The Delicious Torment Read online

  Also by Alison Tyler

  A Is for Amour

  Afternoon Delight

  B Is for Bondage

  Best Bondage Erotica

  Best Bondage Erotica, Volume 2

  The Big Book of Bondage

  C Is for Coeds

  Caught Looking (with Rachel Kramer Bussel)

  D Is for Dress-Up

  Dark Secret Love

  Down and Dirty

  E Is for Exotic

  Exposed

  F Is for Fetish

  Frenzy

  G Is for Games

  Got a Minute?

  H Is for Hardcore

  The Happy Birthday Book of Erotica

  Heat Wave

  Hide and Seek (with Rachel Kramer Bussel)

  Hurts So Good

  I Is for Indecent

  J Is for Jealousy

  K Is for Kinky

  L Is for Leather

  Love at First Sting

  Luscious

  The Merry XXXmas Book of Erotica

  Morning, Noon and Night

  Naughty or Nice

  Never Have the Same Sex Twice

  Open for Business

  Playing with Fire

  Red Hot Erotica

  Slave to Love

  Sudden Sex

  Three-Way

  Copyright © 2013 by Pretty Things Press.

  All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in newspaper, magazine, radio, television, or online reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Published in the United States by Cleis Press, Inc.,

  2246 Sixth Street, Berkeley, California 94710.

  Cover design: Scott Idleman/Blink

  Cover photograph: Arman Zhenikeyev/Getty Images

  Text design: Frank Wiedemann

  First Edition.

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  E-book ISBN: 978-1-62778-020-9

  Contents

  Introduction

  Prologue

  Chapter One: Love Me Two Times

  Chapter Two: The Perfect Girl

  Chapter Three: Short Leash

  Chapter Four: Wicked Game

  Chapter Five: Wrapped Around Your Finger

  Chapter Six: Under My Thumb

  Chapter Seven: Secret Things

  Chapter Eight: Modern Love

  Chapter Nine: Always Falling

  Chapter Ten: More Than This

  Chapter Eleven: Hate Me Today

  Chapter Twelve: Jealousy

  Chapter Thirteen: Pain of Love

  Chapter Fourteen: All Alone

  Chapter Fifteen: Vicious

  Chapter Sixteen: Everybody Loves a Happy Ending

  Chapter Seventeen: Cherries in the Snow

  Chapter Eighteen: Would I Lie to You?

  Chapter Nineteen: Pictures of You

  Chapter Twenty: Take This Longing

  Chapter Twenty–One: This Is the Picture

  Chapter Twenty–Two: Carte Blanche

  Chapter Twenty–Three: Love

  Chapter Twenty–Four: Liar

  Chapter Twenty–Five: Waiting

  Chapter Twenty–Six: The Chain

  Chapter Twenty–Seven: Trust

  Chapter Twenty–Eight: You Can’t Always Get What You Want

  Chapter Twenty–Nine: Dr. Jack

  Chapter Thirty: Free–Falling

  Chapter Thirty–One: Alex’s Transformation

  Chapter Thirty–Two: Shopping Spree

  Chapter Thirty–Three: To Be a Lover

  Chapter Thirty–Four: Like a Girl

  Chapter Thirty–Five: Blurring the Lines

  Chapter Thirty–Six: Maybe Just Once

  Chapter Thirty–Seven: Free

  Chapter Thirty–Eight: What Now?

  Chapter Thirty–Nine: What Would You Do?

  Chapter Forty: A Kind of Magic

  About the Author

  Introduction

  We’re on Sunset. Way up in the sky in a penthouse apartment overlooking Los Angeles. It’s not today. Or yesterday. But, as my best friend says, “back in the day.” I’m ensconced in an S/M relationship that makes everything I’ve done before turn a whiter shade of pale.

  There’s truth here. And fiction. Reality and fantasy. The lines blur at the edges. The seams fray. The satin strands begin to unravel. But not the bindings. Those leather bindings remain hard and fast, until they’re met with the right key.

  This is a novel with me at the center. That is, my heroine is based on me. I’ve sketched her with broad strokes, but at our core we are the same. She’s gotten herself entwined with an older man—nothing new there. But now she has to learn how to maneuver a 24/7 relationship. (What one isn’t? Aren’t all relationships around the clock?)

  Of course, with every love affair—whether involving corsets, crops, and kink or not—there are twists and turns. Boundaries to overcome. Safewords to spill. I’m inviting you into the inner sanctum. A place founded in memory and woven with fantasy. My eyes are wide open, ready to experience the seductive, erotic journey all over again.

  Take this ride with me.

  Go on. Take the ride.

  XXX,

  Alison

  My cast of characters—for those keeping score:

  Brock, my first

  Byron, my ex

  Jack, my current

  Alex, his right-hand man

  Prologue:

  I believe you can fall in love six times before breakfast—that is, if you’re looking. If you have an aura of willingness, of curiosity, then others will come find you. Jack understood this intimately, and he worked hard to keep my focus on him. But he needn’t have worried. At heart, I’m an extremely monogamous person. I wanted to please Byron. Trust me, I did. Yes, I relished the animosity of our breakup, but only because it was so long coming. For years, I did my best to be exactly the type of girl he wanted. I’m sweet by nature, with a dark edge that rarely comes out. I was always more comfortable being left than leaving.

  Yet Jack worried. I could tell. He demanded my constant declarations of submission to him. He wanted me to say, “I’m yours.”

  I wanted him to say something entirely different, but I bided my time.

  Jack and I were both high-strung on desire. On the sofa, we sat with limbs entwined. At dinner, we bent close together, feet touching under the table. We fucked everywhere. Everywhere. In his car. In his office. On the beach. In Mann’s Chinese Theater. Outside of Griffith Observatory.

  I was his. He had to know that. But first he made me prove myself to him—through pain, and shame, and utter humiliation.

  And, trust me, shame can be more painful than pain itself.

  Chapter One:

  Love Me Two Times

  I came in the night.

  This had happened to me before, but not often. Wet dreams are more rare for women, I think, than for men. But I came. Hard. Picturing Jack using a cane on me, my body bent, knees under my stomach, ass up to receive each blow. The climax was exquisite, and I was covered with a thin sheen of sweat when Jack shook me awake.

  “What was that?”

  I responded with a sound between a moan and a sigh, lost in my dream.

  “Sam, what the fuck was that?”

  By now I was slightly more awake, and chilled. Did Jack know what had happened? Could he guess? Normally, a sleep-induced climax might not have been a big deal. But Jack had been working with me, training me to come when he wanted me to come. He’d put me on restriction—this was my second day with no climax—second of a threatened five. That’s how greedy I
am for pleasure. I couldn’t turn off my desires.

  My body, subconsciously, had disobeyed him.

  Even through the dream haze, some part of me wanted to be insolent. Earthquake, I thought to say. But self-preservation kicked in. Instead, pretending to be drowsier than I actually was, I murmured, “What do you mean?”

  “You were moaning,” he said, and I could hear the dark suspicion in his voice, but he couldn’t possibly think I’d made myself come. My wrists were chained over my head, and I was wearing a chastity belt.

  “Dreaming,” I whispered, feeling sad as the last wisps faded away.

  The light flared on, and I heard Jack reaching for the keys. In seconds, I was undone, the cuffs off, the belt off, and Jack’s warm fingers had spread apart my nether lips, feeling for the wetness I knew would prove my guilt.

  “You came—” he insisted. “In your sleep. I know the sounds you make when you climax, Sam. Do you think I’m stupid?”

  It was four in the morning. Yet Jack was completely awake. “No, Sir.”

  “What were you dreaming? Tell me quickly, before you can think of some fancy story.”

  I sighed and looked away, and Jack gripped my chin and forced me to face him.

  “That you were punishing me—”

  “How?”

  “With your cane…”

  “And did I touch you?” The look on his face was intense. I felt as if I were being interrogated at a crime scene, the bright light in my eyes, Jack’s unsmiling gaze inches from mine. “Did I fuck you?”

  “No, Jack.”

  “Did you touch yourself?”

  “No, Jack.”

  “You came from the pain alone?”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “You’re not lying to me, are you?” he asked, letting me loose and then leaning back against the pillows, contemplative. He was at ease now. A change had taken place, but I didn’t know why.

  “No, Sir.”

  “Describe the dream.”

  I huddled under the blankets, arms wrapped around my legs, and I tried to remember all the details. “I was wearing a thin white nightgown.”

  “Do you own one like it?”

  I shook my head.

  “Anything like it?”

  “A sundress.”

  “Go get it.”

  I stumbled from the bed and opened the closet, then pulled a semi-sheer sundress from the rack. I slid the gown over my head, and Jack nodded his approval.

  “Continue,” he said.

  “You told me to get into position.”

  “What position?”

  “Knees bent under me, hands in front of me on the mattress, ass up in the air.”

  “Show me.”

  I looked at him, and he moved off the bed, slipping into the black pajama bottoms he’d tossed onto the floor. Jack often started the night wearing the pants, but kicked them off during sleep.

  More nervous than ever, I pushed aside the comforter and assumed the position on the mattress.

  “What happened next?”

  “You lifted my nightgown, so you could see my ass…”

  “Why was I punishing you?”

  “I—I don’t know.”

  “Think.”

  I closed my eyes, and the whole of the dream came back to me. I’d been in a boarding school similar to the one I was creating for my novel. Girls were supposed to wear old-fashioned nightgowns and full-coverage panties to bed, and there had been a nightly check—done by Jack in my dream. When Jack had come to me, he’d discovered I had left off the panties. A cane had appeared seemingly from nowhere, as Jack had told me to assume the position and had caned me to climax, while the other girls gathered around and watched. Giggling. Pointing.

  “Tell me,” Jack insisted. “I think you know where we’re headed. You don’t want to make things worse on yourself.”

  So I told him. Cast him in the role of headmaster. Explained how I felt when he slowly dragged the fabric up my naked skin, when he revealed my lack of underclothes, when he started to cane me in front of an audience.

  “And that made you come,” Jack said softly, “that vision.”

  “Yes, Jack. Yes, Sir.”

  Jack walked to his cabinet and while my heart started to race, he removed one of his whippet-thin canes. Why couldn’t I have come to images of riding on a Ferris wheel or being fucked on a blanket at the beach? Why couldn’t I have told Jack I didn’t remember? Jack dragged the dress up, showing off my naked skin. He pressed the cane firmly against me, so I could feel the coolness of the implement, imagine how hot those stripes would be in mere moments.

  “How many times did I cane you? How many times before you came?”

  It was a dream, I wanted to cry out. A dream, Jack! How the fuck do I know?

  “Samantha—”

  “I don’t know, Jack. I just came.”

  “We’ll find out for ourselves then, won’t we?”

  He started then, before I could think, before I could speak, before I could even breathe. The cane cut into me once, and then almost immediately a second time. He was lining up the blows neatly, orderly, as Jack liked to do. I was still wet from the dream, still swollen from the climax, still lost in the confusing jumbled world of truth and make-believe.

  “You’ll wear panties to bed or pay the consequences.” I felt my breath catch. He was playing. He was taking on a role I’d created. “I’m sick and tired of you breaking the rules. Thinking that sweet little smile of yours will get you out of trouble.” And he was changing the script as he went. “I’ve let you slide before, young lady. From now on you’ll feel my wrath each time you cross the line.”

  The cane slashed through the air, and I cried out, but at the same time, I felt the wetness of my arousal. Felt how turned on I was. Could I come again, solely from being caned and from the way Jack continued to talk to me?

  “Were you touching yourself, girl? Is that why you had your knickers off?”

  “No, Sir.”

  “You want me to believe you forgot them?” His voice was mocking.

  “I don’t know, Sir.”

  My head swam. Pain and pleasure floored me. And Jack continued playing, enjoying himself.

  He kept up a steady monologue as the cane wreaked havoc on my skin. But I felt that climax building within me again, the pleasure managing to overshadow the pain.

  “Bad girls are punished under my watch,” he continued. “You’ll meet me in my office in the morning, for a second dose… One delivered privately, so we can really get to the bottom of things…”

  And that was it. All I needed. My pussy clenching, contracting. Stars in my eyes from holding my breath so long. I shook the bed, as I must have in my sleep, and Jack watched, almost curiously, until I was able to regain my sense of self. He didn’t have to tell me what to do. I understood without a word of instruction, lifting my ass back in the air, preparing in case he wasn’t finished.

  He wasn’t, of course. I’d gotten mine. Now he had his.

  “Three more,” he said, “Count them.”

  They were the meanest blows yet, the ones with his arm fully behind them, and I was shaking once more by the time he dropped the weapon.

  When he was done, he kissed me. He brushed the tears from my eyes, bit gently into my full bottom lip. And then he climbed back onto the bed and pulled me to him, pressing me against his bare chest. His smile surprised me.

  “Your dreams are my dreams,” he said, then reached across my body and shut off the light.

  Chapter Two:

  The Perfect Girl

  While Jack was at work one day, and I was putting the finishing touches on my novel, I heard the key in the front door. I knew somehow before the first footstep hit the hallway that it was Alex not Jack. And I knew something was up.

  Alex was Jack’s assistant. Young, attractive, blond, and completely dedicated to Jack. Usually, he was out at Malibu when we were in the city, or in New York handling business for Jack.

  “Yo
u working?” Alex called out. I came to greet him, feeling suspicious. Alex was snarky as fuck. I can’t say I liked him at the time, and I know he didn’t like me. We were at the toleration stage. Barely.

  “Yeah.”

  “Jack said you would be. Do you have time for a break?”

  “For what?”

  “Would you ask Jack that question?”

  I took a risk. “No, but I’m asking you.”

  He tried to stare me down but failed. It was like the offer your parents always warn you about. Hey, little girl. If you come with me, I’ll give you candy.

  “I want to talk to Jack,” I said, and Alex gave me another harsh stare, but I would not budge.

  “He’s in a meeting.”

  “I’ll wait.”

  “He’s not going to be pleased, Samantha.” There was the threat. First I’d been given a promise of a reward. Now, I was being threatened with a promise of punishment. I sat on the sofa, implying with my body language that I wasn’t planning on moving.

  “What’s gotten into you? Usually, you’re such a good girl.”

  My radar was finely tuned. I crossed my arms and waited. Alex walked into the kitchen and dialed Jack on the phone. Then he called out to me. I headed to the bedroom and grabbed the extension there, and I didn’t speak until I heard the click of Alex setting down the receiver.

  “What is it?” Jack’s voice was cold.

  “Alex wants me to go somewhere with him. But he won’t say where.”

  “And you don’t trust him?”

  “No, that’s not it—”

  “You don’t trust me?” His tone was glacial now.

  “No, Jack—” Uh-oh… What had I gotten myself into? “It’s only that you didn’t mention anything this morning, and I wasn’t sure…”

  “Right,” he said, and the sarcasm made me flinch. “And I do run my schedule by you every day.”

  “No, Jack—” Jesus. I was floundering. “He wanted me to go with him, but he wouldn’t say why or where. And I wasn’t sure you would approve…”

  “…of my assistant doing as I asked him. Yes, I would see why that would make you suspicious.”

  My heart sank further. And when I thought of what Alex’s expression would be when I headed back down the hall, I cringed.

  “Are you in the bedroom?”