Dark Secret Love (23 page)

It was as if I were in one of those dreams, where you find yourself naked in a store window, and people point at you and stare. No, I wasn’t naked, but the bra and panty set didn’t provide me nearly as much coverage as I would have liked.

“You’ll feel better like this, won’t you?” he asked, as if he only had my best interests at heart.

Before I could answer Jack, he had moved on, now fastening that hateful leash to my collar, giving the coat check—dress check?—girl a wink, and dragging me along on those tottering heels behind him.

The crowd was made up of a mélange of hipsters. Mostly young, mostly dressed in dark colors, all looking as if you could cast them in an ad for some cool new vodka. When I looked around the room, I saw that Jack was the most out of place. He was older than many of the patrons by a good two decades, and he had on simple, expensive black attire. No rubber or vinyl or netting for Jack. But he moved as if he owned the place, his confidence so obvious, so attractive, that I knew that when people stared at him, it was in awe or lust, not condescension. He let the leash hang between the two of us, not keeping me tight at his side, but I worked to stay close by. I didn’t want to be caught up, twisted around other people.

I wanted to be next to my man.

Jack didn’t spare me a glance; he simply led me through the crowd to a corner of the room where a long, leather bench ran the length in both directions. I didn’t have to
be told not to sit at his side. I sat on the floor, my knees beneath me, my back arched, and Jack put one hand on my head, kindly stroking my hair as if I truly had become his pet.

The music was loud, as it had been in the club with Nathan, and the room was warm from all the dancing bodies. But as I looked around, I felt that I fit in. There were others in attire (or lack of attire) similar to my own. I saw collars and cuffs and a variety of toys on display. I actually started to relax.

Jack was hardwired into my emotions. How else would he know to act as soon as I began to feel comfortable? How else would he understand exactly when to strike in order to keep me off balance?

He bent down to whisper into my ear, “Choose your safeword.”

This wasn’t anything we’d talked about before. Jack read me so well that I put my trust totally in him. I didn’t ever think I’d want him to stop before he was ready. “It can’t be ‘No,’” he continued, “because sometimes ‘No’ doesn’t mean ‘No.’”

I nodded.

“It can’t be ‘Please,’ or ‘Stop,’ or anything that might come to your lips accidentally. You have to think of a special word, and then you have to tell it …”

I thought he was going to say “to him.” What other words would complete that sentence? But Jack was different. Jack was always three long strides ahead of me.

“You have to tell it to him.”

Jack motioned to a man standing nearby. Someone I hadn’t even noticed yet, my eyes busy roaming the crowd, looking for like-minded subs. This man was dressed in the part of the Dom. Leather pants. Tight black shirt. And
a crop in one hand. Did he know Jack? Were they friends? My mind raced faster than ever, whirling with possibilities. Jack owned a place in New York. I knew that. But I hadn’t considered that might mean he was a regular at clubs like this, clubs that catered to the darkest of sexual fantasies.

“Go on, now,” Jack hissed, tossing the handle of the leash to the man. “Make sure you tell him, Sam. He won’t stop otherwise.”

Oh god … oh, my fucking god … Had I thought Jack was kind for giving me panties to wear? Had I thought he was considerate for taking off those painful clamps and providing me with a bra? There was nothing kind in his blue eyes now. There was nothing considerate at all in his expression. It was as if he were a stranger.

The man tugged on the leash and I felt my heart stop. The collar was pulled tight on my neck, and I had no choice but to stand and follow or be dragged along behind. But dragged where? I turned my head, looking at Jack, pleading with my eyes, and felt a fresh wave of ice-cold panic when I realized he wasn’t even paying attention. Was he not going with me? Was he not going to come?

I wondered suddenly if this was another test. I understood now that I should have refused to kiss the waiter. I’d learned that much. Should I now refuse to let this man, this Dom, whip me, even if that was what Jack wanted?

I tugged back on the leash, using both hands, and the Dom stopped and turned, and I saw a smile on his face that I was entirely unprepared for. He came close and bent down low. “Spunk,” he said, “I like that. So many subs come along willingly, no heart at all.” His grip was like iron as he brought my wrists down from the leash and captured them easily behind my back. I was wrong to
think that Jack wasn’t paying attention, because there he was behind me, locking my wrists into place, making the concept of struggling that much more difficult.

Still, I wasn’t ready. I pressed back against Jack, pushing my body into his. I turned my head to look over my shoulder, meeting his eyes.

“Go, Samantha. Follow him.” His expression was stern.

“I will,” I said, my voice shaking, “If you want me to. But I need to know …”

He put up a hand, stopping the Dom from moving, and he turned me around to face him.

“You need to know what?”

I didn’t know how to phrase it. If this were a test, then I should be smart enough to figure it out myself. But was the test whether I would let another man punish me? Or was it whether I’d refuse, dig in my heels, and let all hell break loose? My heart sank. I couldn’t read Jack’s eyes. In total desperation, I went on my knees once more, not knowing what else to do. I wanted to curl up into a ball. I wanted to have a safeword to say to Jack so that he would let me know the answers to all my questions. To my undeniable relief, Jack bent down with me, in order to hear my voice, begging now, unsure, scared.

“Please, Jack …”

He stroked my hair. He lifted my chin.

“Are you disobeying me?” His eyes were warm now, but his voice was cold.

I shook my head.

“Go with him. I want to see what you look like when another man whips you. I want to watch. Do you understand that?”

I nodded.

“Will you do this for me?”

I nodded again and let myself be brought back to standing, let the man lead me to another room, understanding that Jack would be close by. That I would be safe. And that this was what he desired.

It was all I needed to know.

Jack followed after us. I was secure in the knowledge of his proximity. Maybe he would punish me later for this scene that was about to play out, but not because I had failed a test. Simply because punishing me made Jack hard.

The Dom never told me his name. He bound me in place in one of the back rooms, and then instructed me to address him as Master.

“Do you understand?”

“Yes, Master.” It sounded phony to me. A game. A play. Jack was Sir. No doubt. No hesitation. Yet I obeyed, for Jack.

“Your safeword.”

I’d been trying, working, to come up with something that would make sense. I understood what Jack had told me. Not
No, Stop, Don’t
, or
Please
. Still, it had to be a word that I could actually make myself say, not something silly, that would add to the oddness of this encounter. Not aardvark or tomato or Aerosmith.

“Uncle,” I ultimately whispered, remembering playing rough and tumble with my cousins every summer, torturing one another until one would finally call Uncle. That seemed okay to me, and the man, who might have had similar experiences in his youth, gave me an accepting nod.

“You are to thank me after each stroke.”

“Yes, Master.”

He moved to stand behind me, and fear flashed through
me once more. The sound level in the place became white noise, a background melody. I could only guess that this man was making me wait in order to further ratchet up my level of total insecurity. But then I saw, in a mirror on the wall, that he was talking to Jack. My own cruel man came forward, and with a flash of silver, my panties were cut from my body. I closed my eyes, and tried to find that place within myself where I can make everything all right. That safe place.

There was no word of warning before the whipping started. There was only the sound of my heart in my ears, and the sensation of the crop meeting my skin. And then Jack in front of me, pushing my hair from my face, staring at me, drinking in every emotion that flared through my dark brown eyes.

I flinched at the blows, my body tightening, then working to relax. “Thank you, Master,” I choked out. Every time. Brock and I had played a similar game way back when. Brock had liked to hear me thank him each time he brought his belt against my ass. So I was trained already, the only differences being the public quality of the location and the fact that it was a stranger cropping my naked skin and not someone who loved me.

But Jack wasn’t a stranger. Jack was in front of me, watching me, and his closeness gave me strength.

“Thank you, Master.” I spoke the words over and over again, thanking this dark Dom for hurting me, for giving me the pain that both Jack and I craved.

The Dom didn’t ask me to count. I don’t know how many stripes I took. I felt as if I were hovering above myself, free from the pain, watching from above. But finally, Jack gripped my face between both hands and whispered, “He won’t stop, kid. He’s like a machine. If
you think you’re going to outlast him, you’re wrong.”

I’ve always been the kind of person to take a dare, always the one who needs to prove my strength. In school, during those insane nationally sponsored physical-fitness tests, where the teachers had us hang from monkey bars while they timed us, I outlasted everyone by minutes, rather than seconds, hanging on until the teachers said to let go. I’m built small, but tough. And I felt as if I would be letting Jack down by giving in, even as the tears started to streak my cheeks, even as the skin on my ass and upper thighs began to throb, to shriek in protest.

“Say it, kid,” Jack urged, and I met his eyes, and said, “Thank you, Master.”

“Say it, Samantha,” Jack demanded, as the Dom behind me struck again. I sensed we had a small crowd around us now, but I didn’t turn my head away, didn’t even lift my eyes to the mirror to see.

The crop struck another blow. “Thank you, Master,” I murmured.

“Christ, Sam, tell him your safeword.” Jack didn’t know my safeword, and somehow this gave me a tiny spark of power. Was I topping from below? Had I gone over the edge? Jack had brought me here to teach me something, and clearly I was failing to learn the lesson at hand.

The crop sliced through the air. “Thank you, Master,” I parroted, my face glistening from the tears now, my voice barely audible. And then Jack did something that made me wetter than I’ve ever been. He moved his body to shield my own, covering me up with his own skin. I could feel his arms tight around me, his mouth against my ear. “Say it,” he insisted, and then his body tightened, and I understood that the Dom—not seeming to care who the
fuck he cropped—had let a blow land on Jack’s body. And then another. And another. Jack didn’t flinch, didn’t say a word to me now, he simply protected me.

And I couldn’t stand that.

“Uncle,” I said, loud enough, and the Dom dropped his weapon and Jack moved aside so that I could be released from the bindings. Jack took off his shirt and pulled it over my nearly naked body, then carried me through the crowd and out to the front of the club. Somehow, he slid me back into my dress. Somehow, he got us a cab, and I found myself curled in his arms, safe once more. Safe at last.

He took me back to the hotel that night, and he didn’t say a word during the whole cab ride or the trip up in the elevator—the purple one this time. He didn’t say I’d done well, didn’t say I’d failed him. I couldn’t tell his thoughts in any way by the manner in which he treated me. I felt meek, cowed, as he drew a bath for me in the cool ceramic tub and lit candles, tiny tea lights that I had bought on a whim. I am the type of person who believes food tastes better on a pretty plate. That atmosphere is almost as important as the main event. I’ve always been a fan of wearing sexy panties even if there’s no one there to see them—or in Jack’s case, no one there to cut them off. Jack understood this from the start.

He washed me in the tub and then let me relax alone. I heard him in the adjoining room, but I didn’t even try to make sense of the noises. Finally, Jack came back, right as the water was starting to cool, and lifted me up, dried me
off, wrapped me in a fresh towel, and led me back to the bedroom.

“Oh, god, Jack,” I whispered, hand going to my mouth, towel falling from my body. “I can’t …”

I was limp with release more than exhaustion, and I hadn’t thought of what the scene might have done to Jack. What he might want afterwards. What he might need.

But to paraphrase that famous Tom Cruise flick, Jack was on me from “I can’t”—this wasn’t an acceptable response, and we both knew it. Jack had a brand-new set of restraints on the bed, and he fastened them to my body quickly, leather ones that buckled on my wrists, then attached neatly to a set on my upper thighs. I couldn’t raise my arms up, couldn’t hide or protect myself in any way. But the restraints were not what had caused me alarm.