“I deserve that too,” he said to the males behind me as I finished screaming at him. It just made me swing on him again. He was being too calm now. I didn’t like it. This wasn’t how York acted when we argued.
“Fuck. Off.” I spat the words at him.
“Well, I don’t deserve that,” he assured us all.
I heaved oxygen into my lungs until I couldn’t hold anymore, and then I swung harder than before. The fae caught my hand before it connected with York’s nose again, and I cursed under my breath. “You guys need to calm down.” He spoke to us like children, and I almost decided to act like one. Instead, I snatched my hand away and stomped across the roof ignoring everyone. I’d throw my tantrum when I got to my room. I made it to the top of the stairs before Palmer grabbed my hand gently and tugged me down the first flight, leading me to my bedroom.
With a flick of his magic fingers, the doors opened and the lights turned on for us. He scooped me up and carried me to my bedroom, tossing me on the bed as he shut the door with his foot. “Vaughn’s right. Ya need ta settle yerself, an I know just how ta help with that.” I watched him wearily. Not because I was worried about what he had in mind, but because I wasn’t sure if he was going to calm me down or get me more worked up. Gods. If this didn’t end with orgasms, I would blow a fucking gasket.
Palmer didn’t ask me to strip, or even bother with my clothes. He moved his right index finger in a swirling motion in the air and cuffs tightened around my wrists and ankles. I went from sitting up in the center of my bed to stretched out like I was on a horizontal St. Andrews Cross, naked and stunned. I tested what I thought were straps, hearing them rattle. Not straps, chains. He smirked at me while he unbuttoned his shirt. I raked my eyes greedily over his exposed chest and licked my lips. My brain did a happy little hip shake, tossing all my thoughts astray like a deck of cards catching in the wind.
He pulled a crop out of… where? Where had that crop come from!? “Now that I have yer attention,” he murmured, inching the head of the crop across my calf. The cold leather was a stark reminder that I’d just been bested by the mage. I couldn’t budge these fucking chains. The more I pulled on them, the tighter they got; until I reached a point where I could no longer move anything but my head. His smirk held firmly in place as his attention centered on my bared position. “Ya have to let go of that rage, Love.” A swift blow to the top of my right thigh had my breath hissing with my inhale.
“Ya can’t stay angry with the druid forever.” The smooth fingers of his left hand rubbed circles on the small tender spot he’d left.
“I can try,” I mumbled, knowing that I sounded like a petulant child.
“Did I say ye could speak?” The Mage ran his glowing, orange-tipped index finger over my lips. When I tried to reply nothing came out. My lips moved, but there was no sound. This motherfucker just muted me! “There. That’s better,” he whispered in my ear before leisurely gliding around my bed. My eyes stalked his back and forth movement, waiting for the next strike to land.
“What he did may have been selfish in yer eyes, but it was also valiant. Ya can’t always put yerself in the line of fire, Love, even if ya would’ve fared better.” The next swing struck my lower abdominal muscles, swift and gentle. It didn’t sting, but the noise kept my predatory attention fixated on his movements. Still, I could say nothing, only listen and feel. From the left to the right, he ambled around my bed, searching my body. The aged, brown head of the riding crop stroking up one leg and down the other, across my peaked nipples, then dragging against my sides. He was driving me wild. I quivered with need as he continued to tease and castigate me simultaneously.
“Try naw ta be so hard on ‘im.” The smack to the inside of my left thigh struck my pussy as well. The sting of the crop landing had me panting and frustrated. “We all would’ve done the same thing ta keep ya safe. Especially if we’d all had the time between us that you and York had. Don’t ya think for a moment that a single one of us would sit back and let anyone torture you when we could take yer place. We all feel that way.” His soft Irish accent grew thicker with the honesty and emotion in his voice.
The final blow was two quick strikes against my nipples that had me wishing I could do something more than lose my eyes in the back of my head. He dropped the crop on the floor when he reached the foot of my bed. Crawling up slowly between my legs, he rubbed his clothed body on my naked skin until he was leaning over me. The kiss he gave me had the intensity of a tornado, wrecking my mouth and destroying my mind. “When ya make up with York, I’ll give ya what ya really want,” he promised after he pulled away. I couldn’t remember what I really wanted. I was pretty fucking close to forgetting my name.
Palmer slid back down my body, giving me a hellish grin. His tongue felt like satin as he lapped at my clit, and I could do nothing to show my appreciation. I tried to moan, but I still had no voice. I tried to squirm, but I had no freedom to move. I could only endure his form of punishment. If this was what happened when I got mad, I was going to stay mad.
The fingers on his right hand eased around the entrance of my core, sending me into a spiraling feeling of bliss. He pushed two of those gloriously long fingers inside me and curled them like he was trying to touch his tongue. I was a few “come here's” away from cumming right there. His fingers were fucking magical. When he felt my walls tighten around him, Palmer nipped lightly at my clit before sucking the bundle of nerves between his lips. That was all it took for the air to rush from my lungs. His hold on the silencing spell dropped, and my newfound voice cracked as I screamed his name.
When my orgasm finally subsided, his eyes roved over my body one last time. He held a mischievous glint in those stormy gray orbs that I didn’t quite like. He got off my bed at an exaggerated pace before leaning over me to lay a brief, tender kiss on my lips. Then he winked at me and moved for the door, only stopping to toss over his shoulder, “Now, be a good girl,” he urged. “I don’t like goin’ back on my word, and it’s getting harder to maintain my promises.” He adjusted the wondrous bulge in his khakis as he turned the knob to my bedroom door.
He was gone before I could say anything. I was still naked, chained to my fucking bed. In magical chains! I’d never seen anything like these infernal things. I couldn’t break or bend them. I couldn’t even move! I could hear him laughing as he walked out of my suite, leaving all the doors open behind him. I shouted with a snarl, “You rotten fucking Irish bastard!” His laughter increased, and I growled in a very unladylike way to release the frustration I was feeling.
A set of footsteps halted my tangent of creative curses. They were too heavy to be Novak or Stone, too light to be Briggs or Vaughn. York. Fuck my life right now. He knocked casually on my door. “Come in,” I conceded begrudgingly. His head popped around the corner, the smile dropping from his face as he took in my predicament.
“I was going to see if you wanted to join me in the greenhouse, but I can see you're a little tied up. I’ll just, uhm, come back later.” He bit his lips together, and I wasn’t sure if it was to fight a smile or to stop talking.
“I’m going to kill that fucking mage,” I whispered to myself. “If you can get me out of these chains I’d be happy to accompany you to the greenhouse.” That was a half truth. Would I go? Yes. Would I be happy about it? Mmm, that was debatable.