Seduced by Fire (15 page)

His Julie,
his grandmother’s words came back to him. But now he added his own:
his kitten
. “I do enjoy your rational side.”

Her eyes grew dark. “I’m sure if given enough time, you’d enjoy all my sides.”

“Trust me,” he whispered. “I plan to.”

She sank deeper into his arms. “Can I think out loud for a bit?”

“Of course.”

“Sasha said she thinks Peter wants to collar her. I guess I’m just worried for some reason. She’s never had a collar before.”

He ran a finger along her neck, unable to stop himself from picturing her wearing his collar. “For me, it signifies the bond between Dominant and submissive. When I have a collared submissive, it represents my commitment to her, and hers to me. I would hope it holds the same meaning for Peter and Sasha.”

She was silent. He imagined she was thinking about Sasha. As far as he knew, Peter had never collared anyone before. His own thoughts were so focused on Peter and Sasha, her next question surprised him.

“How many submissives have you collared?”

His finger dropped from her neck. “Three.”

“Is that a lot?”

“I was too young when I collared the first. Didn’t know enough to know what I didn’t know. I waited a few years before the second. We were together the longest, but she moved away. Job promotion.” He paused, remembering her words that she couldn’t pass up the opportunity. It wasn’t until later he realized it was for the best. “The third wanted something more permanent than I was willing to offer. We went our separate ways two years ago.”

“I’m not sure if that’s a yes or no to my question.”

“I’m not sure there is a yes or no to your question.” He twirled a strand of her hair around his finger. “Some Doms have more, some less. Some have more than one.”

“Would you? Have more than one?”

“No.” He gave her hair a tug. “That wouldn’t work for me. When a submissive wears my collar, I want all my attention and care dedicated to her. I’ve never been one to share my affections.”

“Yet you haven’t collared anyone in two years.”

He had not. He hadn’t found anyone he wanted to collar. Not from lack of offers. Several submissives in the group had subtly expressed their interest. His response had always been a kind but firm no.

That was all before Julie, though.

“No, not in two years,” he said. “To echo what a smart woman told me earlier, perhaps I’ve just been waiting for the right person.”

F
or Julie, the next two weeks were some of the happiest she had ever experienced. She spoke with Daniel every day and they met for lunch several times a week. Friday nights were spent in his bed and Saturday in his playroom.

She looked forward to that time in the playroom, when she became his and he introduced her to the pleasure to be found under his control. On her knees waiting for him to instruct or tease her, she discovered she never felt more at ease. It seemed the world and all its problems floated away at the sound of his command or the touch of his hand.

Thursday night she was at home, researching new distributors for the floral shop business, when a knock on the door interrupted her.

Puzzled, she got up and looked out the peephole.

Daniel.

She unlocked the door with a huge grin on her face. “Hey, you.”

“I hope you don’t mind me stopping by.” His smile was easy and light.

“Come in,” she said. “Is everything okay?” It occurred to her maybe something had happened to his grandmother, but surely he wouldn’t be smiling so if that were the case.

He followed her into her living room, shrugging out of his coat and draping it casually over his arm. “Everything’s fine. I was just hanging out at home when something hit me.”

“Sit down.” She waved to her couch. “What hit you this time of night?”

He glanced at his watch. “Nine o’clock. It is a bit late. I’d apologize, but I’m not sorry at all.”

She loved the way he could combine a gentle tease with the honest truth. “I never said I wanted an apology. Unless, of course, you want to apologize for not stopping by this time of night before.”

He cupped her face and gave her a soft kiss that whispered of more buried just under the surface. “Trust me, kitten. If I didn’t have to be at work so early, my nights wouldn’t be spent jerking off to fantasies of you. They’d be spent with my cock inside you in any way possible.”

Damn, what he could do to her with a few softly spoken words. Just like that, he could make her visualize everything he said. And more than that, make her want it.

But instead of moving forward, he pulled back. “Before I forget why I came here, the group meeting is tomorrow night.”

Due to their schedules, time together beforehand would be limited. He would be picking her up right after she closed the shop and they’d drive to the meeting, where she would be seen by most people in the group as Daniel’s submissive. Afterward, she would spend the night with him and in his bed, and she would once more act as his submissive.

She couldn’t wait.

“I brought you a little something,” he said. “Thought it might be a good idea for you to have it for a while beforehand. Get used to it.”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a red bracelet.

•   •   •

D
aniel left not long after giving her the bracelet. She tried to convince him to stay, but he insisted he had to get up early for work and promised he would make up for it the following night. She watched the taillights of his car disappear and then turned off her computer, knowing there would be no more researching distributors in her current state of mind.

The red band dangled from her fingers and she spun it around, taking in what it meant. The following night she would put it on and attend a meeting where it would identify her as a submissive. Not only that, but she would show up with Daniel and everyone would know she submitted to him. When she spoke to him, she would have to address him as “Master Covington.”

The thought made her knees wobble and she dropped into a chair.

“Master Covington,” she said out loud, to test the words. She found she liked them a lot.

She took the band and slipped it over her wrist. The red looked so vivid against her skin. No one would have any trouble seeing it. Probably wouldn’t be a good idea to wear it to work; she’d never noticed Sasha wearing hers. But she decided she’d wear it to sleep.

She’d just taken the bracelet off to shower when her phone rang.

Probably Daniel.

But an unknown number flashed on the display. She answered with a frown. “Hello?”

“Julie Masterson, please,” someone said, speaking over a large amount of background noise.

“This is Julie Masterson.”

“Ms. Masterson, this is Hope from Northeastern General Hospital. You’re listed as the emergency contact for Sasha Blake.”

She pressed a hand against the wall to steady herself.
Sasha.
“Is she there? Is she okay?”

“She’s been admitted and is currently listed as stable.”

“I’ll be right there. Where’s she at?”

“In the Emergency Department, waiting for a room.”

Julie whispered thanks and hung up with trembling hands. She had to get to the hospital. Where were her keys? She fumbled in her purse, repeating over and over again that Sasha must be okay, because the caller said she was stable.

It wasn’t until she was halfway to the hospital that she remembered Sasha had said she was spending the evening with Peter.

•   •   •

T
hey’d moved Sasha to a room by the time Julie made it to the hospital. Running around, first to the ER and then up to the floor to Sasha’s room, left Julie feeling harried and even more upset. Turning the last corner, she stomped to the room they told her Sasha was in and took several deep breaths to calm herself before pushing the door open.

It took her eyes a few minutes to adjust to the dim light and when they did, they settled on the blanket covering the fragile-looking bundle in the middle of the bed. Sasha. But her positioning looked odd and it took Julie a second to realize it was because she was on her stomach.

Julie wondered for the two hundredth time what had happened. She tiptoed forward, unable to tell if her friend slept or not.

“Sasha?” she whispered.

The bundle shifted slightly. “Jules?”

She rushed forward and stopped only when she saw Sasha’s red-rimmed eyes and wet cheeks. “What? What happened?”

A silent sob shook through Sasha’s frame and she hissed in pain. “I can’t . . . not yet . . . just sit with me?”

Without saying anything, Julie took her friend’s hand and sat in the chair beside the bed.

Julie was there for hours, but she didn’t sleep at all. It seemed like nurses were in and out of the room every hour, checking blood pressure, seeing if Sasha needed pain medication, and one time asking Julie to step outside while they changed dressings. Still no one told her what had happened and every time the nurse left, Sasha faked sleep.

Even with every imagined reason she came up with for why Sasha was in the hospital, she was unprepared for the two police officers who knocked and entered the room at six o’clock the next morning. She was even less prepared for the person she saw entering behind them.

She stood up. “Daniel?”

He didn’t look shocked to see her; he looked resigned. Nodded in her direction. “Julie.” Then he breezed past her and bent down to talk to Sasha. He whispered, but standing so close, Julie couldn’t help but hear. “Tell them what happened in as much or as little detail as you want. Press charges if you wish. Just know that, regardless, this
will
be handled.”

What the hell happened?

“Ma’am,” one of the officers said to Julie. “Can you step outside? We need to speak to your friend alone.”

She jerked a thumb toward Daniel. “Does
he
get to stay?”

“No.” Daniel put a hand on her shoulder. “Let’s wait outside.”

She slipped out of his grasp and stomped to the door. Angry tears threatened to spill from her eyes and she steeled herself. She would not cry.

When the door closed behind him, she spun to face him. “Will you tell me what the fuck is going on and what the hell you’re doing here?”

He raised an eyebrow. “She didn’t tell you?”

“Don’t answer my question with a question.”

“I think it best she tell you herself. It’s not my place. I’m here because Peter called me.”

She’d come to the realization Peter was involved around two o’clock in the morning. Nothing else made sense.

“I knew that piece of shit was involved. Where is the asshole?”

He leaned close and whispered, “I’m going to give you five seconds to drop the attitude and clean up the language.”

She crossed her arms. “Don’t even think about pulling—”

His hand clamped around her wrist. “Best decision you can make right now is to not finish that sentence. I understand you’re upset. I’m upset. But Sasha needs your support, probably for longer than you realize, and your outbursts aren’t going to help.”

Three deep breaths and she bit back the response dancing on her tongue. “Maybe I could be supportive if I knew what happened.”

He shook his head. “It’s best you hear it from her.”

She wiped her eyes. Damn tears. “I’ve been sitting by her bed listening to her gasp in pain every time she moves the wrong way and you have the nerve to stand there and not tell me what happened?”

He closed his eyes and sighed. When he looked at her again, his expression was flat. “The short version is, Peter took a scene too far and used equipment he had no business using.”

She didn’t understand. “Did she use her safe word?”

He pursed his lips into a line. “He didn’t give her a way to safe word.”

Shock, then rage, coursed through her body. How could something like that happen? “You knew this and you had the nerve to tell me to watch my language? Just wait until I get my hands on him, I’ll rip his—”

He took her shoulder, guided her down the hall, and spoke through clenched teeth. “Watch it. Last warning.”

He led her to a private waiting area and nodded to a chair. She sat. He stood before her, arms crossed, looking down at her.

“Did I or did I not tell you that nothing happens to a submissive without their consent?” He held up a hand when she tried to speak. “I’m not saying Peter is blameless. I’m just saying Sasha isn’t either. She should have never started the scene.”

Julie didn’t quite know what to make of that. But after a few minutes, she did remember that he had always said she was the one who decided how far they went. Then it started to make sense. “I still don’t know exactly what happened.”

“Sasha will tell you when she’s ready.”

He wasn’t going to tell her. Even so, she still had plenty of questions she could ask him. “What did you mean when you told her it’d ‘be handled’?”

His eyes grew cool, colder than she’d ever seen. Something inside them scared her. “You remember asking me what happens when a Dom in our group violates a sub’s hard limit?”

She remembered him saying an over-the-knee spanking would seem like a reward. She nodded.

“I suppose,” he said, “it’ll be a lot like that.”

•   •   •

T
he policemen had left by the time Julie collected herself enough to make it back to Sasha’s room. Unable to feign sleep any longer, her friend was sitting up and eating. She gave Julie a wary smile and set her spoon down.

“Daniel leave?”

“Yeah, said he had things to take care of.” Like letting everyone know the meeting had been postponed to another week. Just as well, she supposed; she doubted anyone would be in the mood.

“He tell you?”

Julie sat down in the chair she’d spent the night in. “Not much of anything. He said it would be better coming from you.”

Sasha looked past her, tears still in her eyes. She pushed the breakfast tray away. “It started out so wonderfully. Peter said he was ready to collar me, wanted to know if I felt the same. I said ‘of course’ and we agreed to make it official at the meeting.”

Sometimes, Julie remembered Daniel saying, couples would have a collaring ceremony, often following a group meeting. It had made her curious at the time, wondering if her relationship with Daniel would ever progress to that point. She’d fantasized what it would be like to have him place his collar on her. Unbidden, her hand stroked her throat.

“He said that to celebrate he’d like to try something new and I agreed.”

“Did you ask what it was?”

“No, but we’d gone over our checklists. He knew my limits.” Her fist tightened, tangled in the sheet. “I trusted him.”

The door opened and a nurse’s aide nodded to the tray.

“Take it,” Sasha said. “I’m not hungry.”

Julie decided it probably wouldn’t be a good idea to tell her she really needed to eat. Food wasn’t going to help Sasha’s gaunt look.

“Anyway,” Sasha continued, once the door closed. “He gagged me.”

Unable to help herself, Julie shivered. She recalled the gags in Daniel’s playroom. They didn’t look fun.

Sasha didn’t notice or acknowledge her shiver. “Always before when I’ve been gagged, I’ve been given a bell. To drop or ring as a safe word. Peter didn’t give me anything. I knew better, but I . . .” She shook her head.

Just like Daniel had said.

“You what? Why wouldn’t you say something?”
Make me understand,
Julie wanted to say,
why you would deliberately ignore one of the first rules Daniel taught me.
The one he made sure she remembered every time they started.

“Look, I know it was stupid, but at the time, it was like I was high or something. I was going to wear his collar. I wanted to please him. I thought he would be able to tell how I felt. I remember thinking it was so touching he knew me so well, we didn’t need safe words anymore.”

No, that wasn’t touching, Julie wanted to say; it was stupid. But she refrained. Sasha hadn’t even known Peter that long.

“He has chains suspended from his ceiling. That’s where he bound me. We’d done it before. I enjoyed it. This time, he decided to blindfold me, too.”

Julie recalled being blindfolded and bound. She’d liked it. Aside from the gag, part of her understood where Sasha was coming from.

And that scared her.

“He started with a flogger. One of my favorites, but it takes me a while to reach subspace.” She looked at Julie with a raised eyebrow.

“Yes.” Julie nodded. “I know what it is, just not by experience.”

Subspace, that mysterious feeling submissives craved. The place a Dominant could take them that felt so good, it almost became addictive. The state where a rush of endorphins sent a submissive into a trancelike frame of mind so deep, pain was nearly nonexistent. She’d longed for the day she could experience it firsthand.