Club Helix: The Power Games by Brynley Bush Page A

to throw myself in his arms. I’m needy in a way I’ve never been before, and while I know that later I’ll need to examine my feelings and shore up the cracks in the fortress that’s integral to my well-being, in this moment I just want Roman and what he can give me. For once, I don’t want to feel numb and hollow. I want to experience the full gamut of emotions, to be taken and used. In this room I have become someone else, someone whose desire is only to please and be pleasured.
    “What are you?” he asks, his fingers in my hair forcing me to look into his indecipherable eyes, which have darkened to blue.
    I’m so desperate with need, so consumed by the onslaught of unexpected and unfamiliar desires, that I’d tell him anything right now, and I know what he wants to hear.
    “Your slave,” I say, my voice ragged.
    His eyes gleam with triumph as he traces my cheekbone almost reverently with the pad of his thumb. “You will be,” he says simply, leaving me wondering what exactly he means.
    He removes one of the clamps from my breast, and my nipple erupts into flames. Holy fucking hell. I’m going to die. His mouth fastens around the impossibly sensitive peak, and I feel the pain recede as his tongue softly licks the abused flesh, driving my arousal even higher.
    I brace myself for the pain as he moves to my other breast, but he distracts me, slapping my ass sharply with an open palm. By the time I’ve processed the sting that quickly morphs into an aching warmth, the clamp is off, his mouth is once again on my nipple, and I’m whimpering at the river of sensations flowing over me.
    He releases my breast and lifts his head, his gaze fixed on my chest.
    “Look at how beautiful your nipples are now, Ava. How responsive.”
    It’s a command, and I dare not defy him. I sneak a furtive glimpse down at my chest. He’s right; my nipples, normally a dusky rose color, are dark pink and impossibly huge. He circles a finger around the areola and then pinches the engorged tip lightly, and I gasp as a streak of sheer lust shoots straight to my clit.
    “Kneel for me, schiava.”
    I do as he says, lowering myself so I am subjugated before him. I watch, my heart beating erratically, as he walks over to a wall where a selection of bondage equipment hangs, and selects a thick black leather collar. He brings it over to where I’m kneeling and fastens it snugly around my neck, clipping a chain leash to the silver ring attached to the front of the collar.
    I accept it wordlessly, although somewhere in the back of my mind, a voice is screaming that this is all wrong. But I’m beyond speech, beyond thought. He places the chain between my teeth and then steps behind me, tying the blindfold back into place. I remain motionless, listening intently to the click of the camera and the sound of Roman’s muffled instructions to the photographer.
    Then Roman’s hands are on me again, lifting me to my feet. He gently removes the leash from my mouth, letting it hang between my breasts as he slowly pulls my panties down and removes them so I’m completely naked. I’m suddenly grateful for the blindfold and the fact that I can’t see the photographer’s eyes on me. I am simply Roman’s. His schiava.
    With a tug of the leash, Roman wordlessly leads me across the room, halting me with a touch of his hand. He uncuffs my hands from behind my back and helps me onto some sort of table, pushing me down with a firm hand until I’m lying on my stomach, my knees supported by a low padded bench on either side of me with my arms dangling. He grabs my hips and ruthlessly yanks me backward until it feels like my butt is sticking up and out off the edge.
    “Perfect,” he murmurs.
    I feel his hands on my legs, positioning them as he wraps some sort of fabric around each of my ankles before attaching them to something so I can’t move them. He skims a finger down my spine, and I can’t help the tiny shiver that his touch elicits. He wraps my