Command (Changing Roles Book 1)

by Ellie Masters

  Mandy’s eyebrows lifted. “Kind of risky, don’t you think?”

  “Not really.” A lot of men had their cocks pierced. “Bryce has wanted this for some time.”

  “But why now?” Mandy gave me a hard stare.

  “Why not now?” I didn’t like the challenge in her voice. The flat stare I leveled at her didn’t faze her one bit.

  Mandy chewed her lower lip. “It’s just that you’ve been away from the club for a while. Thought maybe you’d ease back in.”

  “I have the proper training, and it’s been approved.” I drew a circle on the bar top with my finger, trying to keep my tone civil.

  Mandy held a great deal of power within Stripes, both as a respected Mistress and as a board member of the club. She was one of the few women I might call friend if I had time for that kind of thing.

  “Of course it has.” Mandy lifted her hands palm out. “I wasn’t challenging you.”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  “It’s just that you and Bryce have a history, and this is a bit edgy even for you.”

  It wasn’t. I’d done far harder scenes in the past. “Don’t worry about it.” I tapped my fingernails on the bar and moved the conversation in a different direction. “Hey, I have a favor to ask.”

  “What?”

  “I have a friend interested in the scene. He needs a Domme who can give him an easy introduction without scaring him off. He’s kind of sensitive about submission.”

  Mandy cocked her head with interest. “Are you sure he wants a Domme?”

  “Yeah, that’s what Pete says, but he’s terrified I’m going to tease him about not being manly anymore.”

  “Oh, one of those.” She waved a dismissive hand. “Yeah. I know exactly how to handle that. No problem. Just let me know when you’re bringing him by. I’d love to spend some time with him.”

  Bryce returned and bowed his head, waiting for permission to speak.

  “Thanks, Mandy.” I took a moment to admire Bryce’s beauty, then crooked a finger under his chin, forcing him to look at me. “Speak.”

  He held his hands tucked behind his back as if they were already bound. He used that soft voice of his I loved. “Samson asked if I wanted this.”

  “What did you tell him?” My gaze flashed to Mandy. I suppose I needed her to hear Bryce, a validation of sorts that I wasn’t taking advantage of him. This had been his idea, not mine.

  Mandy’s attention focused on Bryce.

  “I told him I would be honored to bear the mark of your piercings.”

  Technically, they weren’t my piercings. I held no ownership over Bryce. I reached out and moved aside the fabric of his straining G-string to free his cock. I grasped his hardened shaft. Long and thick, Bryce was a well-endowed man. And tonight he belonged to me. But I wouldn’t be enjoying his cock. I never opened myself up like that to my submissives. Too vulnerable.

  He gasped at the touch.

  “This cock is mine.” I ran my hand up to the bulbous head and traced a finger over the slit at the top, rubbing a drop of precum that had collected there. My hand shifted, and I traced a line down his cock with my fingertips. “Do you feel this, Bryce? Where my fingers want to climb up your cock? This is where I will mark you.”

  He licked his lips, his breathing shallow and rapid. “Yes, Mistress.”

  “Mistress Mandy is concerned this scene might be too much.”

  He glanced up at Mandy, his eyes rounding with eagerness. “Mistress Mandy, I have wanted this for years.”

  Mandy grimaced. “A ladder of barbells? Sounds painful. Won’t it hurt every time…” She bent her finger and straightened it, mimicking an erection.

  Bryce’s lips crooked up at the edges. “Not once it’s healed. A few months and I’ll be good as new. And there’s so much more a Dom can do with me afterward.”

  “What about a woman?”

  His smile turned positively sinful. “Once I’m healed, I would be honored if you wanted to try them out.”

  She chuckled. “Oh, Kate, he’s delicious.” She brushed his bare shoulder with her fingertips. “I’d love to watch, but I can’t stand the sight of needles, so I’ll just have to wait until you’re healed up. Promise you’ll find me.”

  “Yes, Mistress Mandy.”

  I rolled my eyes and led Bryce off through the crowd. My step was light even as my nerves were alight with agitation. My head went to that place where the world aligned and any thoughts of work, or Elizabeth’s case, went the hell away. Tonight was about restoring order in my life and erasing thoughts of a certain Dom from my mind.

  Jake Davenport had unraveled my sense of who I was. My body wanted to yield to him, but the cost came at a price I was unwilling to pay.

  Once rumors circulated that the Mistress of Pain was performing a penile piercing, what would Jake do?

  Would he watch from the Gallery with the rest of the voyeurs? It would prove I’d gotten under his skin if he watched. Maybe then he’d leave me alone. With great willpower, I refrained from searching the crowd as I led Bryce down to the fourth floor and our private room.

  Chapter Ten

  Jake

  My mouth firmed into a disapproving frown as Kate led Bryce toward the private scening rooms. I’d watched the whole interaction from the edge of the dance floor, listening to her plans through the telegraphed whispers of the club members spreading news of the Mistress of Pain’s second return.

  It was said she took her submissives to Nirvana and back, but there was no intimacy built into that trip. The Mistress of Pain might be wonderful at shelling out pain, but she knew nothing about the foundations of trust, surrender, respect, or what a Master gave of himself to truly lead. From the rumors I’d heard, her trip to Nirvana was fraught with danger, and that was with someone practicing in the right frame of mind, someone who’d planned their scene with great care and consideration.

  I’d seen her come apart only hours ago. I knew exactly where her headspace was.

  No way was this safe. Or sane. I had to do something to stop this madness.

  A Jacob’s-ladder piercing! I didn’t care if she had ten certificates hanging on her wall. What the fuck was she thinking?

  Edging back into the shadows, I walked away from what would be a disastrous public confrontation. I took the stairs two at a time down to the administrative level and headed to the office I shared with my best friend. I pushed hard on the door, and it flew open, making me stumble inside.

  Kevin Saterly held a bloody scalpel to his slave’s breast. Cool as silk, he glanced over his shoulder at my intrusion, lifting the blade.

  “Oh, hey. I’m almost done with Lily’s cutting. Come look.” He waved me over with the scalpel, then bent back over Lily’s body.

  I stepped close to admire the surgical precision of the rose-and-thorn cutting over Lily’s left breast. “Your cutting is beautiful, Lily.” I didn’t care about the mark. My focus was on Kate’s scene that needed to be stopped.

  A plastic-surgeon-in-training, Kevin had plenty of practice wielding a scalpel. He spent his days in the operating room and his nights at Stripes. He had piercings over his left eyebrow, a pair of onyx studs in each ear, a shaved head, and was thin with the kind of body that would never bulk with muscle. I knew better than to interrupt Kevin’s focus, so I schooled myself to patience.

  I’d grown up with Kevin. He was like a brother to me, so I knew how to handle him. We’d raised holy hell in our day, made all the same novice mistakes as Dominants new to the scene, but were still so different from each other.

  I’d gone for the psychology behind domination. Kevin delved into the artistry, enjoying intricate rope work and his favorite fetish, cuttings. Josh, my twin and missing part of our triad, had gone dark.

  Unfortunately, darkness came with consequences, and Josh paid the ultimate price in the bowels of a jail in Thailand. I’d lost the other half of my soul when Josh died, and my prick of a father never forgave me for leaving Josh behind. He cla
imed I’d murdered my brother. The truth was far different. Kevin and I had fought tooth and nail to free Josh. We bribed every official we could find. But when a rich American kills the local mob boss’s daughter during a kinky-sex act, no amount of cash fixes that mess. That was something I just couldn’t get my father to understand.

  Now, Kevin and I co-owned one of the most exclusive fetish clubs in the city. And if Kevin didn’t hurry up and pay me some attention instead of his slave, I was going to throttle him.

  Kevin examined the thin lines of his cutting. “Her scars are coming along nicely, don’t you think?”

  All I could see were fresh cuts from Kevin’s scalpel, beaded with blood. Fine hairline scars, petals of the rose yet to be scored, waited for the blade. “Uh, I guess?”

  Lily was a tiny thing, barely five feet tall, with D-cup augmented breasts courtesy of Kevin. She was Japanese, and like most Asian women had a petite frame. A boob man, Kevin had enhanced her assets.

  She’d been one of my earliest trainees, a true success, and she’d fallen in love with my best friend. I passed her collar to Kevin six years ago. He proposed a few years later. She refused, so he took her as his slave instead. Someday soon he would get smart and stop asking, shove that ring right on her finger, and call it done.

  Her bottom rested at the edge of the table. She lay on her back, arms stretched out on either side, tied in one of Kevin’s intricate rope restraints. Her body glistened with perspiration. He stood between her legs, leaning over to examine his work.

  “You’re lucky to have a Master with an artist’s touch.” I tried to say something positive, but I was eager to move the conversation to something I cared about, like Kate. I bounced on my heels, but considering I was talking to a man holding a scalpel in his hand, I didn’t push the matter.

  “Thank you, Master Jake.” Pain weighed heavy in Lily’s voice.

  Kevin glanced at his slave, a look of adoration on his face. He placed the hand holding the bloody gauze on her hip. “Isn’t she the most perfect slave you’ve ever seen? She has the perfect skin for this,” he said. “It heals well, and the scars form flat. You can’t do this with just anyone.”

  “Delicious,” I agreed. Lily was gorgeous.

  He traced a line of a stem, cutting each thorn along the way. He turned his attention to the outer rows of petals, scoring lines from previous sessions to ensure a permanent scar formed.

  My curiosity had me leaning forward to get a better view.

  Kevin traced the last line of the cutting. He wiped Lily’s skin down with the gauze, removing the blood welling up from the cuts. He opened up a bandage and applied it over the wound, taping it down with gentle hands.

  “So, did you show that video I found to that cop?” His words brought my focus back to my reason for coming down.

  “She’s a PI, not a cop, and I did, but something strange happened. Did you approve the scene she requested tonight?”

  He shook his head. “No. She called while I was still at the hospital. Samson approved it. Why?”

  I scratched my head. “You’d think a former homicide detective could handle anything, but she freaked out. Like a capital F fucking freak-out. I’m concerned because she requested such an edgy scene.”

  He stilled. Even his breathing grew quiet. “Are you implying she’s practicing in an unsafe manner?”

  I understood the seriousness of my claim. Dominants found practicing under unsafe conditions were subject to censure, probation, and even expulsion from the club, depending on the circumstances. False accusations, on the other hand, came with similar punishment. I could find myself in trouble for making a false claim.

  “I don’t want to blow this out of proportion, but if something went wrong…” I shrugged. “I just have a feeling she’s not thinking clearly. She’ll rip me a new one if she finds out I interfered.”

  Kevin’s brows lifted. “Which is why you came to me?”

  I nodded. “At least observe. If I’m wrong, she’ll never know I was checking up on her, and if I’m right, it won’t be me stopping the scene.”

  “You want me to be the bad guy?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Why are you so interested in this one? She’s not your type.”

  “Because I need her.” For the case and for myself, but I wasn’t ready to admit that to my best friend.

  “Does she know about Lizzy?” Kevin’s eyes flicked to his bound slave and then returned to me. He wouldn’t say what he was thinking in front of Lily, but he knew exactly what was on my mind.

  Lizzy and I had a history. Not a romantic one, but I had taken her under my wing. She’d been my submissive for a time, but like all the others, I soon passed her to another. I had trained dozens of women in the art of submission, showing them how to achieve the peace they desired in service to a Master. Not once had I felt a need to keep one. That desire to bind myself to another had never manifested before. I felt that desire now, though, and for a dominant woman, no less.

  “No. I didn’t tell her.” I didn’t see how Elizabeth’s training was relevant in the investigation of her murder, especially since I hadn’t seen her in years. “Now, are you coming or not?”

  “Give me a second to release Lily. I won’t leave her like this.”

  Kevin let Lily out of her restraints and told her to stay in the office and wait for him to return. Then we headed up to the private scene rooms on the fourth floor and to what I hoped wasn’t the second biggest mistake of my life. My intent was to bind Kate to my will, not drive her away.

  The biggest mistake of my life had been leaving Josh alone in the room with that girl ten years ago. He might have been alive today if Kevin and I hadn’t left him to pursue our own deviant desires.

  Kate might well be my second biggest mistake, but I was willing to risk her wrath for a chance of making her mine.

  Chapter Eleven

  Jake

  Kevin and I ran up the maze of employee hallways supporting the private rooms on the fourth floor. Or rather, I ran, Kevin lagged behind me. Hadn’t he heard the bit about metal being shoved through a man’s dick? Surgeon or not, that deserved some degree of urgency.

  I stepped up the pace, my heart thundering in my chest.

  Two floors above us, the main club thumped its primal beats through concrete and steel. The deep rhythms pulsed in my blood, throbbing in time with my need to find Kate before she harmed her sub.

  I hurried Kevin by rows of one-way observation glass placed into the walls, one of the many ways our staff observed members in the never-ending quest to maintain the safety of all involved. My heart raced. Would we get to her in time?

  Six individuals glanced up from banks of computer screens as we barged into the control room. Rows of video monitors, equipment Vegas would be proud to claim, lined the walls in a panorama of sin, sex, and seduction of every flavor imaginable.

  A woman dressed in black, wearing a Dungeon Monitor’s signature vest, greeted me with alarm. “Master Jake, is something the matter?”

  “I need the room assignments.”

  She handed over a clipboard.

  Kevin laid a hand on Mitch Gilmore’s shoulder and whispered something I didn’t hear. The guy was head of our IT team, a computer expert who monitored our networks for anomalies.

  I scanned the list until I found Kate’s name, then handed the clipboard back. “Thanks.”

  Striding with purpose, I headed back out with Kevin on my heels.

  We rounded on Kate’s room and stopped beside the observation glass. Kevin pressed a button at the lower edge, which would pipe sound from the room into the hall.

  Good and bad came with a membership at Stripes. Everyone signed the forms, agreeing to the surveillance. Every corner of the ten-story building had monitoring equipment trained on it. That hadn’t been true in the beginning. We’d made mistakes when we first opened the club and learned from those errors.

  The difference between a consensual takedown scene and true rape req
uired constant diligence. At all times, our staff worked to keep our members safe—submissives from overly aggressive Doms and Doms from overly manipulative submissives.

  Tension pulled at my shoulders, turning them into steel bands across my back. “I told you; she’s not safe.”

  Kevin shook his head. “I heard you, but we’re talking about experienced members known for playing at the edge. She’s a sadist, and he’s a hardened masochist.”

  “My gut’s not wrong.”

  A glance into her room confirmed my fears. She had Bryce stretched out on a table, arms and legs strapped down with thick leather bands. His entire body shook, and the evidence of her handiwork decorated his flesh in deep bruising and raised welts. The sweep of her hand caressed Bryce’s chest while he struggled to breathe.

  My jaw clenched, watching her touch another man. She was mine. Kate belonged to me even if she didn’t know it yet.

  Livid red-and-purple lines striped Bryce’s legs. Marks of a cane. Red welts crisscrossed his chest, the telltale aftereffects of the single-tail she gripped with an easy familiarity in her right hand. Bryce’s dick, thick with arousal, stood tall, proud, and untouched.

  No piercings. Not yet. Thank God.

  Bryce huffed, lips pursed against the pain. His ribs expanded with every breath, and a sheen of perspiration coated his skin.

  It wasn’t too late to put a stop to this.

  A man dressed in black from his hood to his boots stood in the far corner of the room. The wide-based stance, rigid lock of his arms, and angled set of his hooded head radiated his discomfort. He balanced on the balls of his feet like he was ready to call an end to the scene but hadn’t yet intervened.

  A silver tray sat to the side, gleaming with piercing implements, tiny barbells, and one metal ring that waited to pierce and occupy flesh.

  I turned to Kevin, expecting action. “You need to stop this.”