Salt Kissed Love (a Tomb of Ashen Tears Book 1)

by Kailee Reese Samuels

  I have no reason to know this per fact, but I imagine Serene put some hella nasty clauses in that contract. It actually wouldn’t surprise me at all if Serene didn’t put a permanent chastity belt on the poor girl.

  Cas and Zoe take to the dance floor, which left me alone. I am fine with this until Mack Larrabee eyes me from across the bar. I haven’t spoken to him much since the cabin incident in November—almost four months ago. He wants a threesome with Sal and I. I am okay with this; Sal not so much. It is a bad situation, but with Sal missing… Well, the big bad wolf is away and this kitten is going to play. I slam back my Raspberry Cosmo and make my way over to him as he heads my way.

  I wish I could explain my attraction to him. I understand he doesn’t have Sal’s sexy mug and taut guns, but his intellect causes an internal combustion in my gut.

  He scoots closer, carefully scoping out the area. “Where is your rabid horseman, Snowrose?”

  “Not here,” I reply casually, bopping along to the beat.

  Stroking his cropped ginger goatee, he asks in that swoon worthy British accent, “You want to go for a walk?”

  “I thought you would never ask, Great Wizard.”

  And here we are.

  Deja-Vu all over again as we sneak through the back and out to the paths. I know one day this man will stop diddling around and end up being someone’s fabulous Dominant. Even if Sal and I don’t work out, I doubt it will ever be me despite the protocol training, which I can only imagine would get a guy like Mack insta-hard.

  On our way out, he five-fingers a bottle of strawberry vodka from the storeroom fridge, and we ignore a need for glasses. Fun, but I really have no clue how much we drink until we get to the shack. I haven’t been back here since my initiation and it throws memories at me of a girl I think I miss.

  I enjoyed being a plaything for the masses that night. I grab the bottle and guzzle some more down until he takes it from my hands. He leans down and kisses my lips unexpectedly all the while untying my coat. Why I still have my coat on is simple—I am brazen and bold until I hit the gate and then I lose my gumption. It’s a long-standing problem with me.

  In seconds, his hands are all over me. After caressing over my bra, he dips his hand low between my legs. It feels good. Mack feels good.

  Without warning, he lifts under my arms and plops my ass on the rickety table in the middle of the derelict shanty. His finger slips around my waist as I lift my pretty red stilettos onto his shoulders and he slides the fabric down.

  Diving in, he inhales the scent of me and blows warm air against my mound before licking my slit. I lean back and relax into it before a commanding, “Fuck me, Wizard” drops from my mouth.

  His pants drop quickly to his knees as he slides in slow and deep. His cock feels amazing in my drunken stupor. In less than five minutes, we both let go in a shower of kisses and deluge between us.

  Walking back to the party, I hold his hand and feel his come dripping down my thighs. I laugh and smile and embrace the happy. The weather is nice, and Juliet bustles with a vibrant, promising energy tonight.

  Drinking and dancing the rest of the eve on the dance floor with Zoe, Cas and Mack, I let go of my inhibitions and drop the jacket—okay, maybe it is the alcohol, but the security of friends never hurts either. We have a wonderful time misbehaving together despite how I know I shouldn’t even be here. I am supposed to be at home alone and safe within my Master’s lair.

  And Cas—well Cas shouldn’t have been anywhere near Juliet, but she simply didn’t care. She knows what she can handle. Or so she thinks.

  With a young vibe pulsing through the campus, the dance floor in the cabaret turns into somewhat of a mosh pit. When the music went to a low-thumping house mix, Cas moves closer to mine as we grind against each other seductively. Swinging my hair around, I spin away from Cas as she goes the opposite direction. I catch sight of Mack trying to get Cas’ attention—pointing repeatedly and mouthing something I cannot decipher. “What?” I yell in amongst the uproarious crowd as he starts pointing like a crazy person again. “What are you saying?”

  I turn around and run head first into Sal.

  Oh, fuck me.

  His dreadful gaze entangles my will as he scolds, “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “I’m dancing and having fun! Something you would know nothing about! Where is Cas?”

  Standing in his slacks and sport coat, he looks mature and completely out of place with an intimidating confidence dusting everywhere he goes that says, “I am Master Raniero.”

  I hate to admit it; it’s sexy as fuck.

  His moss eyes beam at me. He is pissed.

  “Where is Cas?” I scream, turning to go find her as he grabs my wrist. “What the fuck are you doing?”

  Suddenly, Sal holds up his phone with a very angry looking Jack on face chat. “Iris Amarie.”

  My eyes well with tears. Shit, I am in a load of trouble. Instantly, I feel the cuffs encircle my wrists at my back and around my ankles with a small twelve-inch spreader bar all hooked together by a large, heavy chain. The dance floor clears out as Sal pulls off his coat and hands it to Zoe.

  “What the fuck are you doing to her?” Cas yells as she barrels into him. Spit flies out of her mouth, landing short of his fine leather loafers. “You bastard! Let her go!”

  Sal says nothing as he unbuttons and rolls the cuffs of his white shirt. He doesn’t even acknowledge Cas which only angers her even more.

  “I said what the fuck are you doing? You fucking pussy!” she says, giving him a shove, “Come on.”

  The entire place lurks silent.

  “Maybe you forgot how this works. You have been gone a while,” Sal seethes with a cruelty I have never witnessed. “Iris is a slave. Iris belongs to Jack. With Jack gone, he has left me with guardianship of her. You took my truck. You took my girl.”

  “She isn’t your fucking girl, Salvatore!” She spits again, this time nailing his cheek.

  “That is where you are wrong. She is mine.” Getting up in his face, Cas throws a punch. He snatches her fist in his palm. “You do not want to do this, Cas. You will regret it. You need to stop. Turn. Walk out the door. Go back to rehab. Now!”

  One of the St. Andrew’s crosses is moved through the audience. “No!” Cas screams and kicks, nailing him in the shin.

  “You don’t want it to happen, then get out of here,” Sal stipulates, glancing at her and back to me. “Now! Leave or I will not put her up on the cross for a public whipping.”

  “Iris…” Cas cries out with a curdling scream.

  I say nothing, observing Sal. As strange as it all is, the wetness between my thighs is no longer just some other man’s come.

  He came to take what is his.

  “Fine. I’ll leave,” Cas says, stomping through the audience. “Fuck you, Sal Raniero!”

  After Cas disappears, Sal whispers to Derek, “Please take Ms. Kettles to my truck.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  The Red Heels, Part II

  IRIS

  NEITHER OF US SAY a word back to the farmhouse. As he speeds down to the playroom, Jack is still on his phone. Sal carries me inside over his shoulder with my ass high in the air. I expect him to swat it. He does not.

  “Iris, Sal has my permission to punish you,” Jack reminds as I roll my eyes. I am angry. He left. Not me. “Do you understand what you have done wrong?”

  “Yes, Sir,” I say, putting on my best obedience.

  Inside the dungeon, Sal stands stoically for a long time refusing to acknowledge me as I wait in position with my hands behind my back. His arms cross as he props against the wall lifting one foot.

  He is dangerously sexy in black very-well-fitting dress slacks and white starched dress shirt. His gelled-up hair is falling in his face adding to the appeal. I imagine prior to our escalated ruckus, he had it slicked back.

  “Do you know what a stupid thing that was to do?” he says calmly, not looking at me. His focus stays on the w
all. “Of all things—going to Juliet and taking my truck? Did you think you wouldn’t get caught?”

  Unrolling his cuffs, Sal takes his own sweet time, taunting me with what I am losing. He unbuttons the shirt just as slow and shreds it off with a chunk into a nearby chair. His muscles flex and arch. He is a beautiful, well sculpted man.

  I do not deserve such things.

  His face covers with a dusting of shadow as his goatee portrays the devil inside. His body is stocky with a thick neck. A chain is always present with a cross or crucifix. Sometimes silver. Rarely gold. I have often wondered how many he has and where they come from. I doubt I will ever get to ask now.

  I do not deserve such things.

  His ink is enviable, and I wonder if he thinks he has any bad tattoos. I certainly do. I have kissed every single one on our loving journey. The hate exists as a battle wages on between us—fighting for the power and holding the control. I want him to hold it tighter than he does. For whatever reason, he will not. Maybe because I so desperately want him to.

  With a slight sigh, he unbuckles his pants without much regard. No belt popping. No threatening stance. It is too quiet. It is too ominous.

  The quiet drives my soul insane.

  I cannot breathe without his words to guide me.

  “Lower, casual,” he commands subtly. Keeping my back straight, I roll down gracefully. I am practiced. I am controlled. I am disciplined. I am trained—practical in theory and formal in protocol.

  He moves to me and unzips his pants, revealing his thick, veined cock. His permanent state seems to always be semi-erect. The jewelry glistens under the drum lights as his left-hand wraps around the shaft and begins to move—very rapid—unusually so. Almost forceful.

  “Look at me,” Sal warns with a threateningly, menacing tone.

  Flicking my lashes, I do not move my position, not even my face as I blink up into his hot emeralds, swirling with shades of darkness I cannot describe. His inner conflict is so evident and real, yet I know he will never lay it in my hands. I am his Angel, his Princess, his Kitten—I am cared for and I am loved and why would he ever burden me with his shit?

  To get closer to me, you bastard.

  He holds back as long as he can until a grunt erupts from his mouth and his spunk squirts all over my face. I am dripping with his semen. His come sludges down over my cheeks and I should be crying, but the only wet thing rests between my legs.

  Washing his hands, Sal paces back over in front of me as my eyes keep vigil on his—we are sacred, we are pure, we are ritualistic, and we are driven.

  And this is why I know, we are almost out of oxygen. We suffocate one another.

  He pushes on, “Cas will never be stable enough for you. I thought you would know better.”

  I glance into his soul with my sapphire eyes ablaze. “Funny, she seemed stable enough last night with her tongue on my clit.”

  The slap to my cheek comes hard with a degrading scowl. The pop makes Jack’s spanking look like playing in a sandbox. This is real. This is bad. He may kill me now.

  “Asshole,” I shout. He laughs. “You fucking lied to me. Fuck you!” I scream as he continues cackling and pacing. “I fucking hate you!”

  Taking a knife from his pocket, Sal slices through my bra and panties, pulling them from me. It is humiliating and I want to call my safe, but I don’t think he will listen in the state we are in. We are so far gone from the land of D/s—this is no longer fetish—but assassin against assassin.

  I am completely naked except for my red stilettos. My hair is a mess and my makeup worn. Undoing the cuffs on my ankles and wrists, I am wild.

  With nothing left to lose, I lunge and grab his forearm, sinking my teeth in deep and drawing blood. I lick my lips covered in his life. He yanks my hair, knotting it around his hand and forces my respect.

  Devoted and sensual, Sal kisses my lips in an unruly manner as his come slicks over my skin. “I fucking hate you,” I mumble into his kiss, biting his lip hard enough to draw blood.

  He spits a mouthful of blood onto my tits.

  Grabbing my arm, he twists it behind my back and cups my breast. His fingers ever so gently tease my nipple as he places seductive little kisses along my neck. He weakens me. We are both aware. I will not get out of this as he whispers in my ear, “More than words…” He growls, elevating into a primal, savage, bestial roar, “You are… Mine!”

  His ease irks and infuriates my nerves and blinds my vision to the whole picture. I cannot see it because I am too busy looking under the microscope. That tiny tunnel that exists to shoot me with his seed. He may not plant on me. Or in me. His marking of me is a scattering of pappus into the air.

  And I am not his dandy.

  “I fucking hate you,” I sauce, giving way too much lip.

  Hoisting my body up hastily, Sal drops me onto the massage table and pushes me down.

  “Gonna fuck me now, big man? Big man who runs away. Big pussy. Guess what?” I retort, shivering and scowling. “I let her fuck me the week before Valentine’s, too!”

  I never hear him take off his belt.

  Never hear it coming.

  He is tame up until now.

  The lashes come quick without care or report. He no longer cares how far gone his sub is. This is not discipline; this is punishment. The stinging radiates through my flesh, licking with his flames caught in an inferno of his rage. He is beyond angry.

  He continues on, waging war against an invisible enemy—the one neither of us can see. I am stuck in the line. He is at point I. The enemy is point S.

  And I am the point in.

  I am the point into his world demanding his questions find a resolution. I become the issue, the catalyst fueling his whole bomb. And the explosion comes in his escape. He evades with the best of them, chasing currents and running up jagged, rocky terrain of mountain landscapes. Swallowing every single thing in his wake, he keeps no prisoners as he baits their flesh with every movement of his modeled clay. And I cannot follow him. I am the water; his savage needs the air. The rejection hurts and my tears fall as he drowns in the flames of his last breaths.

  With her.

  By the time he finishes, we sweat and cry. “Sal, please. Don’t do this.”

  Hearing his zipper come down, he is inside of my ass almost instantaneously with one hard thrust. He grabs my hips, moving and making me fuck him. I am the sheath he slides inside. Nothing more.

  “Mine,” he growls hard and sardonically grunts. “Mine! Mine! Mine!”

  “Yes, Sir,” I sniffle in a caustic, irreparable pain. He refuels off my waters, stealing from me as I empty all that I am into him. Championing on, I fight until I deplete and dry up as I succumb to his wildfire and cry one last drop, “I am yours.”

  My hands stretch out behind me, reaching for him. “I love you, Trotter… I love you. I’m so, so sorry. Please forgive me.”

  Truth is I deserved every bit of it. I broke the promise first.

  And Sal knew.

  That is why I know we are through.

  I do not deserve such things.

  SAL

  Early one morning, the dew covers the grass, and a thick fog layers itself like a cool sheet across the ground as I go for a long walk.

  I stop in the stables with Prince and Princess. In all of Sugargrove, this seems to be the only place I can find the solace I seek. Away from people I can potentially hurt, disasters averted without collisions. I am changing. And as much as I believe a good scene with Serene might realign, somewhere in my heart I know better.

  I stand there in ripped jeans, black long-sleeve shirt, ball cap, and well-worn boots raking the muck from their stalls as I ponder my predicament.

  While Serene brings home this ritual and admits her love for me—even allowing our last goodbye to be making love to her—she is not fulfilling the emotional vacancy. I am neither capable nor able to rid myself of her growing distance, only reiterating my utter aloneness. It is like a dark plague of insects,
swarming my entire being.

  Sex is easy. Love is hard.

  And I love Iris with every molecule in my being.

  However, being with Iris is an entirely different obstacle with sinkholes and upheavals, a crash course of devastation at every pass. The labyrinth always changes and morphs, the topography of our map of love eludes us both.

  Miscommunication is a common problem, perhaps our greatest one. Iris is a bottom. She thinks like one; she behaves like one. And everything she did coincided with her role.

  I have been a bottom, so I have a cheat sheet—the treasure map—but it lies. I feel more like a bottom with feeble attempts made to grow into a proper, well-disciplined Dominant.

  I am not enough.

  I continue shoveling the shit pile and realize maybe I am such a mess because of how I have been brought into this world of BDSM. My former—and I say this loosely—Mistress Kate is not the idyllic role model for anyone to have been following. She keeps her own issues and problems, standing in her way of topping.

  It is perfectly reasonable to believe that perhaps I have caught the same issue. A contagious disease of distortion leaping from one pseudo-Dom to the next as I realize the damage she has inflicted on me. I am scarred by her emotional short comings, her failure to give due diligence, or any faith in the balance. The absolute last thing I want is to cause that kind of harm to my submissive.

  So, I rake with all of my might trying to figure out what I should do now. The white mare, Princess, comes and nuzzles my pockets like a wild woman. The black stallion, Prince, is far more aloof, harder to read, but a much calmer a soul. Every now and again, the portly pink pig, Victory Rush, glances up with a grunt and sigh only to fall back asleep on the opposite side of me. The animals bring a peace, a tranquility, and most importantly, answers to my many questions.

  Maybe I need a dog instead of a woman, I cackle at the irony of that. I certainly don’t feel capable of human relationships at this point.