by Livia Grant
And still they danced, he and Noah. One step at a time, one stroke at a time. Steady as a clock, each carefully counted second punctuated by dual slaps as the floggers conformed to her. It wasn’t about faster; they kept the tempo slow. It wasn’t about harder, either. Her skin turned pink, some marks began to show now, but it was the rosy flush of arousal and the heightened sensitivity of each singing nerve-ending, even as her skin grew numb to it, that Garreth was courting.
Hadlee stifled a moan. It was the music of the bedroom, a sound that usually preceded orgasm and nothing could have been sweeter to his ears.
Except that somewhere out in the audience, outside the shine of the overhead lights to light up his play station while half-blinding him to anything behind it, Garreth thought he heard the gruff snort of muffled laughter. It was a jarring sound, one that threatened to snap him right out of top space. Worse, it had jarred Hadlee too. He saw the flicker of disconnect in her eyes, the blinks of confusion right before her body jerked to the impact of two hard strokes from Noah—shoulder, shoulder with one flogger; butt, butt with the other. The cadence was broken. For the first time, Garreth lost the rhythm, failing even to throw.
Noah noticed, mouthing, What’s wrong?
Garreth had no idea. He glared out at the audience, but he was staring into the lights and that made the faces of those milling out in the shadow outskirts of their scene to watch difficult to make out. Those sitting further back were nothing but outlines in the darkness. He couldn’t find the source of the laughter and the sound did not repeat. Garreth focused on Hadlee again, only to find that Noah had draped his floggers over his shoulders and moved in to wrap both arms around her. His hands caught her hips, massaging and soothing, tracing the faint ripple of the welts raised by both their floggers as they ran up her belly, across her mons and down the front of her blushing thighs.
Hadlee’s eyes were almost closed, but still she looked to Garreth. Her thighs were quivering, so were her arms. Was she aware of how far apart she’d spread her legs? Did she know how desperately she was begging with her eyes for him to touch her there, to run his fingers up into her wetness? That kind of sultry look begged for a response and every inch of Garreth surged to give it to her, to walk right up and grab her by the back of her ponytail, stick his fingers in her mouth and see if she’d treat them like an extension of his cock.
His stirred, that low heated throbbing taking ownership of his belly and tightening his balls. Somebody needed to tell Noah if he was going to grip her like that, then he needed to fuck her that way. That was a front-row view Garreth wouldn’t mind watching, not so long as Hadlee continued to stare at him while Noah did it. Begging with her eyes for him to join them, fucking her in slow synchronization while she made those same noises and gazed on him with those pleasure-heavy eyes.
What are you standing there for? Noah arched his eyebrows, head tipping slightly as his fingers trailed up to brush along the heavy swell of her breasts.
Moving in closer was like walking up to a downed powerline. He could feel the energy of her humming up through his legs and into his hips. His hand tingled when he reached for her, lifting and molding her breast in his palm, gently plucking and tweaking her nipple just to watch her eyes dilate. He should have negotiated this, Garreth thought suddenly, but Hadlee wasn’t saying no. There was nothing on her face or in her eyes that objected to his touch. Her back arched, offering more of herself.
That jarring laugh again. Hadlee tensed, shaken from the eroticism of the moment.
Garreth stepped in closer, as if he could physically put himself between her and the sound. Her eyes locked with his, but she was blinking, confused now because she was falling back out of headspace.
“Not yet.” Garreth tweaked her nipple, giving it a sharp little tug even as he reached down to slide his other hand in between her thighs. She was wet. God, how she was wet.
That stupid, fucking laugh… But no, Garreth suddenly realized. That wasn’t a laugh at all. Someone was oinking.
The gunshot snap of Noah’s snake-whip caught them both by surprise. As fixed as he’d been on Hadlee, Garreth had lost track of Noah. He’d never seen it when the other dom exchanged his floggers for the whip and uncoiled it. But he felt the first sharp impact when it jerked through Hadlee. Noah was good; having watched his demonstrations the night before, Garreth knew he’d only flicked her, probably high up on the shoulder and only with the cracker, but Hadlee sucked air as if she’d just been flayed. Her eyes got huge and that tottering fall out of subspace became a rapid, spiraling descent.
“Not yet,” Garreth told her. “Stay with me, baby.”
She writhed against him, her muscles locking, her throat choking down a mew that sounded more frightened now than impassioned. He caught her clit, but there was desperation on her face and when the second crack of Noah’s whip jolted her in her bonds, he knew it was over.
“Enough, enough!” Garreth lashed a hand back to ward off any more, but Noah had already stopped.
“I’m sorry,” Hadlee whispered, already shaking as the pain unmasked by her failing endorphins began to chew into her. “Get me down, please… I’m so sorry… I can’t…”
They were already moving, in tandem once again, but this time to free her wrists from the hoist. Garreth caught her as Noah unfastened the last strap, and her knees gave out.
“Take her.” In the rawness of that moment, Garreth was so consumed by the proper order of things—end the scene, take care of the sub, aftercare, aftercare, aftercare—that he honestly didn’t think he was feeling anything. It wasn’t until Noah had Hadlee wrapped in a blanket and was leading her off to find a quiet place that Garreth was struck. Fury, absolute fury, hit him like a two-by-four across the skull.
Garreth cleaned up their area. He wiped down the hoist so all Noah had to do was take care of Hadlee. It gave him a few minutes to practice his breathing. In. Out. In again. Calm the fuck down. Don’t hit him, out, even if he smirks. One more time, in. Don’t lose your fucking job over this. Out.
It didn’t work very well. His hands were shaking by the time he finished, but he thought he was in control. But then he turned around and he looked at Ethen, and that smug son-of-a-bitch smiled at him.
Garreth was striding across the room before he realized he was moving. He didn’t have to shove through the crowd. Those who saw him coming parted like the Red Sea and he was the impending wrath of God. That he felt powerful enough to deliver that wrath was the topspace talking, and he knew it. He was still flying on the seductive waves of what had been a great scene, right up until jackass Ethen opened his fucking mouth. The need to plug that gaping hole with his fist was powerful. The only reason it didn’t happen was because someone grabbed him just before he reached the table.
He might have shook out of Terry’s hold, but then someone else grabbed him—a dom from the audience, not necessarily a friend, but a man Garreth was on friendly terms with. He was a good dom, from what Garreth had seen of his past scenes. He was also somewhat shorter than Garreth, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t strong enough to hold on. Between the two of them, they shoved into Garreth’s arms and shoulders, leaning their weight into pushing him back with far more success than he preferred.
“Let it go,” Terry said, teeth gritted with the effort it took not to let Garreth shove out of his grip. “What the hell are you doing, man? You know better than this!”
He did know better too, but all Garreth could see was how much Ethen was loving this. He’d probably love it even more if Garreth did manage to break free. Because if he did, he would punch Ethen dead in his smug, ugly mouth. And then Ethen was going to love it even more, because then he’d happily get Garreth arrested, fired, and then sued down to the very last penny he ever made from now until the day he died.
Garreth was still weighing the pros and cons of whether it would be worth it when Jaxson pushed through the crowd into the middle of the confrontation. He glared at Garreth. The lights in here were dim for a
reason, but they weren’t so dim that he couldn’t see all kinds of warning alive and well in the shadowy eyes of Black Light’s half owner.
“Do I really need to get involved in this?” he asked, first Garreth and then Ethen.
“That depends.” Ethen’s smile grew toothy. “Is someone about to get violent?”
“You interrupted my scene,” Garreth growled back. “The rules in Black Light are very clear. This is your only warning. Do it again and I will have you removed from the premises.”
His confusion as exaggerated as it was fake, Ethen asked, “I interrupted? Pray tell, how did I interrupt your anything when, correct me if I’m wrong, you’re not supposed to be playing tonight any more than I am.”
Jaxson turned on him, a slash of his finger cutting Ethen’s argument in half. “Any dom may ask and receive assistance from any dungeon monitor at any point in time tonight. Those are also in the rules, and it doesn’t matter anyway. You’re not the fucking sheriff of the dungeon. Now, if I have any more problems out of you or anyone else in your party—” His circling finger slashed out to include the silent, absolutely obedient and slightly indignant menagerie. “—then I’ll happily throw you out myself. You want to stay and watch the fun? Then sit down, shut up and behave yourself.”
Grabbing Garreth’s arm, Jaxson dragged him out of the crowd and back toward the stage. It had been a long time since last Garreth had felt like a recalcitrant boy about to receive a good scolding. It rankled him, but he knew better than to do or say anything until they got out of Ethen’s earshot.
“What the hell?” Jaxson both erupted and whispered just as soon as they reached the bottom of the stage stairs. “Tell me my eyes were lying. Tell me you were not about to hit that jerk!”
Grinding his teeth, Garreth struggled to squash the remnants of his anger and, now that he was out of the situation, the fast-rising embarrassment over what his co-workers and the rest of tonight’s participants had just seen filled in. He was an administrator here. He was supposed to be better than that. He sure as hell wasn’t supposed to lose his temper. “He interrupted—”
Jaxson cut through that argument with a steely look. “You aren’t a participant tonight. You’re an admin. Start acting like it.”
His glare held Garreth’s long enough to make sure the warning took. Turning, Jaxson headed back to his table, where he’d been entertaining a small group of investors. He gave Chase a look, and as if on cue, the other man lit up with his usual easy-going smile. He recaptured the audience’s attention as he strolled across the stage to find another couple already waiting at the wheel to take a second spin.
“How was your scene?” he asked, switching his headset microphone back on. “Ready to play again?”
Pride stinging, Garreth looked to his feet. Jaxson was right, he did know better. But at the same time, Ethen had taken his first scene with Hadlee and ruined it. He’d done it deliberately, maliciously, and Garreth would probably never have the chance to make what had just gone cock-up right for her, because what were the odds that he’d ever get the opportunity to play with her again? He could already see Hadlee in the back of his mind, turning away from him with a wince and an excuse the very next time he approached her. A man’s ego could only take so much rejection before he gave up, because when it was all said and done, Garreth was not a predator, or a stalker, or a creep, and he absolutely would not violate Hadlee’s right of consent. She’d suffered enough of that for one lifetime. Nothing else mattered. Not the fact that he’d just had her body under his floggers, her breast in his hand, or his fingers slipping back and forth in the slick wet heat of her folds. Not the fact that she’d been looking right into his eyes when he’d found her clit, circling the sensitive nub of it just to see her thighs quiver and her toes curl against the floor. It didn’t even matter how fiercely Garreth would have given anything to drink the shaky gasp from her lips right as she came, writhing and bucking to the rolling administrations of his fingers.
Literally. Anything.
The only thing that mattered was that Hadlee wasn’t his, not tonight or any other night. He was having a hard-enough time trying to keep that straight in his mind. So, although everything in him ached to go in search of her, to make sure she was all right, and maybe even hold her while she recovered, Garreth already knew he wasn’t going to. No, he was going to find the darkest, most out of the way corner to disappear into. He was going to last out the rest of this miserable event and do his job, making sure no one else caused any trouble and that all the submissives here tonight were safe, not just one. And then, God help him, he was going to go home. Alone. With the phantom smell of her still teasing his nose and the memory of how good it had felt to slip his finger inside her haunting his dreams.
Shoulders as tight as his fists, Garreth turn from the stage and almost ran straight into both Noah and Hadlee. Still wrapped in her blanket, her eyes were red-rimmed and just a little too wet, like she’d been crying. For a half-second or so, he could have sworn he saw her breath hitch, her pulse at the base of her throat flutter, and a touch of pink flush her cheeks. She looked away, folding the blanket that wrapped her that much tighter across her chest. After that, it was hard to tell if he had actually seen all that, or just that he’d wanted to.
“Are you going to recover?” Noah asked. Unlike Ethen, when Noah smiled Garreth could almost believe he meant it.
“Recover?”
“From getting your balls handed to you.” Noah hiked a chin in Jaxson’s direction. “Was it a friendly hand-off or a fuck you sort of situation?”
Folding his arms across his chest, Garreth tried to be offended, but there was just something about the other dom that wouldn’t allow it. “Let’s just say I earned what I got and leave it at that.”
“Ha!” Noah grinned and slapped his shoulder. “I’ll go you one better, mate. Stay right here.”
Garreth made room for him to help Hadlee up the stage steps. “Why?”
Slipping past him up the stairs, Noah flashed him a quick wink. “Because I got me a feeling I might just need your help again.”
Chapter 5
She was such a failure. Hadlee could hardly make herself look at the roulette wheel. The white ball was already in her hand, ready to be dropped as soon as she worked up the courage to let go of it. Then she’d land on something else and probably be a spectacular failure at that too. Please don’t let it land on whipping again. The two spots on her back where the tip of Noah’s snake-whip had caught her were tender enough when nothing touched them, but when she moved just right and the weight of her blanket brushed them, those two spots positively screamed.
“You don’t have to go on,” Chase told her, not unkindly. He’d even turned his headset off first, so her hesitation wasn’t broadcasted throughout the entire room. “No one wants to make you do this.”
“No, I want to.” So do it already, she dared herself. Prove you’ve got the guts.
Her hand shook, fingers enclosing the ball in a sweat-dampened fist.
At her other side, Noah shifted. The warmth of his hand touched the small of her back. Gentle courage offered from a stranger. She closed her eyes and it was only by pretending as hard as she could that it wasn’t Noah at all, but someone else much more preferable, that she finally nodded to Emma to give that wheel a spin.
The sweat of her palm and her own traitorous trembling made her ball-drop a clumsy affair. It immediately bounced right back out of the roulette wheel. Chase caught it out of mid-air.
Her face burned so badly and those in the audience who happened to be watching just then laughed. She was so mortified, she was barely aware of the joke Chase told before handing the ball back to her.
“You’re doing just fine,” was the whisper she latched all her attention on. And though it came in the guise of Noah’s lighter tone and foreign accent, it wasn’t him that she wanted to believe was talking to her. “It’ll be all right. You know who’s looking out for you, luv. You’ve got this.”
She did know, too. She could feel Garreth’s hungry stare burning a hole right through her, just like she could still feel the wandering caress of his fingers as they’d glided in between her thighs—and she could still hear his whispered command, “Stay with me, baby.”
Hadlee watched the wheel spin again. This time, she managed to drop the ball gently and steadily, and around and around it whirled. The tick of the spokes gradually slowed the wheel until—plop!—for the second time tonight, her fate was sealed.
“Food play!” Chase announced, turning from her to the audience.
“Problem,” Noah called, raising a halting finger. His smile was ever charming as he recaptured Chase’s attention, but even Hadlee could tell he didn’t necessarily meant it. “While I do have a granola bar in my bag, I shudder to think what you’ll be wanting me to do with it. Nor do I think it’ll last the duration of half an hour. In short, I’ve not the equipment for this sort of scene.”
“Black Light has you covered,” Chase replied. Laughing into his mic, he called back to the bar, “Ling, bring out the box.”
“The box,” Noah muttered. “You’re an ominous fucker, aren’t you?”
“Only slightly sadistic,” Chase replied, and Hadlee couldn’t help but agree. There was nothing in her but trepidation from the moment, Ling emerged from the back room carrying a medium-sized moving box. She wove through the curious crowd, ducking those daring enough to steal a peek beneath the folded lid flaps. Finally reaching the stage steps, Ling brought the box to Noah, not her.
“Son of a bitch,” Noah said, cracking the lid enough to look inside.
