Shut Out

by Liz Crowe

  She’d been bought out of her law partnership, Harrison & Winter, the extremely successful patent business she’d built. Her share worth just enough to her former law partner to keep her off food stamps. This, after a record-breaking hospital bill and finding out her name had been used to run up three credit card bills over the course of the same year, she thought and honestly believed, she had found the one.

  The one, huge asshole she had found, indeed. She refused to acknowledge his name, even in her mind. When his motorcycle skidded off the road between Ann Arbor and Dexter and left her within shouting distance of death from internal injuries and burns, he’d disappeared like the thief he was. She’d been lucky some bicyclers had been out for an early spring jaunt or she would certainly not be sitting in her hot tub, getting into her mental space, ready to bind, whip, tease, and whatever else her client demanded in order for him to get off, get right, or get real.

  Sophie tried not to picture him…that person who had ruined her, tried to kill her, now that she would acknowledge what that last bike ride was meant to accomplish. They had exchanged personal vows. She wore his collar, and he supposedly had a great job—all a part of his giant scam.

  After a couple of years together, she’d been utterly, completely duped. He almost got to cash in on her million-dollar life insurance policy—but not for lack of trying. When he disappeared she hadn’t pursued him, too busy trying to recover both physically and financially to worry, figuring he surely would not be stupid enough to emerge in her life again. Besides, the few times she tried to explain their relationship to people who might help her, she got nothing but shocked looks and a whole lot of, well, sounds like you deserved it. So she stopped trying.

  An angry scar glared at her, her beacon of stupidity. It ran around her abdomen to her back. She touched it, acknowledging that simple plastic surgery might rid her of it. But she required it in order to stay on an even keel to remind her of the mistake she’d made with a man she trusted with everything, including her very well-being.

  She’d lost her spleen, one kidney, and sustained a compound fracture of her left leg that still hurt in the cold. But the lasting token of her ill-considered years spent as a submissive were buried deep in her soul and psyche, invisible for all intents and purposes. It had turned her into an insomniac, exercise-obsessed and emotionally detached from everything. Along with the dark physical scar she would touch, on occasion, as a reminder of why Madame Katrina existed at all.

  “Hey, you all right in here, sunshine?” Lance wandered in, holding a huge cardboard cup of something that smelled delicious. Her buried caffeine freak twitched somewhere in her memory. Those days were long gone, along with the über-bitchy, know-it-all persona she’d used to shove away one man who’d been perfect and driven her straight into the arms of….

  “Hey,” she said, wrapping a towel around her body. She stood in front of her closet of Domme-wear and pondered the options. Many new clients stated their preferences for her garb and attitude on the form her website provided. Robert’s merely said, surprise me. She bit the side of her nail, at a loss, and pissed off about that fact.

  Going with the hard bitch thing tonight. Pulling on leather pants and stiletto boots, topped with black bra and nothing more, she admired her form a half second. Dropping everything but thoughts of Robert and his unknown needs from her mind, she stalked out to the main room, noting Lance had lit all the candles, turned on the gas fireplace, and had the state-of-the-art sound system cranked to, of all things, a Bob Marley song.

  She sighed, pissed at him, but glad of his presence all the same. He draped across the large leather chair nearest the fireplace, cradling the ubiquitous coffee cup to his chest and bellowing out the lyrics along with the stereo.

  “Not the sort of mood music I usually use.” She stretched out her quads and hamstrings. Something felt off in her head, and she hated that because it didn’t bode well for her client, and Sophie was nothing if not totally customer-service focused.

  Lance frowned as the song wound down and hit the remote, letting hardcore grunge pound through the cavernous space.

  She smiled. “That’s better. Thanks. Is it show time?”

  He glanced at his watch then tugged on his suit coat. She wondered, not for the first time, where he got his expensive clothes. It would take something like a hundred yards of expensive wool to make just one of those suits. He was like edible chocolate, even dressed in sweat pants and a T-shirt. But when he donned one of the dark suit coats….

  “Stop ogling me, bitch,” he growled, his eyes shining.

  “I can window shop, can’t I?” She cocked her hip and batted her lashes at him. “Just ’cause I can’t buy the goods?”

  “Yeah,” the low, movie-star worthy voice purred. He straightened his tie. Never in her life had she met a man more comfortable in his own skin. Amazing, considering all the things he’d done in his life to land here, a gay male practically married to a well-known attorney with political ambitions—serving as business partner, bodyguard, and IT consultant to a Bitch-for-Hire. “You can stare. It feeds my ego.”

  Startled by a knock at the door, they glanced in unison at the clock on the wall. He’d set it to chime within fifteen minutes of the end time of the pre-paid sessions.

  “Seems as though Robert is an eager youngster.” Lance dimmed the lights and shooed her back so she could make an entrance for full effect.

  Sophie blinked. “Youngster?” she squeaked. Sweat popped out on her upper back, and dripped in a familiar, hot yoga-like way down her skin. No, ridiculous, projecting…but…maybe….

  “Yeah. Some kid really, but he checked out…never fear, boss lady.” He pointed at her, cocked his thumb like a trigger, and winked. “Ready?”

  She gulped and odded, her mouth dry enough to spit cotton. And looking back, she would never be able to state how she knew who’d be walking through the door. She simply did. Lance shot her a funny look.

  “Go on,” she said, unwilling to say anymore and suddenly ready to end this thing, finally about to have the moment she and Brody Vaughn had set in motion weeks ago.

  The urge to quash it like a fucking bug, saving her soul in the process, nearly choked her. The dichotomy—or perhaps it would better be called irony—dizzied her. “Open it.” She put a hand on either side of the backlit doorway.

  A man stepped in, dressed in a suit. The sight of his familiar face and hair prompted the oddest knee-jerk thought from her—he needs a haircut. Then he stepped into the light, smiling, until she moved forward and gave him a full view.

  Chapter Eleven

  Brody’s brain shut down when he spotted her, silhouetted in the doorway. Not an unusual reaction, at least in his limited experience. His Mistress, the marketing professor he’d approached about a scheduling problem during a particularly rough patch in his sophomore year, had been his first real experience in bondage, or fetish of any kind—his last, for all intents and purposes.

  He had meant to keep it that way, to file it all away under Brody Learns a Lesson, never to revisit it. It had been scary and exquisite—perfect or so he believed. Brittle memories of punishment, discipline, or flat-out kink fests he enjoyed for nearly three years passed through him during the five or so seconds it took for the woman to step into the light.

  Stumbling back, he sat hard when his legs hit a chair. His palms itched, his brain boiled, and the creeping sensation of, well, of course. Who else? flashed across his consciousness. He did know, had known, or at least had willed it thus when he made the appointment.

  While he may have been short on experience other than what he had learned from his Mistress, he remained acutely in tune to his own needs and to how those around him might meet them. He’d guessed it about her the split second she’d turned to face him, bored expression blown apart by his presence. Something about the pure light of fate that seemed to burst out of her eyes calmed him, making him more ready for her than ever.

  She hesitated, as if sensing his chan
ge of attitude from terror to acceptance. So, she read his signals, too. Suppressing a shiver and the urge to call out to her, he stayed seated, ready to assume whatever position she demanded of him. And how, he mused, as his cock hardened fast under his zipper. Oh, god, please let her be fond of canes.

  “What the fuck are you doing here?” she asked.

  “Are you not Madame Katrina?” The strength of his voice surprised him. His inner submissive already whimpered, cowed, and ready. She got up in his face, her raw, animal, purely female scent whipping through him, dizzying him as he rose to his feet. Sweat beaded his brow. His lungs squeezed, incapable of proper function.

  Her eyes blazed when she shoved him down to the chair, hard. He stared at the pointy boot heel she dug into his thigh and had to grip the chair arms to stop from grabbing it and kissing it.

  “Don’t talk back to me.” Her harsh voice rang in his ears. “You know who I am, Robert.”

  The way she spit out his name made him feel three inches tall. A familiar buzzing noise took up residence in his brain. A welcome whiteness edged his vision. He smiled, still focusing on the shiny leather, groaning when its heel point penetrated the fabric of his trousers.

  He stayed still, awaiting her command like the well-trained submissive he’d been once. The room hummed with erotic energy, but she stayed silent, letting it spin out and ramp up until he was ready to fly apart at the seams.

  “Say my name. Say it.” She flicked the flogger she must have had hidden against his torso, more for effect than anything, since his flesh remained covered by the suit. He shifted to release some pressure. The white space descended, finally, after all this time. He felt it, tasted it in the back of his mouth. Yearned for it in ways he’d been tamping down under layers of self-denial for too long.

  She walked away from him, taking boot heel, flogger, and those deep blue eyes he’d been drowning in, nightly, since meeting her. He observed her retreat, licking his lips at the sight of her leather-covered ass. He allowed his gaze to move up the line of her bare back and neck, taking her all in.

  He stopped, frowning. “Mistress,” he said, again with a voice that surprised him with its apparent strength. “What is that? What happened to you?” He pointed at the angry-looking scar tissue he’d noticed when she had her boot on his leg. It wrapped around her waist, its red, puckered edges clear on the white of her skin. It burned his brain. Forced his hands into fists at the thought of her, of Sophie, his…. Sophie, hurt by anyone.

  She whirled around, fury clear on her face. “Stand up,” she commanded, pointing the flogger at him. “Stand up Robert and take everything off. I mean everything.” Her voice had gotten hoarse, shaky. He rose. “Slowly. So I can watch you.”

  Hardwired to obey, he slipped out of shoes and coat, using slow movements, as she had commanded. She stripped out of what little she wore, leaving him fumbling with buttons and breathing too heavy to focus. She’d revealed every glorious inch of her amazing body to his eyes, which shocked him. Usually it took his Mistress awhile to join him skin-to-skin, using the first hours or so of their playtime to tease him to peaks of frothy frustration before forcing him back down. Or smacking his ass and thighs so hard with a cane he would drop into his subspace, and remain a dreamy, almost-drowsy lump she used to her content, riding him like a cowgirl, getting off on his body over and over and over until she allowed him to come up for air.

  Those sessions were the scariest. The ones where he lost count of the hours and only existed for her pleasure. Aware, but at the same time, not—forbidden to enjoy, lest he show weakness via a forbidden orgasm. He experienced a brief moment of regret. What had he done? What had he allowed that woman, his professor…to do to his sexual psyche?

  He shook all over as he completed the undressing, placing each layer of suit coat, socks, trousers, shirt, tie, underwear, all on the chair behind him. Something about the whole scene shifted, seemed to tilt, as if they were on a ship that listed to the port side, sending them both tumbling head over heels into the abyss.

  They stood, facing each other, with nothing but bare flesh between them. He smelled her again, her lust, her readiness for him. And suddenly he wanted something more than to be tied up, whipped, caned, wax tortured, or nipple clamped. He wanted to be inside her, to make love to her, hold her close and draw out the most exquisite climax from her lush beauty. He would make it his job to assure her pleasure. She stepped back, as if reading his mind.

  Then, with a speed that surprised him, she reached over her head and yanked down a set of metal restraints. “Raise your arms, Robert.” She caressed his name while fastening his wrists, letting the tips of her nipples graze his skin. Her mouth trailed down his neck and she licked her way along the chain inked in honor of His Mistress. The woman who had perhaps topped him a little harder than necessary. A small voice started up with that tune in the back of his head. She had used him then tossed him out on his ear when it suited her or when she got worried about her reputation, her precious job.

  “Shh….” Sophie murmured, taking her time tracing his tattoos with her lips, her fingertips, setting him on fire until he yanked against the restraints.

  But he wanted to do that for her—so badly he had to suck in a long breath not to tell her as much. What a bizarre moment…. He sighed when she licked his abdomen and lower and kept going, exploring every nook and possible cranny of him. “Mmmm….” He spread his legs and watched her work, his brain going a thousand miles a minute.

  “Baby,” she purred, sliding back up his body, skin-on-skin, before gripping his shaft, hard, almost too hard. “Somebody wants to come, I think.” Her palm moved across him, soft, tight, and perfect.

  He hissed, his hips jerking at her added pressure, and he closed his eyes to think about soccer or something…anything except how badly he wanted to come.

  “No,” he croaked out. “I…can’t…”

  “Oh, I think you can. And you most definitely should.” She rubbed her naked body along his, using her exquisite hand to torture. Her teeth found his nipple, his one trigger, the one thing he’d learned to control so his Mistress could have her pleasure first. “Yes….” Sophie let go, leaving him quivering, on the verge.

  The deep blue of her gaze did something visceral to him. As something that had nothing to do with her flesh on his flesh, with her bare skin against his, it cleared his head completely. He wanted her pleasure—he wanted to bring something to her from his submission.

  As if sensing his urge to talk, she kissed him, plundered his mouth with hers, her sweet, probing tongue forceful, yet gentle. This he had missed all those years. His Mistress preferred her distance, liked to ride him, be fucked by him, but had only allowed him to kiss her one time, in nearly three years. And that, the very day she kicked him to the curb.

  He groaned and let the white space take him. And somehow didn’t even recognize his own orgasm until she broke away from him, tears in her eyes. At the release of that most erotic of contacts—the kiss—all his nerve endings thrummed and blood flooded his face. The perfection of climax consumed him completely, and he cried out at the near pain of it, having forgotten how it felt, when coaxed out of him the way he preferred.

  He shook all over, rattling the bonds at his wrists. Confusion washed through him. She hadn’t used anything on him but her skin, her mouth, the simple shackles from the ceiling, and her naked self.

  “God,” he said, but it came out barely a whisper. His throat burned and his chest ached. He had come like a teenager, with no thought or attention to her needs. But the orgasm had cleared his head, and he was more sated than he had been in…years. How did she do that?

  “Ah, alas, no, just me, Madame Katrina.”

  She stepped back. Her chest heaved with her attempt to control her own ragged breathing. But she turned away; giving him a luscious rear view when she disappeared into a room then emerged, wrapped in a simple black silk short robe. She dropped into huge leather chair and observed him. He tugged at the restraints.
Their bite did not have the remembered effect. He didn’t like them. He wanted them off, wanted to scoop the woman in front of him up in his arms and never let her go.

  “What’s wrong, Robert?” she asked, shifting so the robe fell open, giving him a clear view of the moist pink of her sex. “Don’t speak,” she said, holding up a hand. “I get to come first.” He gulped as she touched one of her full breasts, caressed her own nipple and dropped the other hand between her legs.

  “No,” he blurted out, surprised but not caring. He would not allow this to happen. “Let me. Please. Let me…I want to…I need….”

  She kept rubbing, teasing her pussy, then putting her fingertips to her mouth. “You want to do what…Robert?” She put extra emphasis on his name. “Tell me. Use words. I know you know what they are.”

  He frowned, a surprising emotion filling his gut. It took him a few seconds to recognize it as anger. Her attitude pissed him off. He didn’t want this, did not wish to be in this position anymore. He wanted to be more—for her. He yanked at the metal, wincing when his sore wrists hit the cuffs’ edges again.

  “I want to make love to you, Sophie.”

  She sat up. The robe fell from her shoulders. He tried not to lick his lips. The slow burn of desire rolling around in his brain scared him, considering how he’d been programmed to take pleasure from pain. He liked it, this new sort of urge.

  “Release me. Please,” he said, his voice low. She rose to her feet, naked again, leaving the robe behind. He kept his gaze on hers as she reached up and unlocked the cuffs. Taking a deep breath and getting a full head of her lusty aroma, he let his arms drop until he held her close. She smiled for a half second, giving him a bright, shining shaft of hope.

  “You can go now,” she said, keeping her tone sexy, as if she were saying something else. It confused him. Her next action didn’t. She stepped out of his arms, plucked the robe from the chair and put it back on. “No charge, Robert. But don’t come back. I mean it.”