by Dani Collins
“That puts me in an interesting position, doesn’t it? Eloisa expects me to coach you on how to be a good submissive, but I want you to reject your Dom in favor of me. Is that the sort of instruction I should issue?”
Why did he want her to want him? Merely to feed his ego? Or because he wanted her, too? Did he have any idea how intoxicating it was for him to suggest that he did?
“Is that a decision for a sub?” she countered, heart climbing to behind her collarbone as she offered the light challenge. “Giving up choice frees me from responsibility. That’s what you said last night.”
“So I did. It’s up to me to decide how to proceed, then.”
With a decisive pivot, he turned and walked away, heading into the shadows of the empty restaurant where they had dined last night.
Desolation hit her. She’d worked up the nerve to offer a bit of backchat and repelled him. He didn’t want anything to do with her.
Just before he disappeared behind the bar, he paused and turned back to her.
“This lack of confidence is why he chose you. That sort of natural submissiveness, like you’re not good enough to follow without being invited, is something he’s taking advantage of. You really don’t know what you’re into, do you? Follow me, Violet. Let me show you.”
Startled by how he was both wrong and right, she stayed where she was, trying to determine how much of where she stood right now was lack of confidence and how much a first attempt at doing what she wanted.
She could walk out of this place onto the street right now. But she didn’t have a penny on her or even a decent layer against the elements. Nevertheless, she’d have the freedom she had craved for years.
And she would never know anything more about Porter or what kind of man he really was.
The sadness that came with that thought was unlike any other kind of disappointment she’d ever had to endure. Losing her mother, losing Raina, Cain destroying things she liked, had all been beyond her control.
Turning away from Porter would be her choice.
And running outside would be running.
Think bigger. Value yourself. Use the assets you have to make a better life than running and hiding.
The exhilarating knowledge that the decision to follow him was hers made it imperative for her to do it. For once she was doing what she wanted. It was a terrifying gamble that might have terrible consequences, but she needed to be courageous. She needed to step into her future, not wait for it to come to her.
Chapter Six
Her hesitation caused Porter a suffocating moment of alarm. She had to come to him. A kick of agitation almost had him biting out a stern demand that she do so.
He controlled himself. He was already hating himself for his weak need to see her again. If she refused him, she’d be doing him a favor, but he still struggled against the urge to insist she comply.
A good trainer, however, had endless patience. He also knew the difference between asserting his dominance and outright aggression. Some took what they wanted and that broke people. A broken submissive didn’t live to please. They did what was required to survive.
And when they were tired of the effort, they ran razor blades up their inner arms and told their brother, I couldn’t take anymore.
Porter shoved aside the gut-wrenching memory, aware that by standing here he was reverting to the contemptuous man who’d failed to see how desperate his brother had become, taking their parents’ censure to heart when Porter was able to shed it like water. He’d thought he was attracting the animosity of their parents, saving Tomas by pursuing this natural bend in his personality, but he’d actually created more for Tomas to deal with.
So he shouldn’t have tried to wiggle out of his responsibilities at home to play with Violet today. He still didn’t know whether his intention was to give her the proper training Eloisa expected, or simply lose himself in the escape she promised the way he’d disappeared into countless other D/s scenes. The focus these situations demanded of him had always been a trance-like reprieve from things he didn’t want to think about. Where other women had been high-proof vodka, Violet promised to be pure-grade opium. This is why he kept thinking, I need longer than a week.
It was self-destructive and he ought to be praying she’d stop the game, but he waited in stillness for her to decide if she would obey him. A well-trained sub renewed the pledge to submit every time a demand was made. They took pleasure in serving because it gave them a sense of value. They exalted in being whatever their Dominant needed them to be.
He willed her to give him that.
With a faltering step, Violet began walking toward him.
Exalting him.
His sense of urgency eased. He didn’t praise her, didn’t thank her, even though he felt an unusually deep desire to do both. He only led her to the back of the restaurant, through an archway into a small foyer where doors led to unisex bathrooms and the closed window of the empty coatroom.
Past those, a wall of double doors gave entrance to the ballroom.
Using his black Master Member’s card, he opened the first door and let it clang shut behind them as they entered the high-ceilinged room.
Violet took in the expanse of polished oak parquet beneath a high ceiling painted with murals of orgies.
“Eloisa holds formal dinners here. Training sessions. Masquerade balls. Other events. A live sex show is scheduled for later this week.”
A cold fireplace stood at the far end of the room, but the temperature was comfortable, even for a woman wearing tissue-thin lace.
By not delivering Violet naked, Eloisa was not-so-subtly reminding him his sovereignty was limited where this woman was concerned. The restriction heightened his awareness of Violet. She wore a feminine scent of cosmetics and perfumed creams, something that beckoned him to step close and drink deep and stroke her soft skin until the smell of her imbued his palms.
Not being allowed to touch her affronted his sense of superiority, but in order to prove his superiority in this case, he had to abide by the rules set out for him.
If only he knew who she belonged to, and whether the man was worthy.
With a dismissive twist of his lips, Porter concluded that if the man couldn’t be bothered doing the work to train her himself, he wanted a possession, not a person. The distaste that came with that thought surprised him. He never judged people’s needs and desires, having done enough weird shit himself to still carry the reputation of an edgeplay freak.
But, when you were looking for meaning in your life, you had to exhaust all hiding places, he reminded himself with dour irony.
His life had no meaning. He had come to accept that. It never would. If that knowledge still had the power to make his blood feel like powdered glass in his veins, well, it was a pain he accepted. No more seeking a deeper pain on the outside to drown it out. No more trying to exorcise his pain by delivering it to others.
Unless they asked, of course. His extensive experience gave him the right mix of empathy and objectivity to accommodate almost any request so he was often asked to wield a whip. When he did, it was a favor, not because he enjoyed it, but because amateurs annoyed the hell out of him.
That’s why he didn’t want anyone else taking up Violet’s training, even the man who possessed her, he kept telling himself. It wasn’t so much his attraction to her, which he couldn’t deny, but he was better than most at finding an individual’s kink and making the most of it. If Violet sought to go down this path, she deserved a knowledgeable guide.
Her gaze had made its way past the doors that led to deeper recesses of the club and touched the branding irons arranged elegantly above the fireplace mantle. The walls were windowless, but other decorative arrangements were hung at various intervals.
They would get to those implements another time. For now, he watched her tip back her head to take in the orgy, studying the images like she was memorizing them. Her thighs twitched, suggesting she was tightening internally, catching at a pu
lse of arousal.
Exquisite.
A responding rush of heat flooded into his cock and balls, dazzling in its strength. Fuck, what was it about her? It wasn’t just the fact she was off limits. He’d been like this from the first second he laid eyes on her. Why?
“We need to know each other better for this to work,” he decided aloud.
Her expression remained with firm concentration on the oils above them. She ought to be turning her attention to him, but her curiosity was exciting to watch. No judgment clouded her face as she took in the man blatantly sucking off another man, only a flush of arousal. Her nipples stood up like dark rose pushpins straining the intricate netting of black lace.
“Today you may ask me any question you like. The silence is a nice touch, but you use it as a weapon. Don’t think I haven’t noticed. Let me hear your voice.”
“Yes, Sir,” she said promptly. Too promptly.
“Sir?” he challenged, suspecting mockery.
“Yesterday you said a good sub would say, ‘Sir.’” She finally lowered her guileless eyes to his, completely dispelling any thought she might be less than one-hundred percent aware of him. The impact told him she was as attuned to him as he was to her, but the wariness behind her gaze was a slap.
He sensed something else beneath that layer of ingenuous cooperation and shook his head, beginning to see the true height and thickness of her resistance. Never mind passive aggressive. This woman was aggressively passive.
“You’re good. I won’t let you use silence to hold me at a distance so you’re finding another way. We’ll both fail if you don’t let me in, Violet. Most people think the D/s relationship is about sex and spankings and having someone pick up your laundry. It’s about pushing the boundaries of every type of intimacy. You let another person into your head. It’s a mind fuck, often with a body fuck for icing. You’ll call me Porter.”
She jerked as though struck, but it was the only betrayal that he’d shocked her.
“Now,” he added softly.
Her eyes widened with confusion.
“My name,” he clarified.
Her swallow was the only noise, then a shaky, “Porter.”
He listened for insolence, but what he heard was a perfect mimic of his own pronunciation of his name, which was flavored heavily with his Spanish-speaking roots. He had wanted to disconcert her by demanding something personal, and she’d turned the experience against him, making him yearn for the gift of his name, over and over.
It struck him again that he was going directly against standard training, teaching her to use his name.
He rocked back on his heels, scowling at her for being such a puzzle. For the first time he resented doing this for someone else. If he had his way…
But he didn’t.
“To be a good submissive, you have to trust that your Master knows what is best for you. By sending you here, he’s telling you to trust me.” The short time he would have with her struck him like a boot in the gut. He could do a lot with a sub in an hour or an evening. A week was an aeon, yet a niggling fear seeded in him that it wouldn’t be enough. He didn’t know where the trepidation came from and refused to examine it, pushing Violet for what he needed instead. “Do you trust me?”
“Yes, S—”
“Porter,” he cut in with swift disgust, “and you’re lying.” He let her hear the anger in his tone. This was the most important conversation they would ever have. “Be honest. It’s the first sign of trust.”
“I don’t.” The words came out like a witness breaking in the stand. Her gaze darted around the room to all the doors, but came back to his with an edge of harassment before falling. Her brow pleated. “I want to, but I don’t know if I can.”
Apprehension was to be expected. She was moving into the unknown.
“Use your safe word, then. End the play. Turn around and walk out.” It killed him to say it and he held his breath as he waited for her response.
Her gaze flashed up to his with something like panic, but it wasn’t fear for whatever punishment might be meted if she refused training. It was a fear of rejection that struck him higher than the gut. In his chest. His sternum vibrated and ached.
“Is that what you want me to do?” Her voice thinned, not seeming to contain any air.
“No,” he ground out, unhappy that she forced that out of him, but perhaps a demonstration of honesty would get through to her. “You know what I want. You. But that option isn’t open to us,” he forced himself to say. “We only have this week, then…”
Her gaze fell, but not because she was disappointed. She was hiding something.
“I know Eloisa is using you to get at me.” He said, testily ready when her startled gaze flashed up again. “She wants to stop my marriage. She thinks you’ll tempt me enough to break it off. That won’t happen,” he stated with a grit of belligerence. “I still want to take what time I can with you. Do you want to be with me?” he pressed, needing to hear it.
“I want to know what kind of man you are.”
His heart stilled and his blood congealed. He’d asked for honesty, hadn’t he? It still choked him that she’d wind up realizing he was no kind of man. An image. A symbol. A vessel of hate. Nothing of substance. She could search for years and only come up against the shiny, flat reflection of the man he secretly longed to be.
She linked her hands before her, the only outward sign of nervousness she’d revealed around him and he wasn’t sure she realized she was doing it. Her attention on him was like sunlight off a lake, too intense to stare into. She seemed to both want to penetrate his thoughts, yet hold herself apart.
“I want to know what you want in a w—I mean a s-sub,” she clarified in a voice that wobbled.
A woman, she had almost said, but she was trying to be a good little sub. And she would take every sweet quality he brought out in her back to her unnamed Master. Was Eloisa enjoying herself, he wondered?
“Above all, Violet, what a good Dominant wants is to give his sub what she needs.” That was another reason he was good at this. He was a provider at base level. His brother had needed approval. His parents had needed an outlet for their hate. Eloisa had needed a hero. What did Violet need?
Her skeptical expression told him she needed someone to believe in.
“Most submissives are very quick to trust,” he said, indicating she should walk with him down the gallery. Her heels made a sexy, lazy click that echoed through the empty room. “They want the release from having to control themselves.”
“They want access to resources,” she said, surprising him into halting his step.
She continued her stroll, eyes staying on the series of photos strung along the wall, each batch neatly labeled beneath.
“In a wolf pack, they do. I looked it up. Being submissive allows one wolf to shadow another. Together they’re more likely to have a successful hunt. If the subordinate waits, he still eats, which he might not have been able to do alone. It’s a survival mechanism. They use postures to demonstrate their willingness to submit.” She nodded at the photos. “The whole point is to avoid the injuries and pain of fighting over a resource.”
She stopped at a group of poses labeled, Punishment. Leather clad Doms and Dommes held whips and spanking paddles over male and female subs positioned across laps or kneeling and prostrate on the floor.
Violet looked to him for explanation. “I don’t understand this part.”
“Humans are a little more complex than wolves,” he explained, prowling toward her. “For starters, the resource is not a kill. It’s your cunt.”
A quiver of shock went through her and her breasts hitched a little, as though her breath caught. He wondered if his graphic response was making her pussy wet. He hoped so. The fact she was so fascinated by images of sex told him she was both inexperienced, but possessed of a healthy curiosity. He definitely wanted to feed it.
“What else did you learn about submission?”
“The lower dog bow
s to the alpha when he wants to play. It signals that the growls and bites will be mock aggression.”
“That’s what this is. A rough type of play that encourages trust. They’re saying, ‘I’ll hurt you, but I won’t damage you.’ Have you learned any of these poses?”
“Some.” Ann heard the quaver in her voice and searched for the confidence she’d found pretending to be Violet, before Porter had used that deliciously nasty word and disconcerted her. Cunt. Did he want hers? Really?
“Show me,” he commanded in a tone that carried a growl. “Play with me, Violet.”
Demonstrate her yoga poses in an effort to convince him she was something she wasn’t? This room, with its saturation of sexual images, was surreal. The way he affected her, tugging her toward trusting him enough to be vulnerable in front of him, was equally peculiar, but she found herself moving back to the beginning of the line of photos.
The first section was standing poses. She traveled her gaze from Attention, where a nude man stood military style, to Ease, where a naked woman stood with her weight balanced on one foot, the other brought forward, toe pointed. It was pretty. The Auction pose made a flutter start up in her stomach, not so much from the simple pose of feet wide spread, head bend, hands low and wrists together, but from what it represented.
Naughty was another that caused a tremor of apprehensive stimulation. It was the only photo of a clothed sub, but that was for effect. The woman’s head pressed into the wall while she held up her pleated skirt. Her panties were a bunched line across the backs of her thighs, her ass cheeks bright red.
Be Violet, Ann told herself, swallowing as she studied the final image. Inspection.
Licking nervously at her lips, she turned to copy the pose for Porter. It required her to stand tall in her heels, crook her front knee and clasp her hands behind her neck, thrusting her breasts up and out.