Master's Flame (Cirque Masters)

by Joseph, Annabel

  “When you try to kill yourself in my goddamn dungeon, it becomes my business,” he said, wrapping a blanket around her. “Now shut your fucking mouth before I’m tempted to whip you some more.”

  *** *** ***

  Valentina lay nude, face-down, on a poster bed in a half-lit, white-painted room. An identical bed stood in stark relief against the opposite wall. Besides the four tall posts making up the frames, both beds were enclosed on three sides—and on top—with iron bars.

  Cages. These weren’t beds. They were cages.

  No, they were beds. She was going mad, even madder than she’d been when she’d incited Jake and Damon into scening with her in the back room. She’d been hurting and she’d wanted to hurt worse, and now she hurt so bad she almost couldn’t draw breath. She felt empty, like some vast hole had opened inside her that could never be healed. She hated when she got this way, when she did dangerous, impulsive things because she didn’t have a name for the emotions inside her, or any way to control them as they swarmed in her brain.

  Look, Mr. Lemaitre had thundered as he held her in his bathroom. Look what you’ve done to yourself. Horrible, garish cuts and welts covered her from her shoulders to her ass and hips, and even to the backs of her thighs. It hadn’t seemed like so much in the moment but now it looked awful. There would be bruises, he said, and then he’d said a lot of other very cruel things. He’d stood with her in his white-granite guest room shower and washed off the blood, and lectured her until tears mixed with the water coursing down her cheeks. You don’t even know them, he’d said. They are nothing to you. How can you give this much of yourself to them?

  He didn’t understand. He didn’t understand that she’d been giving herself to him, not them.

  But that only went to show how crazy she was. She’d wanted his attention, perhaps his regret. Even his anger. Well, she had that. She wanted Mr. Lemaitre but he didn’t want her, and she didn’t know how to process that, how to get over it.

  She winced as his fingertips salved a cut on her shoulder blade, and knew she needed to say true things to him. It was the only way to reverse this horrible slide and make up for her mistakes, so when the first truth came to her she spoke it aloud in the oppressive silence. “If I could go back in time, I wouldn’t do it again.”

  He moved from her shoulder blade to a cut on the tender skin near her spine. “I’m glad to hear that.” His voice was tight, dripping with something like sarcasm, but not the roar of disapproval it had been before.

  “It’s just... My brain... When I start to feel—”

  “If you are going to make more excuses, save them.”

  She fell silent, biting her lip. “Monsieur—”

  “I don’t want to hear excuses. I need to understand what’s driving this behavior of yours. I need to know how to stop it, because it can’t continue.”

  “My grandmother said I had il Diavolo inside me. How do you say it? Diablo?”

  “The devil,” he murmured. “What a lazy excuse.”

  She sighed and turned her face into the pillow. It smelled faintly of lavender but it wasn’t girly. It smelled fresh and crisp, like the towels he’d dried her with, like the pristine white robe he’d shrugged into. Like him. His house, what she’d caught of it as he dragged her to this room, was also very crisp, with no color, no clutter. It was so unlike her own place, trashed with the various detritus she compulsively collected. What would it be like to let go of all that and stay in this plain white room, in this cage bed, forever? She started to cry. She knew why she wanted him. She wanted control, and he could control her. Not forever. He wasn’t a man to stay with a slave forever, but he could teach her to balance her behavior, to think first. To wait before she acted impulsively.

  “I need you,” she mouthed against the pillow, too softly for him to hear.

  “What?”

  She curled her hands into fists as he moved to her buttocks, rubbing the warmed medicine into her cuts. His fingers were as strong and masterful as the rest of him. Her pussy reacted with a tingling warmth, even in her misery and pain. She pressed one of her fists into her eyes to smear away the tears.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t know how else to get your attention.”

  His fingers stopped still. “You did this to get my attention? You risked your life and endured this abuse to get my attention?”

  “Mr. Lemaitre—”

  “If you needed my attention, you could have come to my office as I said. You could have sent me an email.” He massaged salve into a smarting cut on the back of her thighs. “I am available to my performers. You need only ask for an appointment.”

  “You know that’s not the type of attention I’m talking about. It’s not the attention I need.”

  “You need. It’s all about your needs, isn’t it?” Again, she caught the scent of heat and clean lavender. His robe was stark white against his tan, furred chest. She tried to turn to him but he stopped her with a hand on her back. “No. Give the cream a moment to absorb before you roll over and smear it everywhere.”

  That hand holding her still...it was everything she wanted. Control. Protection.

  “I want to be yours, Mr. Lemaitre,” she cried. “I want to be yours so badly.”

  “Do you? I never would have guessed.”

  She twisted to meet his eyes. “Don’t mock me. Don’t laugh at me, please. It’s the truth, and it’s killing me that you don’t want me.”

  “You mustn’t mock me,” he replied, the thunder back in his voice. “You don’t want to be mine. You haven’t the first idea about submission. You want a thrill, an experience. You want me to fuck you until you get your rocks off. You want the adrenaline rush.”

  “No. Yes.” She sighed, following him with her gaze as he went to the bathroom to wash his hands. “I want you to use me and control me, like you did with your slaves. I want your power, your possession.”

  “You want my cock, because you’re a nymphomaniac with poor impulse control.”

  “That’s not true.” She lay back down. “Well, it is true, but there’s so much more than that in my heart.” Her voice roughened in her frustration. “You won’t even try to understand what I’m feeling.”

  “I don’t think you understand what you’re feeling.” He returned and sat in the chair beside her, looking over her whip-marked body. “This is an ill-fated attraction, Valentina. How can I make it stop?”

  Oh, those words hurt her. She had to make him see... “Make love to me. Just once,” she begged. “Touch me just once so I can know the feeling of your...your magic.”

  “My magic?” He shook his head. “Jason’s right. You don’t live in the real world.” He stood and paced away from her.

  “Mr. Lemaitre, I would give anything to belong to you.”

  He turned back, holding up a finger. “Don’t. Don’t say you would give anything, especially to someone like me, because I’ll take you up on that offer and you won’t like it.”

  “I would like it. I’d do anything for you. Anything, anything, anything.” She yelled the word at him, her heart pounding. “You know how I feel, I know you do. I only have this one life and I want to experience everything I desire.”

  “Everything you desire?”

  “Yes, and you are keeping me from doing it.”

  “And you need this to be fulfilled in life? You need to be mine? To be taken by me, used by me? Possessed by me, as you so dramatically put it?”

  “Yes,” she cried. “That’s what I need.”

  He crossed his arms over his chest. “What will you offer that I need? What will I get out of this possession, besides a recurrent headache?”

  Valentina’s face flushed red, because she hadn’t once, not once, considered his side of things.

  “Ah, but you see, my dear, that’s the rub,” he said quietly. “I’m not a service top. I take slaves for my pleasure, not theirs. I have less than no interest in your needs, Valentina, except as they intersect with what I desire.
”

  She swallowed hard. “Well...what do you desire?”

  His piercing gaze transformed from something reproachful to something more speculative. It scared her a little, the assessment in his expression.

  “I think you’re a selfish hedonist who wants what she wants,” he said. “That’s not slavery, you know. It isn’t even power exchange. It’s topping from the bottom and I don’t tolerate it in those I ‘possess.’”

  Valentina tried not to be distracted by the growing tent in his robe. “You...you would have to teach me to be better. I need control.”

  “You would have to. I need. You’re still not listening, Valentina,” he said, coming back to the bed. “The only one having their needs met in a relationship between us would be me.”

  There had to be some flaw in his thinking, because she was sure he would meet her needs. His mastery would fulfill her as nothing ever had. “What can I give you?” she asked. “How can I prove that I’ll do anything for you?”

  “There you go with the ‘I’ll do anything’ again.”

  “Mr. Lemaitre, please! What can I offer that would satisfy your desires? What would make it worthwhile for you?”

  Again, that slow, almost threatening gaze of consideration. His eyes traveled over her, his lips drawn into a contemplative line. “You’ll do anything?”

  “Anything, I swear. There’s nothing you could ask for that I wouldn’t gladly do.”

  The air seemed to grow heavy between them. She knew she was being impulsive again, but she didn’t care. Everything she’d said was true. After a moment, he made a small motion of annoyance. His expression hardened to something like stone.

  “If that’s how you feel,” he said, “then I want a no-limits arrangement. Complete and utter ownership, no holds barred. No negotiation, no contracts, no release clauses. Your body is mine for one month, for whatever I desire.”

  Whatever I desire. The idea excited her so much she could barely breathe, but she forced herself to stop, to clarify his terms. “So I would have no rights in this relationship?”

  “None.”

  “You could do whatever you wanted to me, and I couldn’t stop you? What if you decided you wanted to kill me?”

  “Then I get to kill you. Honestly, the way you perturb me, I would put the odds of a murder at 2 to 1.”

  She decided he was kidding, although he didn’t have the slightest hint of humor in his demeanor. “Do you really want that?” she asked. “You really want...me...for a month? Does that mean...” She could barely say the words. “Does that mean I would become your slave?”

  Some wary expression flitted across his face. His voice was light, almost a whisper, when he answered. “You have been my slave for some time now, haven’t you? You might think on whether it’s what you really want.”

  She didn’t have to think. “I want it. I’m sure of it. Completely sure.”

  “You have no misgivings? No questions to ask?”

  “No. If this is what you want—”

  “Ah, finally, she is thinking about what I want,” he said to the ceiling. “Perhaps there is hope.” He looked back at her, shifting so the bulge beneath his robe grew even more apparent. “I believe in information, in negotiation, so let me tell you this. You will not be my play slave. You will not be my lover, girlfriend, or funslut. You’ll be my real slave. You’ll do what I say, whatever I say. You’ll put aside any wants, needs, desires, and uncomfortable feelings that get in the way of me getting what I want. You’ll eat what I say, you’ll sleep where I say, you’ll wear what I say, and you’ll submit to every single act I choose to visit upon your body, whether it horrifies you or not. I’ll fuck you when I want, I’ll beat you when I want, and I’ll ignore you when I want. I’ll make you wait for my company until you’re in agony, and then I’ll ignore you some more just because it makes me hard to play with your emotions. I’ll do everything in my power to fuck you up because that’s what brings me pleasure. If you want to belong to me, Valentina, that’s what it entails.”

  Every word out of his mouth made her wetter, not that she understood why. She only knew she wanted to be his, and if that meant giving up everything else, well...it was only for a month. It was twenty-nine days more than she’d ever expected him to give her.

  “I want that.” Three words. She couldn’t come up with any more. There was very little blood left in her brain.

  “I’m going to make you sign something. You’re going to give me your word and your consent, and you’re not going to back out of it. You’re not going to be able to cry, beg, or plead your way out of this if we proceed. This isn’t a game. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, monsieur.”

  “Yes, Master,” he corrected.

  “Yes, Master,” she said, a thrill shivering through her. He was going to do this. He was going to master her, make her his slave. She could barely contain her excitement.

  He blinked at her a moment, then stood. “Don’t move.”

  She lay where she was on her stomach, aroused by the curt command in his voice. He left the room and returned a moment later with a black marker in his hand. It wasn’t the fine-tipped kind. It had a great big cap on a wide, slanted tip. He gestured her over.

  “Stand up. Stand here beside me.” He pointed to the floor at his right.

  She scrambled off the bed to stand where he indicated, and then her mouth dropped open as he put the pen to the pristine white wall between the two beds. In a large, scrawling hand he wrote I belong to Le Maître, along with a beginning date—today’s date, January 15—and an ending date, February 14. With a slash of his arm he made a line.

  “Your full name, ma mignonne,” he said, handing her the marker.

  She paused a moment, turning the pen in her fingers. Did she trust him?

  She put the pen to the smooth, white paint and signed Valentina Maria-Rosa Sancia, and in a fit of whimsy, dotted all three i’s with hearts.

  He met her eyes with a warm smile, and she returned a giddy grin.

  “May I have my pen?” he asked.

  “Yes, Master.”

  He took it from her and capped it, and tossed it on the bed, then turned back to her, shrugging off his robe. He was so perfect, so strong and finely formed. She took in his proud shoulders, his flat abs tapering down to defined pelvic furrows, and his cock... He was so big and thick, that even hard, his cock pulled downward. It bobbed back and forth as he turned to the nightstand beside the bed and yanked it open.

  “Bend over the bed,” he said, drawing out a condom. “Brace yourself on your arms.”

  Yes, oh God. Yes. Finally. She couldn’t wait to have him inside her. All this time she’d dreamed of it, hoped for it. She moved obediently to the bed and bent over it, wincing a little at the sore areas of her back.

  Behind her, he made a tsk of a sound. “Why did they do this to you? Idiots. I won’t be able to mark you for a few more days, until your skin has healed.” He traced a few of the cuts, light whispers of sensation. “I think the medicine’s well enough into your wounds for a good fucking though, eh?”

  “Whatever pleases you, Master,” she said. Yes, that sounded very slavelike and good.

  “I don’t need your agreement,” he snapped. “It was a rhetorical question. Eyes forward. Look down at the bed.”

  Valentina bit her lip, afraid to say anything else, even “Yes, Master.” She heard the rattle of the condom as he unwrapped it, and some other wet sound. Lubricant?

  She felt one hand at her waist. The other nudged between her ass cheeks. Oh. God.

  “Master,” she whispered. “I—”

  “Silence. Not a word. If you can’t be quiet, rest assured I’ll find ways to punish you that don’t involve your back.” His hand left her hip and wrapped in her hair, jerking her head back. She cried out, feeling a rush of fear.

  Don’t hurt me, please. But he was going to hurt her. She’d expected pleasure, like when he’d gone down on her in his dungeon. She’d begged him to f
uck her. Well, she was getting fucked all right, but not in the way she’d fantasized. She keened through her teeth as he pressed his cock to the tight bud of her ass. You’ll submit to every single act I choose to visit upon your body, whether it horrifies you or not.

  Her ass ached at the pressure, the ring refusing to admit him. When he made no forward progress, his hand tightened in her hair. “You asked for this,” he taunted. “Submit to me. If you can endure being bled by a whip with a noose around your neck, you can endure being sodomized by a slightly outsized cock.”

  Slightly? she thought. With the help of copious lube, he slowly pried her open. She braced against the bed and groaned, her hands in fists against the rising agony. At last the head popped in, but it offered no relief. He stopped, letting go of her hair to grasp both her hips. She prepared to scream. If he drove into her she knew it would tear her, perhaps even kill her…

  But he didn’t. Instead he rocked in her, a centimeter forward, a centimeter back as he worked himself inside her. She’d had anal sex before but never with such a large man. She waited for the muscles to relax, to accustom to his girth, but the adjustment never came and he drove deeper and deeper. Her toes curled against the cold floor.

  Finally, she couldn’t bear it. She reached back, twisting to look up at him. “Please, Master.”

  “Please what? You must have realized my attentions came at a price.”

  She sucked in a breath, making little pants. “It hurts. It really...please… I’m trying to submit to you but...it really...hurts.”

  She was lifted and pushed toward the wall, driven by his hands and his cock still buried inside her tender place. He pressed against her back and put a hand on either side of her head, and turned her face so her nose landed on one of the hearts of her name. “You signed that not five minutes ago. Now look at it while I fuck you, and remember you promised to do anything. Relax your goddamned asshole so I can get in.” On the words “relax” and “goddamned” he slapped her flank, sharp, hard cracks that made her cry out.