Craving takes hold of me, deep and dark. Even if the club scene didn’t turn Penny off, as I assume it does, I’m a sadist. And after tonight, I’m damn sure she’s not a masochist. She needs pain for the release the endorphin rush gives her, but she doesn’t enjoy it the way Sylvia does. We could never make it work, and I’m selfish for pursuing her, selfish for pushing her, selfish for not wanting to let her go.
Sylvia twines her arms around my neck and presses herself against me. She is nothing if not persistent. “Please, Master Jack.”
It all hits me in a rush—the craving, the restraint I have to exercise with Penny, my longing and desire to have her the way a normal man would, and the burning, seething need to hear her scream with pain before she screams with pleasure. I don’t want to be this man, but I am. I don’t want to hurt her, but I will. And the best thing for her would be for me to stay away.
“Fuck.” I swipe my card and pull open the door, holding it for Sylvia to pass through.
“Yes. Anything you want.” Sylvia brushes her lips over mine as she walks inside. “I’ll be waiting in your playroom.”
Before I can say anything more, she hurries down the hallway, her heels tapping on the tile floor.
Disgusted with myself and what I’m about to do, I follow her in.
Club Sin is heaving tonight, with all the equipment in use, from the cage in one corner to the St. Andrew’s Cross in the other. Doms hold subs on the aftercare couches or pet submissives kneeling at their feet. Music pounds through the speakers, punctuated by the occasional scream.
I spot Damien walking the floor and catch up to him by the water station. “Are we at capacity tonight?”
Damien gives me a conspiratorial grin. “Over capacity. We’ve become so popular we could add another level and still have a wait list. If the landlord wasn’t so determined to get us out of here in a hurry, I would have considered some renovations.”
“Any fallout from Gerry’s attempt to send in the contractors the other day?” I step to the side as a Domme leads a male sub past on a leash.
“Nothing. My lawyer is trying to drag things out while I find somewhere to relocate. I’ve seen a few interesting properties. You’ll have to come and check them out.” He gives me a searching look. “And where is our newest member? I thought we’d be seeing a lot more of her. Don’t tell me you scared her away.”
“Story of my life.”
“I’m surprised,” he says. “She didn’t seem the type to be easily put off. After all, she came back here and sat in the waiting room for almost two full nights before I let her in. And she jumped at the chance to play with me—”
“Don’t go there.” I don’t want to remember seeing Penny on Damien’s bench and the amount of effort it took not to pick him up and toss him out of the room.
Damien laughs. “So it’s not over.”
“It is, or I wouldn’t be here with Sylvia waiting in my playroom.” I run my hand through my hair. “I told Pen I could cope without the club, but she was worried she wasn’t enough for me. She agreed to do a scene, and it went all fucking wrong.”
“So now she feels like a failure.”
What the fuck is he talking about? “I’m the failure. It was my scene. I was in control. I’m the monster Avery always thought I was.”
Damien’s gaze lingers on a threesome over by the St. Andrew’s Cross. I recognize Master Daniel and the male sub chained to the cross, but the woman is new and not wearing the usual club fetish attire. Master Daniel has restrained her in a bondage chair and positioned her so she can watch him, but at a safe distance away. When Penny first showed up at the club, I imagined her chained to the cross, trembling under the bite of my whip. But not now. Not ever.
“I had to rearrange some furniture to accommodate them,” Damien says. “The alcove was booked up tonight. Master Daniel’s wife has never been to the club before, and I suggested he bring her sooner rather than later because the future of the club is so uncertain.”
“Fucking Gerry,” I mutter. “Would it really have been so hard to just give us the proper notice? I can’t even imagine what he’s paid in legal fees.”
“I can,” Damien says dryly. “The lawyers are the only real winners in this dispute.”
We walk the length of the main floor and turn down the hallway to the private rooms. Damien stops beside the door to my playroom. “You’re still hung up on being the man your family expects you to be instead of embracing who you are. Give yourself permission to enjoy your scenes instead of just enduring them. If you do, you might discover you don’t need the intensity you think you do, and you might open yourself up to being with a woman who can offer you something more. You’re fighting this harder than you fight in the ring, and I don’t know why.”
“I wanted to give her normal.”
“Normal?” Damien laughs. “There is no normal. There are only degrees of kink. You need to free yourself from expectations and judgments and decide who you really are and what you really want. And if that means meeting Sylvia in your playroom, then accept it and embrace it. Be the sadist. Enjoy her pain. But if it means taking a risk with a woman who sees the man behind the monster you think you are and who needs what you have to give, then that’s the wrong fucking door.”
I already know it’s the wrong door. There’s only one place I want to be. One woman I want to be with. But after tonight, will she want me?
“She wants some pain, but she can’t take too much.” I scrub my hand over my face. “But she wasn’t happy when I told her I could give up the club. She thought she wouldn’t be enough for me.”
“She’s a people pleaser,” Damien says. “I saw that when she walked in, and I saw a lot of strength. She was very accepting of what goes on here, which means you have options. I know a sadist whose vanilla wife gets off watching him dish out pain. She sits in on his scenes—play only, no sex—and then they go home and burn up the sheets.” Damien chuckles. “Your sexual preferences don’t have to inform your entire life. I know you got burned in the past, but Penny isn’t Avery. She saw to the heart of you, and she came back for more.”
My gaze flicks to the room where Sylvia is waiting. “I can’t go back. Not to who I am at the club. Not to who I was in Tennessee. I’ll need to find a way to be both the sadist and the man.”
“Life isn’t about moving back. It’s about moving on,” Damien says. “But it takes courage. The kind of courage that brings a young English legal assistant into a kinky sex club looking for normal.”
* * *
PENNY
Cut. Don’t cut. Cut. Don’t cut.
I stare at the green plastic case on my bed. Everything is ready—bandages, disinfectant, blades. My legs are bare. My heart is pounding, and the familiar thrill of fear slides through my veins. All I have to do is pick up the case; close my fingers around the cold, unforgiving steel; press it against my flesh and release the demons. My mouth waters in anticipation of the pain followed by the rush. Release.
We didn’t want you.
Worthless, no good…
No one would want a broken girl like you.
I pick up the case and pop the lid. Six razor blades glint in the light.
Promise me. Promise you’ll call if you think about hurting yourself again.
Jack’s voice wars with the voices of my past. But how can I call him now? I wasn’t enough. Would it really have been so wrong to tell him the truth? Broken people make broken decisions. And I’m too broken to be fixed.
My phone buzzes on the kitchen counter, but I tune it out. Once I let the darkness take me, I need to be alone.
Taking a deep breath, I pull out a blade. Adrenaline surges through my body, and my senses sharpen. I feel the scratchy dark towel beneath me. I hear the steady ticking of the clock, the hum of traffic outside, the rasp of my breaths. I taste Jack on my lips, the lingering sweetness of vodka. I inhale a
nd I smell him, the faint fragrance of soap and sex and a hint of vinyl from the massage table at Redemption.
Was it only a few hours ago I was in Redemption, laughing as he chased me? Moaning as he made me come? His touch lingers on my skin, the rush of our evening together still warms me deep inside.
“Jack.” His name is as soft on my lips as his flogger was hard on my skin. I could have taken more. Should have taken more. If I had, I wouldn’t need this blade. And yet the craving is not as fierce as it usually is, the monsters not as loud, the need not as strong.
Not as strong as me.
I want you to see what I see. I want you to know that you are worth so much more than you got from the people in your life. You are strong. You are brave. You are worth loving, Penny. You are the kind of woman who deserves to have a man on his knees.
Do I really need this tonight? Do I want it?
I may not have been enough for Jack, but he showed me there are other ways to deal with the darkness. He has opened my eyes for me.
With curiously steady hands, I put the blade back into the box. I don’t need this crutch tonight.
But I do need to find out who is on the goddamn phone.
* * *
An hour later, Cora and I are drinking coffee at a small all-night diner that serves breakfast twenty-four hours a day. Despite the fact that it is well past midnight, she had no problem meeting me to talk. Although she knew a few things about my past, she didn’t know everything.
Now she does. The only thing I haven’t told her about is Jack’s kink, and why I don’t feel the need to self-harm when I’m with him.
“I don’t know what to say.” Cora toys with the croissant on her plate after I tell her the long story about my father, Adam, Vetch, and the self-harm that has plagued me for so long. Until I met Jack, I had never shared my secrets with anyone except my therapist. But it gets a little easier each time.
“I knew you’d been through a lot, but I never imagined it was so bad.” She lifts her eyes and meets my gaze. “I admire the hell out of you. You’re a very strong person to be as together as you are after all that. And the cutting thing…if that’s the only fallout from all those abusive relationships, you’ve done better than people I know who have suffered far less.”
“Can I get you anything else?” The waitress refills our cups, and the aroma of sizzling bacon, fried eggs, and freshly brewed coffee tempts me to order a midnight breakfast. But I’m already on my second piece of chocolate cake, and I know I would be sorry for the feast in the morning. “Just the coffee. Thanks.”
I turn back to Cora. “You don’t think I’m disgusting or sick or broken?” I didn’t know how Cora would feel after I told her all my secrets, but admiration wasn’t anywhere near the top of the list.
“No. I knew something was wrong when you’d get all quiet and shut me out. Drove me crazy because I wanted to help you. Now I know, and I’ll be there for you whenever you need me.” She gives up toying with the croissant and takes a big bite.
Emotion wells up in my throat. “That means a lot to me. Adam twisted everything up in my head. He’d hit me and tell me he was doing it because I clearly liked the pain, and he was giving me what I wanted. He told me I was sick and broken and no one would ever want someone like me.”
“Except him.” Her lips tighten. “I can’t believe you even spoke to him on the phone. If that bastard ever shows up when I’m around, I won’t be responsible for my actions.” She mocks a few punches in the air. “I’ve learned a lot in jiu-jitsu already. I’ll bet I could take him down.”
“You might have to stand in line.” I take another bite of the chocolaty goodness in front of me—my go-to indulgence when I’m feeling down. “Ray was there when I took the call from Adam. He must have seen something in my face because he followed me around the office demanding I tell him who it was and where he lived. I finally gave in and told him it was my ex and it was a bad situation that was now over. Of course, he wouldn’t let it go. I’m almost dreading going to work tomorrow.”
“I can’t imagine what Jack would do.” Cora washes down her croissant with a sip of coffee. “He’s the reason I called you tonight. He was worried about you after he dropped you off. He didn’t want you to be alone. He tracked down Jimmy to get my number. I’d say he cares about you something fierce.”
Her words make me feel warm inside, beating away the chill that settled over me when Jack suggested it would be better if we spent the night apart.
I look out the window and spot a familiar face. “Is that Blade Saw…er…Jimmy sitting out there in that SUV?”
Cora’s cheeks heat, and she bites back a smile. “Yeah. I call him by his real name because the whole ring name thing you Redemption people have going on is kinda weird outside the gym. I was with him when Jack called. He came to my place after the party. When I told him we were going for coffee, he insisted on driving. He said he didn’t want us to go out unprotected, and he was happy to sit outside until we were done.”
“That sounds pretty serious.”
Cora shrugs. “It’s casual.”
“Jimmy doesn’t do casual. I thought you might have picked that up at Score when he got the whole team thrown out.”
Cora shifts in her seat and toys with her hair. “Yeah, but he understands I’m not looking for a commitment right now.”
Something else is going on. Cora is not a casual hook-up kind of woman. She’s been desperate to find a non-geek to date, and now she has one…or is it two? “You slept with Doctor Death, didn’t you?”
Her lips quiver with a guilty smile. “It was before Jimmy and I really hooked up. Except now, Don—that’s his real name, Doctor Donald Drake—keeps calling me. I’ve never had any men interested in me, and now I have two. It’s kind of hard to get my head around it all.”
“If it was anyone else, I’d be dancing on the table for you,” I say. “But I told you about Jimmy. He’s a big-hearted guy, but a heart can only take so many breaks. He’s the most loyal guy I know. If he’s with you, he’s with you 100 percent. If Don is with you, he’s there and then he’s gone. He likes to share himself around. He is pretty much Jimmy’s opposite. You need to decide what you want.”
“What about you? You haven’t told me what happened tonight and why I’m here instead of Jack. Did you have a fight? Did he find out that you hurt yourself and that’s why he was worried about you tonight?”
My last bite of cake is one too many, and I push away the plate. “I think we both realized I can’t give him what he needs, and it was just sad and awkward when he left. I’m tired of feeling like a failure. I think I’m going to break it off with him and he can go back to being who he is and I can go back to being who I am.”
“Are you crazy?” Cora thunks her coffee cup on the table. “I thought you said you didn’t need to hurt yourself after you’ve been with him. Doesn’t that mean he’s the right guy for you?”
My stomach twists as I look out at Jimmy alone in his car. Sometimes it’s better to be alone. When you’re alone, you can’t get hurt.
“Yes. He’s the right guy for me. But I’m not the right woman for him.”
22
Are you trying to turn me on?
PENNY
My eyes snap open, a creeping sense of danger washing over me, as I blink into the icy blue glare of Ray’s eyes. Damn. Mind wandering. Again. After leaving Jack a cowardly phone message this morning, I haven’t been able to focus. And now I’ve been caught out in the middle of our Thursday staff meeting.
I glance around the boardroom table to see if anyone else noticed my lapse. Jill’s smirk and Dana’s raised eyebrow answer my unspoken question.
“Amanda just asked if you’ve got the PI reports on those three new road accident cases.” Ray’s tone says he’s going to be all over my ass the minute we leave the meeting, but he’s holding back because Amand
a is the only person in the room who didn’t catch me having a mid-meeting snooze.
“Um…yes.” I sift through the files in front of me, mentally congratulating myself for preparing them in advance so I didn’t have to worry about coming in late after my early morning chat with Cora. “I have them here.”
Amanda takes the reports and sighs as she flips through them. “I don’t think we can take any more of these smaller contingency cases. We need paying clients who can provide a steady income stream or I won’t be able to pay the bills or even continue our pro bono work. I don’t know what’s happened over the last year. We’re doing everything we did before, but we’re not bringing in the big-dollar clients.”
“World is full of deadbeats,” Ray offers. “Get rid of the deadweight. Start again.”
“Thank you for that.” Amanda catches my gaze and rolls her eyes. “I’ll just call up all the clients I don’t like and tell them to get lost.”
“Thought you just did that with Gerry.” Ray leans back in his chair, and I just know he is tempted to put his feet on the table.
I am suddenly and very acutely awake. “Gerry’s not a client anymore?”
“No.” Amanda’s lips thin. “Yesterday evening, I had a meeting with him. I told him if he wanted to handle things legally, then I would continue to represent him, but if he was going to continue harassing Damien Stone the way he did when he hired those contractors or by threatening to blackmail Stone’s clients, we were through. I’m desperate for work, but I’m not willing to compromise my standards or have my reputation tarnished. He didn’t like what I said, so we parted ways.”
Ray gives an approving nod. “You don’t need clients like him. The guy’s a fucking piece of shit. Word on the street is that he’s involved in some nasty stuff.”
Amanda lifts an eyebrow. “Language, Ray. This is a professional office.”
“Pardon me.” His voice drips with amused sarcasm. “He’s a fucking piece of scum.”
“Can we…” I shuffle the papers in front of me. “Can we tell people at the club now…warn them that he might have cameras?”
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