Dark Control (Dark Dominance 1)

Instead of looking pleased, his lips twisted in frustration. “Jesus, I told you to stop that.”

As quickly as I’d found subspace, he jerked it away from me. “Sir…I…”

“Stop looking at me like that, like you’re doing this for me.”

He took a step back. I was flabbergasted. I thought that was what submission was all about. I’d thought that was the purest, highest form of surrender. “What? I don’t understand.”

“Get your emotions out of it. You don’t have to understand. You have to—” He swung an arm around the space, gesturing with the whip. “No one else looks at their Dominant like that. They’re here for the pain, for the enjoyment.”

“I—Sir—I am—”

“You have to be in it for yourself, not for me.”

“But I—I want to do this for you.” Tears rose in my eyes. “I come here for you.”

“No, you come here for you.”

“Partly, but also to please you. Because I—” I hesitated, but the words still came, the horrible, disastrous words. “Because I feel connected to you here, in a way I’ve never felt connected to anyone before. There’s this depth to our scenes—”

“Jesus, there’s no depth to anything, Juliet, except that dildo in your cunt. I mean, look at you.”

His hard gaze raked over my slut costume and restraints while I stared at him, traumatized. His hazel eyes went storm-dark, then he dropped the whip and turned away. Tears blurred my vision as I watched him stride the length of the dungeon and walk out the door.

Oh God. He couldn’t… He didn’t…

He had. He’d left me. A minute went by. Two minutes. Three. I watched the door but he didn’t return. I looked around, seeing blurs of Dominants, none of them my own. Where was he? Was this more sadism? A punishment?

The tears in my eyes spilled over, but I couldn’t wipe them away. My hands were bound. My legs were bound. My body was under someone else’s control, and that someone had left me.

“Jesus.” It seemed an eternity before I heard the rough voice beside me. “What the fuck? Where’s Fort?”

I screwed my eyes shut, ashamed, trying to find my voice to speak. “I—I don’t know. He left a while ago. I don’t know.”

“He left? Open your eyes. Look at me.”

I did, and hot tears flooded my cheeks. He put a hand on my back. “Get her a blanket,” he said. Fingers worked at my wrists. “Fuck, fuck, fuck. What the ever-loving fuck?” His arms came around my sides, undoing the strap at my waist. My tears cleared enough to recognize Fort’s friend Devin and the elfin submissive he’d brought to Goodluck’s premiere.

Whispers rose and other noises in the dungeon faded away as people moved toward me, fencing me in. I wanted to hide but I couldn’t move. Devin waved someone away. “No, I’ve got it. Give her some space.”

He lowered the beam so my feet could reach the floor, then knelt and undid my ankle on one side, while his submissive undid the other.

While they worked, another man wrapped a blanket around my shoulders and talked to me, a steady stream of quiet, soothing phrases I barely heard. I was so humiliated, so defeated. Devin chafed my hands. “Juliet.” He waited until my eyes fixed on him. “Juliet, do you remember me?”

I nodded, too mortified and wrung out to speak. From erotic heat and subspace to this cold abandonment…it was too much to take.

“I’m going to lift you off the beam, okay?” he said. “I’m going to go really slow. Are you still wet enough, or do you need lube?”

I shook my head, just because I was horrified by his question, but he took it as a yes, and his submissive went scurrying off at his signal. That was when I realized the dungeon was silent, that almost everyone who’d been playing had disappeared.

“Please take me off here,” I said.

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Please.” I almost said Sir. “Please help me. I want to go home. I need to go home.”

He ignored my pleading, rubbing my back until his submissive returned. “Be gentle,” he said, and she was touching me, smoothing lube around my pussy’s opening. “I’ve sat here too,” she said. “It’s not always easy to get up.”

I fixed my eyes on her sympathetic smile, using it as an anchor while she replaced the moisture that Fort’s desertion had dissipated. When she seemed satisfied, Devin put an arm under my leg and another around my waist, his muscles straining to be gentle even as he lifted me as dead weight. “Okay?” he asked.

I wasn’t okay. I was falling apart, even though he lifted me so slowly and carefully that I felt no pain at all. The pain was centered in my soul, in my heart, in the trust that Fort had smashed to pieces. That trust was all that had held our fragile relationship together, and now it was gone.

Again. I’d failed again. I’d trusted someone I shouldn’t have trusted, and convinced myself that he felt more for me than he did. I felt furious, belittled. Maimed. Abandoned, but it was what I deserved for being stupid again. I tried to stand as soon as I was free of the huge phallus, but Devin held me tighter.

“Wait. Take a minute.”

“I want to go home.” I started crying again. I didn’t want Devin to hold me, but I found myself pressing my head against his shoulder, seeking solace. He carried me to a nearby sofa and held me, wrapping the blanket tightly around my body. His submissive brought some water for me. After all this, I still didn’t know her name, which seemed horribly sad.

“What happened, Juliet?” Fort’s friend Milo, the Dom with the long hair, stood behind the couch, his eyes intent with concern. “Why did Fort leave you? Was he sick?”

“No, he was angry. He said…” I thought back, trying to remember what I’d babbled to him, what had been so bad that he had to walk away and leave me. Devin’s submissive held out a tissue. “He said I was too emotional. Then…I don’t remember… I guess I said something that upset him.”

Devin scowled. “There’s nothing you could have said that would excuse his behavior.”

I knew his words were true, but I still felt a sick sense of blame, of shame for something I didn’t understand. I wanted to hide myself. I wanted to hit something. I wanted to scream until The Gallery’s glass clock face shattered.

Milo leaned closer to me. “What do you want to do?”

Hide. Hit. Scream. Shatter.

“Do you want to go see him?” he pressed. “Talk about what happened?”

I really started bawling, because these men were idiots. I never wanted to see Fort again, and he clearly wanted nothing more to do with me.

“He left me,” I said, swiping at my tears. “I don’t understand why.” But I understood that all my relationships failed, so this should have been expected.

“It’s against the rules for him to leave you,” said Devin. “We should go to him. Discuss this. He needs to apologize to you.”

“No.” I struggled off Devin’s lap. “I don’t want to see him. I need to go home.”

He exchanged a look with his submissive. “We’ll take you home. Rachel, go and get her coat.”

“Yes, Sir.”

Rachel was her name. She had a name and I had a name, and all of this was just games. Horrible, dangerous games.

I turned to Devin as soon as she was gone. “Did Fort go to Morocco with you?

“What?” His pale blue eyes narrowed. “Morocco?”

My hands curled into fists at my sides. “Fort said he went to Morocco with you.”

“Yes. We’ve gone many times.”

“This week! Did he go this week?”

Devin blinked at me. “Not this week. He tagged along on a trip to Geneva the last couple days. It wasn’t that exciting, but—”

I put my head in my hands.

“Did he promise to take you to Morocco?” Devin asked. I couldn’t reconcile his kind voice with the rude Dom who’d taunted me last week.