My Control (6 page)

Crystal

When Blake and I are allowed through the gates of the massive mansion, we’re informed by security that Ryan is in Mark’s office. I’m a nervous wreck for fear that we’re too late. With two suit-clad security men framing us, Blake and I rush up the steps to the double red doors where another man in a suit greets us. We step inside the foyer of white tile, framed with expensive art I’m sure Mark selected himself.

Several feet away, Kurt, the head of security that I met on my prior visit, stands in front of a magnificent winding stairwell covered in red carpet, in heated debate with a tall, good-looking man in slacks and a pullover.

“Ryan,” Blake murmurs softly. “Mark hasn’t killed him yet. That’s a positive development.”

“Yes,” I agree, “but what about Mark? Is he okay?”

Ryan breaks free of the conversation with Kurt and charges toward us, his intelligent eyes raking intimately and uncomfortably over me before landing on Blake. “Get him on a leash,” he snaps, his voice darn near guttural.

“Kurt doesn’t work for me,” Blake replies dryly.

“Mark,” Ryan grinds out. “Get
Mark
on a leash.” I let out a silent breath of relief. Mark is okay. Maybe not emotionally, but physically at least. Ryan continues, “Or I swear to you I’ll sue you, him, and anyone who ever breathed his name.” He flicks me a look. “Who the hell are you?”

“My father calls me ‘Trouble.’ My mother, ‘Sunshine,’” I say, my survival skills honed by my two arrogant brothers and my father, the king of arrogance. “I’ve always liked the name Rebecca though, if you’d like to call me that?” It’s out before I can stop it and I don’t even know where it came from.

His eyes flash and he makes a move toward me that’s thwarted by Blake stepping forward, his hand on my shoulder. “Ironically,” Blake says, his tone amused despite the tension pulsing off of him, “my father called me ‘Trouble,’ as well. So push me—please. I enjoy a good reason to break a few rules.”

I suddenly love Blake Walker, despite barely knowing him and I’m very relieved that he’s on Mark’s side.

Ryan’s lips twitch, sardonic amusement tinging his reply. “Breaking the rules comes with a price—if you don’t know how to cover your tracks. I’m betting you’re more a ‘do it, and deal with the consequences’ kind of guy. The kind I eat for lunch.” He steps around Blake, and his near-confession that he’s hidden his involvement with Rebecca’s murder has me fighting angry.

Blake replies, “If I’m lunch, I bite back like a hungry shark.”

Ryan’s laughter cackles behind us as the doors open and close, and it’s not the cold, nearly dawn, air that sends a shiver down my spine. It’s the certainty that Mark is right about Ryan. He was involved in killing Rebecca.

Kurt in front of us. “Mr. Compton would like to see you, Ms. Smith.” He glances at Blake. “Alone.”

“Yes,” I say, eager to see Mark. “Take me to him.”

Blake glances at me. “Are you sure you want to do this? He’s not exactly himself.”

“Which is all the more reason I need to do this.”

“Then I’ll be right here waiting for you,” he replies. Then his phone beeps. He checks a text message, cursing under his breath. “I need to go out to the search site. Jacob, one of my men, is at the exterior gate.”

“I can arrange for her safe departure and arrival to her destination,” Kurt offers.

Blake nods. “All right. But she leaves with him when she leaves.” He turns to me. “Jacob will take you back. I know he’s safe, and he’ll keep the press off you.”

“Fine,” I agree impatiently, and turn to Kurt. “Let’s go.”

He motions me toward the second stairwell that leads down to Mark’s private quarters. I start forward, and Blake grabs my arm. “My fiancée was murdered,” he says softly. “I let my need to make her murderer pay consume me. Meeting my wife saved my life, but my guilt and anger didn’t make it easy on her.”

My chest tightens. “Did you want to be saved?”

“Not before I met her. I lived on the edge, inviting death every chance I got.”

I nod at the grim knowledge that I’m headed for a fight. “Thank you for sharing that with me when you barely know either of us.”

He releases my arm. “Call me if you need me, no matter what the time.” He steps back and leaves me to Kurt, who motions me forward. I follow him down the stairs, wondering what I’ll find. The tender family man that I’ve glimpsed as he’s cared for his mother? The hard businessman who shut me out after the last time I was here and kept me at a distance? The broken man from the hotel room?

We reach the bottom of the steps and though we turn left, to my right is a dungeon door—which makes me consider another option. Maybe I’m about to see the true Master that I’ve encountered only once before in a bathroom in New York. The memory of him ripping off my panties and demanding that I beg “Mr. Compton” to lick me heats my skin and sets my nerves to jumping. I’d asked,
not
begged, damn it, and I’d been aroused—which confuses me for reasons I try never to think about.

Kurt stops walking and I realize that we’ve arrived at Mark’s private quarters. He rings a buzzer, and then faces me as the door pops open, giving me a nod. Without so much as a word, he leaves me to enter on my own.

I push open the heavy wooden door and enter the familiar room that seems dipped in a soft glow, a massive four poster bed the centerpiece to various erotic adventures draped in sheer curtains. Those curtains do funny things to my belly that I do not invite, nor do I want to explore. But inching forward, scanning for Mark to no avail, I am forced to search the depths of the room, unable to truly see what’s inside, but certain there’s no human outline.

Finally, my attention goes to a huge archway opening that appears to lead to another room. I swallow hard and move forward. At the entryway I freeze, finding Mark standing in the center of a room with curtains surrounding what looks like another archway leading to a room meant for bondage.

I was right. The Master is here—and he’s the man that I’ve been avoiding. The man who is everything that I do
not
want.

Mark

Crystal stands in the doorway, looking tired, worried, and beautiful. The spike of desire I feel is instant, and I want it to be about sex, about escape, and the control this club has always been for me. But here, now, tonight, it is not. It’s about something more she stirs in me—something Rebecca stirred in me that I never saw. It’s the way Crystal both soothes my raw nerves and awakens the man in me all at once simply by entering a room. I tell myself my reaction is my rebounding after the loss of Rebecca. There’s no other explanation and to use her in a such a way is unfair, and damaging in a way she doesn’t deserve, as is my need to grab her and hold her and ride out this storm with her in my arms.

“Come here,” I order Crystal softly, aware of the trepidation on her face, in her eyes, aware I’m about to give her reason for those feelings.

She crosses her arms defensively beneath her breasts. “I think I’ll stay here. What happened with Ryan?”

“We talked.”

“And?” she prods, pushing the way she pushes, without limits.

“And come here, Ms. Smith,” I command, preparing to show her limits, and to do so in a way I’d never do to a submissive in training. But then, I’m not training Crystal. I’m driving her away.

“I know what you’re doing,” she snaps.

“My playroom. My rules. Come here and explain yourself.”

“Explain myself? Sure.” She starts forward, long strides carrying her toward me, as she adds, “And you can explain yourself.” I meet her in the middle of the room, standing toe to toe with her as she continues. “You can’t go after Ava and Ryan. Think of your family.” She wraps her arms around me, defying every rule of this room. “Please. Please don’t do it. There are other ways.”

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Why does she feel soft and still so right, when she’s supposed to be wrong? “I don’t want to talk about Ava or Ryan.” I slice my fingers into her hair, rough by intent, yanking her face to mine. “Why do you think I came here? I want to forget right now. And for me, fucking is forgetting. And not your way—fucking my way. Get down on your knees.”

She pales, and the look in her eyes confirms everything I’ve suspected. Her need for control is a way to hide from something, and I want to know what. Yet I never ask a submissive what they want to escape; I just make sure they do.

“No,” she says. “I told you. I won’t do this. It’s not me.”

“But it is me. You want me, you want this. And you’d better prepare yourself. I’ll force you to stop running from whatever you’re running from, and in the process I’ll make you cry. I’ll make you hate me. But you’ll face it, and you’ll be glad you did.”

A stricken look washes over her face and she flattens her hands on my chest. “I’m not running. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You are, and you do. You’re more transparent than you think, Ms. Smith. And you are nowhere as near as strong as you pretend to be. You’re a weak shell about to break.”

She starts to tremble in my arms. “I know what you’re doing. I read the journal. You made her feel vulnerable when
you
felt vulnerable. Well, guess what? You want to be with me? You have to be vulnerable with me.”

I set her away from me. “You read Rebecca’s journal?” I demand, anger sliding through me. I’m not sure why, or even if it’s at her.

“I thought it was part of the files you left for me, and I only read the first entry.”

I know that entry all too well.
That’s when he takes me to the club; that’s when he takes me places he knows I don’t want to go.
And she was right. I did. I pushed in all the wrong ways by involving Ava and Ryan, giving away control by involving them, when I should have held onto it tighter. That was been my mistake. A mistake I’d made by not shutting things down with Rebecca before I couldn’t walk away and neither could she. One mistake I won’t make with Crystal.

“This is who I am and what I am. I think it’s pretty clear that you can’t handle that.”

She steps back as if slapped. “I won’t lash out at you, like you are at me.

I remove my cell from my pocket and dial Kurt. “Tell Jacob that Ms. Smith is ready to leave.” I end the call. “Go back to the hotel.”

“And if I refuse to leave?”

“Then you’ll fuck me on my terms, starting on your knees in the center of the room.”

Anger and pain tighten her normally gentle features, driving me to the brink of aborting my mission to drive her away. But that would be selfish—it would be for me, not her.

Her response is a non-response, when I crave something. Anything. She doesn’t scream or shout or attack. She simply turns and walks out of the playroom. Several moments later, the door to my private rooms closes. I am as it was intended: alone, in what feels like a shallow grave getting deeper. But at least she’s not in it with me.

Mark

I spend what’s left of the night at the club, and the way my thoughts of Rebecca and Crystal merge has me certain I’m losing my mind. I have to find the Master in me again, and I need to do it now.

By ten, I’ve been woken up by a call from Blake and the confirmation that the press is all over the hotel.

“I’m moving Crystal and I’ll pack your things. I’ll text you the hotel address. Crystal wants to go to the gallery. I don’t think it’s a good idea until after this dies down.”