Crossing the Line

by Lauren Landish

  I fight the urge to look up at the sound of his deep voice filled with seductive power. For a moment, I try to resist, but I quickly give up. There’s no point in fighting.

  When he asks, I obey. I live only to serve him now. Not by force, but by choice. His needs are my needs. He owns my pleasure and I want to be rewarded so badly. I need it. I need his acceptance, his approval, his love. I finally raise my eyes slightly and see him. My lungs still at the sight of his black silk dress pants and his white shirt unbuttoned at the chest, showcasing his hard, tanned skin underneath.

  Fuck, he’s so sexy. I can hardly believe he’s chosen me. I’m not worthy, but for some reason, he’s picked me. My heart skips a beat at the thought. It’s still so surreal.

  My breath comes out in ragged pants, and I slowly crawl forward on my hands and knees, keeping my head lowered to the floor. The carpet in the bedroom is soft on my knees and palms as I make my way to him. I’ll do this for as long as I have to. As long as he tells me to. Whenever he tells me.

  The memories that haunt me flash before my eyes so quickly, but they’re gone in an instant. My shoulders hunch forward and my eyes close tightly. I don’t want to remember what happened. What that psycho did to me.

  “Hush, Angel,” Rafe says softly. From somewhere above me, his deep voice washes over me like a soothing balm. “You’re with me.” I start with surprise. I didn’t realize I had whimpered out loud, betraying the inner turmoil roiling through my mind. “I’ve got you.”

  My limbs relax slightly at his words. “Please, Master,” I whisper so quietly that I’m not even sure that he hears me. “Make it go away.”

  I stay kneeled before him in supplication, waiting for my next command. I want him to see how eager I am to serve him. How I’ll obey his every word. How I’ll be the perfect angel for him.

  I gasp softly as his strong hand cups my chin and lifts my lips to his as he bends forward. The warmth from being so close to him envelopes my body, causing my limbs to shiver, my blood heating and my heart beating rapidly. His tongue slips along the seam of my lips and I part them for him, opening my mouth for his kiss. Our tongues intertwine and he steals my breath, devouring me with just a slight touch. So little, but so consuming. He breaks the kiss all too soon, leaving me to fall forward slightly, missing him already. But his hand stays on my chin, keeping my head tilted for him.

  I look up at him through my thick lashes with lust and obedience in equal parts. I can’t get over how handsome he is. His chiseled jawline is shaded by fresh stubble, his sexy as fuck features belonging in GQ Magazine. He crouches in front of me, his gorgeous eyes traveling along my body. I shiver beneath his intense gaze, feeling like my soul is bared to him and that he knows all my innermost, deepest and darkest secrets. The fact is, he does. But he still wants me.

  He claims me with his look alone. Mind, body, and soul, I’m totally his.

  His strong fingers trail the angel wings tattooed on my back, sending sparks of electricity shooting up through my skin and causing me to shiver. He gave me those wings. But I don’t know if I can live up to them. I’m not an angel. I’ll never be one, but he insists that I am. I’ll be his angel.

  He says his next words as he brings his lips to my neck, causing my body to erupt into flames and my heart to beat like a jackhammer.

  “The past is the past. You’re not that woman anymore. You’re my angel now.”

  Chapter 1

  Shawnie

  “So she really reached out and contacted you?” I ask, pleasantly surprised. I'd been hoping to hear this for a long time, but to actually have it happen touches the good places that are left in my heart. On my computer screen, Dane Bell grins, nodding his head. He's grown his hair out some more from the military cut he used to have. It's kinda cute to see the natural curl that it has.

  “Yep, sure did. Who'd have guessed? It only took nearly five and a half years, but yeah, I got a letter back,” he says, still sounding a little shocked about it. I guess I can understand. Wrongfully convicted of manslaughter, Dane spent four and a half years in military prison before he was set free. The whole time, he tried to write the family that disowned him every week. And every week, the letter was returned unopened until just now, it seems.

  “So, what did it say?” I ask, and Abby, my best friend and Dane's wife, speaks up when Dane’s getting so choked up he can't answer.

  “It wasn’t all good news,” Abby says, rubbing her husband’s shoulders. “Some of it was tough.”

  “What do you mean, some of it was tough?” I ask, watching as Abby grimaces and rubs her swelling stomach. She's six months pregnant, and every time I see her she's glowing more and more, while at the same time looking bigger. Never mind. There are more important things to worry about. “The baby kicking?”

  “A little,” Abby admits, smiling. “I'm looking forward to meeting her.”

  “Or him,” Dane objects, smiling. “By the way, we've settled on names.”

  “Oh?” I ask, intrigued. “What'd you pick out?”

  “If it's a girl, we're going to go Jennifer,” Abby says. “It was my grandmother's name, and Daddy would love it.”

  I'm slightly disappointed until Abby grins, reading my mind. “And if it's a boy . . . Shawn.”

  I blink, touched. I gawp for a few seconds like a hooked fish before I can figure out any words to say. “Abby, you don't have to do that.”

  “Sure I do,” Abby says, reaching out and putting two fingers on the screen. An ache runs through me. I miss my friend, and the past year has been the most difficult of my life. Having her so far away is even worse, but at least we've been able to get together from time to time. “Shawnie, you and I, there's always going to be a bond there. California ain't gonna break that for us.”

  “Thank you,” I tell her from the bottom of my heart. “Y'all mean everything to me.”

  “Knew you still had your Southern in you,” Abby jokes, breaking the heavy atmosphere. Neither of us do too well with overly heavy. Her smile fades, and she shifts back to what we were talking about before. “So anyway, Dane's sister, Denise, wrote that their father died last year, but that she wants to try and re-form some sort of family bond. There wasn't any mention about Dane's brother, but you know how we women are.”

  “Yeah, focused just on ourselves,” I joke back, trying to force a laugh but failing. Seeing their happiness, the demon inside me is scratching to get out, and it's been too long. I don't know if I can force him back down inside the cell that I've made inside my soul for him. Not tonight, at least.

  Abby notices my discomfort and whispers in Dane's ear, who nods and gets up. “Shawnie, I hate to be a bad friend, but I've got a paper due that's biting my butt. You two might be done with your Bachelor’s degrees, but I’ve still got catch-up to do with you two. So if you don't mind, I'm gonna go crack the books.”

  I nod and give him a wave. He’s a good man. I’m glad for Abby. “Take care, big man.”

  Dane disappears off my screen, leaving just Abby, who follows Dane with her eyes before looking back at me. “How's the counseling going, Shawnie?”

  I shrug, feeling bad that I'm about to blatantly lie to my best friend. But I can't really put how I am into words, and after the happiness of Dane's news, I can't tell her that everything is slowly going to hell inside me. “It's getting better. The nightmares have stopped at least, and I can actually look at myself in the mirror without being disgusted.”

  Abby nods, not pointing out the obvious fact that despite it being the middle of June, and I'm in California, I'm still wearing a long-sleeved shirt and knee-length shorts, hiding the scars that crisscross my arms and thighs from view. The reality is that things have never been worse for me, but I can’t tell her that. “And your studies?”

  “Good,” I tell her truthfully, glad to not have to lie about that. “One year down on my Master's, still carrying my perfect GPA. The work's harder than what I did at G-T, but I'm enjoying Stanford. Lots of geeks up here. You know
, my type of people.”

  “And how many of them are Midland girls like you?” Abby asks playfully, letting what at least to me is an obvious lie go. “I mean seriously, can any of the people you've met even make a good bowl of grits?”

  “Hell, girl, these folks barely know what grits are.” I laugh back, the demon inside me scratching harder and harder. I'm trying to hide it, and if I can't, I at least disguise my screams and tears as laughter. Abby doesn't need to know about this. “On the other hand, I can get better Asian food around here than you'll ever get in Atlanta.”

  Abby chuckles, shrugging. “All right, I guess. But seriously, Shawnie, I know it's not always good for you. At least I've got Dane here, but I'll be honest. I still get bad dreams sometimes too. If you need someone to talk to, and I don't mean just the counselor, promise you'll holler at me?”

  “I will,” I say, trying to not let the pain of my lie out through my teeth. There’s no way I’ll ever subject Abby to a glimpse of this hell. “Thanks. Hey, tell Dane I'm happy for him. Really, I'm happy for you both. A year together, and six months married. Y'all got yourselves a good setup.”

  “We're making it,” Abby says, giving me a smile. “I'm still waiting to hear that you've come up with something that’ll make you a super-rich woman.”

  I shake my head, smirking. “Gimme time, Abs. But for now, I’ll let you get on with your evening. It's gotta be getting late for y'all, right?”

  “We're good, but yeah. Okay, Shawnie, you take care of yourself, okay?”

  I nod and blow her a kiss. “I'll give you a call next Friday night. How's that sound?”

  “Sounds great. Be good.”

  “I'm so bad I'm good,” I tease, causing Abby to laugh before she hangs up the Skype call. As soon as the screen goes blank, I lean back in my chair, digging the heels of my hands into my eyes, setting off fireworks in the blackness behind my eyelids, pain and light together. I can't help it. The restlessness is unstoppable, the need to purge myself too deep. I can try to fight it, but the longer I repress the demon, the harder and more brutally it punishes me. I know better by now—better to just give in and get it over with.

  Fuck it. I get out of my chair and go to my bedroom, peeling off my t-shirt and jeans and stripping off my polite, normal underwear, the stuff that I wear when I feel good about myself. Instead, I open the second drawer on my dresser, taking out what's inside, the leather and lace bra with matching crotchless panties, the stuff that feeds the demon inside me. In my closet, I find my bustier top and miniskirt that tell the whole world what I really am, that the scars on my arms and legs tell the real truth. A girl who likes to be used and abused. Fuck me, use me, call me what I am inside . . . broken.

  I pull on my seven-inch platform stilettos and take a look at my mirror, disgusted but at the same time happy with what I see. My scars are narrow, and with the way my skin is colored, the pale lines are easy to see, an easy advertisement for what I've had done to me in the past. My shoulder doesn't show the pain inside, but that's okay. The rest of me does. My breasts are jammed together and pushed nearly to my collarbones by my bra and bustier, and my ass is bulging the fabric of my skirt, made even more cartoonish by my heels, which force me to walk in tiny, mincing steps.

  I do my makeup, heavy on the eyes to make them seem even larger than they are. I know that the people I fuck love to look into them. I've heard them described as tan, as golden brown. One nice guy I knew before I was broken called them the color of Kentucky Fried Chicken, which at the time made me laugh. He was a nice guy, probably a man who met a woman who'd appreciate him for who he is and is now married and living happily. I think of my eyes as quicksand, personally. Dirty, mysterious, and who the fuck knows what lies beneath except dead things.

  I don't need to do a lot for my lips. They're already naturally plump and I can't do too much without throwing off the proportions of my face. A little blush on my cheekbones gives me the naughty innocent look that I know my partners like, whoever it happens to be tonight.

  I grab my keys and go down to my car, a ten-year-old Mazda Miata that I was able to pick up cheap when I got here to California. It's small, it's sporty, and while it's not really all that powerful, it works for what I have to do in both sides of my life.

  San Francisco is fifty minutes away from my apartment in the opposite direction of Stanford, which I suppose is the way that it should be. As I get on the Interstate to drive toward the city, I'm not actively telling myself that I'm going to go to The Club, but still, my hands unconsciously steer me that way. Shawnie's not here right now. The demon's in control, and I'm just along for the ride.

  The Club doesn't have any other names. It’s just known as The Club. Kinda like the movie Fight Club. If you don't know what it is, then you don't need to be there, and there are no signs out front or anything like that, just a discreet parking service that appears out of nowhere when you pull up.

  The Club was started by those folks who found the normal sex scene in San Francisco just a little too tame for their tastes. Considering that San Francisco is pretty much the freak capital of the world, you understand just how varied the tastes in The Club can be. It's not all crazy off the wall stuff. A lot of people just go to do normal fucking, but some of it is. In the eight months that I've been there, ever since the people at the Armory told me that I was unwelcome there with my so-called mental state, I've seen just about everything you could think of.

  I pull up out front, getting out to give my keys to the valet. The membership fees aren’t cheap, and anonymity is strict. There’s a good reason for it, too. I've seen people in there who wouldn't want the rest of the world to know about this side of themselves.

  I knock on the door, waiting while the old-fashioned steel eyehole opens and the eyes of the doorman look out at me. “Name.”

  “Sandy Eagle,” I reply, using my Club name. It's one you get to choose and is one of the last choices I've made in The Club, except that I keep coming back for more whenever the demon inside is too much to handle. I can't let it out around campus. It’d destroy me if the people at Stanford knew how much of a broken woman I am. At least here, I have a prayer of having a future afterward.

  The door buzzes and I open it, stepping into the atrium. The doorman, a hulking man in a black suit and wearing a domino mask, stands in front of the main door, his hand on his gun. It's not a show. He's more than willing to use it, and you don't go to the hospital. You just end up somewhere in the waters near Alcatraz, out where the currents mean that your body’s not recovered. He holds up a tablet computer, comparing my face to the picture of me when I signed up, and then he has me put my thumb on the scanner plate that's attached to it. “Miss Eagle.”

  “How's things tonight?” I ask faux casually, desperate to get inside. The demon is cackling, clawing and scratching inside me, demanding to be fed. “Crowded?”

  “Not so much, but I believe you'll find yourself entertained,” the doorman says, giving me a slight hint to his identity. The Club employs multiple security staff, all of them huge and intimidating, but only one has seen me inside, helping me out after a particularly painful encounter. I call him Dutch in my mind, mainly because I joked as he helped me out to my car one time that next time, I'd take him out on a date, Dutch.

  “What's the music?”

  “Tech-jazz,” Dutch replies, and I roll my eyes. I don't need smooth techno-influenced jazz. I want screaming metal, driving synths, and dirty dancing music, shit that'll help get me in the mood to get this over with. “Want a private room?”

  “No,” I say. “Thanks though.”

  Security complete, he hits a button and the inner door unlocks. He opens the door for me and waves me through. Once inside, the door shuts, and I look around the room, seeing what's going on.

  It isn't super busy right now, but I see a group already engaged in a public suck n' fuck session, and another two are already naked, ready to join in or perhaps they're just taking a break.

  I head
to the bar, where the bartender, in a full Phantom of the Opera mask that covers about three-quarters of his face, leans in. “What can I do for you tonight?”

  “Scotch and soda, neat,” I order, turning around and watching as the one woman in the middle of the floor who's naked is getting spit-roasted by two men while another woman stands back, a strap-on attached around her waist, smearing lubricant that glows slightly in the black lights of the performing area on her ten-inch silicone cock, her forehead already dotted in sweat. She's a dominatrix who is just as willing to use that schlong of hers on a man as she is on a woman, from what I’ve seen. I'm not too sure who's in for those ten inches, but it definitely won’t be me. I need a cock with a pulse tonight.

  “Here you go,” the bartender says a minute later, setting my drink down. “By the way, Mr. Robinson just sent me a message. He said he'd like a word with you.”

  Mr. Robinson is the manager and director of The Club, but it’s owned by others. Who they are, I have no idea. Tall, handsome, and the only employee who doesn't wear a mask, he’s the man who makes sure The Club operates by the rules. He’s also, even more than the security guards, someone you don’t want to get pissed at you. He never seems to lose his temper, but the few times he’s had to intervene when Club members have broken the rules inside . . . they don’t come back, and they’re never seen again. He’s a good lay—maybe I should just use him to satisfy this need inside me. At least I won’t feel too dirty tomorrow when I have to live with what I’ve done.

  “Tell Mr. Robinson I'd love to have a chat,” I reply, turning back around and sipping at my drink, watching the show on stage, but my thoughts are elsewhere.

  In my mind, the demon takes me back, back to that lake house in Georgia. The hot summer afternoon, the drugs coursing through my system as he cut me. My pussy is practically dripping wet, even though I know it shouldn't be. I was cut, I was abused and beaten. But the way the drugs were in my mind, I was so aroused. I came so many times despite it being against my will. I know why I actually felt some pleasure. I’ve read the studies. I know it wasn’t my fault, but that doesn’t change things. I can't help it. The demon was born and released in the summer heat. The devil came down to Georgia . . .