“Here you go,” the rough dom—Nolan—called and tossed Marcus two short chains.

Marcus used them to restrain her between the posts so that she faced the veranda with her arms lifted like in a victory cheer V.

Her breath caught as she pulled on the chains. Could she let him do this? “I—Why now? Not before in the club?”

“You do better with less people around, Darlin’.”

Oh, damn, he’d noticed. Even as she tried to figure out what to do, excitement speared through her, rapidly turning to heat when he removed her halter top with sure fingers. He unzipped her short vinyl skirt and pulled that off as well, leaving her naked.

Oh God. Her heart started to race, and she could feel her nipples peaking, her skin tingling with anticipation.

His gaze ran over her, face to hands to breasts, and he gave her a slow smile. “All excited before we even start.”

She flushed, and her eyes strayed toward the other doms. What must they think? Why was she the only submissive here?

He noticed the direction of her gaze. “Sugar, I’m going to blindfold you.”

Be blind? Gabi shook her head, her fear rising like the mercury in a thermometer on a hot day. “Sir, no.”

He cupped her chin, meeting her eyes with his steady ones. “Gabrielle, you’ll concentrate better on the sensations and not on who’s present. I will not do anything that you don’t know about, and I will not leave you alone, not even for a second.”

She saw the question in his face: Do you trust me? And she couldn’t hold out. All evening she’d hated how she had to keep disappointing him time after time. Master Nolan, Raoul, and Cullen had been members of the club for years; surely none of them were the kidnapper. With relief, she realized she didn’t need to act like a brat. She could do what Marcus wanted this time.

Excitement started in the hollow of her back and tingled up her spine. Flogging. “Okay.”

“That’s my girl,” he said, making her heart leap with longing. He tied the padded blindfold on snugly.

As the blackness enfolded her, she tensed, and yet her skin tingled as if someone was running a Fourth of July sparkler over it.

“You have a safe word to use if you need to.” He didn’t move but stayed close enough that the heat of his body warmed hers as he stroked her hair gently.

As her breathing eased, she heard the other men talking quietly. Cullen’s louder laugh. The fragrance of the sea and tropical flowers and Marcus’s own masculine scent. She raked her toes against the concrete to remind herself of where she was.

He abandoned her hair and ran his fingertips down her body. She jumped.

“Easy, sugar.” His hand grazed across her skin as he moved to stand behind her. He braced his chest against her back and curved his fingers lightly around her throat, the most subtle of reminders of how vulnerable she was. He murmured in her ear, “There’s nothing you can do wrong, because all the control belongs to me. You don’t have any say in what happens.”

The concrete seemed to soften under her feet.

His breath brushed her ear. “You can scream or sass or cry. It doesn’t matter. I will still do what I want to do.” He turned her head far enough to take her mouth, roughly, possessively, reinforcing that she could do nothing to stop him.

Even as she shifted her weight anxiously, heat pooled low in her belly. This was what she wanted…had always needed.

He ran his hard hands over her, his touch almost painful; then cuffs closed snugly around her ankles. Unbreakable. Chains clanked as he secured her legs widely apart.

Air wafted over the bare, wet skin of her pussy and inner thighs, cool against the heat.

“Now you’re open to me, and I will do whatever I want. All you can do is take it, Li’ll subbie.”

The words sounded like a threat, and yet given in his soft drawl, they made her shiver with anticipation. Touch me, please.

He must have knelt behind her, for his hands grazed up the backs of her thighs and moved between her legs. He stroked through her folds. She could feel she was awfully wet despite her fear—or maybe because of it. Flogging. He would hit her—

“Stay with me here, sugar,” he murmured. His finger slid directly over the top of her rapidly hardening clit, and her mind went blank as the sensation sizzled across her nerves. She groaned and pushed her hips forward.

“That’s right.” His finger circled, melting her insides. Even as he played with her clit, he kissed the right cheek of her bottom and then bit the soft flesh hard enough to send a shock of pain up her spine and shoot her arousal higher.

She’d never felt like this. He was playing with her as her cats toyed with their prey. Her hips squirmed; she couldn’t tell how to move to increase his touch on her clit. As the chains clanked, she remembered the other doms and froze. A flush scalded her face.

Marcus laughed, low and deep. “Yes, they’re watching, Gabi. They see how you’ve surrendered to me, and how you’re going to give me everything I ask tonight.” The pleasure in his voice surged over her like an ocean wave.

Abandoning her throbbing pussy, he rose and set his solid chest against her back. When he cupped her breasts, heat moved through her, up and down, electricity lost in the maze of her body. He teased her nipples, rolling them gently between his fingers, increasing the pressure slowly into pain.

Caught in his trap, she’d pull away from the hurt and then push forward, needing the pleasure. He sucked on her earlobe, his breath riffling her hair. Encircled by him, unable to escape, she whimpered.

“You’re such a good girl,” he murmured and stepped back.

A second later, velvety fingers ran up and down her back—not his hands. A flogger, he was teasing her with a flogger.

He hit her lightly. And again. Soon the tiny, thuddy sensations went up her thighs, her butt, her back, the rhythm never faltering, the impact slowly increasing. Her bottom, her thighs began to sting, and gradually the blows hurt as a burning pain lingered behind each slapping blow.

Before it reached too much, Marcus slowed and eased off.

Realizing she was using the chains for support, feeling a little dizzy, she straightened, thinking he was done.

Instead she felt his breath on her mound.

She inhaled sharply as her pussy suddenly woke. When he slid his hands between her legs, her knees shook. His fingers curled upward over her lower buttocks, and his thumbs drew her labia slightly apart, completely exposing her clit.

She shuddered at the sensation of being touched as if he had the right.

He ruthlessly opened her farther. “Very pretty, Darlin’, all swollen and pink.” His tongue, hot and wet, slid directly over it, and lightning ran straight up her spine with an almost audible hiss.

His merciless fingers held her still as he closed his lips around her clit. He ran his tongue over the swollen nub of nerves, rubbing one side, then the other, as his top lip pressed down on the hood.

Her body went stiff; her legs quivered. Unrelenting, he continued as her insides coiled, tightened, her breathing stopped. Hot stroke after hot stroke. The pressure grew until nothing could hold it back. Her body exploded, a tsunami of pleasure engulfing her. Her hips tried to buck against him, and he held her still, controlling her even through her orgasm.

Before she finished shuddering, he started flogging her again. Gentle caresses and tiny thumps from the multiple strands of the flogger. The rhythm never faltered as the strokes grew harder and harder, stinging against her skin, yet somehow the burn increased the throbbing between her legs.

The blows began to hurt.

He eased up, slowed, stopped. And then he knelt in front of her and ran his hands up her legs.

Again? Oh God.

She shook as he stroked her with hard hands, pulling her pussy against his mouth. He didn’t tease her—no, his lips demanded that she respond.

As his tongue slid over her, her clit hardened, swelled, and her insides coiled under his touch. She moaned, losing track of everything, as the stinging on her skin blended with the fire drawn in circles by his hot tongue. The pressure inside her tightened, and then he closed his lips around her and sucked, flickering his tongue over her clit at the same time.

“Oooh God.” The wail escaped her as everything inside burst outward in waves of pleasure.

“That’s my girl,” he murmured. “Let it go.”

He flogged her again, harder yet. And made her come again. The pain on her skin grew, yet so did the pleasure until each blow of the flogger excited her more and tightened her clit, until his breath on her mound pulled the stinging into her clit, transforming it into excitement. Until the pain itself squeezed through her as tightly as his lips around her.

When the blows started again, she couldn’t tell. Somehow the ground had disappeared from under her feet. She couldn’t hear the whip anymore, just the rush of her breath and thud of her heart. Her arms and legs were gone; nothing was there except the clouds around her. White puffs that billowed and bumped against her back in soft little jostlings.

“Gabi.” So insistent a sound. “Gabi.” The demanding, deep voice pulled at something inside her as if it could tug her heart out.

“Uh-huh.” Her tongue didn’t move right, and she tried again. The clouds around her lightened until the sky showed through them. So blue. Clear blue. Intense…eyes.