Her Secret Betrayal Page 7

  He kissed my mouth again and I felt sick at the insinuation. I closed my eyes when he let go and did not open them again until the front door closed.

  9

  ____________

  I stared at the package Marcus sent over for twenty minutes before getting up the courage to open it. The box was from an expensive boutique that catered to bigger girls with money. The package itself was shiny silver with a white bow. Innocent. Right.

  I turned the soft paper aside to reveal a breathtaking silvery dress in a fabric I would never have dared wear on my body. Too flimsy. Too revealing. Sumptuous and soft but it would reveal every curve, ever bump, ever unflattering pillow of flesh. There was hardly anything to it.

  Beneath the dress my heart plummeted as I discovered the lingerie he’d handpicked for me, no doubt. The bustier was black and pink with boning to support my large breasts. It laced in the back like a corset, but buttoned in the front. It would have been pretty if I wasn’t filled with such dread.

  The panties, though. Oh, my god.

  Keyhole style panties that didn’t so much cover anything but wrapped me like a very pretty present. A little heart shape of fabric covered the middle of my bottom, barely hid my most forbidden opening. From the heart stretched black silk cords to my hips, draped prettily but completely revealing of my large globed cheeks. The cords were decorated in tiny pink beads which dug into my soft flesh when I moved and sat down. A thin strip of silk covered the space between my legs and up over the front, but none of it covered very well at all.

  Putting on the dress was difficult. It halted at my breasts and the widest part of my hips. I shimmied and adjusted until the beautiful fabric hung right across my plump body. I’d never have considered wearing something like this, but I was stunned by the beauty in the full length mirror of my bedroom. It didn’t hide my imperfections, but the expensive dress didn’t make they look so imperfect after all. I looked curvy and feminine. Gazing at myself, I was shamefully impressed with Marcus’s taste even if I hated him with my whole heart.

  I waited at my kitchen counter for the car to pick me up. I went through my mail and discovered something I hadn’t been expecting.

  An invitation to the Wonderland opening.

  I dropped the rest of my mail and held the invitation between my fingers, purple, like the one I’d received more than a week ago.

  The invitations had not been sent out. They’d been stolen the day they were made. And, what as more surprising, was that I hadn’t been on the guest list, according to Taylor.

  But here was my invitation, despite all the impossibilities of it.

  I slid the invite out, and a small receipt fell out with it. I picked it up, turned over. A pick-up ticket for a costume at a shop on Beltham Drive I’d never been to. Black marker at the bottom left a single command.

  Wear this.

  A knock on my front door startled me and I dropped the receipt and the invitation on the counter. A second knock encouraged swiftness. I teetered in my silver heels and hurried to open the door for Marcus’s driver.

  “Miss.” He nodded and I nodded and neither of us said anything about how weird it was that Marcus didn’t bother to come get me or that I was going out with him instead of staying in. I grabbed my jacket and locked the door behind me. The driver offered his arm which I accepted in case I went spilling down the stairs in my impossible shoes.

  He opened the back door for me and I found Marcus sitting stoically, staring out the passenger window opposite me. My heart thudded heavy in my chest as I slid in beside him. He turned his eyes to me, and down me, a look of approval sweeping away the apathy.

  “You look gorgeous, darling.”

  I shifted, unable to get comfortable on the beads on my underwear. I looked out the window and clasped my hands over my clutch in my lap. “Don’t.”

  He slid closer, wrapped one arm around my shoulders, the other he used to grasp my chin and yank my attention back to him. Not hard, but firm, and he held me there like he was chastising an obstinate child.

  “Remember your place, pet. Tonight who do you belong to?”

  Sean. Always Sean.

  “You,” I replied flatly.

  He smiled, but the smile didn’t quite meet his eyes. “We’ll see.”

  We drove the rest of the way in silence. He offered no hint at where we were going, but we left the city night life behind us and drove into a neighborhood I wasn’t familiar with. Large, mostly empty industrial buildings loomed on both sides and blocked out the sky. I stared at the unsavory feel of the neighborhood. There were a lot of homeless hiding in the shadows of the alleys.

  “Where are we going?” I asked, apprehension working its way into my shoulders. “This doesn’t look right.”

  “A private club. Don’t worry, darling, you’re perfectly safe. It operates for clientele that like their privacy.”

  I didn’t relax though. One turn after another and I had no idea where we were anymore. Nothing looked familiar. Most of the buildings looked long abandoned.

  The car rolled to a stop in front of a nondescript brick building crushed on both sides by empty warehouses. Lights dimly glowed through windows on four floors, all with privacy film over them to mute the glow. A single man the size of an ogre stood outside the front doors, the only indication we’d arrived somewhere.

  “We’re here,” he said and gave my hand a squeeze. My fear needed the reassurance and I didn’t pull away.

  “Marcus,” I said and stopped him by not letting him pull his hand away. “Answer me something before we go in.”

  “Anything.” He relaxed, glad maybe that I was finally acknowledging him.

  “Did you know about me and Sean before I told you?”

  He hesitated then nodded. “There’s not a lot I don’t know about things that are important to me.”

  A shiver passed through me. “Did you have something to do with the break-ins at Zach’s office or Sean’s condo? Have you had someone following me?”

  His brow furrowed. “Someone has been following you?”

  The look on his face seemed genuine, a real concern I hesitated to question. I shook my head. “I don’t know. I think so.”

  He leaned close and squeezed my hand. “Kara, I would never make you afraid of me. I want you to want to be with me.”

  “Then why are you making me be here with you now?” I whispered back and for a moment his businessman front dropped and he lowered his gaze.

  “I…this is probably the last time I can have you. Once we are inside, you’ll want to be here. You’ll want this, I promise. I know you. I know your body. You won’t want to say no.”

  I hesitated. He seemed so sure of himself. Was he so sure of me that I didn’t know myself? Did I know myself. I touched my lips with my free fingertips and considered this uncomfortable true.

  No, I decided. I wanted to be with Sean. I gave myself to Sean.

  “You’ll hurt Sean if I say no.”

  “Only financially, darling. No one gets something for nothing. If he gets you, I get his restaurant.”

  I shook my head, unable to marry this businessman with the attentive, imaginative lover I’d spent the last six months with.

  “Let’s get this over with.” Sickness sunk my stomach as he got out of the car and came around to open my door. Sometimes when we played Sean called me his little whore, an affectionate term that let him treat me like a dirty plaything while reminding me he loved me as a man too. Now I felt the whore part, alright.

  When Marcus opened the door, I swatted his hand away and got out on my own. I wobbled all the way up to the door without his help. He watched, mirth playing his handsome young features. The bouncer, all muscle no-neck and scary, watched me fight my way up the stairs.

  “Mr. Giovanni.” The big man nodded and stepped aside. Marcus took hold of my elbow, a firm hold and nodded back. So this was not his first time coming here, wherever here was.

  The door was opened for us and we were welcomed
in a warm, golden lounge room of reds and oranges, welcoming, a fire crackling in the corner. A woman at a desk greeted us with a smile. She looked the part of a secretary, neat, trimmed, modest blouse and skirt.

  My eyes fell on her shiny black collar and the silver dog tag dangling from the ring beneath her chin.

  I swallowed.

  “Good evening, sir. I have your reservation already set up and waiting for you. Do you require anything else?” The woman handed Marcus a key on a golden cord. I couldn’t take my eyes off it as he twisted the ribbon between his fingers and pocketed the key.

  “Bottled water, a little chocolate. My usual favorites. Is Conrad waiting?”

  “Yes, sir. He’s waiting.”

  “Good. Darling?” He gave me a little tug and I tore my eyes away from the girl and her collar to Marcus’s waiting eyes. I swallowed.

  “Marcus, what is going on?”

  “No questions right now. Trust me. I’ll answer everything once we get to our room. Welcome to Abrasion. A very private establishment for people like you and me.” He touched my chin and leaned in to kiss my lips. I stiffened, but he kissed me anyway. “Trust me.”

  “Trust you,” I repeated sharply. The woman watched us curiously but didn’t interrupt. When Marcus realized I was still standing stiffly and not willing to move, his eyes darkened and he gave a rough tug towards him.

  “Do as you’re told, Kara.” He gritted his teeth and pulled me tight against his body. His grip left impressions in my wrist and I followed him without argument this time.

  A place for people like us. I understood very quickly as we entered the building. Large, plush rooms held groups wining and dining, chatting, mostly men in suits accompanied by beautiful girls, many wearing collars, wrist cuffs. Delicate accessories to indicate what they were. Submissives. Slaves. One girl knelt on the ground beside her master’s chair, a spreader bar between her wrists behind her back forcing her to kneel with her breasts jutting out. I stared because I’d never seen something so obvious before, or so beautiful.

  My body…betrayed me. The sensation of warmth between my legs caused tears to fill the corners of my eyes. I wanted to be that girl. I did not want it to be with Marcus, but I liked what I saw. I hated that I liked it.

  We passed that room, then a line of windows that watched into rooms with private couples acting out their scenes. Nothing too brazen, bare breasts and handcuffs, spread legs. A whip. Nothing I hadn’t seen or felt before.

  I couldn’t not watch.

  “You like it,” Marcus whispered and touched my left breast, my nipple to be precise. He scraped his fingertip across it and I shuddered, embarrassed by how hard it was. “Don’t be ashamed. They aren’t.”

  “Why am I here, Marcus?”

  He continued touching the point of my hard nipple through my flimsy dress. He watched me, loomed over me. “There’s something I’ve badly wanted to see happen to you since the day I brought you home that first night. I should have brought you here sooner, maybe then you wouldn’t have been tempted to stray. It’s…a fantasy of mine. A private one I’ve not shared with another submissive before. One of yours too, in fact.”

  “Here,” I whispered, as if the idea was so ludicrous. Why I didn’t realize what we were doing here before, I don’t know. He wouldn’t bring me here unless he planned to use me somehow.

  “Come. Conrad is waiting for us. But…you are not allowed to call him that. To you he is sir, or master. Always.”

  “What? I don’t understand.” My voice came out ragged, I didn’t realize I’d been holding my breath until I felt light headed.

  “You will.”

  He pulled me the rest of the way, my knees wobbly, my apprehension screaming in my ears. I was afraid, very much so, and also turned on. How that could be I didn’t know.

  Then we came to a single door and he stopped and I knew. I knew whatever was beyond this door was going to be too much for me.

  He handed me the key. “You do the honors.”

  My hand shook as I obeyed. His hand held onto my hip, in case I ran, as I clicked the lock and pushed the door open. I knew Marcus, he wasn’t into anything base and common. Whatever hid behind this door would be near enough to fantastical, the very edge of pleasure imagination. That was Marcus. Only the best. He wanted to be the only man to have whatever was beyond this door.

  The door swung open and gently Marcus prodded me inside.

  10

  ____________

  A gold brocade bed held court on one side of the room, and a menagerie of playthings filled the other. I recognized some from research, but most were unknown to me. They were objects of bondage, discipline, submission, domination, pleasure, pain, all draped in soft velvets and silks, comfort and luxury juxtaposed on top of it.

  It was a big room, half round, with a door near the bed and another on the far wall from the one we’d entered through. Beside that door was a window like the ones we’d passed in the other hallway, though this one was dark.

  And we weren’t alone. A big man like a machine sat on the end of the bed, knees spread, elbows resting on his knees. Shirtless. Jeans. Tattoos ringed his biceps and decorated his lower stomach. Almost seven feet tall, or maybe that’s how he felt to me. Biceps bigger than Marcus’s or Sean’s. Masked, like Zorro, and I had a strange sensation to giggle, though nothing was particularly funny about him.

  Conrad.

  Seeing him, I took a step back and ran into Marcus’s chest. My curiosity cave way to fear and I didn’t think I could go through with this after all.

  “You can leave if you want, but I’ll take restaurant, Kara.” Marcus whispered against my ear, his mouth warm and a little wet. I could feel the brace of his erection through his pants pressed to my thin dress. I thought I sensed a vibration of anticipation in his grip.

  He took my chin and pulled my face to him. Another hand wrapped around my hip to rest against my stomach.

  “You’ll enjoy this pet. Let yourself enjoy this.”

  Sean. I was doing this for Sean.

  Marcus let go and left me standing in front of the closed door. He walked over to a chair near the door and sat down, rested his arms along the top of the chair arms like an emperor - just like Sean in the library, and the image warred in my thoughts. I had to look away.

  Coincidence?

  Conrad stood and walked towards me. He stood like a wall, like an executioner as he approached me, circled me. I could feel his eyes sink all along me, saw his fists tighten like mallets. My heart started racing in my chest and I tried to get a grip on what was actually happening here. Would he hurt me? Marcus liked pain and punishment but letting this guy just hurt me seemed out of character and anyway, he’d said this was my fantasy too.

  What fantasies had I told him about? I couldn’t think. This didn’t feel like one of mine, but then, it also didn’t repulse me. I’d never told Marcus I wanted to be with two men before, I knew that.

  Conrad came to stand behind me and very suddenly he took hold of my hip in one big hand. I gasped and sucked in a breath as the other grasped the tiny silver tab at the back of my dress. He held me slightly bent forward just off center as he lowered the zipper one tooth at a time, agonizingly slow, each tooth breaking apart noisily as he traveled it down my body. He kept the zipper pressed against my skin so I felt it give way, the cold metal, all the way down to the small of my back.

  When he stepped away, letting me go as roughly as he’d taken me, the dress fell effortlessly into a puddle around my feet.

  Silently the big man tucked his fingers in the ribbon corseted up my back and tugged, tugged, tugged, as each loop was released. I had to grab the front of the bustier and hold on as he yanked the ribbon free. Each motion felt violent, and inside my emotions roared. My lovers never treated me like this, there was too much familiarity and love. At the hands of this stranger I was being tossed and tucked and pulled like a stitched doll, careless and a little rough. Like he wasn’t afraid to break me.

&nbs
p; And that…I didn’t want him to stop.

  That was the fantasy. A real Dom with no attachments to my heart, treating me in a way I couldn’t be treated by Sean or Marcus.

  When the ribbon let go its final loop and fluttered beautifully to my feet, my knees were shaking and my sex betrayed me with the moisture and slickness I already felt there.

  With my thoughts racing, trying to figure out what was too far and just enough before it all got out of control, he grabbed the bustier out of my hands and threw it to the ground. I yelped and raised my hands to cover me, but he swatted my hands away and stalked towards me. I backed up, not knowing what else to do, and he followed step for step.

  When my back hit the door he was on me, grabbed me around the waist and dragged my hips into his. He fingered the strips that barely made up my panties with one hand, the other fell on the heavy fall of my breast. He cupped it and mashed it roughly in his big paws. I gazed up at his masked face into amber eyes that I found surprisingly soft and heavy with want.

  Those soft eyes and rough hands…I understood what Marcus meant very suddenly, which filled me with shame and longing. Those eyes and those hands…I wanted to obey. I wanted them to take what they wanted from me and force me to obey.

  Conrad ran his hands down my arms to my wrists and held them out, palm up. His eyes told me to hold them still and I did while one hand went into his pocket and produced a length of rope. He wound them around my wrists, not too tight but enough to hold them wrists together like a prisoner. Once I was bound he hooked the rope and led me with it like a leash across the room to one of the pieces of furniture opposite the bed. I didn’t recognize it, shaped somewhat like a sawhorse but bigger, wider, and padded. He pulled a bench out from beneath it and pushed me to sit down on it faced away from him. I faced Marcus, watched him watching me with such satisfaction in his pretty face. I hated him. But I didn’t hate this.

  Behind me, the big man took my long blonde hair into his hands. I felt him separate the hair between his fingers and to my surprise, began braiding it. His touch was gentle, section after section he worked until he’d created a thick blonde rope. He tied it off and pulled me to my feet with his hands under my armpits. Now I really felt like his doll. I wondered if that was why he didn’t talk to me. There was no point. Dolls didn’t talk back.