The Death of You Read online

Panic made her blood seize as she recalled where they’d scened with her before, in the small room with the spanking bench. Both had used the same flogger to incredible effect, although she’d been able to ascertain the differences in their technique almost instantly, so in tune with them both, almost against her will. Impact play was her favorite and they’d touched her so beautifully afterward, pushing past her resistance and making her shudder with ecstasy. But she hadn’t wanted to know them then and certainly not now. Because they’d be able to know her. Too. Much. Risk. She’d fought subspace that time with everything she had, fully aware she’d confused them, and only the lateness of the hour had allowed her some space as they’d had to cut the scene short.

  A pinch on her thigh reminded her she was in considerably more trouble. Trouble. Oh God. She looked at Master Rafe, her throat tightening. He loomed over her as he folded her legs up and put the soles of her feet on the very edge of the punishment board, securing her ankles, then looping thick leather straps around her thighs. They were attached to the wooden frame and held wide apart to display her pussy. A hard wedge of a cushion got pushed beneath her buttocks to lift her further, and her anus clenched in response. Being so open, displayed, made her wet despite the circumstances, tiny tremors racking her sheath.

  She wished they’d say something. Or maybe she didn’t. It was too quiet, the calm before the storm. But she could do this. She couldn’t lose her place here at the club. She couldn’t. At the moment, it was all she had that meant anything. And Vantage gave her the excuse, if she needed one, to see Masters Connor and Rafe…

  Connor grunted as he pulled another strap over her abdomen and tugged it tight. Without making an attempt to test the fit, she knew it would be impossible to raise her hips or twist away. The one over her upper chest and shoulders ensured the immobility of her torso, but it was the band over her forehead that had her eyes popping wide. She wouldn’t be able to turn away, not even to buy a second’s time to veil her expression. Well, she could shut her eyes. The vulnerability of bondage still turned her on, despite the trouble she was in, or maybe because of it.

  Another pinch on her thigh, right next to the first. She’d have those marks tomorrow.

  “Rules. You close those beautiful eyes other than to blink, sweetheart, when we’re talking to you, and you’re out on your nice, round ass.”

  Master Rafe showed neither mercy nor compromise. Saying her eyes were beautiful could be explained away by the intense way he engaged. But he’d called her sweetheart, twice now, and she’d never heard him call any sub by such an endearment. Confusion warred with the need to stay strong against any persuasion.

  “The rest is simple,” Connor added. “We ask you a question, you answer. No delays. No thinking of something to mislead us. Understood? Because we’ll know.”

  Sucking in a breath and digging deep for the strength she’d need, Maddy forced a “yes, Sir” past dry lips. And they began. Just touching her at first, like last week. Murmurs and rumbles of approval emanated from deep chests, lulling her, her submissive nature unable to deny them. She’d relived their touches in the depths of her lonely bed, yearning for them, her fingers and vibrator poor substitutes.

  As an interrogation technique, it was both powerfully persuasive, intrusive, and quite accurately named. She could probably have written a paper on it, as the interrogatee. Slight, barely there contact all over her flesh, specifically not confined to the area between her splayed thighs or her needy breasts first stimulated her senses and then gentled her as they increased in pressure. Calming her much like one would a horse, she kept telling her body. But despite her anxiety, she responded to them and began to relax, trusting them not to harm her. She couldn’t really see either of them, although Connor was on the very edge of her peripheral vision, as his long arms reached her with ease. When he bent down to kiss her, it was impossible to keep her eyes open.

  He hadn’t kissed her before, and had he done so after that flogging, it was unlikely she would have been able to deny them anything. Master Connor could kiss, and her yearning heart reached for him. His lips molded over hers, coaxing and softening her own until she almost yielded completely. Tongue slipping between her parted lips, he traced the inside of her mouth, learning her. Her brain turned to mush. She struggled to stay present but her need to please claimed her will, directed effectively by this Dom.

  The whisper of heated breath against her inner thigh made her stiffen but big hands rubbing her arms and calves soon eased the tension, and when a hot, wet mouth closed over her labia she found herself welcoming the sensation, wanting more, more, more. Two mouths, too much.

  Rafe brought her up and lapped her down, using his tongue and lips, even his teeth, to tantalize every crevice and the entrance to her channel, sliding down her perineum to rim her asshole. Her need grew with every touch and when Connor tore away from her lips, she cried out at the loss. He lowered his mouth over her nipple, calloused fingertips gripping and twisting the other in direct contrast to the gentle suckling movements and she moaned and whimpered louder, pleas beginning to slip past her efforts to contain them.

  Connor lifted away, the cooler air now surrounding her wet, aching beaded tip, adding to her arousal. His fingers replaced his mouth, the digits feathering over her needy nipple.

  “Open your eyes.”

  She pried her lids open and locked eyes with him, panting against the rising tide in her core.

  “Your name.”

  “Madeline. Maddy.” A gasp of sound.

  A pinch and twist to her wet nub, as Rafe kept her off balance at her apex, still licking and suckling, using his teeth. “All of it.”

  “Margaret Madeline.”

  Master Connor’s gaze bored into hers, into her soul, and she blinked frantically. Master Rafe intensified his tender assault now on her clit and Maddy couldn’t think, helpless against the chemicals clouding her brain.

  “All of it, little one. Your full name.”

  It took everything she had, but she did it. She bit her lip and withstood the intense need to tell them. Not merely to tell them and be rewarded with what promised to be an insane orgasm, but the need to give them what they wanted from her, to please them. To tell them how much she cared, stupidly succumbing to infatuation because they were just so damn hot. She telegraphed her determination, and Connor’s disappointment was palpable. And despite the intensity of the moment, she read him accurately. He was terminally disappointed in her, not the failure of their technique.

  The insight made her stomach tighten, then roil, and she choked against the fear. She couldn’t. They couldn’t. She couldn’t allow anything more than play. No ridiculous assertions of… Nothing deep. Nothing long term. It wasn’t safe. Being dropped into a vat of ice water wouldn’t have been more effective at shutting them out.

  Master Rafe pulled away, not that it mattered. Her arousal had fled with her epiphany, dry as the desert. If this continued she’d want it all, and they might want it all too. Too damn risky. Without comment, he freed her from the bindings and with seemingly automatic movements of aftercare, massaged her stiffening leg muscles. Master Connor did the same with her upper body, then slipped a forearm beneath her shoulders to sit her up, her boneless limbs sprawling gracelessly, the tart scent of her arousal still prevalent in the room. But tainted by that of her fear.

  When she was seated upright and no longer trembling, a light blanket was set around her shoulders. The Doms took a stance at the foot of the table and stared at her. Their faces were so dissimilar in structure and coloring yet so alike in expression. Connor’s was the broad, bold features of a Viking, cold blue eyes beneath pale brows, the stubble of his beard matching that of his hair. Rafe’s resembled the carved visage on an old wood etching she’d seen, all angles and strength with his dark hair pushed behind his ears, and the deep brown, nearly black eyes of a predator. Maddy clutched the sides of the table and begged.

  “Please. I can’t tell you. My being here won’t hurt the club. I
just have to stay…anonymous. Please.”

  A slow shake of the head from Master Connor. Master Rafe didn’t move a muscle.

  “I don’t want to leave here, not be allowed back. Please.” She could nearly read their minds. She felt their ambivalence, but knew it was all about trust. She’d lied, big time. The punishment was clear, although would have likely embodied something quite different if she’d caved. But she couldn’t. Daren’t. But surely if they cared for her as she’d begun to consider, returned her feelings…

  A thump on the door made her start. Rafe crossed to open it, and Master Thomas filled the open space. With a sense of horror, she realized he’d been monitoring things, and was here to pass judgment. She scrutinized his face, detecting a flicker of sympathy, and dared to hope.

  “You’re suspended for two weeks, sub. Return on the third Friday if you’re inclined to…share.” He didn’t have to say she needn’t bother to return if she wasn’t so inclined.

  Knowing better than to beg again, she slipped to the floor, awkwardly, the blanket impeding her movements. Connor reached to steady her, but she snatched her arm away, scuttling to gather up her little dress and tug it over her head, settling it around her body with trembling hands. She didn’t look directly at any of them, but the weight of their stares dragged her down.

  “You’ll see she gets home?” Master Thomas dismissed her without sending another word or glance in her direction. She heard Rafe answer in the affirmative beyond the rushing noise in her head.

  Fleeing the room, she floundered through the increasing number of members who looked at her curiously. Who did they see? Maddy? A sub worthy of the environment and one who never caused trouble? Nice to the other subs and appropriately respectful to the Doms? One who liked the kiss of pain, and who thanked the Dom, but avoided penetrative sexual contact?

  Or a woman rejected? A liar and a risk to their club? No matter. It was all on her and she’d deal. But it hurt so bad doing the right thing.

  She was maybe twenty feet from the entrance, the desk in the foyer within her sights when Master Rafe caught up with her, catching her around the waist to spin her around to face them. Careless of the others around, ignoring the speculation and the scenes being played out, he nearly snarled at her. “It doesn’t have to be this way.”

  Oh God. She so wanted to believe it and let them pry the truth from her. Or just share it. Connor added an intense appeal, and his expression softened as he read her dawning acquiescence. A newcomer jostled them and broke the spell. Thank God. She could never involve them.

  “I’m leaving. Sirs.” Her abrupt and disrespectful tone had the desired effect. Master Rafe drew back and tried to dominate her with his famous look, usually so effective. Oh, the time she’d spent studying these two. Maddy made herself stare through him, drawing on her steel core, the one that had helped her survive over the years with Abbott.

  “We’ll escort you.” Master Connor was once again the voice of reason, but she shook the offer away.

  “No. You’ve done enough.” The hateful disdain poisoned the very air. Horrid of her when she was in the wrong. She couldn’t hold the words back, despite biting her lower lip. They oozed past her effort at restraint, lubricated by fear and bitterness. “Congratulations. You’ve taken away the one place I felt—”

  Oh, she was not going there. Not giving them one more fucking advantage. Not giving anything else away. Why had she said even that much? She seized her misplaced anger to fend them off.

  “The one place where you felt wanted? Comfortable? Where you belonged?” Rafe asked, his intuition a lash across her already raw state of mind.

  When she set her mouth, this time successful in staying silent, Connor took up the cudgels, beating the last of her esteem flat, never to rise again, by the very veracity of his comment. “I’d say you took that away, with your behavior, Madeline.”

  Madeline. Not sub, or subbie, not Maddy. Not even “girl.” Just icy, aloof Madeline. The tearing of her insides seemed audible, if only to her ears, and she willed the emotions down, taking care to veil her eyes. Fuck them. She’d push them away.

  “You be sure to tell yourself that. I’d say to ease your conscience, but you obviously lack one of those.” She spat the words at them, and hurt herself further.

  Master Rafe’s eyes darkened until they were obsidian, and for an instant her survival instinct flared before she ignored it. What else could they do? Beat her? Abuse her in plain sight of the other members?

  “If Master Thomas hadn’t revoked her membership…” Master Connor’s deep voice must have soothed the savage beast in Rafe and reminded him she wasn’t theirs, for his face lightened a titch. But he still invaded her space, reaching a hand to her cheek.

  Flinching back, she said it, having no other defense against kindness. “Red.”

  Although it was barely a choked murmur, both Doms froze as though she’d hit the pause button on a remote. Rafe’s hand dropped to his side and shock flashed across his handsome features. Connor looked…ill. And she’d thought she couldn’t feel any worse.

  Taking advantage, insisting her feet break free from their stance and her wobbly knees stabilize, Maddy walked away. She looked neither left nor right and certainly not behind her. She gained the foyer, and Nadia passed her cape and small purse across the counter with a sympathetic grimace Maddy couldn’t bring herself to acknowledge. She only had so much energy, after all. Her hand was on the doorknob when a bigger hand, the color of melted chocolate, covered it, tugging her back gently.

  “I’ll have you driven home if you won’t allow your Doms to escort you.”

  Unable to look up at him, although she would have given a week’s paycheck to do so, to show he and his precious club meant nothing to her, which was another big, fat lie. She managed a tiny shake of her head. “I’m fine, Sir. And I don’t have a Dom…Doms.”

  Master Thomas’s voice rumbled deeper, if that were even possible. “Alice will drive your car to your home, Maddy. This is nonnegotiable. You’re in no emotional shape to drive.”

  It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him she was hardly his concern—anyone’s concern—any longer, but she wasn’t stupid. She was an emotional wreck, and distracted driving killed a whole lot of people every day. Innocent people. And didn’t she know about innocent people paying the price. “Thank you.”

  “It’s a suspension, Maddy. Not an expulsion.”

  This time she was able to look up. His strikingly hewn features were set in stark relief against the glow of the light above, and his tawny eyes were warm and concerned, so unlike the icy regard not a half hour earlier. Too late. “Yes, Sir.”

  Master Thomas read her clearly. He searched her face as if looking for more, then nodded. He knew she’d never be back. But she hadn’t lied to him this time, merely agreed with his assessment. Nope, she’d learned her lesson about lying. Been punished too, not that it saved her from expulsion—a suspension—because those were his precious rules. And Masters Rafe and Connor not only outed her, they supported those rules. She was done. Alone, unwanted and feeling dead inside, but done. She had her own rules, rules of survival, but those she couldn’t share. So be it.

  Nodding, he stepped aside, then twisted the heavy knob with minimal effort and shoved the thick panel open. He motioned her through and she could scent Alice behind her. The other sub wore Patchouli and it was unmistakable. Maddy walked out of her sanctuary, knowing that in leaving it behind, her life as she’d come to embrace it would never be okay again. How could it when her outside life was that of cowering by day, putting in time, waiting for those nights when she could make her way to the club? Lose herself in the environment with people she could call friend, if only at Club Vantage. Her life was freaking pathetic.

  Only pride and bone deep numbness kept her moving to her car, the silent Alice just to one side. She had a sense of people watching, their gazes fixed on her. She didn’t need to look back to identify the ones staring—Rafe and Connor’s impact
on her was more than a figment of her imagination. Her heart ached, anticipating the pain to come. Matt the doorman hadn’t spoken, an astute fellow, despite his bulk and battered features, but she knew he too was watching to ensure both women got to the vehicle. Master Thomas took the safety of the submissives very seriously. Although after tonight she was no longer one of them. And that was enough self-pity. Maddy lifted her chin and shoved that weak emotion aside.

  Alice took the car keys without comment and spent a few minutes familiarizing herself with the dashboard, adjusting the seat to accommodate her long legs and fine-tuning the mirrors. Maddy stared blindly through the windshield. Alice seemed to respect the lack of interaction and remained silent as she drove them quickly and efficiently away from Vantage.

  They were nearly to Maddy’s home, turning onto the last, long street before Alice broke the silence. “I’m sorry, honey. We all are. We’ve all made mistakes—”

  Did Alice know what she’d done? Cutting her off, Maddy said, “Please, Alice. No more.”

  “Okay. But if you want to talk…”

  “Sure.” Never. Maddy didn’t have friends outside of Club Vantage for very good reason, not even acquaintances. No one to inadvertently put in the line of fire. She stayed inside her home, didn’t even have a pet, nothing for him to harm, to use against her. It was only a matter of time until—she blinked the thought away. Vantage had given her a place to be, where the security was impeccable because of the secrecy, a safe haven, the only place she could hang with others without putting them at risk. And she’d been stupid enough to tell Connor that truth, not that he’d suss out the reasoning behind it. Anyhow, it wasn’t that big of a deal. She was going to move on shortly and this sense of loss was absurd. A person couldn’t fall in love with two men she’d met at a BDSM club, in the space of a few months and without really knowing them.

  Her mother’s voice spoke in her head, a faint remnant from her past, and an unwelcome one, considering Mom had up and died and left Maddy to take care of Dad. The orphaned child’s rage at her loss still flared on occasion but didn’t drown out her mom tonight…the heart wants what it wants…