With a painful hitch in his stride, courtesy of the metal that had sheared through his thigh, he meandered to the bar and eased down onto a stool to wait for Liam to finish stretching himself too thin. Under normal circumstances, Thane would have offered to help with the bartending or the signing-in duties, but he knew he wouldn't have been drafted to the task.
Movement caught his attention in the walkway. Thane cocked his head as he recognized the larger of two figures slipping out of view—the big Master of Avalon, Atticus, and a second, smaller person—female and familiar. The brief glimpse he caught of her reminded him of the woman who’d caught his attention on his previous visits, only he was convinced she was dominant. Interesting.
His eyes slid to the right as the three women who'd been behind him in the foyer made an entrance, strutting through the swing doors and making a beeline straight for the bar. Correction, he thought in exasperation as the middle one's bright blue eyes locked on him. They were making a beeline for him, where he sat all alone without so much as a drink to lose himself in.
They surrounded him.
“Hey there,” the first one purred, giving a good attempt at infusing seduction into her voice. “You look lonely.”
She couldn't be more than twenty-five in body, eighteen in the brain. Far too immature for his liking, even if she'd hit his arousal button. Sadly, neither she nor her partners in crime held any interest for him. A pity, but he'd learned many years ago that playing with someone he didn't have the slightest ounce of attraction to just soured what should be a pleasurable exchange of power.
“Alone,” he amended, circling his finger to encompass the area. “Not lonely.”
Number two stepped closer, running her fingers down his arm. “There's a difference?”
College girls, he mused. Maybe on a rite of passage mission. Sorority dare? Did they even know what Avalon was? Stifling a laugh, Thane lifted his hand to his mouth and ran his thumb over his lips. “Is this your first time at the club, girls? Because you know the rules, right?”
“Rules?” Number two asked, confused. “It's a nightclub. A really sucky one,” she added with a pout. “There's no one here, and there's no music. We just want a really good night out, y'know? Get drunk, have some fun, maybe find a handsome man to do naughty things with in the bathroom…” She gave him a coy smile that didn't suit her in the slightest.
“Mm-hmmm. Two questions. Number one: how did you find this place?”
“Oh well, see, Amy overheard her stepmom talking about Avalon and how things happen here that don't anywhere else. Amy's stepmom is like the same age, so she's not gonna recommend somewhere for her friends to party that's gonna blow, is she?” Number three jumped in with a beaming smile. “We looked at her dad's navigation system in the BMW, and it gave us the directions.”
Thane blinked. It would be funny, it really would, if it didn't pose a huge breach of client privacy. He nodded slowly, his thumb still stroking his lip. “So, you eavesdropped on a private conversation, then snooped through your dad's car to get the directions. That leads me to my second question: how did you get into the club without a membership card?”
Number one, the girl with the bright blue eyes, was evidently Amy. She slipped her hand into her purse and pulled out a black credit card-sized piece of plastic that was identical to his own. Waggling it at him, she crooned, “I was a bad girl and borrowed my stepmom's. She won't mind; we share everything anyway.” That last part held a belligerent tone that stirred his Dom into waking.
Liam strode across the room and behind the bar, looking a little frazzled at the edges. He slapped the shelf down, picked up his polishing cloth, and headed straight for Thane. “Sorry to keep you waiting. Reinforcements have just arrived, so our regularly scheduled activities can get right back on track. What can I get you, Thane?”
Thane leaned forward and snagged the stolen membership card out of Amy's fingers. All three girls started to protest, but he shut them up with a hard glare of disapproval before turning on his stool to hand it to Liam. “Might want to make sure this gets back to its rightful owner, Liam. Big blue eyes over here has just admitted to stealing it and using it to access the club.”
Even as Liam's face lost all its color, his gray eyes darkened to damn near black. “I beg your pardon?”
“What's your stepmom's name?” Thane asked the girl.
Looking as though she was ready to claw his face off, Amy muttered something under her breath. The other two were now incredibly quiet as they pondered how much trouble they were in.
“I'm sorry, I didn't hear that. Repeat yourself.” An edge of hard authority laced his words.
“Amy Potterman,” she snapped.
“Fuck,” Liam groaned. He stared at the card in his hand thoughtfully, then lifted his gaze to the girl and scowled. “You showed me your ID when you signed yourself and your friends in. Your ID says Amy Potterman. The address matches the one we have on file. What the hell?”
“Apparently the stepmom is the same age as the daughter,” Thane murmured, not at all envious of the shit falling on Liam's head. “Did the birthdates match?”
“Same month, same year. Different goddamn day. Fuck, Braun is gonna kill me.” Liam shoved the card in his pocket and jabbed a finger at a corner booth across the room. “You three, go sit your asses down over there while I…Jesus, whose neck do I wring first?”
At the mention of wringing, the three girls dashed across the room as though Liam had threatened to spank the living shit out of them. They deserved it, Thane admitted, and he hoped they got a punishment that deterred them from pulling a stunt like this again. “Kids will be kids, Liam. Once they find something they're not supposed to know about, they'll come up with ways to get into it.”
“Yeah, I guess. Doesn't stop me feeling like a dick. Thanks for catching on to it, there'd be hell if they'd gotten into the next barn.” He rubbed his forehead. “Oh good, Jasper's here. Let me get you a drink, on the house, and then I'll have to go call the Pottermans, I guess.”
Jasper, Thane thought, searching his memory banks. Avalon's resident sadist, recently taken off the market by a little blonde sub who adored him. Had walked with a cane the first time Thane had seen him—which Thane sympathized with—but seemed to be fully independent now. “I'll take a rain check if you don't mind. I wanted to go take a look at some of the equipment in the next building.”
“Sure, go for it. Make the most of it before the place gets busier.” Nodding, Liam took off toward the end of the bar with a sharp shout of, “Jasper! Need you for a sec.”
After that, Thane was entertained by the sudden revolution of people changing stations. The sadist sent his sub to wait for him in the seating pit near the stage as he and Liam got deep into conversation. A dark expression crossed Jasper's face as he glanced over at the three women huddled into the booth, then he nodded and exited into the foyer. A moment later, the man Thane knew as Saul—not a Master, as far as he was aware—came through to speak with Liam.
They were joined by a grinning man with shaggy brown hair that didn't suit his face. The club joker, Loki. That grin soon faded as the situation was relayed, and Thane was fascinated by how the chain of command wasn't topped by one person. So far, the four Doms seemed to have split the responsibility of handling the matter between them.
Loki nodded and spun on his heel, his face hard as he stomped over to the booth and slammed his hands down on the table, making the girls jump and shrink back. Delivering one hell of a lecture, Thane realized. Not loudly, not with anything that could be construed as shouting, but harsh enough to make the petty thief at the heart of things cry.
More people approached the bar, filing through the doors steadily. It was going to be a busy night. Liam finished talking to Saul and had just moved down the bar to start serving customers when a high-pitched alarm whined from somewhere underneath the bar, sounding three times in quick succession.
Liam groaned and thumped the heel of his hand against his fo
rehead. “God, I don’t need this headache right now.”
“Don’t worry about it, Liam. Handle this, and I’ll go scope out the safeword situation.” Moving fast, Saul made an abrupt change of direction and hurried toward the walkway.
“Oh, that won’t go down well,” Liam muttered, giving his forehead another smack before he plastered on a smile, already turning to the waiting patrons requiring his services.
Curious, intrigued, Thane slid off his stool and stretched. Anytime he stayed in a position for a little too long, his goddamn leg seized up. Three years of physical therapy had helped, but not enough to bring him back to his former physical glory.
Saul was already out of sight down the walkway as Thane limped after him, exaggerating the movement to stall. He knew he was being nosy, understood he was crossing a line, but years of active duty had taught him that information was the key to everything. Something was telling him to follow the Dom, and he'd listened to his gut instincts for too long to ignore them now.
Thane stepped into the walkway, paused as he heard low voices echoing in the long, slightly curved space. He pressed his hand against the wall and pretended to be resting his leg as he strained to hear the conversation, cursing as the words were lost in the echo. He eased along the wall until he was only ten feet away from where Saul stood, his back to him as he spoke to someone through a barely-open door.
Bending over, he began to massage his thigh like he had a cramp.
“It's not that I don't trust you, Atticus.” Saul said, then said something so quietly Thane couldn't catch it. Both men laughed, but not unkindly. “Let me get this over with so you can get back to things.”
Atticus called something out, something about a color, but Thane couldn't hear the reply from inside the room. From the corner of his eye, he saw Saul's back go ramrod straight.
“You know, it’s none of my business, Atticus, but she sounds an awful lot like—” Saul's voice was shocked.
Atticus erupted from the room like a demon, huge and looming over the other man, who wasn't that much shorter. If Atticus was six-six, Saul had to be six-four. Not much difference in height, but right now, the bearded Master was twice the size of the Dom. The door slammed shut with a mighty crack. “Don't finish that sentence, Saul.”
Thane's hands paused on his thigh, fingers biting into the muscle. He didn't lift his head, gave no indication he was eavesdropping, but he wondered if he was going to have to break up a fight between the two men. It would be an equal tussle, he decided. The three of them were closely related in height and weight at a guess, with him topping out at six-three and just over two hundred pounds.
“I haven't been here long, Atticus, but Connie is a Domme through and through. I've heard the stories of how she used to play with her subs, and that isn't a woman who submits consensually.” Saul's shoulders moved back into a fighting stance, his fists clenched. “Is she in there against her will?”
“No.”
“Goddamn it, Atticus, you need to give me something here.”
“No, I don't.” The Master lifted his shoulder. “Sometimes, you just have to trust that we do things for the good of others, Saul. You don't know me well yet, but you know what I do. Connie…” Atticus's voice dropped lower when he noticed Thane, giving him a suspicious glare that Thane didn't acknowledge. “She's going through some stuff no one needs to know about. No one will know about,” he growled in warning. “One word of this gets out, I'll hunt down whoever opened their fucking mouth, and I will make sure they can't say another word for the rest of their lives. Got me?”
Frustrated, Saul heaved out a breath. “I won't say a fucking thing, but just tell me you have consent. For my own peace of mind.”
Obviously taking pity on the Dom, Atticus sighed. “Yes, Saul, I have her full consent. There's no need to worry on that score. Now fuck off and go have some fun.” He clapped him on the shoulder hard enough to knock Saul aside, then looked directly at Thane. “You okay there? Need Saul to escort you to a seat?”
Thane grimaced and dug his fingers deeper into the muscle. After a few seconds, he jolted and cocked his head at Atticus. “Sorry, were you talking to me?”
“I said, do you need Saul to give you a hand to a seat?” The Master repeated.
“Oh. Oh, no, thanks. Just cramp in the thigh. If I massage the worst of it, I can walk the rest of it off.” Thane rolled his eyes as he squeezed the muscles one last time and stepped forward gingerly. “Fuck. Three years after being smashed up in a wreck and I'm still getting plagued by cramps. I’m sorry if I intruded, I'll get out of your way.” Mixing a brief smile into the grimace, he limped past the two men and continued slowly toward the doors leading into the impact play barn.
When no one tackled him from behind, Thane figured he was a better actor than he thought he was.
Now he was gaining a better understanding of the hierarchy of the club, and its members. This new tidbit of information gave him hope to wonder whether he might have finally found someone who could meet his needs.
*
There wasn't much she could do to stop Atticus from dragging her down over his thighs as he sat on the edge of the bed. Her inner Domme had already stomped off in disgust, leaving the submissive quivering with anticipation over what came next.
Connie squirmed, panting nervously as Atticus arranged her precisely where he wanted her. While her brain tried to reconcile the shift in power, the transition from Dominant to submissive, he obviously had no qualms about the shift in their dynamic. Why would he? she thought. The foundations of his sexuality weren't being tossed upside down after years of wielding control.
“I told you to stay exactly as you were, little sub.” Atticus's broad palm stroked in light circles over her upturned butt, bringing blood to the surface of her skin. She knew all the tricks in the book. “Not to move, not to open your eyes, and you disobeyed me. Tell me, if your sub disregarded your orders that way, what would you do?”
“He wouldn't sit down comfortably for a few days, Sir,” she mumbled miserably. If he was still here. She'd had not one, but two beautiful and brilliant young men at her disposal, had loved them both, and hadn't had any other choice but to let them go. Her choice had come down to their happiness or hers, and she’d sacrificed her own because they'd had a chance at achieving it.
“Lucky for you, I'm not going to punish you hard, Connie, because spanking this ass red isn’t going to achieve what I want from you tonight. I can't in good conscience hurt you for losing a fight against something that's an innate part of you, but I am going to give you six before we get down to the tough stuff.”
She closed her eyes, one hand gripping the edge of the bedspread and the other clutching his pants leg. In her opinion as a Domme, he was being too lenient. As a woman struggling to remember how to be submissive again, she couldn't be more grateful…until his hand cracked down on her left buttock with all the force of a wooden paddle.
He stole her breath. Every muscle went rigid as pain flared through her, then she reared up off his lap with a cry of outrage. She heard his grim laugh as an arm the size of a branch pressed against her back, just below her shoulders, and shoved her down again. Pinning her this time. His leg moved beneath her, shifting to immobilize her legs before she could kick out as he struck her again, right cheek this time, with the same swift force.
Shouting curses at him, she tried to buck. His fingers molded to the underside of her ass for strikes three and four, bringing forth a torrent of swearing that would have made seasoned sailors blush. It only made her embarrassment worse when she realized her thighs were slick. She twisted as he finished the set with a final two smacks.
“Goddamn you.”
“Not done yet, little sub.” His fingers brushed over her swollen labia gently, teasing her clit. When her hips jerked in response, he made a soft shushing sound. “Beautiful, wet pussy.” A long, thick finger pushed slowly up inside her, drawing a moan from her throat. “Poor little sub, being neglected by everyon
e around her. We let you down, Connie. More than that, you let yourself down by not telling us how to help.”
It opened the first chink in her armor. She tried to shore it up again, but it was too late. Connie gritted her teeth against the tightness of her throat and growled, “I know you, Atticus. If you go anywhere near my ass, I will kill you.”
The arm across her back moved, and his hand clamped on her neck. “Remember your manners, Connie. Anal wasn't on your list of hard limits, and if you're trying to make a point by refusing to use honorifics, it's going to backfire on you.” His finger slipped out of her, moving up to press against her anus. “Everyone knows I love anal. Somehow, I don't think you'll appreciate me using it as a chastisement. You've had something up here, I presume?”
Flushing bright red, she turned her face into the bed and shook her head.
“No?” he asked in genuine surprise. “I've got to say, I wasn't expecting that. Between your former Dom and the two strapping subs you tended to, I thought you'd have been cherry free by now. I know for a fact you had several double penetration scenes with Kevin and David.”
Connie's lip trembled. It hurt to hear their names. And as for her former Dom, well, he could fuck himself as he fell all the way to hell. Her stomach muscles tensed as Atticus pushed his finger into her ass. Barely an inch, but enough to bring a cold sweat to her skin. Her nails bit into her palms. Another inch. Her teeth sank into her bottom lip hard enough to draw blood.
“You're shaking, Connie,” Atticus murmured softly, keeping his finger precisely where it was. “Shaking hard enough to rattle your bones. This scares you, more than you can physically and mentally handle, but you're not giving me your safeword. Why aren't you using the one thing that can stop this here and now?”
He wouldn't break her. She wouldn't let him. She was a Domme, for fuck's sake, and that was her fucking safe place.
Talk For Me: Club Avalon Book 3 Page 4