by Poppy Flynn
Connor was surprised to find that it did absolutely nothing for him. As wound up as he had been, himself, after his scene with Fluff last night and the uncomfortable night he had spent denying his own satisfaction, just as he'd promised, he had expected the scene to at least engender some level of arousal on his part. But, no, nothing. Not even a semi. The thought irritated him more than he cared to acknowledge, and he had taken that frustration out on Miss Spanx's arse—much to her delight.
She had been overjoyed and supremely satisfied. So much so that she had climbed off the spanking bench, rubbed her naked body all over him and suggested that they'd have to make it a regular occurrence. The very idea made Connor shudder and he had never been more relieved to tell someone that he was a visitor, himself, and not available on a full-time basis. Nicely, of course, with his own hard-won act of completely faked remorse. Got to keep the client happy.
Now, duty done, all he wanted to do was find his own submissive and actually enjoy himself for the rest of the evening. Whatever the complex, often conflicting feelings he had for Fluff, he couldn't deny that scening with her allowed him to taste a little slice of heaven, to drown in the moment and put all other thought behind him for a little while. Even if they did come back to plague him full force afterwards.
Before he had a chance to put that plan into action, though, he saw Micah barrelling towards him with a furious look on his usually carefree face, and instinctively, Connor knew that it was going to be a little while longer before he found his solace with Fluff and put them both out of their erotic misery.
Laurel burst into the private staff room that was reserved exclusively for paid employees, club masters, and club subs, like herself. She pulled up short, in surprise, at seeing Desi Blackwood's close friend, Charlotte Chapman, there, since she was none of those things, although Laurel imagined that being the manager's trainee sub had something to do with her presence.
Laurel tried not to show her discomfort at Charlotte's surprised expression and the once over the woman gave her, but she supposed she did probably look rather different from usual, dressed as she was, rather more conservatively than her usual flamboyant style and certainly showing a lot less skin.
Laurel might have been even more uncomfortable if she'd known that, in fact, it was none of those things that really struck Charlotte. It was the look of abject misery on what was normally an especially bubbly face and the way Laurel's shoulders slumped in absolute defeat that had Charlotte jumping up and helping her to a small couch, where she dropped down beside her and instinctively pulled her close for a hug.
If anything, that was Laurel's undoing, and great, heaving sobs started to wrack her body while hot tears poured down her cheeks. And she certainly wasn't a pretty crier. Her cheeks mottled, her nose got red, and her eyes puffed up almost immediately.
"Are you okay, Fluff?" Charlotte asked, sticking to protocol. Not the right thing to do. The use of her club name just made Laurel start crying harder. "D-don't want to be F-fluff right now," she hiccupped.
"No problem, Laurel, it is," Charlotte stated, clearly trying to sound upbeat as someone who was more than an acquaintance but not quite a friend started raining all over her.
"You're the only one who knows that," she sniffled. Since Charlotte clearly wasn't sure if that was good thing or a bad thing right now, she kept her mouth shut.
"Apart from Micah and Desi, of course. And now Joel…and him," she spat.
Charlotte continued to rub her palm soothingly across Laurel's back. If Charlotte didn't know which 'him' had caused this uncharacteristic melt down, then she at least had the wisdom not to ask and simply stuck to soothing platitudes.
Having someone coddle and fuss over her made Laurel angry all over again, and for a moment, the misery was forgotten, or at least over ridden, as she jumped up off the sofa and stormed across the room and then back again.
"Look at me!" she wailed, ripping at her clothing and pointing at various sections of her skin so that Charlotte noticed for the first time that Laurel was covered in…were those bites? Lesions? Was Laurel ill? Contagious?
Looking carefully, Charlotte could see what Laurel had taken pains to conceal. Every inch of her body seemed to be covered with the reddish-purple bruises.
Charlotte was momentarily speechless, Laurel could tell. Although the other woman hesitated to verbalise it, Laurel knew she was wondering what on earth Laurel was doing here looking like this? Laurel was wondering the same, herself.
Laurel ceased her pacing and stopped in front of Charlotte. "Look what he's done to me!" she screeched, pulling up her top and revealing a surprisingly regimented row of marks running the length of her abdomen, completely central from breastbone to pelvis.
Charlotte's eyes widened with realisation. "Are those…love bites?" she asked, astounded.
"Love? Ha! They're hickies!" Laurel shrieked. "Fucking hickies—everywhere!"
It took Charlotte a second to get over the shock, but it was clear that she still didn't know what to say. "Um, do you want to talk about it?" the other woman hedged.
Laurel felt herself physically crumple after her fit of outrage and she flopped back down next to Charlotte, starting to cry all over again, though, this time, without the noise. Somehow, those silent tears almost seemed worse.
Charlotte grabbed one of the soft aftercare blankets that were dotted around the room and swaddled Laurel in it as best she could, trying to cover up the sight of the marks, which were adding to Laurel's distress.
"Oh damn, how could I be so stupid?" Laurel sobbed. "I let him do this. I let him do this to me. But I was so sure!"
Charlotte pulled Laurel into her side, rubbed her arm through the blanket, and stayed quiet, allowing Laurel to vent because that's what she needed.
"I should have known better. I should have listened to Trinity," Laurel choked out, and Charlotte hurried to pass her a bottle of water. "I should never have mixed business and pleasure. Whatever anyone thinks, I'm not usually that stupid. What am I going to do?"
"Is it really that bad?" Charlotte asked supportively.
"I think it is," Laurel whispered sadly. "I don't think I can stay."
"Stay here?" Charlotte quantified, and Laurel realised the other woman thought she was referring to the club.
Laurel laughed bitterly; she hadn't even considered that scenario until now. "Yeah, who the hell knows, maybe here as well. That's a distinct possibility considering how well in he seems to be with this lot. God, I hadn't even thought of that." Her shoulders shook silently as more tears streamed.
"That bastard could end up costing me everything. My lifestyle and my status here as well as my job."
"Surely, it can't affect your job," Charlotte rationalised. "You work for Desi; she won't allow it."
"I don't think I can hold out until she gets back," Laurel whimpered. "Especially not since they've extended their honeymoon."
Charlotte puffed out a breath. Joel and Desi had been gone for two weeks, but it would be another six before they returned, since they'd decided to add an additional four weeks to their vacation. The company's biggest control freak and the greatest workaholic—who'd have thought it? Clearly, now that Joel and Desi had finally left work behind, they'd found far better things to do!
"Can't you just keep your head down; lie low? Take some vacation time?" Charlotte asked.
"It wouldn't make any difference," Laurel answered dejectedly. "The last few days all he's done is nit-pick. No matter what I do or what I say, what I wear or when I take my lunch. Every single thing I do is wrong. He finds fault with my work, with my office hours, with my telephone manner, with my clothing…" Her voice broke painfully. "I thought we were over all that. That the last few days meant something special to him, but I was just seeing what I wanted to see. None of it was real. Oh God! How can I ever face him again? I can't, I just can't!" she sobbed pitifully. "Plus, I have to give notice for vacation time, and I only have maybe ten days owing anyway," she sniffled.
"And the way he's been behaving recently, he'd probably deny it anyway." Hurt took hold and settled in Laurel's eyes. "Or maybe he'd be glad to get rid of me."
She paused, taking a couple of sips of water, quiet for a moment, contemplating, but looking so very sad.
"I thought we had something special. Something that might grow into…I don't know. More. But now he's doing nothing but push me away and not even in a nice way. He's been harsh, so very harsh. At work, here…" She sounded heartbroken even to her own ears, but she just couldn't shake off the growing melancholy that was starting to replace both the anger and the humiliation.
"I let him take liberties that I wouldn't have allowed any other man," she wept, "because I wanted him to be happy, because I wanted to submit every part of myself to him. And he took that gift and just…" Laurel's voice broke on a sob. "...just smashed it to pieces. I allowed him to cover me in all these marks of his possession and I truly believed it meant something to him. That he was staking his claim for everyone to see." She panted heavily, trying to maintain some composure. "And everyone did see, and that would have been fine. But then, tonight, he pulled away, avoided me, and I couldn't scene with anyone else—not even to spite him—because suddenly all these abrasions make it like I'm damaged goods. Doms don't want to play with a sub who has another man's marks all over her body." Her breathing juddered. "It's made me feel cheap and…used and…dirty. In all my years in this lifestyle, even around people who didn't understand or were critical, I never felt dirty before." Laurel shuddered.
"And to top it all, like it's just to rub my nose in it, he's down there tonight, scening with some other sub and I hated it, even though I tried to pretend it didn't matter. Because he was never my personal Dom, so I didn't have any rights to exclusivity, and I knew all that, accepted it. But it still hurt. And then when he saw me…when he saw me…" Laurel swallowed painfully around the aching lump in her throat. "It was like he deliberately started fucking her. He started fucking her, but all the time he was looking at me." She took a deep, quivering breath. "He looked at me and the fucking bastard smiled! Smiled because he knew how much he'd hurt me, and it made him smug! What did I ever do to deserve that?" Laurel asked in a small, broken voice.
"That's why I don't think I can go back to Blackwood Universal. How am I supposed to continue as his PA when he treats me like that? This week has been hell. There's no way I can handle another six, until Desi returns." Laurel didn't want to admit that some of those instances might have been her own fault or of her own making. It was all too humiliating. How could she have read the situation so wrong? No, this was all down to Connor. It was all his fault. As she vainly tried to bolster her ravaged emotions with that last defiant thought, Laurel curled into a foetal position with her head on Charlotte's lap and just let the tears flow, while Charlotte scrambled to put the final puzzle pieces together and eventually found a conclusion in the form of Connor Griffin!
Charlotte ended up going home early and taking poor, distraught Laurel with her. Whatever emergency Micah was dealing with seemed to have everyone in a bit of a tizzy.
All Charlotte knew was that it involved some female reporter trying to sneak in as a guest. Charlotte knew of the woman; she had a reputation for penning sensationalised stories for the gutter press and she'd been less than honest about her identity with the Dom she had asked to bring her.
Even the rat of the hour, if indeed he was one, Connor Griffin, was now holed up in conference with Micah, though Charlotte wasn't quite sure what an out of town guest had to do with the situation. Unless, of course, Connor was the member the reporter had latched onto. That would make sense, she supposed, since being new would have perhaps made him an easier mark. Except that Laurel had said that Connor was in the dungeon, busy shoving Laurel's nose in his escapades, when all this apparently went down. So maybe that didn't add up, after all.
Nevertheless, she'd seen Connor with her own eyes when Micah had come to make his apologies to her and ask if she would mind taking Luanna Morgan home as well, since he needed to pick Logan's lawyer brain regarding the situation. He'd been in Micah's office along with Trinity, an experienced club sub from another club on the south coast, who had been hired as Micah's assistant manager.
Of course, Connor had seemed relaxed enough, certainly not giving off the vibe of a man who was in any kind of trouble. More annoyed if anything, except for a brief flash of something that may—or may not—have been regret, when Charlotte guided Laurel, still wrapped in a blanket and looking small and broken, out of the lounge so she could make sure the other girl got home safely. Indeed, she was in no fit state to be left alone to fend for herself right now.
Connor showed absolutely no sign of recognising Charlotte, but then she'd never really gotten to know him at all. She'd seen him from a distance occasionally, when they'd all been in university, but that had been after Desi left, which had effectively severed the very tenuous ties she'd had with that group, so she'd never spent any time with him. Just the day of Joel and Desi's wedding, really, and they'd both been preoccupied that day. Charlotte recognised him, of course. Difficult not to since he was a distinctive giant of a man, whereas she, herself, was more of a little brown mouse and Connor's attention was fixed on Laurel.
She'd been aware of Micah's immediate concern when he'd seen the state that Laurel was in, and she'd recognised the battle in his eyes as he warred with himself over the need to look after one of his club subs and the obligation of dealing with business.
Micah cared about the well-being of every person who set foot into his club; it was a very genuine part of his appeal. She noticed the inscrutable look that passed between him and Connor as she and Laurel paused momentarily in the doorway. But in the end, Charlotte made the decision for him, promising to take care of Laurel and make sure she got home safely. Micah could take the issue up with Fluff later, if he felt it necessary, and devote his time, right now, to dealing with whatever damage they believed this reporter might have caused.
And it seemed like Laurel and Charlotte weren't the only ones who'd had their evenings cut short.
Luanna managed to contain her surprise, but her smile was warm as Charlotte accompanied Laurel out of the changing rooms.
Logan inclined his head politely to each of the women but made a hasty exit, keen to get the legal matters dealt with.
Luanna's smile faded as she got a better look at Laurel. The girl was clearly distraught and displaying an unusually lost and forlorn appearance that was completely at odds with her normally bouncy and cheerful personality.
"Laurel?" Luanna began, with concern, but trailed off as Charlotte gave a discreet shake of her head.
Luanna frowned. Laurel had been out of sorts at work this past week or so, too. A sliver of guilt snaked through her that she had been so wrapped up in her newfound security with Logan that she hadn't paid more attention to the girl's troubles, which had clearly taken a turn for the worse. She'd put it down to the initial stress of having to carry the bulk of the workload now that Desi had gone on her honeymoon, and the fact that despite Connor coming on board to cover Desi's absence and despite Laurel only being her PA, the truth of the matter was that Laurel was the one with all the contacts and the inside knowledge and the human connection to all the deals that were currently on the table, and that stress was sure to be doubled since they had just received word that Joel and Desi had decided to extend their honeymoon to eight weeks. Luanna had never imagined that Laurel wasn't one hundred percent capable of handling things, for all of her bubbly and playful nature, when it came to the job, Laurel was ruthlessly organised and staunchly dedicated. She truly was Desi's right hand.
No, clearly whatever was going on with Laurel was more far reaching than a simple work issue.
As she held her tongue and her apprehension, Luanna helped Charlotte settle Laurel in
to the backseat of her car, then climbed in beside her, intuition guiding Luanna to stick close to her for moral support as all her maternal instincts kicked in, and the younger girl curled in on herself and into Luanna like a child, while Luanna enveloped her in a motherly embrace and rubbed soothing hands down Laurel's back.
"I'll drop you home first; I don't want to leave her on her own," Charlotte spoke from the driver's seat.
"Are you sure you can manage?" Luanna queried with genuine concern. "I could come back with you and get Logan to pick me up en route or something."
"No, I'll be fine," Charlotte insisted. "I'll stay with her as long as she needs. Overnight, if necessary, I don't have anyone to get back to, so it won't be a problem."
"What about getting her into the house?"
"I'll manage. She's not drunk or violent or anything, just upset."
"Do you know what the problem is?" Luanna asked, eyeing Laurel who appeared to have fallen into a fitful, uneasy sleep.
"Not really," Charlotte replied, eying the pair in the backseat, not wanting to speak in front of Laurel, in case she was still awake. Luanna caught her eye and silently nodded her understanding.
"Perhaps you could ring me later and let me know that she's all right," she conceded as they pulled up in front of Luanna's apartment.
"Of course," Charlotte agreed.
Laurel was barely aware of anything that was going on around her as Charlotte drove her home. There was a buzzing of voices around her, but Laurel was too far inside her own head to be conscious of anything that was being said. There were people, she knew, and then she was in a car. Laurel just followed docilely and went where she was guided.