The Fix (Nightlong Series Book 2)

by Sarah Michelle Lynch

  A few nights after Daltrey and Shay’s confrontation, it was Saturday, and their night.

  Alone in their own private dungeon, the spa asleep and the other male members long-since departed for their own beds, Shay stood strapped to a St Andrew’s cross, her usual black underwear covering her sex and breasts, her lithe limbs on display.

  He could’ve done anything to her, even taken her against her will.

  But he didn’t.

  Couldn’t.

  That wasn’t him.

  However, he could taunt and torture her until she gave up the details of her private conversation with Daltrey in her bedroom upstairs – a bedroom not even Dante had been allowed access to yet.

  “I won’t spank you until you tell me what was said,” he announced, trying to sound firm.

  “Nothing was said except he told me to stay away and I said that wasn’t my call, but yours.”

  “How can that be all that was said? He left your room seething and told me you were malevolent! How does he get from knowing I’m in a consensual BDSM dynamic with you to thinking you’re evil?”

  She lifted her shoulders slightly and might have lifted them more if she wasn’t restrained. “Maybe he has an overactive imagination.”

  “That’s not my brother; he’s straight down the line, always has been. He sees everything in black and white. No way would he say something like he thinks you’re evil, not without probable cause.”

  “Probable cause! You sound like a lawyer.”

  “Shay, don’t undermine me, not when you’re tied up.”

  “I’m not afraid. Anyway, listen… I said it’s up to you who he sees, I didn’t say anything more. What he thinks of me matters not. What we’re doing is none of his bloody business. He’s far too overprotective of a brother he hardly even knows.”

  “Don’t speak to me about Daltrey like that. He knows me better than anyone.”

  “Yet here we are… wasting time tonight talking about him, him who doesn’t get why we do this, and you say he knows you better than anyone. If he did know you best, then why is he not saying crack on and do what you like. Because this is something we both like, is it not, Dante? And it is something he will probably never understand.”

  She hardly ever called him Dante and his neck snapped back at her use of the word. It was usually Sinclair or sir, these days.

  “I warned you I won’t spank you until you tell me what was said. He won’t tell me, so you must.”

  “I’ve told you all that was said, so if we aren’t to engage in this tonight, let’s forget it. Untie me and I’ll go to bed with Donna tonight. She’s got a tight ass, even tighter than yours. I love to suckle it until she opens so I can pop my finger in.”

  His eyes to the floor, he shook his head at her. “What did he see in your room?”

  “A woman tied to the bed, so what?”

  “A woman?”

  “A woman. We’ve always been clear on this.”

  “So why do you keep bothering with me?”

  “I told you,” she sighed, “women aren’t as biologically strong as men.”

  “I’ve met my fair share and a couple I wouldn’t have dared suggest couldn’t hold a candle to my strength, let me tell you.”

  She almost smirked, but didn’t. She looked as if she thought better of giving him a yard of ground, because he’d take a field from her if he could.

  “Whatever. Maybe I find you pretty for a bloke.”

  A small incision into her frozen exterior gave him so much pleasure – and yet pain – because she was toying with him, clearly. She wanted to punish him. But for what? Being male? Being the owner of the place she ran in his stead. What had he ever done to her?

  “He doesn’t understand what we have, so what,” she sneered, “who cares?”

  “I care, he’s my brother.”

  “He obviously doesn’t get why we do this.”

  “I don’t get why we do this, in fact. But we do.”

  “Why do we?” she asked, turning the question back on him.

  “I’ve never,” he stammered, “I–I’ve never felt as alive as I do when we, you know? It’s just fucking with the others… just a hole and a cock. This… it’s different.”

  “And it only remains different while we keep it like this. Soon as we fuck, that’s it John Boy, we’re just like all the other vanilla fucks out there, you know? No different. Destined for divorce, alimony, time sharing the kids… why bother? Let’s just play around, enjoy ourselves. We don’t need anything else. This place rakes in enough money. We could do this forever.”

  Part of the future she painted appealed to him – as in no responsibilities, no love, no marriage or kids. All that was great. But having nobody to share his feelings with? He couldn’t live without that. He’d already lost his best mate Teddy who was still unhappy about his closeness with Shay and he’d lost his brother Daltrey, who recognised Dante was unhealthily obsessed with this one girl he never fucked. Dante’s moods over the past months had been up and down like a yoyo. He felt all alone, because nobody understood what it was about Shay that kept him in constant consternation – and fascination.

  In fact in eighteen months, Dante hadn’t fucked anyone else because he could never find any concentration to seduce and then fuck anyone else. He wanked off all the fucking time to thoughts of Shay but otherwise, he was going without.

  It was driving him up the wall.

  “Don’t you want my cock inside you, slithering between your walls, parting your body, filling it full of my cum? Don’t you want me in your arms, Shay?”

  She stared at him. “No.”

  “Infuriating.”

  “Are you going to spank me now?” She pouted.

  He was almost glad she asked like that; it meant he could go harsh on her. She often wanted him to.

  He took a cane off the highest shelf near them and showed her it. It was something he’d never used before. His mother had once described being caned by a nasty headmistress in the 1960s and it had irked him to hear the tale of how red and deep the welts had developed, following the punishment. His mother still had scars from that one beating, on the back of her thighs. The teacher obviously hadn’t exhibited any control or skill.

  Shay’s eyes flashed wide and she remarked, “Oh, sir. Why don’t you take off my underwear for this one?”

  She’d never offered herself like this before and he’d ached and longed to see her bare body. Pulling a Swiss army knife off a shelf, which they kept in these rooms for all eventualities, he cut her bra straps and then her panties, all her underwear sliding right off.

  Her breasts so meek and supple, her pink nipples pebbled against the cool air, soaking up the atmosphere so she looked painfully aroused. Her bare slit peeked out from the gap between her thighs but that was all he could see. Just a tiny slit into her belly, her sex concealed between her legs.

  Her hips were so slight, the bones protruding. He wondered if she ever ate and suddenly seeing her naked, he saw vulnerability. He saw what she really was – just a girl hiding beneath a dark persona. A woman who’d been wronged somewhere along the way. A waif or stray Barlow had taken pity on, or taken under his wing. He didn’t know. He wasn’t sure. Either she was a pauper when Barlow got hold of her, or maybe she was more like Barlow than Dante wanted to admit – a peddler of lies and secrets, and more painful realities he couldn’t consider.

  Dante, still a young man, was unaware of the duplicity of some women.

  Especially her.

  He tapped the cane against the front of her thighs and she folded up and shrank a little with the strike, which immediately made a mark on her body.

  Yes, even just a tap marked her.

  It was such a vicious weapon.

  “Oh god, yes,” she murmured, eyes hooded, lust making her spread her legs so that he began to see the pink rose petals of her sex peeking out.

  He tapped again, across the front of her thigh, a little lower this time.

 
He was rewarded when she whispered, “Please kiss my breasts. Please.”

  “No,” he said, without even thinking it through.

  He’d wanted to kiss her for so long, and to hold her, but this sudden change of heart seemed a ruse or a nasty, spiteful lesson she was trying to give him.

  She’d held back for so long, why was she suddenly – tonight of all nights – changing her tune?

  He didn’t buy into her change of tack.

  “No?” she panted.

  “No.”

  He spanked her across her belly, leaving a vicious mark on her body.

  “Thank you, sir,” she said, though she sweated, and breathed hoarse.

  Her body sagged slightly but she didn’t ask him to stop. She’d never asked to stop, not in all the time they’d been doing this.

  He reached out and used the cane to part her sex and the look she gave him freaked him out. She smiled but with malice in her eyes and he didn’t know whether to match that malice or forego it. He was too far gone and he flicked the cane over her clit and she came, screaming and yelling, her cum spurting down over the floor. He’d never used the cane before tonight but she’d got him riled enough to pull it out and use it on her like this.

  Almost hyperventilating, he knew she was tired and had enjoyed one of the biggest orgasms of her life. He untied her, carried her to the slab, wrapped her in the velvet cloth and then carried her upstairs.

  She remained slightly comatose as he carried her there, so that she probably didn’t know what was happening. She’d come so hard, she’d jetted against the floor, but it was more than that too…

  She’d enjoyed the caning, so overcome with ecstasy, she wasn’t in reality right then – but enjoying the aftermath of her pleasure too much to notice he was taking her up to her bedroom, a private sanctum she’d yet to introduce him to.

  Her secret bedroom.

  He held her with no effort at all; she couldn’t have weighed more than eight stones.

  Grabbing the doorknob, he opened it easily, and let himself inside, Shay still in his arms.

  Walking over the threshold, the room was in complete darkness, but once his eyes adjusted he took her to the bed.

  Her room was much in the décor of the rest of the house. Wood panels on some walls, a large open fireplace used in winter, an en suite, metal-framed Victorian bed and a few cabinets lying around, some suspiciously familiar, like the cabinets they kept in the dungeon – no doubt full of toys.

  While she apparently continued to doze, he searched her room for clues. In her closets were just the clothes she always wore. In her drawers the same underwear he always saw her in, just plain lace pieces. He searched the cabinets and found nothing out of the ordinary; nothing personal at all – no family albums or postcards or favourite books. No clues to her past – her real past.

  “What are you doing?” she mumbled, awake and alert again, somehow.

  “Who are you?”

  “Well if you don’t know by now, I doubt you will ever figure it out,” she said, an ominous explanation, as always.

  She stretched out in the bed, so lazily, the covers fell down and revealed her naked breasts.

  “Come to bed. Let’s just fuck. You’re right. I do want your cock.”

  “No you don’t,” he said, “you just want to fuck with my head.”

  “Well, that too. I’m really glad you took the cane off the shelf tonight. I’ve been waiting for you to do that for ages and I’m so happy you did. I’ll feel the welts for weeks, now.”

  “Weeks?” he almost yelled, and pulled at his hair.

  “Marks I’ll wear with pride.”

  “Marks?”

  “Yes.”

  He didn’t like the sound of her wearing marks with pride. He didn’t like her changeability or the control she had over him, despite him supposedly being the dominant.

  “Come here,” she asked softly, and he walked over to her, sitting on the edge of the bed.

  He thought she might be about to apologise, but she said, “Maybe I’ve just been scared. Maybe I can trust you, after all?”

  “Trust me to do what?”

  “Remain faithful.”

  Her grey eyes sparkled against the starlit shadows of the room and she seemed almost pure and innocent.

  “What or whom would I be remaining faithful to? You. Or this place?”

  “Me, of course.”

  Shaking his head, he said, “That’s not what trust is. It’s a two-way street. I know absolutely nothing about you, not really and until you tell me the truth, as a couple we’re a no-go.”

  “But you’re not sleeping with anyone else?”

  “Because my mind’s too fucked up to consider being with anyone else. I’m forever trying to keep up with your mind games.”

  She smiled, but then it disappeared. She even tried to smile again, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t even force or fake a smile anymore.

  Instead she began crying, and not just crying, but snivelling. She threw the covers off her body and said in between sobs, “Look what you’ve done to me and now you don’t want me because I’m covered in these marks! How could you do this to me? I didn’t want this but you made me take your strikes and look at me now, probably scarred! Look at me…!” she screamed, shrieked even.

  He looked at her frail mass, sobbing and heaving with tears. Crocodile tears. She could turn her emotions on and off, this girl she was beneath, the stunted young woman never to grow up and live in the real world. Finally, she looked small and weak in comparison to him but instead of being glad he had finally broken her, he felt awful, and wretched. He was in fact the beast she was saying he was, and he was responsible for reducing her to using these sorts of wayward tactics. In the past he had been a player and now she was doing this to try and get him to love her. When he could never love her. He’d told her that: he could never love her, not while he didn’t know her. The lies covered the truth and the lies were many and various and she’d used lies to divert him from what she really was: a damaged woman.

  “…look at my poor body, covered in your cruelty. I’ll be reminded of you whenever I have to apply cream or whenever I step into the shower and the spray hurts when it touches my skin…!”

  Putting her head into her hands, she sobbed like a girl, unleashing her poison pain.

  He recoiled and stepped away from the bed, looking down on the situation as if this wasn’t happening to him – regret filling his mind. This had been a waste of his life. All his time with her here, and all the time he’d spent outside of Pernox wanting her, had been pointless.

  “This time I mean it… we’re done, Shay. I don’t play games. I’m not stupid, so stop treating me like I am.” He turned his back on her, putting his hand on the doorknob ready to leave.

  “The submissive holds all the power, see?” she growled slightly. The emotional squeak gone, he heard gravity, and he heard duplicity as she spoke. “The men who come here choose to give up control. It’s always their choice. There’s nothing better than giving up control, because in the long-run, through submission you learn to conquer fear, pain and uncertainty. You become the victor as a submissive. I’m trying to teach you… but again and again, you refuse to listen. Dominants care and protect, they don’t injure or hurt. I’m not injured, I’m in control… even of you. You love me being in control, but you won’t admit it… you’re ashamed to admit it, but you love strong women like me. You’re simply terrified of letting yourself go.”

  “We’re done, Shay. I’m done with your games. I don’t know who you are and to be honest, I don’t care anymore.”

  “Well… I tried,” she said, her voice echoing behind him as he left.

  Five

  “YES?” DANTE ANSWERED HIS MOBILE phone, wondering who was calling. When nobody said anything, his eyes glanced at his bedroom clock and saw the time: 7.53 a.m. For a brief moment, he hoped it would be Shay. Since the caning incident, he hadn’t seen her in two weeks and he was missing their conv
ersations terribly.

  Eventually his mother spoke. “Dante?”

  “Oui,” he answered, because they usually spoke in French on the phone; she said it was to keep up her conversational skills now she hardly ever got over the English Channel anymore, not since she got diagnosed with arthritis and realised Paris without the extensive use of your legs was difficult on your own. Dante could have taken her but he was always too busy… he said… mostly too busy thinking about Shay or counting down the hours until he could see her.

  “It’s bad news,” she said, making their accord immediately serious, “it’s Daltrey, your big brother.” She sounded muffled so he imagined her cradling the phone to her face, like she had when they were growing up and she didn’t want her boys to know she was shouting and cursing Richard Sinclair down the phone, demanding he get himself home.

  “What happened to him?”

  “A shooting,” she whispered.

  “What?”

  Terror ripped through him, so palpable, his hairs prickled and his skin itched. His chest expanded to painful proportions and he willed her not to speak again.

  “He died. There was nothing anyone could do. Gunshot to the head.”

  “How–” He began to speak, wanting to ask her how she was even upright, let alone telling him in words how a member of their family had died. Then he remembered: she was a walking medicine cabinet.

  “Nobody knows how or why, only he left work at five after pulling a double shift, and a little later someone found him… laid there…”

  The thought of his only brother dead in the street, all on his own without anyone to hold his hand, crippled Dante’s heart. Instead of sleeping in like the crusty fart he was, selfish and unthinking, in his bed of stupid, utter recklessness… he should have met his brother for breakfast, scuppered the shooter… saved him.

  “Dante, are you there–” He barely heard her over the raised voices in his head, telling him he should have been there for his brother at the end. Instead, Daltrey had died alone.

  “Who was it? What do they know?” Dante said, gravel in his throat.

  “It’s too early, son.”

  “He was loved by everyone!” Dante’s thoughts turned to finding an explanation, a logical reason, a right for this wrong. “He never hurt anyone. Not a soul. I don’t understand! He was so good, Mum!”