You, Me, and the Secret: A Club Stigmata Novella

by Elle Luckett

  The butterflies swirled again, and my heart tripped over itself as I let the words settle and sink in below the surface. Asher was staking a claim on his first night here, and I could hear the curiosity in Thomas’s voice. I wondered idly for a moment whether Asher had given Thomas any information from our history, then chased it away when I realized he was waiting for my response.

  “Yes, Sir. I would be more than willing to accept.”

  Thomas’s hand reached for mine and removed each of the bands that single subs wore. It was up to the Dom who had staked a claim to bide by my limits now. The club’s safe words would always be enforced, but my acceptance of the proposition meant there was trust and understanding between Asher and me.

  “I’ve worried about you over the years,” Thomas said quietly.

  “Me, Sir?”

  “You.” He brushed his thumb over my wrists. “You’ve never done more than agree to scene with anyone who has shown interest before, and even when you played in your favorite playgrounds, you’ve never had this look about you.”

  “What look is that, Sir?”

  “Happiness, content, satisfaction, and pride.” He stopped as he removed the last band. “You could have told me, you know. Asher’s explained your history. About your daughter and his family. The club will protect you if you need it. All you have to do is ask. It’s always been that way, Shauna. You’re a part of this family.”

  I ballooned my cheeks as I tried my best to hold back the threatening tears, but it was useless. Traitorous, fat drops rolled down my cheeks and splashed against the surface.

  “Don’t cry.”

  “Happy tears, Sir. I’m just… thank you for always being my family and being loyal.”

  Thomas gripped my chin in his fingers and tipped my head up so he could meet my eyes. “You’re a good girl, and I’m going to enjoy watching you be happy.”

  “Thank you, Sir.”

  Thomas smiled, then slid the folder he had dropped on the surface toward me. “Let’s make this official.”

  Asher approached as I signed, shaking Thomas’s hand, barely waiting for my boss to step away before hooking his hand around the back of my neck and pulling me over the bar toward him, his kiss rough and claiming.

  “You never do anything in halves, do you, Sir?” I asked against his lips. I was half over the bar, more than aware my rug-burned ass was on display, but I felt nothing but happy.

  “I told you, I’m not wasting time with you. Definitely not in the areas where it’s pointless.”

  “Thank you.”

  “It was pure greed on my part, kitten. Now, I’m putting these cuffs on you. They have my name on them. No running anymore. You’re mine.”

  “Now you have me, Sir, what do you plan on doing with me?”

  Blue flames rose from the depths of his eyes, making my skin pebble and my flimsy underwear dampen. I should have known better than to ask, and as the second cuff was bound around my wrist, all bets were off. Asher the gentleman was gone, and in his place was the man who would take great delight in making me beg, cry, and scream with pain and pleasure.

  Arrangements were made to cover my part of the bar shift. One of the runners took over for me. Most had been trained to do a shift when needed, but I didn’t see any of that go down as Asher pulled me over the bar and I was seated on the surface with him sliding between my legs, level with my chest.

  He brushed his hands over the delicate material at the scooped neck of the satin slip I wore, teasing me because my eyes were now on the erection straining against his pants. On the backward pass, he pressed down on the material until my breasts were framed over the neckline. I shuddered in surprise and excitement as some part of my mind registered everyone in the bar watching him.

  “How long has it been since you put on a public show?”

  I took a moment before answering, my lips pressing together in a line. “Since the last time with you in Gatlinburg,” I confessed, the most profound stirring of pleasure beginning to rise.

  “Don’t you enjoy exhibitionism anymore?”

  I hadn’t thought about it. Not once. I hadn’t put it as a like or dislike in my file, and I hadn’t attempted with any other Dom because I hadn’t wanted to. Hadn’t trusted them enough. The fact that I could feel the excitement burning inside of me now as he touched and coaxed that part of my sexual inclinations told me all I needed to know about whether I trusted him now.

  “Only with you,” I finally responded.

  My response pleased him. I watched with pleasure as his cock twitched against the zipper of his pants, his chest rising, and his breath washing over me like a warm blanket of comfort, making me shiver with excitement. Stepping in closer, Asher dropped his hands to my thighs and slid them under the short satin skirt of the slip, gripping the crease between my hip and thigh before he tugged me closer to the edge. Closer to him. His thumbs slid down to the bare skin of my folds and eased them apart, while his elbows nudged my thighs as a suggestion. My mind conformed to his will, my legs spreading wide for him as the air began to cool the aroused dampness between my thighs.

  Shuddering again, I watched my body rise and fall with nervous breaths of excitement. It had been so long since that freedom of handing over the reins to someone else with full comfort and confidence had settled inside of me, I’d forgotten what this felt like. I’d also forgotten how easily Asher pulled me into a bubble with him while gently reminding me we weren’t alone. How much I longed and wanted it all. Asher read my needs and fed them as well as he fed his own. He always had.

  “You’re still sensitive from last night.”

  “And this morning, Sir,” I mused, allowing the memory of my wake up from him to heat my blood.

  “And this morning,” he echoed, stepping back to admire his work. He trailed his hands back down my legs until the tips of his fingers rested against my trembling knees. “Tell me your safe words.”

  “Red, Sir.”

  “No, yellow?”

  “Not with you, Sir.”

  He dropped his right hand and palmed his erection, sensing him watching my reaction. “You just keep pleasing me, kitten. Have your limits changed?”

  The verbal reward hit its mark and felt like a gentle finger of reassurance stroking my soul. I wanted to please him, and I bathed in the knowledge that I had. It was the push and pull of this delicious partnership we had. The craving and giving and taking until every part of us were sated.

  I considered the question even as he opened his bag that he’d left on the stool. With his gentle attention no longer on me, awareness eased around the comforting safety net he’d built. I was exposed to the room, my pussy on display like a storefront for anyone walking by. I could feel the flush heating my cheeks, and my arousal amplified. How many had still been in the bar when he’d hauled me to him? I could feel eyes on me, dancing over my flesh, warming me, and I grew more aroused and wet for all of them. The exposure was a distraction from him. He allowed it for a while, although a pinch to my labia drew me back from the exhilarating sense of an audience and gave Asher my full attention, once again.

  “You’re like a plant that needs the sun, aren’t you? You’re starving for the attention.” My eyes flickered to his face and found amusement as he studied me. “Limits, have they changed?”

  “No, Sir.” My shoulder twitched in eagerness. My body was so alive now. Like every follicle of hair was wired to an electrical pulse and buzzed through me. I couldn’t keep myself inert while he drew out the slow torture of leaving what was coming next unknown. Asher was reading me, feeding me what he wanted while satisfying his own needs and desires. That they aligned so perfectly was the symmetry of us. That synchronicity had scared me before last night. Hell, it had terrified me when I’d seen him walking into the club with Thomas, determination written on his features. He knew me. Even after seven years apart, he understood who I was and what I needed.

  My answer to whether my limits had changed determined what toy he pulled from
his bag. I wasn’t sure what the other option had been, but my body broke into full trembles as my flesh pebbled at the sight of the leather straps separated in the middle of each with silver rings and labia clamps.

  I remembered these contraptions well from when he had taken me to a little supply store in South Carolina. If I felt exposed now, it was nothing compared to what he had planned for me.

  “Is that excitement or fear?”

  I didn’t have to think much about my answer. It was just forming the words around the ball of emotions that proved difficult.

  “Both, Sir.”

  Asher draped the straps over my thigh nearest to him and smiled in a way I hadn’t seen since he’d bound me that last time we’d had together. The smile that rolled into one curl of his lips was pleasure, control, a small thread of sadism and predatory desire. The sight of it forced the last vestiges of restraint I’d held into his hands.

  Just like that, I handed him all of my control and gave him free rein.

  It was right.

  It felt good.

  I was finally alive.

  Asher saw the exchange, and the gain ignited a fire inside of him. The baby blue of his eyes was suddenly so dark and bewitching that I fell into the depths of them, even when I should have dropped my gaze. I struggled to avert my eyes, but I was helpless, locked into place, my lungs screaming for air as I held my breath at the sight of him in all of his indomitable glory. This version of the man had no vulnerability. He was sure, in control and comfortable in his own skin. The sight of his confidence made my brain a foggy quagmire that I couldn’t entirely navigate anymore. Lust, trust, and love all gathered together and fell at his feet.

  “I’m going to work slowly, kitten, but you still need to breathe.”

  I sucked in a breath like he’d commanded it. Then found the rhythm again when he nodded his approval. It was more panting than breathing now, but it was all I had to offer. When the swamp began to clear, I remembered myself and dropped my eyes, regretting the loss of reassurances he’d been feeding me.

  “Do you remember how these work?” He picked up one of the straps and trailed the clamps up over the mound of my pussy. I followed the path with my eyes, hypnotized until he tapped just above my clitoris.

  “Yes, Sir.”

  There was no forgetting those bastards.

  “These clamps are new. They have pressure control.” He held the end in his hand closer to me so I could see them. He’d always told me that things were less intimidating when they were explained. I wasn’t sure I agreed. “I switched them out for screw clamps, so I’m going to need you to tell me if it’s too much.”

  I nodded. Words failed me as a murmur from the gathering crowd eased in around the edges, and extra eyes broke through the bubble he’d created around us. His straps were making this interesting to those watching.

  Always in control, Asher stroked and petted me gently, his fingers finding their way between my folds to stroke a lazy circle around my clitoris until there was only him and me again. He circled to tease, flicked to stimulate, and pressed to pleasure, while my body coiled like a spring at his command. My desire was molten steel, rising and burning a path until I was bowed on my elbows, my head falling back between my shoulders, and my heels now propped on the edge of the bar offering every part of me to him as I silently implored for more. He slowed his ministrations before my climax made me beg, and his fingers were replaced by the chilled rubber pad of the clamp around the sensitive flesh of my folds. Asher worked quickly, efficiently, and screwed the clamp tighter and tighter into my flesh, the pressure building until a lick of pain introduced itself and made my legs slip from the bar’s surface.

  “Sir,” I said in a moan, and he rewarded me with one finger slipping inside me, curling gently. My hips bucked at the rush of pleasure as he stroked, the pain eaten with the rising pleasure of his fingers. He led me to an invisible line in the sand, teased me until my body liquified under his touch, and stopped just as suddenly as he’d begun, a strangled whimper falling from my lips in protest.

  “Patience. We haven’t started yet.”

  Asher pulled my leg to him as he wound the leather around the back then began tightening the second clamp further down my labia, tugging the flesh farther to the side as he released it again. The grunt of limitations against my flesh meant he rewarded me once more. Two fingers slid inside my wet heat this time, stroking and teasing as he drew me to the edge of pleasure, a sensation that was accompanied by the gentle sting of pain constantly reminding me he was in charge. Luring all of my focus to his hands, he worked diligently, rewarding me as he set the second strap, leaving my intimacy wide open to him and the room beyond.

  Asher tested the straps, his hands sliding to the inside of my thighs and pushing gently until the clamps grew tighter, more painful, and exposed me further.

  My unintended whimpers brought a ghost of a smile to his mouth, where it had been a concentrated line only moments before. I’d been studying those lips, watching every twitch of them as he worked, and now I wanted them on me.

  In a test of the little power I had left, I twitched my legs and moaned when the movement spread me farther apart. I was punished for my insubordination. It came as a pinch to the raw skin of the forgotten burns on my ass.

  “Fuck.” The word slipped from my lips when my legs jerked the straps, and my whole world went hazy with raw pain. He wasn’t touching me, so there was no pleasure to counter it. Agony curled around me in a delicious promise that I’d forgotten I enjoyed and settled into the heart of me to wait for more.

  “I plan on getting there, but you’re so pretty spread out like this, kitten.” Asher pinched my clit, and my elbows collapsed from below me, reminding me where I was currently laid out for him. “You’re also responsive.”

  I was with him.

  I was responsive to him because no one else could ever have navigated my body this way this quickly. He still had the buttons of my pleasure points memorized. He knew where to press and when to get the reaction he wanted from me.

  Asher Morris had my limits memorized like a treasure map. He had my trust tucked away in his pocket, and he once again held my heart in the palm of his hand.

  I was helpless against him. Fighting any of it was pointless.

  “Wrists.”

  Flat on my back, my head now hanging over the bar, I held my wrists out to him without question. I chirped when he attached the cuffs to the rings on the straps wound around my thighs because it limited my actions even further. Any movement my arms made would add to the pressure on my labia and expose me further. Heat rushed over me in acknowledgment of this and tightened my muscles. He wasn’t starting our reunion out slowly. He was dropping me into a boiling pot, understanding I was already malleable to his will.

  “Jesus, you’re beautiful,” he purred. The words washed over me, through me, and into me. They were almost as powerful as his touch. I was so lost that I hadn’t seen him reach into his bag. I hadn’t seen him pull out the lube he was now drizzling over my ass, or the anal plug he’d set down on the bar by my hip. I wasn’t sure if I should have been surprised by the sight of an aquamarine gemstone at the hilt of the plug, or that he’d have the foresight to remember my birthstone, but I was flattered, that buzz of slow-burning love growing in my chest like moss on a stone. This kind of gesture was pure intimacy in a scene designed for exhibitionism—another one of his many superpowers.

  “Relax,” he commanded, pulling me back to him. The words echoed as his two fingers worked the lube between the cheeks of my ass and circled my anus. I barely had a second to think before he penetrated the circle of muscle and stole my breath.

  The stretch had my arms twitching, and my legs sliding. My pussy became an inferno of pain, drawing my attention away from my ass to the pressure on my labia’s flesh. I became so focused on keeping my body still that his fingers were to the knuckles, and my breath was sawing out of me before I realized he’d moved. The full sensation in my ass
made me want to squirm, but I was a fast learner, my body was bound, and I would only create more pain if I reacted.

  I was consumed by him in those moments. The pleasure meeting the pain and crashing together to become one. I could feel the wetness of my arousal chilling as it left my body and added to the lubricant he’d been using. He took his time and fucked my ass slowly with his fingers, stretching, spreading them farther apart before adding another finger to the mix to ready me for the monstrosity next to my hip. My last anal play had also been with Asher, so the renewed sensations hurt almost as much as they pleasured. I had no room to shift or adjust, so my complaints came in moans and the gentle beginnings of pleading. My head rolled and felt heavy as I lifted to look down between my thighs, where he kept the pace of his fingers steady.

  There was no rushing the process. Asher read my body as though he was fluent, and the fingers of his other hand forked around my exposed clit when the cries of pleasure tilted toward erotic pain. There wasn’t a part of my body that didn’t feel like an exposed nerve. From his breath on my legs to the soft brush of cotton from his shirt, I felt everything. The satin draped over my ribs was like sandpaper against my overheated skin, and my craving began to feel like torture.

  “Good girl,” Asher purred, because he wouldn’t be rushed. Only when he was ready did he remove his fingers and replace them with the steel plug’s cold, blunt curve. It stretched me, much further than his fingers had, and the pressure was almost too much.

  “Sir…” My words trailed off, and the swirling sensations ate any thoughts I had left in my head.

  The farther he worked it into my body, the more the bulbous plug became an erotic pain that bowed my body from the surface below. The tugging of the movements forced me to cry out as the flesh of my pussy stretched wide. The pain was intense, almost too much until he finally added pleasure with the stroke of his thumbnail over my aching unhooded clit.

  “Come for me, kitten.”