Passion's Hope (The Doms of Passion Lake Book 3)

by Julie Shelton

  Startled, Jay just stared up at his partner, one of the few men who was actually tall enough to make him look up. His mouth went dry. His gaze faltered. Holy fuck! Nik was going to punish him? In public? Jay swallowed hard. Not because he was horrified at the prospect. But because he was aroused! This was something he’d often fantasized about—being disciplined by Nik’s large, but loving hand—wondering what it would feel like. Nik was a very powerful man. One of the few men Jay knew who could easily hurt him.

  But that wasn’t what concerned him, because he knew Nik would never do anything to harm him. All the subs they had ever scened with had loved Nik because he was so nurturing, always making them feel cherished and beautiful. No, Jay was more concerned that his secret feelings for this man, the feelings he’d kept bottled up for years, carefully hidden behind a façade of joking insouciance, would punch through the brick wall he’d built around them and reveal themselves. And when they did, the shit would really hit the fan. Nik would probably be so repulsed, he’d throw Jay out on his ear.

  “Next time, perhaps, you’ll stop and think before you disrespect me again,” Nik concluded, hands on his hips.

  “Spoken like a true Dom,” Jay joked, giving the Russian giant a fake, slow motion punch to the shoulder. “Well, come on, then, if you’re so worried about bein’ late, then why are we still standin’ here?” He edged around Nik and strode toward the door at the opposite end of the hall, snapping his fingers over and over. “C’mon, Papa Bear. Haul ass. Hop to it. Shake a leg. Get your butt in gear. Or I won’t be the only one getting spanked tonight.”

  Nik just smiled and shook his head. He followed Jay out into the main restaurant area of the Icebox Bar and Grill. It was a large room with a wide-plank wood floor and a vaulted, beamed ceiling. Two of the walls were brick, salvaged from an old cotton mill. A cheerful fire blazed in an enormous, arched fireplace against the end wall. Even though it was still a little early for the peak dinner crowd, at least half of the booths and tables were occupied with customers. Waitresses were bustling around taking orders, refilling drinks, and carrying enormous trays of food. Around a dozen people, most of them regulars, were sitting at the huge, antique oak bar, drinking, eating, and watching the big-screen TVs or just talking.

  The bar was Nik’s pride and joy. It was sinuous, curving in a shallow S shape. The top was granite in warm shades of brown and yellow. Three fluted oak columns held up the massive oak over-bar which provided a lowered ceiling above the work area. Recessed lighting gave the entire work area a warm, golden glow, making it seem cozy and intimate. Outlined with crown molding at the bottom and top, the center part of the over-bar featured lighted niches displaying bottles of some of the finer blends served at The Icehouse.

  The bar had been rescued from an old Civil War-era hotel in Roanoke, Virginia, that had been slated for demolition to make way for a high-rise, luxury apartment building. Nik and Jay and some of their friends had painstakingly cleaned and polished every inch of the dry old wood, restoring it to its former glory. It was now one of the town’s main attractions, featured on the Passion Lake tourist brochures.

  Steve “Mo” Moran, a former SEAL buddy who was now their general manager, sat on his usual stool at the near end of the bar talking with Amy Parrish, one of the Icebox’s bartenders. Andy Sloan, the other bartender, was down at the opposite end making Margaritas. The electrical current passing between Steve and Amy was so powerful, Nik wondered for the hundredth time when those two were going to get together. The attraction was definitely there. Amy was a submissive, constantly giving off signals that she was totally willing. To a Dom like Steve, that should have been like a siren’s call. Yet, for some reason, Steve refused to act on it. Or even acknowledge it, treating Amy almost like an annoying little sister.

  Nik put his hand on Steve’s arm. “All right, Mo, we’re leaving.”

  Steve spun around. “Okay. Have fun, you two.”

  Nik rolled his eyes. “It’s Open House night. Lots of newbies. Don’t know how much fun it’ll be.”

  “Yeah, I much prefer monitoring on Members Only nights,” Mo agreed. “Less chance of anything getting out of hand. Don’t worry about anything at this end, though. I’ll hold down the fort.”

  “We never worry when it’s you holdin’ down the fort,” Jay said. “You’ve always had our six.”

  Several of the regulars acknowledged Nik and Jay by nodding or lifting their glasses.

  They went out into the lobby, past the pool tables and two heated games of darts, pleased to see games of Uno, Scrabble, and Texas Hold ’Em in progress at three of the game tables. Several couples were in the seating area in front of the fireplace just talking. Two of the women were knitting as they talked. This was Senior Retreat Week a joint promotion being offered at both the Lodge and the Passion Lake Bed and Breakfast, the elegant Victorian mansion at the edge of town. Everyone over 65 was being given a fifteen percent discount on food, drink, and lodging for the three days and two nights of the promotion. Evidently running television ads in places like South Florida and Arizona, extolling autumn’s virtues at a hefty discount, paid off. Both the Lodge and the Bed and Breakfast were filled to maximum capacity. In fact, this promotion had turned out to be such a success, the entire town of Passion Lake, including all the restaurants were offering discounts to anyone booking the Holiday Package over the four-day Thanksgiving week-end. Television ads were running all up and down the East coast from Maine to Miami. The B and B was already booked solid and the Lodge nearly so.

  As Nik and Jay passed through the lobby, several people waved at them.

  Passing Nik’s monstrous Harley, his preferred mode of transportation, they walked across the parking lot to their black Humvee, the only car big enough to accommodate Nik’s size. Jay automatically went around to the driver’s side. He caught the keys Nik tossed to him over the roof and got in.

  Jay may have been slow getting ready, but his driving made up for it. He drove like a bat outta hell and had the speeding tickets to prove it, although he had never had an accident and, thanks to specialized SEAL training, was superb at both defensive and offensive driving. Nik, on the other hand, drove like an old woman, never going a single mile above the speed limit. Whenever they had to make tracks and get someplace fast, like right now, Jay always drove.

  The club they were going to, Risqué, was an exclusive BDSM club in Marshall’s Creek, a small town around thirty miles away from Passion Lake. Risqué was owned by Jesse Colter and Adam Sinclair, the former commanding officers of SEAL Team Fury, a nickname chosen by the members of the team themselves. The club was a replica of a twelfth-century castle, modeled after a club in Yorkshire, England, owned by Thorne Cahill, a friend of all of theirs. Thorne also owned the club in San Diego frequented by all the Navy Doms whenever they were on base.

  Jesse and Adam’s club, Risqué, was located on Marshall’s Hill, the historic antebellum estate that had been their wife Sarah’s childhood home. The enormous Greek revival mansion had been transformed into an elegant Bed and Breakfast. The full-scale medieval castle that was Club Risqué, complete with turrets, crenelated battlements, and a majestic central tower, was located around a quarter of a mile beyond the B & B, on a part of the sprawling estate where stables, barns, and a racetrack had once existed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The Marshall family fortune had been founded in the early eighteenth century on breeding the finest race horses in Colonial America.

  The club’s main entrance in the central tower was reached via a drawbridge over a shallow moat. At the bottom of the moat a man-made stream tumbled over strategically placed rocks. Flowers and ornamental grasses were tucked in the nooks and crannies between the rocks. A smooth green lawn sloped down the sides of the moat to the stream’s edge. Flickering torches lined both sides of the path leading up to the drawbridge, as well as both sides of the drawbridge itself. There was a line at the entrance, where two men wearing chain mail hauberks beneath their silk surcoats with Club Ri
squé’s insignia on them, were carefully checking invitations. Two others holding spears flanked the opening that led into the club’s lobby.

  Club Risqué catered to an exclusive clientele, whose privacy and confidentiality were maintained by requiring thorough background checks on every prospective member, along with a stiff yearly membership fee. It offered a variety of play stations, theme rooms, private rooms, an authentic medieval dungeon, a capture garden, and an outdoor walking trail with strategically placed “Pleasure stations” instead of workout stations. The club sponsored regular lectures, seminars, workshops, and presentations, having just recently hosted some of the foremost practitioners of Shibari rope art in a week-end of demonstrations and hands-on sessions.

  “Lotta cars here tonight,” Jay muttered twenty minutes later, as he pulled into the large, well-lit parking lot. As Nik had said earlier, tonight was an Open House, where new and prospective members could have a chance to experience all the amenities Club Risqué had to offer. Invitations to an event such as this were exceedingly hard to come by,

  Jay drove around to the Employees Only entrance at the back end of the castle. Nik swiped his card and punched the code into the keypad. The lock clicked. They entered a brightly lit hallway, passing the staff lounge on the left and the staff locker rooms on the right, headed for Jesse and Adam’s office. Nik stuck his head in and saw Jesse Colter sitting in his leather desk chair. His booted feet were propped up on the large mahogany partner desk he shared with Adam Sinclair. Their wife, Sarah, was kneeling beside Jesse’s chair, her legs spread wide to reveal her swollen, glistening pussy. Her head was down, her hands resting on her thighs. She didn’t look up when Nik entered.

  Since she was usually given full leeway to greet all the Dungeon Monitors with a smile and a hug, Nik suspected that she was being punished. Jesse was stroking her hair absently, his attention on the man sitting on the other side of the desk. Adam Sinclair, the other owner of Risqué.

  Both men were wearing leather pants and black satin shirts, Sarah wore a red leather corset that displayed her beautiful breasts on a little leather shelf. Wide leather wrist and ankle cuffs, a stiff leather collar with a dangling dog tag that said “Owned”, black stockings and black stilettos completed her outfit. A leash hung from the D ring at the front of her collar. Her nipples were adorned with a set of Japanese clover clamps linked together by a chain. Dangling from the chain was what looked like an ordinary, triangular fishing weight. Except there was nothing ordinary about this one. Made of platinum instead of lead, its three sides were crusted with diamonds. Pink sapphires formed an initial on each of the three flat surfaces. J, A, and S.

  “Well, we don’t expect any trouble, but you never know,” Adam was saying as Nik and Jay walked in, blowing the testosterone level in the room through the roof. “Even though Jason vetted everyone thoroughly and the invitations were hand-delivered to prevent them from falling into the wrong hands, events like this are always risky. That’s why I scheduled five extra DM’s for tonight.” He looked up. “Hey, Nik. Jay.”

  “Adam. Jesse.”

  The men all high-fived each other, then Jay plopped down onto the leather sofa along the front wall, thrusting his long legs out in front of him. “Where is everybody?” he asked. “Are we early or something?”

  “As if,” Jesse snorted. “Try late. As usual.” But he said it fondly, without heat, because Jay had always been such a favorite.

  Nik rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Yes, Master J,” he said. “It is a bad habit that I have allowed him to develop over the past few years. But that stops tonight. It’s high time the boy stopped disrespecting not only me, but you and all of his fellow DM’s as well. His lateness affects all of us. Therefore, I have decided to take matters into my own hands”—he gave a wicked grin—“so to speak, and administer a public punishment that I want all of you to witness.”

  “It’s about time, Nik,” Adam murmured, looking at his partner across the desk. Jesse nodded. “If you’re asking for our permission, you’ve got it. You can give Jay his punishment right after Sarah gets hers.”

  Nik heard Sarah’s sudden, sharp intake of breath. He went over and hunkered down next to her. It was clear from the streaks on her face that she had been crying. “Permission to speak to your slave, Master J? And to touch her?”

  Jesse looked down at the woman kneeling in complete subjugation beside him, his love for her shining in his eyes. “You have permission to speak to Master Nik, Sarah. But do not read too much into his kindness. He cannot stop what is going to happen to you. Am I clear?”

  She swallowed. “Yes, Master.”

  Nik reached out his hand, curling his fingers beneath her chin and lifting her face to look at him. Her eyes were dazed, half-closed with a mixture of frustration, arousal, and exhaustion. Her hair was in wild disarray, her face was damp with sweat and flushed with exertion. Yet, despite all that, she was one of the most beautiful women Nik had ever had the privilege to know. He loved Sarah Marshall Colter-Sinclair, like the little sister he’d never had. On more than one occasion he had fought alongside Jesse and Adam to rescue her from assholes who had dared to threaten her. And, being the honorable man he was, he would willingly do so again. He took threats to any of the people he loved as seriously as he took anything else in his life. “Privyet, lapochka,” he said in a gentle voice totally at odds with his hard-edged appearance.

  “Hello, Master Nik.” Her words were slightly slurred, as if she were drunk, although Nik knew she hadn’t been drinking. She was drunk on arousal. On being brought to the verge of orgasm over and over an untold number of times without being allowed to climax. And she was exhausted, barely holding on.

  “Are you being punished, my love?”

  She just stared at him for a long moment through half-lidded eyes, as if she didn’t understand the question. Then she blinked, swallowing hard. “Yes, Master Nik.”

  “What did you do that was so horrible?”

  “I came without permission.”

  He nearly laughed out loud, but managed just in time to keep his expression stern. “You know that is not permitted, little one.”

  “Yes, Master,” she said dutifully.

  “Tell Master Nik what you did next,” Jesse ordered.

  “I…sort of…called Master Jesse an asshole.”

  Nik couldn’t help it. He laughed. “She’s got you there, my friend,” he said to Jesse. “You are an asshole.”

  Jesse scowled. “You’re not helping.”

  All of a sudden Sarah uttered an involuntary little cry and her body jerked, and Nik realized that she was plugged, probably both in her vagina and her ass and that Jesse and Adam had just turned on the remotes.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Nik turned back to Sarah, who was wide-eyed, pressing her trembling lips between her teeth, hardly daring to breathe, fighting the orgasm that beckoned. The look he gave her was filled with sympathy. “And now they are keeping you on edge, aren’t they, lapochka?”

  “Yes, Master Nik.”

  “They won’t let you come.”

  She shook her head forlornly. “No, Master Nik.”

  “How long?”

  “Since eight this morning.”

  He winced. Twelve hours. Twelve hours of constant stimulation and building her up to orgasm, then backing off just as she was about to explode. It had to have been excruciating. “And I’ll bet by now you need to come so badly you think you’ll die if you don’t, am I right?

  “Yes, Master Nik.” Her lovely turquoise eyes filled with tears.

  He glanced over at Jesse, then at Adam. The tension on their faces and the rigid set of their shoulders told him they were close to the edge themselves. Jesse’s hand was in his lap, the heel of his hand pressing hard against the enormous bulge straining against his leather trousers. He couldn’t tell where Adam’s hand was, but his eyes were half-closed, his neck was arched back, the tendons so taut they could have been made of steel. He could tell they were both about
to cave in and give their little sub exactly what she needed. Shit, what all three of them needed. Oh, yeah. They were all suffering.

  Nik turned his attention back to Sarah. “Be patient, malyutka.” His smile was gentle. “I have a feeling you will soon be getting what you need.”

  Her face brightened somewhat. “You think so, Master Nik?”

  “I do, indeed, malyutka. You will see.”

  Abruptly swinging his legs down off the desk, Jesse planted his feet on the floor in front of him and leaned forward to rest his elbows on his thighs. “Present, Sarah.”

  Gracefully, if a bit stiffly, she rose and stood with her feet shoulder-width apart, her arms behind her back, her hands clasping opposite elbows. Her chin lifted and she stared at a spot on the wall above Adam’s head. Her inner thighs were wet down to her knees, glistening with her slippery juice.

  Jesse widened his legs and pointed to the floor in front of him. Sarah walked over and stood in that exact spot as he reached around her right leg and unclipped her stockings from the garters.

  “Christ, sugar, you smell so delicious,” he said, unable to resist burying his face against her mound and inhaling deeply. “I love the way you smell when you’re aroused. I wish I could bathe in it so I could take you with me everywhere I go.” He rolled the stockings down her legs and tapped the side of her shoe. “Lift.” He removed her shoe and stocking, repeating the action with the other foot. “Turn around, arms at your sides.”

  As she did so, he opened the top drawer of his desk and took out a combat knife in a leather sheath. Wielding the blade with consummate skill, he sliced through the criss-crossed, red satin ties at the back of the corset, pushing the two sides apart and letting it fall from her body onto the floor in front of her. For a long moment he admired the deep marks left in her flesh by the corset’s stays, lifting his hands to smooth over them. He bent his head and ran his tongue up and down the bumpy ridge of her spine, sending goose bumps blossoming on her skin and shivery moans tumbling from her throat.