Beneath the Burn

by Pam Godwin

  Jay clutched the bed sheets, eyes closed, hips thrusting the air.

  Her words hurt. Hurt so fucking much as they splintered inside her, shredding her to a million useless pieces. “Did he call you Charlee?” Her reedy voice echoed in her ears.

  Ella dropped her hands and climbed to her feet. “Yes.” She smirked. “I hear he calls us all Charlee.”

  It was a punch in the gut, one that stole the last of her composure. She unleashed her fist and caught Ella’s nose in the same place.

  Blood spurted over her wailing mouth. She wiped at the mess uselessly, panic flaring her eyes.

  Charlee stretched her fingers and curled them again at the sight of blood staining her knuckles. “Get out before I start punching on your underdeveloped tits.”

  A sharp inhale interrupted the woman’s sobs. She gathered her clothes, tugging them on as she ran to the door.

  She balled her fist and turned toward the bed.

  Eyes squeezed shut, his hand wrapped around his erection, hips pumping manically. A groan rumbled low in his throat.

  Her stomach turned and her feet carried lead weights as she trudged toward him, fighting back tears. “Jay.”

  His eyes flashed open, roamed over the ceiling, and his hand fell to his side. “Charlee?”

  She closed the final few feet and sat on the mattress beside his hip, placing his erection outside of her periphery. “What did you take?” She waded through what she’d read in the file he’d given her. What drugs increased libido? “Was it ecstasy? Meth?” Neither of those had been starred in his list.

  Could Roy have orchestrated this? Drugged him somehow? Jay only drank bottled water during his shows. And Roy’s drugs would’ve knocked him unconscious, not sent him into mindless arousal. She knew the effects of Roy’s concoctions too well.

  Besides, Jay had proven he could slip back into drug use under the right circumstances. She couldn’t trust him.

  His eyebrows pulled together, and his gaze bobbed over her face, unfocused. “I didn’t take anything.”

  Anger burned through her cheeks. “Okay, then you were sober while you fucked Ella’s mouth. That makes it all better.”

  He curled to a sitting position, awkward and sluggish, and his eyes landed on his erection as if seeing it for the first time. He gripped it, stroked. “Ah, God, Charlee. I need…I need to fuck you. Come here, baby.” He reached for her.

  Heart sprinting, she jumped from the bed and backed toward the door. His betrayal was unlike anything she’d ever felt. It was a riptide, slamming into her over and over, pulling her under. Her knees buckled and a sob crawled through her throat.

  She gripped a cabinet and swallowed helplessly, unable to gather enough air. “I trusted you. I loved you so goddamned much. I…I—” She slapped a hand over her mouth, gulped harsh breaths, her voice reaching high-pitched hysterics.

  He stared at her, but she was certain he wasn’t hearing, wasn’t seeing. He fell upon his back and resumed his self-pleasure.

  “You broke my heart,” she whispered from the emptiness inside her. Opening the door with measured and determined movements, she stepped into the hall.

  83

  Charlee clicked the door behind her, the pain wrenching her chest, cutting off her air. Just a few more minutes and she could finally break down.

  “Will you call Laz?” She stared at the button on Tony’s shirt, not wanting to see the pity sagging those steel gray eyes. “He’ll know how to deal with whatever drug is in his system. Make sure he doesn’t…overdose.” She cleared her throat. “Get him back to his room safely. I won’t be joining him.”

  “Of course.”

  Nathan gripped Charlee’s chin, raised it. His eyes were fierce and imposing. He wouldn’t ask her if she was okay. Not if he was reading her face. “I had our things packed. Our bags are downstairs. Was that…is that what you want?”

  Bless him for his foresight and saving her that dreadful task. “Thank you.” She moved toward the cluster of guards, knowing what would come next. Jay’s actions didn’t just impact her. They hurt Nathan, too.

  Nathan wrapped his arms around Tony’s waist and leaned his forehead against hers. They spoke softly, Tony nodding, her face drawn and her lip sucked in.

  Maybe Charlee could convince him to come back before they left Little Rock. What could she say to make him stay with Tony? The throb in her head magnified with the pain stabbing her heart.

  He cupped Tony’s face, kissed her deeply, passionately. Charlee turned away and swatted at the tracks of tears burning her cheeks.

  A moment later, his hand slid over her limp one. “Let’s go.”

  As Nathan led her to the elevators, she plodded beside him, borrowing his strength to move her legs, to leave behind the guards and their semblance of safety. The further they walked, the more brittle her spine felt.

  Should she have handled it differently with Jay? Maybe waited until morning to talk to him when he was sober? What if she misinterpreted what happened? Betrayal gripped her insides. There was no way to misunderstand Ella’s mouth wrapped around his more-than-willing erection. She choked, muffled it behind trembling lips.

  Bags in hand, Nathan led her to a waiting cab, his eyes scanning the street and windows of nearby buildings. Following her in, he barked an address at the driver. They made it a block before her grief exploded, trembling her body, clogging her sinuses, and soaking her face. She let it go, let him hold her as she wept the broken pieces.

  By the time they pulled into an underground garage of some swanky hotel, her eyes were dry and her breathing had returned to normal. Emptiness set in, deadening her. In a shocked haze, she followed Nathan out and froze.

  Edison, one of The Burn’s bodyguards, waited behind the wheel of a nondescript subcompact car.

  She backed up. “No, I’m not going—”

  “He’s driving us somewhere.” Nathan shoved her face first into the backseat, tossed their bags on the floorboard, and crawled over her, his weight pressing her down.

  The car moved, but he didn’t. “We were probably followed. This should throw him off.”

  Right. Of course. Roy was always watching. Numb and drained from crying, she concentrated on loosening her trembling muscles.

  The car stopped. Another underground parking lot. With a nod at Edison, she trailed Nathan up the stairwell and through a tiny hotel lobby.

  The mechanics of check-in and bedtime preparation went by in a blur, and she lay on one of the double beds in their shared room, blinking through the dark. Her body, exhausted and weak, would not shut down.

  “You want to talk about it?” His bed creaked with his movements.

  “I want you to stay with Tony.” Silence. Her chest squeezed. She pushed on. “Do you love her?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m going to move forward on my own, Nathan. I have to.” Her heartbeat sputtered in terror. “I have twenty grand. I’ll hire a lawyer and a bodyguard until I can build a case against Roy.”

  His sigh tumbled through the darkness. “If it were that easy, we would’ve done that three years ago. If you don’t want to talk about what happened with Jay, go to sleep. We’ll discuss everything else in the morning with clear heads.”

  Shifting to her side, her back to Nathan, she buried her stinging eyes in the pillow. The horrible feeling clawing inside her had been preventable. She didn’t have to fall in love with a drug addict. She’d let him in, fully aware of the risks. Hell, he’d given her a manual bulleting all the fucking dangers. Yet, looking back, would she have changed anything? A tear skipped down her cheek. She loved him. She would always love him.

  “For what it’s worth…” He shifted, rustling the bedding. “Jay’s behavior tonight was unexpected. It doesn’t feel right. He loves you, Charlee. I don’t think he’d ever intentionally hurt you. I don’t…I just don’t understand why he did it.”

  A blast of jealous anger broke through the heartache. Image after image of his dick in Ella’s mouth, his h
ips thrusting, and his mouth parted in ecstasy. She wanted to flush out the acidic hate eating through her gut, and she knew how.

  She’d make the phone call in the morning. There were Doms in every city, and she knew enough of them. Someone would be able to give her a referral in Little Rock, Arkansas. Tomorrow, she would replace the internal ache with physical pain, and regain some fucking control.

  One decision made, she embraced it, narrowed all her thoughts on it. Her muscles loosened, and her head sunk into the pillow.

  84

  “Thank you for seeing me on such short notice.” Charlee sat on the edge of the chair in Master Conrad’s home office in downtown Little Rock.

  The wood boards creaked outside the door under Nathan’s angry back-and-forth circuit. She detested that he came but couldn’t muster the energy to fight with him.

  The middle-aged man behind the desk leaned back, his shoulders stretching beyond the chair back. His huge frame dominated the room, his deportment more so. Clipped black hair shaped his olive complexion. The sharp lines of his square jaw reminded her of a battle-hardened Marine, but he’d disclosed his day job was in real estate.

  “When was your last BDSM scene?” He stared at her, unmoving in his perusal, a characteristic common to every Dom she’d met.

  Duke in New York had been her last contract. “Two months ago.”

  “Master Duke e-mailed your contract. With your permission, of course.”

  Of course. Duke had referred her to Conrad that morning.

  “Why are you here?”

  The question startled her. Did revenge pour from her eyes? Was her hatred bleeding from her pores? If she told him the truth, he’d send her on her way. “I need help moving past an emotional barrier.”

  He studied her for a long moment with apathetic eyes. “Very good.” With two fingers, he twirled the paperwork on this desk to face her and pushed it across the mahogany surface. “Look over the contract. Cross off anything you want to exclude from our scene. Write in anything you want to include.”

  Leaning forward, she accepted the pen and scanned the document, pausing on the punishments clause.

  Punishment of the sub is subject to certain rules designed to protect the sub from intentional abuse or permanent bodily harm. Punishment must not incur permanent bodily harm, or the following forms of abuse:

  Death

  Damage that involves loss of mobility

  Permanent marks on the skin, including scars, burns, piercing or tattoos

  Breaking of the sub’s bones

  Dismemberment

  Burning of the sub’s body

  Drawing blood

  Dramatic loss of circulation

  Internal bleeding

  Loss of consciousness

  Cutting or pulling out the sub’s hair

  Her pulse hurtled through her veins as she thought, not for the first time, that she should mail a copy of this contract to Roy.

  Satisfied with the definition of punishment, she skimmed until she reached the hard limits.

  No scat or fecal play

  No public nudity

  No verbal humiliation

  No unprotected intercourse

  No anal

  Restricted physical humiliation: No licking shoes, eating dirt, simulating dog/cat such as eating from the floor and crawling on all fours, etc.

  “If you don’t have any changes to the limits, initial here.” He tapped the box on the contract.

  She scrawled her initials and moved the sub’s role, lingering on the section she’d anticipated.

  The sub shall keep her body available for the use of her Dom at all times. This includes and is not limited to sexual intercourse: vaginal and oral. The sub acknowledges that her Dom may use her body or mind in any manner He wishes within the parameters of safety and any limitations in this Contract. He may hurt her without reason to please Himself.

  He rested his forearms on the desk, his presence filling the distance between them, shrinking her. “Sexual intercourse was included in your contract with Master Duke. It’s not a common practice in my dungeon, but I will honor it should you choose to include it. Condoms will be used, but I require a second form of birth control. Write your birth control in the space provided or cross out the clause to exclude it. Then initial in the box provided.”

  A heavy weight pushed down on her chest. If she had sex with the Dom, would she be doing it to balance the hurt Jay had inflicted on her? Would she feel vindicated after? The thought of going back to clinical, negotiated fucking festered in her gut.

  Conrad watched her steadily, his face smooth and slack. His nose was slightly bent, his lips a bit too thin, and his hair was too short, too dark. Jesus, he wasn’t Jay, but she didn’t feel even a twitch of attraction. Still, wasn’t intercourse the reason she was there? To flush out the jealousy by lowering herself to the same level? It was wrong. She was so fucked up, yet she continued to mull over it. Eventually, she made the required adjustments, finished the read-through, and signed by the X.

  “Before we proceed,” Conrad said, eyes on her. “Explain the man pacing outside.”

  “He’s my bodyguard, but he won’t interfere.”

  Not a wrinkled movement in his face. Not even narrowed eyes. He stood. “Follow the hall to the end. Remove your clothes at the door. Inside, assume the submissive position by the St. Andrew’s Cross. Once you enter the dungeon, you are my sub. Your body belongs to me.”

  “Yes, Sir.” She rose on wobbly legs, a cluster of fear, uncertainty, and excitement battling through her.

  Nathan’s gaze bore into her back as she walked down the hall and stripped her clothing. Naked, she stepped inside and drew in a shuddering breath.

  85

  “I didn’t take any fucking drugs!” Jay’s pulse thundered in his ears. He swung his head, meeting the glares of his so-called friends, as he marched through the suite, trying his damnedest not to hurl nearby lamps and vases. “Tell me! Where the fuck is she?”

  Tony stood by the window, holding onto her stubborn reticence.

  He whirled on her, finger trembling as he aimed it at her face. “You know where she is. Tell me, goddammit!”

  “I promised Nathan. I will not betray him.”

  Betray. There it was. The accusation by the one person who witnessed his blackout from beginning to end. Even then, she didn’t believe him. How could he defend himself when he didn’t remember a damned thing since the end of the show?

  He woke thirty minutes ago with Laz slapping his face and screaming at him about how Charlee caught Ella sucking his dick. What the fucking hell? His anger leaked from his muscles, and he collapsed on the couch, face in his hands and stomach rolling.

  He deserved this. His past mistakes clung to his back, as eternal as his tattoo. “I was drugged.” What did he drink at the arena? Bottled water. Nothing else. Was the cap sealed? “Who delivered our water? Where did it come from?”

  “The production company provides it.” Faye sat beside him and straightened nonexistent wrinkles in her skirt. “Ella passed out the bottles last night.”

  His hammering pulse returned with vengeance and his fingers curled into fists. “Call her. Get her in here right now.”

  Faye nodded and scurried from room.

  He jumped up and stepped into Tony’s unwavering posture. “If you’re not going to tell me where she is, at least send the protective team to her.”

  “We’re supposed to be on the road, Mr. Mayard. The buses are waiting.”

  “She’s all alone out there.” His voice was harsh even to his own ears. “Goddammit, Tony.” He spun away, hands curled in a helpless clench.

  “The next two shows are smaller venues.” Wil rested his hands on Jay’s shoulders, his touch hesitant, his eyes less so. “We’ll cancel them. Refund the money. This is important, Jay. We’re all in agreement. Make sure your girl is safe.”

  Desperate for the support Wil was offering, Jay dragged him into an embrace, one he’d never share
d with the man. His pounding heart pulverized his chest, threatened to bring him to his knees. “Thanks.” His voice broke, and he stepped back. “I didn’t do it. I was set up. I was—” Drugged. Poisoned. He jerked his head around the room, met the stark faces of Rio, Laz, Tony, and six or so bodyguards. “Did any one eat the egg salad yesterday?”

  “No one touched that nasty shit.” Rio rubbed his bald head. “We would’ve had to pry it from Charlee’s hands anyway.”

  A chill sped down Jay’s spine. “She got sick at the show last night. The egg salad…” Oh God. Oh fucking no. “This goddamned nightmare has Roy written all over it. Poisoning Charlee forces her to leave my side. Drugging my water gives Ella the opportunity to drag me to her room.” His blood boiled, exploded. His fist flew and crashed into the sheetrock, spraying dust into the air.

  “Calm down, man.” Laz sidled between him and the crumbling wall. “We’ll figure this out.”

  The door opened, and Faye hauled in a blank-faced Ella by the arm.

  Ella wrestled away. “I get it, okay? I’m fired. I was just leaving.”

  Jay’s muscles contracted with revulsion. “What the fuck happened to your southern accent?”

  She shrugged, her gaze trained somewhere over his shoulder.

  “Sit down.” He thrust a finger at the couch.

  Her sashay carried her across the room, but there was a wobble in her step as she neared. When she sat, he leaned over her and let her feel the rage pouring off him. “What did you put in Charlee’s lunch?”

  Her entire body flinched, and her wide eyes landed on his for the first time. “I don’t know anything about that.”

  He glanced at Tony, knew if she could be convinced of his innocence, she’d take him to Charlee. Her taut jaw gave nothing away.

  “What did you put in my water?” His tone was powered with lethal anger. “Speak carefully. Administering narcotics to another is Assault in the Second Degree. I can make this go very, very bad for you.”

  She pinned her lips.