“That’s a way to phrase it,” she muttered then drew in a breath. “Mitch—”
He shook his head and his breath quickened. “I’m Army. Your Army. And I don’t like that look in your eyes right now.”
She licked her lips. Best to cut right to the chase, no matter how much it hurt. “I can’t be your Mistress anymore.”
“No,” he shouted before she finished the sentence. “Why? I don’t understand.”
The look of distress on his handsome face broke her heart. In a sense she was punishing him for something that was not his fault, but the damage was done. In time she hoped he realized that she was granting him the best gift she could provide. Still, the pain of loss burned through her. She stood on tiptoes to throw her arms around his neck, drawing him into a fierce hug.
“I love you,” she stated emphatically and fought the tears blurring her vision. “And it’s because I love you that I have to let you go.”
He shook his head, burying his face in the crook of her neck as his arms closed around her as if she were his tether in a storm. “Why?”
“Several things. One, you’ve lost all respect for me after seeing the way my family treats me.”
“That’s not true.”
She shushed him and drew back to frame his face between her hands. Her thumbs stroked the curves of his cheeks and her throat grew tight at the sight of his tear-filled eyes. “It is, and you know it. Well, maybe not all respect, but enough to make a difference. But that’s not the only reason. Mitch, I’m doing you a grave disservice. I’m holding you back from what you really want.”
“You’re what I want.”
“Maybe. In the beginning. But I realized tonight that we’ve grown complacent. We fell into a routine that was comfortable, but you want more. You need more.”
He shook his head again and she stilled him with a press of her palms against his cheeks. “Look where you are, Mitch. Why did you come with Emil tonight? You must have known he was trying to hook you up with his sister, and you were interested enough to accept the invitation.”
Beneath her hands, his skin heated and he broke his gaze to stare at the ground. “I-I’m lonely when I’m not with you,” he finally admitted in a small voice.
“I know. At least, I know that now. We had an agreement, and you’ve kept it beautifully, as have I. But it’s not enough anymore. You want what I can’t provide and to keep you from it would be entirely selfish of me. You are a great guy and are entitled to your happiness.”
His lips pinched together and his breathing continued to escalate while his eyes danced about. She recognized the signs of panic as he tried to hold it together.
“Tell me,” she commanded with a sweep of her thumb across his lips.
“I’m scared,” he whispered. “What if I don’t find someone who understands me as you do?”
She nodded. “Change is scary. But I’m not casting you out on your own. I will find you the perfect Mistress. I promise. I’ll find you one who will help you soar, not just keep you aloft. No matter what, I’m still your friend.”
He released a stuttered breath and hauled her against him in a hug so tight, she struggled for air, yet she clung to his shoulders just as fiercely. When the need to breathe drove her to move, she turned her head to brush a string of kisses along his cheek. Her lips settled on his in a gentle kiss. His mouth softened against hers and he kissed her back without any of the heat and hunger of lovers. This was a kiss of friendship. A kiss of goodbye.
Mitch pulled away with a little sniffle and smoothed a hand over her head. “I’ll never forget you.”
“Of course not. I’m going to make sure your new Mistress rides your ass like you deserve.”
He chuckled and gave her one last quick hug then walked her to her car, opening the door at the sound of the lock disengaging.
She waved at him through the window and as she drove down the driveway, watched in the rearview mirror as he climbed into his own vehicle. Once she turned onto the street, a sob broke free and the tears she held in check streamed down her cheeks.
Mitch wasn’t the only one afraid of change. The selection of a new submissive wasn’t easy. And after the year she had spent with Mitch, his replacement was going to be a tough act to follow. Also, the connection they once shared was gone forever. Even if they remained friends, as she hoped, that deep level of communication was a loss she grieved as strongly as a death of a loved one.
She reached for the packet of tissues in the glove box and swiped at her eyes. No sense crashing her car because she couldn’t see the road.
Once she was safely ensconced in the comfort of her home, she was going to bust open a bottle of wine and toast the end of a beautiful friendship with the honor it deserved.
Chapter Four
“Captain DeWinter.” A feminine voice made the skin across the back of his neck tingle as if she had caressed him with the tip of her fingernail. “What a pleasant surprise.”
Fuck.
He’d recognize that voice anywhere. Sexy, foreign, and far too smug for his liking. Damn it. The swallow of Jack Daniels lodged in his throat and for half a second played tag with the insides of his nostrils before sliding back into his gullet.
He had thought he was hidden deep enough within the bowels of The Cavern to avoid detection. He should have known better.
“Mrs. Kilsgaard,” he said, then turned to face the owner of the club.
Amaryllis Kilsgaard stood so close to him that if she took a deep breath, her breasts would press into his chest. As was her fashion, she was dressed for sin in a royal-blue halter dress that displayed a generous amount of cleavage accentuated by a sapphire the size of a silver dollar resting above the cleft of her breasts. Lucian was either a very stupid or very confident man to allow her to roam about in such an erection-inducing outfit all on her own.
“I’m so happy to see you,” she squealed and threw her arms around his neck for a hug.
Happy was right, she practically vibrated with glee. Her lavender eyes sparkled and she bounced on the balls of her feet as if she had just received the best present in the world.
A normal man might have been flattered by her enthusiasm, but in his experience with Mrs. Kilsgaard the only reason she’d have for being so excited to see him was she was up to something. She seemed to have a sixth sense about people that was damned eerie, and usually it concerned him.
She reached out with her hand to smooth an invisible wrinkle from the lapel of his blazer. “Would it be fair to assume you are here in search of what you need?”
Yes. Maybe. Hell, he didn’t know anymore.
The first time he had walked through The Cavern’s door was when he had been on the trail of a vigilante crime fighter named the Claymore, who at the time he had believed to be Lucian. He wasn’t, but before Marco left without the information he had come for, Amaryllis had predicted that he would return when he was in search of what he needed. Whatever it was she believed he needed, he hadn’t a clue, but now here he was, skulking in the corners, nursing a drink and mustering up the courage to face whatever was to be found up the grand staircase and inside the playrooms. Specifically he was looking for Mistress Jasmina.
“I see I am correct,” he heard Amaryllis say and felt heat sear his cheeks as he realized he’d been caught staring up at the second-floor landing.
“I’m not sure what you mean.” He took a sip of his drink. “I’ve been ordered on a temporary vacation and thought I’d, uh, I’d stop in for a…” He trailed off as she looked upon him with pity curling down her lips and a shake of her head at his lame attempt at finding an excuse as to why he was there. “I don’t know why I’m here.”
She looped her arm around his elbow and hugged it against her breast. “There, there, Captain. Allow me to help clear that stubborn, male-addled induced fog cluttering your mind. I heard you were recently injured.”
“Where did you hear that?” Only those in the department knew of the incident.
&nbs
p; “Oh, please.” She batted her lashes. “Between the Chameleon and the Claymore, very little happens with the people I care about without me knowing.”
“Why should you care about me?”
“You helped save my cousin-in-law. And you inadvertently helped save a man I love as a brother. Whether you like it or not, Captain, you have been adopted into the Kilsgaard family.”
Was that type of consideration a blessing or a curse? “Thanks?”
She giggled and guided him to the bottom of the staircase. “I take it you sustained your injuries while on the case of a mutual enemy of ours?”
“Yes.”
“Was it worth it?”
“At this point, yes.” More than worth it, if he was allowed to be truthful.
Konkle’s cellphone contained texts and phone numbers of several people in Smithwick’s operation. In the two days since he was released from the hospital and trapped in the loving care of his sister, Coulter and their team were able to detect a human-trafficking scheme involving several massage parlors in town. In a month’s time a shipment of girls was scheduled to arrive from various Southeast Asian countries and then filtered into the general population as masseuses before being dispersed across the country to the highest bidder. Konkle’s job was to bring in clientele to sample the girls’ ability to please before they were put on the bidding block. The best girls were auctioned off while those who struggled or fought were killed. According to intel, the auction was to be handled personally by Smithwick himself, who was currently biding time in Asia and coordinating the collection of the girls.
Until Smithwick returned, all Marco could do was sit on this thumbs and work on other cases his team was handed. After all, Smithwick wasn’t the only bad guy in town, but in comparison to the shit Smithwick stirred, those tasks were child’s play. And since he was still supposed to be on bedrest, all he had was time on his hands and the constant replay of Dr. Jovanovich trying to scare him off from pursuing any further talk of them hooking up. Did she honestly think the idea of making him worship at her feet made him any less eager to fall on his knees for her? Quite the opposite in fact. However, the way she spoke of her submissive certainly had derailed his wishes. It had been plain to see she had great affection for the man, and he wasn’t so shallow as to be a jackass and try to come between them. All that was left was for him to envy the lucky SOB.
Which was why he was here at the club at this exact time of night. If she had a regular guy she played with, it was reasonable to think they had a standing appointment. Maybe if he was able to see her, see them, in their symbiotic-whatever-you-called-it glory, he might be able to allow the thought of the doc performing all kinds of kinky acts on him to fade into oblivion. If not, he’d keep on thinking, hoping, aching to make his fantasies become a reality until he went mad.
They reached the second-floor landing and his eyes scanned the area, searching for any sign of Mistress Jasmina.
“Looking for something, Captain? Or someone?”
He sighed and shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe. I think I may be going crazy, Mrs. Kilsgaard.”
She smiled and again he had that feeling she was seeing right into soul. “I think you are at a crossroads in your life. You know you need a change, but your mind refuses to listen. Instinct, however, has led you here. A place you know you will receive what you need.”
“And what do I need?” he asked in a gruff voice.
The smile widened. “You need to see a demonstration of what can happen when a man allows all thought to leave and live in the moment. Lucky for you, Mistress Jasmina is about to put on a show.”
He stilled as his heart slammed into his rib cage. “She is? I mean, Mistress Jasmina? Who is that?”
Her eyes narrowed and she tilted her head. He held his breath as she looked him up and down before she replied, “Mistress Jasmina is a dominatrix. She is currently between submissives and is assisting another dominatrix. It should be very educational.”
Between submissives? Since when? He strove to keep his tone casually interested. “What happened to her regular submissive?”
“I don’t know all of the details, but from what I’ve heard, she felt he had learned everything she had to offer and what he needed was someone who could take him to the next level. She was quite saddened by the entire ordeal.”
“That’s great.” Jasmine was single? The thought sent a shot of excitement through his body as if he swallowed electricity.
Amaryllis raised a brow. “Excuse me?”
Shit. “I mean that’s great she was able to see that her sub required more and she cared enough to see that he got it. Not a lot of people would do that.”
The surprised brow lowered, and he felt his heart climb into his throat as she hit him with that all-seeing stare. “Yes, Mistress Jasmina always puts the needs of others before her own. It’s one of the reasons why I love her so, but sometimes I wish she did take more effort with seeing to her own needs.”
Marco nodded, afraid that if he uttered another sound, it would give away why he was really at The Cavern.
“Come.” Amaryllis tugged on his arm. “This will be quite a show.”
Stepping into the main showroom was like walking into another club. Gone were the flashing lights of the dance floor and the pulsating exuberance of youth. This was where the adults played. In this room maybes and innuendoes were dropped and promises delivered.
Couples and trios sat upon couches or lounged on the floor in various degrees of undress. Amaryllis brought them to a stop behind a loveseat where a man and women were engaged in a hot and heavy lip lock. The man pulled the bodice of the woman’s dress down to roughly cup her breast in his hand where he tugged at the nipple while she squealed in his embrace. To his right, a woman was tied naked and spread-eagle to a metal frame. Next to her stood her Dom. At least, that’s whom Marco believed him to be. The man was dressed rather pedestrianly in a while button-down shirt, gray slacks and suede loafers, but he was most certainly in charge, with his arms folded across his chest and a don’t-fuck-with-me set to his lips.
As people approached his girl, the man would nod his approval and watch with a feverish gaze as they fondled and stroked his submissive. The girl writhed in her bindings, her moans muffled by the red ball in her mouth. Another man crawled between her spread legs and fastened his mouth to her pussy. The lips of her sex shining wetly in the low amber lighting, and her tits jiggled as she squirmed.
Marco felt his eyes bulge at the display, but a quick glance at Amaryllis confirmed she barely gave the couple a bit of attention. He swallowed against the rather prudish reaction of being shocked and scanned the room for Jasmine.
There she was. Waiting in the corner dressed in all of her black leather and mesh finery. A short, flared skirt swirled around her hips and a matching bustier cinched in her waist and pushed her breasts up to form a shelf. Although she was on the short side, the black suede high heels made her legs look impossibly long as she climbed up the three steps to the stage and the couple standing at the center under a spotlight.
“Who are they?” he whispered as the lights in the room dimmed.
“That is Mistress Madeline and her submissive, Megabyte,” Amaryllis whispered back. “He purposely disobeyed her orders because he likes to be punished. But she’s going to turn the tables on him. He doesn’t know yet that Jasmina will be the one to dole out his punishment. Since they do not have a connection, she won’t be swayed by his protests for leniency. He will also see the price he will pay by playing his silly game.”
Mistress Madeline instructed Jasmine to undress her submissive as she twirled a long blonde curl between her fingers. Fully clothed, the man appeared average. Mid-thirties, receding hairline, neither good-looking or ugly. He was your average Joe about town. Marco’s impression of him didn’t change as he was stripped down to bare skin. His physique was soft but not doughy, and hair covered his chest, arms, legs and belly. From the juncture of his thighs, his erection, agai
n average, rose to half-mast.
While Jasmine removed the man’s clothes, his mistress watched with a cool, detached expression. In her hand she held a whip, the end skimming the floor as she lazily swung the length back and forth. Every once in a while she trailed the handle over her midnight-blue corseted torso and upper curve of her breasts, flicking her tongue over the end in a teasing caress.
Judging by the delighted smile the sub struggled to contain, Marco saw how he thought he had played his mistress well. For a guy who was having his wrists bound and strung up by a hook hanging from the ceiling, he was looking very pleased with himself. That was until his mistress passed the whip to Jasmina with a wicked grin curving both of their lips.
A chair was brought up onto the stage while Mistress Madeline beckoned to someone out of Marco’s range of vision to join her. To his surprise, it was the man he recognized as Jasmina’s former submissive who stepped into the spot she directed behind her.
“I don’t understand,” Marco murmured before he caught himself.
“That is Army, Jasmina’s former submissive,” Amaryllis answered, not understanding his query. “He agreed to assist in this punishment. Even though they are no longer a couple, he still wishes to please his Mistress.”
“What kind of a name is Army? And Megabyte too for that matter.”
“Don’t you know? Here a submissive has to earn the use of their given name. Until then, you answer to the name bequeathed to you by your Master.”
Bequeathed? Fuck, there was a lot about this world he was completely clueless about.
A hush fell over the crowd and his attention was drawn back to Jasmina. She kept her legs straight as she bent at the waist and very slowly slipped off one boot then the other. The submissive sucked in a breath and Marco too recognized the subtle signal that she was about to unleash hell.
Only at The Cavern Page 6