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  THE RIGHT THING

  The Darker Side of Love 1

  Allyson Young

  Erotic Romance

  Secret Cravings Publishing

  www.secretcravingspublishing.com

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  A Secret Cravings Publishing Book

  Erotic Romance

  The Right Thing

  Copyright © 2013 Allyson Young

  E-book ISBN: 978-1-61885-611-1

  First E-book Publication: March 2013

  Cover design by Dawné Dominique

  Edited by Megan Koenen

  Proofread by Mahalia Levey

  All cover art and logo copyright © 2013 by Secret Cravings Publishing

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  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

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  Dedication

  For His Lordship

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  THE RIGHT THING

  The Darker Side of Love 1

  Allyson Young

  Copyright © 2013

  Chapter One

  “What’ll it take for you to understand, McKenzie? What? I’m fucking sick of your nauseating selflessness! Where’s your breaking point? You goddamn martyr.” Michael, her Master for several months now, snarled the comments as he loomed above her.

  McKenzie waited him out, head down, eyes on the floor. Master had been working up to this for weeks now, pushing harder, trying to push her away, force her to make the choice to leave, like all his other women. But she wouldn’t do it, despite how he kept ramping up the punishments for every real or imagined slight, kept her prisoner in the apartment and denied any other human contact. Forbidding nearly everything enjoyable, expecting everything and anything sexual whenever he wanted, with no thought to her pleasure, being a total asshole. And while she sometimes hated him for his behavior, McKenzie knew why he was acting that way. Master loved her and the realization scared him shitless. The selfish, self centered, arrogant sadist had succumbed to Cupid’s arrow and was fighting the awareness every step of the way. She knew she was so much smarter in the matter of the heart than him, and loved him far more than hated him, so she kept her own counsel while waiting for him to figure it out.

  Master stormed out of the room and made a phone call, speaking in cold, measured tones, although making out the words wasn’t possible. Returning, he crossed to push into her space, pulling her head back with a solid yank on her hair. She hissed with pain, and he looked down into her eyes with fury and resignation. In turn she studied his beautiful face, those sculpted features and sensuous lips imprinted in the depths of her brain, golden eyes with the hits of onyx staring right through any attempts made to shield her thoughts.

  Unzipping his pants with his other hand, he pulled his cock out, already hard and weeping. McKenzie opened her mouth wordlessly and he fucked her face without mercy, stretching her lips to the point of pain. His length pressed against her palate, stuffing her, forcing her to hold her breath, although she knew he was aware of her limits. Nose ground into the zipper and jaw aching, she endured and he finally erupted, pouring himself down her throat with a stifled groan. Pulling away, tucking his sated cock back into his jeans with shaking hands, staring down with less rage but more resignation. Her thighs were soaked and she longed to rub them together and ease such need. He must smell the arousal. She waited. Maybe now he would do the right thing.

  “They’re coming to get the birds tomorrow, pet.”

  McKenzie’s heart faltered but she showed him nothing other than submission a
nd acceptance, staring up at him from her crouch at his feet. Waiting.

  “You’re with me for me and nothing else, you say? Because you love me? So you won’t need any distractions. Nothing to take your focus away from me. The birds will be gone, and you can fucking well count yourself lucky I didn’t let them loose off the goddamn balcony to fend for themselves.”

  Holding her face impassive with every ounce of control she could muster, McKenzie kept her eyes emotionless. Master looked at her searchingly, then wheeled around to stomp away again, slowing just outside of the doorway to call the pièce de résistance over his shoulder. “We’re going to stay with Andrew and Joyce for a month. I find myself in need of some variety and they want another crack at you. Maybe you can pick up some pointers.”

  The front door slammed with such force the whole place vibrated. Bile surged from her diaphragm to scald her throat. The birds were one real, solitary pleasure, aside from him, and he was within his sadistic rights to dispose of them. The loss hurt, but McKenzie knew Master would have arranged for them to be cared for properly. He would never take his angst out on the vulnerable. Believing herself to be invulnerable because she knew he loved her even if he couldn’t admit it. But he’d promised not to give her away. Share on some level, sure, but not give her away. It was the one final hard limit she had left.

  McKenzie had done everything he wanted, taken everything he dished out, but there’d been two hard limits in the contract when she signed up to be his submissive. He took the first one away early on because she allowed it in a true power exchange. But she couldn’t allow this one to slide. Andrew and Joyce would actually do harm. They truly frightened her. They were a pair of sociopaths. A sadistic team. Master wasn’t like them. Oh, he was a sadist, but any pain he inflicted was something McKenzie craved and needed, and he’d always had her best interest at heart. If he planned to give her to them, even for one scene as part of his efforts to drive her away, then he was never going to admit his love. But worst of all, throwing her to those dogs would destroy him.

  Something tore in her chest, agonizingly painful, and McKenzie couldn’t catch a breath against it. The pain caused her to slump forward to the floor and wait the sensation out. In time, the agony eased enough to drag some precious oxygen into her lungs. All right then. She’d fought the good fight, but ultimately lost. Time to retreat. A refrain from a children’s poem ran inanely through her head. He who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day. Right now she wasn’t so certain she’d survive the effort, but would try.

  Struggling to her feet, she realized Master hadn’t even physically punished her, although her body bore the recent marks of every implement at his disposal, and ached dully in concert with an inner agony. It was a break in his routine, this lack of physical punishment, but failed to give her hope after his oh-so-final announcement. She needed to get gone before he returned and talked her into turning herself over to the not-so-tender mercies of the psycho twins.

  McKenzie trod gingerly to the door of the little bedroom, the place where she slept when Master was angry. The place where she actually had some personal space, although a few days ago he’d taken that away too.

  Closing the heavy wooden panel as if the effort would actually give some privacy, she looked at the raw wood where the deadbolt had been. Legs going out from under her at the finality of giving up, she crawled to the closet. Bypassing all the things Master bought her, the designer clothes, the incredible shoes, the amazing purses. The things she wore when he took her out with him. The tastiest arm candy in the world, he called her. McKenzie looked for the clothes worn when she came to him, before accepting his lifestyle and abdicating her own, becoming willing to make the commitment to him. Pulling out the little suitcase stuffed with jeans, tee shirt and hoodie, locating the sneakers and small purse with ID and money, she fished them out, tucking the case back into the depths of the closet. Possessing the strength to carry the luggage herself was questionable.

  Perhaps she’d known the situation would come to this, and therefore had subconsciously kept a little escape package secreted away. Perhaps she’d known not to trust him after all. Master held her passport, but it wasn’t like she had enough money to flee the country anyway. She would be lucky to make it out of downtown. The idea he was so damaged even her love couldn’t cure him nearly killed her.

  Ruffling through dresser drawer, she fumbled amongst the fine, silky lingerie but couldn’t find the cotton panties and bra, so picked the least revealing and plainest set of lace and satin. Getting dressed was a difficult exercise, as she was having trouble breathing again and her whole body seemed weak, as if it didn’t really belong to her. McKenzie knew her heart was broken and wondered if one could actually die from such a thing. The throbbing emptiness caused her to think she might.

  Locating the tiny key in her jewellery box, she fitted it into the wide, platinum wrist cuffs, opening them, first left hand and then right. They fell onto the little narrow bed when she flexed her wrists and laid there, the side openings no less than gaping, accusing mouths against the pink counterpane. Tearing her eyes away, she examined the skin where the cuffs had left long pale marks. They would disappear with a few days in the sun, although she wondered how quickly she would come to hide the evidence of service, or if she would protect it, like those people who didn’t wash when someone famous shook their hand. Master had been her celebrity.

  Easing the nipple and labial rings out of her skin, she took them into the bathroom to sterilize before carefully tucking them into the velvet folds in the box. She couldn’t make herself remove the one in her clit hood, although in truth it had hurt the least to pierce. Master insisted on the piercing but held her hand throughout the process, kissing her sweetly when she whimpered. McKenzie avoided the mirror, catching her long, dark hair back into a makeshift ponytail, tucking the mass into the hoodie, and grabbed the little purse holding the small amount of money she possessed. She was ready.

  The walk to the front door was a funeral march, something resembling slogging through ankle deep sand, but she traversed the distance without looking at anything other than the immediate destination. Once through the doorway, she let the weight of the door close the latch, finalizing her decision. Master had never given her a key because she was never allowed to leave without him or someone he chose to supervise. She made the distance to the elevators without incident, not bothering to shield her face from the cameras. Master would know she’d left the moment he got home and she wasn’t at the door, happily waiting to provide for his needs. He would understand he’d succeeded in driving her away. There would be another woman to replace her, just as she replaced the one before, and he would convince himself it was what he wanted. He would file her away in that same place he locked up his ability to recognize and accept love. The painful acceptance of the future made Mckenzie so profoundly sad she wished to die.

  Crossing the lobby of the high-end hotel without looking around, she skirted the concierge who, if the disparaging glance he gave was any indication, obviously didn’t recognize her in the nondescript clothing. That pretty much summed up the lost creature she’d become. Leaving the shelter of the building housing the only home she’d known for the past eleven months—in truth the only real home she’d ever known—Mckenzie merged with the pedestrian traffic, deciding to walk until she couldn’t walk any further.

  * * * *

  Michael punched the wall of the elevator, and the stainless steel bowed and bounced right back, just as McKenzie did whether he punished or corrected her. Either way made his sub fucking hot in his eyes and he shuddered a little in remembering. Only this time it was him, his knuckles hurting. McKenzie convinced him of dedication and total commitment by accepting the loss of her precious birds without protest or even a vaguely accusing look in those amazing sapphire blue eyes. That was a totally shitty, rotten thing to do, even for a sadist like Michael. He’d call the aviary back later to tell them about changing his mind. He wouldn’t tell McKenzi
e, though. For now he’d let her wonder, fuck with her some more because he could. She belonged to him after all. His to do whatever he wanted with. She always said so, because she trusted him to know what she needed, what they both needed, and not to push further than she could go.

  Michael punched the wall again. It was time he was honest with himself. He’d been convinced he loved her weeks ago. Shit, months ago. Probably from the first day he met the beautiful sub. But of late he’d run away from the truth, a scared rabbit, returning time and time again like the wolf he was, trying everything, every punishment, and every perversion he could come up with to make it not so. Trying to drive McKenzie away. Trying not to love her. He wasn’t good enough for her, but neither could he let her go. What did that make him? Selfish? Greedy? Didn’t matter. He loved her more than himself, although that was a misnomer because he’d never even liked himself. But that too had changed. He was taking more frequent, if cautious, looks at himself, thinking maybe he was becoming a better man, someone to like and perhaps even someone worthy of McKenzie’s love.

  Michael hadn’t stopped to soak up McKenzie’s response to the proposed trip to Andrew and Joyce’s, although hoped she was properly horrified and cowed. They would tear her up between them if they got their hands on her without him to intervene. The last woman they’d taken, albeit with signed consent, apparently required reconstructive surgery afterword, although the money they handed over was adequate compensation, according to Andrew. If they told the truth about it. Even Andrew and Joyce weren’t above the law. But the story added to their cachet for hard core and they preened before the story. Regardless, Michael would never allow them to touch McKenzie again, with or without him being present. Although she would probably do it for her Master, just as she had done everything else for him, because she served him and had total trust and faith in him to do right. He was never, ever, going to let her down again as he did the other time with them.