by Livia Grant
She wasn’t prepared for the throng of spectators pressing around the stage to take in the festivities. Every path to the exit was blocked. The pounding in her ears grew stronger, making it hard to focus in her panic.
Gabriella knew she had to move. Her chance to escape without making a fool of herself was dwindling. She forced her feet forward towards a small opening in the crowd.
“Excuse me...” she pressed forward. “I’d like through, please.”
She barely made it a few feet before a man in a suit and tie stepped directly in front of her, blocking her forward movement.
“Where do you think you’re going, little lady? The party is that direction,” he nodded towards the stage behind her, his hands on his hips in an authoritative sort of way.
“I need to leave. Get out of my way... please.”
Warm arms tightened around her waist, pulling her back against a hard chest.
“Having second thoughts, Gabby? I thought you came ready to have some fun?” His lips were against her ear in an unexpected intimacy. She wiggled to no avail. His hands slid from her hips across her flat tummy, fully engulfing her in a snug hug meant to immobilize her.
“I’ve changed my mind. I want to go home now,” she argued.
She could feel his warm breath on her neck. So close she felt surrounded by him. His clean, masculine scent. His strong muscles. The low growl of frustration as she wiggled against him for her release.
“I didn’t hear your safeword yet, Gabriella. That means you’re mine for the next three hours.”
“You wanted me to leave!”
“I changed my mind. I’ve decided it could be fun trying to help a spoiled brat grow up a little bit. Of course, being paired with me may not be nearly as much fun as you’d hoped for when you arrived. I don’t plan on being topped from the bottom by a little girl that’s made wrapping my crusty father around her little finger into a sport.”
Ella didn’t hear the end of his rant. She was too distracted by his spoiled brat comment.
She lifted her high-heel, intending to crush his foot again, but he was too fast for her, moving his dress shoe just in time for her to slam her foot against the walkway they were presently blocking.
His right hand unwrapped from her waist like lightning, cracking a hard slap against her right ass cheek before reclaiming its spot around her waist.
“Owie!” she shouted reflexively. In truth, the warmth where his hand had connected with her thin dress had a way of spreading across her entire nether region like a virus.
Connor’s deep chuckle against her hair infuriated her. “You don’t have a clue how far you’re already in over your head, do you, Gabby? I can’t wait to school you on the BDSM lifestyle.”
He had already started to pull her backwards with him towards the stage when she heard her name being called over the PA system.
Chase Cartwright’s cheerful voice drowned out her thumping heart. “I see our last couple is already getting acquainted. By process of elimination, Master Lambert will be paired with Gabriella tonight. It looks like you’re anxious to get started, but we need you make your way back up to the roulette wheel. Let’s see what kink you will be matched with.”
Her struggling was completely ineffective. There was only one way she was getting out of there before they hit the stage.
The word ‘red’ played at the tip of her tongue. She should just say it. Make this failed experiment end. Only the simple word wouldn’t come. She was afraid to examine her inability to speak it too closely.
Her feet left the ground as Connor lifted her, squeezing her even tighter as he climbed the stairs. He didn’t bother putting her down until they were right next to Chase Cartwright, who stood with a shit-eating grin on his face that made her hand itch to reach out and slap it off.
She wiggled to be free of Connor, but he only let her feet hit the floor when Chase’s beautiful brunette submissive arrived next to them, holding a marble out to Gabriella.
“It’s your turn to spin for an activity,” Emma informed her.
Gabriella didn’t take the marble. “I’ve decided to quit.”
The smile slipped from Chase’s face. “That’s a shame. At this point, I’m afraid there is only one way to exit the event.” He paused before adding, “I’ll need your safeword.”
Ella felt the eyes of the entire club on her. Watching. Waiting for her to chicken out. She slammed her eyes closed to block them out as she weighed her options.
There was no way that any of them could understand the gravity of her and Connor being paired together. It was close to incestuous. They had been like brother and sister as kids.
Okay, maybe more like cousins.
Distant cousins.
It was in that moment she became aware of the hard appendage poking her in her back as Connor continued to hold her tight against him. His erection was very un-brother-like. It also served to remind her of just how much they had each changed in their eight years apart.
His lips brushed against her hair. “I dare you to stay, Gabby. You want to act all grown up, but I bet you don’t have what it takes to make it for three hours.” His condescending taunt grated on her.
She wished she could see his face. “What’s in it for me if I stay?” she countered.
“You mean other than a free month’s membership fees?” She heard the mocking laughter in Connor’s smug voice.
“I don’t fucking need a free membership and you know it.”
“Oh, that’s right. Daddy’s allowance would more than cover that, wouldn’t it? I’m just not sure that he’d approve of your joining Black Light.”
“Screw you. It’s not Daddy’s allowance. It’s my inheritance,” she spat under her breath.
“Same thing, both free money you didn’t have to work for.”
She was just about to argue back when Chase interjected, “As riveting as your exchange is, I’m afraid I need to ask Ms. Castle to either safeword or take the marble. The other couples are anxious to get started.”
Gabriella shot him a dirty look, and bit her tongue to keep from sassing him back. The titters of laughter from the crowd reminded her she had a captive audience to her indecision.
Connor finally released her enough to lift his right hand, gently pulling her long hair away from her face to speak softly against her ear. “Don’t quit. Not yet.”
She hated to admit that she was grateful that he was making their continued interaction private. Well as private as they could standing on a stage in front of over a hundred people. “Why should I stay? So you can humiliate me?” she whispered back.
He paused, reflecting before he answered. “I’m not interested in humiliating you, Gabriella.”
“What are you interested in doing then?” she asked, unsure of his changing motives.
“Educating you.”
“Educating me in what?”
He paused before adding quietly, “The lifestyle, I guess. Dominance. Submission...” Several long seconds passed before he added, “Pain. Pleasure,” to his list.
Her already racing pulse spiked at his provocative words, accompanied by his grip growing tighter around her waist, pulling her completely against his hardness. A foreign longing gripped her core. She didn’t have words to describe the ache flipping-flopping her heart. The perfection that was Connor Lambert assaulted her senses completely, making it near impossible to want to ever leave his arms.
Emma moved the marble closer to Gabriella and before she could reflect on her decision too closely, Ella reached out to take the small white ball. Chase gave the wheel a fast spin. The activities were going around so fast, she couldn’t read them until the wheel started to slow down. Once it slowed he prompted her, “You need to drop the ball now.”
Snapping out of her trance, she reached out and dropped the ball into the wheel, watching it bounce around until finally coming to rest in a compartment.
Connor finally released her so he could lean forward to see the result alon
g with her.
She was completely drawing a blank as she read the result, but if the shit-eating grin on both Chase and Connor’s faces counted for anything, she suspected she was in for trouble.
“They have rolled ABDL!” Chase consulted his queue cards and suddenly frowned as he added, “But I see Master Lambert has that listed on his hard limits list. We’ll need to...”
“I’ve changed my mind. I withdraw that from my limits list.” Connor was next to her now and turned to pin her with a glare as he added, “We’ll take that activity.”
ABDL.
Her mind raced back to her research, trying to connect the memories so she wouldn’t have to admit she had absolutely no clue what they had rolled. What if this was worse than knife play?
She barely heard Chase wrapping up the spinning portion and giving the couples their final instructions before everyone on the stage started dispersing. As they were the closest to the front of the stage, couples were pressing in around them. She wasn’t prepared when Connor lifted her into his arms, this time bride-style.
“I can walk!” she argued.
He just grinned at her. “I’m just getting us started a bit early. We need to head to the costume and prop area.”
She gave up fighting for him to put her down and focused instead on remembering her research and what the acronym stood for.
ABDL = All Butts Deserve Love?
No. That was stupid. But the word butts reminded her of a popular A word in BDSM.
ABDL = Anal Back Door Love?
No. She’d seen Anal Play on the wheel. They wouldn’t have it twice.
She hadn’t sorted it out by the time they arrived at the costume room. A beautiful woman with ebony skin greeted them as they arrived at the counter.
“Master Lambert. I put a duffle together ahead of time that’s full of the things someone would need if they landed on ABDL.” She slid the large bag across the flat surface, holding the strap out to Connor who threw the soft-sided case over his shoulder. For a brief second she thought she saw Disney characters all over the bag, but then suspected she’d been seeing things.
“Thanks Jayla. You wouldn’t happen to have any furniture that might be helpful, would you?”
“Oh, of course we do.” She stepped to the doorway of the costume shop so she could look out across the club before pointing in the general direction of the stage they had just come from. “See that raised platform near the entrance to the dungeon? Master Terry will be setting you up there. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised at the quality of the props we have for this activity.”
“Really? I wouldn’t have thought it would be that popular.”
“You’d be surprised. Mr. Cartwright and Mr. Davidson love to use it when Emma has been particularly naughty. I’ve noticed she’s been a very good girl lately trying to avoid it.”
The two of them were carrying on a conversation as if Gabriella wasn’t even there. The more they spoke, the more alarmed she got. She wiggled, trying to extricate herself from his arms, but her struggles only encouraged him to hug her tighter to his torso.
“Connor, let me down! I want to walk!”
In an instant she felt herself lifted up and almost thrown into a sitting position. Her ass came down hard on the wide counter in the cutout window opening next to the doorway of the costume closet. Before she could even speak or catch her breath, he’d leaned in, thrusting his hands into her long hair and yanking her face to face with him.
“Let’s get a few things straight right out of the gate. Starting this minute, I am no longer Connor. I am your Master for the next three hours and as such, you will address me as Master or Sir. But only once you’ve been given speaking privileges again and that won’t happen until after you roll for the next activity since babies can’t talk.”
Her mind raced. No talking? Babies.
“But...” she tried to question him, but he yanked her hair while slamming his other palm across her lips to shush her.
“No speaking. The only word you are allowed until we roll again is the word red. Do you understand?”
Her pulse was pounding in her ears. He hadn’t done anything sexual, so it didn’t make any sense that as he glared into her eyes, waiting for her to agree that she understood, that she felt a wave of wetness spill into her panties as her core spasmed with an almost orgasmic excitement. She didn’t understand what was happening between them, but she felt helpless to stop it. She wasn’t even sure if she wanted to.
They were so close she could feel his warm breath on her cheek. He leaned closer and for a second she thought he was moving in to kiss her, but at the last second, he released her hair and swept her off the counter and back into his arms.
Connor spun and headed them in the direction the costume woman had pointed them. He wove them through the pressing crowd of participants waiting in line for their turn at the costume counter and then through the spectators who were moving around the room to be closer to whatever platform they wanted to observe up close and personal. Through it all, Ella tried not to notice how fucking awesome it felt to be held close.
He climbed the stairs of the platform they had been directed to. She wasn’t happy to find almost all of the surrounding couches, love seats, and chairs already full with observers all anxiously awaiting their arrival. Ella still had no idea of what the hell was about to happen to her so when he laid her down on a leather padded table she was perplexed. Her confusion grew when she tried to stretch out her legs, but her feet jammed against a foot rail at the end of the very short table.
“Fuck, that hurt,” she cursed, pulling her feet back to place them on the table next to her ass, her knees bent and in the air.
She’d expected Connor to caution her not to speak, so was pleasantly surprised when he let her outburst pass. He was leaning towards the floor and from the sound of it, he was rummaging through the duffle bag he’d been given.
Gabriella used his distracted state to glance around the rest of the raised platform. With each item she took in, her anxiety rose another degree.
A bed with rails that looked suspiciously like a crib.
A huge stuffed bear sat in a wooden rocking chair.
A small table that held an assortment of items too small for her to see, well except for the baby bottle that was in the center.
Her attention was jarred back to Connor when he grabbed her chin, forcing her to look up at him as he pressed something against her lips.
Ella pressed her lips together reflexively, struggling to pull her chin out of his grip.
“Open up, Gabby” he demanded. “I can see you need some help with the being silent rule.”
The harder he pressed her, the more she struggled to get free until she finally felt him forcing his fingers against her lips, working to pry her mouth open.
The second he succeeded at getting her lips parted, she felt something hard and plastic filling her mouth. She had no clue what the fuck it was, but it had to be two inches long and at least an inch in diameter. It forced her lips open in an obscene O and pressed her tongue down in an uncomfortable way.
“There now. That should calm you down. Babies always love a pacifier.”
Adult. Baby. Diaper. Lover. ABDL.
It came back to her in a flash and along with the memory of the acronym came memories of adult men and women in diapers on her computer. ‘Babies’ being fed bottles and baby food. Made to pee and, God forbid, poop in diapers before their Mommy or Daddy would clean them up.
This couldn’t be happening to her. Could there be any worse activity to prove to Connor that she was a woman than this one? Why the hell hadn’t she listed this as a hard limit? As realization of what was about to happen settled in on her, Ella knew without a doubt it was time to cry red. Connor had won. She hadn’t even made it ten minutes.
Except as she tried to call out red she realized it was impossible with her mouth full and as she’d been distracted with her revelations, he had used the leather strings atta
ched to the pacifier to wrap behind her head and tie it in a way that would make it impossible for her to spit it out without first untying it.
Panic set in as she fought to sit up. But Connor loomed over her, a mocking smile on his face as he snatched her hands at the wrists. She struggled to free herself with all her strength, but he so easily subdued her that it alarmed her. He pushed her arms up and over her head, stretching her out.
She took advantage of him being at her head to use her legs to push her ass off the table and roll to the right, determined to roll herself to freedom. What she hadn’t counted on was the wood rail that stuck up six-inches all along the outside of the table. It was like a baby’s changing table, and the safety rail worked exactly as designed... to keep the baby from rolling off and hurting herself.
Only when Connor stepped away from the table and she found she still couldn’t move her arms did she realize he had just secured her to the table with fleece-lined cuffs buckled to each wrist.
“Now... I think you need to settle down and listen.”
Her “Fuck you,” came out more like, “Fffkk ugh.”
“Tsk tsk. You’re being a naughty baby. I would be a good girl if I were you. Naughty girls get punished.”
He may have immobilized her arms, but her high-heeled shoe turned out to be a nice weapon. Gabriella lifted her left leg and swung it in his direction, catching him off-guard. The spike of her heel connected with his chest and sent him stumbling backwards. She wanted to cheer with victory when he almost fell off the side of the platform into the chuckling crowd.
She realized the error of her ways the second he caught his balance, leveling her with a dangerous glare that sent an unwanted thrill through her body. She pulled at her wrists with all her strength, trying valiantly to free herself before he could get back to her.
He returned at the end of the table, quickly grabbing each of her flailing ankles in his steely grip. She tried to kick free, but he was too strong.
