Red Hot Obsessions (172 page)

Wulf said, “That’s my little dominatrix, but don’t kiss Park.”

“Of course not.” Rae pulled him by his hands and shoved him across the room to a long bench. If he wanted her to be rough with him, she could be rough. She wanted to touch his skin, and she wanted to screw him again. If she couldn’t do that, she could make him want it, too. She pressed his shoulders down so that he sat, straddling the bench.

She snagged a set of silver handcuffs from the collection hanging on a pegboard. “Put your hands behind your back.”

“No. I will not.” Wulf gazed at the ceiling, either bored or pretending to be Mr. Park.

She would get his attention.

Rae captured his arm and clinked the cuff around his wrist just below his shirt cuff, then tugged it behind his back. She stood behind him and ran her hand down his other arm, over the hard bulge of his bicep, and then pulled that arm back to lock both his hands behind him in the standard perp position.

She hoped Mr. Park would be as physically compliant.

She stood across the bench in front of him. “Look at me.”

Wulf watched the ceiling. “No.”

With the riding crop, she stroked up his neck and along his jawbone. “I said, look at me.”

“No.”

She whipped the riding crop through the air and slapped his thigh.

The shock reverberated through his body, but he didn’t flinch. “Good,” he whispered.

“Was that right?”

“Yes. Stick to crops for today with Mr. Park. I’ll teach you how to use a whip sometime.”

The thought of Wulf standing over her with whip scared her, and her face flushed hot. Yet, he had teased and stroked her so much that being flogged with a soft cat o’nine tails had nearly made her come, and she wondered what he would have to do to her to make her enjoy being whipped.

She said, “I told you to look at me.”

He didn’t, so she smacked him on the other leg.

This time, he looked at her, and Rae thought she saw amusement crinkling the skin around his eyes, like he was trying not to smile.

His eyes slipped down for an instant, and his small smile seemed less amused and more lusty when he glanced at her breasts overflowing the cups of the leather leotard thing. He looked up at her eyes again. “Yes, Mistress.”

Her pussy moistened, and the leather crotch felt rough on her sensitive skin.

She swung her leg back over the bench and strutted behind him.

He sat near the end of the bench, so Rae bent over and rubbed her breasts against his back.

Wulf cleared his throat, and his back tensed against her.

She brought the riding crop down hard on his flank. “Don’t move unless I tell you to.”

He whispered, “Excellent.”

Holding the riding crop on the ends, she lowered it over his head and laid the stick over his chest, then pulled him back against her tits.

His breath roughened, and she felt his hands clench into fists against her thighs.

She rubbed her breasts up and down his back a few times, feeling the hard knots of muscle under his white shirt, until her nipples tightened with wanting him.

He groaned, “Mistress, you are pushing me.”

Yeah, she was kind of pushing herself, too. She stood up behind him, and he leaned forward quickly to keep from falling over.

His hands were still handcuffed behind him. She sat in front of him, her legs straddling the long bench, and began unbuttoning his shirt.

His body tensed under her hands. “Rae.”

“You have to call me ‘Mistress,’” she said and slid the tiny buttons through the buttonholes.

Wulf didn’t look down at what she was doing but stared at her face. His usual, reserved expression began to slip into something more frantic. “Rae,
stop
.”

She pulled the riding crop out of her boot and slapped him on the thigh. He didn’t flinch. “Call me ‘Mistress.’”

He stood, but she had a solid hold on his shirt front and yanked him back down. His hands, cuffed behind his back, didn’t allow him to balance, and he sat down hard.

She resumed unbuttoning his shirt and opened the front, pulling it from where it had been tucked so neatly into his pants.

“Rae, stop
now
.” He leaned back, trying to escape her hands.

His urgent voice excited her.

He hadn’t said the safe word, so he must still be playing the part of the recalcitrant sub. Rae flicked him again with the riding crop on his other thigh for his impertinence, because that’s how the game was played.

She dismounted from the bench and walked around behind him. She took hold of his collar.

“Rae, stop!”
He leaned forward to stand, but she grabbed his handcuffed hands and pulled him back down.

She pulled his shirt back and off his shoulders.

“Your Majesty!”
he roared just as she jerked the shirt down his arms, baring his back.

A black and violently colored tattoo covered the right side of his back from shoulder to waist. She blinked because her eyes couldn’t find the design, other than flowers and something white and snake-like with claws.

The center of the tattoo was uninked, and pale scar tissue gnarled like a twisted tree knot. His body shook so hard that she could feel it through the shirt fabric in her hands.

Rae jumped back, afraid to touch such a terrible wound. “Wulf! What happened to you?”

She realized that he had said his safe word so she flung the shirt up over his back and fumbled for the handcuff key.

“There’s a break-button.” His calm voice frightened her more than any yelling could have.

Rae felt the tiny button on the side of one of the cuffs and poked it with her fingernail. That cuff snapped open. “Are you all right?”

“Honestly, I’m fine.” He rubbed his wrists.

“What happened to you? You didn’t get hurt doing this, did you?” The thought of some sadist mutilating Wulf enraged her.

Head bowed, he stared at the bench, and his shoulders bunched under the loose shirt. “I was shot.”

“It looks like a shotgun wound.” She clutched her hands to her chest, afraid to reach out to him but wanting to.

“No. A rifle. That’s the exit wound.”

Rae had hunted deer, elk, javelina, and varmints, and a rifle produces a distinctive wound. “The scar is too big for a rifle round.”

“It was a large caliber rifle, and the scar stretched as I grew.” His dry tone held no closeness, no intimacy.

He was relating facts that he would rather not tell her, but she could not stop herself from asking, “How old were you?”

“Eight,” he said, sounding defeated. “I was eight.”

Her mind swam with horror. “Why would anyone shoot an eight-year-old?”

“I couldn’t say.”

“Did they get the bastard?”

His head rose a little at her shout, and Rae thought she saw a ghost of a wry smile curve his lips. “They got the bastard.”

“Well, thank God for that. Saved the taxpayers the cost of a rope, then.” She knew she sounded like her uncles but the thought of someone shooting a child, any child but especially Wulf as a child, burned her up. She smoothed his shirt over the scar, feeling the knotted skin under the fabric that she had thought was only muscle. “I’m so sorry.”

“It was a long time ago.”

It had been a long time ago, a bit shy of twenty years if she had judged his age right. His childhood had been spent in Switzerland, although he had only said that he
was Swiss
. Did they have gun crime like that in Switzerland?

The door slammed open, startling Rae, and the huge black man from the party, the security guy, stood there with his hand on the door. “Boss? You okay?”

“Thank you, Mr. Jackson. I’m fine.” Wulf had composed himself and looked up at the security man with no particular emotion.

“Heard your safe word.” His gaze travelled to Wulf’s wrists and then up to Rae’s eyes. Rae flushed with embarrassment at having blown it again.

“Yes, but everything is fine now,” Wulf said, buttoning his shirt. “That will be all.”

The big, burly security guy glared at Rae, then turned and left.

“It’s time to end our session.” Wulf’s composure had returned, and his shiny shell seemed firmly in place. Rae was astonished that he could smooth himself so thoroughly in seconds. “I can have someone here in ten minutes to take over for you. Just stall Park for ten minutes, and I’ll come in and take you out. Are you able to do it?”

Rae pulled her chin up, wanting to not disappoint him. “Yes. I’m fine.”

“Good.” He sounded distracted. “If anything goes wrong, I’ll be watching, and I’ll come in to help you.”

“It’s only ten minutes.” If she screwed it up, she would be zero for two. This was her last chance.

“You were doing well, here. You just happened to hit one of my buttons, and you didn’t have my file to reference beforehand.”

Astonishment bubbled up. “You have a file on yourself?”

“Of course not.” His faint smirk was funny.

“Oh.” Maybe this trauma was why he worked at The Devilhouse. Nearly being murdered as a child might have made him grimly hedonistic.

It fit with what Rae knew about him and what Georgie and Lizzy had told her.

“In the session with Mr. Park, you can’t abdicate your power as a Domme. You mustn’t express reluctance. For the ten minutes until Lena arrives, you are Park’s queen and his worst nightmare. Scare him. Give to him and take away. Make every moment of rest a gift.”

That was an interesting way to think about it. Rae felt more powerful, like when she had been standing in front of Wulf and he had ogled her tits. “All right.”

“Do your best. That’s all anyone can ask. I appreciate you stepping in to take Sonya’s place today.”

“Sure. No problem.”

An awkward moment between them stretched out. If Wulf had been anyone else, Rae might have hugged him to soothe him and make sure he was okay, but his mirrored shell had snapped in place because, even though he had nearly had a panic attack when she had exposed his scar, he now seemed fine as he settled his silver tie around his neck and slid the knot to his thick neck. Even his blond hair was unperturbed.

He said, “I’ll send Mr. Park in,” and left her standing there, shaking in her high-heeled cowboy boots.

~~~~~

Wulf Watches Again

Wulf stood in the dark hallway outside the door to the security booth near the back of The Devilhouse. His heart still trembled, though his hand that held the doorknob was steady.

He remembered the moment Constantin had died every day because his
memento mori
was written on Wulf’s skin.

The first shot had hit Wulf and he had fallen toward Constantin, trying to shield him, but the second bullet had shattered Constantin’s head.

Every time Wulf sat in a chair, the stiff scar stretched and ached.

Every time he stood, his shirt rubbed the gnarls, and it itched.

Every time he made love to a woman, he hid it.

Wulf was no longer accustomed to people knowing that it was there. Anonymity had seduced him.

Wulf took a deep breath and opened the door to the security booth.

Jeffrey sat at the wide desk, intent on watching the glowing wall of monitors and ticking switches on the sound board to listen in where necessary. He didn’t turn around when Wulf entered, just muttered, “Hi, Boss.”

“Hello, Jeffrey.” Wulf sat in the unoccupied chair.

On the screens, people moved in several of the play rooms.

Wulf shied away from looking at Play Room Two, where Rae was beginning her session with her client, Lando Park. Jeffrey would watch for anything untoward, as he always did.

In one of the vanilla rooms, a round room with couches that reminded Wulf of the inside of a genie’s bottle, Lizbeth was blowing her client with good bobbing technique. The man writhed on the couch, his whole body centered around his dick in her mouth.

Wulf smiled to himself, remembering her excellent technique.

In another room, Georgie served drinks to three Asian businessmen. He wasn’t sure how she was billing that party, but she would probably make at least ten thousand that afternoon, after the house’s cut. She had great business sense, that girl. Rae had been correct when she had pronounced Georgie to be a Katniss-type, not a Bella. That insight was one of the reasons that Wulf had even considered her for employment.

Lizbeth was a different story. That young woman had complexities that she had probably never shared with her women friends. Although, the things that women would talk about occasionally surprised him. Perhaps Rae knew her better than Wulf did, though he doubted it.

Finally, Wulf turned to observe Play Room Two. He readied himself to jump out of his seat to rescue Rae from that Park bastard.

Lando Park was down on his knees with his fingers laced behind his head while Rae applied the riding crop across his back, quite expertly. She looked like a fearsome she-devil who, if a man didn’t make her come, would beat the hell out of him afterward.

Magnificent.

Wulf admired the way she used her whole arm with the crop. He detected that she had played tennis at some time, and his thighs tingled where she had struck him.

Lena should be in the house by now, but he let Rae continue. Maybe, she might work out.

“You okay?” Jeffrey asked.

Ah, and now the questions would begin. Jeffrey was too good a friend to ignore such a fiasco. “I assure you, I am fine.”

Jeffrey continued scanning the monitors, watching for early signs of trouble in all the rooms. “You used your safe word.”

Wulf leaned forward in the office chair as Rae pulled Park up by his hair and the handcuffs now strung between his wrists and frog-marched him to a whipping post.
Nice.
“Indeed I did.”

Jeffrey glanced at him. “With that new redhead.”

“She’s more of an auburnette. Her eyes are a warm brown, and she has no freckles.”

“The redhead who nearly cut Dr. Cutter to the bone.”

“She’s improving.” Wulf gestured at the monitor to draw Jeffrey’s attention to Rae’s rather nice crop work.

“She was whacking your legs with a crop,” Jeffrey said. “You have welts?”

“My skin is thicker than that.” He hadn’t meant to say that.

Jeffrey paused. “Yeah. I saw your skin.”

Wulf nodded. He wasn’t going to encourage this line of inquiry. If he had not forgotten to pack a tee shirt for the gym this morning and utilized his undershirt there, neither Rae nor Jeffrey would have seen that abominable malformation on his back.

Rae propelled Park to a sex chair and leaned him over it, his bottom in the air. Wulf liked her creativity, though she might be too innocent to know the correct positions for that chair. Both thoughts made his dick heavy with rushing blood.

“Your back looks like you grew up in the ‘hood,” Jeffrey pressed. “That’s a gunshot wound in the middle of that tatt, isn’t it?”

“Guns are everywhere,” Wulf said. Jeffrey should have run to the play room directly after Wulf shouted his safe word, which meant that he should not have heard the later details. Wulf should not have told even Rae so much, but he had felt flayed alive when she saw the twisted flesh.

On the monitor, he watched Rae yank down Mr. Park’s drawers and apply the crop to his haunches, laying on tiger stripes. Wulf wondered if she had learned that pattern or was, as he had thought from the first moment he had met her, a natural dominatrix.

“Why didn’t I know that you’ve taken a round?” Jeffrey asked.

“It’s never come up in conversation.”

“Not fit for polite company, huh?”

Wulf said gently, “It’s not a matter I discuss.”

“I took a bullet, too,” Jeffrey said.

This was turning very intimate. The British part of Wulf recoiled, but he did live amidst Americans now. “During your military service?”

“Naw. Suicide missions are for SEALS. Rangers do the shootin’. This was back in my misguided days.” Jeffrey stretched and pulled up his oxford shirt to reveal a small pucker on his rib. “Handgun.”

Wulf inspected his scar. “That’s quite deep. Is the bullet still in there?”

“Yeah. They didn’t dig it out. Would’ve caused more damage than leaving it.”

Wulf admitted, slowly, “I have a few fragments, but the majority of the round exited through my back.” For a man who had lived in Europe and London most of his life, Wulf considered that practically blurting.

“It’s heavy, carrying lead.”

“Yes, it is.”

“What’d the redhead call you in there? Wolf?”

When Rae called his name, Wulf had known Jeffrey would pick it up, if he was still in the booth. Nothing slipped past his chief of security. Wulf didn’t answer but admired Rae’s application of stinging stripes to Park’s ass.

“Why’d she call you a wolf? When you had me turn off the monitor yesterday, did you do her—”

“I do not discuss those matters, either.”

“Woof, woof, huh, wolf?”

“Please don’t ask.”

“She’s got a pet name for you? Is the mighty Boss-man falling for some redheaded chica?”

“Certainly not,” Wulf scoffed.

“
Cer
tainly not,” Jeffrey mimicked and then flicked his finger at screen number three. “She seems to be doing all right, this time.”

“Indeed,” Wulf said and leaned in, watching, uneasy.

Now that Rae had marked Lando Park’s flesh, she tied him to a post at attention and, from the shamed look on his face, was giving him a proper dressing-down. Park occasionally grinned despite himself but reverted to proper humiliation within a second.

Rae appeared to be doing an excellent job. Park’s session was nearly finished, and he hadn’t had to remove or rescue her after all.

Wulf felt disappointment mix with his admiration. If she had not risen to the challenge, he could have not employed her at The Devilhouse as a contractor. Considering Rae’s earnest desire to help autistic children, Wulf had planned to offer her a ridiculously well-paying job as an admin. He justified it to himself as altruism, even though he suspected that his real motive was to keep her luscious body around The Devilhouse.

If he employed her as an admin, no one else would touch her.

Indeed, as Rae sashayed around Lando Park in Play Room Two, Wulf was having a hard time staying in his seat. He wanted to punch Park for looking at her, and he wanted to fill his hands with her soft, silky flesh.

Disconcerting. Quite disconcerting. Wulf shook his head a little to clear those thoughts.

However, Rae knew far too much about Wulf now—his name, that he was a Swiss citizen, that he had been shot—and one internet search would tell her everything about him. She would see all the newspaper accounts and even his Wikipedia entry, which kept reappearing no matter how many times he or his personal security detail deleted it.

He was still not entirely sure why he had offered up his name that first evening. When she had asked, when she had insisted, he had given it to her. While he would have liked to blame it on drink or lust, he could resist both those influences with aplomb. He was grown man, not a teenager who would risk anything to stick his dick in a warm place.

Now, he wasn’t sure what he should do if she discovered everything.

Swear her to secrecy?

Pay her off?

Liquidate The Devilhouse and leave the US?

That last one was probably his best course. He had managed The Devilhouse from a bankrupt swindle into a business with an excellent positive cash flow, his original goal.

He should alert his household staff that they may be moving. Perhaps they would go to southern France. Wulf had grown accustomed to warm air.

It was a shame. America had surprised him, pleasantly, thoroughly. Even Wulf could reinvent himself in this bustling country. He might do so again. The northwest US might be an option, but the weather up there was far from amenable.

On the monitor’s grainy image, Rae stood over Mr. Park, who now crouched on the floor. White static fell like snow over them. Wulf could just hear him begging for her forgiveness and promising to be a better man.

She presented her black, heeled boot to Park, and he extended his tongue and licked the boot from the toe up to the top, where she stopped him by bracing the riding crop tip against his forehead.

Wulf watched her lovely, creamy back, and for the first time in a decade, Wulf was inclined to remain rather than not particularly caring where he lived.

Wulf said, “She is doing well.”

“Not bad,” Jeffrey begrudged.

Rae reached down and lifted the man’s tear-streaked face. Jeffrey turned up the volume so they heard her say, “Our time is at an end, Small Man. If I hear any more reports about you yelling at the lady at the front desk, I will never work with you again. Capeesh?”

“Yes, Mistress! I will change. I will. Thank you, Mistress!”

Jeffrey turned down the volume. “Seems she did okay.”

“He promises that every week.” Wulf stood and walked toward the exit. “Make me a copy of that session for later review, and delete the training session with Rae immediately.”

“Yes, Boss.” Jeffrey spun back around to keep his eyes on the various sessions in the playrooms. “Range time tomorrow morning?”

“Quite. Lead therapy is excellent tonic.”

“You gonna let me play with the big gun?” His dark eyes shined with humorous avarice.

Considering Jeffrey’s continuing obsession with the Barrett fifty-caliber rifle, Wulf should purchase one for him for his birthday next month. He would task someone with the paperwork tonight. “Of course. Ten o’clock?”

“You betcha.”

Wulf strode out to catch Rae before she left the dungeon.

He had to keep her from learning anything more about him. Wulf abhorred the thought that anyone would ever again see him as the little boy who had watched the assassination of his twin brother.

And yet, and yet.

She had spoken with him, and teased him, and fucked him before she knew that he was The Dom or anything else. That authenticity was unique in Wulf’s life.

Everyone else wanted something from him.

~~~~~