Rescue Me Books 1 and 2
Masters at Arms begins the journey of three men, each on a quest for honor, acceptance, and to ease his unspoken pain. Their paths cross at one of the darkest points in their lives. As they try to come to terms with the aftermath--forging an unbreakable bond--will they ever truly become masters of their own fates? Or would fate become masters of them? (Book One in the Rescue Me series.)
NOBODY'S ANGEL
When Marc rescued Angelina from an abusive Dom at his fetish club, he never imagined she'd upend his safe, controlled life. But his SAR partner, Luke, a widower, thinks Angelina has been sent to him by his dead wife. Marc knows only he can fulfill her sexual needs, but won’t hurt his friend. When the abusive Dom stalks her, she turns to Marc for help and learns a submissive has power too.
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Excerpt:
Chapter One
Marc D’Alessio put on the eye mask to maintain some anonymity. What Italian men didn’t do for their mamas. No one he knew from his earlier life in Aspen had ever shown up at his club, but he’d promised Mama he wouldn’t be blatant about his alternate lifestyle. Shit, just having her find out about his interest in BDSM had been bad enough. If his little brother Sandro had just kept his mouth shut….
He wished he’d chosen a different mask, though. The damned wolf one just brought him attention from unattached subs and bottoms he really didn’t want these days.
Marc donned the black leather vest over his bare chest and ignored the familiar hitch in his breath caused when he overstretched the adhesions in his side. He checked to make sure the vest pockets included the safety and first-aid items he may need while on duty tonight. The yellow armband he placed over his right bicep identified him as the club’s dungeon monitor supervisor tonight.
Marc stepped out of the dressing area and walked down the short hallway to where the great room at the Masters at Arms fetish club opened before him. The scent of sweat and sex filled the air tonight. The club appeared to be at capacity, so he knew he’d have to stay alert. He also was about an hour late and needed to find co-owner Adam Montague to get the lowdown. He scanned the room looking for the retired Marine master sergeant.
Fellow Iraq War veteran Damián Orlando, the youngest of the club’s three owners, wore his trademark black-and-orange Harley leather vest and had a petite blonde chained to the center post where he delivered evenly placed lashes with his single-tailed whip. The center of the room had been roped off sufficiently to keep onlookers out of range, but many watched the demonstration with rapt attention.
Marc recognized the bottom as one of Damián’s regulars, the expression on her face one of pure ecstasy, despite the red welts he could see on her back, ass, and thighs. No blood. His friend sure was popular with the masochists; Marc didn’t get off on delivering that level of pain.
The tattoo on Damián’s flexing bicep showed the rippling tail of a dragon, the body hidden by his vest. But Marc knew it covered a good portion of his chest and back because he’d gone with him for some of the sessions at the tat parlor. With his shoulder-length hair pulled into a queue, and his goatee and moustache, Damián had the look of a real badass.
Marc couldn’t help but remember the shy kid he had been when they’d met at Camp Pendleton. Or that trip to the L.A. fetish club the week before they’d deployed to Fallujah. No, if he didn’t know it for a certainty, he’d never believe this was the same man. The kid sure had come home from Iraq messed up. Marc and Adam had almost lost him during his deepest depression. Apparently, with BDSM he’d found a way to regain some level of control over his life again, even if it did mean he’d chosen to delve deeply into the sensual-sadist range of the lifestyle’s spectrum.
Marc loved Damián like a brother, realizing he’d become closer to this kid from his Marine Corps training days than he was to his own brother. The two of them had gone through some serious shit together in Fallujah. Damián had come out the worse for it. Marc wished he’d been able to do more, but was thankful that, as his Navy corpsman, he’d been able to keep him alive. His buddy’s limp was hardly noticeable now and he seemed to be getting his life back on track.
Well, on track as well as any of the three co-owners had been able to since the war.
Continuing to look for Adam, Karla Paxton’s final preparations for tonight’s set caught his eye. She flinched each time Damián’s whip struck the woman’s bare and sweating skin. When Marc had first met Karla, he hadn’t expected her to last more than her first weekend’s performances. She sure as hell didn’t care much for the lifestyle, even the milder stuff.
But Karla sure did care for Adam—not that his former master sergeant noticed. Shit, the man whose instincts and wisdom had kept a lot of men and women alive on the battlefield was totally clueless when it came to Karla.
“You’re here.” Well, speak of the devil, he turned to find Adam approaching him. After all these years of retirement, his friend still kept his hair trimmed to near-Marine regs. Not a high and tight, but close enough. There was a heavy mix of gray among his friend’s dark brown hair now.
“Sorry. Got held up on…a mission.”
Adam’s intense stare bore through him saying he knew Marc wasn’t being honest, which niggled at his conscience. Adam had gone back for him on that rooftop in Fallujah. He’d visited Marc in the hospital until they could ship him out of Iraq, often spending his nights watching over Marc as he slept. Most importantly, he’d helped ease some of Marc’s guilt over the loss of his big brother, Gino, who had served under Adam in Afghanistan. He owed the man so much. Why was he trying to distance himself from him now?
Because you distance yourself from everyone.
No, that’s just women. He did keep women at arm’s length emotionally, but knew Adam would take a bullet for him before he’d ever hurt him. So, why didn’t he let him in? Adam had been nudging him for months to tell him what was going on in Marc’s head after he’d quit scening, opting to volunteer as a DM or DMS most nights, well, when he showed up at the club. One thing was certain. Marc would continue as a co-owner of the club with these men; their band-of-brothers bond would never be broken.
Shit, he couldn’t explain what was going on himself, much less tell his friend. He was just…unsettled since he’d left Pamela last year. She had been the first woman he’d gotten close to since Melissa all those years ago.
He had let Adam believe Pamela had dumped him, but he was in no mood yet to talk about what really happened. Marc deflected the man’s unspoken questions. “So, what’s the situation?”
Adam narrowed his eyes, paused a moment, then stood down, rubbing the back of his neck. “Keep an eye on Room Eight. They’re new to the scene and I don’t get the feeling they know each other very well.”
The recent surge in erotic BDSM books had couples coming out of the woodwork to try out with their partners, some of them nearly strangers, what they had discovered in those romanticized stories. Too bad. Most of them should have stuck with the romantic version. They got off on the idea of BDSM, but not the actual experience. Besides, most of their “Doms” had no clue. Too many used this as consent to abuse rather than any type of consensual power exchange.
Until the last few months, Marc had held a series of weekend training sessions when he wasn’t on a mountain-rescue call and didn’t have any wilderness expeditions planned with his outfitter company. Those Doms who truly wanted to learn to please their partners in the BDSM lifestyle signed up, but they’d represented a small fraction of the couples he saw coming in to experiment on the equipment at the club. Of course, he hadn’t given a class for quite a while.
“I’ll keep an eye on them,” said Marc. Adam filled him in on how many dungeon monitors were on duty tonight and where each was stationed. “Anything else?”
“No, pretty routine.” They shared a grin. There was nothing routine about the Masters at Arms, now one of Denver’s hottest fetish clubs. They’d become so popular since hiring Karla to sing that they’d just started opening on Wednesdays, in addition to Fridays and Saturdays.
As Karla sang “Song to the Siren,” Marc’s and Adam’s gazes were drawn to the young woman commanding attention on the stage. Her wardrobe sure had improved since she’d first started; tonight, she wore a black satin and sequin number that concealed her shoulders, but left a large oval expanse of her chest open, showing off the swell of her breasts. Her arms were bare except for lacy black gloves covering her forearms and wrists. The hem of the dress was mid-thigh, showing off her sexy long legs encased in black mesh stockings. Definitely hot.
Marc turned back to Adam to finish up before getting to work. Shit. The look of intense longing on his friend’s face bordered on pain. If Adam wanted her so badly, why didn’t he just go after her? They shared some kind of history with each other from what he gathered, but Adam was doing his damnedest to treat her like a daughter. Hell, anyone with eyes could see that the looks Karla gave him were anything but those of a daughter’s. Sure, there was a significant age difference, but she sure as hell didn’t act twenty-five. She was mature, almost somber sometimes. Not that his fifty-year-old friend noticed—when he allowed himself to get anywhere near her. Maybe he was still holding onto the memory of his dead wife, but, after nine years, and with a beautiful woman like Karla wanting him, the man needed to wake up and smell the vino.
Like you’re the expert on relationships. Marc sighed. “I’ll make the rounds.”
“Hang around for a drink later on,” Adam said. “I have Birra Moretti in stock.”
Marc knew Adam didn’t drink alcohol, but just wanted an opportunity to grill him for information. Adam wasn’t going to take much more of Marc’s shit before he kicked him in the ass.
“Let me take a rain check. It’s been a helluva long day. Now, I’d better go check on Room Eight.”
Adam nodded and let him go, more because he was worried about the couple in the private theme room than that he wanted to let Marc off the hook. Marc maneuvered around some couples gyrating on the dance floor near the bar, almost tripping over a sub kneeling on the floor beside her Dom at one of the tables.
The Italian woman, looking too damned much like Melissa for his taste, gave him a come-on with her eyes, then smiled. Totally disrespectful to her Dom, who seemed not to even notice as he spoke with Grant, another Marine vet, who stroked the head of the malesub at her side. Marc bent down to instruct the Dom to please keep his sub out of the walkway, then continued toward the theme rooms. He and the other dungeon monitors were spread thin tonight with a crowd this size.
The hallway to the rooms was painted red from the floor to the black ceiling. Flickers from the simulated-fire wall sconces caused his shadow to dance against the walls and gave the feeling you’d just walked into a sinister place. Not as bad as the dungeon, but… Marc approached the fourth room on the right and stopped at the large window that gave DMs and voyeurs a vantage point over the scene inside the room.
Each of the theme rooms was set up with specific equipment. Some provided furniture and items that conjured up popular fantasies—the office, the medical examination room, the office. He’d hired Luke Denton, now his Search and Rescue squad partner and the carpenter who helped renovate the club, to make the specialized BDSM equipment.
Room Eight focused on a number of spanking and whipping paraphernalia, including a spanking bench, a leather love seat, a sling, and the St. Andrew’s cross. A muscular Dom dressed in black leather vest and pants held a leather flogger. His sub was tied spread-eagle on the cross, naked except for the blindfold. Her long black hair hung in waves halfway down her back. Thankfully, her hair stopped short of the gorgeous curves of her ass.
Focus, man. You aren’t here to get off on the scene.
The blindfold impeded his ability to assess her condition. He switched on the intercom button to listen in. Her ass was red, and he heard her whimpers. Nothing out of the ordinary, except she was new to the BDSM scene and might not remember she could stop the scene if it went beyond her limits.
Slap!
The flogger struck her upper thighs, a particularly painful place to strike a novice.
“Acckkkkk!” Her lower body arched against the cross in an effort to escape the lash of the leather strips.
“Stop your crying, bitch,” the blond man shouted at her.
Marc cringed at his tone. Was she into verbal abuse and humiliation? He’d monitor the scene a little longer and try to determine whether she was getting off on the scene. If not, maybe he’d take the inexperienced Dom aside and give him some suggestions for making the scene better for her. Perhaps he would permit a demonstration on how to maximize her pleasure. Marc felt his cock come to life at the thought of working with this sub and her luscious curves. Shit. What was wrong with him tonight?
Slap!
More red stripes appeared across her upper thighs.
“Ow! Stop! …enough.”
Marc couldn’t make out all of her words. He became more alert.
“Don’t top from the bottom, pain slut. You know you wanted to be punished. You made me wait so damned long.”
Marc cringed. She didn’t appear to be loving anything about the scene, unless her pleas and tears were part of her kink. Hell, it was hard to tell with someone he didn’t know. He needed to check in with her, though, to make sure she wanted to continue. Marc turned off the intercom and slowly opened the door, slipping inside without a sound and keeping his distance as he tried to further assess her condition. Wrapped up in his scene, the Dom didn’t even notice Marc. He delivered two more sharp blows, this time to each of her tender inner thighs.
“Mio Dio! Stop!”
Italian? Well, shit.
Not taking time to analyze why that should make a difference to him as a dungeon monitor, because he wanted nothing to do with another sub, he motioned to get the Dom’s attention. Keeping his voice calm and low, he asked, “May I have a word with you a moment, Sir?” The man sighed heavily, but knew he had no choice but to obey a DM or DM supervisor. Not wanting the sub to overhear their conversation, Marc guided him to a corner of the room.
“I understand you’re both new to the club,” Marc whispered, “and I just wanted to make sure she understands about using her safe word.”
“She’s fine. She hasn’t used her safe word.” The Dom glanced away, making Marc suspicious as to whether he spoke the truth. “She just needs to get used to the flogger. This is her first time.”
Damn. Adam was right. But the Dom was riding her awfully hard for a first experience.
Marc noticed her feet straining on tiptoe because of how high he’d cuffed her hands on the cross. She clenched her fingers open and closed, as if trying to restore circulation. “I just came on duty. How long has she been on the cross?”
He looked at his watch. “About an hour. We reserved the room for ninety minutes.”
Faccia di merda. This asshole was a real piece of…work.
“I need to check in with her before you can continue this scene. Then you might want to consider providing some aftercare during the rest of the time you have in here. It’s pretty hard for a first-timer to have her body stretched and beaten like that for such a long time.
“She’s fine.” He ground the words out between his teeth. Now Marc understood why Adam was so worried about this couple. They’d both seen his type before. Thought he knew everything and wasn’t one to accept advice. Abusive, to boot.
“Excuse me.” Marc left him and walked over to the woman. The rules forbade him from touching her without her Dom’s permission, unless and until he put an end to the scene. He couldn’t see her eyes, but the blindfold was soaked from her tears. She sobbed quietly. Was she in subspace? This could be serious for such a novice, but he couldn’t really tell for certain until he saw her eyes.
Turning around to the man, he asked, “Permission to remove the blindfold and evaluate her condition?”
“I guess so.”
Marc reached up and pushed the loosely tied sash up to her forehead. He stood in front of her face, wishing he could cup her chin and brush the tears away. Focus. What the fuck had gotten into you? Would she follow his command?
“This is the Dungeon Monitor Supervisor. Look at me.”
Her eyes remained closed as she mumbled incoherently. No response. Damn. She was in too deep. Health concerns trumped no-touching rules. He pulled the flashlight from his pocket and lifted each eyelid in turn. Pupils unresponsive.
Shit.
“She’s in deep subspace. This scene is over.” Marc bent down and unbuckled her ankles as fast as possible.
“What’s deep subspace?”
Asshole bastard. Her Dom would be fucking clueless about how to bring her back down safely, even if Marc were willing to let him anywhere near her. Which he wasn’t.
He doubted these two would continue in the lifestyle together, but felt responsible for trying to explain the seriousness of this situation to Sir Asshole here, hoping to save the man’s next unfortunate partner from a similar fate where there might not be a DM with medic training nearby to rescue her.
Marc reached up to undo the clips that held her cuffed wrists to the cross. Her hands felt cold. As he worked to free her, he provided a lecture to the jerk. “For whatever reason, she didn’t say her safe word when she reached her limit. Experienced submissives might have subspace as a goal, but she’s too new to scening for that. Her mind disassociated from the pain when she could stand it no longer.”
Turning his attention back to the now whimpering woman, Marc wished she’d had her first experience with a Dom who knew what the hell he was doing. With me.
Now, where had that thought come from?
“She agreed to this.” The Dom went on the defensive and walked over to the dark leather loveseat in the corner to pick up a piece of paper that looked like the club’s contract.
Sorry, Sir Asshole, but read the fine print about my right to shut your scene down.
After the last cuff clip was undone, she moaned as he lowered her right arm from its over-stretched position. Her body collapsed into his waiting arms with a grunt, and he carried her to the loveseat.
Marc pulled an aftercare blanket from the nearby basket and wrapped her naked body in the micro fiber cloth to quickly bring up her body’s temperature. He covered her full breasts as quickly as possible, quashing an errant desire to bend down and take one of the delectable peaks into his mouth.
Shit. He hadn’t been this attracted to a woman since…well, a very long time. Why the fuck did she have to be Italian?
Marc held her tightly against him. So soft. Her curves molded against his body. His breathing hitched as his cock sprung to attention for the first time in a long while without the use of his fist.
Regaining some self-control, he continued his lesson for Sir Asshole. “Then the endorphins kicked in to the point where she could no longer engage her brain to make the decision to speak her safe word.” He glanced up at the man in time to watch him look away once more. Guilt? Maybe he should double check. “Did she speak her safe word?”
The man didn’t meet his gaze. “Well, I’m not sure…”
Goddamned bastard ought to be flogged himself—but with a cat-o-nine tails instead.
Sir Asshole moved toward the loveseat. “Here, I should be doing that…”
When he reached down, as if to wrest her away, Marc growled. Remembering him role, he forced himself to speak in his calm DMS voice, but in no uncertain terms. “Don’t touch her. If you want to learn how to administer aftercare properly, watch.” But don’t think I’m letting you put your fucking hands on her again as long as I’m here to stop you.
“I still have thirty minutes reserved on the room!” he wailed, waving the contract in his hand.
Obviously, he had no concern for her welfare. Marc knew there wouldn’t be any reasoning with the man—and no membership refund coming, either—but really wanted to get rid of this asshole so he could focus on the woman. “Go discuss it with Master Adam.”
When the wannabe Dom puffed out his chest and stomped from the room, slamming the door behind him, Marc texted Adam and told him what had happened in here—and that he should kick the sonuvabitch out of the club and ban him for life. Looking around the room and not seeing any bottled water, Marc sent another message, asking Adam to send over a bottle. As an afterthought, he added, “and a dark Hershey bar.”
Putting the phone beside him on the loveseat, he looked down at the gorgeous woman in his arms. Olive skin, dark hair. He remembered her eyes were a rich chocolate brown. Yeah, definitely Italian. His cock throbbed, surprising him yet again. He’d avoided Italian women for years. Too close to home. Too emotional. Too strong-willed.
Too much like Melissa.
Marc wiped away the hot tears still flowing from her eyes. “You did well, cara. Shhhh. Just rest now.” He kept his voice soft, soothing. Her body shook in response, or perhaps from chills. He pulled her head against his shoulder and laid his chin on the top of her head to keep more heat in her body. The scent of lavender surrounded him. “Shhhh. It’s over. You were so brave, cara,” he crooned.
He held her in his arms, for several minutes longer, savoring her weight in his lap, her delicious scent… Suddenly, her mind and body reintegrated.
“Accckkkkkk!” The woman screamed and fought him, trying to pull away, to escape the pain, the blanket, him. He knew the more she struggled, the more her back and ass would burn from the friction, so he took his hand and pressed her cheek against his chest to hold her still.
He needed to break through to her. What name had Sir Asshole called her? Oh, yes.
“Angie, lie still. You’re safe now.” He used a firm Dom voice, hoping to engage the sub’s instinctive desire to please.
Her nipple beaded to a hard point against the underside of his forearm. She moaned—definitely not from pain this time.
“Ahhhhh!”
Oh, shit.
The newbie sub was going to come. His more experienced submissives had been able to reach orgasm in subspace without his touching their clits at all. This one would probably need a little help, though. Hell, if she were his little sub, he wouldn’t hesitate to help her reach that level of satisfaction.
But she wasn’t his.
She grabbed his vest and moaned in frustration, tilting her hips upward as she sought release. His cock bobbed against her ass. Oh, hell. Why not? She’d earned some degree of pleasure after all the pain she’d suffered with Sir Asshole. Why not salvage something from the disaster that was probably her first scene? Maybe then she wouldn’t give up completely on exploring the submissive lifestyle with a responsible Dom someday.
With me.
Ignoring that stray and totally absurd thought, Marc’s hand slipped inside the blanket, seeking the folds of her pussy and what he knew would be an erect clit. She wouldn’t need much stimulation to fly apart for him.
No, he corrected himself. Not for him.
For her.
When Marc rescued Angelina from an abusive Dom at his fetish club, he never imagined she'd upend his safe, controlled life. But his SAR partner, Luke, a widower, thinks Angelina has been sent to him by his dead wife. Marc knows only he can fulfill her sexual needs, but won’t hurt his friend. When the abusive Dom stalks her, she turns to Marc for help and learns a submissive has power too.
BUY THE eBOOK *** READ THE EXCERPT
Excerpt:
Chapter One
Marc D’Alessio put on the eye mask to maintain some anonymity. What Italian men didn’t do for their mamas. No one he knew from his earlier life in Aspen had ever shown up at his club, but he’d promised Mama he wouldn’t be blatant about his alternate lifestyle. Shit, just having her find out about his interest in BDSM had been bad enough. If his little brother Sandro had just kept his mouth shut….
He wished he’d chosen a different mask, though. The damned wolf one just brought him attention from unattached subs and bottoms he really didn’t want these days.
Marc donned the black leather vest over his bare chest and ignored the familiar hitch in his breath caused when he overstretched the adhesions in his side. He checked to make sure the vest pockets included the safety and first-aid items he may need while on duty tonight. The yellow armband he placed over his right bicep identified him as the club’s dungeon monitor supervisor tonight.
Marc stepped out of the dressing area and walked down the short hallway to where the great room at the Masters at Arms fetish club opened before him. The scent of sweat and sex filled the air tonight. The club appeared to be at capacity, so he knew he’d have to stay alert. He also was about an hour late and needed to find co-owner Adam Montague to get the lowdown. He scanned the room looking for the retired Marine master sergeant.
Fellow Iraq War veteran Damián Orlando, the youngest of the club’s three owners, wore his trademark black-and-orange Harley leather vest and had a petite blonde chained to the center post where he delivered evenly placed lashes with his single-tailed whip. The center of the room had been roped off sufficiently to keep onlookers out of range, but many watched the demonstration with rapt attention.
Marc recognized the bottom as one of Damián’s regulars, the expression on her face one of pure ecstasy, despite the red welts he could see on her back, ass, and thighs. No blood. His friend sure was popular with the masochists; Marc didn’t get off on delivering that level of pain.
The tattoo on Damián’s flexing bicep showed the rippling tail of a dragon, the body hidden by his vest. But Marc knew it covered a good portion of his chest and back because he’d gone with him for some of the sessions at the tat parlor. With his shoulder-length hair pulled into a queue, and his goatee and moustache, Damián had the look of a real badass.
Marc couldn’t help but remember the shy kid he had been when they’d met at Camp Pendleton. Or that trip to the L.A. fetish club the week before they’d deployed to Fallujah. No, if he didn’t know it for a certainty, he’d never believe this was the same man. The kid sure had come home from Iraq messed up. Marc and Adam had almost lost him during his deepest depression. Apparently, with BDSM he’d found a way to regain some level of control over his life again, even if it did mean he’d chosen to delve deeply into the sensual-sadist range of the lifestyle’s spectrum.
Marc loved Damián like a brother, realizing he’d become closer to this kid from his Marine Corps training days than he was to his own brother. The two of them had gone through some serious shit together in Fallujah. Damián had come out the worse for it. Marc wished he’d been able to do more, but was thankful that, as his Navy corpsman, he’d been able to keep him alive. His buddy’s limp was hardly noticeable now and he seemed to be getting his life back on track.
Well, on track as well as any of the three co-owners had been able to since the war.
Continuing to look for Adam, Karla Paxton’s final preparations for tonight’s set caught his eye. She flinched each time Damián’s whip struck the woman’s bare and sweating skin. When Marc had first met Karla, he hadn’t expected her to last more than her first weekend’s performances. She sure as hell didn’t care much for the lifestyle, even the milder stuff.
But Karla sure did care for Adam—not that his former master sergeant noticed. Shit, the man whose instincts and wisdom had kept a lot of men and women alive on the battlefield was totally clueless when it came to Karla.
“You’re here.” Well, speak of the devil, he turned to find Adam approaching him. After all these years of retirement, his friend still kept his hair trimmed to near-Marine regs. Not a high and tight, but close enough. There was a heavy mix of gray among his friend’s dark brown hair now.
“Sorry. Got held up on…a mission.”
Adam’s intense stare bore through him saying he knew Marc wasn’t being honest, which niggled at his conscience. Adam had gone back for him on that rooftop in Fallujah. He’d visited Marc in the hospital until they could ship him out of Iraq, often spending his nights watching over Marc as he slept. Most importantly, he’d helped ease some of Marc’s guilt over the loss of his big brother, Gino, who had served under Adam in Afghanistan. He owed the man so much. Why was he trying to distance himself from him now?
Because you distance yourself from everyone.
No, that’s just women. He did keep women at arm’s length emotionally, but knew Adam would take a bullet for him before he’d ever hurt him. So, why didn’t he let him in? Adam had been nudging him for months to tell him what was going on in Marc’s head after he’d quit scening, opting to volunteer as a DM or DMS most nights, well, when he showed up at the club. One thing was certain. Marc would continue as a co-owner of the club with these men; their band-of-brothers bond would never be broken.
Shit, he couldn’t explain what was going on himself, much less tell his friend. He was just…unsettled since he’d left Pamela last year. She had been the first woman he’d gotten close to since Melissa all those years ago.
He had let Adam believe Pamela had dumped him, but he was in no mood yet to talk about what really happened. Marc deflected the man’s unspoken questions. “So, what’s the situation?”
Adam narrowed his eyes, paused a moment, then stood down, rubbing the back of his neck. “Keep an eye on Room Eight. They’re new to the scene and I don’t get the feeling they know each other very well.”
The recent surge in erotic BDSM books had couples coming out of the woodwork to try out with their partners, some of them nearly strangers, what they had discovered in those romanticized stories. Too bad. Most of them should have stuck with the romantic version. They got off on the idea of BDSM, but not the actual experience. Besides, most of their “Doms” had no clue. Too many used this as consent to abuse rather than any type of consensual power exchange.
Until the last few months, Marc had held a series of weekend training sessions when he wasn’t on a mountain-rescue call and didn’t have any wilderness expeditions planned with his outfitter company. Those Doms who truly wanted to learn to please their partners in the BDSM lifestyle signed up, but they’d represented a small fraction of the couples he saw coming in to experiment on the equipment at the club. Of course, he hadn’t given a class for quite a while.
“I’ll keep an eye on them,” said Marc. Adam filled him in on how many dungeon monitors were on duty tonight and where each was stationed. “Anything else?”
“No, pretty routine.” They shared a grin. There was nothing routine about the Masters at Arms, now one of Denver’s hottest fetish clubs. They’d become so popular since hiring Karla to sing that they’d just started opening on Wednesdays, in addition to Fridays and Saturdays.
As Karla sang “Song to the Siren,” Marc’s and Adam’s gazes were drawn to the young woman commanding attention on the stage. Her wardrobe sure had improved since she’d first started; tonight, she wore a black satin and sequin number that concealed her shoulders, but left a large oval expanse of her chest open, showing off the swell of her breasts. Her arms were bare except for lacy black gloves covering her forearms and wrists. The hem of the dress was mid-thigh, showing off her sexy long legs encased in black mesh stockings. Definitely hot.
Marc turned back to Adam to finish up before getting to work. Shit. The look of intense longing on his friend’s face bordered on pain. If Adam wanted her so badly, why didn’t he just go after her? They shared some kind of history with each other from what he gathered, but Adam was doing his damnedest to treat her like a daughter. Hell, anyone with eyes could see that the looks Karla gave him were anything but those of a daughter’s. Sure, there was a significant age difference, but she sure as hell didn’t act twenty-five. She was mature, almost somber sometimes. Not that his fifty-year-old friend noticed—when he allowed himself to get anywhere near her. Maybe he was still holding onto the memory of his dead wife, but, after nine years, and with a beautiful woman like Karla wanting him, the man needed to wake up and smell the vino.
Like you’re the expert on relationships. Marc sighed. “I’ll make the rounds.”
“Hang around for a drink later on,” Adam said. “I have Birra Moretti in stock.”
Marc knew Adam didn’t drink alcohol, but just wanted an opportunity to grill him for information. Adam wasn’t going to take much more of Marc’s shit before he kicked him in the ass.
“Let me take a rain check. It’s been a helluva long day. Now, I’d better go check on Room Eight.”
Adam nodded and let him go, more because he was worried about the couple in the private theme room than that he wanted to let Marc off the hook. Marc maneuvered around some couples gyrating on the dance floor near the bar, almost tripping over a sub kneeling on the floor beside her Dom at one of the tables.
The Italian woman, looking too damned much like Melissa for his taste, gave him a come-on with her eyes, then smiled. Totally disrespectful to her Dom, who seemed not to even notice as he spoke with Grant, another Marine vet, who stroked the head of the malesub at her side. Marc bent down to instruct the Dom to please keep his sub out of the walkway, then continued toward the theme rooms. He and the other dungeon monitors were spread thin tonight with a crowd this size.
The hallway to the rooms was painted red from the floor to the black ceiling. Flickers from the simulated-fire wall sconces caused his shadow to dance against the walls and gave the feeling you’d just walked into a sinister place. Not as bad as the dungeon, but… Marc approached the fourth room on the right and stopped at the large window that gave DMs and voyeurs a vantage point over the scene inside the room.
Each of the theme rooms was set up with specific equipment. Some provided furniture and items that conjured up popular fantasies—the office, the medical examination room, the office. He’d hired Luke Denton, now his Search and Rescue squad partner and the carpenter who helped renovate the club, to make the specialized BDSM equipment.
Room Eight focused on a number of spanking and whipping paraphernalia, including a spanking bench, a leather love seat, a sling, and the St. Andrew’s cross. A muscular Dom dressed in black leather vest and pants held a leather flogger. His sub was tied spread-eagle on the cross, naked except for the blindfold. Her long black hair hung in waves halfway down her back. Thankfully, her hair stopped short of the gorgeous curves of her ass.
Focus, man. You aren’t here to get off on the scene.
The blindfold impeded his ability to assess her condition. He switched on the intercom button to listen in. Her ass was red, and he heard her whimpers. Nothing out of the ordinary, except she was new to the BDSM scene and might not remember she could stop the scene if it went beyond her limits.
Slap!
The flogger struck her upper thighs, a particularly painful place to strike a novice.
“Acckkkkk!” Her lower body arched against the cross in an effort to escape the lash of the leather strips.
“Stop your crying, bitch,” the blond man shouted at her.
Marc cringed at his tone. Was she into verbal abuse and humiliation? He’d monitor the scene a little longer and try to determine whether she was getting off on the scene. If not, maybe he’d take the inexperienced Dom aside and give him some suggestions for making the scene better for her. Perhaps he would permit a demonstration on how to maximize her pleasure. Marc felt his cock come to life at the thought of working with this sub and her luscious curves. Shit. What was wrong with him tonight?
Slap!
More red stripes appeared across her upper thighs.
“Ow! Stop! …enough.”
Marc couldn’t make out all of her words. He became more alert.
“Don’t top from the bottom, pain slut. You know you wanted to be punished. You made me wait so damned long.”
Marc cringed. She didn’t appear to be loving anything about the scene, unless her pleas and tears were part of her kink. Hell, it was hard to tell with someone he didn’t know. He needed to check in with her, though, to make sure she wanted to continue. Marc turned off the intercom and slowly opened the door, slipping inside without a sound and keeping his distance as he tried to further assess her condition. Wrapped up in his scene, the Dom didn’t even notice Marc. He delivered two more sharp blows, this time to each of her tender inner thighs.
“Mio Dio! Stop!”
Italian? Well, shit.
Not taking time to analyze why that should make a difference to him as a dungeon monitor, because he wanted nothing to do with another sub, he motioned to get the Dom’s attention. Keeping his voice calm and low, he asked, “May I have a word with you a moment, Sir?” The man sighed heavily, but knew he had no choice but to obey a DM or DM supervisor. Not wanting the sub to overhear their conversation, Marc guided him to a corner of the room.
“I understand you’re both new to the club,” Marc whispered, “and I just wanted to make sure she understands about using her safe word.”
“She’s fine. She hasn’t used her safe word.” The Dom glanced away, making Marc suspicious as to whether he spoke the truth. “She just needs to get used to the flogger. This is her first time.”
Damn. Adam was right. But the Dom was riding her awfully hard for a first experience.
Marc noticed her feet straining on tiptoe because of how high he’d cuffed her hands on the cross. She clenched her fingers open and closed, as if trying to restore circulation. “I just came on duty. How long has she been on the cross?”
He looked at his watch. “About an hour. We reserved the room for ninety minutes.”
Faccia di merda. This asshole was a real piece of…work.
“I need to check in with her before you can continue this scene. Then you might want to consider providing some aftercare during the rest of the time you have in here. It’s pretty hard for a first-timer to have her body stretched and beaten like that for such a long time.
“She’s fine.” He ground the words out between his teeth. Now Marc understood why Adam was so worried about this couple. They’d both seen his type before. Thought he knew everything and wasn’t one to accept advice. Abusive, to boot.
“Excuse me.” Marc left him and walked over to the woman. The rules forbade him from touching her without her Dom’s permission, unless and until he put an end to the scene. He couldn’t see her eyes, but the blindfold was soaked from her tears. She sobbed quietly. Was she in subspace? This could be serious for such a novice, but he couldn’t really tell for certain until he saw her eyes.
Turning around to the man, he asked, “Permission to remove the blindfold and evaluate her condition?”
“I guess so.”
Marc reached up and pushed the loosely tied sash up to her forehead. He stood in front of her face, wishing he could cup her chin and brush the tears away. Focus. What the fuck had gotten into you? Would she follow his command?
“This is the Dungeon Monitor Supervisor. Look at me.”
Her eyes remained closed as she mumbled incoherently. No response. Damn. She was in too deep. Health concerns trumped no-touching rules. He pulled the flashlight from his pocket and lifted each eyelid in turn. Pupils unresponsive.
Shit.
“She’s in deep subspace. This scene is over.” Marc bent down and unbuckled her ankles as fast as possible.
“What’s deep subspace?”
Asshole bastard. Her Dom would be fucking clueless about how to bring her back down safely, even if Marc were willing to let him anywhere near her. Which he wasn’t.
He doubted these two would continue in the lifestyle together, but felt responsible for trying to explain the seriousness of this situation to Sir Asshole here, hoping to save the man’s next unfortunate partner from a similar fate where there might not be a DM with medic training nearby to rescue her.
Marc reached up to undo the clips that held her cuffed wrists to the cross. Her hands felt cold. As he worked to free her, he provided a lecture to the jerk. “For whatever reason, she didn’t say her safe word when she reached her limit. Experienced submissives might have subspace as a goal, but she’s too new to scening for that. Her mind disassociated from the pain when she could stand it no longer.”
Turning his attention back to the now whimpering woman, Marc wished she’d had her first experience with a Dom who knew what the hell he was doing. With me.
Now, where had that thought come from?
“She agreed to this.” The Dom went on the defensive and walked over to the dark leather loveseat in the corner to pick up a piece of paper that looked like the club’s contract.
Sorry, Sir Asshole, but read the fine print about my right to shut your scene down.
After the last cuff clip was undone, she moaned as he lowered her right arm from its over-stretched position. Her body collapsed into his waiting arms with a grunt, and he carried her to the loveseat.
Marc pulled an aftercare blanket from the nearby basket and wrapped her naked body in the micro fiber cloth to quickly bring up her body’s temperature. He covered her full breasts as quickly as possible, quashing an errant desire to bend down and take one of the delectable peaks into his mouth.
Shit. He hadn’t been this attracted to a woman since…well, a very long time. Why the fuck did she have to be Italian?
Marc held her tightly against him. So soft. Her curves molded against his body. His breathing hitched as his cock sprung to attention for the first time in a long while without the use of his fist.
Regaining some self-control, he continued his lesson for Sir Asshole. “Then the endorphins kicked in to the point where she could no longer engage her brain to make the decision to speak her safe word.” He glanced up at the man in time to watch him look away once more. Guilt? Maybe he should double check. “Did she speak her safe word?”
The man didn’t meet his gaze. “Well, I’m not sure…”
Goddamned bastard ought to be flogged himself—but with a cat-o-nine tails instead.
Sir Asshole moved toward the loveseat. “Here, I should be doing that…”
When he reached down, as if to wrest her away, Marc growled. Remembering him role, he forced himself to speak in his calm DMS voice, but in no uncertain terms. “Don’t touch her. If you want to learn how to administer aftercare properly, watch.” But don’t think I’m letting you put your fucking hands on her again as long as I’m here to stop you.
“I still have thirty minutes reserved on the room!” he wailed, waving the contract in his hand.
Obviously, he had no concern for her welfare. Marc knew there wouldn’t be any reasoning with the man—and no membership refund coming, either—but really wanted to get rid of this asshole so he could focus on the woman. “Go discuss it with Master Adam.”
When the wannabe Dom puffed out his chest and stomped from the room, slamming the door behind him, Marc texted Adam and told him what had happened in here—and that he should kick the sonuvabitch out of the club and ban him for life. Looking around the room and not seeing any bottled water, Marc sent another message, asking Adam to send over a bottle. As an afterthought, he added, “and a dark Hershey bar.”
Putting the phone beside him on the loveseat, he looked down at the gorgeous woman in his arms. Olive skin, dark hair. He remembered her eyes were a rich chocolate brown. Yeah, definitely Italian. His cock throbbed, surprising him yet again. He’d avoided Italian women for years. Too close to home. Too emotional. Too strong-willed.
Too much like Melissa.
Marc wiped away the hot tears still flowing from her eyes. “You did well, cara. Shhhh. Just rest now.” He kept his voice soft, soothing. Her body shook in response, or perhaps from chills. He pulled her head against his shoulder and laid his chin on the top of her head to keep more heat in her body. The scent of lavender surrounded him. “Shhhh. It’s over. You were so brave, cara,” he crooned.
He held her in his arms, for several minutes longer, savoring her weight in his lap, her delicious scent… Suddenly, her mind and body reintegrated.
“Accckkkkkk!” The woman screamed and fought him, trying to pull away, to escape the pain, the blanket, him. He knew the more she struggled, the more her back and ass would burn from the friction, so he took his hand and pressed her cheek against his chest to hold her still.
He needed to break through to her. What name had Sir Asshole called her? Oh, yes.
“Angie, lie still. You’re safe now.” He used a firm Dom voice, hoping to engage the sub’s instinctive desire to please.
Her nipple beaded to a hard point against the underside of his forearm. She moaned—definitely not from pain this time.
“Ahhhhh!”
Oh, shit.
The newbie sub was going to come. His more experienced submissives had been able to reach orgasm in subspace without his touching their clits at all. This one would probably need a little help, though. Hell, if she were his little sub, he wouldn’t hesitate to help her reach that level of satisfaction.
But she wasn’t his.
She grabbed his vest and moaned in frustration, tilting her hips upward as she sought release. His cock bobbed against her ass. Oh, hell. Why not? She’d earned some degree of pleasure after all the pain she’d suffered with Sir Asshole. Why not salvage something from the disaster that was probably her first scene? Maybe then she wouldn’t give up completely on exploring the submissive lifestyle with a responsible Dom someday.
With me.
Ignoring that stray and totally absurd thought, Marc’s hand slipped inside the blanket, seeking the folds of her pussy and what he knew would be an erect clit. She wouldn’t need much stimulation to fly apart for him.
No, he corrected himself. Not for him.
For her.
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