Boston Avant-Garde 5: Bellicoso

by Kaitlin Maitland

  One of Malachi’s managers approached and took up a position beside him. He was dressed like Malachi in the standard snug leather pants, though he wore a bloodred T-shirt with the Triptych logo emblazoned across the back instead of Malachi’s trademark white Henley.

  “We’ve got a little problem in the stocks.” Trace’s tone could barely be heard above the club noise.

  “Is that right?” Malachi knew the low-key description deliberately downplayed the seriousness of whatever was going on. His managers, sardonically dubbed Triptych’s dungeon masters, were all like himself. They thought on their feet, responded with confidence, and never waffled about a decision. Trace asking for help meant something had gone straight to hell.

  Malachi rubbed his tired eyes and ran his fingers through his hair. He was ready to be done. It was time to crawl home, slip into some flannel pajamas, and grab some sleep. His formfitting clothing was comfortable enough at the beginning of the night, but by three a.m. he’d had enough.

  The old church that housed Triptych had been one of the first buildings in South Boston. The Underground was laid out in a maze of corridors that had been part of the original architecture. Now the veritable warren of subterranean passages, rooms, and chambers hosted the kind of sex that would have aroused even the stodgiest Puritan.

  He headed out of the main common area, passing the old-fashioned bar and turning into a long, low hall that held various bondage tables, steel restraint towers for cuffing submissives, and stocks reminiscent of Massachusetts’s earlier days of witch-hunting.

  Several couples already occupied the room. Malachi stepped past a woman strapped to a table, her lover rubbing her rounded buttocks after a flogging. Her moans suggested she was enjoying the reward she’d earned. Another sub was restrained to a tower. The steel pole stretched from the stone floor to easily accommodate the six-foot-tall submissive. The man’s neck, hands, and feet were pinioned to a spreader bar attached to the pole. The angle gave his Dom a pleasing view of the dildo inserted into the sub’s ass.

  Malachi suppressed a shiver. He usually avoided this room and the tower in particular. In another life he’d felt the cool kiss of the metal restraints against his skin far too often. It had been a way of holding him powerless, of keeping him in check.

  Not anymore.

  “I said to let me out of here, you bastard!” A blonde with the most graceful legs Malachi had ever seen was struggling to keep her partner from grabbing hold of her feet and locking them into the manacles.

  “I thought at first it was a new D/s relationship,” Trace commented. “Now I’m thinking not.”

  The asshole trying to play at being a Dominant was a moron. Malachi would bet the guy had no experience with restraint devices of any kind. He’d probably come to the Underground on a pass and was now experimenting on some chick he’d picked up in a bar. Bondage didn’t work that way. There was simply too much trust involved. Bondage without trust was abuse. Malachi didn’t tolerate abuse.

  “I said no!” She managed to land a solid kick by twisting her body at an incredible angle.

  His groin woke up, his brain imagining a hundred different ways to take advantage of that sort of flexibility. It was hard to tell with her trussed up like a turkey, but she appeared to be a stunning woman. In fact he could’ve sworn her voice was familiar. Regardless, she deserved better than this jackass was trying to give her.

  Malachi stepped in just as the guy managed to get ahold of one shapely ankle. “I think the lady has made herself clear. She’s not interested in playing.”

  “My submissive, my rules.” The arrogant prick actually had the nerve to waggle his eyebrows.

  “Wrong. My club, my rules. She’s not your sub, and if she is, I’m taking her away until you get some proper training. The way you’re going about this, you’re going to break her legs. Now get the fuck out.”

  The wannabe puffed up and took two steps toward Malachi. “I’ve got just as much right to be here as anyone else.”

  Malachi gestured at Trace. “Get him out of here and make sure he knows not to come back.”

  Trace wrapped one muscular arm around the wannabe’s head and dragged him away. Malachi thought it apropos that the jackass got to experience the same choking sensation he’d forced on his unwilling date. Since Trace was a hundred pounds heavier and a foot taller, it was like a playground teacher hauling away a recalcitrant child.

  “Don’t even think about it.” The blonde was trying to catch a glimpse of Malachi, but he was standing behind her line of sight. “Just keep walking. I didn’t want him, and I sure as hell don’t want you.”

  “Even if I let you out?” Malachi was amused by her bluster, though he still couldn’t place her voice. He knew he’d heard it somewhere before.

  “How do I know that’s what you’re going to do?”

  He could just barely make out the shape of her full lips as they settled into a pout. It was strangely alluring. “If you want out of there, you’re going to have to take a chance that I’m one of the good guys.”

  She was really quite magnificent. Her body was lean, her muscles toned and agile as she moved. Her skin was crisscrossed with tan lines, the honey gold giving way to pale peaches and cream. Pert pink nipples topped her firm breasts. A tuft of dark gold hair topped her mound. He normally didn’t tolerate pubic hair of any kind on his lovers. Still, she was well-groomed, the kind of woman who took good care of herself. How had she ended up as some loser’s toy in the Underground?

  There was a tiny scrap of red material in a pool at her feet. Malachi wondered how the wannabe had convinced her to strip. Unless the jackass had removed the dress after he’d gotten her head and hands trapped in the stocks. The notion angered Malachi more than it should have.

  “Fine,” she snarled. “Just get me out of here.”

  Malachi released the catch on the stocks. Longtime members of the Underground were authorized to use actual locks on the restraint systems within the club. Malachi was thankful nobody had thought of giving the ignorant jackass that kind of power.

  The top board snapped up, the spring-loaded hinge sending it flying. Malachi watched, fascinated, as the blonde stood and began rolling her neck and shoulders. She was still cursing a blue streak under her breath.

  She was taller than he’d first thought. Her willowy frame would easily reach his shoulder. He bit back a groan as she continued to rub the back of her neck. Each movement made her breasts bounce and jiggle. His cock roared to life behind the laces of his leather pants. He wondered if she was truly comfortable being naked, or if she was so discombobulated she hadn’t realized she wasn’t wearing clothes.

  She turned and stared right at him. “That was utterly— Oh my God!”

  If the way she dived for her dress was any indicator, she hadn’t really thought about the fact that she was naked. He chuckled in spite of himself. She was obviously a handful.

  After tugging and yanking her dress into place, she gave him a belligerent glare. “How the hell do I get out of here?”

  He studied her expression. The woman had every right to be scared shitless right about now. She’d been restrained against her will and nearly violated. None of that registered on her heart-shaped face. Instead, he saw a touch of recklessness, a healthy dose of defiance, and a fury that jolted him to his bones.

  He knew that kind of anger. He knew the betrayal that spawned it, the hate that fed it, and the desire to nurture it until it burned you on the inside.

  She snapped her fingers imperiously. “Hey! I asked you a question.”

  The chit was actually going to get in his face and start making demands. He glanced down at his watch. His shift was officially over. He could turn around and walk away. She was not his problem.

  So why couldn’t he make his feet move?

  Chapter Two

  Selena wished the guy would talk. Her false bravado was going to fail any second, and she’d start doing something ridiculous—like crying. So she’d made a bad
decision to come down here with what’s-his-name James. It was all good. She’d gotten out of those god-awful stocks, and now she was going to get the hell out of this crazy club. It was the second bad experience she’d had at Triptych in a month. Selena was no dummy. She could take a hint from karma.

  Her first order of business was to get away from the hot guy staring at her as if he was still trying to decide what species she was. It was disconcerting.

  She’d had no notion of her rescuer until she’d stood up and come face-to-face with the veritable god in a white Henley and black skintight pants. First of all, the leather pants left very little to the imagination. It had taken her a good fifteen seconds to rip her gaze away from the impressive bulge in his groin. Then she’d looked up and been trapped like a rabbit by his slate-gray eyes.

  Of course, that was when she’d realized she was still naked. Now with her cursed red dress more or less in order, she was ready to pretend none of this had happened.

  “Did you know the man you were with?”

  When he’d let her out of the stocks, Selena had gotten a taste of his sexy growl. The rough bass voice had been almost familiar, but how could she have forgotten someone like this guy? And the timbre of his words hadn’t prepared her for what it would be like to be the focus of his attention. She swallowed, trying to settle her nerves. “I met him earlier tonight. Obviously I won’t be going home with him.”

  He cocked his head to the left, a strand of dark hair falling across his forehead. “Meaning you had every intention of leaving with someone.”

  “If I wanted to.” She didn’t feel the need to go into her self-constructed plan to sleep her way through the Boston club scene in an effort to forget her life had gone from charmed to epic fail. Granted, she’d wasted an entire week searching for the elusive heroes who’d rescued her from Jackson. She was starting to think her desperation had placed more importance on the incident than it deserved. She could not continue to look for heroes in places like Triptych. She needed to set aside her little-girl fantasy of finding knights in shining armor.

  He pursed his lips. Selena didn’t know why, but something deep inside told her he was disappointed with her answer. It made her feel ashamed somehow. She dropped her gaze, examining her nails to cover her discomfort.

  “Recklessness doesn’t equal independence,” he said.

  In the last month her older siblings had been ragging on her constantly about her behavior. Nothing they’d said had affected her as deeply as those four words delivered in his deep tone. What gave him the right? Who the hell did he think he was anyway?

  Anger made her brave. She stared him in the eye and ignored the butterflies in her belly. “Who made you boss?”

  To her shock, he grinned. “Nobody. That’s really not my thing.” His full lips bowed into the sexiest smile she’d ever seen. Her womb clenched, her libido going up in flames.

  It took a few seconds of plowing through the haze of arousal before she processed his words. Being boss wasn’t his thing? What did he mean by that? Her inner tramp was leaping up and down, wondering if this was the guy that would finally make sex into something worth having.

  “What’s your name, sweetheart?” he asked.

  “Selena.” She choked on the lump in her throat. “Who are you?”

  “My name is Malachi.”

  She rolled his name around in her mind. Malachi. Malachi. Malachi? This was the guy who’d laughed at a loaded gun? “Oh my God, it was you that night! I was starting to think I’d imagined the whole thing.”

  “If a night with me involved imagination, I’m going to hope it was due to your desire for a repeat performance.”

  He was looking at her as though she’d lost her mind. She hated this insecure feeling. As if she was desperate for some guy to remember her. “My ex is Jackson Wilhelm.”

  She hoped that would be all it took to jog his memory, and fortunately she was right. How embarrassing would it have been to rehash the entire event only to discover he rescued damsels in distress from psycho ex-husbands all the time?

  “I see.” He gazed at her thoughtfully before gesturing to the stocks. “After that experience, what made you decide to experiment with these?”

  What had made her agree to try something like stocks? It was kind of extreme, even for the stuff she’d been into lately. Selena couldn’t keep her gaze from creeping around the room. Less than six feet away a hot guy begged to suck his lover’s cock. On the opposite side a woman panted with desire while her lover spanked her ass. Selena didn’t know why it fascinated her. Until walking down those stone steps from the upstairs club to this strange subterranean world, she’d had no experience with bondage.

  “Call it a weak moment,” she said.

  “A weak moment or giving in to your curiosity?” Malachi moved closer. His physical presence drew her in as if he had a gravitational pull she couldn’t resist. “You can’t deny that the others in this room are enjoying what they’re doing.”

  He was right. The others were obviously enjoying the kink in their relationships. It didn’t seem to matter that they didn’t have any kind of real privacy. These people were happy to perform in front of an audience. In fact, she was starting to suspect they rather enjoyed the exhibitionism.

  One couple in particular seemed utterly aware of Selena’s and Malachi’s attention. The woman was tied faceup on a bondage table. Her legs were spread and shackled. Her “master” held a whip in one hand and what looked like a dildo in the other. Selena watched utterly rapt as the master slid the sleek toy into his lover. The slow penetration left the woman panting for breath, her breasts rising and falling quickly.

  Selena was transfixed. The woman cried out, her body arching in pleasure. As soon as she did, the whip found its mark across her full breasts. Selena’s body heated, her pussy quivering with excitement. She wanted to know what it was like to feel that bite. The curling heat of pain mingled with pleasure, pushing her beyond limits. Was something like that supposed to be a turn-on? What did that even mean?

  “It’s a privilege to be watched like that, Selena.” Malachi’s voice came from right beside her ear. “A Dom wants to show off a good submissive, to let everyone know his slave is the most obedient.”

  Her pride chafed at the word obedient. “Fuck obedience. That’s not for me.”

  “Is that right?” His low laugh rippled across her consciousness, drawing chills. “Would you still feel that way if obedience could give you the most intense pleasure of your life?”

  “That’s a ridiculous boast.” His arrogance was irritating. She should’ve walked away. Except a small part of her wondered if he could really deliver what he was promising. The most intense pleasure of her life? “Sex is just sex. It’s all about two people trying to wring whatever they can out of the moment and hurrying to be the first one finished just in case their partner falls asleep.”

  “What if I could prove you wrong?”

  His breath whispered across her bare collarbone. A thrill raced across her skin. If anyone could show her something enjoyable in carnality, it would be the sexy bastard behind her. He radiated heat and sensuality on a scale she couldn’t even fathom. She almost clamped her thighs together against the pulsating wave of lust curling through her pussy.

  Selena drew in a deep breath, trying to get control of her body. “If you think I’m going to let you chain me to some medieval torture device, you better think again.”

  “I told you. That’s not my thing.” There was a hard edge to his voice that hadn’t been there before.

  The woman across the room jerked against her bound hands. The metallic sound of her restraints was an odd accompaniment to her moans. Her master stood by her head, his cock in his hand, letting her suckle the rounded head. Selena was transfixed by what she was seeing. She’d never been fond of giving oral sex. She found it demeaning. Yet this woman appeared to be willing. Hell, she looked like she wanted more.

  “If you don’t tie me up, what makes you thi
nk I’ll hold still? What if I just decide to get up and walk out in the middle of whatever it is you’re planning to do?” Selena wondered why she was even entertaining the idea of calling his bluff. Was she insane? Was she that desperate to make a connection with her so-called savior that she was willing to check out of reality for a while?

  “I’m willing to take that chance. Are you?”

  She spun on her heel and found herself staring at his chest. She craned her head back to see his face. It made her feel dainty—feminine in a way she hadn’t for so long. In her heels, Selena had always been taller than the business magnates and prep-school boys she dated. At five-nine she wasn’t exactly short, even barefoot, but Malachi was taller, sleeker, and formidable in an understated way. He wasn’t bulging with muscle like Selena’s sister’s husband. Malachi moved like a man who knew his own power and was utterly comfortable with it.

  His uncanny gray eyes gleamed with the promise of something Selena just couldn’t resist. Worse, she didn’t really want to resist. She’d searched everywhere for this man, only to begin believing he and his shadowy accomplice were figments of her imagination. She wanted this. And she’d keep her fingers crossed that he wasn’t going to be her second regret of the night or her third bad experience at Triptych. “Fine, but not in here. I like a little privacy.”

  GETTING HER TO accept his proposal had been the goal, right? So why was Malachi’s gut telling him he had made a hasty decision with irrevocable repercussions? This wasn’t just a woman. She was the wildcat he’d rescued once before. That night in the street he’d known she was desperate for satisfaction. This was his chance to show her how she could achieve it. Of course he was also feeling a strong desire to castigate her for deciding to follow yet another complete stranger into an unknown situation. Hadn’t her earlier mishap cured her of this insatiable self-destructive behavior?