Boston Avant-Garde 5: Bellicoso (3 page)

She’d had no notion of her rescuer until she’d stood up and come face-to-face with the veritable god in a white Henley and black skintight pants. First of all, the leather pants left very little to the imagination. It had taken her a good fifteen seconds to rip her gaze away from the impressive bulge in his groin. Then she’d looked up and been trapped like a rabbit by his slate-gray eyes.

Of course, that was when she’d realized she was still naked. Now with her cursed red dress more or less in order, she was ready to pretend none of this had happened.

“Did you know the man you were with?”

When he’d let her out of the stocks, Selena had gotten a taste of his sexy growl. The rough bass voice had been almost familiar, but how could she have forgotten someone like this guy? And the timbre of his words hadn’t prepared her for what it would be like to be the focus of his attention. She swallowed, trying to settle her nerves. “I met him earlier tonight. Obviously I won’t be going home with him.”

He cocked his head to the left, a strand of dark hair falling across his forehead. “Meaning you had every intention of leaving with someone.”

“If I wanted to.” She didn’t feel the need to go into her self-constructed plan to sleep her way through the Boston club scene in an effort to forget her life had gone from charmed to epic fail. Granted, she’d wasted an entire week searching for the elusive heroes who’d rescued her from Jackson. She was starting to think her desperation had placed more importance on the incident than it deserved. She could not continue to look for heroes in places like Triptych. She needed to set aside her little-girl fantasy of finding knights in shining armor.

He pursed his lips. Selena didn’t know why, but something deep inside told her he was disappointed with her answer. It made her feel ashamed somehow. She dropped her gaze, examining her nails to cover her discomfort.

“Recklessness doesn’t equal independence,” he said.

In the last month her older siblings had been ragging on her constantly about her behavior. Nothing they’d said had affected her as deeply as those four words delivered in his deep tone. What gave him the right? Who the hell did he think he was anyway?

Anger made her brave. She stared him in the eye and ignored the butterflies in her belly. “Who made you boss?”

To her shock, he grinned. “Nobody. That’s really not my thing.” His full lips bowed into the sexiest smile she’d ever seen. Her womb clenched, her libido going up in flames.

It took a few seconds of plowing through the haze of arousal before she processed his words. Being boss wasn’t his thing? What did he mean by that? Her inner tramp was leaping up and down, wondering if this was the guy that would finally make sex into something worth having.

“What’s your name, sweetheart?” he asked.

“Selena.” She choked on the lump in her throat. “Who are you?”

“My name is Malachi.”

She rolled his name around in her mind. Malachi. Malachi.
Malachi? This
was the guy who’d laughed at a loaded gun? “Oh my God, it was you that night! I was starting to think I’d imagined the whole thing.”

“If a night with me involved imagination, I’m going to hope it was due to your desire for a repeat performance.”

He was looking at her as though she’d lost her mind. She hated this insecure feeling. As if she was desperate for some guy to remember her. “My ex is Jackson Wilhelm.”

She hoped that would be all it took to jog his memory, and fortunately she was right. How embarrassing would it have been to rehash the entire event only to discover he rescued damsels in distress from psycho ex-husbands all the time?

“I see.” He gazed at her thoughtfully before gesturing to the stocks. “After that experience, what made you decide to experiment with these?”

What
had
made her agree to try something like stocks? It was kind of extreme, even for the stuff she’d been into lately. Selena couldn’t keep her gaze from creeping around the room. Less than six feet away a hot guy begged to suck his lover’s cock. On the opposite side a woman panted with desire while her lover spanked her ass. Selena didn’t know why it fascinated her. Until walking down those stone steps from the upstairs club to this strange subterranean world, she’d had no experience with bondage.

“Call it a weak moment,” she said.

“A weak moment or giving in to your curiosity?” Malachi moved closer. His physical presence drew her in as if he had a gravitational pull she couldn’t resist. “You can’t deny that the others in this room are enjoying what they’re doing.”

He was right. The others were obviously enjoying the kink in their relationships. It didn’t seem to matter that they didn’t have any kind of real privacy. These people were happy to perform in front of an audience. In fact, she was starting to suspect they rather enjoyed the exhibitionism.

One couple in particular seemed utterly aware of Selena’s and Malachi’s attention. The woman was tied faceup on a bondage table. Her legs were spread and shackled. Her “master” held a whip in one hand and what looked like a dildo in the other. Selena watched utterly rapt as the master slid the sleek toy into his lover. The slow penetration left the woman panting for breath, her breasts rising and falling quickly.

Selena was transfixed. The woman cried out, her body arching in pleasure. As soon as she did, the whip found its mark across her full breasts. Selena’s body heated, her pussy quivering with excitement. She wanted to know what it was like to feel that bite. The curling heat of pain mingled with pleasure, pushing her beyond limits. Was something like that supposed to be a turn-on? What did that even mean?

“It’s a privilege to be watched like that, Selena.” Malachi’s voice came from right beside her ear. “A Dom wants to show off a good submissive, to let everyone know his slave is the most obedient.”

Her pride chafed at the word
obedient
. “Fuck obedience. That’s not for me.”

“Is that right?” His low laugh rippled across her consciousness, drawing chills. “Would you still feel that way if obedience could give you the most intense pleasure of your life?”

“That’s a ridiculous boast.” His arrogance was irritating. She should’ve walked away. Except a small part of her wondered if he could really deliver what he was promising. The most intense pleasure of her life? “Sex is just sex. It’s all about two people trying to wring whatever they can out of the moment and hurrying to be the first one finished just in case their partner falls asleep.”

“What if I could prove you wrong?”

His breath whispered across her bare collarbone. A thrill raced across her skin. If anyone could show her something enjoyable in carnality, it would be the sexy bastard behind her. He radiated heat and sensuality on a scale she couldn’t even fathom. She almost clamped her thighs together against the pulsating wave of lust curling through her pussy.

Selena drew in a deep breath, trying to get control of her body. “If you think I’m going to let you chain me to some medieval torture device, you better think again.”

“I told you. That’s not my thing.” There was a hard edge to his voice that hadn’t been there before.

The woman across the room jerked against her bound hands. The metallic sound of her restraints was an odd accompaniment to her moans. Her master stood by her head, his cock in his hand, letting her suckle the rounded head. Selena was transfixed by what she was seeing. She’d never been fond of giving oral sex. She found it demeaning. Yet this woman appeared to be willing. Hell, she looked like she wanted more.

“If you don’t tie me up, what makes you think I’ll hold still? What if I just decide to get up and walk out in the middle of whatever it is you’re planning to do?” Selena wondered why she was even entertaining the idea of calling his bluff. Was she insane? Was she that desperate to make a connection with her so-called savior that she was willing to check out of reality for a while?

“I’m willing to take that chance. Are you?”

She spun on her heel and found herself staring at his chest. She craned her head back to see his face. It made her feel dainty—feminine in a way she hadn’t for so long. In her heels, Selena had always been taller than the business magnates and prep-school boys she dated. At five-nine she wasn’t exactly short, even barefoot, but Malachi was taller, sleeker, and formidable in an understated way. He wasn’t bulging with muscle like Selena’s sister’s husband. Malachi moved like a man who knew his own power and was utterly comfortable with it.

His uncanny gray eyes gleamed with the promise of something Selena just couldn’t resist. Worse, she didn’t really want to resist. She’d searched everywhere for this man, only to begin believing he and his shadowy accomplice were figments of her imagination. She wanted this. And she’d keep her fingers crossed that he wasn’t going to be her second regret of the night or her third bad experience at Triptych. “Fine, but not in here. I like a little privacy.”

GETTING HER TO accept his proposal had been the goal, right? So why was Malachi’s gut telling him he had made a hasty decision with irrevocable repercussions? This wasn’t just a woman. She was the wildcat he’d rescued once before. That night in the street he’d known she was desperate for satisfaction. This was his chance to show her how she could achieve it. Of course he was also feeling a strong desire to castigate her for deciding to follow yet another complete stranger into an unknown situation. Hadn’t her earlier mishap cured her of this insatiable self-destructive behavior?

Would it have cured me?

There was a time in his past when he would have made an equally bad choice. Who was he to judge someone else’s desire to act out against their submissive tendencies?

He left the room and took the next right down a narrow corridor. He didn’t have to look to know she’d followed. Maybe a part of him hoped she wouldn’t. That he would turn, and she would have fled the Underground. Instead, her scent lingered at the edge of his awareness. It wasn’t light and airy like most females. It was dark and wild, tinged with the kind of frustration Malachi understood.

Her heels clicked against the stone floor, her long legs easily keeping time with his strides. He began to focus on his breathing. Something about her rattled him. He didn’t like it, but as with anything else, it could be controlled. He’d learned to master his body and his emotions at great personal cost. He wasn’t going to fall to pieces over one scrap of femininity in a red dress.

As soon as they’d turned into the passageway, they had gone beyond the boundaries of the club. These areas were out of bounds to everyone but employees. A set of stone steps indicated the end of the hall. Solid steel doors barred the way outside.

“There’s your exit.” Malachi gestured to the doors. “Just knock on the door. Owen will unlock it and let you out. It dumps you right back on the street where your car was parked that night.”

“How do I know you’re telling the truth?” She propped one hand on her hip and gave him a thoroughly mistrustful glare.

It rankled that she doubted his word. He had a sudden craving to teach her just how serious he was about keeping promises. He wasn’t the one who’d tried to have her against her will on a public street. “If you don’t believe me, go and check.”

A desire to do exactly that lingered behind her green eyes. “Whatever. I’m still looking for the privacy you promised me.”

Malachi reached for the key hanging around his neck. He unlocked the door to his left and shoved it open before making a sarcastic, sweeping motion with his hand. “After you.”

It was impossible not to appreciate the sway of her hips as she sauntered in ahead of him. Her scent floated behind her, sinking into his senses like a siren call. Malachi exhaled slowly, deliberately, locking down anything but the independent side of his personality he’d worked so hard to cultivate.

“What is this place?” She walked to the center of the room and spun in a slow circle.

He knew she would immediately realize he’d brought her into an old chapel. More than that, he sensed she would also understand the odd incongruence of the setup. “It used to be a private sanctuary for one of the high-ranking clergy. Now it’s a training room.”

He gave her a moment to soak it in, not wanting to press her until his instincts told him she was ready.

The space was a long rectangle. Stained glass depictions of the archangels lined the top half of the outside wall. The location was partially subterranean, but the windows allowed a generous amount of soft, colored light in during the day.

She pointed to the bed. “Is that where you sleep?”

The oak and iron monstrosity was covered in a fitted black PVC sheet. It was intimidating and massive, obviously intended for use with restraints. “Does it look like it’s meant for sleeping?”

He didn’t expect her to answer, and she didn’t disappoint. She drifted toward the other end of the room. There was a cage in one corner and a St. Andrew’s cross in the other. Both were more decorative than anything else. A set of stocks sat nearby, several framed black-and-white photos of historic Salem hanging overhead.

She shot him a smug smile. “This looks like a torture museum. Do you actually use anything in here?”

“This isn’t my space.” Why had he told her that? “It’s just a room the club offers to members.”

At one time he’d helped break in submissives with the tools in this room. He’d used his position at the club to train Doms to be good masters. Being a submissive that had spent years at the mercy of a cruel mistress, he’d seen it as a crusade. Lately his participation in the local community had dwindled to nearly nothing. He was in a long-term relationship, though his partner was in favor of his participation in those breaking-in rituals. Somehow increasing his mental strength had become more important than the new D/s relationships of others.

So why the change? Considering her a new sub is crazy.

It felt too right to have her here. Strange, yet inevitable. He wondered further, contemplating what his partner might think of him bringing a woman to the playroom. Especially a woman they’d both felt compelled to rescue from her asshole ex-husband.