Page 30 of Snow Bound (Odyssey #1)

Not that they weren’t hard before.

“Well, well,” he mused, and rocked back on his heels a little. “ You seeing this, Rogan ?”

“I am,” Michael rumbled, and she jerked her attention to the monitor. She’s forgotten he was there. “ She’s a hot little bitch.”

“See those monitors, Anna ?” Grant said, gesturing toward the table. “ They’re not there for your benefit. They’re so Mr . Rogan can see everything I do. Every little piece of you on display, nowhere to hide.”

The rush of heat that accompanied his words would’ve brought her to her knees, had she been standing. As it was, she had to swallow a whimper.

“We’re going to see everything, Anna ,” he went on, his voice a silken caress. “ And right now, we see what pretty tits you have.”

He stood to walk around behind her. She tensed slightly when he disappeared from view, and barely stopped herself from swiveling to keep him in sight. She remembered at the last minute that she could see him on the monitor, and relaxed just as his hands came around from behind to cup her breasts.

“Yes, very pretty tits,” he said, his voice in her ear. He hefted them in his hands as though feeling their weight, then shifted to lightly stroke her nipples. “ And look at these, already hard. Why are your nipples hard, Anna ?”

“It’s cold in here, dickhead,” she said, managing to infuse the words with icy disdain rather than excitement.

“It’s a bit cool, I grant you, but not enough for this.” His fingers pinched down hard, and her hiss of pain was nearly lost in his mocking laugh.

“Yes, I do believe you’re turned on.” He released her breasts abruptly, making them bounce. He circled the chair to stand in front of her, his gaze mocking. “ Isn’t that interesting?”

She was spared from having to come up with an answer when he strolled over to the sheet-covered table to her left.

“I think you understand by now, Ms . Goodwin , that you can’t get free. And that I’m very, very motivated to get my money back.” He laid a hand on the sheet, then turned to look at her. “ This is your last chance to tell me. Otherwise ...”

He let the sentence trail off and drew the sheet aside, and she got her first look at what lay under it.

There were clamps, a crop, a thick leather belt.

Paddles of wood and leather. A thick length of chain stained red with rust lay next to a hacksaw with several teeth missing from the blade.

A pile of miniature plastic clothespins in bright colors spilled over the handles of several pairs of pliers.

There was a roll of duct tape, three squat, white candles in glass jars next to a box of wooden matches.

A ball gag sat in the middle of the table, its bright red ball standing out like a beacon amid all the dull and rusted metal, and a car battery with jumper cables.

He struck a match, the stench of sulfur dioxide stinging her nostrils. He picked up the candles in turn, lighting them one by one, then shook out the flame.

He carefully shrugged out of his jacket, laying it next to the monitor where Michael continued to observe, face impassive. She realized with a jolt he was looking right at her, bared by her ruined dress, and though he’d seen her in far less at the club, blood rushed to her face.

His lips tilted up into a faint but unmistakable smirk in response.

“Now then,” Grant said and she jerked her gaze back to his.

He’d undone his cuffs and rolled them to his elbows, exposing his muscular forearms. His tie was undone, hanging around his neck.

Her mouth went a little dry at the tantalizing glimpse of his throat framed by the open collar, and part of her yearned to nuzzle there and just breathe him in.

Then he picked up a handful of clothespins, and her mind snapped back to the present.

“I’m going to amuse myself—and Mr . Rogan ,” he added, nodding to the monitor where Michael watched with that smirk still in place, “until you tell me what I want to hear.”

She forced herself to coolly arch a brow when what she wanted to do was beg for him to touch her. “ Do you really think you scare me?”

“We’ll see,” he said and moved toward her.

She tensed when he reached for her breast, braced for the bite on her nipple. She blinked in surprise when he instead clipped the clothespin to the upper curve of her breast.

“That’s pretty,” he decided, and gave it a flick. His eyes laughed into hers, as though he knew she’d had to bite back a screech. He probably did.

Michael’s voice came from the monitor. “ Let’s have more of those.”

“Mr. Rogan wants more, Anna .” Grant smirked and picked up another. “ Let’s accommodate him, shall we?”

She gritted her teeth when he placed a second clothespin, then a third.

By the time he was done she had a circle of them surrounding each breast and her skin was slick with sweat.

She noted dimly that he’d done the colors in order of the rainbow, two clips for each color, so her tits looked like a kinky advertisement for a Pride event.

Deciding it fit with her character, she let the laugh loose and lifted her gaze to his.

“Oh, Mr . Grant ,” she said in the crisp, faintly British accent, keeping her voice at a dead monotone and her smile mocking. “ Ouch . Please . No more, I beg of you.”

There was a cough from the monitor, and Grant’s eyes danced over his grim mouth. “ You’ll be begging before I’m done, believe me,” he promised darkly, and turned back to the table.

He returned with more clothespins, though this time he ignored her breasts in favor of the tender skin of her inner thighs. He tore through her stockings, shredding the delicate silk to get to the soft skin beneath, and left her with a rainbow running almost from crotch to knee.

“Well, now, what’s this?” he purred, and raised a brow. “ Your panties are wet, Anna .”

Struggling to breathe through the pinch, the burn, she nonetheless managed to roll her eyes. “ Don’t take it personally.”

He chuckled richly as his hand slipped higher between her thighs. She barely kept from jerking when his knuckles brushed against the very wet gusset of her panties. “ Yes , very wet.”

“How wet?” Michael drawled. “ I can’t quite see.”

“Well, we’ll fix that.” Grant stood and walked to the table to fiddle with the keyboard in front of one of the monitors.

Suddenly the view of her right side refocused, swiveling around and zooming in between her thighs.

For a moment the monitor was a blur of colored clothespins, like a watercolor bleeding in the rain, then the picture sharpened and her black lace panties, with their damp crotch, were sharply displayed on screen.

“Ah, much better. My , that is wet,” Michael said silkily. “ I don’t think we’ve chosen the correct method of torture, Grant . Ms . Goodwin seems to get off on pain.”

“We’ll soon see.”

He turned back to the table and picked up a set of clover clamps. He knelt in front of her with a knowing gleam in his eyes and bent his head to her left breast.

She watched him circle his tongue over her nipple gently, almost delicately, with a sense of foreboding. Her breath hissed out when he switched to suckling, softly at first and then hard, his cheeks hollowed with the force of it, then his teeth sank into her nipple.

“Mother fucker,” she moaned, half in despair and half in delight as the sweet, sweet pain wound through her.

His laugh was low as he released her nipple and applied the clamp, then gave it a sharp tug and release that made her breast bounce.

Pain spiked as all the little clothespins danced and shimmied.

It had barely begun to fade when he was at her other breast, pulling and tugging and biting until it, too, was captured by a clamp.

“How’s that, Ms . Goodwin ?” he asked and gave the connecting chain a solid yank.

Her back arched, her teeth gritted against the surge of pain. When she could speak again, what came out was, “ Fuck you.”

He grinned and dropped the chain, then pushed to his feet. “ Maybe if you’re very good.”

She nearly moaned when he picked up one of the candles. They hadn’t been burning long, but a good portion of the wax had melted already. She’d only done wax play once before, and she’d found it pleasant, if a bit silly.

She didn’t feel silly at all now.

He stood in front of her, legs braced apart, the candle in his hand. He waited until her clouded eyes looked into his. “ Where’s my money, Anna ?”

She tilted her head to the side. “ Which part was unclear,” she wondered, “the ‘fuck’ or the ‘you’?”

He held her gaze as he pinched the wick to extinguish the flame, then tipped the candle. She watched the liquid wax slide close to the edge and held her breath.

It fell out in a thin trickle to splash onto her thigh in a burst of heat, making her jerk and hiss. She stared down at the little spatter of wax, cooling rapidly on her skin. Strong fingers grasped the edge of it then pulled it up, and he examined the reddened skin underneath.

“Such a pretty pink,” he declared. “ More of that, I think.”

“Golly, a rhyme,” she spat sarcastically. “ Are we in a Dr . Seuss book?”

His eyes narrowed and he tipped his hand, splashing more wax onto her thighs. He worked his way up one thigh and down the other, getting a second candle when he’d emptied the first amid her muttered curses.

He stepped back and surveyed her thighs. “ What do you think, Mr . Rogan ?” he asked. Anna blinked and tried to focus on Michael’s face on the monitor.

“Nice,” Michael said. He was leaned back in his chair now, his drink refreshed. Even through the monitor—and the haze of lust—she could see his eyes gleam. “ She looks lovely covered in wax.”

“She does, doesn’t she?” Grant smiled and picked up the third candle.

Anna moaned, unable to stop the sound from escaping when he held it above her breast. She felt the warmth first, then the sting. He decorated her breasts carefully, almost artfully. When he was done, he stepped back to study the effect, a pleased smile on his face while she panted for breath.