by Stasia Black
I roll my eyes and grab my chest. “Jesus, I’m dying over here and all you can think about is whether or not I got laid?” The last thing I want to talk about is Miranda. I’m too fucked up about her in my own head to try to be able to make sense of it all in words, especially to Dare, who only sees women in terms of notches on his bed post.
“Basically.” Darren nods. “Now, I gotta know. Were those tits real?”
“Jesus, Dare.” Then I scrunch my forehead. “Wait, how do you even know about her?”
“I stopped by the conference.”
“You hate those things.”
“Not true.” He holds up a finger. “I hate the boring as fuck talks. Now the partying afterward, that I’m all about. But right as I got off the elevator in the lobby from my room, I saw you following her out.”
“You had a room at the hotel that night?”
“Yes. Unlike some people, when I see a woman I want, I’m not afraid to seal the deal.” He scrutinizes me before a smile slowly creeps across his face. “You did it, didn’t you? You dog.” He raises both hands. “Well all I can say is hallelujah, praise Jesus. So all it took was a stacked brunette to finally bring an end to the—what? year long?—dry spell?”
More like six years, not that he ever needs to know. “Shut up, dumbass. And don’t talk about her like that.” Miranda is so much more than he’s making her out to be. Even thinking about her hurts because it just reminds me of all I’ll never have.
“Ooooh,” he draws the word out. “So it’s like that? Has there been a second date? Come on, I tell you everything. In the hotel, I took Rita, this hot as fuck piece of ass from Kent Laboratories, and fucked her brains out in the bathroom. She must do fucking gymnastics, because I had her bent so far over, I swear her—"
“Enough.” I squeeze my eyes shut and put a hand to my temple. “How many times do I have to tell you that I don’t want a play by play of your most recent fuck toy?”
“I figure I’m doing you a favor. You gotta have material for the spank bank somehow, right?”
“I’m done with this conversation,” I start walking for the door.
Darren just laughs behind me. “Never gets old. You make it too easy, brother. And it’s Friday night. Go live a little.”
I roll my eyes but right before I get to the door, I stop, remembering what happened the last time I gave in and lived a little. Miranda, cradling her arm. And that was after we acted out a fantasy of me raping her.
Like father like son.
“Hey,” I swallow down my self-disgust and turn my head back toward Darren, “do you ever miss Chloe?”
Darren’s face sobers instantly and he blinks a couple times, obviously surprised by my non-sequitur. “Yeah, all the time. What makes you ask?”
I shrug and look down.
“Do you ever call her? Or write?”
After that horrific afternoon, I took Chloe straight to a hotel. She was only a few months away from her eighteenth birthday so I kept her hidden away in the hotel until then. Once she turned eighteen, I asked her where she wanted to live. She said Austin, so we bought plane tickets to Texas. I bought her a house there with my portion of my grandfather’s inheritance I’d gotten when I’d turned eighteen.
She doesn’t do social media so I can’t look in on her. But I try to imagine her happy. Even though I know it’s probably a fucking lie. After all she went through… for years… To this day, I don’t know how many years my father sexually abused her.
Darren looks toward the window. “I tried. In the beginning.”
I gave him her number and email right after she moved. I figured she should have some tie to the only part of her family that wasn’t fucked up. Or that wasn’t me. If there was one gift I could give my sister after all she went through, it was never having to see my face again.
I look exactly like my father.
Sometimes when I look in the mirror in the morning I feel a rush of rage and self-hatred so violent that I’ve broken at least two mirrors by punching them.
“Did she talk to you?”
Darren shakes his head. “It just went to voicemail. She never opened my emails, either.”
I swallow and nod. “She needed a clean break.”
“From what?” Darren looks at me and takes a step closer. “Dylan, what happened?”
The cocky, self-assured guy from minutes ago is gone. It’s my little brother standing in front of me now. The same little brother who would grab hold of my legs and look up at me, eyes wide and scared when I ushered him and Chloe out to the back yard after Dad started yelling and I knew what would follow.
“I know it was something bad,” he says. “Something with Dad. And Chloe. He was never the same after she left and then just months later he had another heart attack when he’d been doing fine for years.” He gets right in my face. “I’m not stupid. I knew what went on in that house. Dad hit her, didn’t he? He hit Chloe and you found out? Then you got her out of there?”
I turn away from him again and he grabs my shoulder in an iron grip, swinging me back around to look at him. “Stop it. I’m not a little kid anymore. You don’t have to protect me.”
“Yes I do!” I shout, shoving him off me. “I do.” I back away, shaking my head. “I do. Believe me, it’s better this way.”
It’s better if he never has that image in his head. So much better if all he has are suspicions that Dad hit Chloe. Jesus if only it had been that. If I can save him from the sick details of what actually happened, then by fuck, I will, no matter the cost.
“I’ll see you on Monday,” I mutter and stride out the door and into the hallway.
Still, his voice carries. “So you’re just going to run away? Dylan.”
Please don’t run.
I squeeze my eyes shut after I punch the down button on the elevator.
I could be your safe place.
She’s wrong. She’s so wrong.
No place is safe.
Because the memories and the monsters?
They follow me wherever I go.
Chapter Nine
MIRANDA
“I don’t need a man anyway,” I shout to be heard above the club music, sloshing margarita over the edge of my cup. It spills down my fingers. “Oh, shit.”
I giggle and slurp the frozen margarita slush that’s slipping down my wrist.
Daniel rolls his eyes and leans in to shout so I can hear him. “You are a mess and you so need a man.”
My mouth drops open as my eyes shoot back to Daniel. “Do not even start with me.”
Daniel just crosses his arms over his chest and lifts one eyebrow like, oh yeah? “Then why are you wearing that little black dress and flashing so much thigh half the club is fucking you with their eyes? Plus, you only drink tequila when you’re hoping to get some.”
“Wha—? I am not.” I jerk down on the hem of my dress. Okay so the dress might be a tad on the teensy side. “And everyone knows Chandelier has the best tasting Margaritas this side of Market street.”
“Uh huh.”
I make a face at him, then look around. “Where’s Irina, anyway? Shouldn’t she be here and, I don’t know, like putting you in chastity or whipping your ass for even looking at these other women?”
Daniel gives a long-suffering sigh. “I wish. I ordered these new specialty silver ball crushers I’ve been wanting to try out with her but she just says she’s been busy all week so we’ve only been able to play over Skype. If I just wanted to shove a dildo up my own ass and spank myself, I wouldn’t need her in the first place. But that shit barely gets me off. It’s fucking ridiculous.”
Daniel is my best friend and one dirty mofo. I’ve watched him scene a few times at The Dungeon. He loves all aspects of being dominated by women. Well, as long as that woman is a serious sadist. Nobody loves pain like my boy Daniel.
I might like to ride the edge, but Daniel has never seen a cliff he doesn’t want to jump off of, and has pushed things so far in bad situations that he’s ended up
in the hospital a couple times. But that’s part of it for him. Trying to push his Dommes past their limits. Which means, really, it’s him that’s not the true sub, not me.
Or maybe it just means we’re both really fucked up in our own delightful ways.
I put a hand on Daniel’s arm. “I’m sorry, babe.”
“Eh, it’ll be fine.” He shrugs it off but I can see he’s still bothered. Daniel’s the kind of guy who bottles things up and if he doesn’t get release regularly, shit can get scary.
We met during one of his brief stints with therapy. It was after everything with Bryce and yeah, I wanted to die.
Daniel and I met in a group for people recovering from domestic abuse. It didn’t feel like exactly the right word for what Bryce had done to me. What I’d let him do to me.
I never spoke up in group.
The stories the others told… they’d been married or in relationships with men who beat and raped them on a regular basis. Some of their partners apologized or bought flowers and were kind to them for a time, but always the violence came back. Most had been to the hospital more than once. One woman’s arm was broken and she couldn’t speak because her jaw had to be wired shut after her husband had broken it.
Their cases seemed so much more… I don’t know, clean cut than mine? With Bryce it was more like—like I’d participated in the abuse, if that makes any sense.
I hated it but I still got off on it. By the end, I started craving it as my world narrowed down to a single focus—pleasing Bryce.
Even though pleasing him was impossible. Bryce was never pleased. Not by me, anyway. Not even by my suffering. I understood in the end that that was what he’d gotten off on all along. He wasn’t capable of caring about anyone besides himself.
The only person in the group who spoke about anything close to what I’d experienced was Daniel.
He was only nineteen and had nothing like the physique he does today. He was rail-thin back then, a recovering addict, and only there because it was part of his court-ordered therapy after he stabbed his uncle in the thigh. He’d been aiming for the groin but his uncle had jumped away at the last second. An uncle who had brutally abused him for years after his mom died.
Daniel fluctuated between a sarcastic fuck-off attitude in therapy and rage-filled outbursts. I liked him immediately.
I approached him and asked him if he wanted to get coffee one night after he’d gone on a ten-minute rant about how he wished he’d killed his uncle instead of just stabbing him in the stupid leg.
Daniel looked me up and down. “What, is this like a sex thing? You want to fuck me cause you get off on sad, fucked up guys? Cause I’m down but only if you know how to swing a paddle.”
“No, I don’t want to—! God, I know you’re an asshole, but maybe turn it off for like five minutes? Or half an hour to come have some damn coffee with me. As a friend,” I emphasized. “No sex. No,” I shuddered, “Paddles.”
He started laughing. Hard. Then pointing at me. “Jesus, you should see the look on your face.”
I grabbed his finger he was pointing at me with and jammed it backwards until he jumped away. “Ow, ow, shit.” Then he grinned at me. “You sure about the paddles? Cause that was a pretty good start.”
I rolled my eyes and called over my shoulder that my invitation would be revoked if he didn’t hurry his ass up.
And that was the start of our beautiful friendship.
“Do you want to dance?” Daniel asks suddenly and stands up. “Cause I don’t want to sit here like two sad shits whining about not having a date.”
I brighten and shove my phone into the side of my bra, then I extend my hand. “Yes. Let’s dance.”
He grins and pulls me onto the dance floor, immediately whirling me into a spin. My giggling shriek is lost in the pounding base of the club beat.
God, how long has it been since I just let loose and had fun?
It feels good not to worry about moody men with enigmatic pasts or to be anxious about keeping secrets of my own. The up-tempo beat slows to a mesmerizing, drumming base that thumps while a woman with an ethereal alto sings over top.
I hold onto Daniel’s shoulders and sway with the music. My eyes fall shut and I lean my head backwards, shaking my long hair until I feel it swish back and forth against my shoulderblades.
The woman’s sonorous, voice draws a long, sensuous note and I roll my head along with her voice, imagining it’s Dylan’s shoulders I’m clinging too, not Daniel’s.
I whip my head back up and lean into his chest.
But the scent is all wrong. And the way he holds me, loosely around my waist.
Dylan always grips me, possessively, riding the edge of pinching. When I’m with Dylan, there’s not a moment I can forget who I’m with.
Which is maybe why the last few days have felt so empty and colorless without him. I drop my forehead to Daniel’s chest and his arms close around me.
“It’s too bad you don’t like beating the shit out of people,” he says into my ear. “You and I would have made the best couple.”
That makes me laugh and pull back. “Two subs together? Yeah, that never would have worked. It’s why we’ve been able to be friends all these years.”
Daniel smiles back. “I know, peanut. But alas, you aren’t a mean enough bitch for me.”
He kisses my forehead and then swings me out again. I squeal with laughter as he yanks me back into his chest. I always do, every time he pulls that move. Probably why he keeps doing it any time we find ourselves on a dance floor together. He loves making me laugh and he always knows when I need it.
He does some fancy jazz moves, dancing around me, completely ignoring the tempo of the music. He grabs my hands and we dance double tempo to the music, laughing and probably pissing off all the couples around us who are looking for a romantic moment.
We dance for another few songs until I grab Daniel’s sleeve and go up on tiptoe so he can hear me over the thumping bass. “I need to go to the restroom.”
“What?” he shouts, holding a hand to his ear.
“I need to pee.”
“Huh?”
“I gotta piss!”
And naturally I shouted that when there was a short lull in the music and everyone around us turns my way.
Daniel just grins like the evil shit he is. I punch him in the shoulder and head for the bathrooms.
I smooth my hair down as I head for the hallway back to the restrooms. Damn, I’m thirsty. I should get some water. And order another margarita while I’m at it because I’m coming down off the nice floaty buzz and I—
What—?
I screech as I’m grabbed and roughly jerked sideways into a dark room. The door to the hallway I’m in slams shut and the next thing I know, I’m shoved face first against a wall.
“You think that’s cute? To rub up against another man like that? To be a fucking cock tease?”
It’s Dylan’s voice.
My eyelids flutter shut as his big, manly hand shoves my little black dress up and palms my ass. Then he smacks it. So hard I cry out.
But it doesn’t matter. The music is so loud in the club, no one can hear me.
“A tease is a promise, slut. And you owe me. You owe me big for that fucking show you were putting on out there.”
The way he shoves his groin into my ass, it’s clear how he means for me to pay up.
Why is he here?
The way he left things, God, I should be bitching him out. Demanding answers. He doesn’t call. He doesn’t text. Then he just shows up here and he has the audacity to be jealous!
Or maybe that’s just part of the act? Has he even thought of me the past three days, when I’ve been a mess over him?
“If I was teasing anyone,” I turn and say over my shoulder, “it was Daniel, not you. Not some fucking creeper hiding in the shadows just watching. I want a real man.”
“This real enough for you?” he growls, shoving me down to the ground. It’s pitch black a
nd as my palms hit the tile floor, the smell of lemon-scented cleaners gets even stronger and—is that a mop bucket my shoulder just bumped into?
I don’t have a chance to reach around to orient myself, though, because he lands on top of me. I cry out when he puts his knee in my back to hold me in place while he rips my panties down.
He shifts and the next second, I feel it, his fat cock shoving between my thighs.
I fight and twist underneath him but he leans over, caging me in.
“You want out, little girl, say the magic word.” His breath is hot on my cheek.
But he knows, he has to know—that’s the last thing in the world that I want. It doesn’t mean I’m going down without a fight, though.
He. Didn’t. Fucking. Call.
All week I’ve been going crazy thinking I was alone in this. Thinking that I’d blown it. I ran over every little thing I did and envisioned doing it differently. Anything to make an outcome where he ended up beside me in my bed when the alarm went off.
But he was, what? Just playing with me? Or maybe he thought I was the one playing. God, the way he found me in the garage with that random guy the first night we met… What if he really thinks I am a whore? That I spread it for anyone who’ll spank me and say yes when I say no?
And tonight here I am, out with Daniel. But he’s just a friend. I don’t care what it looked like. I’m allowed to have friends.
“I am not a whore.” I fight against Dylan’s iron grip.
He reaches his other hand underneath me to lift my stomach up off the ground so that I’m slightly up on my knees.
“Oh yeah?” My entire body shudders when he reaches down, grabs his cock, and teases the head of it up and down my pussy lips. I can’t help clenching and of course, he feels it.
He chuckles darkly.
“If you aren’t a whore, why are you so wet for me? A creepy fucking stranger who was watching you all night?” He realigns his cock at the center of my core. “Or maybe that’s what really gets you off. Imagining the men in the dark corners watching you and getting hard. Every one of them thinking about doing this.”
He shoves into me and I screech. His hand slaps over my mouth. Every one of his moves is brutal. His hand mashes my mouth shut and each jerk of his hips as he fucks me is sharp and vicious.
