What Happens After Dark

by Jasmine Haynes

  Opening the fridge, her mother poured a glass of lemonade. “Luke will be thirsty. Why don’t you take this to him?”

  It was impossible to have a truly rational conversation with her mother. Though maybe her mom wasn’t as incapable as her father had always made out.

  Luke was rolling the lawn mower back into the garage.

  “Did you do the backyard, too?” she asked.

  “I’ll wait for the weekend to do that. It’s a lot bigger.”

  Not wanting to tackle it herself, she was grateful. Sweat stained his shirt under the arms, but she liked his scent, clean, not sour. “Mom sent me out with lemonade, and she wants to know if you like lasagna.”

  “I love both.”

  “Homemade, too.”

  “Even better.”

  “Why are you mowing my mother’s lawn on a Monday afternoon? Don’t you have staff meetings or board meetings or something CEOish to do?”

  He trailed a finger down her nose, then caressed her lips with his fingertip. “You were coming home early. I wanted to be here.”

  There was something in his touch that made her tremble. A tenderness. She thought of Marbury and his gruff voice, how the sound of it grated on her nerves. And how different Luke’s was, deep, resonant. When it strummed her nerves, it made them sing.

  Then she thought of the ways a woman could depend on a man that didn’t include money. He had it all. She craved his touch even though she knew craving was bad. She loved the taste of his come even as she knew swallowing was supposed to be revolting. She needed to hear him whisper those naughty words in a voice that drowned out the other times, bad times, when men had called her a slut and worse. There were so many things about sex without marriage that were bad and immoral and wrong, and yet Luke made her want all of them. He even made her want an orgasm. It was the whole wanting-what-was-bad-for-you thing.

  She didn’t say any of that. Instead she told him that her Mom’s lasagna was to-die-for. Her father had actually liked it even if it wasn’t plain old meat and potatoes.

  “WHY DON’T YOU TWO YOUNG PEOPLE GO OUT FOR ICE CREAM? IT feels lovely and warm outside now after all the rain we’ve had.”

  Young people? Mrs. Mason was an anachronism. She couldn’t be much more than sixty-five, but she talked as if she were twenty years older, and she acted as if she’d been born into that generation, too. Over lasagna, Luke learned she’d never worked outside the home, she’d never gone to college, and she’d married Bree’s father right after her high school graduation. They’d been dating for three years, but he was five years older. Which meant he’d been a twenty-year-old man dating a fifteen-year-old girl. Yeah, Luke could do the math.

  If—the big if—Bree’s father had been doing anything to his daughter, he didn’t think the mother could have known. She seemed too . . . motherly.

  He learned other things about the Masons, too, that Bree had been their miracle child, coming after almost ten years of marriage when they thought there would never be any children, et cetera, et cetera. Yet he heard nothing that gave him greater insight into Bree.

  Of course, he could have just asked Bree about her father. Maybe another man would have. But Bree had to be willing to talk; it had to be in her time, not his.

  Mrs. Mason rose from the table and began clearing the dirty plates.

  “I can get it, sweetheart,” she said, waving away her daughter as Bree stood to help. “Go change into something nicer. Luke is waiting for you.”

  Bree flashed an uncertain glance between him and her mom. “I only brought work clothes.”

  He wanted the date her mother was setting up. He didn’t care what Bree was wearing. For his part, the white shirt was dirty after mowing the lawn, and he’d covered the stains with his suit jacket. He might take Bree to his house first. Yeah, good idea. “She looks beautiful wearing what she’s got on.”

  Mrs. Mason smiled, a happy gotcha smile she shot at Bree as if to say see, he likes you in anything. She was an odd duck. He’d expressed his condolences when he arrived, and she’d accepted, then blown them off as if she hadn’t lost her husband only yesterday. He wasn’t quite sure how he’d ended up mowing the lawn for her. Not that it mattered, he was glad to help. But if she was grieving, it was buried so deep not an ounce of emotion showed.

  She waved a hand, shooing them away. “Off you go then. Have fun. I won’t wait up.”

  “I’ll get Bree home safe and sound.” He didn’t say he’d get her home early. He had plans.

  Out in the car, Bree whispered, as if her mother might somehow overhear. “What’s up with that?”

  “Maybe she thought you needed some fun.” He started the engine and backed out of the driveway.

  “She’s pushing me at you.”

  “She elicited an invitation, not the same thing.” In other circumstances, it would have been fine, but it was a little freaky now. Her husband had just died. You’d have thought she’d want the company rather than sending them off.

  “Did you put her up to this date before I got home?”

  He glanced at her. Her nostrils actually flared like an angry animal.

  “I didn’t arrange anything.” He pulled out onto the main road heading toward the freeway. It was still early enough that commuter traffic lingered. “Is she all right?”

  “She’s fine.”

  “I mean about your dad.”

  “I told you she cleaned out all his stuff. She can’t wait to get rid of him.”

  Yeah, Bree was angry, but he couldn’t tell whether it was with him or her mother. Or her dad. “She needs grief counseling,” he said. Bree should consider going with her.

  She gave him a look. He was supposed to be the dom and she the submissive, but there wasn’t an ounce of submission in that gaze. “Why don’t you tell her that?”

  This was a side of Bree he’d never seen before. She didn’t usually show anger so openly. In a strange way, it was almost comforting. To show anger meant she actually trusted him a little. “I’ll talk to her if you want,” he offered, though he knew her answer.

  “She doesn’t talk to anyone. Not even to me.” Like mother, like daughter. “Aren’t you taking me to your house to fuck?” she snapped before he had a chance to add anything.

  Whoa. Something he’d said obviously set her off. “Is that what you want?”

  She glared at him, and that spunky look got him going. He was inexplicably hard and ready. Because this was how he wanted her to be. In charge. Demanding. Fearless.

  “I think you should follow through on all those promises you made,” she said, pulling into her corner of the car.

  He merged into freeway traffic before addressing her. “What promises?”

  “All that phone sex, the stories, how you were going to take me to a sex club, how much you want to see how badly other men want me. Those promises.”

  They weren’t promises; they were fantasies. After the rage he’d experienced over her story about the two doms, he wasn’t so eager to turn fantasy into reality. “I rescued you from the real thing when I took you away from Derek.”

  “Maybe I liked what Derek did to me.”

  He wanted to yank the wheel, pull over to the side of the highway and go at it with her. She excited him even as she pissed him off. Where was all this coming from? Did she really want another man?

  Then he got it like a smack to the head. She was doing exactly the same thing she’d done yesterday morning when she ran to him after her father died. She wanted to goad him into action.

  Maybe she needed a taste of what she was asking for to remind her how bad it had really been with Derek. How much better it was with him. “Fine. You ask for it, you’ll get it.”

  He’d give her a lesson she wouldn’t forget. And neither would he. He was already hard contemplating it.

  19

  SHE’D PISSED HIM OFF. LUKE DIDN’T GET PISSED; HE ONLY FAKED IT. Usually. But this time Bree had pushed. Just like her mother had pushed. And yeah, Bree was pissed
, too.

  Her mom was foisting her off on Luke to assuage her own guilt and to keep herself safe. Yeah, go ahead and take care of Bree. So I don’t have to.

  She was pissed at them both.

  Then she’d gotten Luke’s back up as well. They’d driven in stony silence to his house. He’d actually made her wait in the car as if he didn’t want her inside. Or maybe he’d been afraid of what he’d do to her. The thought had sent an electric shock through her. He wasn’t faking; his anger was real. It both excited and terrified her. These were the sensations she craved, fear as important as thrill.

  He’d returned to the car wearing a tux. “I’m not one of your biker boy freaks,” he’d said when he caught her looking him up and down. “I have more class.”

  He most certainly did. He was gorgeous in black and white against his dark hair and amber eyes. He hadn’t shaved, and a sexy shadow of beard darkened his face.

  He drove them across the Dumbarton Bridge to the East Bay and her small condo. He watched with an eagle eye as she watered her plants, and in her bedroom, he pawed through her closet. Pulling out a hanger, he held it up. “This.”

  He’d chosen a black lace bustier with an underlayer of burgundy satin. Tossing it at her, he continued his rummaging. She undressed without him even looking. Her chest was nothing to speak of, but when she’d done the fastenings all the way to the top, her breasts plumped above the lace edge, her nipples almost peeping over.

  He stroked a skirt in the closet, turned to her, stopped. “You look like the slut you are,” he said. “Ripe for fucking. Are you ready to be given to any man who takes my fancy?”

  Against the bustier, her nipples peaked. She shivered with need. “You’re my master. I have to do what you say.”

  He stepped close, took her chin between his thumb and forefinger. “And you’ll like it as much as you liked it with Derek,” he whispered ominously.

  She hadn’t liked Derek in the end. He abused with no desire or feeling, given her nothing in return except smelly men. She’d wanted the fantasy; Derek had given her brutal reality.

  Luke was different. As her anger ebbed, she prayed he’d give her the fantasy she needed. Not that she really knew exactly what that was. He was her master, however, and he would read her mind, finding it for her, she was sure.

  “I have to do whatever you say, Master,” she repeated.

  His gaze captured her totally. “I might make you suck a big cock until you gag on it.”

  She swallowed. Her heart hammered.

  “I might tie you down and have a man force you.”

  Her skin pebbled though the room wasn’t cold.

  “Then I’ll have you myself in front of the crowd,” he whispered his final threat.

  She thought of gorging on a beautiful cock that tasted like honey, of being tied down while Luke watched a handsome, gray-haired older man take her, force her. Then she could give herself over to her master for her ultimate punishment. It sounded like the things Derek had tried to force her to do, yet it was all made completely exhilarating with Luke. “Yes, Master.” Her voice was almost a whisper.

  His face so close to hers she almost couldn’t make out his features, he said, “Put this on, whore.”

  She quivered beneath his words, his caress, then found it was a skirt when she touched the material. Black, pleated, flared. She held it a moment.

  “No panties. That way I can simply lift the pleats and show you off as I wish.”

  Bree’s heart thumped hard with her need, her thoughts, her fantasies.

  In her lingerie drawer, he unearthed her fishnet thigh-highs as she pulled on the skirt and tossed aside her panties. Moments later, she stood barefoot in the stockings, skirt, and bustier as he circled her.

  “Slut-wear. Perfect. Now we need shoes.”

  He snagged a pair of high heels from the bottom of her closet, which, when she donned them, put her at more than an inch taller than him.

  He stood back to survey her, stroking his chin, then suddenly found her wanting. “Makeup. Lots of it. Whore makeup.”

  He observed from the bathroom doorway as she used dark colors, thick mascara, heavy rouge, and a deep plum-colored lipstick.

  When she turned, he didn’t compliment her. “You’ll do. But it needs one more touch.” He held out a black leather collar studded with brightly colored fake jewels. “Ownership,” he said.

  Derek had bought her the collar. A silver ring dangled from the center of it.

  She fastened it around her neck. “Do you need the leash, Master?”

  She hadn’t minded the collar or the leash when Derek used them on her. She’d only hated his attitude when he yanked on it, pulling her off her feet, or forcing her to her knees to suck something disgusting. He’d only started giving her away when he’d tired of her.

  Had Luke tired? She felt the first frisson of real fear. No. Not yet. He was simply toying with her, because she’d pissed him off.

  “I don’t need a leash,” he said, his voice harsh. “Some dogs are so well trained, all their master has to do is snap his fingers for obedience.”

  The cruel words slammed her. Be careful what you wish for. But she’d asked for this, pushed him to it, and she would see it through.

  That was the problem with Derek. She’d lost control of him. He took her places she didn’t want to go. Until Luke rescued her. Did the rescuer eventually become the abuser?

  In the car, he punished her with silence. A million times in the hour-long drive, she wanted to say, “I changed my mind. This isn’t what I wanted.”

  But she didn’t speak.

  In the six months she’d been with him, Luke had only made their sessions better. He had always surpassed himself. Until finally, in her condo and again on Sunday morning, he’d given her exactly, perfectly, magnificently what she needed. She would trust him to give it to her now. He had a plan. He would make it good. He would wipe out the hours she’d crouched in her mother’s bedroom, touching her father’s things, smelling his cloying scent, filling bag after endless bag with the used-up remains of his life.

  Luke found a spot in a parking garage a few blocks from the seedy club in which he’d first discovered her with Derek. Her hand tucked securely in his, they walked the darkened streets relatively slowly because of her high heels. Still, he didn’t speak beyond the necessities. In the lobby, after he’d paid their couple’s entry fee, he yanked down on the bustier, her nipples popping above the lace edge.

  “They should see something of what they’re going to get.” Surveying her critically, he pinched both buds at once, hard. Electricity buzzed straight to her clitoris. What would make most women cry set her blood singing.

  “There, now they’re tasty and red.” He cocked his head. “Perhaps I should sell you.” He raised his eyes to hers. “How much do you think you’re worth?”

  Her mouth went dry. Derek had tried to sell her. “I don’t know.”

  He merely shrugged, captured her hand in his, opened the lobby’s interior door and climbed the stairs to a place where the only rule was no rules.

  SHE WAS MAGNIFICENT, HER BREASTS SMALL YET PERT, HER NIPPLES red, succulent, inviting. She was worth her weight in gold, more than any man could pay. And she was his.

  Luke had chosen the sleazy club in which he’d first seen her. He had witnessed her debauchery, seen the tear trickling from the corner of her eye. Then Derek the bruiser had slapped it away, and Luke had seen red. When he won the fight, he’d tossed away her collar and leash. Only to find she still wanted to wear both.

  The dog comment had been beneath him, going too far. Yet the depth of his emotion overcame him. He didn’t want normal. He just didn’t want to share. Tonight, she would learn his limits, how far she could push him before he pushed back.

  He abhorred violence against women, even if it was consensual, so he passed the rooms where the walls hung with floggers, paddles, and even hairbrushes. He enjoyed a good hand spanking, but those instruments caused real damag
e to the skin. Though the fare down here was mild compared to the fourth floor of the club, which catered to hardcore BDSM, with cages and rooms that looked like dungeons where submissives were chained to the walls or medieval-style torture contraptions. The third level provided primarily same-sex activity, so he’d chosen the second floor for tonight, mostly hetero sex, but even this level was known for getting wild.

  Relatively early on a Monday night, the hallways were by no means packed. The floor was hardwood, crown molding around the ceilings, the doorjambs ornately carved. Once upon a time, the Victorian had seen a better class of people. Despite his tuxedo, he included himself in that current lesser category, which consisted of men in jeans or leather, ripped T-shirts or bare-chested, and women with collars, leashes, and very little in the way of clothing. Bree was actually more fully dressed than most.

  A young man with spiked pink hair and a nose ring brushed past them. Bree stared wide-eyed at the spectacle as if she hadn’t been here many times before.

  There were, of course, higher quality clientele littered about, men in suits or even elaborate costumes that reminded him of something from the sixties or Austin Powers, and women in formal wear, but those couplings were few. Monday night was not for the regulars who were part of the BDSM lifestyle, and in fact, this club didn’t attract that crowd. It was too low on the ladder for most serious lifestylers. Upscale had not been his intent. He wanted to give Bree another shot of the seedy side, a lesson in what her life could have been but for him.

  He pulled her to a doorway. Inside, several couples engaged in oral sex, the women servicing, the men receiving, sometimes switching partners. He knew, of course, that many men preferred the submissive position, but you couldn’t judge that by tonight’s activities.

  He watched Bree. Her throat worked as she swallowed.

  “Do you want me to drag you in there and force you to your knees for him?” He pointed to a pimply faced kid barely over the age limit for entry, his eyes glassy as a large woman worked her mouth around him.