She's mine. Every scrape of my teeth, every brush of my fingers and the hard press of my hand on her hip, all of it is guiding her where I want her to go, even as she gasps and moans above me, her voice choked off as she comes apart.
I want this.
I want this so fucking much.
I bite, harder than I mean to, and her mouth opens against my hair, her body shuddering and spasming around my fingers, and she comes like that, a silent scream pressed to my head, body writhing and held by me, so hot and perfect that I want to see this—her, just like this—every fucking day.
I twist, shoving her onto the ground and fumbling for my belt, and she's right there, hands shaking but fucking desperate for it, whimpering please as I shove my fingers in her mouth and she sucks them clean, and then she makes a happy noise, and my cock is out, her mouth closing over it.
I almost come when she swallows me down.
The gorgeous light playing over her, the hot heat of her mouth, the fucking pressure in my balls—I almost come right then.
I wrestle control of myself and thrust into her hot wet mouth and she groans, her eyes rolling up to find mine, and that's it.
I'm gone, coming down her throat with a low noise that sounds fucking broken, and she's right there, holding me up, holding onto me as I wobble, her gaze soft and sweet and warm as she swallows it all.
She's perfect.
She's so fucking perfect.
When I can think again, when I can breathe again, she's tucked me back in my pants and fixed her dress. She looks flushed and lovely, but not like she just got finger fucked in a dark corner.
"Pet," I whisper, and she shakes her head.
"Don't, Charm," she murmurs. "Let's—just don't. Come on. We should get back."
I nod, and follow her back to the banquet hall, where she kisses my cheek before slipping away.
She looks perfect here.
It hits me hard, as I watch her smiling at a Board member. She's what I've been waiting for.
She's exactly what I've been waiting for.
Chapter 9.
I glare at my phone, cursing it silently, waiting.
Fucking waiting.
I've been waiting for three goddamned days. The phone—cursed thing—stays annoyingly silent.
"Uh. Bro?"
Beast's voice is grating and I snarl softly, clenching my hand around the phone in an effort not to toss the idiotic piece of shit across the room.
"Do I wanna know what the hell your phone did to you, Charm?" Beast asks, a little nervous as he drops to his knees next to my chair.
I give him a dark stare.
"This doesn't have something to do with a pretty little sub who took a leave of absence, does it?" he asks, looking at me from under his lashes.
He's on his fucking knees, wearing leather and a collar, and some lucky bitch's marks, and he's still taunting me.
"Beast, shut the fuck up," I snap.
It's been three whole days since I last saw her, and a week since she actually let me talk to her for more than five fucking minutes, and I swear to God, when I get that girl back in my damn dungeon, I'm taking every ounce of worry and fear I've felt out on her pretty ass.
"Still not answering your text messages?" Beast asks, and this time his voice is more sympathetic than it is mocking, which is the only reason I wrestle the urge to snarl down, and just grunt at him instead.
"Do you wanna tell us what happened?" he prods, gently.
No. It'll make me think about that night, the perfect night, when I realized just how much I wanted her.
It’ll make me think the two weeks since that fucking night, when she's steadily pulled away, made herself distant and unattainable.
I can't do a thing about it, but I fucking want to.
"Charm, if she's playing this hard to get, maybe—"
"Don't," I say, stopping him before he can finish that sentence. Maybe she isn't playing.
I can't think like that.
"I'm gonna go see her," I say, decisively, and push to stand. Beast stays silent, at my feet and I glare at him.
"Brother, it's time to let her go."
"I will. If she tells me to, I will," I say.
But she hasn't. Not yet.
I wait another two days, because I have to work, and because I’m hoping she’ll stop giving me the silent treatment and come to me.
She doesn’t. She stays away from the Kingdom, and my phone stays quiet, and I finally say fuck it.
That’s how I find myself at the front door of a familiar mansion Saturday morning.
I don’t recognize the girl who answers. She’s got wild red hair, and big brown eyes, a smattering of freckles.
“Samul Charming, I was wondering how long it’d take before you showed up here,” she says, a sigh already in her voice. She turns on her heel. “Come in. My sister will want to join us.”
So this must be the reserved younger sister, Sophia.
I don’t know what I expected—something closer to Celeste or Cora, even though they weren’t sisters and looked nothing alike.
But Sophia isn’t like either of them.
“Is she here?” I ask, my voice tight, and Sophia pauses in the middle of pouring coffee. She gives me a quick look and shakes her head. “No. And it wouldn’t matter if she was. She’s not a club member, Charm.”
“Samul. Or Charming. Please.”
Wounded anger flares in her eyes for a moment, and her lips twist in something like a smile, but not.
“Of course.”
She pours the coffee and leans back against the counter, watching me silently, and for a second, I want to fidget under her assessing stare, but then the sharp staccato of heels catches my attention, and I turn to look at Cora.
Here’s the thing about Cora: I like her, but I don’t trust her.
She’s smart, a damn good Domme, as pretty as she is intelligent, and funny when you can get her to loosen up—which usually takes a bottle of Grey Goose, and one of Wolf’s shows.
She’s also as cold and calculating as Mal, and as ruthless as Wolf.
She’s dangerous as hell, and it makes me nervous when I have to work with her.
“She isn’t here,” Cora says, without looking at me. She leans against the counter near Sophia, and sips the coffee her sister passes to her, watching me with careful eyes.
"Where is she?"
"If she wanted you to know, don't you think you'd know? God knows Celeste isn't really good at following the fucking rules."
I straighten and glare. "What the hell does that mean?"
"It means," Cora says, her voice tight and mean, "that she's a fucking bartender. She isn't for you. She's not even a goddamned member. You need to focus on what you can actually have, not a little bitch that doesn't deserve you."
"I decide what I deserve," I say, my voice icy.
"And if you fixate on Celeste, you'll never get that. Or what you need." Cora pauses, staring at me. "She knew that too, you know. She's a smart girl, my stepsister."
"What are you saying, Cora? Quit playing games and just fucking say it."
She shrugs and sips her coffee again. "I'm saying, Samul, that she's doing this on purpose. She wants you to have what you need and she knows she's never going to be that."
I shake my head. "No." I say, firmly. I can still see her swaying above me, her body shuddering in pleasure, and the bright smile she gave my Board as she worked the room, and I shake my head. "No. She wouldn't just decide what I need."
"She would, if she thought you were going to do something stupid for her," Sophia says softly, and Cora hums an agreement.
"Look, Charming, you had fun, but it's time to focus on your future. And my stepsister? She was never going to be your future."
I listen to them talk for a few more minutes, but it doesn't actually make any sense. None of this makes sense.
Four days later, I’m sitting with Mal at a corner table, going over the latest schedule while he does inventor
y checks. It’s the nonsense of running the club that I love, nonsense he loathes, and that I’ll miss most when I leave the place to run Charming Pharm.
I still haven’t told him that there’s a clock on my time here.
I still don’t know how.
The door opens and I hear Ava laughing, high and clear, as she crosses the quiet barroom.
Without thinking, I glance up, and freeze.
Celeste is at her side, a small smile on her lips as she listens to her friend. A hand clamps down on my shoulder, shoving me back into my seat as I try to rise. “Don’t, Charm.”
“For fucks sake, let me go,” I snarl, fighting Mal’s grip.
It goes hard and painful on my shoulder, digging into the soft tissue, and I hiss in a breath, twisting to glare at him.
“Brother, sit down and give that girl some fucking space, or I will have you tossed out.”
I drop like someone cut my strings and he slowly eases back, watching me carefully the entire time. In all the years I’ve known Mal, in all the time we’ve played our games and seduced women and fought each other, he has never threatened me like this.
I know he’s serious enough to do it.
So, I sit and I glare at him, while across the room, Celeste tucks herself behind the bar.
“What the hell is going on with you, man?” Mal asks, tired. “What is it about this girl?”
"What is it about Briar?" I ask, twisting to throw a serious look at him and he straightens away from me.
"Don't you fucking dare," he almost growls.
And yeah, I know that was unfair, but I'm fucking tired of being second guessed every damn time I do something with Celeste.
"She's important to me," I say. "And honestly, Mal, beyond that, you don't need to know. You can support me or you can not, but that girl," I point at her, and he stares at me, eyes narrowed and cold, "is fucking important to me."
I shove away from the table and this time he lets me go.
Celeste is waiting, polishing glasses while Ava chatters at Chelle. For a few seconds we're alone, in this busy room.
"Where have you been?"
She shrugs and gives me a tired looking smile. "I've been busy. Sorry."
"Don't apologize, Celeste. Just tell me what happened."
She shakes her head. "Nothing happened."
I stare at her, at the way she's standing slightly closed off, her eyes downcast, her arms wrapped in long sleeves that I've never seen on her, and I feel a sudden flash of fury.
"You're lying to me," I snap, and her eyes dart up to mine. "I don't even care that you decided lying was a good idea, pet. I want to know why the fuck you think you have to."
"Maybe I don't want you," she says, "And I don't want to lose my goddamn job."
I flinch. “You don’t mean that.”
“We’re not in a scene, Sam. You don’t get to decide what I do and don’t mean.”
I straighten and nod once. “Fine. I’ll get out of your way, let you get back to work.”
She’s staring at me, her eyes wide and almost stricken, and I want to wipe it away, want to know why the fuck she’s running from me and what the hell happened to her since our date.
But I’m not going to demand what she won’t give. We aren’t in a scene, and I’m not that guy.
I lean across the counter and I feel her shudder as I brush a kiss over her cheek. “I had fun, pet.”
She makes a little noise of protest as I pull away, but I don’t give myself the luxury of finding out what she’s saying or why.
Instead, I head for the door, and Wolf moves to intercept me as I feel my control shaking apart.
“Brother?” he says, hushed, for only me.
Beast is at his side, worry in his bright eyes, and I can feel Mal and Celeste watching.
“Let’s get you out of here,” Beast murmurs, and I nod, once, sharply.
My brothers lead me away.
And Celeste doesn’t try to stop them.
Chapter 10.
“You ready?”
I shrug, and slip my suit coat on. It’s Armani, expensive as fuck, and it feels like armor. Wolf is quiet in a corner of my dungeon. He’s dressed in dark red leather pants, black leather straps crisscrossing his chest in something that parodies a shirt and a cape that should look ridiculous but doesn’t.
It never does on him.
Beast is simpler. Black leather pants that ride low on his hips and a plain collar with a single simple lock hanging from it—a submissive, but not one for collaring.
I shake my head. “Nope.”
Beast flashes a sympathetic smile, as behind us, Wolf pushes to his feet.
He nudges me gently. “Come on, Charm. It’s time.”
I tuck my hands into my pockets and follow Wolf into the Kingdom. Beast follows at my heels. It shouldn’t feel so much like a funeral march, but everything has, since I left Celeste at that damn bar and walked away from her.
Wolf pauses, just before we reach the Floor, and he looks back at me.
“You don’t have to do this, brother.”
I force a smile. He’s wrong. There’s a company waiting for me to take control of it, and my parents who had given me everything, and even Mal, desperate to secure our place in the Kingdom with some kind of stability.
Every Kingdom has a King, and every King has an heir.
It’s far past time for the heir to do his fucking job.
I smile at Wolf, bright and fake, and nod once. “Yeah, I do.”
The Floor is silent as I walk through, and I can feel the eyes following me, hungry and assessing and some—the dominants in the room—angry.
I ignored them all. I take my place at Mal’s right hand and he smiles, cold and cruel, the smile that promises so much pain and pleasure.
“Welcome to the Audition.”
It is simple, really. I sit the same place I have always been, with Mal at my shoulder and Beast lounging on the floor beside my chair, and the subs come to me.
They come in silk and leather, in chains and cuffs, and one—a pretty dark skinned girl with wide black eyes and hair so wild I wanted to wrap a hand in it just to tame that piece of her—wrapped in white ropes and knots.
They come and they kneel, and they show me their submission in every strike they take, in the pain that Wolf deals out like he is so capable of doing, in the humiliation that a masqued Domme named Beauty drawls out while she moves among them.
I watch and one by one they are picked away, sent with smiles and a quiet thank you. Some don’t want this, a clear reluctance written in every line of their bodies, and some go reluctant, girls I have taken to my bed, wrapped in my own knots, angry and jealous of those who remain.
A few men are there.
Beast, watching them, laughs, hiding it in my thigh as his big body shakes, sprawled messy at my feet. I’ve never been terribly picky about who or what I fuck. Breaking a man is just as intoxicating—more, sometimes—than a woman, but Beast always said I was too straight to collar a male sub, and he’s right. The ass is good at reading people, and better than good when it comes to me and Wolf.
The men are there, kneeling, but I don’t think anyone is surprised when I shake my head and Wolf taps them out.
The audition will last for three nights, and—if Mal has his way—end with me collaring a girl, or finding someone I might at least consider collaring.
I knew, even before I agreed to this, that it would be a shit show. It’s a ridiculous display that reinforced who we were, and where we sat in the Kingdom—at the very fucking top and the rest of the members were there merely for our pleasure and amusement.
Mal can say what he wants, but that’s what this is. That’s what this has always been.
We’re halfway through the second night and Beast has abandoned his place at my feet to move through the subs still kneeling for me. Wolf has a girl lashed to a St. Andrew’s Cross, her skin a delightful shade of pink as he flogs her.
Beauty, in a plain b
lack masque tonight and a black pencil skirt paired with a button down, is spilling hot white wax across the soft skin of a girl whose biting her lip and shaking from the effort it takes to not come.
Two girls spin suspended from ropes, their bodies works of fucking art in my knots.
And I’m bored.
Nothing here is holding my attention and I want it to be because I haven’t seen the right girl, and not because she isn’t here.
I’m not buying it though.
“Charm,” a cool voice says.
I can feel Beast watching as I turn and look at Sophia.
She’s in a simple dress. It’s elegant and somehow modest, and in a room full of half naked—some fully naked—women, she stands out.
There is a silver collar around her neck.
“No,” I say, without giving myself time to process.
“She isn’t coming, Charm.”
“And I don’t care because I’m not collaring her fucking stepsister.”
Beast is moving toward me now and I shake my head. He frowns, but he relaxes and goes back to moving between the subs.
“I’m not a bad sub,” she says, sinking smoothly to her knees and pressing her cheek to my thigh, a demure smile on her lips. She’s a brat, is what she is, and that intrigues me, but it doesn’t change anything.
“You should go. Cora wouldn’t want you here anymore than she wanted Celeste.”
Sophia laughs, and it grates on my nerves as she rocks back on her heels. “Whose fucking idea do you think this was?”
I stare at her and she shakes her head. A tiny, bitter smile tilts her lips and I lean forward, snapping a leash to her collar.
The room goes very quiet, and I say it quietly, into the silence of the Kingdom. Even Mal is still and watchful. I wonder if he thought I would actually pick a girl in this crazy fucking audition.
“You get fifteen minutes.”
She doesn’t trip as I drag her to my dungeon, and that pisses me off, but she’s wearing delicate flat shoes that don’t give her the opportunity to stumble.
Celeste would wear heels.
Wicked Charming (Wicked Ever After Book 1) Page 6