What About Love (Club Decadence Book 6) (7 page)

She heaved another sigh, this one of relief, ignoring his displeasure of the moment as she stretched her legs. Relief quickly turned into distressed whimpers, which became groans of discomfort as the blood started circulating once more. She wiggled her toes as she felt the prickling and painful sensation of pins and needles.

“Oo, oh… They hurt.” Her hands jerked in her cuffs, instinctively trying to get to her feet to rub. Thwarted, she stamped them on the floor, hoping it would bring some ease. The only thing it brought, however, was attention.

“That’s one very poorly trained sub you have there, Master Dan,” a woman seated next to them observed. “And, quite noisy.”

Angie’s head came up. The Domme, a small-boned blonde in her early forties, was dressed in red leather from her corset to her leather miniskirt, and all the way down to the tips of her five inch stiletto thigh-high dominatrix boots.

“This is only her second day, Lorraine. She’ll learn.”

“Not too quickly for your sake, I hope.” Her lips quirked as she gave Angie a thorough perusal from head-to-toe. As she did so, her hand idly fingered the handle of the whip coiled at her waist as if she was picturing teaching Angie a few lessons herself.

She swallowed audibly, dropping her gaze from the scary Mistress. That’s when she noticed the extraordinarily handsome man kneeling at her feet. Also fortyish, the male sub was ripped. Dressed in nothing more than a collar and loin cloth, his muscular physique was displayed beautifully, his skin glistening in the low light with what had to be a thin coat of oil. His pose was perfect, kneeling without a fidget or a muscle twitch.

Noticing her regard, his Mistress ran her hand through his dark hair, her red tipped fingers weaving through the waves at the back and curling into its thickness. She brought his head back so she could peer down into his very attractive face. More with the hair pulling; what the heck was that all about?

“You’d do well to observe my Deacon and learn from him, girl.”

Enthralled, Angie watched as the Domme lowered her head and brushed her lips over his, stroking her free hand down his cheek in a tender caress. Surprisingly, it was a loving gesture. As she watched them kiss, Angie realized what she was missing with Dan. There was no connection, no spark. It was like playing dress up with a friend, or worse, her older brother. She grimaced at the thought. Angie wondered if she would feel differently with someone she loved or at least desired, like this male sub obviously did his Mistress, responding eagerly—as his tented loincloth clearly proved—to her touch and attention.

When the Domme turned back to Dan, Angie noticed a slight tremor run through the sub, clearly conveying the amount of control he was exerting over his body. If she hadn’t been observing him so closely, she might have failed to notice, but she couldn’t miss the contented smile on his lips, or the way his eyes cut to Angie and the audacious wink he sent her way.

“Deacon and I are up next for the spanking bench, Dan, however, your girl needs it so much more. You play on through and teach her a lesson, while my sweet boy and I watch.”

“Obliged,” he murmured as he set Angie on her feet and rose behind her.

“Not at all,” Loraine demurred. “Deacon likes to watch, particularly newbies. Don’t you, baby.”

“Yes, Mistress. A novice’s tears when they feel the power of the paddle that first time is so sweet.”

“You sadist,” she cooed in approval.

“It takes one to know one, my love.”

As Dan led her away, Angie blinked in surprise. A sadistic submissive with a Mistress? That made no sense to her at all. What the hell had she gotten herself into?

Her Dom noticed her confusion and supplied, “They’re switches. Tonight is obviously Lorraine’s turn to top. Tomorrow might be Deacon’s, or not.”

“What?”

“They take turns. Although I think Deacon excels more as a top. You should see him wield a bull whip. He’s almost as good as Dex.”

“I’ll never understand all of this.”

“I’m not sure any of us do, totally. It’s how we’re wired, so we go with it. After a while, you won’t question it, just accept and enjoy the thrill of the unusual. That’s what keeps it so exciting.”

*****

She trembled, not from pleasure as so many of the other subs did tonight. Her tremor was from dread as Dan crouched in front of her and linked her cuffs to the hooks on the bench. When finished, with Angie firmly restrained and vulnerable, he didn’t stand right away.

His attention focused on her face, scanning it slowly until settling on her mouth. “Your eyes are as big as saucers, and if you don’t stop biting that lip, you’ll have teeth marks and bruises for days.”

“I don’t know if I can do this.” With her voice barely a whisper, he moved his head closer in order to hear.

“I’ll go gently, sweetness, but I’ll have to make it believable in LA, so we have to practice. You’ll feel heat and a sting, but I’ll leave no bruises or welts. I promise.” He cupped her chin and lifted her head so that his eyes, which were a very unique shade of silvery-gray, could meet hers. “If it gets to be too much, remember that yellow will slow it down and red will make it stop. Okay?”

“Yes, Sir.”

He angled his head closer and kissed her cheek. “You’re being very brave, Angie. I’m sorry to have to put you through this. It’s clear you’re vanilla and not enjoying yourself, but it will be all worth it when we shut down the fucker who’s been snatching submissives in LA.”

“I know. I’ll focus on that, Dan. Thank you for being so patient.”

“I’m honored to be entrusted with you, and will take the utmost care. Count on that.” His smile of reassurance flashed brightly in his tanned face, reminding her how good-looking he was. She tentatively returned it.

Standing, his hand squeezed her shoulder as he cleared his throat. “Now, we’ll have your session, moving on to the punishment you’ve earned, thereafter.” His voice had risen to include the crowd of spectators.

A progression of pictures flashed in Angie’s mind. Starting in math class when she was thirteen and Mr. Fitzmeyer made Miles Jenkins, the class clown, bend over his desk for a paddling while his seventh grade classmates looked on with unadulterated glee. Flashing forward to a college party she’d attended when someone had hauled out a paddle. What had ensued was a game of spin the bottle, but instead of kissing, the losers—or winners, depending how one looked at it—endured a round of spanks with the stereotypical wooden frat paddle with holes drilled in it.

From there the picture morphed into a jam packed movie theater and a rapt audience watching the spanking scenes from
Fifty Shades of Grey,
both the sexy and punishment ones
,
with titillated enthusiasm. And lastly, to the sub on the spanking bench not thirty minutes earlier who begged for more strokes of the lash. As it fell on her already bright red behind, the club members clamored eagerly for the best view of the spectacle taking place on the other side of the velvet ropes.

Ultimately, her mind conjured up an image of herself as she was now, strapped to a similar bench, but not here, rather, in the middle of the Colosseum in Rome as the lions closed in on all sides while the bloodthirsty hordes cheered them on.

She shook her head to clear that gruesome image, surely she was making a simple spanking into more than it was. And obviously, over the years, she’d forgotten what an impression—no pun intended—all the spankings she had witnessed had made. Clearly, it was more commonplace than she’d ever realized. And now, when it was her time to be on the receiving end, a little tremor of excitement shot through her.

“I’m going to warm you up with my hand first.” As Dan explained what was to come, his hand slid over her upturned bottom, slipping under the hem of her skirt and dragging it upward. “Following that, I’ll give you a taste of three implements, all beginner’s level, have no fear. To finish up, you’ll get twenty with the paddle for all that fidgeting and squirming earlier, and for not letting me know when you were feeling discomfort.”

“Um, I’m feeling discomfort right about now, Sir.”

Some of the onlookers heard and laughed at her newbie response.

“On a padded bench before you’ve had the first swat? I seriously doubt that is true, darlin’, besides any discomfort moving forward is intentional. Your knees hurting while on the floor and your feet falling asleep were unintended and your Dom needed to know that. This will be a reminder to be more forthcoming in the future.”

Without delaying any longer, his hand descended on her bottom as the warm-up began. Although mortifying to Angie, it was very tame compared to what she had witnessed others undergo. Given over her panties—skimpy as they were—it wasn’t all that bad, more than tolerable, in fact, and her bottom cheeks had become pleasantly warm and tingly by the time he moved on. Next came a dozen from a black suede flogger, also not bad, although he gave the final few strokes a bit more zing, which she discernibly felt through the thin lace barrier. Even more so when some of the tails collided with the bare skin of her lower cheeks.

He followed that by a dozen more from a nylon lash, consisting of a bundle of thin corded blue loops. Tensing for more of a bite, it surprised her by starting out as a caress. It was deceptively tame, however, lulling her falsely because by the time Dan got into a rhythm, it was landing with a thud, each blow making her grunt. Still, it wasn’t horrible.

He paused again, his big hand gliding over her tenderized bottom. She had to admit that felt nice. Just as she was relaxing into it and let out a muffled groan, he stopped.

“Maybe not so vanilla as I thought, eh?” He murmured low for her ears only while he patted one cheek. “This next one, probably won’t be as pleasant. The first two were sensual implements, intended mostly for play. This one, not so much, but it’s flexible and has quite a bit of give. A mild tool for minor offenses that still falls in the beginner category.”

She felt something smooth and firm rub over her warmed behind. Unsure what it could be, she glanced back.

“Eyes front, sub,” Dan ordered in a stern tone, as a resounding smack landed across both cheeks. With a yelp, she immediately obeyed.

This startled her. She had responded to his firm command without hesitation, as if by instinct, not once thinking about disobeying. He didn’t give her time to figure it out before he continued.

“You’ll get twenty and you’ll count every stroke. This is for your earlier misbehavior. Afterward, we’ll find a quiet corner to talk about your first trip over the spanking bench. Ready?”

She wasn’t, far from it, still trying to comprehend twenty swats on top of the good warming she’d already had. Then the first crack sounded and stinging heat exploded across her tender skin. There was a brief pause before Angie squealed, forgetting her role altogether.

“Oh my God, what is that?”

She was surprised when he held out a large round leather paddle the size of her head. No matter that Dan claimed it was a beginner’s punishment tool, it stung like the dickens.

“You call that mild? My ass is on fire.” That was when Angie realized the descriptor ‘mild’ had a wide breadth of connotations between a beginner and an experienced sadist. Foolishly, she told him that in no uncertain terms. “I believe there is a chasm as wide as the Grand Canyon between your definition of mild and mine… Sir.” She barely remembered to tack on the sir at the end.

A bare handed slap fell across her upper thigh, followed by Dan’s scolding words. “Curb that tongue or you’ll become acquainted with my definitions of moderate and severe before you’re ready for them, girl.”

Angie swallowed, her throat gone dry as a wave of approval swept through the observers. As a Dominant, he couldn’t let her sarcasm slide, she realized that. She also decided that Dan had missed his calling, he would have killed on Broadway the way he played to an audience.

“I beg your pardon, Sir. Please disregard the Grand Canyon remark.”

He laughed outright this time, as did the highly amused crowd. “Angie, my dear, you are precious and almost make me forget the task at hand. But soon, you’ll know the difference between a spanking for punishment and one given for pleasure. Mind you, that first swat didn’t count because you forgot to.”

Dutifully, she remembered to call out a number as the next stroke fell, and the next. By the time he’d administered five with the paddle, moving it all over her tenderized butt, she’d figured out the difference Dan had alluded to.

“Good girl,” he encouraged as Angie yelped out the numbers. She forgot on stroke number six and again on nine, so when she called ten, it was actually twelve in total. He paused there and she felt his hand cover her cheeks, one at a time.

“Nice and warm. You’re doing so well. Are you sure you haven’t been over a dominant’s knee before?” He laughed at the vehement shake of her head. “I ask because even though I’m going easy, many newbies would be in tears by now or begging my forgiveness and asking me to stop. I’ve had a few, not quite sure what to expect from the start, who screamed red at the top of their lungs at this point and were ready to go back to their vanilla world for good.” He patted her lace-covered cheek. “Not my intrepid, Angela. Pick up at eleven.”

She barely managed to keep up her count as the damnable paddle descended for another short set of five. It was certainly an effective measure for ending any sass or snarky remarks because it was all she could do to breathe, let alone blurt out a number, as her punishment continued.

“For the last five, the panties are coming down.”

Murmurs of appreciation behind her didn’t remind Angie she was being watched. She’d been fully cognizant of the observers the entire time, ever since he’d led her behind the velvet ropes. There had been a half dozen members lined up at the time. The number had doubled in the few seconds it had taken him to adjust the bench to his height. By the time she’d knelt on the padded knee rest, her black lace covered behind aimed at the spectators, they numbered four deep.

Approval, as well as excitement, rippled through the onlookers as he peeled down the lace. She felt cool air on her fiery cheeks and on the dampness that had trickled onto her inner thighs. Her face flamed with a heat equaling her ass knowing everyone would see she was aroused.