Masked Indulgence

by Michelle Love

  It didn’t seem that modern women wanted what I wanted. Not most of them anyway. I wanted that firm hand. I wanted that rough touch. Craved it. And I thought I’d found that with Lyle. But what I found instead was that you couldn’t trust every dominant man.

  And I couldn’t be happy with a man who wasn’t at least somewhat dominating, either.

  I felt stuck in a terribly deep rut. The thing I wanted the most was the thing that had hurt me so much in the past and made me wary of relationships. And I had no idea what I’d ever do to remedy that. Being alone wasn’t the answer either.

  Getting up, I went back to my desk and tapped on the computer to bring up pictures of hot, muscular men so I could pick one for the next book cover I’d be making.

  One by one, I blew them all off as none compared to Nixon. His tight abs, his broad chest with massive pecs, his hulking biceps—no one compared to him.

  How in the hell would I ever get him out of my mind?

  Would time eventually rid me of that perfect memory? Would I even want it to?

  It had one perfect night. The best night of my entire life. Why would I want to forget about it?

  Maybe because it already haunted me. Maybe because I already knew no other man could come close to comparing to Nixon Slaughter.

  I was doomed.

  Chapter 7

  Nixon

  Fall weather made the drive to work a pleasure. I didn’t even mind the hour I had to sit in traffic at the airport. It gave me time to think about my night with Katana, after all.

  It’d only been a little while since I’d left her, but I had to admit I found myself missing her a little too often. She had my number, and I kept wishing she’d call. Maybe she’d ask me to come down and play for the weekend or something. But the phone never rang.

  When traffic began rolling again, I made it all the way to my office building. Champlain Services, located inside the Century Plaza Towers on Century Park East, was my home away from home. With six offices on the top floor, we had a great view of the city.

  When I came into the reception area, I saw my admin assistant, Blake, busy on the phone. I gave him a wave and headed to my office. He paused in the middle of his conversation to call out to me, “Don’t forget you have the Skype meeting this morning, boss.”

  “Thanks.” I had forgotten about the meeting, but I wasn’t behind schedule even with the hour lost in traffic.

  Getting into my office, I turned on the computer monitor on the wall and got ready for the meeting with my partners in the nightclub endeavor. The call came in from Gannon Forester’s office, and I clicked the accept button and found his adorable little secretary looking at me from the conference room in his office. “Good morning, Mr. Slaughter. It’s nice to see you.”

  “You too, Janine. Is Gannon there?” I pulled up my most comfortable chair and settled in for the meeting.

  “Yes, sir. And I’ll be adding Mr. Harlow to this meeting in just one moment. Sit tight,” she said with a smile, then pushed her thick-framed glasses up her nose a bit.

  After a minute, August Harlow’s face filled half the screen. “Hey, ugly,” I joked with him.

  “Hey, precious,” he said with a chuckle. “How’s life treating ya? You weren’t in town yesterday. Where might you have been?”

  “Oh, nowhere special. Did you miss me?” I winked at him.

  “Of course, my little buttercup. Halloween was nothing without your sweet little ass there,” he kidded with me. “But seriously, you missed one hell of a good time. Gannon and I had some fun with some nurses. At least they were dressed as nurses. There were three of them and only two of us, and one nearly got left out until I decided I could take on two at a time.”

  “What a hero,” I said as I clapped. “Always helping out the citizens of our fair country, August.” Retired from the Marines at only thirty, August had seen some pretty grim shit that he didn’t like to talk about.

  “I do what I can. Being retired, I can only help stateside. I like to keep up the morale over here.” He laughed again, then Gannon’s face filled the other side of my screen.

  Gannon’s smile was bright as always as he greeted us, “Morning, gentlemen. And I do use that term lightly.”

  August took the lead, as usual. “So the time has come for us to put our bickering behind us and agree on a name for this nightclub.”

  We’d argued over this one thing for far too long. Seemed it was time to shit or get off the pot. So I gave them my idea one more time. “Let the record show, I like the name Club X.”

  I knew it would be Gannon who had something to say about that. “And I’ve told you before, that name is much too common.”

  August pointed out one major problem to Gannon. “Yes, but Gannon, you have yet to come up with a single name. You’ve had no problem shooting down all the ones we’ve come up with, though. So I am throwing you into the middle of this debate and challenging you to come up with a name on the fly. You have one minute.”

  Giving Gannon one minute to do anything was a stretch. He was a thinker, not a shoot from the hip kind of guy. “What?” He looked back and forth at August and me with a look of panic on his face. “I’m not that creative. You guys are.”

  I looked at my watch then back at Gannon. “You’re wasting time, Gannon.”

  August looked at his watch too. “The time is ticking away. Thirty seconds, Gannon, or we’re sticking with Club X.”

  “No! Wait—give me one more minute. I’m terrible under pressure.” Gannon pinched the bridge of his nose, looking as if he had to use all of his concentration to get a name to come to his business brain.

  August wasn’t messing around and wasn’t going to give him any more time. “Nope, no extra time. And we’re coming in on ten, nine …”

  I sat back, pretty sure the club would get the moniker I’d come up with.

  Gannon’s eyes popped open wide, and he looked as if a lightbulb had just gone off inside his head. “Swank!”

  I had to smile; I liked the name immediately.

  August nodded, and he also wore a broad smile. “Swank. I like it.”

  I chuckled. “Me too. Swank it is, then.” I looked at August. “Seems we’ve had a productive meeting, August. Time to get back to our real jobs. Catch you guys later in the week. Nixon, out.” I clicked off the screen and got up to get to my real job.

  There were a couple of things I needed to get to that day, and one of them looked to be lunch with my best friend, Shanna. Not business, but a necessary meeting nonetheless as it had been over a week since we’d talked.

  Shanna and I had met in kindergarten at our school in the tiny South Texas town of Pettus. She and I used to walk to school together, as her family lived a few houses down from mine. Our relationship had always been like a brother-sister type thing, with no romance involved.

  When I’d come out to California to go to Berkeley, she’d stayed home and gone to the community college there, the only thing she and her parents could afford. Shanna gained an associate’s degree but never got past that. Instead, she got her grandmother to teach her how to sew—and she became quite good at it. She begged me to let her stay with me in L.A., and soon after her arrival she secured herself an interview at Paramount Studios, landing a job as a costume designer.

  Her stay with me was short-lived, as she was able to save enough money to move into her own apartment within a month. But she and I made a pact that we’d never brush each other off or put the other to the side. She was the only family I had out here, and vice versa, even if we weren’t exactly family. So whenever I saw a lunch or dinner with Shanna in my schedule, I made sure I didn’t miss any of them.

  When lunchtime came, I met her at Providence to enjoy some seafood. She met me at the door, and I hugged her. “There he is.”

  “I made it. Today has been one hell of a day.” I took her hand, leading her inside.

  In no time at all they had us seated, and our appetizer of oysters on the half-shell was brought to u
s along with some white wine. She rocked back in her seat as she swallowed one of the oysters then looked at me. “So, you disappeared on me. I thought you and I might go trick-or-treating last night, just like we did in the old days. I’d dress up as a witch and you’d throw a sheet over your head and cut out a couple of holes for your eyes.”

  “Yeah, I did do a little dressing up. I wore a mask, anyway.” I sipped my wine then ate an oyster as she looked at me with narrowed eyes.

  “A mask, huh?” She kept on eyeing me. “In Portland, no doubt.”

  Shanna was one of the few who knew about my dabbling in the darker side of sex. And she absolutely hated it. So I was always a little leery of admitting to her when I’d gone. “Um, maybe.” I took another sip of wine.

  “And you hooked up with a random sub?” she asked, but quickly raised her palm up to stop me from answering. “No, I’m not going to make you lie about it. I know you did pick up a little tramp and screw her mercilessly while spanking her until her ass …”

  “Shanna, stop,” I hissed at her as I gestured around to the other patrons of the fine dining establishment. All conversations around us had gone silent as they honed in on what she was saying.

  She looked around before lowering her voice as she leaned across our small table. “But you did find a girl. You can’t lie to me, Nixon Slaughter. I’ve known you for too damn long.”

  “Okay, so I did find someone, and we had some fun. But my trips to Portland are a thing of the past.” I ate another oyster as she pondered what I’d said.

  “Good. But what happened to make you decide not to go there anymore?” She eyed me again, scrutinizing my every word.

  “The club I belong to has been destroyed,” I told her, then shrugged. “So I have nowhere to go now to get my fix.”

  “Good,” she proclaimed as she picked up her glass and held it, as if to toast me. “The sinful place is no more, and you can stop that little bit of evil you’ve been doing and get to finding the right woman for you.”

  “I’m not looking,” I said as our main courses—king salmon for her and vermillion rockfish for me—came to the table on a large round tray, carried by our helpful waiter.

  “You’re not getting any younger, Nixon. Twenty-nine is barking at your door,” she reminded me.

  So I reminded her of the same thing. “Neither are you, Shanna. And you’re only three months younger than me.”

  The waiter left us, and she smiled at me. “Maybe it’s time we both started looking for people we can settle down with. Maybe then you’d stop yearning for a submissive on occasion.”

  I looked down at my delicious meal, but the image wavered in front of me as Katana’s face filled my head. I didn’t think I’d ever stop yearning for at least one sub.

  Chapter 8

  Katana

  The weeks after the best night of my life passed by quickly, and soon enough Thanksgiving was just a week away. Many people looked forward to Thanksgiving and the celebrations they’d have with their families, but not me. I hadn’t had a real Thanksgiving since I was eighteen. I’d had to leave the foster home after that, and I wasn’t gone a year before both the people who’d taken care of me had passed away.

  The holidays always got me down. But this particular season was hitting me a lot harder than usual. I just didn’t feel well most of the time. I had a hard time waking up in the mornings, and I couldn’t make it through a day without taking a nap—a thing I’d never done.

  I was just off. And my mind drifted to Nixon and that night way too often. It was like he was haunting me, and I didn’t have a clue as to how to stop it from happening.

  One night, when I woke up after a three-hour nap that started at seven in the evening, I flipped on the TV as I knew there was no way I’d be falling back to sleep anytime soon.

  After clicking through the channels, I found a romantic movie and sighed as I lay back on the sofa to watch it. It was all well and good until a steamy scene came on and I felt a surge in my lower regions. And whose handsome face had to pop into my mind once again? That’s right, Nix’s.

  A moan escaped me as I closed my eyes and relived the feeling of his hands moving over my body. I stretched out and arched my back as I pretended his mouth was on my skin again.

  My hand moved on its own to the soft hairs that topped my pussy. I left a bit on top but kept the rest cleanly shaven. I didn’t want to look like a little girl, but I also didn’t want to look like a Sasquatch down there, either.

  Dipping my finger into my wetness, I pulled it up my slit then tapped my clit. In my mind, Nix’s mouth had found mine, and he gifted me with a gentle kiss. Our warm breaths mingled as he eased his mouth off mine and looked into my eyes. “Good little slave. Now your Master will satisfy your cravings for him.”

  “Yes,” I moaned. “I’m yours, Master. Only yours.”

  I imagined him taking my tit into his mouth, sucking on it softly. He was teasing me, not letting me have the harder sucking I craved. Light licks and gentle pulls were all he did. I grew antsy for more.

  Pushing my hand under my T-shirt, my finger traced a circle around my nipple, pretending it was his tongue. “Oh, Master, it feels so good.”

  I could hear his deep voice in my mind. “You make me feel so good, slave. My sexy little slave girl.”

  In my mind I belonged to him. I had no desire to be with anyone else. And that thought made me inexplicably sad. I knew what I’d gotten myself into. I’d been told the rules of membership at that BDSM club. Essentially, I was nothing more than a body for some rich man to use for a while.

  I stopped touching myself and sat up, sick to my stomach. Even as I hurried to the bathroom, afraid I would puke on the light tan carpet, I thought about what I’d eaten last. That morning I’d had two bites of a bagel with cream cheese. My stomach just didn’t agree with it, and I never found my appetite for the rest of the day.

  When I got into the bathroom, I stepped on the scale as a series of burps popped out of my mouth. I’d lost five pounds in the last week.

  I barely ate and slept all the damn time. Did I have mono?

  After a couple of dry heaves, I left the bathroom to get my laptop to search the symptoms of mononucleosis. Fatigue was at the very top, but everything that followed that—high fever, body aches, headache, muscle weakness, sore throat, swollen glands in the neck and underarms, rash—I didn’t have.

  Well, at least it wasn’t mono. At least it wasn’t something I could’ve contracted from my one beautiful night with Nix. I wouldn’t have wanted the memory of that night to be tarnished by anything negative, like me getting sick.

  And I’d also really hate to have to call Nixon to let him know that he should get checked for the virus because of our night together. That would be uber-embarrassing.

  I turned off the television and headed to my bedroom to finish watching the movie in there. Grabbing a bottle of water and a sleeve of saltines out of the cabinet, I brought the crackers with me to eat in bed. Not a thing that a person with a partner would get to do. I guess I was lucky.

  I could eat in bed, sleep at odd hours, work when I felt like it. Many had it far worse than me. I wondered if depression had caused my problems. I knew a lot of people only got depressed during the holidays—maybe I’d become one of those people. The good Lord knew I didn’t have anything to be happy about this season. Nothing to look forward to.

  As a matter of fact, one of my clients had asked me why in the world I had given her December 25th as the date I’d deliver her cover to her. I’d told her that it was just another day for me. She’d told me that was sad, and I supposed it was.

  With no family, days like Thanksgiving, Christmas, and even New Year’s meant little to me. Hell, even Halloween hardly registered on my radar—I hadn’t participated in that since I was a kid in foster care. My mother had never taken me out on Halloween from what I could remember. I also didn’t remember ever having a Christmas tree or anything else special when I lived with her. My birthd
ay must’ve come and gone without me knowing it, up until I was put into the system.

  My heart felt heavy as I lay in my bed, the television off. I didn’t feel like watching any romantic shit anymore. It settled in that I had to be depressed. Who the hell wouldn’t be, considering my past?

  While my night with Nixon Slaughter had made something inside of me light, there was no one there to keep that flame going. It had started to dwindle into nothingness the moment we parted ways.

  I’d been a damn fool to go to that club. Up until that night, I’d been just fine with how things were in my life. Yes, I did work myself too hard at times. Yes, sometimes I drank a bottle of wine all alone as I sat in bed and watched scary movies until I’d end up looking around my room, paranoid about what might sneak out to get me. But I’d been okay with that life.

  Right?

  I moaned as I got into bed, pulled the blanket up to my chin, and closed my eyes. They burned, and I felt dehydrated.

  Sitting up, I chugged the water, praying I could just rehydrate and make everything okay again. I would put Nixon out of my head—refuse to let that memory enter my brain. I’d whack at it with everything I had each and every time he tried to come back to visit me in my imagination.

  No more Nixon Slaughter!

  Even though I’d slept some ten hours that day with all my naps, I found myself tired still. As I drifted closer to sleep, I began to think about one of the ideas my client had run by me.

  Baily Sever routinely ordered book covers from me. She wrote young adult romance under a pen name, specializing in BDSM. When I’d told her about my little encounter with that world, she’d begged me to let her interview me. She’d pay me for my time, and better yet, she’d give me part of the royalties and tag me as a co-author.

  I hadn’t taken her up on the offer yet but as I lay there and thought about what I’d been doing, falling down the rabbit hole, I decided I would take her up on that offer.

  Getting back out of bed, I headed to the living room and my desk. Right then and there, I got on my laptop and sent her an email, telling her I wanted to take her up on her offer. She could call me as soon as she wanted to do the interview. Hell, I’d even make the cover of the book free of charge since she’d said she’d give me credit as the co-author.