The Connaghers Series Boxed Set

by Joely Sue Burkhart

  With slow, deliberate intent, he stroked the cloth over the leather, lovingly caring for the weapon that could bring so much pain. He’d carried it for years, and although he’d tried various other tools of the trade, he always came back to this crop. It fit his hand perfectly, flexible but stout with a wide tip that combined to make a wickedly vicious whoosh.

  “That’s good, V,” Mal called from the side. “It looks like you’re making love to the crop. Prepare for the lights to brighten.”

  He gripped the crop in both hands at either end and stood, letting the camera focus solely on the Master’s weapon. He wanted the viewers to lean toward the screen, breathless with anticipation about what he intended to do with it. Light flooded the floor, and someone off to the left gasped, even though they’d all known Shiloh was there.

  He raised both arms overhead and turned his body slightly, giving his profile to the camera. Poised, he waited what seemed like an eternity, and then he jerked his left hand down toward his thigh. The crop whistled through the air. Leather smacked against his thigh in a satisfying crack. The stinging cut of the crop heightened his senses, focusing his mind and body on one thing only.

  Dominion.

  Shiloh’s hand crept out to touch his boot, begging for the next blow.

  He waited until she wrapped her hand around his ankle, and then he reached down, seized a handful of her hair at her nape, and hauled her up to her knees. Bending down, he glared into her eyes. “Why are you here?”

  He chose to say those words because that’s how he always opened a serious scene, and while this scene might be taped for a show, it was real, serious, heavy shit, to him at least. He wanted to make sure she had committed to it as much as he did. Unscripted, her responses would reveal her true intentions. What did she expect to get out of a scene with him?

  “To submit to you, Master.”

  He straightened slightly, widening his stance, his left arm held out and back to the side, keeping the crop visible for the shot. “What may I do to you?”

  “Anything you want, Master.”

  Ah, yes, she couldn’t have given him a more perfect response.

  He drew her closer, deliberately lifting her face toward his crotch. She made it look pretty instead of vulgar, her back arched, her gorgeous ass lifted to tempt him. Even if they were alone, he wouldn’t have let her touch him. He merely wanted to torment her with what she couldn’t have. Not until she’d satisfied his other urges.

  Her lips were soft, open, her face hauntingly beautiful with the stark lights blaring down on her and feathers curled about her cheeks. She resisted his grip, pulling her own hair in order to lean closer, trying to get her mouth on him.

  The lights dimmed, breaking the moment.

  “Hold on just a minute,” Mal said to him, then louder, “Bring up the backlights. This next part we want only their silhouette. Okay, good. When you’re ready, V.”

  “Ready for what?” Someone asked in a loud whisper.

  He whipped the crop over his head and brought it crashing down on Shiloh’s buttocks.

  She let out a low, throaty moan that tore at his control. He knew the blistering fire that had exploded on her skin, the deep throbbing pain despite his care to control his arm. He never started as heavy as he would end. Even as a sadist, he took care to begin with a sensual blow and not a cutting one backed by his full strength.

  However, after denying his darker urges for so long, he was close to coming from that blissful sound of her cry alone. To reward her, he let her rub her face high on his thigh.

  Shocked silence hung over the set for several long seconds, and then his crew erupted into cheers.

  “Bring the lights up,” Mal said. “Let’s see the whole thing from the beginning and see if we need to re-shoot.”

  Victor clenched his fist on the crop, grinding his teeth with fury. He did not want to stop. He did not want to sit down and watch the tape. He wanted—

  Shiloh stared up at him, her eyes wide, glistening with tears, pleading. “Please.”

  Don’t stop.

  People talked and moved about the room, babbling words she couldn’t seem to understand. The lights hurt her eyes. Her ass stung, the sweet burn of his single blow a mere taste to whet her appetite for more.

  But I’m not getting more any time soon.

  The thought made her eyes fill up with tears.

  Victor loosened his grip on her hair and straightened, breaking the fierce bond he’d formed as the Master. Cut free so suddenly, she wavered, dizzy and sick, too deep into the mental zone he’d already created.

  She ducked her head and gripped her thighs, digging her fingers into her flesh as hard as possible. She couldn’t function for the show like this.

  “Come here, baby.” Hands gentler than she expected, he gripped her upper arms and pulled her up to sit in his lap. She clung to him, hiding her face against his throat. His skin was hot, his pulse thudding as hard as hers. “Give us a minute. She’s all right,” he said to someone. “She’s still deep in the scene. It’s hard to shift her mind back from the game and focus on business.”

  His left hand stroked her buttock, unerringly locating the stripe he’d given her. His fingers danced along the welt and her breath caught in her throat.

  “What’s your safeword, Shiloh? That might help bring you back to the present a little quicker.”

  “I don’t know,” she mumbled against his neck.

  His fingers stilled, and she felt his sudden intensity in the tensing of his thighs beneath her. “How can you not have a safeword?”

  Talking helped return her clarity. She sat up straighter, curious to see why he was so annoyed—or alarmed?—by her answer. “I haven’t needed one.”

  His eyes were smoldering midnight coals in the harsh planes of his face. “You’ve done a scene before. You’re too well trained and comfortable with play to not know the basics. Every sub has a safeword, Shiloh, or they shouldn’t play. No Dominant who gives a damn would even consider playing with a sub who couldn’t tell them when to stop.”

  “I know the rules,” she replied defensively, stiffening her shoulders. “I was taught by a very caring Dominant years ago.”

  “And he never gave you a word to stop him?” Victor made a disgusted sound. “Then he wasn’t so very caring.”

  Her cheeks heated. She glanced about to ensure most of the crew had stepped aside, giving them a little space as he’d requested. “I had a word with him but we never used it. There was no need. Besides, I don’t want to use the same word with you. It’d be like wearing another woman’s engagement ring.”

  A muscle ticked in his jaw at her deliberate jibe. “Why did you have no need for the most basic beginning rule of the scene?”

  “He couldn’t hurt me enough to make me use it.”

  His fingers prodded the sore spot on her buttock. “Couldn’t, or wouldn’t?”

  “Couldn’t. That’s why we mutually agreed to part ways. Besides, he was much older. We never planned to have a future together. He was merely teaching me what I needed to know to protect myself.”

  Victor muttered beneath his breath. “From men like me.”

  She jerked away and stood up, staring him in the eye proudly. “I don’t need protection from you, Victor Connagher. I can take whatever you dish out.”

  With menacing grace, he stood, towering over her with a fierce scowl on his face. “You will have a safeword.”

  “Fine,” she snapped, whirling away only to jerk to a halt.

  Sweet and pure like an angel, Kimberly stared, her perfect bow mouth falling open into a delicate O.

  Tears clogged Shiloh’s throat, but she kept her head high. If he wanted to hear her whining and crying out a safeword like the white flag of surrender, then maybe he really would prefer to have the fragile woman. She’d certainly beg and sob prettily.

  Deliberately cocking her hips in a blatant dare, Shiloh paused and glanced back over her shoulder at him. She reached back to lightly stroke
the fading welt he’d given her. Her eyes burned and her lips trembled, because the pain was already gone. His mark was fading, and now he wanted something that she feared she wouldn’t be able to give.

  With a little jerk of her chin, she marched off set. “My safeword is chutzpah.”

  8

  Changing into her jeans, Shiloh struggled to regain her balance. Even though Victor was obviously interested, she hadn’t expected it to be easy. No Master of his ilk would ever make it easy to win his heart.

  She could scream and plead with the best of them once the whipping began. That she was begging for more, harder, faster…well, she’d have to see what he thought. As soon as she stepped out of the dressing room, however, her hard-won confidence was immediately rattled.

  “Hi,” Kimberly said in that sweet voice that grated on Shiloh’s nerves. “Could we talk a moment?”

  The last thing she wanted to do was talk to Victor’s ex-fiancée, but her mother had raised her to be more than a bitch. Mostly. “Sure.”

  “When we talked yesterday at Silken, I had no idea that you were dating Victor.”

  “I’m not exactly dating him.” Shiloh fought to keep her face smooth and not bare her teeth at the woman. “I didn’t know you’d been engaged to him, either.”

  “That makes us even, then.”

  Barely, Shiloh bit back her frustration and jealousy. Hell no, that didn’t make them even, not by a long shot. He’d planned to give her his name.

  The woman stepped closer and lowered her voice. “We don’t know each other yet, so I’m sorry to ask such a personal question, but I really need to know. May I?”

  Whatever her past with Victor, Kimberly was polite and gracious. The least Shiloh could do was talk to her. Maybe she’d learn something that would help her figure out his hang-ups about her safeword. “As long as it stays between you and me.”

  Kimberly’s eyes were big and dark in her creamy face, her voice serious. “When he used his crop just now, did it hurt?”

  Shiloh shrugged. “Of course.”

  “And that didn’t bother you?”

  “I liked it.”

  Kimberly’s lips curved into a startlingly beautiful smile. “I’m glad, then. I’m so happy for you.”

  Shiloh shut her mouth and tried not to gulp like a fish. “What?”

  The other woman linked arms with her and laughed softly. “I felt horrible when I learned the truth.” She lowered her voice, so Shiloh leaned closer, listening intently. “I had no idea he struggled to keep that side of him hidden from me, not until we were already engaged. I just couldn’t take it, Shiloh. I couldn’t take his crop.” Her voice caught, breaking with emotion. “I hated the pain, but more, I hated failing him.”

  Shiloh wasn’t surprised to see tears in the woman’s eyes. What did surprise her was the compassion she felt. Her own lips wobbled in sympathy. She knew exactly how wretched it felt to fail to please the Master, especially when she wanted to so very badly. “You didn’t do a scene with him beforehand?”

  “Of course we did. Before we were a couple, I even saw him with other women. But he was always so calm and controlled. Even when he did a heavier scene, I always assumed he was only acting out what the sub wanted. It never occurred to me that’s what he wanted. What he needed. And I couldn’t give him that. I know it hurt him when I broke up with him, but I couldn’t have made him happy. Not like he deserved.”

  “You really did love him.”

  Wiping her tears away, Kimberly nodded and tried to laugh, but it came out more like a hiccupped sob. “I did. But he deserves more than a half-life with someone who can’t meet his needs. He deserves you.”

  “Now that’s got to be a sight that makes your blood run cold.” Mal nodded her head toward the two women returning to the set. Shiloh walked arm in arm with his ex-fiancée and they had their heads very close together. “At least they’re not clawing each other’s eyes out.”

  It did indeed. Victor’s heart weighed heavy as though the blood had pooled and frozen there, unable to flow. He could only imagine the horror stories Kimberly was sharing with her.

  Watching Shiloh, he heard the madness whispering again in the back of his mind: No safeword. She has no safeword. No limit. No need for protection and safety. Until me.

  He knew he should be worried, if not downright terrified, but lust had unfurled sharp claws deep in his stomach. He ached to test her. He burned to find her limit and stake his territory there as brutally as only a sadist could.

  His fucked-up pride insisted that he find a way to force her into surrendering her safeword. Only to me.

  He averted his gaze. “Shiloh wouldn’t stoop to that.”

  “The hell she wouldn’t.” Mal arched a brow at him. “If she thought she could win you that way, she’d shred that woman into ribbons. But if she thinks you’d rather have Kimberly…” His friend shook her head as though she couldn’t bring herself to believe he’d be that stupid and blind. “Well, Shiloh certainly has the class to walk away.”

  He gritted his teeth and fisted his hand tighter on his crop. “I won’t let her go.”

  “Does she know that?” Mal asked. “Because I didn’t get the impression she was too happy with you when she walked away earlier.”

  He breathed in deeply and concentrated on relaxing each muscle in his body until he stood loose and comfortable instead of vibrating on the edge of violence. “She challenged me.”

  Laughing with not nearly enough sympathy in his opinion, Mal took her seat at the end of the plain office table they’d set up for judging. “The worst thing a sub can do is dangle a challenge before a Dominant, let alone Master V.”

  The man on the opposite end of the table joined in the amusement at his expense. “That’s like waltzing into the bull’s pen and whacking him on the nose.”

  “I’m reminded why I never liked you much.” Victor had to take the middle chair, which only served to irritate him more. “You’re too dainty to be a Dominant.”

  Although Patrick was shorter than Mal, the female submissives at Silken had always flocked to his Hollywood good looks. They took one look at Victor with the crop in his hand…and fled in the opposite direction.

  “If you didn’t snort fire, blast thunderbolts from your eyes and trample anyone who even thinks about approaching you for a scene, then maybe I wouldn’t call you a bull.”

  “At least bulls are well hung.”

  “Now, now, we don’t need to get into a measuring contest,” Mal broke in. “We’ve got a show to tape.”

  Patrick slapped him on the back good-naturedly. Victor thought really hard about breaking his arm. “Let’s get this show going. I could use another pony or two in my stable.”

  “You guys are off to a great start.”

  Mal’s smirk sent Victor’s suspicions to high alert. He glanced over at the cameras. Hell, red light. Tape was rolling. Grudgingly, he had to admit that was well done of her. The bantering between him and Patrick—half friendly, half serious—wouldn’t have happened if they knew they were being filmed, and it was personal elements like that which would make or break the show.

  “Let’s see the first contestant before the Dominants begin pounding each other to relieve some of their aggression.”

  Two hours of head-bashing frustration and laugh-out-loud hilarity followed. Victor had no idea where Mal and Shiloh had scrounged up so many contestants. They covered the range of everything from “I want to be on TV—wait, what if Mom sees this?”—with which Victor certainly sympathized—to “Oh my God, this guy’s crazy—call the police.”

  If the contestant had even a somewhat sane personality, the judges took turns giving them little commands. Patrick asked one woman to remove her panties. She did so…and tossed them in his face. He tilted his head back, dangling the scrap of silk from his nose. “She’s a keeper.”

  Mal tried the same thing, only to have the male contestant moon the panel and stomp off set indignantly.

  Victor had to
admit that he hadn’t had such fun in years. Dallas viewers were going to eat this up and beg for more. So far, they’d managed to include the best and worst of reality TV, yet Shiloh still managed to convey the more somber realities of alternative lifestyles.

  A young man in his early twenties walked in and went to his knees before the table with no prompting from the judges. His identity was masked by a metal helmet that made him look like some kind of alien bug, emphasized by skintight lime green pants and matching shirt. Despite the contestant’s costume, Victor had no trouble recognizing Brandon, VCONN’s most talented computer effects programmer.

  In her best Mistress voice, Mal asked, “Why do you want to be America’s Next Top sub?”

  “I’ve been trying to find a Master for years.” Really getting into his part, Brandon wrung his hands with desperation and his eyes glistened in the stage lights. “I’m tired of hanging out in bars trying to find a man who knows exactly what I like. Without…” The young man bowed his head and sobbed loudly.

  Victor didn’t need him to complete his sentence. Without injuring me.

  Gay male submissives abounded with few trained Dominants available to take care of them. All too often, they went home with someone a little too edgy without a steady Dominant’s control, and they ended up hurt. Or dead.

  Victor knew Brandon was gay, but he’d never seen him at Silken before he quit going. He hoped the young man was merely acting, because he hated to hear about this kind of story, especially from one of his employees.

  “I’m sorry,” Patrick said gently. “I’m not homosexual.”

  The young man peered up at Victor and gulped, his Adam’s apple bobbing nervously.

  “Nor I,” he said, and before asked, “and no, we can’t pretend just to help you get off. Domination and submission are sex for us.”

  Brandon’s blush rushed down his neck, clearly visible despite the helmet mask covering his head. “I know, sir. That’s why I need it.” He looked to Mal and his shoulders slumped with defeat. “You neither I suppose.”