His Devil's Mercy

by Linzi Basset

  “I’m sorry! Please, Master Black,” she puffed painfully and lowered her eyes. Her cry sounded thin in the atmosphere as he released the nubs immediately and the blood rushed back into the abused veins.

  “Strip, sub,” he ordered as soon as she managed to breath normally.

  “Excuse me? Here?” She looked around. It was expected that subs are dressed when in the entertainment area. She’d stand out like a sore thumb and it was the one thing she hated, to draw attention to herself. Not that she’d been very successful in blending in since she’d joined the club.

  “It was your game, sub. You lost. Now, I’m in charge and I never repeat myself.” His eyes warned of dire consequences as he looked her up and down. “Leave on that red fuck me heels.”

  Jordan bit her lip but did as instructed and peeled off the red satin slip dress and thong she was wearing. Jack took it from her. He gestured toward the seating area where Rhone and Samantha were in conversation with Keon and Lauren.

  “Master Razor requires a table to hold his drinks. You’ll be it for the balance of the evening. Wherever he goes, you follow.

  “You’re not serious.”

  “Your wager, my decision. Now, move your ass and sub, I want you on all fours, with your knees wide apart and your back straight. We wouldn’t want you to spill his drink.”

  “But—”

  Crack! Crack! Crack!

  Jordan jumped back, her hands covering her stinging backside. Jack did his best not to be moved by the sight she made standing there naked.

  “Get to it sub and maybe next time, you will think twice.”

  “About what?”

  “Trying to top me from the bottom.”

  She glowered at him but pivoted around and stomped toward the group in the corner. Jack watched the seductive sway of her hips as she approached Rhone. He glanced at Jack with an amused smile after Jordan had offered an explanation. Jack raised his glass in his direction and laughed at the sour expression on Jordan’s face as she balefully sank to her knees.

  “Well, if looks could kill,” Wade, who had watched the exchange said with a chuckle.

  “I guess I’ll have to remember to punish her for that glare later,” Jack agreed drily.

  He turned to continue his perusal of the room. His gaze got caught by Master Slick’s dark look. He visibly started when he realized that Jack had caught him staring. He smiled and winked at Jack to join him.

  Jack contemplated ignoring him but with a shrug decided a little conversation could only do him well.

  “Strange to see you sitting alone, mate. Usually you’re invested in a scene by this time.”

  “I just arrived. I’m still considering my options. I’m not so sure what I’m in the mood for tonight.”

  Jack sat down, aware that Master Slick was considering him thoughtfully. His eyes appeared calculating behind the checkered mask that covered his face.

  “I’ve been wondering about the mask you’re wearing. Any particular reason why we always see you with one lately?”

  “As you well know, I’m a public figure mate. I need to protect my image, especially with all the additional members that keep joining.”

  “Of course.”

  Master Slick looked around before enquiring casually, “I don’t see your sister around, or Max for that matter. Are they in the dungeon?”

  Warning bells went off in Jack’s mind. He forced his expression to remain blank. Joanne hadn’t been at the club during the times Master Slick had been there and him linking her with Max . . .

  “I didn’t realize that you’ve met my sister.”

  Master Slick blinked once. His lips flattened which caused Jack’s heart to begin to hammer in his chest. Max’s words flashed in his mind. “One day, he’s going to slip and make a mistake. We need to be alert and ready to catch him when he does.”

  Jack was hard pressed not to wrap his hands around the two-faced bastard’s throat and squeeze the life out of him. He contained himself as a thought came to mind. It was possible that Alex had discussed the case with him. He couldn’t jump to conclusions.

  “I met her a couple of weeks ago in the dungeon. She was waiting on Max to join her, if I recall.”

  “Ah, I didn’t realize.” Now Jack had all the confirmation he needed. This was the man they’d been looking for. Right under their noses. A man who they’d believed to have been a friend to them all.

  “So, is she here? I’d like to say hello. She really made an impression on me.”

  “No. She decided to take a short vacation.”

  Jack found it difficult to keep his voice normal. He took a deep swig from his drink to calm himself.

  “I suppose she went home to L.A. to visit your parents. I’m heading that way tomorrow. Maybe I’ll pop around to see how she’s doing. It must have been a harrowing experience she’s been through.”

  “She’s not there. She’s on a cruise somewhere. Don’t ask me where. She kept changing her mind.” Jack got up and pretended to look around.

  “And Max?” Master Slick kept prodding Jack for information. It was evident that he was trying to find out if Max had survived the crash. They’d kept it quiet and there had been no report of him being on the plane in the first place.

  “I have no idea. He must be around somewhere. Last I saw he was in the dungeon. You’ll have to excuse me. I have CM duty.”

  Jack walked away, forcing his stride to be relaxed and even. He found Rhone, Keon, Alex and Ethan in the examination room, watching Lance doing a demonstration with a violet wand.

  “Hey, mate. Why the glum look?” Ethan asked.

  “I know who the bastard is.”

  * * * * * * * *

  Paul Burgess’ footsteps echoed with hollow clips as he walked briskly toward the entrance of the Sixth Order ops room under the subway. On the one hand he was annoyed that his evening at the club had been interrupted but he’d been expecting this call for some time now.

  His stomach rolled as he recalled the coldness in Dexter Powell’s voice when he ordered him to a meeting. He’d been strategizing what to say in his own defense.

  Somehow, Dexter and Mr. Z knew that he hadn’t followed orders and that Joanne Blackmore was still alive. When he realized that he couldn’t get to Joanne, he’d been forced to make a call to the FBI to get rid of the sheikh. He knew him well enough to realize that he wouldn’t have stopped hounding Paul until he got what he wanted or took Paul’s life as a consolation prize. He’d continued to try to find her since he received word that the sheikh’s plane had crashed—but without any luck. She was being kept under lock and key and he’d been unable to correct his mistake. This time he’d fucked up, good and well. But, he was a strategist and he always landed on his feet. This time was no different. He trusted in the value that he had to offer the syndicate.

  “Ugh,” Paul’s groan was soft as he fell to the ground. The thumb against the back of his head had come out of nowhere.

  “Remove his disguise. I want to see just who this bastard is.”

  Dexter Powell stood with an impassive face as the two bodyguards ripped off the prosthetic face mask with the red wig and full beard. His body turned to ice as he stared at the face they uncovered. It seemed his deceit had run even deeper than they had suspected.

  “Get rid of him. Take him out to sea and feed his body to the sharks but make sure his head is found. I want everyone to know what happens to someone who doesn’t follow orders and endangers the future of the syndicate.”

  Two days later a bloated, severed head was found by a fishing trawler in Chesapeake Bay. It made news headlines within an hour.

  Brad Flint, the secretary of state, had been murdered—mafia style.

  The End

  Excerpt: His Devil’s Chains

  CHAPTER ONE

  (Note: Unedited excerpt)

  Crack! Crack! Crack!

  “Ouch! What was that for,” Jordan Clark squeaked. She took a precautionary step back from the mammoth, muscled
body of Master Black, one of the Senior Masters at Club Devil’s Cove. The frown he bestowed upon her was as black as his name.

  Why am I always in the shit with this man when all I want is to have him fuck me until I turn into a silly dilly?

  “If you need to ask, it seems we have a bigger problem than I thought.” Jack’s voice droned in a deep growl to flow through her mind. It toggled the submissive deep inside her. Her shoulders slumped at the realization that once again she’d disappointed him.

  It seems I’ll never crack it as submissive. Maybe I should just throw in the towel and give up.

  Yeah right, as if that’ll ever happen. Not until you’ve got what you came here for.

  Jack frowned as he watched her fiddle with her fingers. He’d never seen this bratty sub uneasy. Her lashes fluttered to cover her eyes.

  “Eyes,” he snapped irritably. Her gaze rose to meet his. Like always, he had the feeling of peace when he gazed into their forest green depths. Lighter than the leaves of moss but darker than a stormy sea. It was an unsettling feeling, especially as his instinct warned him that the enticing little seductress was hiding something. The vertical lines between his brows cut deeper. “Why are you here, sub?”

  Her one eyebrow curved upward in question. Her pulpy mouth turned into a pout. Jack knew what was coming before she opened those lips that held him captivated.

  “Well, Master Black, if you need to ask, we have a bigger problem than I thought.”

  Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack!

  “Oowww! Fucking hell! That hurts,” she wailed. She gave him a reproachful look while she rubbed the red welts on her thighs. She was beginning to hate that crop.

  “Present!” Jack’s deep voice bellowed through the dungeon, drawing the other members attention to them.

  Without thought, Jordan obeyed. She spread her legs wide and clamped her arms behind her. With her ass pushed out and her tits tilted forward, she waited in the desired position expected from a Dom when his sub awaited his attention in Club Devil’s Cove.

  Jordan was miserable. Things weren’t going as planned. At first when she’d arrived at the club, she maintained a low profile until she realized that the Senior Masters gravitated naturally toward bratty subs. She’d taken her que from that and sassed off against every Dom that crossed her path. Pretty soon, she’d made a name as the Brat of the club.

  Fat lot of good that did me. He still ignores me like a goddamned stop street.

  Well, except when she deliberately pushed the wrong buttons and the Doms called him to punish her. Being punished all the time didn’t have the desired result however. The one time she’d been brave enough to approach him and blatantly propositioned him, she’d ended up as a piece of fucking furniture to the mighty Master Razor for daring to top Master Black from the bottom, as he’d called it. It had been the most humiliating night of her life. Especially when Master Black had joined them in the examination room for a demonstration and promptly used her ass as his footrest! And if that hadn’t been enough, he’d forced her to masturbate for glaring at him without spilling the three drinks that were on her back. Which of course, ended in ten strikes from his bare hand on her buttocks for failing.

  Jordan held her breath as Master Black began to circle her. She had no idea why he’d singled her out, since she’d just arrived when one of the club coordinators had called her to him. He had no reason to punish her—not yet, anyway. Her breath hitched a couple of octanes when he traced the upper curve of her breasts with the edge of the crop. The corset she was wearing had been pulled in tight for optimum effect and pushed her breasts upward to the point of popping out.

  “Hm . . . it seems these little buds are begging to come out and play,” Jack drawled. He pushed his finger into her breast, flattening it before he moved it upward, effectively forcing the demi cup bra of the corset down to bare her breast. He repeated the same with the other.

  Jordan bit her lip, aware how her C-cup breasts jiggled in response. She could feel his eyes rake over her tits which were now woefully exposed and stood brazenly naked to his gaze.

  It wasn’t fair that she was so attracted to him. Not under the circumstances. He wasn’t a classically attractive man, but he had a magnetism that Jordan couldn’t resist. She’d been drooling over him from first glance. His shoulders were massive and tapered into a narrow waist and hips. She had been fantasizing how it would feel to have his amazingly powerful thighs pressed between hers. His abs rippled under her glance. Jordan licked her lips, imagining running her tongue over the strong lines of his torso.

  Fuck, he looks so yummy!

  A rush of sensations inflamed her loins. It wasn’t a foreign feeling—not when he was near. She always experienced pricks of lust that needled the pit of her stomach in his presence. His eyebrows rose in mocking elevation. It gave him such a rakish look that Jordan was overcome by the effect he had on her; something she had not bargained on happening when she’d accepted the job.

  Oh god. She fought the desire to close her eyes and give over to the desire that swamped her.

  Jack was one of the popular Masters at Club Devil’s cove. How else, with his manly and striking features that spoke of a man who took what he wanted. No sub was able to resist the way he turned that nonchalant gaze to anoint whoever he was looking at with the power of his presence. His high cheekbones and square jaw seemed to have been crafted by an artist which added to his roguish look with a neatly kept boxed beard. She craved to explore the powerful architecture of his shoulders under her hands as he flexed his hips into hers.

  “Not tonight, sub,” Jack drawled, the amusement in his gaze yanked her from her dreamlike state. His voice sounded as if it were grating over steel, yet it was smooth and evocative at the same time. Every syllable strummed at her clit to stand at attention.

  Jordan’s tongue flicked out to wet her dry lips. It felt like she’d swallowed half of the Sahara Desert, for goodness sake!

  “Not what?”

  He flicked his fingers over her straining nipples, watching with a satisfied grin as her eyes flared in reaction.

  “I’m not going to fuck you. I might never, for that matter,” he said in a pensive tone.

  Jordan struggled to suppress the bloom of a chill that began to crystallize across her pinched face but hiding her disappointment from him was a mute exercise. Those damn probing onyx eyes of his saw everything. The widening of his smile attested to that.

  “I wouldn’t bet on that, Master Black,” she said.

  “Ah, let me guess. You intend to seduce me with your sultry voice and sexy body.”

  “Something like that.” Her voice had turned throaty and shot to his groin like a well-aimed arrow.

  “We digress. I asked you a question, Emerald.”

  Choosing the color of her eyes had been the first thing that sprang to mind when she’d been asked what her club name was. The way Jack rolled it around on his tongue to sound like a caress, caused a ripple of pleasure to carouse down her spine.

  “Do I need to repeat the question, sub?” Jack drawled. The clapper of the crop lazily flicked back and forth over her nipples.

  Teasing. Hypnotizing and arousing.

  “Ehm . . .” Jordan flailed around in her mind to remember what he’d asked. It was no easy feat, especially as each caress of the hard leather over her taut nubs caused a radiant heat to flood and pool in the lateral walls of her abdominal muscles. His ever-watchful eyes exacerbated the excitement that his taunting caress caused.

  Question? Think, Jordan. Oh, yes, what am I doing here.

  “I’m at Club Devil’s Cove to enjoy the pleasures all the Doms offer, Master Black,” she quipped with a sweet smile.

  “All the Doms, sub?”

  Jordan watched his eyebrow curve into another slow rise. She squirmed, suddenly uncomfortable with the way his eyes were boring into hers. Intently, with such a direct glare that she could swear he saw right into her soul. That with the lazy blink of his eyelids, he acknowledged tha
t he’d found her secret. It left her feeling disconcerted and wary. The pink tip of her tongue glistened the pulpy fullness of her lower lip.

  “Of course, Sir.” She brazenly winked at him. “I mean, this club offers the variety of spice.”

  “A very astute observation, Emerald.” He leaned closer, watching her with a searing look. “If what you claim is the truth, why is it, sub, that wherever I turn, I find you underfoot?”

  Jack’s gaze narrowed as he watched her eyes take a slow journey down the length of his body to come to rest at his size eleven boots.

  An impish smile curved her lips upward. “You have to admit, Master Black, you have some big ass feet.”

  Crack! Crack!

  “Ooww! Fucking hell!” She cried out as Jack landed perfectly aimed strikes against each nipple.

  “You are sorely trying my patience, Emerald,” he balked. His voice turned guttural.

  The strikes to her nipples had been thuddy and stung the bejesus out of them but it hadn’t hurt, not nearly as much as the hits on her bottom had. Although she did her best to ignore it, each painful throb of her punished breasts caused her clit to swell and turned her labia slick with moisture. She breathed in deeply, cursing the brat inside her that didn’t know when to keep the fuck quiet.

  “I was only stating a fact, Sir.” Her eyes did another foray to his feet and back up. Only this time, they were hijacked by the bulge at his crotch. “And, I have personally witnessed that what they say about the size of a man’s shoes is true.”

  Jack ignored the snickering behind him. Like he’d ignored Lance Talbot and Richard Almar, two of his best friends when they’d arrived to watch. He was having a hard time keeping his own face straight. Jordan Clark played the role at being a brat with practiced expertise, but he had a suspicion it was all an act. At the same time, he couldn’t deny how her sassy nature excited him. She was the kind of woman who would offer the sweetest submission as a sub, while outside of the club, she would be the challenge he’d always craved in a relationship.

  Back the fuck up, Jack! A relationship? Where the devil did that thought come from?