by Lila Dubois
Looking at herself in the mirror, she was satisfied with the mix of erotic and darkly feminine, but if she wanted to build on her prior persona and appearance she needed something else.
She left the bathroom, ran upstairs to the master bedroom and pulled the belt from Damon’s leather pants. As she came down, she called to the guys to get ready. Tasha retreated to the guest bathroom, turned on the shower and waited until she heard their footsteps pass. The noise of the water would help cover what she was about to do. Bending at the waist, Tasha braced one hand on the wall. Looking over her shoulder in the mirror, she raised the belt.
*****
Marco followed Damon into the master bedroom. Tasha was in the shower on the first floor. He hadn’t realized how late it was. They needed to leave and quickly.
“Shit,” Damon muttered when he saw what was out on the bed. “I was just thinking it was wifely of her to pick out our clothes. Not these clothes.”
“What the hell?” Marco looked at the leather outfit Damon was meant to wear.
“Did you check the address where we’re supposed to meet?” Damon asked him.
“No.”
“I did. It looks like it’s an alley behind the club.”
“We can’t go back there. They kicked you out.”
“I know. Maybe we didn’t tell Tasha that.”
“Why would we need to go into the club anyway if we’re meeting behind it?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’ll ask her. You should get dressed just in case.”
“Takes me twenty minutes to get into the damned pants.” Damon’s mutterings faded as Marco went downstairs to the guest bath.
As he approached the door, he heard an odd noise—almost like a slapping sound.
“Tasha?” He approached the door slowly. Having never lived with a girlfriend, he had no idea what she might be doing in there.
He heard the slap again, this time followed by a soft cry. The sound was so quiet he almost didn’t hear it over the noise of the shower.
“Tasha.” Heart beating fast, he threw the door open.
In the instant before she realized he was there, he saw her face—her eyes were squeezed shut, her teeth gritted. She was dressed—from the hips up. Her legs and the lower curve of her ass cheeks were naked. She held a belt in her right hand and was whipping herself with it. Her skin was crisscrossed with faint red welts and lines.
Her face smoothed out as she realized he’d opened the door. “You’re not dressed.”
Marco was too shocked to say anything—both from what she was doing and by how easily she’d masked her pain.
“Tasha.” His voice was hoarse. “Beautiful, what are you doing?”
“What I need to.” She examined her reflection in the mirror. “Almost done. Please close the door.”
“What? No.” Marco grabbed the belt and yanked it out of her grasp.
“What’s going on?” Damon, dressed in the same leather outfit as before, joined Marco. He looked at Tasha and then cursed. “Damn it, Tasha.”
“Why are you upset? I didn’t ask either of you to help me since that was clearly a problem last time.” She motioned to her face.
“Why are you hurting yourself?” Marco asked.
“Because, just like last time, we want to attract attention.”
“And why does that mean you have to be hurt? You’re more than this—than sex and violence.” Marco was struggling to keep from yelling.
She let out a little laugh. “Sex and violence? The history of mankind is littered with women being the objects of sex and violence. I hate that and I know I’m doing nothing to change it. I use it. I make myself a sex object. I allowed violence to be done to me and do it to others. I’m not trying to make a political point or do social justice work. My job is to be and play with the darkest parts of mankind. And I do it so that people like you can be good.
“I do it so you, Damon, will sit on the federal bench and make sure there is justice. I do it so you, Marco, will make music that brings people joy. I understand and I appreciate that you want to protect me, but you have to let me do this. You have to let me be who I am.”
She held out her hand. “Now give me back the belt. I will be done in a few minutes. Then we’ll go.”
Marco passed the belt back to Damon, who chucked it away. It thumped on the floor.
“No.” Marco took two steps, caught a hold of Tasha’s arms and turned her to face him. “You were those things, and you are an amazing, fascinating woman. But now you’re more than the darkness. You are ours. Our wife.”
She shook her head. “You have each other.”
“Yes,” Marco said. “We have each other, and we also have you. We all have each other. If we’d had more time this afternoon, we would have shown you exactly how much you are ours.”
“I thought you might use me to have sex,” she admitted. “Neither of you seemed like you would be up for male intercourse. But you’re fine by yourselves. You don’t really need me.”
“You think we should have been using you in order to have sex with each other?” Damon sounded outraged.
Tasha shook her head. “I shouldn’t have started this conversation. We really don’t have time. We’re leaving.”
But Marco wasn’t ready to walk away. He needed her to know how much he cared about her. “Do you understand I hate seeing you in pain? I don’t care if you want to parade around naked in front of a bunch of people. I don’t own you. Neither of us does, and we absolutely respect your right over your own body. But as your husbands, we have the right to stop you from hurting yourself. The same way you have a right to protect us.”
“I know it must be hard to understand,” she said. “But this is normal for me. This is me prepping to go to work.”
“You never have to do this again.” Damon’s voice was thick with conviction. “You don’t ever have to be someone or do something you don’t want to in order to protect or help someone else. I don’t care what we have to do to make that a reality. I’ll find a way to make sure you never have to do this again.”
Marco nodded in agreement. “Let’s walk away. We’ll find a way to pay the blackmail. We won’t go to the meeting. We’ll just stay here. Stay here and have amazing sex.”
Tasha only shook her head. “There’s more at stake and more going on than you know.”
“Then tell us.”
“I can’t. We need to go. It’s getting late.” She looked in the mirror at her ass and sighed. “The marks aren’t dark enough to show up in the dim light.” She pulled her hair up into a ponytail. “I’ll figure it out in the car.”
Marco wanted to grab Tasha and shake her until she listened to him. He felt as if they’d lost her. The vulnerable girl she had been in that pretty yellow farmhouse was gone. Now she was the capable, slightly aloof woman who’d first shown up in his condo. He had to content himself with the idea that once tonight was over they would have plenty of time to work on their relationship. He was going to marry that woman, marry her at the same time he married his best friend. And nothing was going to stand in his way.
*****
“They’re not going to let us back in.” Damon pulled the door of the limo closed after he got in.
“They will.” Tasha stripped off the jacket she put on to cover up her outfit while they walked out of the building. “There was a noticeable upswing in their bookings and reservations after we were there. You did what they’re not allowed to do—really beat someone.”
“There goes my faith in humanity. It’s good for business having someone beating up women?”
“In a BDSM club it can be.”
“How do you know about their bookings?”
“I’ve been monitoring their systems remotely.”
Damon muttered something that might have been felony.
Tasha pulled items from the big bag she’d carried to the car. She handed a mask to each of them and then took out the collar, cuffs and two leashes. It was amazi
ng to her what a difference a few days made. Amazing how much the three of them had been through since the last time they had been in this limo. That night Damon had been pragmatic and cold, willing to do what was necessary. But now she’d seen what was underneath that cold exterior. And Marco, who’d been so protective when they were in Las Vegas, was now even more so, and yet she knew he was angry with her. She could feel his frustration.
“Here, let me help you.” Damon held out his hand, reaching for the collar.
“No. I’ll do it.” Marco moved to sit next to Tasha, taking the leather restraints from the seat. She slipped onto her knees in front of him. Her ass and thighs hurt from the belting she’d given them. It had been a wasted effort, unfortunately.
Holding out her arms, she watched as Marco wrapped the cuffs around her wrists. As he fastened each buckle her breathing grew heavy. Her nipples tightened into points inside the corset, and her pussy throbbed. Now that she knew them, now that she’d kissed them and watched them touch and kiss each other, she was having trouble thinking of this as an op and distancing herself from the physical reality of being dressed as, and acting like, their submissive.
Marco picked up the collar.
“Give me a second.” Tasha sat back licking her lips.
Damon shifted, moving closer to them. “Tasha?”
“I just need a second to remember the plan, to remind myself what’s happening here.” She felt like she was babbling.
Marco hooked his finger under her chin and tipped her face so he could look at her. “Tasha, beautiful, do you like this? I mean really like it?”
She licked her lips. Part of her wanted to lie, but a bigger part of her wanted to tell them her desires…and see what they’d do with that information. “I’ve always understood the sexual appeal of games like this,” she said haltingly. “But danger or the need to extract information has always distracted me and kept me from actually engaging on a real emotional and physical level.”
A slow smile worked its way across Marco’s face. The collar of his shirt was open, the tie dangling around his neck. His dark hair fell over his forehead, and in the recessed lights of the limo the planes of his face were smooth and strong. “So you’re saying that for the first time in your life you’re getting to actually enjoy some bondage play.”
She looked away from his handsome, sexy face. “I need to stay focused. I don’t have time to be distracted. Don’t distract me.”
Marco dipped his head and kissed her briefly. “Fine. I won’t distract you. But we are coming back to this topic later. I assumed since you learned all of this in a rather horrifying way that any sex games or kinks would always be disgusting to you.”
“No, not disgusting.” Tasha sat forward and bent her head, shivering as Marco fastened the collar around her neck. When he was done, he kissed her again, his lips lingering on hers. Then Damon was at her back. He kissed the tops of her shoulders through the holes in the fishnet, raised her hands and kissed her palms before lacing their fingers together.
“We don’t have time for this.” She tried to be strong when she said it, but her words were breathy.
Marco pulled back. “Unfortunately, I know you’re right.”
“What’s the plan?” Damon released her. “Just so you know, I won’t hit you again.”
“That’s what I was trying to avoid by doing the whipping myself at home. What we want is to get in there and make sure everyone sees us.”
“But we need to get out of there to get to the rendezvous spot.”
“And we will, but I want both of you to have alibis in case anything happens. My plan was for the two of you to show off how you punished me for disobeying last time. Then you’d invite a few select people from the audience to join us in a private room to see more punishment.”
“I hate everything about this plan.” Damon said.
Tasha touched his hand. “I knew you would. But this time you aren’t actually going to do anything. Or at least you weren’t going to have to before. Now if no one can see the marks, we might have a problem. There’s my face, but only a few people will find that alluring, while a nicely beaten ass will have more widespread appeal.”
“This is a weird conversation.” Damon ran his hands though his hair.
“What’s the point of getting some other people in a private room with us?” Marco asked.
“We’re going to drug them. We’ll be seen entering the room with them and seen leaving the room with them an hour later. During that time, we will have snuck out for the rendezvous.”
“Drug them?” Damon sighed. “This is so very, very illegal.”
“Like I said, there’s no law here.”
“I still don’t see why you have to be marked up for this plan to work,” Marco said.
“Most of these people in the club are probably normal, with nine-to-five jobs and the kind of lives that mean they can’t, even if they wanted to, get beat with the belts so hard that they’re bruised. Damon is being set apart as a man who can and will do things most of them only get to talk or think about.”
“So what now?” Damon asked. “Am I going to spank you with the belt again?”
“That was play, and we both know it—sound and fury. That spanking was barely better than what their performers are doing.”
His lips thinned. “I’ll have to hit you again.”
“No, I won’t make you do that.” Tasha touched his knee. “I saw how much it upset you.”
“You’re going to get someone else to do it, aren’t you?” Marco asked.
“There are other things we could do to attract attention,” Tasha said. “But punishment is actually a bit easier and less revealing than one of you fucking me in the middle of the room or having to strip and pose.” Looking at their distressed expressions, Tasha mentally rearranged her plan. “Okay, I’ll think of something else. They had a few different devices that we could ask to use. That might be enough, if we play it as if you’re forcing me into it.” She didn’t like the idea of being in heavy bondage that would take time to get out of.
“No. This is my fault. I didn’t trust you and I should have.” Marco was looking at her, his blue eyes nearly black in the shadows. “Damon, give me your belt.” The air in the limo thickened. Tasha, who still knelt on the floor between them, looked from one man to another. In the dim, enclosed space they were large and powerful—threatening and enticing.
“Tasha,” Marco said. “I want to say that I’ll protect you. I want to say that you’ll never have to be hurt again. But I’m not going to say those things if all I’m doing is forcing you to trade one kind of pain for another.”
Tasha sighed in a combination of relief and sadness that she’d forced them to see the world the way she did. Where blood and bruises were actually easier than emotional vulnerability.
Damon’s jaw was clenched, but he took off the belt, pulling it through the loops and passing it to Marco. Tasha started to climb onto Marco’s lap but Damon stopped her and pulled her back against his chest.
“There’s no reason this has to be all pain,” he said. “Let’s pretend that you really are our submissive, and that a spanking might not just be punishment.”
Tasha held her breath as Damon tangled his fingers in her hair and turned her face to his. He captured her lips in his soft, deep kiss. He stroked her breasts. Her nipples were pebbled against the satiny material of the inside of the corset. Each breath was its own pleasure.
Marco slid to his knees in front of her. He found the edge of her panties and tugged them down little by little until they tangled around her ankles.
~~~~
Chapter Eleven
When he pulled her panties off and pressed her legs open, Tasha lifted her hips. She felt wanton—half-mad with desire. Though they were headed into danger, all she could think about was their hands on her needy body. Soon Marco would bend her over his lap and take the belt to her, hitting her hard enough to leave marks that would be visible in the dim lights of
the club. Instead of making her feel afraid or resigned, the idea was driving her arousal higher, pushing her to the brink of a dark well of sexual need she’d never let herself fall into. For the first time in her life, she was engaging in sexual contact with people who cared about her. It was freeing.
They were not assets to be cultivated, they were not foreign intelligence agents to be seduced or drugged. They were not teachers or students entering her life to further her training or allow her to pass on what she knew. They were her husbands, they were her partners, and they were about to be her lovers.
Marco kneaded the insides of her thighs, his thumbs grazing her pussy. “Have you ever had a man’s lips here?” he asked.
“Yes. I wasn’t a saint.” She gasped as he stroked her.
Marco chuckled while Damon kissed the spot under her ear just above the collar. Marco pressed two fingers between her outer labia, stroking up and down, with each pass brushing her clit. Tasha’s breath was coming fast. It seemed crazy that she was so aroused so quickly, and yet she knew it wouldn’t take much to push her over the edge. Maybe it was because she’d wanted them since she met them, or maybe it was because she knew that with these men, for the first time in her life, sex would come without strings attached.
Damon captured her lips in another kiss as Marco dipped his head to her pussy. Tasha screamed, her whole body tensing, her hips lifting, as Marco’s tongue pressed into her, finding and stroking her clit. He dipped his fingers lower, sliding one into her, giving her the little bit of penetration that she’d only ever felt with fingers and toys. She wanted it to be his cock. Wanted to feel him thrusting into her as Damon kissed her. Wanted to feel Damon behind her, his cock sliding into her ass as Marco took her from the front.
She’d told them she was afraid of being in the middle sexually, and that was true. She was afraid. But she was also painfully, epically aroused by the idea. This was only a taste, a preview of what it would be like when they weren’t rushed and in the back of a car. And even this had her teetering on the brink of an orgasm so powerful she feared she would never recover from it.