Dan heard his pulse thudding in his ears and realized that he’d held his breath. But he didn’t dare let it go. He looked up, eyeing Beth and the cautious, calculating look in her hard blue eyes. She glanced at him before fixing her attention on Karen. Her gaze wandered over the latex dress, lingering on the positioning of her arms.
“She’s your sub, right?” With a smooth flourish, she unhooked the riding crop from her hip and brought it down on her open palm. “I think your training technique needs work. Want to borrow this for a few minutes?”
The loud crack made Dan jump, and he felt Karen do the same. He released his grip on her shoulders and pushed her farther behind him. “No, thanks.”
“Sure? I don’t mind. I’m all for discipline when needed. It’s what we’re here for, isn’t it, Spanx?”
At the sound of his online name, Dan gritted his teeth. Don’t do that, Beth. I’m not that man any more. Almost as though she heard his thoughts, Beth laughed, the exaggerated girlie giggle he remembered so well. Several heads turned at the sound of that laughter, many of them nodding appreciatively. Striking, rather than beautiful, with that custom-made dress and boldly colored hair, Beth made up in presence what she lacked in height. Shoulders thrust back, head held high, she oozed self-assuredness that screamed “dominant.”
Instead of holding his breath, Dan now found himself breathing hard through his nose. He opened his mouth then closed it again. Several seconds spent thinking of something safe to say yielded no results. He focused on the man in the gimp mask. “Who are you?”
“Oh, he won’t talk to you. His name is Bones.” Beth laughed again, a sound like glass breaking. “He’s new.”
“Another? You really power through them, don’t you?”
“I have a healthy appetite. Bones, come.”
Bones stepped forward with his head lowered. Though he towered over Beth by at least two feet, he might have been invisible for the attention he called to himself. His shoulders curled in and his arms hung loose before him, bound at the wrists with a single length of sparkling chain. Beneath the tight black, thong that made his entire outfit, his hairy legs looked red and sore.
Beth reached up and slapped Bones’ face, once on each cheek. The thud of flesh on leather sounded vaguely obscene. She did it again and the second time round, Bones stumbled with a soft grunt. “Such a good boy. I’ve had him on the carpet.” Beth glanced at his knees. “Crawling around my feet where he belongs. Sauna now, I need a break. You can massage my feet, can’t you?”
The silent giant nodded. Beth grinned and grabbed one of the man’s nipples between her thumb and forefinger. She twisted it until he whimpered. “He’s so good. Very obedient. Does exactly what he’s told.”
“That’s what good slaves do.” Dan made an extra effort to keep his voice level.
“Ain’t that the truth? Show them, Bones.”
Though he might have imagined it, Dan thought he saw the taller man hesitate first. When he did turn, Dan gasped. He heard Karen echo the sound. Livid whip weals crisscrossed his back. Tiny droplets of blood beaded on the sweaty skin.
Dan winced and took a deep breath before responding. “I suppose you’re pleased with that?” His own skin prickled with sympathy, a ghost of old agony coursing across his body. He gripped his chest through his shirt. Sweat trickled down his spine.
He remembered standing in the middle of a crowded room, filled with strangers in varied states of undress. He wore a tiny black thong, too small to fully contain his raging erection. His knees ached, rubbed raw from crawling across the unforgiving carpet. Cuffed hands rested on the small of his back. A rubber ball-gag filled his mouth crushing his tongue. A whistling sound cut the air, followed by the sharp snap of a cracking whip. He flinched.
No more, please. He longed to speak it out loud, but the ball-gag stoppered everything, even his safe words. The whip cracked again but this time pain came with it, a white-hot line of agony across the tops of his shoulders. Then another that curled around his bicep and kissed his left nipple. Blood beaded on his chest. He screamed into the rubber ball.
Unaware of his discomfort, Beth stroked the welts on Bones’ back. Her fingers trembled. “Very proud. And we’re nowhere near his limit. Have you looked around yet?”
“We just arrived.”
“You must check out the Ball Room. It’s busy because of the buffet and the vendors but you’ll have fun. Take cash, they have loads of nice toys for sale.” She winked and cracked the riding crop against her palm again. “I just bought this. We’ll break it in later.”
A quiver went through Bones’ body. Dan saw the other man shift his position and clench his fists in front of his thong.
“Looks like you’re both looking forward to it.”
Beth beamed and turned aside. “We’ll see you later. Come, Bones.” She stalked away, trailed by her mostly naked shadow.
Dan looked at those angry red marks and took a deep breath. He let it out slow and rolled his shoulders but the imagined ache there refused to shift. Glancing back, he saw Karen staring at Beth’s retreating figure, her eyes narrowed to slits.
“Kaz?”
“Who the hell is she?” she snapped.
“No one,” he blurted, too shaken to find a more credible lie.
“How does she know me when I’ve not heard a word about her? Another addition to your Library, I suppose?”
“God, no.” The idea alarmed him enough that he forgot to lower his voice.
This time, as the curious faces turned toward him, he turned his back to block them out. Yet his back and shoulders continued to prickle with the intensity of their stares.
Relentless, Karen prodded his chest with the tip of her finger. “Then who is she?”
“Someone from my past.”
She raised her eyebrows.
“Distant past. She’s not important anymore.”
“Does she know that? She leapt all over you like a teenage girlfriend.”
Dan frowned. “Let’s just find our room. Please.” He started walking, towing a reluctant Karen toward the stairs. As he did, one hand resting on the small of her back, he wondered if his mother would be so nostalgic about “the one that got away” if she could see Bethany’s new hair color and racy leather dress.
***
Dan dropped the bags against the wall and dived on to the four-poster’s silky red and black sheets. “This thing is huge.” He felt the sides. “And look, chains. Straps. Velcro. Rope.” He touched each item in turn, flitting between them like a child in Santa’s workshop. “They’ve got everything.”
Deep shades of black and red complimented the occasional gleam of silver. The room might have been a suite in a normal hotel but for the pictures hanging from the walls. More scenes from BDSM, beautiful black and white prints of bound women, cringing men, and naked groups of both Thick hooks screwed into the ceiling also gave it away, as did some of the more subtle details like a bowl of condoms rather than fruits and the welcome brochure featuring a pair of handcuffs on the cover.
Something hard caught his shoe and when he bent to look Dan almost keeled over. “There’s a cage under the bed!”
Standing in the doorway, arms still folded behind her back, Karen watched. Her gaze darted over the rest of the room, taking it in with a level of calm that Dan recognized from other play sessions. Underneath it he saw a layer of something else.
“What’s wrong?” He stopped riffling through the bowl of condoms to stare at her.
“I don’t like that woman. She’s rough. Savage. I didn’t know people were like that.”
He nodded. A flurry of fear made him grip his stomach. “There’s lots of different styles and intensities across the scene. Some people don’t mind blood, or piss, or whatever.” Spying her expression he added, “We’re quite mild compared to some I know.”
“I understand that better than I did an hour ago.”
“Karen.” His breath caught in his throat. He saw her downcast eyes. The tre
mbling bottom lip. Her unease punched him like a hammer to the gut, far worse than her anger back in the parlor.
“Karen, you know I’d never do that to you, right?” He reached toward her.
She wouldn’t look up.
“Karen? I wouldn’t. Ever.” His voice fell to a whisper. Everything in him coiled tight, twisting in on itself again and again until every second was pain. She had to know. Didn’t she trust him?
“I don’t know what you think of me, but you have to know that I wouldn’t do that. Not to you.”
“But you know her.”
“I used to.” He heard the crack of the whip in his head. Flinched as the barbs slashed across his back and chest.
“You played with her?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
To hide his hesitation, Dan paused long enough to sweep hair from his eyes. “Before you.”
“How long before, Sir?”
Dan rolled off the bed. Mental alarm bells clanged in his head. “What’s the matter with you?” His forehead ached with the effort to keep from screaming.
“Nothing, Sir.”
“No, I mean that—exactly that. You’ve gone all formal and pissy.”
“No, I’ve not.”
“You have. Tell me.”
Karen’s expression hardened and her voice, when it came, hissed like a pot on the hob. She stalked closer, forming fists as she came. “She acts like you’ve spoken recently, not ‘before me.’ Just admit you want to add her to your Library.”
Relief tangled with bemusement. “What? No, that’s not it.”
“You sure? Your eyes were all over her, with that stupid green hair and tits up to her face. You practically crossed your legs.”
Dan shook his head, massaging his back of his neck with one hand. He knew Karen well, or thought he did, but the yo-yoing nature of this conversation made him weary. “Is this about the Library? You keep bringing it up.”
“No, it’s about her draping all over you like a scarf with tits.”
Dan spoke slowly, hoping to cut off further questions about his past once and for all. “I’m not interested in Beth. I don’t want any other woman but you. You’re the one I care for.”
“But you’ll still play with slaves from your Library when I’m not around.”
Another switch. He blinked. “Of course, that’s what they’re for.”
Karen gasped as though slapped. “At least I know where I stand now.” She stomped toward the door. She reached it and yanked it open before Dan managed to gather himself. He raced after her, slapping the door shut just before she walked through.
“Move,” she snarled.
Lost and adrift he tried to catch a glimpse of her face. He needed a clue, a sign, a glare, anything. “Hang on—”
“No!” She clawed at his fingers. “Get out of my way. I can’t look at you right now.”
“What have I done?”
“Just let me go.”
“No, you need to tell me what I did. Fuck—I can’t read your mind.” He locked the door and shoved the card key into the front of his pants. “What’s got your thong in a knot?” His fingers stung where she’d scratched them.
“What do you think?”
“I don’t know. That’s the point.”
“The Library. The bloody Slave Library.”
He gazed down at her narrowed eyes, twisted lip and furrowed brow. “You don’t like it?”
“Well done, Sherlock. Bright spark, aren’t you?”
“Okay, wait a second.” Dan raised his hands, palm out. “I love my Slave Library, I thought you did too. It’s a fantasy come to life, I don’t want to give it up.”
“Fuck you, then. Selfish bastard.”
He ducked beneath her flailing arm, hissing when her nails scraped his cheek. “Karen! Christ, what’s wrong with you?” His mouth dried as fear clutched his heart. Never before had she struck out at him. Not like this. “Will you listen for a second?”
“I’m done listening.”
“Really? Because it doesn’t seem like you’ve started. You don’t get it.”
“You want to pick from a bunch of beautiful women to fuck whenever you want. What’s to get?”
Dan’s cheek stung as a bead of sweat rolled off his forehead and into the scratches. His tingling skin itched and heat flushed his face and neck. He opened and closed his fingers over his palms, utterly blindsided. “Is that really what you think?”
“It’s the truth.”
“No, I want a bunch of women to pick from so I can have fun with them with you.”
“Lucky me, I—”
“Kaz! Shut up and listen to the words I’m saying instead of the ones you think you hear.” Frustration made his voice harsh. Loud. He found himself slipping towards that headspace he visited every time they played. But he didn’t fight it. He knew she responded to that. “What happened on Monday?”
“Hannah and Rebecca came over and you screwed the living hell out of us.”
“Did I?”
“Yes.” Her eyes flashed, but her voice levelled off. As he hoped, the change in his voice and stance brought out the same in hers. Karen teetered on the edge of her vanilla self and the submissive who longed to receive and accept orders. “Becky sucked you off. Hannah sat on my face, then you bent me over the sofa and fucked me senseless.”
“Exactly. You. Not Hannah. Not Rebecca. I’ve never slept with them.”
“They give you blowjobs all the time.”
“But have I ever stuck my cock in their cunts before?”
The vulgar language seemed to penetrate where rational words couldn’t.
Karen paused. “No.” Wonder filled the single syllable.
“Right.” Heartened by the break in her attack, Dan plowed on. “I like them, I won’t deny it. Three beautiful women willing to let me do anything I want to them; why the hell wouldn’t I like it? It’s a straight man’s dream. But I fuck their mouths if I fuck them at all. Only you get the real deal. Understand?” The word came out almost as a demand, but a beseeching undercurrent ran beneath it.
“When I’m done, or bored, I close my Library, send them home, and spend the rest of my time with the only slave I actually give a damn about.”
The bunched fists at Karen’s sides loosened. He watched her face, waiting for the next explosion. It never came.
“God, you’re right. You’ve never had proper sex with them. Not once.”
Dan risked stepping away from the door. He lowered his voice, only aware he had been shouting because of the depth of the silence he now broke. “You’re not fussy about playmates. I am. Having men in my Slave Library would kill it—sorry, I just don’t swing that way, but women means that I can enjoy them with you. Then they go away and we have each other. That’s always what it was.”
“I thought...” Karen deflated like a pricked balloon. She stepped away from the door and sat on the end of the bed. “Shit.”
“Is that what this is about? The whole time? How long have you been thinking this?”
“I don’t know.” A weary note crept into her voice. It startled Dan more than the anger or exasperation because it belonged to neither vanilla-Karen nor submissive-Karen. This was wholly new. This was timid-Karen. He opened his mouth, but the words stuck. How was he supposed to treat this unknown version of his girlfriend?
“Fuck,” she murmured.
“I don’t know how to fix problems if you don’t tell me about them. Why didn’t you say something sooner? We need to talk about this—we have to—” he broke off, raking a hand through his hair. Relief that Beth wasn’t the problem faded as the depth of the real issue started to sink in.
“The Library has been running for weeks. You sat with me when I met Hannah, you said you liked her. And Rebecca, you leapt on her as soon as I let you. Was it all a lie?”
“No.”
“Then why? I don’t understand.”
“Normally I don’t think about it. But then your mum sh
owed up—you ran away and abandoned me—and she was so awful. But you wouldn’t say anything. You never say anything to her. I panicked.”
“Why?” He tilted his head to catch a glimpse of her eyes, but she refused to look his way. Blind without her expression as a guide, Dan forced himself to wait.
Karen bit her lip. “Because I don’t know what you want.” The words burst from her lips. “I say ‘I love you’ and you just stare like I’ve punched you. You’ve never told me you love me. Not once. But you let me meet your parents and your friends and I know that must mean something. You told me you never mix kink with family so I know it’s a big deal. I visit you and stay for weeks, we pick out furniture together, but if anyone mentions marriage you close up like a clam. You tell people marriage is only for morons who want expensive parties and big dresses.”
“Do you want to get married?”
“Fuck, no,” she said, unknowingly aping his response to the same question. “But what are we doing? Where are we going?”
Dan rubbed his face with both hands. Only then did he realize they were shaking. He made tight fists and held them until the tremors subsided. “We’re a couple. You’re my girlfriend, my slave. My submissive. Isn’t that what you want?”
“Yes, but I need more.” Finally she looked up. Tears rolled down her face. Words caught in his throat. Never before had he seen Karen cry. His legs jerked as if to run, a classic example of the fight or flight response guiding his body, every muscle ready to move at the smallest provocation.
“Kaz...”
“I’m sorry.” As if sensing the effect of her tears she rubbed the heels of her palms across her face. “I know you have commitment issues, but you asked. And you’re right, you have to know how I feel. This is what I want from you. This is what I need.”
He grasped for a sensible reply. “I don’t have commitment issues.”
She gave him a dry look, one eyebrow quirked up towards her hairline. Clearly it was not the right response.
“We’ve been together eighteen months,” he said. “That’s ages.”
“Dan...”
He stared at her. Tracing the lines of her beautiful face and moving his gaze down, drinking in her curvy frame encased in shiny, clinging latex. Once again the contrast stuck him dumb, white against the rich, chocolate brown of her smooth, soft skin. He remembered telling Pete that he didn’t want to lose her but only in that moment did he really understand why. It wasn’t just her beauty or her submission. Those things certainly helped, but as Dan gazed at Karen’s tear streaked face he realized that it was the whole bloody package.
Sugar Dust Page 10
