Any Port in a Storm

Someone's car alarm has been going off for approximately two-and-a-half minutes, and Cameron fiercely, desperately wishes she was not aware of this.

Most people would consider exceptional observational skills a plus, and, indeed, these often serve Cameron well. But she cannot turn them off when they're not wanted. Her mind is always working, always analyzing, quantifying, even when there is no benefit to doing so, and when she just wants to

relax

, it is frustrating beyond even her own ability to describe that she will always find something to fixate on.

"Hey, Earth to Cameron!"

By the time she is consciously aware of the interruption, she's figured out who it is, and that he poses no threat. But her body responds before her brain quite catches up, and she spins around with muscles tensed as though to fight or flee.

Lex just rolls his eyes at her theatrics and rests a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "I was gonna ask if you wanted a punching bag tonight," he says, as though nothing is at all out of the ordinary, and that alone melts some stress from Cameron's shoulders. Lex doesn't take much of anything personally, and it's a relief not to have her unconscious response taken as an insult. "But you look like maybe you'd rather be mine..."

He isn't wrong, on either count; Lex can be surprisingly insightful when he can be bothered to think before acting. Something to focus on that isn't every tiny annoyance in her surroundings would be more than welcome, and she's in no place to take responsibility for another's well-being when she's not doing so well at ensuring her own.

"I would like that very much."

"Well, c'mere, then," and Cameron has crossed the room to Lex's side before making a conscious decision to act.

Lex cradles her face in his hands and kisses her, soft and sweet - until it isn't, his teeth suddenly catching her lower lip and biting down hard. She rocks

into

the bright jolt of pain, letting it ground her, pull her partially out of her head and into more complete awareness of her body. And Lex's body, warm and close, one thigh pressing up between her legs with clear intent. "That's it. I've got you." He nudges his thigh higher, Cameron's answering moan swallowed by another kiss. But just as Cameron begins to grind against him in earnest, he draws back, grabs her hand, and tugs her gently towards his bedroom.

If he catches the little noise he gets in return, a tiny disappointed whine Cameron is immediately embarrassed by, he is gracious enough not to comment.

"You know the drill, pet," Lex says, once they have reached his room and the door is safely shut behind them, and under his watchful eye Cameron begins to undress.

There is a certain ritual to it, at least under these circumstances. Cameron moves slowly, each article of clothing carefully folded and set aside before she starts on the next; not to put off what is to come, but to ensure that by the time she's finished she is in the proper frame of mind to appreciate it. It's time she needs to collect her thoughts and put them aside for later... and if she knows full well that Lex appreciates the show, well, that's just a bonus.

It isn't enough time, today. She's still excruciatingly aware of a million things that do not deserve her attention. (That car alarm is still going off. How can Lex remain so unaffected by it?) She drops to her knees regardless--she might not be in the right mood for this, but that does nothing to lessen her want for it.

"Feel like being good for me today?" Lex crouches down beside her. "I guess you save all your real acting up for Sylvia, yeah? You're gonna make her jealous..."

He nudges gently at her jaw in a gesture so familiar that lifting her head for him is almost instinctual. Lex laughs, warm and fond, in her ear as he gives Cameron her reward: well-loved leather encircling her neck, and then a band of crushing pressure against her throat as he pulls the collar suffocatingly tight. Just for a moment - just long enough to restrict a single breath - but she is no less acutely aware of the collar's presence when he gives it enough slack to fasten comfortably.

She jumps when he tugs the elastic from her ponytail, startled by the sudden cascade of hair against her bare skin.

"Aw, did I startle you? Sorry!" Lex doesn't sound even remotely sorry, but Cameron loses track of what he's not apologizing for when he hooks a finger through the D-ring on her collar and pulls her in for another kiss. One without teeth, this time, but he need not bite to steal another breath from her.

"Tell me what you need from me." He still has her by the collar, their faces so close that his lips brush the corner of her mouth as he speaks, and he punctuates the order by nipping at her lower lip. It's a hard question to answer under ideal circumstances; asking while he's making himself the center of her attention hardly seems fair.

Fairness

is not one of Lex's more prominent traits, however, and he lacks it almost entirely as a Dom.

Though that's just an observation. She would hardly be on her knees for Lex if she objected.

"I need... a distraction."

Lex does not know her as well as Sylvia does. He will never be able to wreck and then rebuild her as effortlessly as Sylvia can. But he understands well enough that sometimes the world grows too loud to bear, and only something louder can draw her attention away, and very few things can muster up the effort to be louder than Lex.

"I think I can manage that. But what do we say when we want something, pet?"

"Please, Sir. Please - have your way with me."

Being vulgar does not come naturally. She is reasonably sure this is why Lex asks it of her, even when she always sounds more awkward than...

seductive

. But he seems satisfied regardless, making a show of pulling one glove off with his teeth so he can stroke her cheek with the backs of his bare fingers, laughing softly when she leans into the touch. "How can I say no when you ask so nicely?" he teases, rewarding Cameron with a gentle kiss on the cheek before pulling away.

It only takes Lex a few minutes to prepare things to his satisfaction. He turns off the overhead light in favor of the bedside lamp, retrieves some toys from the repurposed shoe rack in the closet, and throws a faux fur blanket with a waterproof lining haphazardly over the bed to protect the covers. Cameron keeps her gaze fixed on her knees, but the proceedings are familiar enough for her to follow by sound alone.

"C'mere," Lex says, from his seat on the edge of the bed.

The striking contrast between the two of them - Lex fully clothed, Cameron wearing nothing but a collar - makes Cameron feel... vulnerable, she supposes, though that feeling is a complicated and often unsettling thing. Vulnerability, after all, was an ever-present theme throughout her childhood, and there are periods from which it is her only memory, the details locked away beyond her reach. And yet it can be a positive experience to allow Lex to make her feel much the same way -

"Hey." Lex's voice cuts through her moment of introspection. "Distracting you is my job right now. Don't get all thinky on me." His smile is the difference between a rebuke and a gentle reminder, one she is grateful to be given. It isn't just for his own sake that Lex wants her fully present. It's what Cameron wants, too. Perhaps that is the difference - that even when he is talking down to her, or inflicting pain, Lex never gives her anything she is not happy to receive. "Now c'mere."

Lex has never made it a rule that Cameron must stay on her knees while the two of them are in a scene. He does not expect her to crawl. But if he will want her on her knees again momentarily - and that seems a reasonable assumption, given how he is seated, legs spread with enough room for Cameron between them... it seems appropriate, and efficient, to remain on the floor.

So she crawls to him of her own volition, and relishes the way something similar to humiliation takes precedence over the countless other things vying for her attention. Similar, but not quite the same; another feeling that should be, but somehow isn't, negative. She always means to revisit that thought later, when there are... fewer distractions.

She never remembers, which she supposes is a testament to Lex and Sylvia's sexual prowess.

"You look so good like that," Lex says as she settles herself between his legs. "On your knees, waiting for me to use you..." He leans down to trace the swell of her lower lip with his thumb. "It's tempting, but I'm not gonna use your pretty little mouth right now - aw, don't look at me like that!" Heat floods Cameron's face at the realization that she is so obviously disappointed. She tries to duck her head and look away, but Lex takes hold of her chin and urges her back up to face him.

"Nuh-uh, sweetheart. Eyes up here."

Cameron knows that carefully non-threatening tone of voice, the softness of his touch, and not only from personal experience. This is how Lex treats skittish animals. How he acclimates them to human contact. It would be insulting - if it weren't every bit as effective on skittish humans.

"Now get the rest of you up here." He offers her a hand, then slides his grip down to grab her wrist, tugging her towards him and off-balance when she's halfway to her feet. She ends up sprawled across Lex's lap and the bed, and a firm hand on the back of her neck, pinning her down, makes it abundantly clear that Lex would like her to stay there. By no means opposed to the implications of this position, she obeys.

"There you go. That's it..." He's using that voice, still, what he says far less important than how he's saying it, and Cameron closes her eyes and tries to relax into what he has implicitly promised her. She has already made the hardest decision of the evening by choosing to submit. There are no more choices to make. She need not think. For the moment, Lex can think, and choose, for himself and Cameron both.

Lex's voice has faded into background noise. The hand on Cameron's back slides down her spine, then breaks contact as the other takes hold of her arm. He pulls it behind her, holds her wrist to the small of her back; she willingly offers him her other wrist before he can reach for it. Leather encircles each wrist in turn, the cuffs a matched set with the collar around her neck, and every bit comfortingly familiar. Cameron tugs at the cuffs once they are securely buckled, reassuring herself that there is no give, that she will not be regaining full use of her hands until Lex allows it.

It's a strange sort of blissful inevitability. She is at Lex's mercy, and there is nothing she can do but accept that. Finally, she can do something that has proven impossible all day and relax.

For a moment - before Lex makes good on the promise implicit in this position, and brings his hand down against her ass.

Not hard, not just yet. It is more of a promise of what's to come than an act in and of itself. The next blow is harder, and almost immediately followed by a matching one on the other side. Then a pause long enough for her to catch the breath he's knocked out of her, just long enough for the initial sharp sting to fade into a tingling warmth.

The next strike feels sharper, laid with careful precision directly over the last. Cameron finds herself tugging against the cuffs as though to reach back and deflect the next blow. Lex laughs at her futile efforts, grabbing her wrists by the chain that connects them and pinning them against her back with his free hand before delivering two smacks in quick succession to the underside of one cheek.

Cameron grits her teeth through the pain, determined not to cry out - well aware that Lex will only take her silence as a challenge. Sure enough, he quickly falls into a brutal rhythm across her ass and upper thighs, one that leaves her with barely enough time to gasp in desperate breaths before he reignites the fire that seems to spread under her skin. And breathing is just about all she can manage. Lex's onslaught leaves no room for coherent thought. It reduces her to raw awareness of the sensory overload he is inflicting upon her.

Cameron makes a very good attempt at staying silent, but eventually she is pushed past that point, and she would find her own gasps and whimpers humiliating were she fully aware of them. Time seems to shift, each pause stretching out into something unbearable - or perhaps Lex really has slowed down, because she finds she has the breath to speak - to beg - and just enough presence of mind to realize what she's saying.

"I -" Finding words at all is a struggle, let alone the right words, and Cameron almost resents being pulled out of that perfect, mindless place by the effort. "Please, Sir, more,

please

..."

The next strike doesn't come. Cameron cannot possibly describe the sound she makes as anything other than a disappointed whimper.

"So greedy." But Lex's voice is affectionate, transforming what could be an insult into something akin to praise. He releases her wrists, uses both hands to massage her flushed and stinging ass. The touch intensifies the sensations so strongly that it almost feels as though his hands are made of fire. "My arm's getting tired!"

"Liar."

"Are you sassing me, pet?"

Of course she is, and Lex knows full well why. But the retaliation she's braced for doesn't come. Lex's hand lands lightly on her shoulder instead, brushes her hair to one side, then cradles the side of her face not pressed into the bed. "You're crying, Cameron," he says, compassionate but not concerned. Even before the words sink in, his tone reassures her that nothing is wrong. That she can stay right where she is, drunk on sensation and only tangentially aware of her surroundings, with only Lex's voice cutting through the fog. "Still good to keep going?"

Now that Lex has drawn her attention back to herself, she notices the prickling discomfort behind her eyes, the way the blanket is damp under her cheek - little, insignificant details that had been utterly drowned out by sensation a hundred times more intense. Details that remain insignificant, she quickly decides. She isn't in more pain than she finds pleasurable, she isn't frightened, and she does not wish for Lex to stop. Whatever has brought her to tears is unimportant, and unworthy of her attention.

"I can -" Cameron cuts herself off, pressing her face into the blanket more to hide her frustration than to do anything about the tears. The right words escape her, and chasing after them tugs her further out of the blissful headspace she isn't ready to leave just yet. Expressing basic concepts should not be this difficult! "I... I want to keep going, Sir. Please--"

It is Lex who cuts her off this time, and that is much more to her liking.

As each new strike lands against already oversensitive skin, Cameron starts to cry in earnest. The sheer relief that comes when she stops trying to hold herself back is every bit as powerful, as overwhelming, as the pain, and she allows herself to be swept up in it until she is aware of nothing else. Until her entire world consists of the agony Lex inflicts, and her reaction to it.

She doesn't know how long she spends sobbing into the blanket, only that by the time she finally stops the pain has reached a point just this side of unbearable. Not more than she can - or wants to - take, not just yet, but close. Close enough that each blow shocks the breath out of her, leaves her writhing in Lex's lap, struggling helplessly against the cuffs digging into her skin.

Please

--her lips form the word, but she doesn't have the breath to make a sound.

Please, please, please

- and just as the pain reaches a peak, when she's on the very edge of begging for mercy instead of more...

He stops, and she is so grateful that Lex somehow knew exactly how far to push her that the tears start anew.

Even muffled by the blanket, her ragged sobs seem almost deafening in the sudden silence. With nothing to fight against she collapses, still and unresisting, as Lex extricates himself from under her boneless weight and kneels on the bed beside her. "You did great, sweetheart," he says, so softly that she feels compelled to quiet herself down so she can hear him. "You took that for me so well..."

As he talks he rubs her back, dragging his hands down from her shoulders to where her bound wrists rest at the base of her spine. The firm pressure is every bit as soothing as his voice, both serving as reassurance that she need not be entirely present just yet. As her tears die down and her breathing steadies out, Lex applies more pressure to the perpetually tense muscles in her shoulders and neck, digging deep enough to make pain bloom there, too. A very different pain, but one equally welcome. The wordless, contented noise Cameron offers in response makes Lex laugh and lean down to kiss the base of her neck, right below the collar. "So easy to please," he teases.

This quiet intimacy could last an hour or a handful of minutes; there isn't room in Cameron's pleasant, endorphin-drunk haze for concepts like time. There is, however, room to sit up and take notice - figuratively speaking - when Lex stops working the tension out of her back and starts raking his nails down either side of her spine.

Cameron has had a background awareness of her arousal, building steadily ever since Lex kissed her in the kitchen, but it suddenly becomes a much higher priority.

"Thought that might get your attention. You didn't think I was done with you yet, did you?"

She hadn't been thinking, full stop. But any desire to talk back leaves her when Lex takes his nails to her back again, this time hard enough to leave long scratches that sting even once he's pulled away. She shifts her hips against the bed, very, very aware now of just how turned on she is. It would be pathetically easy to come just like this, grinding against the bed, helped only by Lex's nails and maybe his teeth - but she doesn't want to.

This is enough, but she wants more.

"Please -" She's said and thought that word so much it hardly seems like a word at all anymore. "Please, Sir, I - I wa

nngh

!"

Lex drags a thumb down one of the scratches, and Cameron's train of thought violently derails, taking the rest of that sentence with it. "Didn't catch that, pet," he says, cheerfully, as though the reason for that isn't his fault in the slightest.

"I want--"

Just half a second to catch her breath, find the right words - but she doesn't want that, not really, and that's why Lex is refusing to give it to her. What she truly wants is to be completely and utterly overwhelmed, blind to everything that isn't Lex, and something in her chest aches with how grateful she is to be given exactly what she's wished for.

"Please fuck me, Sir..."

"Well, if you insist." He ruffles her hair, in strangely gentle contrast to the pain he was so happily inflicting moments before, and slides off the bed. What he doesn't do is give Cameron her hands back, and from the expectant silence that follows she can only assume she's meant to work around this. She has to bite back a pained noise as she sits up and is very firmly reminded of just how thorough Lex was in spanking her. Not an unpleasant reminder, far from it, but an insistent one.

When she's made it to her knees, Lex grabs her hips from behind and pulls, easily manhandling her into the position he wants - kneeling right at the edge of the bed, only Lex's solid presence behind her easing the fear of falling off. She relaxes against his chest, trusting him to hold her up, keep her steady and safe.

"That's right, pet," Lex whispers in her ear. "I've got you." He brings his hands up, tracing a slow path from her hips to her chest. The slightest brush of his fingers against her nipples makes her shudder and keen, so aroused now that every inch of skin seems impossibly sensitive. Sylvia has threatened before to make Cameron come from nipple play alone, or not at all. Right now, such a feat almost seems possible.