Fighting Attraction

by Sarah Castille

  Maybe if I give her what she wants, I’ll get her out of my system. I’m pretty damn sure she’ll never come back. Which is a good thing. I have nothing to offer but pain. Nothing to gain from a relationship but betrayal and heartache.

  Damien lifts a quizzical eyebrow. “So, should I add her to your client list?”

  “No. After tonight, she won’t be back.”

  “I don’t think Penny is the kind of woman who is easily dissuaded from going after something she wants. She was delightful on my spanking bench. I’d like to see her there again.” He licks his lips, and I wonder if he’s got a death wish he wants to come true tonight.

  “She’s mine.”

  “Only tonight,” he says. “After that, it’s ladies’ choice.”

  Tension curls in the air between us. Cool and calm, Damien tips his head back and finishes his drink. “Enjoy your evening. Because if you don’t, I will.”

  * * *

  PENNY

  “Back again?” Kitty smiles when I walk into the reception area of Club Sin. Tonight, her corset is black, trimmed in red velvet, the bodice cut in a heart shape that dips low, highlighting her ample cleavage. There are bruises on her upper arms shaped suspiciously like fingers. She sees me staring at them, and her eyes soften.

  “Aren’t they hot?” she says. “I played with Master Sean last night. He knows I like a little visual reminder of our evenings together. And check this out.”

  Before I can protest, she stands and turns around. Her corset drops low enough to cover her garter belt and the tops of her buttocks, but the rest of her ass and her thighs are bared, giving me a good view of her welts and bruises. Although I have no problem hurting myself, her injuries make me feel queasy inside.

  “Are you okay?” I suck in my lips. “I mean, doesn’t it hurt to sit?”

  “Sitting’s a bitch,” she says. “But Master Sean made me promise not to stand at reception tonight unless it was necessary. He always seems to know when I break the rules, and then he punishes me.”

  “That wasn’t punishment?” Is this what’s in store for me? Is this really what I want?

  Kitty laughs. “That was a whip. A crop or single tail would be punishment. Then there would be no question of me being able to sit all night.”

  Panic looms in the pit of my stomach, but I fight for control. I didn’t come all this way just to chicken out at the prospect of a little pain. “Are all the Doms like that?”

  She takes her seat again, gritting her teeth as she settles on the chair. “The Doms here are all fantastic. Very professional. Very serious. But they also know how to have fun. That’s why we’re one of the top clubs in the city and why the membership fee is so high. If I didn’t have this as a second job, I would never be able to afford to play here.”

  “I didn’t pay,” I blurt out, ashamed to be freeloading.

  “Master Damien took care of your membership fee.”

  “I’ll need…to talk to him about that.” I twist my dress in my hand. “I can’t let him pay for me.”

  “There is no talking to him. He does what he wants to do.” Kitty laughs. “And he’s given instructions not to be disturbed all evening. He’s in a meeting with his attorney.”

  “His attorney?” My breaths come in short pants. Does he know what Amanda has planned? Is that why they’re meeting on a Friday night?

  “Maybe I shouldn’t have told you.” Kitty grimaces. “I’m always getting punished for talking too much.”

  Punished. I am suddenly reminded why I’ve come to the club tonight. “Um…I’m meeting Master Jack. Where should I go?”

  “Are you sure it’s Master Jack you’re meeting? He only scenes with the most experienced submissives and the die-hard masochists.”

  “And me, it seems.” I smooth my hands down over my stretchy little white dress, the only thing in my closet remotely close to the fetish wear I saw when I visited the club. Black would have been better, but I don’t own anything darker than eggshell blue.

  “If you need someone when you get out…” Her voice trails off. “To talk to. Or if you need someone to call you a cab or take you to the hospital, just let me know.”

  Hospital? “You’re scaring me, Kitty.”

  “You should be scared. Even I wouldn’t play with Master Jack, and I like it rough.” She pushes the buzzer, and the door to the club opens. “Room six. It’s the one with all the scratches on the door.”

  “Yeah. I know.”

  Heart pounding, I walk along the corridor to room six. All the doors to the other rooms are closed, and the hallway is eerily silent. My heels echo on the polished tile, and I slow my pace to check out the framed, lighted photos on the walls of people bound in intricately tied rope. Everything I’ve seen so far speaks of an incredible attention to detail. Class rather than crass. I feel another twinge of regret that I will have some part in shutting it all down.

  The door to room six is open. I step inside and find a note taped to one of the glass display cases: “Clothes off. Underwear on. Kneel on rug.”

  Kneel? I’m not so sure about kneeling to anyone, but if this is the game I need to play, I’ll give it a try. After closing the door, I slip off my dress and shoes and put them in the white locker at the side of the room along with my purse. My ponytail brushes over my shoulders, and I adjust the straps of my new mint-green lace bra, at once relieved and disappointed he doesn’t want me naked.

  My knees hit the soft red carpet, and I take a few deep breaths as I look around the room. The bench with the cage beneath it has been pushed over to the wall, but I can still see the indentations in the area rug around me. I can’t imagine agreeing to be put into a cage. After spending the better part of my childhood being locked in my room as punishment for even the most minor disobedience, I haven’t been able to handle closed-in spaces. And yet I could never have imagined being here either.

  Stripped down, on my knees, my scars bared for all to see.

  10

  Do you want me to stop?

  PENNY

  “Eyes on the floor.”

  I startle at the sound of Jack’s voice. So caught up in my thoughts, I didn’t hear the door open or notice him enter the room. My eyes drop right away, and I pull at the carpet with my fingers, at a loss for something to do with my hands.

  Jack’s footsteps echo on the polished concrete, and I wince when the door slams, catch my breath when the bolt slides into place. I am a mess of nervous anticipation, desperate to raise my head to see his face.

  “Hands on your lap. I like the area rug the way it is.”

  Grimacing, I place my hands on my lap in what feels like a very submissive position. Except I’m not submissive, and I have no secret desire to give up my power. I’m just here for the pain. I drop my hands to my sides and look up, only to see Jack leaning against the wall watching me. He is dressed head to toe in black, his leather pants encasing legs that are thick with muscle, his short-sleeved T-shirt stretched tight over powerful muscles, emblazoned with an ad for a local distillery.

  He lifts an eyebrow at my all-too-obvious perusal of his mouthwatering body. “You’re not very good at following directions.”

  My body heats at the unmistakable note of warning in his tone, but I owe it to him, and to me, to explain. “Not if they go against the grain.”

  “And the grain is?”

  “I’m not submissive, and I have no desire to be submissive. I didn’t really think about it the other night, but if that’s what you need, if that’s what needs to happen, I don’t know if this will work for me.”

  Jack cocks his head to the side and studies me. “You’re kneeling.”

  “Your couch isn’t really that comfy,” I point out. “So the kneeling wasn’t really a hardship.”

  A reluctant smile spreads across his face. “It’s not meant for comfort. Nothing in this
room is about comfort. People don’t come here to be hugged and cuddled.”

  “So why the bed?” I gesture to the four-poster bed in the corner, the posts and beams surrounding it embedded with D-rings and chains.

  “Master Damien insisted,” he says. “He rents the room out for private parties when I’m not around. I’ve never used it.”

  “A virgin bed.”

  This time he laughs out loud. “I suppose it is.”

  I work the carpet again between my fingers. The pile is soft and thick, unexpectedly luxurious compared to the austerity of the room. “So what do we do now that you know I’m not submissive and I’m not comfortable sitting with my hands on my lap staring at the floor like a good little girl?”

  “We don’t get hung up on labels.” Jack walks across the room and drags the giant padded bench from against the wall, identical to the one Master Damien used on Wednesday night. “But I am going to restrain you on this bench and spank you for disobeying my rules. How does that sound?”

  I nibble on my bottom lip. “You’re asking me? I thought you were the Dom and what you say goes. Isn’t that how it works?”

  He lifts the heavy bench easily and places it on the carpet in front of me, his delicious biceps bulging with the effort. “You have all the power is how it works,” he says. “How much you want to give up to me is entirely up to you. I’ll never take anything from you that you don’t want to give. If you want to trust me to take you as far as I think you can go, then you can. Or we can set limits before we begin. And you can always stop the scene with your safe word.”

  His words speak to the fear deep inside me—the loss of power, the loss of control, the futility of trying to please someone who could never be pleased, of obeying all the rules only to be punished anyway out of spite, of looking for love where no love could be found.

  “I set out all my limits in the questionnaire. Except for the hard-core stuff, permanent injury, or scarring, I’m up for anything.”

  Jack gestures me over to the bench. He seems guarded tonight, not the chill, friendly Jack I know from the gym and yet not quite the cold, distant Dom he was the last time we were here. It is almost like he’s not sure what mask to wear.

  “One knee on each ledge, body across the center.” He pats the padded sides of the bench, and I take up the required position, shifting to accommodate my breasts and the almost-uncomfortable spread of my thighs. I feel less exposed on the bench than I did chained to his ceiling, and yet the way it forces my legs apart makes me feel curiously vulnerable.

  “I just want you to hurt me.”

  His face tightens, the Dom mask slipping into place. “I will.”

  I lay my head down, and watch him select cuffs from the rack on the wall. My heart is thudding so hard I can hear the vibration through the bench.

  “Really hurt me. I can take a lot.”

  “In this room, Pen, I’m in charge.” His voice drops to a warning tone. “I make the decisions. I decide how much you get and how much you can take.” He buckles one cuff around my wrist and affixes it to the nearest D-clip. After testing for movement, he restrains my other wrist, clipping the cuff to the side of the bench.

  “I’m not a masochist, though.” I don’t know why I can’t stop talking, but my mouth just keeps going. “I don’t get off on the pain.”

  “Apparently you do, or I wouldn’t be punishing you.”

  His words hang heavy in the air. I’ve never derived any sexual pleasure from cutting myself, but I do get a rush that gives me release from the emotional pressure that builds up inside me when life throws its curve balls. But it was different with Jack. Although I didn’t get release, the feelings I had from our encounter were most definitely sexual. Very sexual. Very intense.

  “I think the getting off part has more to do with you than the pain.” The words fall out before I can catch them, and I squeeze my eyes shut as if blocking out the sight of him could erase my faux pas.

  An awkward silence fills the room. Jack turns away and takes another set of cuffs from the rack. From my vantage point on the bench, I can see his shoulders stiffen and his fingers tighten around the stiff leather until his knuckles turn white. Have I overstepped? Whatever I’ve done, it’s had some kind of effect on him because for a long moment he doesn’t turn around.

  “Do you get pleasure from this?” I ask to cover my embarrassment.

  He releases a long breath and turns around. “The pain aspect, yes.”

  A shiver runs down my spine. “Do you need it, the way I need to…” My voice trails off. I’ve never discussed my cutting with anyone except my therapist. Adam, my ex, didn’t give a damn about my cutting so long as I cooked and cleaned, did as I was told, and made myself available in his bed for his sexual pleasure and on the other side of his fists as an outlet for his anger. Only once did he bring it up, and that was when he threw me out, telling me I was sick and twisted and no one would ever want a broken girl like me. But here, in this room designed for pain, with a man who already knows the secret I’ve kept for so long, I feel free. Even more, I don’t feel judged. “Cut myself?” I finish.

  He hesitates, the cuffs in his hand. “No. It’s more like a craving. I could give it up if I had to.” Regret crosses his face, but it disappears so quickly I wonder if I saw it.

  “I couldn’t give up coffee.”

  “That’s an addiction,” he says dryly. “Not a craving.”

  “So you’re not addicted to tying curvy British girls to your spanking bench and giving them a sound beating?”

  I look up and see that Jack has turned away again, but the rise and fall of his shoulders betray his laughter. Why does he feel the need to hide his emotions from me? I know Jack. He has a great sense of humor, and he especially enjoys British wit. How many times did we kick back in the lounge at Redemption watching reruns of Blackadder or the British version of The Office? Or practicing swear words in each other’s accents? I’ve never laughed so hard as when I heard bollocks in his Southern twang.

  “I’m going to have to gag you if you keep this up.” He clears his throat and walks over to the rack of terrifying implements on the wall.

  “I’m ruining the mood, aren’t I? I suppose this is supposed to be very serious and scary. I shouldn’t be mouthing off while I’m tied half-naked to a spanking bench. But this is why I…”

  My words trail off when Jack holds up a gag with a ball in the center. I suck in a sharp breath, and he smiles.

  “Now that’s the look I like to see. Fear.”

  Fear is right. No way is he sticking that ball in my mouth. “Don’t put that on me…please,” I whisper.

  “No more talking. I’m not your friend in here, Pen.”

  But he is, because we’ve just had the kind of conversation we used to have, albeit about a topic I never imagined we would discuss. It was easy, fun. And yet something more. If we weren’t friends, I wouldn’t trust him enough to be here, or to bare my secrets and my body. If we weren’t friends, he wouldn’t call me Pen before he spanked me.

  He places the gag on the table in front of me and slides a soft, padded cuff around my thigh.

  I wince, and he freezes.

  “Did you disobey me about the cutting, too? When I told you not to touch yourself the other night, I meant all kinds of touch.”

  Embarrassed, I look away. “No, but the last time I went kind of deep, and it hasn’t healed. And the skin is all kinds of sensitive with all the scarring.” I shock myself with my ability to talk about this secret part of me so openly, but this club, this room, and this man I think of as a friend all seem designed to lower my inhibitions. Differences are celebrated here. Judgments suspended. Needs and desires, no matter how far off the beaten track, can be met and fulfilled. I feel relaxed here in a way I’ve never felt before. At home in a place that’s not going to exist in two more days.

  Jack
squats down in front of the bench and lifts my head with a finger under my chin so I meet his gaze. “I want you to make me a promise. A real promise. Not because I ordered it or because it is part of the scene, but because it is a promise you want to give a friend. The next time you feel like cutting yourself, you call me. No matter what time of day or where I am or what I’m doing, you call me and we’ll come here and I’ll give you what you need.”

  “What do I need?”

  He makes his way to the back of the bench and, without warning, strikes me with the full force of his hand. “This.”

  Pain sheets across my left ass cheek, setting my skin on fire. My limbs jerk against the restraints, and my inability to move sends adrenaline coursing through me, making the pain more intense.

  His hand smacks my ass again, and the burning sensation floods my mind, pushing out every thought except how to get away from his hand. I struggle furiously against the restraints, and my clit rubs against the bench, sending confusing signals of pleasure mixing with the pain.

  “You’re very quiet. Makes me think I’m not working hard enough.” He grips my neck with one hand, holding me still, and swats again, this time so hard my breath leaves me in a rush.

  “Why are you being spanked?” He hits me again, and my eyes fill with tears.

  “Because I want you to hurt me.”

  “No.”

  Another blast of heat explodes across my skin, and my body jerks forward on the bench. Blood roars in my ears. My breath comes in short pants, and sweat beads on my brow. In the back of my mind, I know he’s waiting for an answer, but I can’t think for the pressure building up behind my clit that is somehow connected to the pain.

  I freeze, shame heating my cheeks. I can’t come on the bench while Jack is spanking me. It’s not right. It doesn’t make sense. And he’s…my friend.

  He strikes again, four blows in quick succession, two on each burning cheek. Fire sizzles straight to my clit, and I am awash in sensation: the cool wood against my thighs, the soft padding beneath my forehead, the firm press of the pad against my body, the burn of the skin on my ass, the slight pinch of the cuffs, and the pressure of the bench holding my legs apart. I squirm, unable to stop myself from seeking more friction where I need it the most.