“You knew I was out of town. I relaxed that rule long ago. You don’t need my permission to go anywhere safe.”
“But this slave concealed the circumstances from her Master. This slave committed a lie of omission, Master.”
He hated it when Loren went full-on slashy-speak formal. It was fine in a scene, but in a case like this, where this was more than just about their M/s dynamic, it felt…wrong.
And yet he couldn’t bring himself to order her up off her knees to discuss it as equals, either. Loren was no shrinking violet. There’d been plenty of things over the years she’d gone toe-to-toe with him about as his wife and partner, not as his slave.
The few times she’d met him like this, she felt she’d earned the punishment. More accurately, she needed it, wanted it for whatever reason.
She still hurts.
Well, of course she did. Not only the sudden baby explosion amongst their friends likely adding to her angst, but Tilly’s breakdown over her infertility, and Loren was suffering from those old emotional wounds all over again.
And Loren was now well past the chance of any surgery helping her ever become a mother. She’d accepted her fate years ago, even though he’d tried several times to gently coax her into trying.
She couldn’t face the potential failure, another slap in the face, a painful reminder of what had happened to her that night. For her, it was less painful to give up than it was to face repeated loss before accepting the inevitable, and he couldn’t fault her for it.
He also didn’t feel right about punishing her for this, but knew if she thought she needed punishment, she wouldn’t feel right about accepting a pass, either.
Especially when she considered it such a grave infraction that she felt she’d earned fifty with a cane.
Maybe I can logic my way out of this.
Honestly, the thought of giving her fifty cane strokes for this, when she was only protecting him and what he was sure she’d deduced he’d done, based on her reaction, made him sick at heart. It felt like victimizing her a second time.
“Why should I punish you when you followed my orders not to speak about that, until just now when I amended my order? You didn’t disobey me.”
She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it. Tears spilled from her eyes, down her cheeks. All he wanted to do was drop to his knees in front of her, pull her into his arms, and hold her. Soothe her conscience.
And he knew she didn’t want that. Not now. Not yet. If she felt she needed to be punished, she was never happy unless she received that punishment. She felt like she was disappointing him, no matter how much he’d told her otherwise. It was always easier to give her the strokes and let her feel happy about it, able to erase her mental slate instead of her obsessing about it.
“This slave spoke to someone else about what happened, Master. This slave was ordered never to speak about it.”
He slowly bent over and picked up the cane, flexing it in his hands. “Technically, you didn’t speak about it. To the best of your abilities, you answered her questions, mostly without even lying.”
“This slave didn’t give Master the opportunity to rule on it before doing so. This slave should have told Master upon the first contact.”
Logic. You’re a fucking attorney. You can twist shit six ways to Sunday.
“Have I ever given you any rules prohibiting you from going places at will under your best judgment since I relaxed that original rule?”
“No, Master.”
“Have I ever given you any orders prohibiting you from talking with people in general on the Internet, Facebook, phone, or elsewhere?”
“No, Master.”
“And what was part of the original order that I gave you that night?”
Now she looked confused. “This slave doesn’t understand, Master.”
“You got the first part. What was the second part?” Well, technically it hadn’t been an order. It had been their agreed upon story.
She struggled to come up with the answer. “About how we spent the night, Master?”
“Good girl. And what did you tell Melody Axlerod about how we spent that night?”
She swallowed. “That you came over around seven, spent the night with me, and left the next morning. That’s when I saw the TV reports about—”
“So you did follow my orders.”
“But Master told—”
“I told you what to say if others asked you about that night, did I not?”
“Yes, Master.”
“Did I prohibit you from talking to people who asked you about that night?”
“No, Master, but—”
“Did you not follow those orders I gave you, exactly as I gave them to you?”
“Yes, Master.”
He walked around her, stopping behind her, staring at her back. Trying not to remember the horrible bruises in the shapes of large hands that she’d had for over a week after that night.
Marks he hadn’t put on her.
Now, she loved staring at marks he put on her, twisting around to look in the mirror to see them, the smile on her face as she ran her fingers over them.
Knowing she loved them because she’d consented to them, that they were marks of love, of ownership.
Of safety and trust.
He swallowed back the bile in his throat at the memory of how he’d smelled after getting gas and whiskey on him when he’d splashed it on their clothes, the sound of the whump as he’d tossed the match through the open car window before walking around to the back of the car. How he’d shoved the trunk, hard, rocking the car and knocking it free of the jack holding it off the ground, the rear wheels spinning, the car in gear and the cruise control set.
The scream one of the men let out from inside the car as he came to just as it was going over the edge of the embankment. Ross had left an open pack of cigarettes and a book of matches in the car, just in case. The open gas can in the trunk would look like it spilled in the wreck.
An unfortunate coincidence.
Blinking the memory away, he returned to his living room, studying his beautiful wife, his perfect slave.
The love of his life.
His soul mate.
The woman he’d die for.
The woman he’d killed for.
He couldn’t fix what had happened to her. All he could do was make it right. And, for years, he’d thought he had.
Until today.
Although, fortunately, it looked like there wouldn’t be any other questions.
“So,” he continued, “if you only told her the story I told you to tell, and you didn’t mention it to me when I’d told you not to, how, exactly, did you earn fifty strokes when you didn’t disobey me in any way?”
Her shoulders slumped. “Because I sought advice from someone else before I talked to her, Master,” she quietly admitted.
The chill returned. “Who?”
“Sully.”
Aaand an immediate wellspring of relief filled him.
If there was anyone he trusted to hold a confidence, it was that man. Sully wasn’t just a friend, he was adopted family. They’d been friends for over a decade.
“What, exactly, did you tell Sully?” Ross asked.
Her head bowed. “I told him what those fucking monsters did to me, Master.”
Whew. She’d finally dropped out of slashy speak and was showing some emotion. “Anything else?”
“I told him about Melody Axlerod contacting me. Showed him an old article about the accident, and about the memorial. I asked him what he thought I should do.”
“What did he say?”
“That I should talk to You.”
Aaaaand, we’re back.
He knew he wouldn’t get out of this without giving her a caning. But now he could issue her a far more appropriate punishment, one that would satisfy her, and be enough to rev his sadistic motor without taking it too far or making him sick to his stomach.
He was a sadist, not an abusive assho
le.
“What’s my rule about punishment strokes?” he asked after letting her sweat it out for a moment.
“You always have the final say.”
“That’s right. Ass over the chair.”
She rose in one fluid movement and walked over to the large chair that sat at the end of the coffee table, the match to the sofa. One of the reasons they’d picked the set in the first place, because when she knelt over it or the sofa, it put her in the perfect position to be fucked or spanked.
Or, in this case, caned.
He wavered, trying to decide. “Ten strokes,” he said. “Count.” He sliced the first one, hard, across her ass before she’d even finished settling into position. He wanted her off-guard and unable to even think about arguing with him over it.
“One, Sir…”
He didn’t make them easy on her, either. One almost drew blood, but all of them raised welts across her pale flesh and would leave marks. He was careful to place them so every stripe would be visible, none of them hidden by the others.
And by the time he laid the tenth one across her ass, she was sobbing.
He put the cane on the coffee table, his cock now painfully hard. He gently turned her around and she started fumbling at his slacks to get his belt unfastened.
He cradled her head in his hands as she went down on him. It took every ounce of will he had not to fuck her mouth. Tonight he wanted to be inside her when he came. This was part of their routine, whether he beat her for play, or she asked for punishment. At the end, when they were home alone if the strokes were laid on her at a party or the club, she was always ready to be fucked, hard. Or used. She didn’t care.
And since it was a formula that worked, he wasn’t about to mess with it.
He let her suck his cock for a moment before he turned her around again, bent over the chair as he slid his cock inside her. She let out a groan that was part pain from her freshly caned ass, but mostly of pleasure. He met no resistance, his cock bottoming out immediately in her slick pussy.
Grabbing a handful of her gorgeous long hair, he yanked her head back. “Such a good girl,” he said. “All better. And with a nice sore ass for me to fuck, too.” He reached around her with his other hand and found her clit. “Now you’re going to give me a nice, hard orgasm from this sweet pussy. Aren’t you?”
She moaned as she rocked her hips against his. “Yes, Sir!”
“Then give it to me.” He bit down on the top of her shoulder, hard.
She exploded. Their years together had conditioned her to respond in some deliciously predictable ways. Pain was always followed immediately by pleasure.
The more pain, the stronger the pleasure.
Just threatening her with a spanking made her wet and horny.
Ah, operant conditioning, thou art a wonderfully heartless and predictable bitch.
Ross had to hold back as Loren rode his cock through the first and second waves of pleasure, the walls of her pussy clamping down on his cock, squeezing it as she surfed her orgasms.
While he loved it rough and raw, taking her, owning her, deep inside his heart ached. He knew he could never change what had happened to her. Nothing could do that.
What he had hoped was his love and devotion through the years might have somehow helped lessen the ache.
Short-sightedness on his part, and he admitted it.
He held back a little longer before starting to fuck her harder, faster. “Come for me, baby. Give it to me. I own it.”
She did. It took him seconds to catch up, his balls emptying inside her, his arms around her, tightly holding her.
And then the tears. Her body shook, silent sobs wracking her.
He turned her around and held her, curling up with her right there on the carpet. Once she got her wits about her, they’d go take a nice, long bath together, cuddled together, before he carefully washed every inch of her flesh.
Another cherished ritual they had.
Then he’d take her to bed and they might nap, they might make love again.
Talking would be on the agenda.
Finally, she let out a deep sigh. “Thank you, Master,” she whispered.
He kissed the top of her head. “You’re my good girl. I’ll always take care of my good girl. Just like I promised.”
She snuggled even more tightly against him as he closed his eyes and wished he could have done more so many years ago.
Wished he could get over his guilt that his indecision back then had forever changed the course of their future.
Chapter Fifteen
Sully sat across the table from Ross—the same table, ironically, that Sully had sat at with Loren a few days earlier. Once the waitress took their drink orders, he patiently waited for Ross to get to his point.
Deja vu didn’t begin to describe it. While Sully had no problem keeping the confidences of his friends, the trick would be making sure to act like he’d never heard any part of the story he was pretty sure Ross was about to confess to him.
“We’ve been friends for a long time,” Ross said.
“We have.”
“I need to talk to you about something. There was…an incident. It happened years ago, when Loren and I were in college. I need to talk to someone about it, but…” He trailed off, and it was the first time Sully could ever remember seeing his friend so indecisive.
“Whatever it is, it’s between us,” Sully assured him.
“Loren told me she talked to you.”
Sully breathed out. “Okay.”
“I’m not upset with her or you.” Ross clasped his hands on the table in front of him. “I’m kind of relieved. No one but her has even known a hint of what happened. Even she doesn’t know all the details.”
“Like I told her, had you and I been friends back then, you would have had my help with it.”
Ross smirked but didn’t meet his gaze. “I wish I could have helped you with that thing with Mac.”
Sully froze.
Then Ross met his gaze, evenly, levelly. “I suspect you and I have far more in common than most everyone else knows.”
Sully slowly nodded. “You’d probably be right,” he finally said after pondering several possible answers.
Even though he trusted Ross, he didn’t want to put Clarisse in jeopardy of any kind. The truth of that night was locked inside them, and Mac, who’d learned about it after his recovery. Not even Jason, his friend and former partner, who helped cover up the events, knew the full story.
And he wasn’t about to tell Clarisse’s secrets for her. Not unless she wanted to tell them.
Not unless she ever felt the need to unburden herself.
Ross leaned back in his chair and stared out the windows at the water for a moment. “It’s been a heavy burden to bear. I’m not proud of myself. I’d like to think that, looking back, I would have handled it differently had it happened now. Yet, honestly? I don’t think I would.”
He looked at Sully. “I befriended the assholes. It wasn’t difficult. Bought them liquor and nodded my head a lot. What Loren doesn’t know is not only were there more than her, there were a lot more. At least fifteen others, the best I can figure, based on what they told me themselves. The four of them were their own little private rapey sex club.
“The fraternity honestly didn’t know what was going on. That much was true. But those four assholes were legacy members. Their parents all had money. And at least one of them, their father had told him it was okay as long as he didn’t get caught and the girl didn’t come from a rich family who would cause trouble. That any girl who allowed herself to be caught like that really did want it.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah. Tell me about it.” Ross returned his focus to the window. “Made me sick to my stomach to listen to them.” He let out a soft laugh. “They took pride in what they did. That they could get away with it. That they came from the kind of money that meant they didn’t have to worry about what they did in life. They’d always get bailed o
ut.”
Ross stared at his hands. “And you know what? I hated them. At that point, I hated the fact that my family had money, too. Because I could see a lot of my old man in how they were acting. Made me wonder if he pulled shit like that when he was in college. I’d already been pissed off at my old man for planning my life for me, assuming I’d get my law degree and run for office the way he had. He didn’t know I’d already applied to law schools all over the country. Anywhere to get away from him. And wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it, because the trust my grandfather set up for me didn’t specify where I went to school, it just said it’d pay all the expenses. Including living expenses.”
“And that’s how you afforded to move Loren down to Florida.”
“Yep. She didn’t know I had money when we first got together. And it was a moot point, because my father cut me off anyway when I married her. But it was okay, because between working, and with the trust from my grandfather, I could make it on my own without my father’s money. Was determined to make it on my own, if for no other reason than to piss off my old man even more. But especially to take care of Loren. Loren fell in love with me because she loved me, not because of my money. She didn’t know anything about that until after we were engaged. And then I made my own money.”
“I thought you reconciled with your father?”
“I did. Just before he died a few years back. He was terminal. So I don’t know if it was an honest effort on his part or if he was just trying to stack the deck in his favor for the hereafter. And I hate that I feel like that, but it’s the truth. I’ll never respect the man, and not even sure if I loved him at the end. Damn sure didn’t like him. I reconciled with him more for my mother’s sake than my own.”
Ross studied his hands for a moment. “Those little rich assholes took away not just Loren’s dreams, but mine, too. I’d wanted kids. Loren wanted kids. When the doctors finally said it definitely wasn’t going to happen, I asked her if she wanted to adopt and she said no. That she was afraid if she did, if she didn’t bond with a child that they might be a daily reminder of why she couldn’t have kids. And I wasn’t about to force the issue.”