to her lost to a mindless pleasure she couldn’t control. She didn’t need to do so. She could give herself to it fully, not fight it, because she knew she was safe. She could trust him, trust being under his control.
Inside the fortress his love built around her.
“You’re still shaking, my love. That tells me you gave me more than your body, for your climax is done.”
She said nothing, but he didn’t expect her to do so. After a climax that intense, she was a quiet submissive. He didn’t need to talk; just hold her.
He took his boot off the tether and turned her in his arms, the small bells on the wrist jesses making a pleasing muted chime. She latched onto the front of his shirt, pushing against it with the heels of her hands. She wasn’t trying to push him away. She was pushing upward, moving the fabric, an unspoken request. He took it off, and she put her palms flat on his chest, the side of her face against his heart.
The brown-feathered, tufted plume of the mask quivered, teasing his jaw. He felt the tiny bite of the decorative chains, scalloped along the bottom edge of the hood. Their drape over her cheek was interfering with what she wanted as she pressed that part of her to his heated flesh. But he would deny her wishes until he was certain he’d won her complete submission. A slave’s obedience and a queen’s heart. A falcon wasn’t freed until it was certain that she’d return to her Master’s hand.
Though he wanted nothing more than to bury himself in her, he would care for her first.
“My falcon needs to eat and drink.” He touched the bell that would bring a slave girl. As she appeared at the opening to the tent, he sheltered Savannah in his arms. Though she couldn’t see, he didn’t want her to feel like anyone she didn’t know was staring at her, his proud queen.
“Food and drink,” he said. The woman bobbed her head and disappeared.
He rose, carrying his captive to the bed, and eased her onto the pillows. She was reviving, so he’d made a good call, leaving the hood upon her. As he put her on the bed, she tried to wriggle away from him, shrugging off his assistance in moving her.
“I obviously haven’t tired my slave out enough,” he observed coolly. “You’ll be put on a perch, to keep you from trying to leave the bed without my permission.”
There was a trunk at the end of the bed, and he left her on the mattress to go to it, keeping a sharp eye on her as he opened the chest and pulled out what he wanted.
When he closed his hand around her ankle, she tried to pull away, to kick, but he was putting up with none of that. He saw her lips part, a startled reaction at how quickly he overpowered her. Beneath the hood, he imagined her eyes might have widened, her pupils darkening.
“I’m bigger, my lady. In many ways. Save yourself the effort.”
Her lip curled in a new sneer, and she chose a different tactic. Her demeanor became haughty, her limbs rigid, as he positioned the spreader bar between her ankles and strapped the cuffs on either end of the bar around them. The bar was telescoping, so he slid it out another six inches and locked it there. He noted how the tip of her tongue touched her lips in anxious and intrigued reaction as he forced her legs open even wider.
Returning to the bed, he put his knee on it so he could curve his arms under her and lift her body into a more upright position against the pillows. He untangled the jesses so her wrists were free of one another. Then he bent her upper body toward her knees with a hand on her nape, a non-verbal command to stay folded forward that way.