According to Mark Read online

And every Dom in the room knew it. Even now, I could feel the room vibrate with excess testosterone as they zeroed in on her. There wasn’t a Dom in the place who didn’t see her for what she was—an untutored submissive in need of training.

  “Shit,” I muttered under my breath.

  Greg Hernandez, my buddy and fellow BDSM-clubber since med school, flashed me a quizzical look then followed my gaze from our booth on the edge of the dance floor to the bar. “Ah, fresh meat.” He turned back to me, noting my frown. “So what’s the problem?”

  “She’s not just any fresh meat.”

  “You know her?”

  I nodded grimly. “She’s…she was Clint Hoffman’s wife.”

  “Shit,” Greg echoed.

  I’d never told him what had happened between me and Allison—hell, I’d never told anyone—but I had poured out my guilt over Clint’s death to Greg over a very large bottle of whisky a week after it had all gone down. As both a doctor and close friend, he was the only person I knew who would understand my guilt and pain.

  He swiveled his head to look at her again. “I have to say, she’s one fine piece. Mind if I—?”

  I moved before I thought. My hand clamped down around his wrist. “Don’t even think about it.”

  Greg raised his eyebrows. “I see.”

  I released his arm, and he rubbed the marks my fingers left. I’d been squeezing him a lot harder than I thought.

  “So, what are you going to do?”

  Fuck, what was I going to do? At the moment, I was torn between marching her out of the place with a stern lecture about how she couldn’t possibly understand what she was getting herself into and marching her upstairs to demonstrate exactly what she had gotten herself into. What I sure as hell was not going to do was allow any other man to get within ten feet of her.

  Again, my body was ahead of my brain. I was already out of the booth and headed toward the bar before I knew what I’d do when I got there.

  The bartender placed a glass of white wine on a napkin in front of her as I reached her. Several Doms who’d been angling their way in her direction gave me dirty looks, but backed off.

  She took a sip of her wine before registering my presence. Her eyes rounded when she realized it was me.

  “Mark.” That was all she said. Just my name. But the rest of her thoughts and emotions flickered across her face because, being Allison, she couldn’t hide them.

  First, anger and hurt. She’d called and left six messages for me after our night together eighteen months ago. I hadn’t returned any of them. Not even to explain why I couldn’t return them.

  Second, surprise. She hadn’t expected to run into me here. I wasn’t sure if that made me feel better or worse. On the one hand, I didn’t like to think she’d known that I hung out at a fetish club and engaged in hot and kinky but meaningless sex with women on a regular basis. On the other, I was even less enthusiastic about the idea that she’d come here with the intention of engaging in hot and kinky but meaningless sex with a man other than me.

  “What are you doing here, Allison?” Ha, great question, asshole. Like you don’t know exactly what she’s doing here.

  She took another sip of her wine before raising her chin and saying levelly, “Same thing you are, I guess.”

  Yeah, that was an answer I’d really needed to hear. I came to be mastered and fucked by some man I’ve never met.

  Heat filtered along my spine and settled in my balls.

  I was furious with her for contemplating such a dangerous sexual adventure, even when I knew intellectually it was perfectly safe. The Rack’s owners were very selective when it came to issuing those little black cards, and the rules for using the upstairs rooms were both strict and strictly enforced. Anyone who didn’t follow the code of conduct was quickly stripped of membership and never permitted to return.

  At the same time, I was painfully aroused by the realization that Allison’s submissive streak wasn’t just a mild quirk. It was a deeper need that she wanted to explore and nurture. That was the only possible explanation for her decision to pay for and undergo The Rack’s rigorous screening procedures. She needed a Dom.

  She needed me.

  “Glenlivet, neat?” the bartender asked. I didn’t know his name, and he didn’t know mine, but he knew my drink of choice.

  I gave him a curt nod.

  Allison tilted her head to one side. “How long have you been a member here?”

  I shrugged. “Long enough.”

  No point telling her I’d joined about a year after she’d married Clint. A year I’d spent alternately jerking off to vivid fantasies involving her and then feeling like an actual jerk for coveting my best friend’s wife. It had taken me that long to accept that, while I wasn’t ever going to get over her, I needed an outlet other than my hand. And if I couldn’t have Allison, I didn’t want anything serious or long-term, which made a place like The Rack a logical choice.

  “Before…?” she asked.

  She didn’t need to finish the question. While there was no point in telling her the whole story, there was no point in lying, either. I nodded.

  Her gaze slid past mine, her cheeks turning pink. I knew she was imagining me here with other women, both before and after our encounter the night Clint died, and wondering what our coupling had meant to me.

  More than she could ever know.

  The bartender slid my shot of Glenlivet down the bar. I retrieved it and took a deep slug. “I have to admit, this is the last place I expected to see you,” I said.

  Her eyes snapped back to me, flashing with indignation. “Why? It’s good enough for you. Why not me? Because I’m your dead best friend’s wife, I have to be some kind of saint?”

  I closed my eyes briefly. Okay, I had that coming. “That’s not what I meant.”

  “Oh?” she asked, raising her eyebrows. “Then please enlighten me. What did you mean?”

  “I meant... I just...” Hell, I actually didn’t know what I meant. “I just don’t want to see you get hurt, that’s all.” At least that was true, even if it wasn’t a full explanation.

  “It’s a little late for that,” she said drily.

  Ouch. I was really screwing the pooch on this one.

  “Is he bothering you, miss?” Blake Franklin, another one of The Rack’s regular Doms, stood next to Allison’s barstool. “I can make him go away if you like.”

  She looked at him and, after a brief examination of his assets, which, I had to admit, were rock-solid, shook her head. “No, it’s fine. I know him.”

  “All right. But if you need anything, you just let me know. I’m Blake.”

  She smiled. “Thanks, Blake.” We both noticed she didn’t give him her name. Which gave me hope.

  A brief silence stretched between us as Blake moved to the opposite end of the bar, then I said, “His kind is why you shouldn’t be here.”

  Her eyes sought him out. “He looks fine to me.” I didn’t exactly like the emphasis she put on the word fine. “What’s wrong with him?”

  “Nothing if you want to be a man’s slave, day in, day out. That’s what Blake’s into, and it’s one reason he’s still unattached. It’s hard to find women whose kink goes that far.”

  She licked her lips as if she were seriously considering the prospect that her kink went that far, then tilted her head to one side. “So tell me, Mark Finley, why are you still unattached?”

  Crap. I’d left myself wide open for that question. And it was one I was absolutely not going to answer. At least not with complete honesty.

  I shrugged. “Because I don’t want to be attached.”

  “And that’s why you come here.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, surprise, surprise, it’s why I came here, too. And just because I’m new to this doesn’t mean I don’t know what I’m doing. In other words, I don’t need you to protect me from myself, Mark.” She drank a little more of her wine and shook out her hair so that it floated in an auburn cloud around
her shoulders. “I need this as much as you do, and I’m not going to deny myself just because you think I’m too good to have sex with the first hot Dom that offers.”

  That was all it took. My cock went from half-mast—its normal state when Allison was within twenty feet of me—to full attention.

  She grabbed her wine glass and started to slide off her barstool. “Maybe I’ll give that Blake guy a shot.”

  For the second time that night, my hand snaked out and grabbed a wrist before I even knew what I was doing. Her wide eyes flew to mine, but she didn’t try to escape.

  “Am I hot, Allison?”

  She stood there for several seconds, but I could feel the subtle shift in her body—softening, warming.

  “Yes,” she said, so softly I could barely hear her over the background hum in the room. “You know you are.”

  “Then I’m offering.”

  Chapter Three

  I knew I was in over my head as I walked with Allison toward the staircase that led to the private rooms upstairs. But what else could I do? Leave her to the tender mercies of some other Dom? Fuck, no.

  Paul, the bouncer who checked members’ credentials, nodded at me but demanded to see Allison’s card. When she displayed it, the normally poker-faced Paul gave me a barely perceptible wink of approval and handed me a key card. “Number 15.”

  I palmed the card and mounted the stairs with Allison behind me. When we reached the door, I ran the key through the slot and pushed it open, allowing Allison to precede me into the room. I was quick enough in stealing a glance at her to see her eyes widen as she took in her surroundings.

  Not that I could blame her. The number and variety of bondage gear and sex toys in The Rack’s private rooms could be pretty overwhelming on first sight.

  A bed occupied the center of the room, but aside from the mattress and pillows, it didn’t much resemble the sorts of beds I imagined Allison was familiar with. The mattress was set at waist height and each of the four wooden posters as well as the metal head and footboards sported several different restraint systems, from lightweight silken ties to thicker straps and handcuffs. A large assortment of vibrators and dildos in many shapes and sizes was laid out on one bedside table, while ticklers, floggers, whips and crops graced the opposite one. A small bowl on the corner of each table contained a dozen or so packaged condoms.

  As if that weren’t telling enough, there were the various metal racks intended for use as off-the-bed restraints, some freestanding, some hanging from hooks on the walls. All of that did not begin to encompass other items I knew were stored out of sight—rope, nipple clamps, ball gags, collars, and the like. Add to that the wax-play-safe candles that lit the room, and it was the perfect playground.

  Alison’s throat convulsed visibly. “Do you know—that is, do you use all these things?”

  “Do I know how? Yes. Have I tried them all?” I smiled and shook my head. “I’m not sure I could live long enough.” Nor was every tool to my taste, to be honest. I was considerably more aroused by achieving the complete submission of a partner through pleasure than pain or punishment. Pain was only useful to the extent that it augmented pleasure.

  She let out a nervous laugh. “So, what now?”

  “We set the ground rules,” I said brusquely. “Everything that happens between us will be with your consent. If you don’t think you can consent, then you should leave now. The door’s still open.”

  Allison glanced from me to the door, as if verifying the truth of what I’d said. I watched a tiny war take place in her eyes before she said, “I don’t want to leave. I trust you.”

  The best three words a Dom could ever hear. My mouth watered with anticipation, and my cock throbbed with need. I was going to push her to edge of her endurance—and mine.

  With a nod, I pushed the door shut with my heel and walked farther into the room. “Safe word,” I said, my voice raspy. “Pick one.”

  Her eyes narrowed in puzzlement. “I just told you I trust you. Why would I need a safe word?”

  “House rules,” I ground out. Impatience—to get her out of her clothes, to get her on her knees, to get into her mouth, her pussy, her ass—made me rougher than I intended. “And you really do need a way to tell me to stop if I go too far. Because saying ‘no’ and ‘stop’ and ‘it hurts’ won’t work in here. Choose something I can’t mistake for anything but a command to stop.”

  She bit her lower lip. “In that case, there’s only one word I can think of.”

  Our eyes met, and I knew. My heart twisted in my chest.

  Clint.

  That was her safe word.

  As much as I hated the idea, I nodded. That word was guaranteed to stop me in my tracks, no matter how far gone I was.

  I forced myself to return to the task of setting expectations. “Unless you say your safe word, in this room there is no Mark and no Allison. In this room, I am master and you are—”

  “Slave,” she interrupted me, her tone laced with cynicism. “I get it.”

  I reached out, grabbed her wrist hard, and yanked her tight against my body. She let out a squeal of surprise. Grasping her chin firmly in my palm, I turned her face up so she couldn’t avoid my steely gaze.

  “Not slave. I don’t use that word.”

  Right after I got out of residency, I’d taken a job with Doctors without Borders. I’d seen actual slavery in parts of Africa and Asia, and the experience had made it impossible for me to dissociate that word from a practice I found utterly repulsive. I had no problem with other Doms and subs using the word; it just didn’t turn me on.

  “Then what am I?”

  I released her chin and traced the line of her jaw up to the tender skin beneath her earlobe. An obliging trail of gooseflesh followed my touch. “You’re my pet,” I whispered. “As your master, I am bound to take care of you and see to all your needs. In exchange, however, you must give me your complete obedience and submission. If you fail, then I must punish you. If you succeed, I reward you. Generously. Got it?”

  She pressed her lips together and nodded. I could tell that she was a little frightened—which I wanted—but also turned on. A flush heated her chest, and the hardened peaks of her nipples pressed against my chest.

  “And one more thing.” I moved my hands abruptly and grabbed the rounded globes of her ass, forcing her belly against the hardened ridge of my cock. “Don’t ever interrupt me unless it’s to say your safe word.” Then I pulled back and gave her a solid slap on the fullest portion of the left cheek.

  She jumped and squeaked in protest. “Ow!”

  “That’s your first taste of punishment, pet. It won’t get any easier if you disobey.”

  Her eyes widened as if the full measure of what she had allowed herself to get into had finally penetrated. I hoped so. She had to understand how much she was giving away, how much she was risking by walking down this path. Even with me.

  Especially with me.

  I waited for the word. I expected it. But it didn’t come. Instead, she stood, silent and obedient, watching me. Waiting for my command.

  Lust curled low and heavy in my balls. My cock, the demands of which I’d been ruthlessly suppressing as I explained my expectations, threatened to burst my zipper.

  I’d promised to take care of her and see to her pleasure, but first, I had a little business of my own. If I didn’t take the edge off right away, I was in danger of going too far, too fast and genuinely causing her harm.

  “Take off your clothes,” I ordered.

  Her nostrils flared, and her eyes darkened. One thing was undeniable—Allison, my pet, liked to be commanded.

  After kicking off her sandals, she shimmied out of the demure white skirt. Beneath it, she wore white thigh-high stockings, held up by a lacy garter, and a matching white thong that displayed the gorgeous mounds of her ass, one cheek slightly reddened from my hand. I had an immediate image of bending her over the bed and fucking her while wrapping my hand through that demure garter belt.<
br />
  Hell, yeah.

  She reached down to undo the garters.

  “Stop,” I said. “Leave the garter and stockings on. The thong goes, though.”

  She obliged me, releasing the garters so she could slide the thong off. The side-to-side movement of her hips as she shimmied out of it damn near leveled me.

  Time to stop watching, I decided.

  I walked to the other side of the bed and began to prepare the restraint I had in mind to use. It looked a bit like a clothes rack, but with a nice, sturdy A-frame to keep it from toppling over. A pair of padded handcuffs hung from the adjustable overhead bar. I moved the bar downward to where I thought it should be positioned for Allison in a kneel, then turned to beckon her.

  The sight of her, nude but for that garter and stockings, which she’d reattached after removing the thong, knocked my breath from my lungs. Somehow, I’d almost managed to forget how fucking gorgeous her body was, how ripe and sweet and perfectly suited she was to my tastes. I had to close my eyes for a second to clear the sight from my brain. If I kept looking I’d forget that I’d brought her up here to give her a taste of the kink she thought she craved and just make love to her instead.

  I had to remember this was a scene and a fuck, and nothing else.

  “Come over here and kneel.” I pointed to the spot on the floor underneath the rack. The floor was hardwood, not carpet, for obvious reasons of hygiene but also because it made stress positions more…well, stressful.

  She took a slow, calming breath but did as I asked. Once she was on her knees, I brought her arms up one at a time and locked them into place above her head. She had to strain just slightly to keep from pulling on the manacles, which meant the height of the bar was perfect.

  I slipped the handcuff key into my pocket, then walked to the bedside table and picked up a soft leather flogger.

  She watched me with wide, uncertain eyes as I returned to her. I knew it hadn’t escaped her that I hadn’t removed a stitch of clothing, and I didn’t intend to. Doing so would destroy the power dynamic, and that was the only thing that stood between me and breaking down at this woman’s feet, begging her to hold me, comfort me, love me.