Dark Master (Dark Masters Book 1)

by Shana Vanterpool

  I smiled excitedly. “We’re going to live together? Like a real couple?”

  “Real?” He kissed the side of my nose. “What’s more real than bruised backsides and a sore pussy?”

  I giggled. “Umm, deep emotional talks and sharing photo albums?”

  He cringed. “Bruised backsides it is.” He gave mine a small tap and rose. “You done eating?”

  “Yes, thank you. It was all so good.”

  “I’m glad you enjoyed it.” He started to clean up, stuffing the empty containers in the trash. “If you don’t need anything else, I suggest you get some sleep. I’ve got essays to grade. I’ll be up in a few hours.”

  “What lesson are you on?” I asked tiredly, slipping below his blankets and sheets. He’d changed them, taking away the signs he left behind taking my virginity.

  “Psychology and science. I still have your A+ paper. It still makes me hard whenever I read it.” He leaned over and kissed my lips deeply for a second. “Sleep, my sweet Miya.”

  He woke me when he crawled into bed that night. I was lying on my stomach to relieve the pressure on my ass and pussy. He tucked me into his body and slept with one hand on my ass cheek, and his head beside mine, slipping under the strands of my hair like a little boy hiding from the world.

  12.

  I was at a 15 pain level the next morning.

  So sore I couldn’t get out of bed. My head was throbbing. My core was worse. My ass felt swollen and enflamed. My back killed me. My stomach muscles too. Even my eyes ached. I turned my head to the side to find a note on the bedside table, a bottle of water, a granola bar, a black box, and more aspirin.

  I grabbed for the letter first.

  Take these, drink your water, and eat the granola while your body absorbs the medicine. I wanted to wait until you got up to leave you, but you slept until after ten and I had to get to the university. Samuel will be over at noon to take care of you.

  Text me. Your new phone (since you’re the only nineteen-year-old in the world not to own a cellphone) is in the box.

  The clock over his TV said it was a little after eleven. I groaned and flopped back down, rising only once to take the medicine and eat my granola.

  Gentle shaking woke me the second time. “Miya?” a familiar voice cooed. “Sore?” he guessed, an amused chuckle in his voice.

  I groaned in response. “The aspirin helped a little.”

  “You should contact Jaxon. He’s being an unpleasant obsessed irritant.” He tapped away at his phone and then put the phone on speaker and left the room. The sound of the bath turned on.

  “Is she okay?” Jax demanded through the line.

  I smiled. “It’s me.”

  A breath of air whooshed through his end. “How do you feel?” His tone was soft butter, melting me.

  “Not good,” I admitted, clenching my eyes shut. “I wish you were here.”

  “Oh, Miya,” he groaned. “I’ll be there tonight. Let Samuel take care of you. Clothed,” he added darkly, making me stifle a giggle with my hand at his jealousy. “Eat and rest. I’ll give you a full body massage before bed. Indulge in my unlimited cable package I pay for but never watch.”

  I’d never enjoyed television, but I promised him I would. His soft “Goodbye,” made my heart tender with ache for him. “Oh, and Miya?”

  “Yes?”

  “Your next call to me will come from your cell. Not his. Is that understood?”

  “Yes, my jealous Jaxon.”

  He hung up with a growl.

  Samuel came in and carried me to the bathroom. He took my clothes off carefully. When he took my panties off and saw the dried blood and my excitement, he sighed in regret. “May I keep these?” Without waiting for an answer, he shoved my panties in his back pocket.

  I shook my head at him and took his help sinking into the tub. The warm baths were the only things keeping me calm. After a long soak, I denied his help, but he wouldn’t listen, ignoring my demands to dress myself.

  “Samuel?”

  He paused in the middle of tying my new black and white polka dot drawstring pajama shorts, and looked up at me on his knees. He’d bought them, pulling off tags and laying them out for me to pick. The other option was a black lace chemise. Obviously, he hadn’t known which mood I’d be in.

  Which made me think even though he was generous and helpful, he may have wanted me in that lace nighty for his eyes only.

  I grabbed and held his face. “Thank you for what you did for me. The scholarship and paying for school. But there’s no way I can let you—”

  He pulled free of my grasp. “You will let me. It’s done. You can’t return to school with your absences this semester anyway. Restart in the fall. You take only what makes you happy. I want you to find yourself.” He rested his chin on my stomach. “And please don’t disrespect my gifts again. You say thank you and appreciate them.”

  My heart fluttered. Absent of his dom role, he was so incredibly sweet. “I’m sorry. I won’t do it again. Thank you. And thank you for my pajamas. They’re lovely.” My cami wasn’t tight, but black smooth and loose. He’d left my panties off, probably on purpose.

  He pressed a kiss to my belly. “You’re welcome, sweetheart. Hungry? Coffee?”

  “Coffee sounds incredible.” I kind of liked him on his knees asking what I wanted. I bent to kiss his lips delicately. “Thank you.”

  I let him carry me downstairs—as if I had a choice—and settled at the kitchen table in Jax’s surprisingly stunning kitchen. He turned on the single-cup coffee maker and made me a mug, topping it off with white chocolate macadamia creamer he pulled from the fridge.

  The rich liquid flooded my system with caffeine and goodness.

  “So, Miya, now that we’re not horny off our asses and can think straight, who are you?” He cracked eggs into a bowl, separating the whites from the yolks.

  I smirked. “I’m nobody. I’d rather know about you. Someone who lives in a beautiful mansion and can pay off your submissives college tuition no problem with a sex dungeon under his house, has got to have a better story than me.”

  He flashed me a devilish grin. “I’m a spoiled brat. My grandfather left me a disgusting amount of money. I got it at eighteen and invested enough to turn the disgusting amount into an obscene amount twice as large. I own businesses as well, making enough so I don’t have to touch what’s growing. But,” he continued, turning on the gas stove. “I wasn’t always spoiled. In fact, I was the opposite for most of my life. I didn’t even know my grandfather. He was on my biological dad’s side and I guess he always knew my old man ran out on me. Maybe he felt guilty, or maybe he had no one else to leave his money too.”

  There was an intense sadness around him. Something told me the opposite of poor was probably a lot worse than he made it sound. “I’ve never known anything different. Money’s kind of something I never really got acquainted with.”

  “How’d you score your scholarship? Other than being smart, obviously.”

  “My high school had a thing for foster kids and underprivileged youth. To qualify, you had to be all alone and smart. I scored A’s across the board.”

  He cooked quietly for a moment, eyes on the pan. “You’re not alone anymore. You have Jaxon and you have me. You turn your intelligence into something that made your pain worth it. On me.”

  I wondered what the rules were for falling for two men at once.

  “Egg whites?” I examined the fluffy whites and wheat toast.

  He shrugged. “My subs typically eat healthy.”

  I dug in anyway, famished beyond belief. I tried to get comfortable, but it was useless. My ass was smarting and my pussy was too tender.

  “Stand.” He sat in my chair once I had and then grabbed my waist and lowered me onto his lap. “Better on your welts?”

  I burrowed into his hold and body, grateful his lap took the pressure off my body. “Yes, thank you.”

  “May I see them when you’re done eating?”

&
nbsp; I didn’t know if that was allowed now. But they were his doing, so I nodded timidly. I ate slowly. A deep sharp burn started in my core, clueing me into the fact that Sam was turning me on. It was his erection and his hands. They skimmed my thighs and legs as his lips kissed my bare shoulder.

  “How long are you off from playing?”

  “Until Monday.”

  “I’m sorry.” He sounded like he really meant it, like he himself was hurting because he couldn’t have me.

  “You’re making me horny. Stop.” I glared at my food, biting my wheat toast roughly. “It’s hurting me.”

  “I think it would do you good to have two masters. Two cocks to keep you fed. I haven’t been able to get you out of my head. I’ve jacked off twice since you left me. I haven’t jacked off since I was a teenager.”

  I growled and tried to push off, but he held me firmly. “I don’t think we should be doing this.”

  “What are we doing? You’re using my lap to protect your sore ass. You’re eating breakfast. You’re in little shorts with your soft kissable neck within my reach. You’re doing this. Not me.”

  That was so backward, I snorted.

  “I bet your cunt is so swollen and soft right now,” he purred, biting at my shoulder. “Take your shorts off for master.”

  No way was I doing that. “I’ll stand and you can see your marks. That’s it.”

  “May I kiss them?”

  I thought about it. “Yes.”

  “Lick them?”

  “Yes.” That was better than giving him access to my pussy right now. He didn’t understand how badly it hurt. Jax did.

  “Finish quickly.”

  I rubbed against his hard on and ate slowly, smiling when he chuckled knowingly in my ear. “You’re lucky I’m not in the mood to own you right now. I’d have you on that table with a wooden spoon on your ass begging your master for release.”

  “What about splinters? That doesn’t sound safe.”

  “You probably deserve splinters in your slutty ass.”

  Uh-oh. I felt his darkness slide over him. I turned around and met his gaze fearfully. “No.”

  He rubbed his nose against mine, eyes bright with darkness. “I’m sorry. You’re right. As punishment, I will think about you non-stop and won’t seek release until Monday, after I know you have. Is that suitable punishment?”

  I wanted a little more trouble. “After you see this.” I rose from his lap and took my shorts off, baring my swollen sexed pussy to him. I was in so much pain with my excitement, I could hardly stand it. But the moment his hands shook and his cock twitched in his jeans, I knew he was in pain too. “Do you want my pussy?”

  He swallowed hard. “Yes, Miya.”

  “What would you do to it first?” I put my shorts back on and reclaimed my spot on his lap, sighing when his arms gripped me.

  Around Jax and Sam, I felt wanted and complete.

  “Punish your clit until it was red and raw. Then I’d tie your legs behind your head and pound into you as deep and rough as I could.” He cupped my breasts roughly through my shirt.

  “You’re sick. Seriously.”

  He chuckled. “Is your clit pulsing?”

  “Yes,” I admitted, knowing the truth got me further in his eyes than a lie. “You like torture.”

  “Perhaps there’s a little sickness in you too. I love torturing. All within your limits, of course.”

  “Why do you like to hurt us?” Jax liked to punish, not hurt the way Sam seemed to. There was a need almost to hurt us for being women, not because we were.

  “Never really dug that deep. To be honest, I don’t want to.”

  My heart seized. “Did something bad happen to you growing up?” It must have, to want to inflict such things onto a body or vice versa. Not that trauma meant you couldn’t enjoy your sex life the way you wanted. Want and lust did things to a person’s brain, and pain made you want them ten times more.

  “Didn’t it to us all?” I felt his lust shatter. He hugged me to him rather than fondled me. “We find our way to this lifestyle out of desperation. But we find ourselves inside of it as well. Why doesn’t matter when you’re sharing your darkness with someone, does it, my sweet girl?”

  I rotated on his lap and sat facing him, bringing him into my arms. We sat that way, holding each other together. “No, my sweet master, it doesn’t.”

  “This lifestyle doesn’t happen all at once. You do one thing, find you like it, and then another. It’s seeking a high every time you’re baring yourself. You took to it so naturally, maybe it was made for you too. And you trust me, which is so incredibly sexy. Baring your cunt to me knowing I’d only look—that hits me right here.” He reached between us to touch his heart.

  I put my hand over his, fearful of what would happen if I let him into a heart that already belonged to Jaxon Damon.

  13.

  “Let’s go into the living room,” he said, wiping his hands off on a kitchen towel after cleaning the breakfast dishes. “The light is better.”

  “I should call Jax.”

  “Go. I’ll be waiting for you.”

  I settled on my stomach on his bed after struggling up. My cell phone was intimidating. I found the power button and called him. He was the only contact in my phone under master.

  “Hell, Miya, what have you been doing?”

  I heard the underlying accusation. His jealousy was so unlike him, so uncontrolled. “Eating breakfast and talking to Sam. He’s tempting me,” I confessed tearfully. “Is that cheating?”

  He surprised me by laughing. “No.”

  “Then what is?” If he acted with another woman the way I did with Sam, I’d be livid.

  “Wanting him more than me.”

  That brought me up short. I was comforted. “That won’t ever happen.”

  “Good,” he breathed, and I heard the deep relief in his admission. “But that doesn’t mean you have to play with him, and if his cock comes anywhere near you, I’m going to slice it off.”

  I cringed at that image. “What are you doing?”

  “Free hour before my last class.” He sounded tired. “Freshmen drain my soul.”

  “Why did you choose teaching over your psychiatry?”

  He took another deep breath. “I needed a break.”

  “From …?”

  “From the pain of others. Which, coincidentally, is why I chose this profession. To combine the science of medicine and the chemicals of the brain to help find a balance that allowed mentally ill people to live normal productive lives.” He snorted. “Vega was my Mistress from seventeen until I graduated college. She insisted I was smart, but I just wanted her to slap me enough until I earned the right to come in her mouth. I wanted pain and I wanted sex. That was it. I didn’t want to think about my future. She harnessed my darkness and taught me to be human. She paid for my college and promised I could have her until the day I graduated with my M.D. degree. I did so. If I got lower than a 4.0 GPA she punished me, severely. She made sure I ate right, slept right and studied. If I didn’t, she made me pay. When I started my residency at 22, I was human again. It was hard to let her go, but I was eager to start dominating on my own. I trained at night at BDSM clubs—which was where I met Samuel. I learned my limits and likes. I know what it takes to be a submissive, Miya. I was one for almost five years. I was your age in the same position. I know what you’re feeling. I know your fears.” He sounded desperate for me to know him. “After my residency, I took a loan from Samuel to start my own practice. I lasted another four years. I couldn’t give advice I myself wasn’t taking. So now I teach others how to become what I am too afraid to be. Responsible for another person’s mental wellbeing.”

  But that’s what he was still. Responsible for my mental, sexual, and emotional wellbeing. I didn’t want to tell him to be something he didn’t trust, but I didn’t like him doubting himself. “What did you want to be other than a psychiatrist?”

  “I didn’t want to be this. Vega tho
ught it would be good for me. Sometimes it’s easier to see in others what you can’t see in yourself. Helping others make sense of their mental torment did help mine, but the thing was, baby, going home every night and spanking and whipping women and then fucking them senseless helped me far more.”

  I heard his torment, the part of him that he didn’t accept so easily like he claimed.

  “If a submissive wants to play, I will give them me. But an innocent woman paying Doctor Damon for advice made me feel like a piece of shit. I felt myself going back to the me I was before Vega. I spent weeks at a time in Samuel’s dungeon before I gave up. I’m better at teaching. It’s easier on me and better for the unsuspecting souls who won’t have to learn anything from me.”

  No, teaching was easier, because then it meant he didn’t have to face himself. His true hurt, the pain that caused him to pass it on to others. It was locked so tightly inside of him, he did everything to ignore it. “Maybe …” I took a deep breath and said it. “Maybe being a part of this lifestyle is doing more damage now that you’re older. In college, it wasn’t a distraction. It was a source of comfort, albeit unconventional. That’s what you are for me, too. You take the chaos inside of me and spin it around in a way that makes sense. In you, I understand myself.”

  His heavy breathing matched mine. We were baring ourselves in a way that did not require pain or sex. It made me yearn for him deep in my soul.

  Maybe I could do that for him. Give him his release, but be here when he got home from work. It wasn’t a façade when it was us. The possibility of never being grounded might be what’s hurting him most.

  “In you, I see my true self. I can be me entirely. Do you know what that does to me? To be so open with another woman? Not even Vega could get me so deeply stuck in my own fucking self.” He chuckled sadly at himself. “I must go. I have class. I should be home around eight tonight. I’m filling in for Developmental Psych. Rumor has it Mrs. Miya has a sore ass and an even sorer virgin pussy.”