Mutual Release (6 page)

“You can’t call me that anymore,” he said simply, running his thumb across her mouth, letting his fingertips trace her neck down to the tops of her breasts. “Not if I give you what you want, that is.”

She closed her eyes and the lusty odor that oozed around them made him bite back a gulp. When she opened them again, their clear message pierced him right in the gut. She bit her lip, dropped her gaze immediately. He cupped her breast through the thin silk of her shirt. She kept her distance, let him flick his fingertips across her nipple and then continue down, never taking her eyes from his. When he reached the lower edge of her short skirt, she shifted, and he knew she was seconds from orgasm. “Sir,” she whispered, her voice hoarse as she gripped the boxes on either side of her and planted her feet further apart. “Please, sir, I need… oh…”

He kept his distance, but because she said it – called him “Sir” without his prompting her – he decided to give her a small taste of what he could do. He let his hand drift up under her skirt, found the damp fabric of her panties. Without preamble or warning or breaking their eye contact, he slid his finger against her bare, moist flesh with a distinct purpose.

She dropped her head back. Evan stepped into her space, gathered her long thick hair in his free hand and tugged hard, making her groan just as he dove into her mouth with his tongue and pushed high inside her as her body flexed and pulsed around his fingers. She shuddered, but kept her hands off of him. Admirable, and with a nice hint of just how submissive she already was.

As abruptly as he started, he stopped. Releasing her hair, he took his hand out from under her skirt, watching as she continued to shiver. The only noise was their breathing. The only light came from behind the stacks of wine cartons. But the smell, the intoxicating aroma of healthy, mature female desire made his head spin and his body start to shake. He put his fingers to his lips and sucked on them, tasting her, as she slumped against the boxes. He pulled her in, sensing her need for contact. She let out a long, shuddering sigh against his chest.

“I knew there was something about you I really liked,” she muttered.

He allowed himself a second to press his aching, denim-covered cock against her. Then he let go. She stood, running a hand through her gorgeous thick hair which he could not wait to get his hands on again. “So,” he said, leaning back. “Tonight. I think we need to explore this a little more.” He sidestepped as she moved towards him. “No. I’ll let you know when you can touch me, Caroline. Don’t forget that.”

She lowered her eyes again, clasped her hands in front of her, and spoke to the floor. “Forgive me, Sir. I… I’m… I need this so much. I’ve missed it.” She flicked her gaze up, then away when he frowned at her. “After I rejected Damian, I was afraid you wouldn’t want me.”

Evan’s ears buzzed at her words. He tilted her chin up so he could look into her eyes. “Damian tried to…?”

She jerked away, wouldn’t meet his stare. “He did. Pretty much the first week you guys were here. But I made it clear I wasn’t interested in him that way. Or any way, really.”

Evan watched as her eyes clouded over. “He’s… overwhelming.”

She shook her head. “He’s a jerk. Who is over-compensating by acting like… like…” A tear quivered on the ends of her lashes. Evan touched it, put it to his lips. His head ached with only slightly repressed memories, quick flashes of imagery – Damian, dressed head to toe in black, the white-blond of his hair a beacon in a dark room. He was fond of the bullwhip, the ball gag, and hard metal cuffs. He liked to bring pain, tears, even blood, before walking away from more than one sobbing female, a satisfied smirk on his face.

Evan never said anything, figuring it was none of his business. Everyone was encouraged to take what they needed from the experiences, as long as rules were followed. Besides, he had his own skill set to learn. It took almost one hundred percent of his energy these days to master his own knee-jerk reactions to the many scenes of bondage, domination, and sadomasochism that had bombarded him for the last few weeks.

“Shh, Caroline, it’s okay. I won’t let him have you,” Evan declared, meaning it more than he had ever meant anything. While he had a lot to learn, he knew one thing: he was going to spend a very pleasant summer with his very own submissive, learning his way around the quirks in his own personality. “I mean it. Look at me.”

She did, and what he saw in her eyes he would never forget, no matter how many years came between this moment and his ultimate destiny. Trust, utter and complete, was reflected in her deep gaze. She would let him do what he wanted, as long as he protected her. Something in him rose up then, took wings, and his brain nearly burst with understanding – he was being entrusted with something more valuable than the mere ability to get a girl off. That part was easy. What he had finally found was the nugget of motivation for his newfound Dom – a sub who would give over to him body and soul in exchange for the sort of guardianship she craved and couldn’t find anywhere else.

Squaring his shoulders and trying not to grunt when his cock got hard again so fast it made him dizzy, he smiled at her. She smiled back. “Tonight,” she said, kissing his cheek then looking away. “Sorry. I couldn’t help myself.”

“It’s fine,” he said, amazed at this entire situation but ready to embrace it. He cupped her face with one hand. “But tonight we will see how far you are willing to go. Something tells me you aren’t new to this.”

She shook her head, eyes alight once more with anticipation. “No. But my first experience was good. He was a good man, a great teacher. I moved away, came here because I needed the job. So he released me.”

Evan nodded, still trying to parse how this astounding woman was about to submit to him. “How old are you?” he asked.

“Twenty-eight, Sir,” she said, closing her eyes and leaning into his hand.

“Hmm… Could spoil me,” he whispered, already getting the scene for tonight set in his head. Ropes, he thought, leather corset and shoes for her, blindfold, and the spanking bench. He gritted his teeth as the urge to orgasm without even being touched nearly blinded him in his tracks. “You know how old I am, Caroline?”

“No. And I don’t care. Sir.”

“Good.” He stepped away from her. “Let’s finish the workday. Let me know if you need help with the program again. Otherwise I’m gonna go over to the brewery and talk with those guys about our plan and see if they can increase their output.”

The shift away from the overtly kinky sexual to all-business made her blink. But she recovered fast. He grinned, watching her sashay back through the warehouse.
Hell yes,
this is gonna be fun.

Chapter Six

Evan rushed through his day, at least mentally, keeping his movements steady, with purpose, and completed all of his tasks without speaking to anyone else. He worked hard, lifting, moving, shifting boxes and in general exhausting himself so he could keep his focus. His nights at the club were always best if his body was teetering on the brink of collapse from physical exertion.

When he pulled into the driveway, having safely avoided Damian who’d been out making deliveries all day, his heart sped up at the sight of the boy, sitting with Olivia in the swing on their front porch. Damian had one arm around her shoulders and was whispering in her ear. Evan gripped the steering wheel, saw her flush red and giggle and turn her lips up to meet his for a kiss.

A roaring fury so visceral he could taste it on the back of his tongue forced him out his car and up the steps. His inner, mature Dom urged him to be calm, to stop and think. He shoved that annoying bastard out of the way in favor of the innate brother–protector and blurted out the first thing he’d been thinking when he saw them all cuddled up together. “You know what he does with other girls, right?”

Damian turned his face away from Olivia’s slowly, as if bored yet amused at Evan’s outburst. Olivia frowned at him, folded her legs up close to her body. “Shut up, Evan. You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she insisted, snuggling further into the other boy’s side.

“Olivia.” He kept his voice firm, hoping she’d respond to it, praying she would, because a new sort of terror was enveloping him, making it hard to breathe. His sister was in the clutches of a devil. The worst sort of devil – the kind masquerading as an angel.

He knew he owed Damian for exposing him to the sort of lifestyle he’d likely never have found on his own. The sexual fetish had finally stilled the disquiet Evan had sustained for the last few months. But he would be damned if he’d surrender his sister to him. Damian would hurt her, badly. And there was no way in hell Evan would allow that to happen.

He watched, as if from a distance, as he reached out, grabbed his sister’s stick-thin arm and yanked her up. Damian stayed seated, arm draped across the back of the swing, moving it back and forth a little with his foot. His cold eyes held a whole lot of fake innocence.

The fear flushed out of Evan’s brain, leaving a space suffused to every corner with rage. “He is an animal, Olivia. A man with the worst sort of urges. He… gets off on… hurting… women.” Evan’s face flushed.

He watched Damian raise one eyebrow. The words he didn’t say:
“Oh really. And what do you do with them, mate? Seduce them by playing board games?”
nearly deafened Evan with their unspoken truth.

“Fuck.” He let Olivia go, stumbled away, unable to catch his breath. What had he done? What did he think he was? How could he be anything but the same damn thing as the man-shaped evil sitting on his porch, ready to defile his sister, if he got off on hurting women too?

He yanked the front door open, hands over his ears to quell the howling guilt and ran up the steps. After nearly an hour standing under the hottest water possible, he scrubbed his skin raw and emerged, flesh red and stinging, ready to cancel the night’s adventure with Caroline. He had zero business messing with her – with any of them. It was sick, wrong, and he had to stop. He leaned on the vanity, unwilling to meet his own eyes in the mirror.

Images dashed across his brain: Damian, all in black again, wielding that vicious whip and a cold smile, flicking it against the pale skin of a naked, thin female secured to a St. Andrew’s Cross while Evan was forced to watch. His entire body trembled. He had to quit this now, before he lost himself and his sister forever. He tugged on jeans – not what he had planned to wear – not the dressy trousers, fitted white dress shirt and tie he always wore on his nightly forays into sexual depravity.

The phone in his room rang. Without thinking, he answered. “Yes?”

“Sir?” Caroline’s voice was breathy, and made him wince with a combination of lust and agony at his dilemma. “I’m washed, dressed and ready, and looking forward to our night together. Will I see you soon?”

He ground his teeth when his cock pressed against his zipper at the sound of her voice. His hands curled into fists. He could already feel her flesh, taste her, smell her, see her bound and exposed, her ass red from the flogger.

“Yes. Thirty minutes. Don’t wear panties.” He hung up after getting her address. “God damn it,” he muttered and sat, head in his hands. Self-justifications flickered through his brain. It wasn’t just hurting women that did it for him. He never, ever, did more than they wanted. There had been a few new girls trying on the sub role who’d used their safe word nearly immediately with him, leaving him wholly unsatisfied. But he respected it. But the last time they were there, just a few nights before, he had heard the club manager telling Damian in no uncertain terms that if he went too far again, made his sub scream her safe word over and over before stopping, he would be banned.

He picked up his belt, gripped it so hard his fingers started to ache. There was no way he could
not
do this – now that he had Caroline the entire summer all to himself. Unable to halt the roiling in his gut, the nauseated feeling of helplessness at his own weakness and inability to just stop, he smacked his bare back with the leather. He winced, bit his lip, then did it again, and again, thinking to beat out the demon he must harbor – the one who could not achieve orgasm anymore, not even at his own hand, unless he had a kneeling submissive woman at his feet. There had to be something seriously wrong with him, considering the fact there was no way he was going to skip tonight with Caroline.

A knock on his door made him jump. “Hang on,” he muttered, stripping out of jeans and pulling on dress slacks. He grabbed a freshly ironed shirt and shoved his arms into it, surprised when the sting of the welts he’d raised on his own skin made him shiver with something resembling pleasure. The pain soothed him, and sent his libido back into the corner, quiet for the time being. “What?” he said, already mentally distancing himself from whatever family member was going to try and placate him.

Olivia slipped into his room, her hazel eyes dark, her lips swollen from activity Evan did not want to contemplate.

“Go away. I have a date. I’m late already.” He stuck his wallet in his pocket and stood staring at her, trying not to pull her into an embrace, to soothe the anxiety out of her gaze.