by Dani Collins
He needed the distance, though. She’d squeezed far too many searing confessions out of him today, things that left him bare in a way he didn’t find the least bit comfortable. Her unreserved acceptance of his anguish and thirst for revenge had been as seductive, maybe more seductive, than the perfect symmetry of her body and appetite for sexual discovery.
She leaned forward to leave the chair and he moved to help her, then couldn’t help keeping her close, stroking her throat, lightly urging her to look up at him.
She avoided his gaze.
“You’re angry with me,” he said, disturbed.
“Embarrassed.” Her shoulder rolled self-consciously. “The way I behaved—”
“Was beautiful.” He drew a line with his bent knuckle to where her pulse pounded with self-conscious nerves. Bending, he kissed that signal of anxiety, soothing her, running gentle kisses to her jaw and the corner of her mouth. When he kissed her, he forced himself to take it slow and careful, not give in to the animal that wanted to consume her.
She melted into him and his world began to rebalance.
“Promise me you’ll break it off with him,” he growled, lifting his head in time to see her gaze shift away.
Her evasion struck him like a sucker punch. “Why wouldn’t you?” he demanded.
The way her lashes flashed up in panic made him instinctively tighten his hold on her. She didn’t try to push away, but he could practically hear her heart slamming to escape her rib cage. Fear tainted the sultry scent that lingered around her.
“It’s a hard commitment to break. I know I should, but it’s complicated.”
He dropped his hands away before he gave in to temptation and shook her. “I told you…”
“I know. This life isn’t for me. You’re right. I don’t want to be submissive in any way, but—” She sighed heavily, arms crossed in a fretful hug. “I have a lot to think about.”
“I don’t want you thinking about breaking it off. Promise me you’ll end it or I’ll make it happen.”
She snorted. The expression she raised to him was somewhere between exasperation and regret. “I’m pretty sure Eloisa will make it happen, when it suits her.”
He narrowed his eyes. “What does she have on you? Who are you really?”
“She doesn’t want me to tell you,” she said to the floor, hearing how subservient that sounded. She let her arms fall loose at her sides and forced herself to stand straighter. “But I’m not sure I want to tell you. There would be consequences I’m still weighing.”
“Like the fact I’d take hold of this man you’re seeing and kick his ass.”
“Don’t be too hard on him,” she said with a twist of irony around her mouth. “I misled him. This is what he likes in his women, and I allowed him to think I do, too,” she said with a glance toward the door to the dungeon, mouth trembling a little before she firmed it. “I think that’s the real problem. He likes women.” The glance she sent him held significance, eyes darkening with hurt. “Plural.”
He didn’t carry around a lot of guilt, refused to or he’d never move, but a heavy dose landed like a sack in his gut. “Speaking from experience, that could be a defense mechanism.” It was as much concession to her bruised feelings as he could offer her without leading her on any further.
She sighed. There was something very defenseless about her. A lost-child quality. Like a runaway seeking independence who was out of her league in the place she’d wound up. That worried him. He wondered who she had, if anyone at all, to protect her. Maybe that’s why she was here. She’d latched on to the first man who’d shown a desire to take care of her.
But then she lifted her gaze and he saw there was an adult in there. A cautious, practical woman trying to reason her way through new territory.
“Can I ask you something, Porter? Would you tie yourself to a woman? Say I had the means to get you your revenge on your father. Would you tie yourself to me, knowing that I’m probably weak enough to go along with being a submissive, even though it’s not what I really want? Would you be willing to try a relationship that wasn’t weighted in your favor?”
Christ, at this second he’d take her any way he could get her, but he knew deep down that he needed the division of the D/s dynamic. That way he owned the thoughts of his woman while she only claimed as much of his inner workings as he chose to give up.
And he’d already given too much of himself to Violet. She was a danger to him, not something he could bring into his life without risking all the self-sufficiency and indifference he’d come to need in order to survive.
He couldn’t bring himself to rebuff her outright, but she found the words for him.
“No,” she said with a resigned smile topped by shiny, blinking eyes. “And, to be honest, I’d only accept the relationship for the same reasons Eloisa left her husband for you. A transfer of dependence.” Violet hugged herself again and rubbed her bare arms, averting her face. He still saw the corner of her mouth dip and heard her swallow. “Which is what will happen if I don’t obey your command and leave here for good.”
The heavy sarcasm she layered on the last bit would have amused him if not for the tragic expression on her face.
“Goodbye, Porter.” She started for the door.
He followed in two quick strides and pressed the door closed before she had more than cracked it open. “We have two more days,” he heard himself say.
* * *
Porter returned her to the loft and pulled Eloisa into a room for a brief and, for Violet, terrifying moment. She removed her shoes and edged to the top of the stairs, prepared to run far and fast if he came out with knowledge and the wrong emotion in his eyes.
When he emerged, he only winked and said, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Eloisa’s face was red and she reeked of banked antagonism as she silently led Ann back to change.
“Did you fuck?” she finally asked as Ann pulled on her own clothes.
“Does it matter?” She reached to pin her hijab, finding it cloying for the first time since she’d begun wearing one. “He said two Doms don’t make a good match, so there’s no future for us.”
“Is that what he said you were? I thought he’d merely established that you weren’t good material for a submissive.”
Access to resources without injury, Ann quickly reminded herself, caught off guard by a nearly irresistible desire to snarl at Eloisa. She needed to keep things civil or she would be denied her last few chances to see Porter. Now that she’d found her inner warrior, the willingness to fight rose quick and hot. It was disconcerting. Empowering, but frightening. Porter was right. She wanted him near to help her control it.
“You’re right, of course,” she managed, forcing her assertive gaze to fall away first in the mirror. When she turned to face Eloisa, she took a firm grip on her composure. “He also told me why he wants the marriage to go through. You knew he was too stubborn to break it off and wanted him to hurt me today, hoping I’d be frightened into rejecting him, didn’t you? His reasons for marrying me have nothing to do with either of us, Eloisa. If you care about him at all, let him do it.”
“You mean let you have him,” Eloisa corrected tightly.
Holding Eloisa’s gaze was a test. Her heart hammered and her muscles quivered in readiness, tension that was new and frightening in its intensity. “I don’t own him and neither do you. If you don’t like this game you’re playing, then stop. Tell him who I am. See what he does,” she challenged.
“Why don’t you tell him?” Eloisa asked through the slits of her lashes. “If you’re sure he’ll marry you anyway.”
Ann swallowed a lump that rose in her throat, aware that yes, Porter probably would marry her. He might even sleep with her, but he wouldn’t love her.
“I might,” she said with more bravado than she owned.
“You’re willing to be his convenience? In every way?” Eloisa’s smile was disdainful. “I’ve really wasted my time with you, haven’t I?”
“Would you?”
Oh, she hated Eloisa for putting that cold fracture of doubt in her conviction.
“You’ll have a late appointment at the spa tomorrow. Porter bought tickets for the live sex show. A little preview of your honeymoon?” she suggested with a malicious smirk.
* * *
Ann felt suffocated enough in the mansion to risk sitting in the garden for over an hour, playing fetch with Fonzo, half willing Porter to come out and let her come out.
He was closeted with his father and Cain, however. Fortunately his mother was invited to a fashion show, one that conflicted with Ann’s spa appointment; otherwise she might have been forced into street clothes and a revelation. Instead the misting rain gave her an excuse to wear her disguise while she considered her options.
Did she want to have sex with Porter? Yes. God, yes. Did she want to marry him? To support his revenge and achieve her own financial freedom? That seemed like a viable trade-off, but when she considered the reality, she wasn’t so sure. Eloisa’s remark about tonight’s show revealing Porter’s true expectations in the bedroom taunted her.
Even if he wanted a real marriage, could she be the kind of woman who held his interest? Not for long. Not with her abysmal body of sexual knowledge. They were about as far apart on the experience scale as two people could get.
When it came right down to it, however, she wanted to be with him. Tonight and probably longer. No matter the cost.
Taking that disturbing realization to her room, she was surprised to find a message from Porter on the laptop.
Why haven’t you ordered new clothes?
Had he been watching her in the garden? That gave her a little frisson of pleasure. Biting her lip, she considered how to answer him.
I’m still deciding. Deciding whether to take his bribe, she meant.
His reply a couple of minutes later told her he’d interpreted her response more loosely. I just purchased everything in your cart.
Not your size, she shot back and got a lol in return.
Another significant pause before he sent, We should talk about living arrangements. It doesn’t have to be together.
Ouch. Trying to save face, she said, Good. I’d like to travel.
I was going to buy you a flat, but that works, too.
Why did he have to make a transfer of dependence so easy? I can use my own money, she argued. That’s why I’m doing this, to open my trust. So I can be independent.
And free of Cain. If she understood correctly how everything would work—not that Cain had ever bothered to explain it to her—Cain would get the money for the oil company shares he was selling to Porter, Porter would gain the controlling interest he wanted in his family business, and she would have a nest egg to support herself.
Seen that way, going through with the marriage was a win all the way around. She could be free of Cain in less than a week.
But married to Porter, a man who didn’t know she was the would-be sub he was seeing at Eloisa’s club. She frowned as she tried to imagine his reaction and how they could work things out. Would he be happy? Would he want to stay married to Violet?
He took forever to respond to her last missive. The little window told her several times that he was typing, then it faded out as though he kept changing his mind and erasing. Finally his reply came through.
I won’t keep you tied down long.
* * *
Pity. That’s what she’d wanted to reply, but hadn’t. She wasn’t sure if she’d meant it sincerely or as a flirty interpretation of his words. The way he’d bound her and pleasured her yesterday had been incredible. It made her think maybe they could work something out if they married.
The question of whether to marry or not continued to torture her. What if she fell deeply, passionately in love with her husband and he left her every night to visit kinky sex clubs and fuck other women? What if he took her with him and her newfound spine folded like paper matches in a book, taking whatever frightening punishments he needed to release because of his past?
What if he hated her for her subterfuge and rejected her outright?
A live sex show probably wasn’t the best place to find answers, but she couldn’t bring herself to stay away from him. She grew even more excited when she saw what Eloisa had for her to wear.
“Porter’s choice,” Eloisa sniffed.
The turquoise-blue dress poured over her like a second skin, almost metallic in its shininess. The odd fabric made her skin feel even more sensitive than if she wore nothing. It was barely there as it was, soaking against her butt cheeks to reveal her ass, pulling across her midsection like strings of glue, revealing ample areas of skin before it rose to mold her breasts so they sat high, nipples prominent. The shoulders were an array of metallic beadwork reminiscent of Isis or Cleopatra, falling across her upper chest in tickling movement. There was a matching beaded headband, not too elaborate, but with enough platinum fringe dangling off it to nest in her crimped hair with flashes of sparkle as she moved.
The shoes—boots?—were absolute frippery, but so pretty she practically trembled as she strapped them on. No blunt gladiator lines and buckles, these sandals came to her knees in swirls of the same blue as the dress, dancing a butterfly’s flight up her shin and around her calf. The platform and heel would put her eye level to Porter while making her feel hugged, yet sexy and powerful.
Tsitsi painted heavy blue cat’s eyes on her, almost turning the makeup into a mask, completing the exotic look with a shiny understated gloss for her lips.
“No underpants?” she asked at the last second.
Eloisa only gave her a look that said, stupid question. She left her in the hands of a provider who wore only the collar and cuffs of a tuxedo with a pair of leather shorts that drew the eye to his barely contained genitals.
The show was being held in the ballroom. Cocktail tables and plush chairs had been arranged in tiers around a stage in the middle. Female providers circulated with drink trays and wore similar bow ties and white cuffs without a shirt, swaying breasts bared and nether region draped in a strip of leather that begged the question, Why bother?
Guests were dressed in a spectrum between Violet’s borderline modest outfit and revealing bondage gear. Outlandish showgirl type costumes, birdcage headwear and furred cloaks were sprinkled in between.
She was still craning her neck as she arrived at the table where Porter stood, speaking to a man in armor who held a spear and a chained line of three women and a man, all naked with heads hanging.
Porter wore his preferred black-silk button–down shirt with sleeves pushed up and black pants over ankle boots. When he noticed her approach, he stopped speaking and stared. Fires lit all over her body as his gaze touched breasts and bare skin and thighs where they were exposed by the screamingly short hem of her dress.
“I’d better get the animals backstage,” the man with the spear said, shaking the chain with a clink of metal. “We’ll catch up later if you have time.”
Porter acknowledged him with a jerk of his head, remaining fixated on her in the most heartening way.
“You look like a high fucking priestess,” he murmured, linking their fingers in a tight grip, then smoothly drawing her hand to the small of her back so he could pull her all the way into him. His free hand went down the side of her body, claiming her breast without apology before traveling to the bared places at her midriff onto her hip and down to her thigh. “I haven’t stopped thinking about the taste of you, how fast and hard you came.”
“Me either,” she managed to mouth, voice lost in her throat and the din around them.
He leaned so his breath wafted against her cheek. “If I didn’t know this was going to be slow torture for you, watching and growing more and more aroused, I’d take you out of here and fuck you blind. But I want you to watch and know that I know how hot it makes you. I’ll be thinking about the right time to slide my han
d beneath that tiny little skirt of yours and finger into your heat. I might make you come, or I might make it worse and make you wait.”
He made the anticipation unbearable now. Her entire body went hot while a painful heaviness filled her pussy, making her ache for his touch despite the crowd.
He only took the weight of her breast in a burning hand, massaging slow and hard as he said, “Your tits are fantastic. I’ve been wanting to suck your nipples since the first time I saw you. Why haven’t I got there yet?”
They tightened in invitation and his nostrils flared.
Someone nudged past, pushing her tingling mound into firmer contact with his hard cock. They both reacted with a sensitized flinch and he cupped her ass to hold her there. “It’s going to be a long evening for both of us.”
And then what? She wanted to ask.
He released her, holding a chair for her before he was drawn into conversation with another guest. He seemed very well known and popular, greeted by another and another as people wound through in search of their seats.
When he finally sat, she said, “You have a lot of friends.”
He eyed her as though scanning for judgment. “I do.”
“Who was the first man? The one going backstage?”
“Saud. He follows Gorean protocol. American books from the sixties. His slaves are enacting a scene tonight.” He handed her a program she hadn’t noticed because she’d been too busy taking in the spectacle of guests. “Sleeping Beauty, Story of O,” he read. “De Sade’s Juliette. Some recent titles. That Fifty Shades thing.”
He left her to memorize what looked like a required reading list for BDSM novices and spoke to someone else. Then the lights dimmed and Eloisa took the stage to welcome everyone and introduce the first act.
Porter swore under his breath, making her turn her head.
“I just saw someone I’d actually like to say hello to.” He signaled a provider and was given paper and pen. Scribbling, he handed it back with a murmur about champagne and having their tab put on his account.