by Lexi Blake
“Penelope?”
He would? It took a moment for it to really settle in. She’d taken everything he gave her because she loved him. Because she loved what he did for her. Because she loved who she was when she was with him.
And he would give her to any man in the dungeon who wanted to take a turn?
“Penelope?” His voice hardened. “I need you to tell me you understand the punishment waiting for you if you disobey me again.”
Her safe word was right there on the tip of her tongue. She wanted to scream it at him, but she wasn’t in physical danger. No. There wasn’t a safe word in the world that could save her heart from breaking.
“Yes, Master.” She forced the words out though they were bitter on her tongue. She blinked back tears because she wasn’t going to let him see her cry. They’d felt like a healing balm only moments before. Now they would show far too much of her soul.
She’d counted on his possessiveness. She’d come to view it as his version of love. She’d been so foolish, thinking he just couldn’t say the words. It had been there in the back of her mind that she could teach him.
She shivered. God, she was naked in front of a crowd and the man she loved had just promised to allow her to be gang-banged in front of them if she didn’t follow his rules.
She shrank away from him the minute she could. When her hands and feet were free, she forced her stiff body to stand up, covering her breasts.
Damon frowned her way. “Are you all right? We should go in the back to one of the aftercare rooms. I was rough on you.”
Numbness was starting to flow through her veins, a welcome thing. She was able to stand tall. No matter what happened between her and Damon, she still had her job. “I’m fine. I would rather retire to our cabin. I would like a shower if that pleases you.”
Her words were like stones, falling from her mouth. Flat. Cold and hard.
“If you like.” Someone had passed him a robe. He held it out, but she couldn’t stand the thought of him wrapping it around her. He would hug her, like he always did, but now she knew it was a meaningless gesture.
She took the robe from his hand and quickly wrapped it around her body, grateful to not be on display a second longer. What had seemed loving a moment before now made her feel vulnerable.
Years of doubt rushed back in, blocking the progress she’d made. She stared at Damon. He really was beautiful, and she wasn’t close to his league.
What had she been thinking?
He closed his kit, zipping it up. Her collar was in his hand. “I’d like to put it back on you.”
She was safer with it on, but the idea repulsed her a bit. Would he take it off before he let another man have her? Or was it so meaningless to him that it wouldn’t matter?
She nodded, turning and holding her hair up, forcing herself to stay still while he clasped it back on.
“Are you sure you’re all right? I should look at your skin. I don’t think I raised welts. I could be wrong.” For the first time, he sounded deeply unsure of himself.
“No. I’m fine. We should get back to our friends.” The mission was important. Her feelings, his feelings or lack thereof, didn’t matter. She’d been an idiot. She’d spent more time thinking about how to continue her relationship with Damon than focusing on the reason she was here. That time was done. She would obey Damon and do her job and then walk away at the end.
He’d wanted to teach her how dangerous it was to be close to him. She’d finally learned the lesson. She couldn’t fix him. She couldn’t heal him.
“All right.” He picked up his kit and stepped off the stage, turning to hold his hand out to help her down.
Stubbornness bought her nothing. She placed her hand in his, but she’d never been further away.
Chapter Fifteen
Damon held the lift door open for Penelope when it arrived at their floor. She stepped out with a calm detachment that deeply worried him.
He’d been too rough on her. He should have stepped away and given himself a few hours to calm down. The sight of that bastard touching her had sent him into a rage.
He’d known immediately that she had disobeyed because of some mission related event, but there had been a deep disconnect between his brain and his mouth. His mouth had let his anger talk. He’d heard himself spouting shit about her finding another Dom, and he couldn’t stop himself.
“Where did Charlotte go?” His words were even and measured now. Now that it seemed to be far too late.
“She was going up to her cabin. She was going to meet us there.” She’d explained what had happened on the way up the lift, her voice flat and monotone as she told the story of how they came to have Mr. Tilman’s kit. “Mr. Taggart should be there by now.”
Whenever she started talking like a Jane Austen heroine, he knew he was in trouble.
“Penelope, do you understand why I had to punish you?” He reached out and grabbed her elbow or she would very likely have kept right on walking.
She didn’t meet his eyes. “Yes, of course. We would have been disinvited from the dungeon if you had not.”
“But you’re angry with me. Damn it all. Did I hit you too hard?”
Her eyes were as blank as any doll’s. “It’s fine, Damon. I think I just realized what you’ve wanted me to all along. This isn’t the life for me. I’ll obey you from now on. I won’t attempt to use my own brain. I’ll remember at all times that you’re in charge.”
He should be jumping with joy because apparently he’d finally gotten through to her. All it had taken was a minor paddling and she wilted.
And then he’d been stupid enough to threaten to let all the other Doms spank her, too. Lesson number one in the Dom book was to never threaten something he wouldn’t go through with. He couldn’t stand it when another man touched her. He certainly wasn’t going to allow one to spank her, but he’d been so angry with her the threat had just popped out.
Anything could have happened. She’d taken off her collar. She’d lost herself in the crowd. He had no idea what Robert Tilman was capable of. If he’d caught her trying to steal his kit, he could have quietly carried her off and slit her throat and Damon would have gone utterly insane. He’d had a vision of her, broken, dead, cold. His Penelope was always so soft and warm, and he’d seen her rigid and trapped in the horror of death.
He wouldn’t survive it. He’d known in that moment that he couldn’t live through her death, and he’d do anything to prevent it. Hence his idiotic words.
He couldn’t work with her. He couldn’t think about anything but her when she was around. Since that first moment he’d gotten a taste of her, he’d lost his bloody mind to anything except her.
“I want to look at your bum. I want to make sure I didn’t hurt you.” He thought it had gone well after he’d calmed a bit. Yes, he’d spanked her hard, but he’d tested her. He’d felt her arousal, her relaxation. He’d thought she slipped into subspace. Even through his irritation with her, he’d felt a deep satisfaction because of the trust she placed in him.
And then she shut him out.
“My bum is fine, Damon.” Her lips moved, but there was no expression on her face. That killed him. She was always so vibrant, smiling or with a mischievous light in her eyes that only he seemed to be able to see. “Could we please get some work done? I would like to know if I endured that for something.”
“Then I did hurt you.” Something didn’t add up.
Her face flushed, her blue eyes narrowing as she snarled his way. “Yes, Damon. Hitting someone with a paddle hurts. My arse hurts. It will likely hurt for several days. Are you happy now?”
He’d never seen her angry before. He was shocked to find that what he really wanted to do was get on his bloody knees and beg her forgiveness.
But if she hadn’t been able to take that scene, he’d been wrong about her. Or she was attempting to manipulate him. She’d done that before. He let himself go cold. If she didn’t want aftercare, who was he to complain? She�
��d disobeyed the rules. She’d put herself and their operation in danger. It wasn’t his place to apologize. “Not at all. I didn’t enjoy that scene any more than you did.”
Except he’d rather thought they had both been enjoying it. After he’d slapped her ass silly and still been able to smell the arousal coating her pussy, he’d decided to take it a step further and fuck her mouth. She’d been enthusiastic. She’d sucked him down like a starving woman.
Was she mad he hadn’t given her an orgasm? Did she think sulking would fix the problem? He hadn’t expected that from her.
“Well, the good news is you won’t have to suffer through it again.”
He tightened his hand on her. “I meant what I said.”
Except the part about allowing other Doms to get a smack in. It was a common enough punishment at both Sanctum and The Garden. Some subs enjoyed it. No hands were allowed because most Doms Damon knew didn’t share even the touch of their sub’s skin, but paddles and canes and floggers were all on board. Hell, for some subs’ birthdays, he’d arranged spanking parties, but he couldn’t allow it with Penelope. He had hard limits, too, and letting someone else touch her was his. But he couldn’t tell her that. He needed to stay in charge.
“I believe you.” There was such accusation in her eyes that he nearly folded and just apologized.
He was saved from that fate by the door opening down the hall and Tag stepping out, a grim look on his face. “I was just coming to find you. Pen, you all right?”
She nodded. The smile she plastered on her face didn’t come anywhere close to her eyes. “Of course. What did you find?”
Tag gestured them inside the cabin he shared with his wife. It was the cabin next to theirs. The balcony between them had been opened to form a long outdoor space.
“I’ve got Jesse on his way here,” Tag explained. “Chelsea, too. Simon and Jake are herding our targets. Jake is going to have a talk with Rob, and we’ll get the reporter. Though from what I hear, I should have sent Pen down because she’s totally into threesomes.”
Jealousy flashed through his system. Tag held the door open, and Penelope entered.
“Dude, chill.” Tag held a hand out, his voice going low. He let the door close. “You have got to check the caveman. She wasn’t trying to fuck the guy.”
“I know. She wouldn’t do that.” Damon shook his head. Why did everyone seem to think he was accusing Penelope of cheating? “I might kill him though.”
“Okay, that’s slightly healthier, but seriously, she’s pissed. What the fuck did you do?”
Yes, he’d certainly figured that out. “I spanked her with a paddle. Her arse is red, but I didn’t break the skin. I doubt she’ll even bruise. I fucked her mouth. I told her if she ever did it again, I would let every Dom in the room paddle her and see how she likes it.”
A chuckle came out of Tag’s mouth. “That’s going to go so well. You’ll go insane when the first one touches her.”
Damon felt himself flush. He never used to get embarrassed. “I know. It was stupid. Now she says she understands this isn’t the lifestyle for her.”
“It isn’t for everyone,” Tag said with a sigh. “Give her some time. Some subs freak out after their first intense scene. The good news is Baz is likely to try to kill us in Helsinki tomorrow, so she’ll probably forget you spanked her.”
His stomach turned. If she wouldn’t even look at him, how was he going to protect her? “Don’t remind me.”
“And if Baz doesn’t kill us, the unholy amount of smoked fish they’ll offer us might. Man, I know why Northern Europeans are so skinny.” Tag started to open the door again. “Pull it together. You’re going to endanger every single one of us if you can’t control yourself. You could have handled that situation in a way that her punishment would have been private.”
“Really? So if Charlotte had done the same thing and you found her with another man, you would have been perfectly calm?”
“Not at all. I would have thrown down with the fucker, target or not. But then I admit freely that I love my wife. Last I checked, Penny was just your unwanted partner and part-time fuck buddy. So check yourself, man.”
Sometimes he wanted to plant his fist in Tag’s face.
He couldn’t love Penelope. He couldn’t. The people he loved died. He followed Tag into the suite and couldn’t help but take in how perfectly the soft, fluffy robe suited Penelope. Soft and sweet as candy.
Penelope’s lips finally curved into an actual smile. “We were right.”
Charlotte was standing beside the bed that dominated the room. “Oh, yes. Look. I think that’s our guy.”
He glanced down at the table where the contents of the kit had been placed. There was a small photo of a man. He was roughly thirty with thick glasses, dark hair, and a ready smile. Damon picked it up and turned it over. There was writing on the back. Walter Bennett.
Their guy. So the reporter was the contact. Or they had more trouble than he’d thought. “What else did you find?”
Charlotte sat down on the sofa, wincing slightly. “Sorry. Ian took a moment before he let me go through the kit. My ass is a little tender.”
Penelope sat down beside her, but there was nothing on her face. She’d shut down the minute Charlotte spoke. She was right back to blank professional. “There was a thumb drive under his flogger.”
Ian picked it up. The flogger was black and looked to be cheap leather. It wasn’t custom made. He’d likely bought it at a toy store. “I wouldn’t use this on anyone.”
Penelope stared at the flogger and when Ian set it down, she picked it up, touching the falls. “It isn’t soft. Why are they so stiff?”
“Because he’s never used it before. It’s strictly ornamental.” Damon jumped on the chance to be her mentor again. “The leather should be treated so it has some flexibility. The one I use on you is actually deerskin. It’s more for the thud than a sting. I’m not sure this would give you either.”
She laid it back down and turned her attention back to Taggart. “Have you tried to open the drive?”
“Password protected,” Charlotte said. “That’s why we need Chelsea. We’re going to have her in your cabin while we talk to our reporter.”
There was a knock on the door and Chelsea entered. She was dressed in her security uniform. “What’s up? This is my sleep time so it better be good. I get to share a cabin with eight other chicks. I want to kill myself. Oh, and nice move, sis. It was quite the distraction.”
Charlotte grinned. “You know me. I like to give a good show.”
Taggart chuckled as he passed Chelsea the thumb drive. “There are cameras everywhere on this ship. When Damon rifled through the target’s cabin, he wasn’t on camera, but they would have caught him breaking into the room. So we gave them something better to watch.”
“Security is a bunch of peeping tom perverts,” Chelsea complained. “I swear, they must test these guys for voyeurism before they hire them. There aren’t cameras in the cabins, but they’re all over the balconies. When I needed to turn their attention away from Damon, big sis and Satan here just went at it on the balcony. No one noticed when Damon slipped into a room that wasn’t his own.”
“You better destroy that tape,” Ian said. “Well, after you make a copy and give it to me.”
Chelsea rolled her eyes, took the drive, and slipped out after Damon handed her the keycard to their cabin.
He had zero doubt she would break the code in no time at all. If only he could make her break Penelope’s code so she would make sense to him.
He stared her way, but she didn’t spare him a glance.
This was why he didn’t have girlfriends. He didn’t understand women at all. She’d been comfortable in D/s. She’d opened up more in the last week than he’d seen her in the years he’d known her. When they had been on that stage, she’d been hot and ready for anything. Now she thought she could make him feel guilty?
He just wished he knew what he was supposed to feel g
uilty about because he was feeling bloody bad about everything now. Perhaps she’d been acting, playing along so he wouldn’t leave her behind.
That was stupid.
“Hello? Knight? You with us?” Taggart sat down beside his wife.
“Of course.” He was losing it. Focus on the job. If Penelope no longer wanted him, he would just have to deal with it. Perhaps she was telling him the truth. She’d seen the real him and she no longer fooled herself that she could care for him.
It was better. Really it was.
He forced his brain away from her.
The sound of a keycard engaging made him turn just in time to see Jesse Murdoch begin to head inside.
“And you’re sure it’s here?” a female voice asked.
“I saw her run away with it. She stole the bag and I followed her here,” Jesse replied. “This is my floor so I have the key. That’s when I called security and then talked to you.”
“I just want the bag and then I need to get back to my boyfriend. I don’t get why security needed to talk to him. I don’t want to involve security. My not-so-brilliant boyfriend will keep it with him from now on,” Candice complained as she started into the short hallway.
She stopped when she saw the group around the table.
Damon stood up.
“What’s this?” She tried to turn but Simon was right behind her. “Fuck.”
Simon caught her, putting a hand over her mouth. “Don’t scream. I don’t want to have to gag you, but you should know that we have everything we need to ensure this talk is very uncomfortable for you.”
She’d been wearing an ill-fitting corset in the dungeon. She’d changed somewhere along the way and now looked extremely young and somewhat fragile in jeans and a T-shirt covered by a cardie. Her eyes were wide with terror. He had to figure out who she was really working for.
“My name is Damon Knight. I’m with SIS. Can you nod if you know what that is?”
She nodded. She was a reporter. She should understand how her country’s intelligence worked, but he was often surprised at some people’s stupidity.
