“Open up, baby,” he murmured, and with his thumb at her jaw and the corner of her mouth she had no choice. The moment she parted her lips he slid a ball of soft rubber into her mouth, preventing further speech.

He strapped it securely around her head, and now she could not speak or see.

Her breath rasped around the ball in shock and panic. His hands smoothly stroked her head, her quivering back.

“Sshhh…sshh…you’re fine. You’re beautiful. Don’t be afraid. Not of this. Not of me.”

She couldn’t think of any moment she had been more afraid, but it wasn’t the sick fear she’d experienced when her father had made her ride amusement park rides that terrified her, teaching her not to indulge weakness. This fear tangled with a desire so strong she wasn’t sure she’d be capable of speech if her mouth was unobstructed.

His hands continued to caress, reassure even as he put a strap across her forehead and under her jawline, testing their fit. His touch moved to her shoulders, and he attached those facial straps to the horizontal restraint there, so her head and neck had a support to hold them up comfortably, in a physical sense at least. The inability to duck her head or shield her face in any way was somehow much less comfortable. Her backside and spread pussy were still the highest part of her body, which enhanced the feeling of total exposure and vulnerability to him. The motor engaged, suggesting he had a remote control, and her upper body was lifted up about an inch so her chin was not pressed uncomfortably on the table.

“I can adjust any part of your body up and down, to just the right height for what I want to see or do to it. Tilt the bar like a seesaw, put your hips even higher in the air, so I can see your pussy and ass better.

Straighten you up to your knees, so I can see your beautiful breasts in that parallel restraint. If you start getting a tingling or a numbness anywhere, you let me know.”

How? How on earth did he expect her to do that with her ability to speak denied?

He was behind her again, and his finger trailed down the sole of her right foot, tickling her through the sheer stocking. She wiggled the foot in reaction, curling her toes, and his low chuckle was more sensual reaction than humor.

“That’s the signal, Savannah, if you’re in any type of physical discomfort. Wiggle your right foot.

I’d say curl your toes, but I intend to give you the type of pleasure tonight that makes them curl, and I don’t want to misread you.”

His voice continued, stroking her even when his hands were not. “I had this suspension system made for you specifically. Knowing where you get your clothes custom-tailored, I obtained your exact measurements.

The length of your body overall, then from just beneath the breasts to the hips.” He caressed these parts of her.

“They made the steel bench and support extensions strong, so you’d be completely supported while you were suspended, and I talked to a master suspension artist about

pressure points to be sure you’d be fully supported, safe. We made this on our own shop floor.” His hand passed over her still smarting flank.

“We had the covering on the bench made of the softest material available, because you have such delicate skin. I didn’t want you to feel any discomfort, except for the discomfort I want you to feel. The straps are a new synthetic we’re working on for restraining people in hospitals when certain surgical procedures require it for their protection. They’re lined, made so they won’t chafe you even when you’re straining against them.”

He bent down, touched his lips to her ear. “I’ve taken away your sight, your ability to wield that vicious tongue of yours, your freedom of movement.

Not to punish you. Not to frighten you. I’d rather cause you pleasure than pain any day, though one certainly can be the avenue to the other. But I want you to feel .

Feel it all. Get past your mind, back to your heart. Because I’m there, waiting for you. I’m going to leave you no place to retreat except there, until you have to admit it’s me that you’ve wanted for months now, same as I’ve wanted you. And you’ll know why and how I knew your body would respond like this to sexual domination, to my mastery over you.”

She wanted to tell him ‘“Fuck you”, but she had neither voice nor eye contact to convey it, nor the freedom of her arms to make a suitably rude gesture. And she wasn’t sure she had the strength to force the words past her lips, even if she wasn’t gagged.

Not with her body reacting as if it was gripped by some type of overwhelming palsy, where she was no longer in control of the most basic movements or speech. Even now she had an inexplicable desire for him to stay bent close to her, where she could smell the nuances of musky male heat that her flared nostrils recognized so distinctly as Matt.

Then, unbelievably, she heard a door open.

Chapter Two

“Good evening, gentlemen.” Matt’s voice was abruptly smooth and professional, and above her, telling her he had straightened, taking that reassuring scent further from her face. “Come in. Feel free to sample the refreshments offered on the table, remembering the rules we discussed.”

There was a whirring of gears, and Savannah felt the straps along her sides tighten, begin to lift her from the table. The upper body lifted a few more inches, the lower body much more significantly. When the gears stopped, she realized, to her horror, that Matt had lifted her up just enough so the tips of her breasts brushed the table surface. Her hips were still higher than her head, only now her knees barely brushed the table, taking away a sense of grounding. With her legs held open by the steel bar, the bench separating and displaying her breasts, she was baldly displayed to… How many pairs of feet did she hear? She realized abruptly it had to be his team, all four of them.

“Any cock will do, right?” Matt had bent down, was whispering in her ear again. “At any point, this can be over.” A cloth pressed into her open right palm and she automatically gripped it, making both sets of fingers curl over it, due to the lacings holding the two hands together.

“That’s my handkerchief, your white flag of surrender. If you’ve had enough, if you’re ready to admit that I’ve had you pegged right from the beginning, you drop it. As long as you hold it, I’m not granting you a moment of mercy.

“Whenever we do a hostile takeover, we itemize the obstacles, group them until we know how many gates we need to take to get to the prize. We’re fairly sure there are about five gates we’ll have to crash through to get you to surrender. You’re going to come often and hard tonight. Not when you want to, but when I want you to, when each of these men wants you to, because that’s our will.”

His palm slid along the side of her face, his thumb flicking the tassels of the mask along her cheek, causing the sensation of watered silk flowing across her skin’s surface. “They all know who you are, of course. But psychologically, I think the mask and the blind provide you a sense of anonymity that will give you the space to let yourself truly go. At a certain point, I’ll want you to see us, see how you affect us. But for now, I want you to forget that you think this is a battle, and just imagine what you would do if this was all, not against you, but for you. To give you pleasure, to bring you where your deepest desires, the ones you don’t even admit you have, want to take you.”

She heard his words, understood them, but all she could think about at the moment was there were four ambitious young men in the room.

Men who had put in a full day, probably starting at the crack of dawn.

Now in the early evening, ties discarded and sleeves rolled up, they wanted something to help them unwind for the weekend. And she didn’t think they were thinking of an old movie in the study and a healthy dose of ice cream like she had been planning.

“She’s beautiful, isn’t she?” Matt slid his hand up the slope of her back to her raised ass, stroked down her hip.

“There are only a few rules, if you’ll recall, and I’m going to restate them here, where Savannah can hear them.”

Rules? They had discussed this like…some takeover strategy?

“Rule number one, I won’t repeat. You heard it clearly enough before and she’s not ready to hear it right now.”

She suspected it was not the same Rule One she knew.

Tennyson Rule One,the most important one of all, the one her father had spent her entire life teaching her. There is no such thing as failure. Only quitters.

His tone altered, his words more pronounced, deliberate. She picked up the tension and could envision that shift in vocal cadence had drawn their attention from the display of her bare body in the same way wolves of the pack took their attention from a kill when the leader laid back his ears, lifted his lips in a snarl.

“You can play with her in as many and varied ways as you wish that will give her pleasure, but you can’t fuck her pussy. Understood? And if you touch her, you have to make her come. For each time you make her come, you get an extra percent share in this company, of my own stock.

The man who makes her come the fastest tonight, from the time of the initial touch, will get a five percent share.”

His hand shifted back to her head, slid down the side of her face, touching her lips, their stretched state around the ball making them even more sensitive to the stroke. She would have bitten off his thumb if her mouth wasn’t obstructed by the gag.

They were making her into a game? It was one thing to play with Matt, but if she were free now, and had known what the plan was, she would have screamed rape, torn his eyes out, done whatever was necessary to get out of this room.

Big talk, Savannah. And every word he’s just spoken has made you even wetter between your legs.Had she lost her mind? What was the matter with her? And why did it bother her so much that he was offering a stock incentive? Was she seriously entertaining an ego in this outlandish situation?

Tennyson Rule Six: The body and heart do what they please, but it is the mind’s choice to follow.So basically, it didn’t matter if her body was responding or not, her outrage could still be intact. Of course, she was aware that her attempt to use the rules of a lifetime to keep her head on straight was faltering