You, Me, and the Secret: A Club Stigmata Novella

by Elle Luckett

  I hadn’t felt the climax rising through the pain, but it burst free at his request, crashing over and drowning me like waves over rocks. I forgot how to breathe, gasping for air as everything shrank away, and I began to float to the surface when the plug finally settled into place.

  I was panting for breath, heaving to find oxygen, and wriggling to find comfort even as pleasure took the lead. Asher watched me with heat, the smile softer as he stroked a finger over the tender skin of my folds, nudging the exposed nerve of my clit and sending shockwaves through me. Patiently, he coaxed me to the surface of my slice of heaven, his lips brushing my knees’ insides as he watched with satisfaction.

  “As much as I enjoy sharing you, I think we should do the rest in the room I booked, kitten.”

  The bubble popped almost violently around me, just as he’d planned.

  A blink was all it took to see beyond him to the faces of the crowd that had gathered around us. We had Dominants with their submissives on their knees, single submissives, and even a couple of runners who had taken a break to watch the show Asher had put on, and yet I hadn’t been aware of one of them.

  He hadn’t wanted me to be.

  This is where Asher excelled. This is where our history built upon our future. He’d manufactured the trust between us enough that I’d let go of my inhibitions—something I hadn’t been able to do in the seven years without him.

  I felt no shame or embarrassment, and I didn’t second guess the display we’d just put on.

  I felt satisfied and hungry for more, putting myself in his hands to do as he pleased.

  While he watched me, he used a wipe from his bag to clean his fingers and my thighs before unscrewing the clasps enough to tug them free, leaving a bite of pain. He left the straps attached to my wrists as he eased me from the bar to unsteady legs.

  “You pleased me, kitten,” he said, brushing his lips over the shell of my ear. “See what happens when you gift your trust to me.”

  “You took it.”

  Asher chuckled, grabbing his bag from the stool and wrapping the other arm around my waist. I stepped out of the satin, which had slipped down my hips and legs to the floor. I felt dazed and confused but warm and comfortable leaning against him, incapable of lying to myself, let alone him.

  “I want to take more,” he growled, nodding his thanks to a runner who’d handed a scrap of material to him. I was so lost, it barely registered that we were moving.

  “You can have it all,” I mumbled to him, meaning every word.

  The room was one of the plainer ones — a standard room that offered rings in the ceilings and the essential toys like a sawhorse and St. Andrew’s cross, as well as various other furniture pieces. I was glad of the familiarity of it as we entered. It made it feel normal to sink to my knees and bow my head to wait for Asher to organize what he’d needed to do. My muscles were jellied, even as I rested my chin against my naked chest and stared down at my thighs, spread apart to accommodate the ache between my legs and ease the sensitivity of my clit that currently felt too big for my body. The haziness in my head was slowly beginning to clear with the agony of it.

  When Asher offered his hand to me, I took it and rose to my feet, swaying into his arms before I managed to center myself.

  “How long has it been since you let go like that?”

  “Seven years,” I answered without thought. My brain was currently so attuned to him, it was like being stuck with truth serum. Something I wasn’t upset about as my liquid muscles tingled.

  “With me?”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “Is that because you love me?”

  “You already know the answer to that, Sir.”

  “Yes, but you haven’t said it aloud,” he growled, brushing his lips over my shoulder in languid strokes while one of his hands brushed against the live wires that were my thighs.

  I couldn’t stop the shiver that ran the length of me, or the way my skin pebbled even at the brush of his fingertips across my flesh. I wanted to give him the answer he sought, but the words currently forming in my mind wouldn’t please him, even if they were the truth.

  “I don’t want to. Not yet.”

  “I’ve told you I still love you.”

  “I know, but I’m scared, Asher.”

  He didn’t blink at my use of his name rather than the moniker of Sir.

  “Of me?”

  “No,” I answered quickly and truthfully. I didn’t know how to explain that loving him could cost me so much. That loving anyone felt like a risk when I thought about the consequences. “Of loving you.”

  “But you feel it?”

  “I…” It was oversimplified, but there was no denying how I felt. “Yes. I feel it.”

  Asher nodded and didn’t push the subject any further. The connection between us was currently fragile, and digging to the root of the problem could wait.

  Stroking my hair, Asher pressed his lips to my temple and let the moment pass between us.

  “How did it feel to let go?”

  “Indescribable, Sir. I didn’t think I was capable of exhibitionism anymore.”

  “Thomas Hayward told me you were shy when I first went into his office this evening.”

  I blinked in surprise.

  “He said those words,” Asher mused, his fingers venturing to the inside of my thigh as he bit down on the muscle between neck and shoulder. “Our Shauna is a shy one. It made me jealous.”

  “J-Jealous?” I stuttered out.

  “Our Shauna,” he said again. “I have more respect for Thomas and Christopher Hayward than any other men on the planet, but it killed me to hear them claim you like that. You are mine.”

  I closed my eyes.

  My whole body responded.

  I was his, I wanted to be his, but his jealousy was unexpected.

  “I hadn’t planned on putting my cuffs on you tonight.” He slipped two fingers around my aching clit, stroking with a third. Sensation exploded through my body until I stumbled, my head falling against his. “But you’re mine. There is no point in wasting time there.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “How about we finish what we started?”

  Lifting his head, Asher slipped two of his fingers inside me while his other hand cradled my chin and angled it, so our eyes met and held.

  “I’m not going to be gentle when fucking you tonight. I’m going to make sure you feel me everywhere. I want to be the first thing you think of when you wake up. I want you to feel me deep inside every time you move. I need you to know that you… are… mine.”

  That floating feeling settled in around me again as I swayed on the spot. If he wanted a response, I was incapable because he already owned all of me. No other man had or would come close to making me feel what I was feeling now. No one would ever command my body while holding every other part of me in his grip. Asher was the only one. If he needed to claim me and make his mark, I wasn’t going to stop him.

  “I need you to straddle the sawhorse before I forget myself and fuck you here.”

  I moved to do as he asked, but his fingers were still inside me. I stopped and stumbled, groaning when he eased the fingers from inside me and pinched my clit violently as they passed. My legs buckled as pleasure stabbed through me without warning, but Asher caught me, a small chuckle bathing the top of my head. He made sure I was steady on my feet before tapping my ass to send me on my way.

  I leaned on the bench when I approached, both hands landing on the padded surface as I forced breaths in and out. Bending over the end of it, my ribs pressed against the material, and my arms stretched out ahead of me, the position coming naturally. This was his preference, and the grunt of approval told me he’d noticed as he approached behind me and ran a hand from my ass up to my spine. He continued over my shoulder and followed the line of my arms to the end of the bench where my hands lay palm up, waiting for him to bind me. I slid my eyes closed as his index finger ran from my palm to the tip of my finger. Like a king,
he assessed his kingdom—the expanse of flesh that belonged to him to do with as he pleased laid out before him. I felt the burn of his eyes over every curve. Mine only opened again when I felt the tug of the cuffs on my wrists.

  A red rope was being fed through the rings and looped through the next. An exquisite knot was tied to keep them together. Asher fed it into another ring at the end of the bench and tugged tight enough to force me to my toes and feel the burn through my ribs.

  This rope was always his signature. He always carried a length of it in his pocket. I’d forgotten about it until now. Forgotten how much it excited me. The ache inside of me wasn’t just a need for sex, it was my need for Asher. All of him. The touch, the taste of him, the feeling of his hands on my body, the way he always understood what I required before I did.

  Unclipping the straps, he draped them over his arm before tracing his hand back down my arms again, stopping at my shoulder. He pressed his thumb against my lips, and I accepted it into my mouth, running my tongue around the tip while Asher lowered to a crouch — his mouth level with my ear.

  My bottom lip trembled around his thumb as arousal began to consume every rational thought. His breaths, hot and heavy, had me drawing my own in time with his as he dropped his lips to my shoulder and bit violently, bringing the room back into vivid clarity.

  “Don’t you check out on me yet, kitten. I want you to feel all of this.” He pulled his thumb loose and kissed where my skin burned from the shock of violence.

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “Good girl.”

  He rose, tracing my flesh to my stomach. He pulled a leather strap free and bound my waist to the frame, tightening it only when I winched and sucked in a breath of shock. He locked me in place before he made his way behind me, hands pulling my ass cheeks apart to admire the plug he’d left there before he nudged it in a slow circle. Air left me violently as the sensations lit me up. A moan fell against the material of the bench as he eased it out to stretch me before allowing it to fall back into place.

  “Your ass always was sensitive, but it’s almost virginal again.” He tugged again, but I had nowhere to go, my wrists burned in the cuffs as I jerked on the binds. His chuckle was full of pleasure and arousal, almost drowning out the subtle click of his knees as he crouched.

  I felt his breath before his lips pressed against my labia, gentle swipes of his tongue forced the strap to cut against my waist as I squirmed. It was when I felt his teeth around the fleshy part that I bucked. White exploded behind my eyes as pleasure rose. Being locked down and unable to do anything but take what he was giving sent small waves of panic through me, it swept the rapture up with it and tangled them together. Erotic sensation took over everything and grew when Asher replaced his teeth with the clamp’s bite over the sting. He worked faster with the straps this time but riddled the skin with delicious nibbles that shoved me toward an edge before being replaced with surgical steel and protective rubber.

  My pussy was alive with the pain. Agony kept me from floating into my own headspace for too long, but Asher wasn’t ready to give in to our mutual needs. He stripped himself slowly, the sound of the material moving loud enough to be heard even over the sound of the song playing in the club.

  His breath rushed over me without warning this time. The wash of it burned my already heated pussy, the scratch of his whiskers on sensitive flesh scorching the sensitive skin as he pushed his face against me and closed his lips around my clit to suck.

  It hurt. It hurt like the first lick of an open nerve, painfully shocking, violent, and beautiful. Asher held the nerves in place with his teeth while his tongue flicked and teased. I was dragged between heaven and hell as he worked, the pressure of his teeth pulling me back when his tongue coaxed me to the line of climax. I needed the release, but it was his to command, the torture of that adding to the pain already claiming ownership. Breathing became an effort between cries of arousal and agony and grew louder still when he coaxed the nerves to the surface and pressed the ministrations of his mouth with a pulsing vibrator.

  The word fuck fell from my mouth. My fingers clawed at the rope, and my hips locked into place as he grazed his teeth over my ass cheek, biting into the rugburn.

  “Come now.”

  It exploded from me. Asher’s name falling from my lips like an invocation.

  That reverence was what he’d wanted.

  There was a clatter of plastic. The buzzing circled as it played to itself while Asher slammed himself into me without warning or hesitation. His cock pressed so deep inside, it pushed another orgasm to join the first, his balls brushing against my sensitive clit. The rough edge of his breath got lost in another of my cries, the overfull sensation making my body struggle. His cock pressed against the wall where the plug pressed, and I had nowhere left to go when the waves of eroticism hit and dragged me under.

  There was no starting slow tonight. He’d warned me there wouldn’t be, but this reclamation was a force of nature. My body was locked in place on an anchored frame, and he pounded inside of me with brutality stirring another mess of orgasms clawing achingly through my body. I hovered just below the clouds’ surface, my orgasms rising and falling between the pleasure and the pain. Clamps stretched me, the anal plug stroked every nerve, and his cock filled me, hitting every sweet spot inside. The agony of holding back, waiting for his approval, made tears form and fall, the pleasure too much to contain even when he wound my hair around his fist, and my body bowed impossibly.

  I’d been too far gone in the sensations already rampant in my body to realize what he’d been about to do when he slipped a hand between us. I’d been unprepared, focusing on harnessing my climax and listening for him to set me free. The fire of torment flared through my body, dragging a scream from my achingly dry lips when he pulled the clamps loose with a vicious tug on the straps. His command for me to come was the only thing to break through the surface and drown everything else out.

  The release that followed propelled me into a white headspace where nothing but pleasure existed, and the clouds held me suspended as I floated above it all.

  Warm arms folded around my body when I finally came around. My cheek was pressed against Asher’s damp chest—his masculine scent swirling around me as small dots of pain slowly began to register. His thumb brushed slow circles on the apple of the other cheek as he waited for me to come around fully. This was another part of being with him I’d stored away in the box of things not to revisit. No one did aftercare as well as Asher.

  The straps were gone now. The plug was absent, and fire rose from between my thighs with the raw feeling around my waist and hips where I’d fought the restraints. It all felt amazing, even as the comforting cloud receded and left me in the stark reality of the here and now.

  Asher’s breath was warm over my neck. His beard tickling me as he ran his nose along my cheek and jaw coaxing me awake. He murmured reassurances I couldn’t quite make out and wasn’t ready to clarify, unprepared to leave this little bubble we were in. Our time together had felt like a lifetime and a blink all at once. I wanted more of the pleasure to counter the pain. Although, I wasn’t entirely sure my body could handle anything more than a brush of fingers right now.

  “You’re coming back to me,” Asher whispered in a deep baritone.

  “Five more minutes, Sir.”

  The quiet chuckle was accompanied with a brush of his thumb over my nipple, stirring things inside me that made me squirm with discomfort. My abused clit being one of them. I shifted in his arms, a quiet whimper escaping without permission.

  “I’m sorry, baby. I forgot how sensitive your nipples are.”

  They were even more so since I’d been pregnant, but he couldn’t have known that.

  “I forgot how beautiful you are when you let yourself drift into subspace.” Asher brushed my hair back over my shoulder with familiarity as he finally rested his cheek against mine and stilled. “You need to drink some water for me, kitten.”

  “Not yet. I
like where I am right now, Sir.”

  “You don’t have to move.” He shifted slightly and supplied a bottle.

  I took it from him, the joints in my hands aching from clawing in pleasure and pain while he’d been working my body. The moment it touched my lips, I drained it. Asher exchanged it for a second, and I took sips until the thirst was satisfied, and then I dropped my cheek back against his sweat-dampened chest.

  He held me for a while, a comforting silence hanging between us as he stroked, petted, and traced the veins under my skin. I stayed boneless in his arms, happy to let him draw my mind from the pain that nagged from between my thighs. He would look after that too once I was out of my own head all the way. For now, he seemed happy to just be with me.

  It took close to thirty minutes of cuddling to finally chase the last of the haze away, and another ten for Asher to relinquish his hold on me. When he was sure I was stable, he left me in the chair, curled in a blanket while he filled the clawfoot tub in the corner of the room with a soothing Epsom salt blend. Asher eased me into the hot water with a kiss before setting the room back to rights. Once done, he climbed into the tub with me, sliding in the opposite end so he could see me rather than frame me.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Well fucked and sore, Sir.”

  He hummed out his approval, picking up one of my feet and pushing his thumb into the arch, making me moan in an entirely new way. I’d always wondered how hands as gentle and healing as his, could inflict so much enjoyable pain in my body. He worked his way from my foot to my calf. The pressure rose and fell until I was gripping his legs under the tepid water as my body moved from solid to liquid.

  “How do you do that?” I groaned when he finally switched to my other leg and worked my muscles.

  “I know my partner.”

  “You really do,” I moaned the sound out and felt his cock twitch against my leg under the water.

  Asher chuckled in amusement and pressed his thumbs into my calf until the rest of my body went fluid again. When he finally released my leg, a Cheshire-cat grin of satisfaction curled his lips as he watched me.