“I don’t have anyone to impress,” she retorted. “I’m not dating a Greek god.”
Marco broke into a happy laugh. “He is gorgeous, isn’t he? Who ever thought an ugly, little guy like me would find a Master like Jordan? Every day when I wake up and he’s beside me, I just have to pinch myself.”
“You’re not ugly,” Rylee exclaimed sincerely. “You’re”—she paused as she tried to find the correct word—“rugged. That’s way sexier than handsome.” It was true. Marco wasn’t handsome in a traditional way. His skin was badly pockmarked from teenage acne and his nose had been broken more than once from his days in the boxing ring in Rio de Janeiro, so it looked kind of like a small potato squashed onto his face. But he had beautiful, deep brown eyes ringed with lashes most women would kill for. Even more importantly, his kind soul radiated from his being like an aura.
Marco shrugged. “Whatever. As long as I make Master Jordan happy.”
He set down his barely eaten English muffin and leaned forward, his elbows on the table. “Now, talk to me, girlfriend. Tell me what happened. What had you charging around on the mat today like a bull in a china shop? Give me his name and where he lives so I can go kill him.”
Rylee, startled, blurted, “How did you know it was a guy?”
“Isn’t it always?” Marco grinned, but Rylee could see the concern in his eyes. Gently, he continued, “Seriously. What’s going on?”
Rylee lifted her coffee to her lips and took a sip. She set the mug down on the table and stared into it. Her eyes still on her mug, Rylee admitted, “I did something really stupid yesterday. I scened with a guy I barely knew.”
“And?”
Rylee glanced up, finally meeting Marco’s gaze. “I let myself get into a vulnerable position. The guy turned out to be a bully posing as a Dom. He hurt me. And not the good way.”
Anger flashed in Marcos eyes. “Where is he?” He half rose from the table. “Where is the son of a bitch?”
Rylee reached out and touched Marco’s arm. “Stop it, macho man. It’s okay. I took care of it. Of him.”
Marco sat down slowly, though he growled softly, like a dog being held back on its leash in the presence of an intruder. Crossing his arms over his chest, he ordered, “Tell me. Start at the beginning and tell me everything.”
Rylee didn’t want to talk about it. At the same time, it would be better to get it out and then set it aside. Marco fixed his gaze on her, and she knew she wouldn’t leave the booth without spilling her guts.
Finally, Rylee began, “I met him at Mistress Alice’s play party on Friday. He was the hottest guy there by about a mile. I couldn’t believe he was paying attention to me. Not to mention, he was British, with that gorgeous accent.”
“Always watch out for men with an accent,” Marco teased. Though his English was excellent, his Portuguese tongue had never fully wrapped itself around the language, and he was well aware of it.
“Right.” Rylee managed a weak grin. “Anyway, there were all these skinny, beautiful girls hanging all over him the whole night. From the beginning, my gut told me he was a player, but the rest of me ignored the signals.”
She began to tell Marco the story, hesitantly at first, and then the words came tumbling out in a rush.
“Needles!” Marco interrupted when she got to that part of the story. “Rylee, meu coração, are you okay? I’ll kill the desgraçado!”
“I’m okay.” Reflexively, Rylee touched her breast. “It wasn’t the pain per se—I can take way more than that. It was more the whole nonconsensual thing that freaked me out, you know? Being bound and gagged, and being ignored even when I said my safeword.”
“I can imagine,” Marco said darkly. “So then, you broke out of the bonds and used the defensive Jiu Jitsu skills I’ve taught you to incapacitate the guy so you could cut off his puny little testiculos?
Rylee laughed. “I should have.”
She continued with the story. When she came to the part where she grappled the bastard to the ground and cuffed him, Marco laughed out loud. “That’s my Rylee,” he said with approval. “Man, I would’ve loved to see that. Then what happened?”
“I went and got Alice. She was mortified that she hadn’t realized what was going on. She’s going to put a baby monitor in her dungeon from now on, just in case. I was pretty shaken up, and I just wanted to get out of there. Simon was writhing around on the floor, all tangled up in his jeans, his eyes wild, the cuffs ratcheted way too tight on his wrists. Alice told me to go—that she would call Aaron to come over and deal with him. She told Simon to be glad he was only cuffed and gagged. ‘If it had been me,’ she’d said, staring down at him with her hands on her hips, ‘I’d have taken a whip to you. As it is, I’m perfectly prepared to be a witness, should Rylee decide to press charges against you.’”
“Are you going to?” Marco asked.
Rylee shook her head. “No. I thought about it, but imagine me telling the police the whole story. After they finished sniggering and leering at me, it would come down to a ‘he said, she said’ kind of thing. Who’s to say, in a BDSM scene that you weren’t witness to, what is consensual and what isn’t? I just want to put it behind me.”
Marco nodded gravely. “Yeah, I get what you’re saying about the cops and the whole legal thing. Most vanilla types can’t distinguish between abuse and consensual, erotic pain. They would write you both off as a couple of, how do you say, sickos.”
The waitress appeared and refilled their coffee cups. When she had gone again, Marco said, “So, Aaron is Alice’s, what, bodyguard?”
Rylee shook her head, but then amended, “Well, kind of. I mean, he’s always at her play parties and acts in a kind of unofficial bouncer capacity if anyone gets out of hand. But really, he’s her partner and her sub boy. He’s a foot taller and a hundred pounds heavier than Alice, all of it muscle.”
“Sounds like my kind of man.” Marco waggled his eyebrows, making Rylee laugh.
“You’d like him. You and Jordan have to come to one of Alice’s parties. The two of them make quite a pair when she rides on his back, smacking his ass with a riding crop as he crawls around the room on his hands and knees.”
Marco grinned. “That’s quite an image, all right.” Sobering, he said, “So, did Aaron come over and beat up this asshole?”
Rylee shook her head. “No, but he threatened to, and if you met Aaron, you would know not to take that threat lightly. Alice called me afterward and told me that before they let Simon loose, she read him the riot act, warning him never to set foot in her dungeon again. When Simon tried to claim the whole thing had been consensual and there was just a misunderstanding, Aaron told him to shut the fuck up. He said he’d beat him to a pulp if he ever showed his face in any BDSM venue anywhere in the state of Oregon. He said if Simon tried to contact me in any way, he’d do worse than that.”
“Good for him,” Marco said emphatically. “When men abuse women, it’s up to the rest of us men to stop it, and stop it cold. The only thing guys like that understand is a fist, or the threat of one.” He shook his head. “Jesus, Rylee. What a story. What an asshole. I’m really sorry he put you through that.”
“Yeah. But I feel like such an idiot,” Rylee said miserably. “I put myself in that position.”
“And you got yourself out of it. The only thing you did wrong was to trust someone who misrepresented himself. Those pretty boys are the most dangerous. Thank god my pretty boy is a good man.”
Rylee snorted. “And I don’t even like pretty boys. I don’t know what the hell got into me.”
“I’ll tell you what got into you, girlfriend. You took a chance because you’re searching for love.”
“I’m not searching for love,” Rylee replied indignantly. “What are you talking about? I’m perfectly happy.”
“Bullshit. Everyone is searching for love. And if you’re so happy, why the hell do you look so sad?”
Rylee looked away, furious with herself as tears pricked behind
her eyes, a lump rising in her throat. What was wrong with her?
Marco reached across the booth to touch her arm. “I’m sorry, meu coração. I love you. I want you to be happy.”
Rylee smiled as she blinked away her tears. “I know, Marco. You’re the best.”
Marco’s face brightened suddenly. “Hey, I have an idea. Come with me this afternoon. Come with Master Jordan and me.”
“Where are you going?”
“You know Taggart Fitzgerald, the whip maker?”
Rylee furrowed her brow. “Sounds familiar but…” She shook her head, no face appearing in her mind’s eye to go with the name.
“That’s how we met, silly,” Marco retorted with a lift of his chin, pretending to be affronted, though he was grinning. “Both of us were mooning over his flogger display at Naughty Boutique, don’t you remember?”
Rylee flashed back instantly to the stunningly beautiful, heavy-tressed floggers beneath the glass counter at the boutique, priced way out of her range, the stuff of BDSM dreams. “Oooh, those floggers,” she breathed, not trying to hide the longing in her voice. “Those were made by this guy, Tag…what was his name again?”
“Taggart Fitzgerald.”
“Taggart Fitzgerald,” she repeated, rolling the pleasing syllables on her tongue. “Sounds like a plantation owner from the antebellum South.”
Marco looked confused, reminding Rylee that, despite his excellent accent, English was not his first language.
“Before the American Civil War,” she clarified. “Taggart Fitzgerald sounds like an old Southern gentleman.”
“Ah,” Marco said, understanding dawning on his face. He shrugged. “I wouldn’t know about that. I’ve never met the guy. Jordan did mention something about a ranch. He rides horses, I think.”
“I like horses,” Rylee said, though her experience with them was limited to several summers of camp riding lessons. Returning to the subject at hand, she asked, “So, you and Jordan are going to buy a whip from him today?”
Marco frowned. “I wish, but no.” Then he brightened. “Nearly as good, though. We’re going to shoot a documentary of the Leather Master—that’s what people call him.”
“Cool.” Rylee knew Marco sometimes helped his partner with the sound system, and with hauling equipment and supplies during his shoots.
“Yeah,” Marco continued excitedly. “It’s a video about his whip business. He makes everything by hand, you know. Jordan bought one last year.” Marco hugged himself, closing his eyes as a look of rapture came over his face. “Perfeição.”
Rylee smiled, refusing to allow jealousy to rear its ugly head. “What’s the video for? His website?” Her mind at once veered toward her work. It would be awesome to design a website for someone like the Leather Master. She made a mental note to check his site once she got home. Maybe she’d be able to steal the business away. Maybe she’d be able to barter her services for one of his gorgeous floggers.
“No, it’s for BDSMConnections,” Marco said, pulling Rylee back from her musing. “You know, the site I wanted you to sign up for, but you refused because you are a stubborn mula.”
Rylee laughed. “Because I don’t like online dating. I’ve told you a thousand—”
“I know, I know,” Marco interrupted. “I accept defeat. Anyway, I’ll check with Jordan, but I know he’d love to have you come along, if you’re interested. You can help me haul equipment and get a firsthand look at Leather Master’s workshop. What do you say? Want to join us?”
“Sure,” Rylee said, definitely intrigued at the prospect of meeting the Leather Master in person. She imagined some grizzled old guy, his face heavily creased by years in the sun on his horse ranch, his hands big and capable. “That sounds awesome.”
“Let me just text Jordan real quick.” Marco pulled his phone from his back pocket and rapidly thumbed the screen.
“Marco,” Rylee interjected, “don’t tell Jordan about what happened. Please.”
He looked up from his phone. “No, amada, I won’t. Promise.” He finished his text, and a moment later looked up with a triumphant grin. “Master Jordan says you’re welcome to tag along. The shoot is at five. We’ll pick you up on the way.”
Chapter 4
After Bonnie and Matt left earlier that Saturday evening, Taggart returned to his project, intent on picking up where he’d left off. After a half hour of false starts, he pushed back from the worktable and stood, for some reason unable to concentrate. A glance at the clock told him it was only nine o’clock, too soon to go to bed.
He went back into the house and up the stairs to his bedroom. Pulling off his work jeans and T-shirt, he donned his leathers. Returning downstairs, he went into the dungeon and selected a few floggers and single tails, along with some cuffs, rope and chain, all of which he put into his gear bag before heading out the door.
Twenty minutes later, he pulled his pickup truck into the parking lot of Flo’s, a gay stripper bar located in what was known as Portland’s Gay Triangle, due to the many gay bars and gay-owned businesses in the area.
His gear bag over his shoulder, he entered the bar, which pulsed with the sound of techno music and smelled like stale beer, men’s cologne and plenty of testosterone. Ignoring a wolf’s whistle from a guy near the entrance, he gave a brief nod to the bartender and headed for the door that led to the basement.
The words Hardcore BDSM Club were painted in shiny black against a red background. Though Flo’s was gay, Hardcore didn’t discriminate, and there were always plenty of straight submissive females looking for a guy with a whip and some rope.
At the bottom of the stairs, Taggart handed over the forty-dollar cover charge to Jack, the large, beefy, bullet-headed bouncer, who nodded him through. He walked into the club, taking a moment as his eyes adjusted to the dim, red-tinted lighting that pervaded the room. As the door closed behind him, the pulsing beat overhead was muffled.
He hadn’t been to the club for a while, but nothing much had changed. The walls were still black, lit at intervals by flat screen TVs, on which porn videos streamed, some gay, some straight, all of them with plenty of naked bodies, whips and chains.
The place had several scene stations, each containing either a St. Andrew’s cross or a whipping post. He stopped in front of a scene-in-progress to check out the ass of the naked woman who hugged the post. She was tall and curvy, her ample ass an easy target for the flogger her partner was using on her.
Taggart’s cock responded to the scene, coming awake in his black leather pants as he watched the woman’s ass jiggle and redden with each stroke of the flogger. He glanced around the club, searching for a single female with whom he could strike up a conversation and, hopefully, chain to a post before the night was out.
His eyes landed on a short, wiry man in the corner of the room, his pants around his knees, his cock fisted in his hand, his glassy eyes fixed on a nearby scene involving two women whipping the crap out of a guy who was bound to a cross, naked save for a jockstrap.
Taggart looked away with distaste from the wanker, aware Jack would soon spot the guy and throw him out—no bodily fluids were allowed at Hardcore. He turned his attention back to the woman being flogged.
“Looks like he’s tickling her with that thing. Me, I like it rough.”
Taggart turned to the sound of a low, throaty voice, one that had endured plenty of cigarettes and whiskey, from the sound of it. The woman standing beside him was forty-something, her hair jet black, her large bust packed into a black leather corset, her legs long and shapely.
She turned to smile slyly at him, her heavily made-up eyes set at a catlike slant. “You look like a real Master. What do you say, care to show me how it’s done?”
Taggart smiled back at the woman, who radiated a kind of earthy sexuality that bypassed his brain and went straight to his dick. “Sure. How do you take your pain?”
Her smile segued into a grin, making her suddenly look younger than his initial assessment. “Oooh,” sh
e cooed. “I like that. I take it however you want to give it, Sir, the harder and nastier the better.”
Her words suited his mood, and with a nod, he moved toward a vacant station, leaving her to follow. He stopped in front of a whipping post, images of Bonnie slipping into his mind. Casting them aside, he focused on the real woman who had come up beside him.
“Take off that thing so I can whip you properly,” he instructed, pointing to her corset. “You can leave on your panties, stockings and heels.”
“Just like that, huh?” she said, though her hands were already behind her back, loosening her stays. “No foreplay, no candy and flowers?”
“You want candy and flowers?” he retorted, amused. “I thought you wanted whips and chains.” He dropped his gear bag to the floor. He unzipped it and withdrew a particularly vicious split tail with knotted tips that left wicked welts.
“You’re right. Someone sends me roses, I cut off the heads and use the thorns to masturbate. Use me as hard as you like. I want to bleed.”
That got his attention, and Taggart turned to regard the older woman, who now stood naked in front of him, save for a tiny thong, garters and stockings. There was a thin horizontal cesarean scar just above her panty line. Her breasts weren’t quite as perky without the underwire, nor her figure as trim as it had appeared, but Taggart didn’t care. He wasn’t there to fuck her.
“Face the post,” he instructed, “and wrap your arms around it.”
As she obeyed, he grabbed a pair of nylon cuffs and a clip. Moving to stand in front of her, he bound her wrists together and then attached the clip to a hook set into the post. Though he hadn’t yet touched her, she was already panting, her chest heaving, the smell of her desire ripe in the air.
Taggart held up the whip, flicking it several times in the air near her face. “This will leave some wicked stripes on your ass. Want me to warm you up first with a flogger?”
“I’m plenty warm just thinking about what you’re going to do to me, Stud Master. Skip the sweet stuff. Give me the whip. Give it to me good, please, Sir. I need the pain.”
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