True North (Compass series Book 4) Read online

  “You mean horse. Vault that horse.”

  With a wave of his hand, he dismisses me. “Sports. Whatever. My point is that I’d give yourself a little more time and probably a sit-down chat with your intended. You’re not ready.”

  Most of the time, Rey is a wizard at manipulation. He got me here, a place where I put all my most disconcerting inclinations on display, after all. But he’s made a serious misstep; telling me I can’t do something is almost a guarantee that I will. Instead of protesting and inviting more argument, more discussion, more of his assessment that I’m not good enough, I grit my teeth and nod. We’ll see about that.

  Chapter Nine

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  When I see Pressly at the Black House again, she’s not wearing her cherry-red, hot-as-fuck getup or her flowy angel ensemble. No, this time she’s got on a sparkly blue outfit. A corset laced with silver that feeds into this stiff-looking tutu-thing. It’s crinkled like holiday ribbon candy and winds around her waist. The bottom barely covers her ass cheeks, and I have to close my eyes because, if I look at her anymore, I’m going to get hard for sure. Maybe that’s why so many of the dudes around here wear leather pants. Harder to see a boner through. I’d feel like such a faker, though, shimmying into those things, and I bet they’d be hot as hell and kind of swampy. But mostly it’s the uncomfortable feeling of not quite belonging here. But that’s what I do best: fake it till I make it.

  I open my eyes in time to see her smile at me. I’d been so busy staring at her corset I hadn’t even noticed the pigtails sprouting from the top of her head, the glitzy silver ribbons tied around them in perfect bows, emphasizing blue streaks in her hair. Those have got to be fake. I can’t imagine Senator Johnson lets his staff walk around looking like something out of The Fifth Element.

  Cotton candy Pressly, rocking her tall silver boots with the bright blue laces pulled tight, skips up to me, and I half-expect her to pull out a lollipop and start licking it suggestively. Not that I’d mind. At all.

  Her lips are bright pink and wetly slick. It’s like someone melted down sugar and coated her mouth with it. Pressly’s always been sweet, but in a diaphanous, pastel way. Now it’s like her sweetness has been distilled into liquid candy. She’s Pressly concentrate, and I want to tip my head back and chug the whole bottle no matter how sick it’s going to make me. I want to gorge myself on her.

  “Come on,” she says, holding out a hand. I blink at her, barely believing this is happening. I know she said she’d like to see me here again, but this affability is beyond anything I ever expected. But fuck me if I’m not going to take every inch she’ll give. When I place my hand in hers, she smiles and the pinks and blues and blonde fucking slay me.

  “Cheer up, Hale. Things can’t be that bad.”

  But they can, Press. They can. They’re going to be awful.

  She pats my cheek and pinches it lightly before dragging me down the hall, calling over her shoulder, “I want to introduce you to some people.”

  The group she tows me over to is the kind of ragtag bunch I’ve become accustomed to. Most of them are about Pressly’s age, a few younger. I totally feel like the dad, wearing my suit in a sea of candy colors.

  One…person looks me up and down, their? gaze critical. I honestly can’t tell if it’s a man or a woman, and for some reason that throws me. Of all the things…but I suppose it’s been one thing I could count on here, something I could still understand, and now I can’t. When their eyes finally meet mine, they cock their head in challenge. “Do you pronoun as you present?”

  “Do I—what?”

  There are some snickers, which send pricks of annoyance down my spine. Like this is a question people ask me every day. Do I pronoun as I present? What the hell does that even mean?

  They sneer at me and raise an unimpressed eyebrow. “I’m assuming yes.”

  “Kindle, don’t be a jerk. You know he does. And you!” Press elbows me in the ribs, and I mutter an “ow” before I can help myself. Girl’s got some damn sharp elbows. Always has. One hazard of sleeping with her at night. Some mornings I’d wake up with bruises on my ribs. “Stop staring. You can be a dick about a lot of things. This is not one of them. If Rey finds out you’re being an asswipe, he’s going to fly out here and slap you in the face. Not in a fun, consensual way either.”

  Fun, consensual face-slapping? God I want that from her. Judging by the devious smile curling her cotton-candy mouth, she knows it. “Maybe if you’re good, I’ll show you later.”

  And there goes my dick. Fuck. I let her drag me down the hall, trying not to stare at her ass the whole time, but it’s hard. At last she shows me into a room that looks a lot like the other rooms I’ve seen in here. Toys hung on the wall, a chest of drawers that no doubt contain still more toys.

  There’s no bed in here, just a spanking bench and a grid of metal on one wall that offers a thousand possibilities for restraint. She twirls around and poses like a kinky Vanna White. “For your pleasure this evening, we have a wide variety of floggers and restraints.”

  “But—”

  “But nothing. Rey said you wanted to learn, so I’m going to teach you and then you’re going to practice.”

  He said he’d find me a teacher, but I’d assumed it would be Zelda or Tangent or one of the other tops he’s introduced me to over the past two months. Not Press. Especially after what he said to me last time. Either he’d changed his mind or Pressly had asked. God, I hope she asked.

  “On you?”

  “Yes. So you’d best pay attention.”

  My stomach tries to turn itself inside out. Whether because the idea of beating Press excites me beyond belief or because it scares the living shit out of me, I couldn’t say.

  She must see it on my face because her manic expression gentles. “Are you worried you’re going to hurt me?”

  “Yeah.” I mean, Rey’s showed me the basics and I’ve gotten a little practice in, but this isn’t something you pick up overnight. And if I make a mistake… My stomach lurches again. I can’t. There’s something else too. “You’re going to teach me?”

  She purses her lips, and the pink candy push of them makes me think of how they’d look wrapped around my cock. Dammit, Lewis, get your shit together. She’s barely agreed to play with you; there has been no discussion of sex whatsoever. Down, boy.

  “Yes, I’m going to teach you. What, you don’t think I can wield a flogger?”

  “I thought you were a bottom. Why would you know how?”

  “First of all, I’m more of a sub than a bottom. Second of all, with the right person I can be a little switchy. Not a lot, but for the right girl?” One of her perfectly sculpted blonde eyebrows and the corner of her mouth goes up. Girl? Now I have to imagine Pressly topping another woman, and even though I know it wouldn’t be for me, well, goddamn would I like to be a fly on the wall for that. “You, though? You make me want to get on my knees.”

  She needs to stop saying things like that. My heart is going to give out.

  “But first things first.”

  She shows me over to the wall where there are dozens of floggers on display. Different sizes, different colors, and though I hadn’t noticed at first, she points out the different materials.

  “This one’s nice and heavy, gives good thud. If you like that kind of thing. But this one…” She reaches for one that doesn’t look as heavy, but in between the strips of hide, there’s something less natural-looking. Rubber. “It’s good for making things more sting-y. If you like that kind of thing.”

  “And what do you like?”

  “I’m more of a thud girl myself, but depending on my mood or how skillful my partner is, I can enjoy some sting.”

  “Well, then, Little Miss Know-It-All, what should I use?”

  She drags a manicured hand through the floggers, her perfectly painted fingertips swishing through the falls. It looks so sensual I wish it was my skin she was caressing instead of some inanimate leather that’s not going to apprec
iate it. She picks out one from the rack, hefting it in her hand. I can’t help wrinkling my nose because it doesn’t look particularly badass. There’s some black, but mostly the falls are silver and bright blue. It looks like it could be a prop on the set of a Star Trek porno.

  Apparently I don’t relax my features well enough before she turns around. “Don’t be a dick. This is a good length for you, it’s well-balanced, and it would be near-impossible to really hurt me with it. Besides, it matches my outfit.”

  I have to laugh. Pressly the fashion plate. Of course she’d want the goddamn flogger to match her outfit. “Fair enough.”

  She holds it out to me, and I take it, the handle heavier than I would’ve thought. But she’s right. It feels good in my hand, the braided leather lending it a good grip, and if I can ignore the sparkle, she’s made a good choice. Probably better than I would’ve made for myself. I flick it through the air experimentally, and yeah, I can imagine how the impact of the falls hitting flesh will feel through my hand and up my arm.

  “What do you think?”

  “Good choice, Sprite.”

  She preens under my praise and curtsies, and fuck if that doesn’t make me hard.

  “Then let’s get started. First, you’re going to give me a demo of what Rey’s taught you.” She leads me over to a wall and gestures at it. “Show me what you got, hotshot.”

  I feel a little intimidated because I haven’t done this much and she clearly has not only been with a bunch of people who know what they’re doing, but is also well-schooled in her own right. But Pressly’s not like me; she’s nice. She might correct me if I’m screwing up, but she’s not going to be a dick about it.

  So I draw my arm back and then bring it forward with a flick of my wrist to let the falls hit the painted surface. There’s a satisfying thwack and she nods. “Not bad for a newbie, Hale.”

  I’m proud of her compliment, but I wish she wouldn’t call me Hale. That’s for people who don’t know any better, who I don’t want to know any better.

  She urges me to give a few more strokes, so I do, getting more confident as I go. Finally, she tells me to stop. “Wouldn’t want you getting worn out before we get to the good part, would we?”

  All I can do is shake my head. That’s when she turns around and says, “Could you help me with this?”

  Help her with what?

  A slightly exasperated Pressly looks over her shoulder. “I don’t seem to remember you having any problems taking my clothes off. Are you out of practice?”

  I grunt my response as I reach for her corset strings because I don’t want to admit that, yeah, I’m out of practice. Taking the strings between my fingers, I tug, and it takes a little work to get them to unfurl in my hands. Then I work at loosening the laces. They’re not done tight, but Press still takes a deep breath when I’ve undone them and then shimmies it over her head.

  My wife is topless. I want to spin her around, see her, and touch her, but that is so not allowed. All I can do is watch as her hands circle behind her back and unhitch the stiff tutu, sliding it off her hips and onto the floor, leaving her in a bright blue garter belt and panties with silver spangly garters that hold up her sheer black stockings.

  The woman is clearly trying to kill me. Her hotness should be considered a lethal weapon.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” she scolds. “Like you haven’t seen a half-naked woman in six years.”

  Damn close, Press.

  She turns far enough that I can see the curve of her breast, and I nearly fall over when I trail after her, trying to get a glimpse of her nipple. I manage, through the grace of some kinky angel, to make it over to the wall with the metal grid without tripping, running into anything, or otherwise making an ass of myself.

  “Do you want to restrain me?”

  Fuck yes, I do. But what comes out of my mouth would make Rey Walter so proud. I almost hope he’s watching to see what a good boy I am. “Whatever would make you feel safest.”

  She nods and steps up to the grid, gripping a bar at shoulder height. I can’t deny there’s a twinge of disappointment that she doesn’t trust me enough to tie her. But maybe this is a habit—not letting some effective stranger tie her up during a first play session. If that’s what this is, I’m glad.

  She turns her head and levels me with an I’m serious stare. “If I say daffodil, you stop, no questions asked. And if I say marigold, you’ll know I’m getting close to my limit. If you don’t respect my safewords, I never let you touch me again. In any capacity. Capisce?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  There’s my saucy-fresh Pressly. And flowers, of course, like a kinky goddamn garden party. I used to love seeing her go into her event-planner mode. Bossy and in control and not letting anyone fuck with her. She and India have that in common, although Press is more likely to kill you with sweetness whereas India’s more likely to flat-out kill you with whatever’s handy. Like a paperweight or your own tie.

  I take the chance to stand close behind my scantily clad wife, aching to press my hips into her, let her feel how hard she’s gotten me, but I don’t get the impression that’s part of our study session. Instead, I strip out of my coat because I’m getting warm and my movements are restricted by the thing. I toss it over a spanking bench, yank off my tie, and fling it in the same direction, not caring that it slips off the silk lining of my jacket. And then I roll up my sleeves. Time to get down to business.

  I touch her lower back, not able to help the stroke of my fingers over her silky skin. I hope I’m not imagining her sigh of pleasure when I do. “Ready?”

  “Yes.”

  Reluctantly, I force my feet backward until I’m standing a good distance away. And then I lift my arm and let one fly. Not hard, because I know well enough that I need to warm her up before laying into her. When the strands hit her and lift away, she laughs. Laughs.

  “Is this funny?” I punctuate my question with another thwap of the flogger, and she laughs again.

  “I should’ve warned you. I giggle when I get flogged. It’s not you, it’s—”

  I hit her again and same thing. It’s as if the falls are driving the laughter right out of her lungs.

  “You laugh when you get flogged?” I’ve been warned about a lot of things—like how some people carry on and make enough noise to wake the dead because it’s fun or how it’s not unusual for subs to cry and in some cases that’s a signal that you’ve done something very right. But never did Rey warn me about someone laughing.

  “Yeah, it’s a—” Another blow, another gale of laughter erupts from her lips. “—partly a nervous thing? But also, it’s—fun.”

  I’m trying to concentrate, make sure I’m distributing the hits evenly over her back and that the blows are actually falling where I mean them to. I need to stay away from her neck and her kidneys and try not to hit her spine directly, but otherwise I’ve got a whole canvas of Pressly to paint with the flogger as my oversize brush.

  I keep hitting her and she keeps laughing, but when I increase the strength of the blows, I get a few gasps too. That’s the sound I want ringing in my ears. That’s the sound I remember from when I’d make love to her. And if I could get her to make those cute little moans and say my name again…well, I could probably die happy.

  Before I can get carried away, I remember to do as I’ve been taught. I finish this round and step into her, pressing my front against her back, not worrying if she feels what she’s done to me, how hard I am. She won’t be surprised. I wrap an arm around the front of her shoulders and draw her back so I can feel her breathing. Faster and shallower than it would be if she were totally relaxed, but she’s been laughing her fool head off. It’s not the hyperventilation of someone who’s panicking or had too much. And the way she leans her head back against my shoulder says she’s feeling comfortable with me.

  “How are you doing?”

  “Good. You’re doing a good job.”

  I don’t want to admit how good it f
eels to have her praise me. But it does. When we were together, I’d thirst for her words of approval. Not that she withheld them, but it wasn’t something she gave away lightly. In a weird way, the scarcity made me believe them more. It wasn’t some empty, ass-kissing praise. “I’m so proud of you.” “I’m so glad I’m yours.” “You’re a good man, Slade.”

  “I’m not hurting you?”

  She shakes her head, the corner of her sweet mouth curling up. “No. Not even a little bit.”

  It’s my turn to laugh. “Is that a challenge?”

  “Maybe. Are you up for a challenge?”

  “When you put it like that…”

  I give her a quick kiss behind her ear and then curse my impulse. She’s not going to agree to play with me again if she knows I want her back. Have always wanted her back. Never wanted to let her go in the first place, but shoved her away for her own good. Luckily, aside from a slight stiffening, she doesn’t seem to notice. I pull away quickly before I can do any more damage and take aim again.

  Less cautious, I find my rhythm and put more force behind the blows. My vision shrinks down to the plane of her back, how it’s turning a sweet shade of pink under the strokes. The cadence of falls against skin and the sound of giggles interspersed with gasps is relaxing, so much so that I sink into a trance and manage to let go a little.

  But I shouldn’t, because on the next strike, my wrist twists in a way I wasn’t intending and the tips bite into her neck. She squeals, this strangled, surprised sound, and it pulls me out of wherever I’d drifted off to.

  I drop the flogger and it clatters to the floor as I step over it to get to her. I rest a hand on her neck where it probably stings, and I hope it won’t leave a mark because she has to work tomorrow and, Jesus, what if it bruises and it’s all my fault? I hurt her.

  Suddenly, the shaky scaffolding of This is okay that I’ve built with Rey’s help comes crashing down and I’m standing in the midst of rubble. This is not okay. What’s wrong with me? Why do I like this? Why do I want to do this to her? Fuck.