Wanting It All (The Passion Series Book 1)

by Livia Grant

  He rolls to his back with a groan, trying to make sense of the situation. Lukus has always prided himself on his control - control over the submissives of the club and even their Doms at the club, control over his successful security business, control over every woman he’s ever been with. Hell, he’s even a pro at controlling himself, a skill that has served him well. He takes pride in being able to control his own emotions, never letting them get in the way when punishing wayward slaves, or protecting people and places guarded by his elite security team.

  The confusion he feels now is unsettling, even if he understands the root cause. For the first time in a very long time, Lukus is feeling guilty. He’d never coerced anyone to join The Punishment Pit before, but that’s exactly what he did to Brianna last night. He blackmailed her. He physically and mentally scared her until he broke her will, and it’s not sitting well with him.

  The irony of the timing is not lost on Lukus. Just yesterday he’s been acquitted of physically forcing two former club subs into degrading and humiliating acts. Throughout the nearly two-year legal ordeal, Lukus had never once felt guilty. He’d done nothing wrong with the two women in question. They were adults who had joined the club with their full-time Doms and had been given the complete details of what membership would entail. For months, they’d enjoyed watching other reluctant subs being punished, but only when it was their turn to be center stage had they called the police, claiming sexual battery and rape.

  Markus had helped him draft the club’s membership contract years before so he was the perfect lawyer to defend his friends when they found themselves facing charges. Lukus had never doubted his innocence, or Markus’ ability to get them acquitted. Markus had quickly gotten the criminal charges dropped and then yesterday had gotten Lukus and Derek a no fault/zero damages verdict on the civil charges.

  Now, not even twenty-four hours later, Lukus feels the weight of the guilt that comes from knowing that he’s truly crossed the ethical line he’s been trying to straddle his entire professional life. But he also knows he needs to push these emotions down deep. His loyalty has to be to his friend Markus. He can’t let the guilt over how he coerced Brianna into signing the contract change anything. His friend wants a quick divorce so he can put his wife’s betrayal behind him. Lukus’ job is clear. He promised to get Markus a quick, uncontested divorce and that’s what he intends to do.

  His resolve fortified, Lukus begins to plot out how he’s going to break Brianna. For all their sakes, he knows the faster she signs the divorce papers the better off they’ll all be. He’d planned on using traditional punishment techniques like spanking, paddling, bondage and whipping, but now that he knows those punishments will actually turn her on, he has to change strategy.

  As much as he dreads it, he knows the next best way to punish someone like Brianna is to layer in humiliation punishments. While humiliation tactics are not what he would ordinarily choose for his friend’s wife, he’s going to have to head that direction if he hopes to wrap things up with Brianna quickly. He reminds himself that she put this into motion by letting her ex-boyfriend fuck her so he really shouldn’t feel any guilt. She has it coming.

  ‘Yeah, right. You keep telling yourself that, sport.’

  Still, he has to wonder why she did it. Before meeting her, he thought Brianna was just a gold-digging bitch after Markus’ money. After watching her carefully last night, his sixth sense tells him it’s not that simple. Lukus remembers that after Markus’ first marriage ended in divorce, his friend had denounced the BDSM lifestyle he’d been living and purposefully married Brianna, someone outside of their circle.

  Lukus had tried not to take it personally that Markus kept him and the entire BDSM lifestyle hidden from his new wife. Considering how close the two men have been since college, it still seems ridiculous that Lukus had never met Brianna until last night. He has to chuckle at the irony of Markus being unaware that the wife he’d worked to protect from his BDSM past was, in fact, a closet submissive.

  He glances at the alarm clock on the night table. Only 5:20am. Way too early to get up. He needs to get some rest. After tossing and turning, Lukus eventually drifts off into a restless sleep.

  e

  Markus hasn’t even tried to sleep. What’s the point? Waking up would just bring with it the renewed pain of losing Brianna. At least fatigue dulls the pain.

  Heavy metal rock music is pounding through the house, his silly attempt at filling the conspicuous emptiness with something, anything, that might keep his mind from hearing the torturous sound of Brianna moaning in ecstasy, begging to be fucked by another man.

  Not just another man… the other man. The same ass-wipe of a man who’d almost put her in the hospital before she’d wised up and kicked him to the curb years before. The same fucking man who’d made Brianna so afraid of rough play that Markus had been willing to walk away from the BDSM lifestyle he’d been living since college rather than risk scaring her away with the type of violence that had been part of her relationship with Jake.

  Surprisingly, he’d found it wasn’t really that hard to turn his back on his old lifestyle to live the life of a gentle, loving husband. Until yesterday, he’d considered meeting her to be the best thing that had happened to him in his entire life.

  He’d been on a destructive path before he met Bri. His first marriage had failed when his dominance over his submissive wife, Georgie, had gone too far. His immature and oversized ego combined with a penchant for punishment play made for a less than stellar Dom - let alone husband - material. He’d love to blame Georgie for walking out, but if truth be told, she did him a favor. He’d needed the wake-up call of her leaving to get his attention.

  Then came Brianna. She was everything good to his bad. She was innocent and young and happy - a breath of fresh air into his dark and dangerous existence. He’d put her on a pedestal and would have given her the world if it were within his power. He’d vowed to make damn sure his dominance didn’t ruin his second chance at love.

  A fresh wave of grief at her washes over him, along with the irony of the situation. He’d married one woman who’d professed to be a submissive, but who eventually left him because he’d been too dominant for her in the end. He’d happily given up the lifestyle when he found a woman who professed to need a gentle, loving relationship and had ended up losing her because he’d been too fucking gentle.

  An audible groan escapes as he leans back in the leather chair and closes his eyes to try to stop the room from spinning. The nearly empty liquor glass shakes precariously in his hand.

  ‘What a fucked up mess.’

  For the hundredth time since he left his wayward wife behind at The Punishment Pit, he begins replaying the last twenty-four hours over in his mind, trying valiantly to see the missed cue of why the love of his life had done the unthinkable. He prides himself on reading people, on seeing clues that others miss. It’s part of what makes him a good trial lawyer. Was he just not paying enough attention, or is Brianna just that good of a fucking liar?

  It never ceases to amaze him just how quickly life can change. In twenty-four short hours he’d gone from the highest of highs to the lowest of lows and almost every emotion in between.

  Yesterday had begun early with a good-luck fuck from Brianna. Knowing she’s the antithesis of a morning person, he’d been touched that she’d set her own alarm to wake up early just to send him off to closing arguments with a smile on his face. His first sensation upon opening his eyes was her mouth on his cock.

  After sucking him close to coming, she’d mounted him, driving his hard tool deep into her wet pussy. Damn, he loved how she’d ridden him so seductively, leaning down often to drape trails of sweet kisses across his chest and into the crook of his neck. She’d known he wouldn’t last long after she’d used both hands to pinch and twist his nipples. Christ, she knew how to light up his body. She’d ridden herself to two orgasms before he finally shot an extra large load of cum deep in her pussy.

  The w
hole day had been too good to be true. He had nailed his closing arguments. He’d known the second he was done speaking that they were going to win. It took the jury less than two hours to come back with their unanimous verdict in his favor. The whole day had been picture perfect, right up until he tried to reach Brianna to share his good news. She always answered his call -always. The fact that she didn’t had set off internal alarm bells.

  Had Lukus not been with him, he might have been tempted to let it go, afraid of what he might find if he dug a bit. But his friend Lukus had had read him like a book. Having already done a full background check on Brianna, Lukus was well aware of Markus’ earlier concerns and it only took a few minutes for Lukus to put two and two together. He only had to make a few calls to change his friend’s life forever.

  Markus knows his friend meant well. And even now, he knows that it’s best to know the truth, as fucked up as the truth may be. But sitting here alone, drunk and broken hearted, it’s tempting to wish he could just forget, or had never known.

  ‘Don’t be such a pussy, Lambert. You’re clearly not husband material.’

  No, his marriage days are over to be sure. His friend Lukus has the right idea. Don’t get tied down. Fuck a different woman every night. Markus has a lifetime membership to The Punishment Pit. He’ll surely be able to find willing submissives who won’t mind a no-strings-attached fuck when he’s in the mood. He can help Lukus punish wayward slaves and take out his frustrations all in one.

  Yes, he’d been a fool to think he could live happily ever after with his beautiful wife. Hell, they’d even been talking about starting a family soon. He feels a new pain at the end of yet another dream, but tells himself that maybe men like him don’t deserve to have it all.

  Finally worn down by his own self-loathing, Markus stumbles to his feet, dropping the now empty glass on the carpeted floor. He trips over the many broken items he vaguely remembers throwing a few hours earlier. The large mirror above the fireplace is shattered and he curses in pain as his bare foot encounters a shard of Brianna’s favorite vase.

  He somehow navigates safely to the guest bath near the kitchen and finds an old prescription bottle of Ambien in the medicine cabinet. More than anything, he needs to shut his brain down, to turn off the memories, both good and bad. Ambien combined with the staggering amount of alcohol in his system should do the trick. He washes the tiny pill down with the last lukewarm swig from a beer he’d left in the bathroom earlier and stops to take a whiz before returning to the great room. He finally collapses facedown onto the leather sofa. Relief finally comes in the form of a drug-induced sleep.

  e

  When Lukus awakes a short hour later, it hits him: the perfect course of action to move Brianna closer to signing the divorce papers as quickly as possible. He isn’t sure why he hadn’t thought of it earlier. He knows it’s still early on a Saturday morning, but after a few minutes of plotting, he reaches for his cell phone to make a call to put things into motion.

  He scrolls through his many contacts until he finds the number for Dr. James Chambers. Hitting SEND, he sits upright on the side of the bed, his morning hard-on jutting out from his muscular body.

  The call is just about to rollover to voicemail when he hears his friend answer. “Lukus, you better have a damn good reason to be calling me at before seven on a Saturday morning.”

  Lukus chuckles. “I missed you too, James.”

  “Fuck you. You know I’ve never been a morning person and this is my day to sleep in. You’d better be at the hospital about to bleed out if you’re calling this early.”

  Lukus can hear a woman’s sleepy voice in the background. “Who is it, sir?”

  He hears his friend answering. “It’s just Master Lukus. Go back to sleep, baby. You should be able to get another hour in before the kids wake up.”

  For Lukus, the short conversation between husband and wife provides a glimpse into his old friend’s happy marriage. The lucky bastard had found himself the perfect submissive while they were still in college. While Markus and Lukus had been having fun playing the field and experimenting with increasingly aggressive sexual encounters, James had been smart enough to marry Mary right after graduation, recognizing he’d found a diamond in the rough.

  She’d proven to be a strong woman, helping to put her husband through medical school and was now raising their two sons while managing to still live as the perfect submissive in private. Their marriage is not just a typical D/s relationship, although they loved to play the whole erotic Master/slave games as much as anyone else who belonged to the club. No, their relationship has another more intimate, deeper layer.

  James and Mary also practice domestic discipline in their marriage. James is the head of their household and Mary defers to him for all major decisions. On the rare occasion she disobeys, her husband disciplines her with a spanking. They rarely come to The Punishment Pit these days, but Lukus always knows Mary has done something really naughty when James brings her in for a punishment session with Lukus. His morning hard-on gets even harder thinking about the last time he’d been able to paddle his friend’s wife’s plump ass to a nice rosy red.

  Lukus has been subconsciously trying to find his own Mary for years. The more time passes, the more he’s come to appreciate how very rare it is to find the perfect mix of strength and submission in a woman. He sees his share of submissive wanna-be’s, but when tested, they’re only half committed.

  Then there are the all-out submissives who are one hundred percent committed to the BDSM lifestyle. He used to think that was the type of woman he needed to make him happy, but after several failed relationships with fulltime submissives, Lukus had to reluctantly acknowledge that he’s bored by women who never challenge him.

  Finding a woman who can master that delicate balance of strength and submission has begun to feel like his own personal mission impossible. As a result, Lukus regularly reminds his friend, James, just how lucky he was to find Mary.

  “Tell Mary I’m sorry for waking her,” Lukus tells his friend. “And let me remind you again what a lucky bastard you are to have her there snuggled up next to you. When we hang up I’m going to be sitting here jacking off my morning woody and you can roll over and get a good-morning fuck from your perfect sub.” He tries not to sound as jealous as he feels.

  “Did you really call me at this un-Godly hour to talk about morning hard-ons? Now that you mention it, I have just enough time to roll my wife over and take her hard before the kids wake up, so why don’t you spit it out so I can hang up?” Lukus can hear his friend’s teasing chuckle as well as a squeal from Mary.

  Lukus takes a deep breath before asking his favor. “I need your help this morning. Can you come in to the club with your bag of goodies?”

  “Sorry, but I don’t have time to come and play doctor today, Lukus. The boys have a soccer game around eleven that I really need to be at. They’re in the playoffs.”

  “James, the soccer dad. Who’d have thought you’d turn into the model husband and father after living the life of the deviant doctor for so many years?” Lukus knows how to push his friend’s buttons. He knows as happy as James is, he’s still feeling self-conscience about being tamed by his family life.

  “Hey, you can give me all the shit you want. I know you’d give your right nut about now for your own family. So cut the shit, Lukus. What’s this really about?” James has always been one of the few people who can keep Lukus honest.

  “It’s Markus. He needs our help. His wife cheated on him and she’s here. He wants my help in getting her to see the error of her ways.”

  “Brianna? No way. We’ve gone out to dinner with them a few times. There’s no way she cheated on Markus. She doted on him all night long.”

  ‘Fuck. This complicates things.’

  He should have suspected that James might have already met Brianna. Lukus takes a few minutes to think through the implications, contemplating if he needs to change tactics yet again.

  �
�Listen, I never met her before last night, but Markus was completely knocked on his ass. He never thought she’d cheat either. He’s really fucked up. He brought her here for my help in both punishing her and also to get her to sign some quick divorce papers, but I’ve run into some complications. I really need Dr. Chambers’ help in breaking her.”

  A pregnant pause is finally broken by a sigh from James. “I don’t know Lukus. I like Brianna. I don’t like the idea of humiliating her like this. It pisses me off if she really did cheat on him and she does deserve to be punished, but Markus should be handling this himself. He’s the head of his household and he needs to discipline his own wife.”

  “So why do you always bring Mary to me when she’s done something really bad?” Lukus already knows the answer to the question, but he wants to force his friend to verbalize it.

  Lukus hears his audible sigh. “Because you’re the master of safe pain. Bringing her to The Punishment Pit really gets her attention and lets her know how serious I am about what she’s done to displease me.”

  “And so Markus doesn’t get to do the same thing with his wife?”

  James’ tone is growing impatient. “If you’re asking me to bring my bag of goodies, this is different and you damn well know it.”

  “Okay, okay… maybe you’re right. Regardless, I still need your help. Will you come? For Markus?”

  There’s silence on the line for a long minute. Lukus begins to think they might have been disconnected when James finally answers. “Alright, I’ll come, but I don’t like it. Are you sure Markus wants this?”

  “Markus wants her to sign divorce papers and this is what it’s going to take to make that happen.” Lukus’ voice sounds stronger than he actually feels. He hopes he’s right about how quickly this will bring an end to this game they’re playing.