Holding Hannah (2 page)

“It’s specialized.”

She looked at the flogger again and then backed away from him. When he gestured, she continued the tour, only now that she had seen the sconces, her eyes seemed geared toward finding other small oddities. Like the costume boxes stacked up in a room marked ‘Wardrobe’. Each was labeled something that her mind began to twist until her stomach was twisting right along with it—flapper, princess, infant, sissy boy, drop-seat pajamas, sultan/harem, nun/clergy, school girl, Victorian maid, proper maid, sexy maid, butler. An unmarked box sat partially open by the door and she couldn’t resist stealing a peek under the unsecured flap. A black leather mask stared balefully up at her from where it lay atop a carefully packaged whip. Hannah jumped back, crashing into Sam, who caught her elbow before she could fall.

“Careful,” he said, his dark eyes glittered with
knowing laughter.

Her face flamed
; her skin tingled, up her right leg and down her left arm, and suddenly all she could think about was the fact that Marshall and Goodson had moved on again and she and Sam were once more alone. She hurried to find the others, fleeing from the mostly empty Wardrobe and straight into the gift shop with its neat stack of boxes filling up one corner and row after row of naked mannequins filling up the other. Empty shelves divided the space into eight or so aisles and glass display cases created a horseshoe-shaped checkout counter where future customers could pay for their purchases. Purchases like ball gags (written in black felt tip marker across one box) and handcuffs (marked across another) and nipple clamps (her own tightened in dread—or was it eager?—anticipation) and that miscellaneous box marked novelties. A single glass dildo sat in an otherwise empty display case, sending a fan of pure heat flashing beneath her skin and spreading out into every trembling part of her.

“Are you all right?”
Sam asked, smiling, looking down at her as if he could see exactly what was happening within her, as if he liked the way this was affecting her.

“Of course
,” she lied, trembling. She had to get out of here. She hurried to the door, which was a veritable homage to the Kama Sutra of BDSM.  It was covered with a series of tiny two-by-two inch carved panels, each one depicting a different submissive act or sexual position. Her hand burned to touch it each one individually, but she resisted and and pushed the heavy thing open. She passed back into the main foyer just as Goodson disappeared with Marshall around a second floor balcony corner.

Her heart was pounding so hard
that it hurt. Hannah touched her chest, wanting to follow, but needing very badly just to get this riot of nerves back under control, the pins-and-needle-like prickling out of her nipples, this languid flow of pulsing, thrumming heat out from between her legs.

F
rom behind her, Sam’s low voice practically purred, “Have you ever been to a place like this before, Hannah?”

The way he said her name made her whole body tighten and ache in a way she had never felt this intensely before.
Hannah had no defense against him. Safely ensconced within her skirt and blouse, her arm and her thigh burned and tingled. She dared not touch her leg, not where he could see her, but she gripped her arm, squeezing hard in an effort to get the prickling, touch-me sensation to stop. She shook her head.

The palatial foyer echoed each slow, deliberate step that brought Sam to her.
His breath caressed her ear again as he leaned in close, looming but not touching, heating that thin sliver of air trapped between them at her back and somehow burning her whole body with the overwhelming heat of his.

“Would you like to?”

He was temptation personified, the devil in the guise of a smile and a man she should not want this badly.

He knew
.

Hannah clutched her arm tighter.
“No,” she tried to say, but there was no sound to it. No sound at all, and even less conviction.  She tried to shake her head, but no part of her would move. Only her knees, dipping feebly in and out, and her hand, tightening claw-like as she squeezed and squeezed at her left forearm.

He knew
. It wasn’t possible, but he did. She knew he did. She could see it right there, right in the midnight depths of his mocking, laughing, hungry, unblinking eyes.

“
Don’t be afraid, Hannah.” He reached for her hand and took it gently, loosely, giving her every opportunity to pull free if she truly wanted to. She did and yet she never even tried. He coaxed more than he pulled, but the end result was still the same. He drew her back with him toward a thin door tucked practically unnoticed under the shadows of the curving staircase. “Come. I want to show you something.”

She didn’t want to go. She
didn’t want to see any more. What little she already had seen was having such a terrible effect on her. She could feel them, all those dark familiar urges stirring so deep inside her again. She didn’t need that, didn’t want it. They weren’t a part of her anymore.

She was
better now. She was
better
!

But her legs wouldn’t stop walking and her hand stayed willingly captive in his.
She couldn’t look away, not even when he opened that thin door to reveal a narrow corridor of grey stone steps trailing down into darkness. He tapped what must have been a light switch tucked up behind the door’s molding and a long series of wall sconces came to instant life. They flickered, casting the illusion of real flames on one wall and the shadows of carved supplication on the other all the way down into the room below.

It was
a dungeon. Her knees weakened all over again. They had a dungeon. Twelve small steps and she’d be down in it, standing next to row after row of implements hanging neatly on the wall. From here, she could already see at least one spanking bench and, straight ahead, a single leg of a St. Andrew’s cross—black, padded, restraints standing open, empty and waiting as if just for her.

The
dark need inside her rolled and roared, surging back to life as if it had never fallen silent.

Ten days. She’d only been better for ten short days
. This time.

Hannah stared helplessly a
s Sam began to descend, one step, then two, then he stopped, waiting on her.

“Have you ever been?” He asked.

Her mouth was dry as sawdust.  "Been what?"
She croaked.

"To a place like this."

Her arm and leg were on fire, burning muted within her clothes, screaming in half-remembered pleasure, half-remembered pain—screaming with the ghosts of sensations that wouldn’t stop no matter how tightly she gripped at her arm and prayed for them to. She didn’t need this anymore. She didn’t want it.

She’d never stopped wanting
it and she’d never wanted anything more in all her life.

"No," she whispered.

“Would you like to go?” Sam’s grip on her hand was nothing more than his open fingers lightly resting under hers. He took another step down, tempting her to come and stand right at the very top of the staircase, trembling as she stared down into the abyss of what she desired most of all.

Everyone would be so disappointed in her.

Her will was crumbling anyway.

“Come with me,” he coaxed. He really was the devil. “We won’t do anything more than just look around.”

Her fingers on his shook, but when he took another step back, she took her first step down. Her heart was beating so hard and so fast, her nipples tightened, her womb shivered—

“I think we have everything we need,”
Goodson announced, his thumping footsteps echoing through the stones right over her head and through the empty entryway behind her. “Where are you, Miss Alder?”

J
ust like that, the spell was broken.

Hannah
snatched her fingers off of Sam’s. Stumbling backwards out of the shadows and into the light of the foyer, she crashed into a marble pillar and for a moment just stood there, hands pressed against her stomach and chest, furiously willing her heart to slow, her nerves to untangle, her body to stop shaking.

“Here,” she stammered, then cleared her throat and
tried again, this time careful to keep her voice steady and even. “I’m here.”

But it wasn’t until Sam came back up
the stairs—frowning at the underside of the staircase in supreme annoyance—that she managed to make herself actually move. His hand caught her arm when she tried to scamper past him, but just as quickly she felt a soft tug at her skirt pocket and then he set her free. She hurried after Goodson, already holding open the front door and offering Marshall, who stood with his hands braced upon the second floor balcony rail, a smile and a farewell wave.

Don’t look back
, Hannah told herself.
Don’t look back
. But as she stepped through the door, that itch at the back of her head overwhelmed her. She stole a quick peek over her shoulder.

Sam had followed only as far as the bottommost st
air. Now, propped against the banister, arms folded across his chest, he simply watched her go. Another slow smile curled his mouth, growing in amusement the longer it took for her to tear her gaze away. In the end, she only managed it because Goodson closed the door between them.

They left their hardhats near a toolbox
at the edge of the half-finished gate, and as they walked back to the car, Goodson asked, “Did you notice anything?”

A thousand things, none of which had anything at all to do with her job.

“No.” Hannah admitted. “Did you?”

He
smirked his barracuda smile. “No. I suspect they must have at least one person familiar with building codes and law on their little S&M club roster.”

“
They passed then?”

Goodson
snorted. “And let them open this…this devil’s playhouse to tempt the good Christian people of our community into sins of flesh and degradation? Ha! Not on my watch. I am going to ruin this man, Miss Alder, and not just financially. I have made it my immediate goal to make him rue whatever decision made him bring his foul flesh trade into my jurisdiction. He knows he’s not going to get his permits through me.” John glanced at her sideways. “No doubt that’s why he had his friend pay such close attention to you.”

Startled,
Hannah looked at him.

“
Oh, he might not recognize you by appearance, but I’ll bet it took all of two seconds for him to connect ‘Hannah’ with the niece of David Alder. If he thinks he can get around me by going through you and your uncle, he can think again.” Goodson chuckled. “Bringing you was the best idea I’ve had all morning. I’ll bet it’s raised his hopes all the way up to his tallest tower. But there is no hope for him, Miss Alder, and do you know why?”

Having reached his car,
Hannah slowed her walk. She didn’t answer, but he didn’t seem to want her to. He was just lording, and it was all she could do right now not to show how disgusted that made her feel. 
Insufferable jerk!

“Because
he’s never going to get the licenses and permits he needs. Not from me, certainly not from you, and I don’t care how perfect this place is,” Goodson announced. “This is my jurisdiction. My fiefdom, my pantheon. And in this pantheon, there is no god higher than me. He’s the ant under my magnifying glass, and I intend to smoke his ass all the way out of town. The day he tries to open this place anyway, I’ll be waiting to hit him with so many fines I’ll own every one of them until the day they die.” Satisfied, he tapped the hood of his car and then pointed at her. “Get in the car.”

As soon as he popped the locks, Hannah
made herself slide into the passenger seat. She rubbed her arm, trying her best not to touch her boss, not even accidentally. He made her feel sick to her stomach. Her skin was crawling just to sit this close to the man.

It wasn’t until they were back at the office and
she was standing at the Coke machine, digging for change, that Hannah found Sam’s business card stuffed in her pocket.

Chills ran down her back, over her bottom, across the backs of her tingling thighs.

The urge to call him was so strong it made her ears ring.

But
did she dare?

* * * * *

The two men stood on opposite floors, both leaning against the railing, both staring at the door.

“Did we pass inspection
, do you think?” Sam finally asked

On the floor above him, Marshall snorted. “What about her? Might be nice to have a friend
in City Hall.”

“I
t might.” Pushing off the banister, Sam circled around the stairs far enough to look up at his friend. “I invited her to the meeting tonight. Think you can clear it with the regulars?”

“
Probably. You think she’ll come?”

He wasn’t sure, but Sam did know one thing: he wasn’t going to need an icepick.

CHAPTER THREE

Hannah sat on the edge of the tub with the business card Sam had slipped her between her fingers. Living with her uncle and his family and sleeping on the living room couch meant she had very few moments of real privacy. What moments she did have, she safeguarded zealously. She’d locked the bathroom door. That gave her five or so minutes before her aunt came knocking with the same timid inquiry that she’d already received that morning: “Hannah, honey…are you okay in there?”

Idly rubbing at her right thigh, Hannah studied the card. On the one side, it said, ‘Sam
Cooper’ with a phone number. On the other, was hand-written:
Club meeting tonight, 8 p.m. You and me. Call for the address.

She’d been staring at this card off and on since she discovered it in her pocket
. She looked at her watch. It was just after seven now.

A soft knock at the door.
Hannah checked her watch again and fought the urge to roll her eyes. Five minutes, right on the nose.

“Hannah, honey?”

“I’m okay,” she called, and hoped that would be good enough. Sometimes it was.

This wasn’t one of those times.

“Are you dressed? Can…can you open the door?”

Biting back a sigh, Hannah hung her head a moment, then nodded. “Just a minute.”

She stood up and put Sam’s business card down beside the sink. Already anticipating what her aunt would want to see, she took her business jacket off and draped that over the sink as well. She rolled her long shirt sleeves up and then she unlocked the door. Without a word, she showed her arms.

“There’s no razors in here,” she reminded, once her obviously
flustered aunt had looked her fill. She always flinched when she glanced at Hannah’s left arm. It had only been ten days; the wounds were still healing. Some looked better than others, but most lingered in that midway, angry-pink limbo between scabbed-over and new-scar white.

“I thought you took your shower this morning,” her aunt said when she finally managed to r
aise her gaze back to Hannah’s face.

“I’m going on a date.” It wasn’t until she heard those words falling from her mouth that Hannah even realized she’d been considering Sam’s bizarre invitation
in the first place. It was the last thing she should do; the very last kind of temptation she needed in her life right now. She shouldn’t even think of it as a temptation. She was all better now. She was normal. Normal people didn’t need to associate with the likes of Sam or his club.

W
hat if the club was like the Castle? Those shadowed sconces—kneeling submissives, dominants with whips…heat unfurled like a blossom in her belly.

Her aunt looked at her with wide eyes, surprised, tentatively smiling. “You
are? With who?”

“Someone I met at work.” A misleading answer, yet still the truth.
“He seems very—”
dangerous
“—nice.”

A flicker of worry moved through her aunt’s eyes. “D-does he know…a-about that other thing, I mean?”

That other thing.

Feeling wooden, Hannah s
hook her head. “No. Why would he?”

“Right
!” Her aunt half-laughed, her relief weighing in the air between them. “Why would he? Do you want supper before you go? I could make you something quickly? Soup? A sandwich?” When Hannah shook her head, her aunt stepped back out of the doorway. “I’ll just leave something in the fridge. You can have it when you get home. A date.” She backed up again, squeezing her thin hands tight in front of her. “That’s wonderful, honey. I’m so excited for you.”

“Thanks.” Hannah
made herself smile and watched her aunt’s awkward withdrawal until, taking pity on her, she simply shut the bathroom door. She locked it again and then stood there, quietly resting her forehead on smooth wood until soft footsteps retreated back down the hall.

Hannah closed her eyes.
She used to love coming here. Uncle David, Aunt Loraine—they used to be her favorite relatives to visit. The summertime retreat she had most looked forward to throughout her entire childhood. Funny, how irrevocably some things could change, especially when you thought it so impossible that they ever would.

That other thing.

Seventy-two hours for observation at her father’s hospital. That’s what
that other thing
had cost her. Seventy-two hours. If left to her father, she’d probably still be there, under hospital observation with Dr. Ng sitting at her bedside and droning on and on in that faux-sympathetic tone. It must have come as a bitter surprise to her father that there were some things even his money could not do and having her committed against her will was one of them. No, Dr. Ng had simply encouraged her to look into antidepressants, then drawn up that stupid no-more-cutting contract, made her sign it, and released her.

Opening her eyes, Hannah looked down at the
healing marks on her arm. She touched the row of smooth, pink scabs.

She should have locked her bathroom door. In hindsight, that was so obvious. But—at twenty and still living at home while she finished out her last year in college—she had never once locked a door in her
childhood home. Not once. And not once had her mother ever just walked into her bedroom and then her bathroom without knocking. Not once. Until that day.

The day she had
finally let her curiosity and fascination take control and she cut herself.

She could still feel the way her skin had
iced and then burned as the razor glided into her. Like butter, she remembered thinking that at the time. Just as smooth as butter, though really it was more like a paintbrush, tracing a single line of white until her skin just…separated.

As if it were happening all over again, Hannah felt the seductive sting of that first small nick, a tiny cut really, drawn across the top of her
right thigh while she built up the nerve for something bigger. She felt again the cool, hard edge of the tub she had straddled to help mitigate the mess and how that coldness didn’t quite compare with those icy prickles that moved up along her spine, crawling in under the back of her head when she failed to bleed and she realized she was going to have to cut deeper if she wanted to glimpse that beautiful crimson reward.

Hannah
felt again the sting of the next slice, followed by those dancing prickles that raised every small hair on her body as she’d watched—not a skinned knee from a fall or a nick of a paper cut, but an actual, deliberate line of sliced skin with tiny crimson drops beading up like jewelry all along the seam.

It had been the single most beautiful thing she had ever seen on her body. The sight of it, smell of it, taste of it as she
’d wiped her finger across the drops and put it into her mouth—all of it—intoxicating. Sheer heat had washed over her. In a dizzying rush, her blood had flowed to her head, and the next thing she knew, she had carved the top of her thigh all the way to her knee and was methodically working her way down her left arm with that bloody razor in her bloody fingers making slash after slash after slow and steady slash, and someone was screaming.

It was the screaming that woke her, which wasn’t quite right since she was
, without doubt, already awake. But that’s what it felt like. A hard snap of vertigo, a hot flush of dizziness, and suddenly Hannah came back to herself. Where exactly she had gone, she didn’t know, but she remembered staring down at herself dazed, diminished somehow, and yet so very alive. More alive than she could ever remember feeling. More alive than, she suspected, she would ever feel again, trapped within this mask of normalcy when the only time she felt ‘right’ anymore was in moments like this when it was safe to relive how sensual it had felt to have those pungent drops running down her arm, dripping from her leg into the bottom of the tub, painting a slow river that had flowed from her heel all the way down into the drain. How decadent the copper-penny taste had been, filling up every corner of her mouth as she’d drunk from her wounds. Drunk and more, her blood had been an aphrodisiac in her nose. She’d bathed in it, smeared it over both legs, up her belly, over her bra, across her face and down again. The tackiness was all over her hands, all over her skin, all over the white cotton and lace of her underwear, showing exactly where she had pinched and touched and rubbed at herself in between cutting.

And someone
had been screaming.

Pressing her face into the cool wood of the
bathroom door, Hannah felt again that cold flinch as she’d raised her head and looked up at her horrified mother, still standing in the doorway, a half-circle of partially folded towels lying forgotten on the tile floor all around her feet, screaming over and over again.

It was the screams that brought h
er father running, with Amy the maid not far behind; and Hannah, feeling both unbelievably alive and yet not quite there, in the full sight of everyone, sank that bloody razor into her arm and cut herself as deeply as she could make it go. For the first time, she let them see her—the real her—the one that up until that fragile second, she had kept so hidden that no one ever suspected she existed. It was her father, snapping into motion, who grabbed the razor from her hand and quickly applied pressure to stop the bleeding.

That had been ten days ago—ten
very long days of living in somnambulistic exile because she wasn’t allowed to go home again. The reasons had been laid out for her.  Her mother still had nightmares every night and couldn’t stop crying; her father bounced between being so angry and so ashamed that he wouldn’t even talk to her when she tried to call. Ten very, very long days of living every second with the memory of how alive she had felt while her blood had painted her body and dripped from her burning limbs, and how very dead she felt in comparison.

But
, she was better now.

Hannah went to the sink
and picked up Sam’s card. He was going to take one look at her scars and know how sick she once had been. He’d probably think, like everyone else, that she was suicidal. He’d probably be repelled. He’d probably be sorry he’d asked her out.

But he had
asked—she turned the card over and ran her thumb across the raised phone number on the back—and this morning had been the first time in ten very long days that she had felt something besides all this dead nothingness. That alone had to be worth the risk of calling.

Didn’t it?