Hiding the relief that left him nearly weak, Sam refocused on what he was doing. He flicked the whip again, a little harder, its tip catching Rae's clit. She screamed, her fingers curling into fists.

"Breathe," he reminded her. "Flow with the pain. Embrace it. Let it take you where you need to go."

She drew in a deep breath, her fingers loosening. He struck her again on her sensitive labia. She jerked and gasped. She was breathing hard, her eyes squeezed shut.

He waited.

Finally, she opened her eyes, which glittered in the candlelight. As he watched, she lifted her pelvis, arching forward, offering herself to his whip.

"Please, Sir," she begged. "Please."

Pride and lust surged through Sam in equal measure. He knew he would spend the rest of his life making himself worthy of her sweet submission. Aware she needed him to continue, he whipped her cunt, her inner thighs, her belly, her breasts, and then worked his way down again.

"Yes!" she cried over and over. "Again! Again! Please, Sir. Again!"

He didn't stop until she was crying, tears flowing down her cheeks, her body covered in a sheen of sweat. When he gauged she'd had enough, he dropped the whip and released her tethered ankles. Kneeling between her legs, he ran his hands lightly down her flanks and massaged her feet. Leaning over her, he released her wrists and rubbed her arms. She lay still, her hair tousled, her eyes fever-bright.

Her skin was marked with dozens of little welts he'd raised with his whip. Her cunt was dark red and swollen, its heady scent intoxicating. Crouching down, he licked the salty-sweet folds of her pussy, soothing away the sting of his lash. He placed a hand on either thigh, holding her open as he gently lapped at her labia, his tongue teasing over her clit.

He didn't stop until she was again begging, this time for permission to come.

"Not yet," he said at first, relishing his power, thrilled with her submission as he felt her struggle to obey. Reaching for his cock, he massaged it a moment, feeling it swell to full hardness, the tip gooey with pre-come. He maneuvered himself so he was ready, at the last second, to plunge into her heat.

He grunted with pure animal pleasure as he thrust inside her. It felt so fucking good-the fit between them better than perfect.

"Now!" he demanded. "Come for me now."

He felt the delicious clench of her muscles against his cock as she spasmed and jerked beneath him. She wrapped her legs around his hips, pulling him in deeper as she came. Her arms encircled him, holding him with surprising strength as she undulated beneath him.

He pulled her up into his arms, covering her face in kisses as he thrust inside her, tumbling headlong into a climax as she held him close, locked in her tight embrace.

They lay still for a long while after, entangled in each other's arms. Sam felt something tear in his heart, a sweet wrenching pain. He understood Rae was in fact the one who wielded the real power, even if she didn't know it. She held his heart in her hands. It was at once frightening and exciting to realize his own vulnerability.

"Rae?"

"Hmm?"

"Who do you belong to?"

"You, Sir."

"And who do I belong to?"

"Me, Sir."

The End.

Also Available from Claire Thompson:.

A Lover's Call.

A Princely Gift Accidental Slave Alternative Treatment Binding Discoveries Blind Faith.

Cast a Lover's Spell Caught: Punished by Her Boss Closely Held Secrets Club de Sade Confessions of a Submissive Continuum of Desire Dare to Dominate Dream Master Face of Submission.

Finding Chandler Forced Submission Frog Golden Angel.

Golden Boy Heart of Submission Heart Thief Island of Temptation Jewel Thief Julie's Submission.

Lara's Submission Masked Submission Obsession: Girl Abducted Odd Man Out Perfect Cover Pleasure Planet Princess.

Safe in Her Arms Sarah's Awakening Seduction of Colette.

Slave Academy Slave Castle Slave Gamble.

Slave Girl Slave Island Slave Jade Sold into Slavery.

Sub for Hire Submission Times Two Switch.

Texas Surrender The Abduction of Kelsey.

The Auction The Compound The Cowboy Poet.

The Master The Solitary Knights of Pelham Bay The Story of Owen.

The Toy Tough Boy.

Tracy in Chains True Kin Vampire Tales:.

Sacred Circle.

Outcast.

Sacred Blood True Submission Two Loves for Alex.

Two Masters for Alexis Wicked Hearts.

THE HOSTAGE BARGAIN.

ANNIKA MARTIN.

When small town girl Melinda Prescott is taken hostage by three hot bank robbers, she quickly discovers that a life of bank heists, luxury hotels, and kinky menages is way more exciting than working on the family farm. She should be scared of her dominating, fierce captors...but there's something wicked inside her that's craving to obey their every dark desire.

Melinda eagerly throws in with her three smoldering fugitives...and realizes little by little that these are no ordinary bank robbers-and that bad guys aren't always what they seem. But will her delicious captors overcome their own demons enough to let her in? And can they fight a conspiracy that's larger than all of them?

"The Hostage Bargain is a quirky steamy read with heart... It's meant to be a fun read and it totally succeeds as I haven't had this much fun reading an erotic romance in quite a while."

-Yummy Men & Kick Ass Chicks.

Chapter One.

I was looking busy behind the teller window at First City National Bank one Sunday doodling a frame of stars around a piece of scratch paper when three bank robbers burst in, cleaned the place out, and took me hostage. Three, might I add, hunky bank robbers.

But I digress. And, I didn't know they were hunky at first because they wore zombie masks-mottled skin, sunken eyes, blood, the whole zombie nine yards. I approved. Zombies were pretty hip, and also scary.

In addition to the masks, they wore business suits and leather gloves, and they moved with military precision. This, too, I approved of. If somebody was going through the trouble of robbing the First City National Bank of Baylortown, Wisconsin, I wanted them to be overachievers.

They commanded all seven of us tellers to put up our hands-so we wouldn't push any silent alarm or panic buttons, no doubt. What they didn't know was every single one of us FCN tellers hated bank owner Hank Vernon with a passion-a writhing, lava-like passion churning deep in our bank teller hearts. Any one of us would've loved to see his bank implode or explode or just crumble into the river, hopefully taking Hank Vernon and his financially predatory kin with it.

I was the queen of the Bring-Down-Hank-Vernon Brigade. I had more Vernon-inflicted wounds than all of my co-workers put together.

The robbers ordered the other tellers to march around and join the patrons on the floor, but because I was at the end of the row-or maybe I looked friendly and cooperative, heaven knows I was planning to be-they gave me the job of cleaning out the drawers and putting money into a bag under the watchful and piercing green eyes of a green-faced zombie.

"Touch anything else and you're dead," he said.

"Don't worry, dude," I said, heart racing a million miles an hour. I'd never considered being robbed as an extreme sport, but it was quite the rush, this feeling of excitement and aliveness coursing through my veins. I had a thing about extreme sports: I loved the exhilaration of risk, of careening out of control, the way the adrenalin made me come alive right down to my fingertips.

"I'll do anything you want," I said breathlessly. "Anything at all."

His gaze intensified.

I didn't mean that sexually, I almost added, but stopped myself. The idea of doing anything he wanted sexually had a sudden dark appeal that surprised me, and I knew from the directness and energy in his gaze that he heard it exactly the same way.

Shivers crawled up my spine.

I grabbed more money.

More yelling out on the floor. "Down! Fingers knit or I blow you heads off!" As if to emphasize his point, one of the robbers kicked the coin counting machine over onto a glass table, making a terrific crash. Somebody whimpered. That I did not approve of. The bank patrons and my coworkers were good people who didn't deserve to be frightened.

I, however, was practically vibrating with excitement.

"Send us off with tracking devices or exploding dye and you're dead," my guy growled at me. "We'll come back and mess you up." Then he grabbed the flowers out of the little vase at my station and ripped them up and threw them on the floor.

Okay!

I moved to the next drawer. "I'm telling you, don't worry. I'm into it. Tell Scary Spice out there not to shoot anyone and we're good."

His green eyes blazed. "I make the rules here. Not you."

My belly tightened; that was so hot, the way he said it. Did he know? Was he being hot on purpose? "Ten-four," I said.

His eyes locked on mine, or more, he looked right into me as though he recognized me. Not personally-I'd have known those green eyes anywhere-but like he knew how jazzed I felt.

My breath sped as I gave him back the bag; my hand brushed his leather glove and a frisson of shivers shot through me. He might well look like Frankenstein under there, but at that moment, sexiness oozed from him.

Years ago, my mom showed me an article that said thrill-seeking people are missing a brain chemical, and that they make up for it by taking risks. She thought it explained a thing or two about me. If it's true, I'm glad I'm missing it. I can't imagine going through life without leaping from the cliff over Mucklanaho River, or racing down the abandoned ski slide, or getting excited about green-eyed criminals.

"The safe." His gaze glowed behind his mask. "Who can get us in?"

"Oh, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised on that count," I said. "It's open." Hank had left for the day, and the rest of us weren't exactly conscientious when he was gone.

"Thor!" He waved his gun at one of the other two robbers.

A guy in a blue zombie mask jumped over the counter with startling athletic grace.

"Three minutes twenty."

"Thor? As in the Norse god?" I asked.

A pair of green eyes bored fiercely into mine.

Gulp. I turned and led them back, straight into the walk-in, and pulled open the money safe. The big robber ripped the camera from the wall and pulled bundles of money off the shelves with fast, efficient movements while Thor held the bag. These men had done this before. It was fabulously badass, and even then, I was thinking this scene would become a staple in my repertoire of stranger sex fantasies for months.

Make that years.

"Three-five." Thor pressed a finger to his ear. He had ear buds in? Listening to music at a time like this?

"What?" the big green-eyed one asked.

"Nothing. Traffic."

Aha, on the police scanner. Suddenly I came to my senses-I was missing a couple of major destroy-Hank-Vernon opportunities here.

I caught Thor's eye. I held up a hand-stop-and put my finger to my lips, then pointed to the listening device, there to catch employee grumbling. We all knew about it, though of course we weren't supposed to.

"Zeus." Thor pointed to it.

"Please don't shoot me," I warbled in my best fake-scared voice. "Please." I pointed to a section of bills-fifties. I ripped off the seal, displaying the trackers for them to see, and I pointed to all the bundles that had trackers. They had little red marks and we were supposed to leave them there in case of robbery. I felt like a lady on the shopping channel demonstrating the features of a new product. If they had a shopping channel for badass robbers in zombie masks who named themselves for gods.

Thor and Zeus exchanged glances. I expected them to cast the trackers onto the ground, but green-eyed Zeus pocketed them. Clever. He was getting sexier by the second. I also liked that these guys had named themselves after gods. It demonstrated confidence.