Don't... (18 page)

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

He didn’t even look over as he set the antiseptic, wipes, and a bowl of cold water on the table and pulled out a chair.

“You know this is private property?”

Half a smile touched the man’s lips. “And yet you touch mine.”

A snort, I padded over to the kitchen, put the broken stand on the table, and grabbed the wipes out of his hand. “You need a load of those yellow sticky papers to tattoo
no trespassing
over his ass, because, seriously, I’m all out.” After dipping the wipe in the water, I put it blindly to my lip, only to find myself stepping back as Gray took it from me with one hand, and brushed my hand out of the way with the other.

“And if you’re his boyfriend,” I said flatly, “seeing him as a commodity is a pretty shit attitude.” I winced but refused to hiss hurt as Gray wiped at my lip. The touch was surprisingly gentle despite the annoyed look in his eyes. He looked young, Jack’s age, yet there was something to his patient mannerisms that put him older. Maybe? He was hard to judge, or maybe I was just too tired to care.

“What do you think is going on here, Jan?”

“You know,” my attempt at a smile hurt, “I haven’t got a fucking clue. But how do you know my name? Where the hell did you learn to break in? How—?”

“They’re not the questions you want answering, Jan, and my time is limited.” Seeming happy that the cut was clean, Gray took the antiseptic and tipped a touch onto the edge of the cloth. “I’ll ask again, what do you think is going on here, Jan?”

I pulled my head back and grabbed the cloth out of his hand. “You’re his pimp.” Gray’s chuckle surprised me as I sat heavily at the table and wiped at my lip. I glared at him. “There’s nothing remotely funny about any of this shit.”

“No, I didn’t see Jack laughing either,” said Gray as he moved over to the kettle. It had been bubbling away and finally found some peace as Gray added scoops of coffee to each of the mugs.

“Black, no sugar, right?”

Ignoring the throbbing in my lip, I watched him work. “How do you know so much about me?”

“It’s my job,” came the simple reply as hot water steamed the strong aroma coffee in my direction. Stirring came next, and then the spoon was laid to rest as Gray brought the coffees over. A mug was placed in front of me, and I glared at it as Gray took a seat opposite.

“Who are you?”

“That cut on your lip,” said Gray before taking a sip of coffee. “Jack?”

I took my own drink, nearly spilling it over my fingers with the roughness. “Yeah,” I said, and I winced as I took a swallow of coffee. The caffeine hit every pore in me, calming the broiling tension.

Gray just sat there in frowned silence, and it began to make me feel even more uncomfortable. “Seemed pretty pissed about me texting someone and—”

“His phone rang a few minutes earlier, yes?” said Gray, content to curl his fingers round his mug despite the obvious heat.

Thinking back, I had heard Jack’s phone go; it’s why I’d taken the time to reply to my mother. She seemed as sharp as Gray when it came to knowing personal details. “He accused me of seeing someone else.”

“He actually said that?” The seriousness of Gray’s face made me double-check the memory.

“No,” I said with a frown, “I’d said that.” I tapped a finger on my mug. “He ranted on about something. OTD?”

“ODD,” said Gray, narrowing his eyes. “He termed it that?” The look he gave wasn’t happy. “Okay,” he said, “let’s make this as painless as possible.” He sat forward and rested his elbows casually on the table. “My name is Gray Raoul. One employment position I hold is Master Dom to the Masters’ Circle. I train men who think they are capable of being a Dom. You saw the man in Jack’s room tonight, yes?” He asked but wasn’t really bothered with any confirmation. “He was a Dom in training. Past tense being the focus of that clause.”

The tapping on my cup stopped. “Which makes Jack
what
, exactly?”

“Jack is a Master’s sub; mine.” Gray eased back into his chair looking very comfortable in unfriendly surroundings. “There are two kinds of subs in a Master Dom’s circle: contracted subs, those who are only ever placed with fully trained Doms, and a Master’s sub. Experienced, he not only knows his own body’s limitations, but also has the ability to defend himself if his safe word fails with inexperienced Doms.”

I held Gray’s gaze. I’d understood that. Mostly. “And Jack’s safe word failed tonight?”

“Technically, no,” said Gray. “Jack had reached a point where he knew his safe word would not be listened to, so he forced the trainee Dom to call in security, letting the Dom know he’d crossed the line.”

“But the danger of things getting out of hand was there.” I don’t know why, but that prickled every pissed off hair in my body. “And you’re a Master, huh?”

“Every scene is monitored closely; it’s given a level of protection no other sub receives purely because you can’t tell a destructive element in the relationship until the situation arises. Ben was vetted by all five Masters before I even let him near Jack. And even then the final decision is always Jack’s.”

“He chose Ben?”

Gray shook his head. “He chose Ben’s contract. It was part of the contract that Jack never meet Ben face-to-face until Ben deemed it necessary. Ben’s a post-graduate psychology student who wanted to try a different approach, one that would encroach on a sub’s life without any physical traces. Jack was intrigued by the concept and chose to explore his own condition in a controlled setting.”

“ODD?”

“Oppositional Defiance Disorder,” said Gray. “Irrational anger, inability to take responsibility for his own actions, and the compulsion to disobey authoritative figures. Jack was diagnosed with ODD in childhood, but as he moved into adolescence, his behavioural problems escalated into pyromania, vandalising property, and more aggressive and destructive behaviour to the wider society in general, especially authoritative figures.” Gray paused for a moment, seeming to think. “He was re-evaluated as having severe CD or conduct disorder,” he said eventually, maybe a little unhappy with giving the personal details, “which, in its self, is underwritten by an authoritarian personality type. Ben’s psych-play session was based on Jack’s inability to follow orders. But by using trigger words such as ‘Don’t’, Jack was compelled to do exactly what Ben wanted, purely through disobedience.” Gray sipped at his coffee again. “It’s tied to wider and more profound issues of OCD with Jack that started in puberty.”

Spiders ran down my spine. When Jack had pushed the condom away in his dojo, what had I said...
use this
? Had he disobeyed through choice, or compulsion back then? He’d been so calm and tentative about safety before that. The latter, Christ, don’t say I forced him to do the latter. “You agreed to that?” I hid a groan. It seemed downright sadistic to exploit a psychological condition, although all those neat little rows, inching plates into position, that quiet intensity on his face as he wiped me, wiped himself, clean, it hit home a little more now. “To let someone mess with his head knowing he would struggle.”

The corners of Gray’s lips curled into a thin smile. “Why do you think he seeks to sub, Jan?”

I sighed and pushed my cup away. “I’m no psychologist,” I said tiredly.

“Neither am I, and BDSM should never be used to ease untreated psychological conditions, and we have a psychology department within the MC to ensure that, but I am a friend,” he said calmly. I didn’t catch any dig at me with that “friend” comment he’d slipped in there. “I’ve known him for a long time. To be honest.” Gray gave a wince. “I always thought he’d make a better Dom than he does sub.”

Yeah, I snorted a smile. There was something in that.

“But,” said Gray, now finished with his coffee, “he constantly pushes his mind as well as his body, not to fight what he can’t control, but to gain positive reinforcement by complying to the commands he’s given.”

“If he doesn’t rebel, he is rewarded with pleasure.”

Gray nodded. “Jack thrives on sexual stimulation. It’s helped him manage what he constantly fears will rear its head again. He thought he’d been coping well over the years, we all did. That’s why we both sanctioned this psych-play scene. He wanted to test his resolve, face it.”

I rubbed at my eyes. “So what went wrong this time?”

“A bad Dom—and you.”

I widened my eyes. “Me? What the fuck did I do?”

Gray got to his feet and stretched his long body. I looked away. His shirt had tightened across his chest like any quality condom gleefully showing off the muscles to the finest cock. Jack had taste, damn good taste. By the time I’d imagined taking my hands, unbuttoning Gray’s shirt, and running my tongue over the bare skin to taste him, he was over by the sink washing his cup up.

“It was written in the contract that Jack not know who Ben was, other than Ben’s expectations via the contract, his psychology history and such.” The cup was placed on the wire rack to dry. “He was handling the psych-play well up until he met you; then both Ben and I noticed his deviations from the contract.”

“Deviations?”

Gray dried his hands and turned to rest back on the sink and look at me. “Sleeping around outside of the Dom/sub community and breaking one of Jack’s own clauses.”

I frowned.

“He went down on you without protection.” Gray lifted a finger in my direction. “Something he’s never done before. And something that I think turned Ben on in all the wrong ways when he saw it.”

“Saw it?” I sat up straight, spiders crawling over my spine. “What the hell do you mean?”

Gray frowned. “Jack took you home and to his dojo, another breach.”

“He knew?” I felt sick. “He fucking knew someone would be watching all of the time?”

“Only partly with the dojo. We don’t film Jack’s teaching sessions. Period. But generally, yes,” said Gray softly. “In Jack’s defence, he was a little unsettled with the webcam; it was something outside of his usual CCTV comfort zone, out of his OCD levels. There was a clause that if Jack caught Ben on camera in his property, the scene would be over, and Ben would be blacklisted. As for the security cameras, usually if he takes someone into his spare room, it’s a signal that he is requesting privacy outside of BDSM sex. But that is only usually granted if we have a full ID check where the Dom is concerned. With you...”

“You had to watch?” I felt sick.

“You were the unknown, Jan. Safety is always a must in such cases.”

“But my ass?” Plastered all over some guy’s video link? “Bastards.” I groaned. “Jack—he’s nothing but a fucking whore—”

“
Don’t
.”

The shouted word cut through the kitchen, and coffee spilt over my fingers as I jerked from the anger. Yet when I looked at Gray, it could have been shouted from someone else with how his exterior had never changed.

“Jack is a hardcore role-player,” he said softly, “your wet dream over an inexperienced lover with a first contract one moment, then your ball-busting need to handle a frustrated straight the next. He has the ability to turn a Dom into a sub if the contract’s not working as it should, yet I’ve been in scenes where I’ve seen him surrender both mind and body to the complete trust between a sub and Dom, and have the come fucked out of him as he lay on a bed of glass.” That last one scared the hell out of me. It must have shown as Gray frowned and came and crouched at my side, his soft eyes on par with mine. “But he’s fierce when it comes to protecting what’s his, he’s a selfless lover, and someone who constantly puts his body in dangerous situations so other subs can put complete trust in the Doms we give them. Ours is not your ordinary Dom/sub community, Jan. Our Doms are distributed to worldwide clientele.” Gray straightened to the sound of creaking knees. A smile, he dusted his trousers down.

“Not a whore, Jan. Someone looking at a relationship for the first time away from the BDSM scene, one, who from the look of that—” He pointed at my lip. “—was torn thinking you were his contracted Dom.”

The coffee had gone cold in my hands, and I looked down at it. “So he thought I was his Dom. Boo-fucking-hoo.”

The feel of a hand along my jaw startled me.

“He thought you were his lover, something Jack has never taken in all the time I’ve known him.” Gray’s hand shifted a strand of hair from my eyes as I looked up. “No contract, no games, no roles.” He pulled his touch away. “No worries over psychological conditioning.”

Taking something out of his pocket, Gray handed me a card. I ran my eyes over it as I took it.

“That’s my business number. You call me if you need to talk to someone other than Jack, okay?”

I heard him head for the front door. “Too much shit, Gray. You know that, don’t you? That’s why you’re his Master Dom—he’s specialised handling.”

The door closed with no answer, and I ripped the card in two and threw it on the table.

I pulled up to the garage two hours late, and even from my car I could tell there was something wrong. Along the four units, the doors had been rolled up and client cars were in their allotted spaces waiting to be worked on. Sue was in reception talking to a client, but as for the rest of my staff?

For a moment I thought about slipping into reverse and saying fuck to it all. No doubt Sam had sprouted all kinds of stories out about last night, and all of the guys were sitting around the campfire, wide-eyed, blankets over shoulders, waiting for the next part of the horror story to make them squeal in delight. But instead of hiding, knowing it only made things worse, I got out of my Merc and headed over to reception.

I didn’t need this today. There wasn’t a part of me that didn’t hurt. Underneath my coveralls, heat soaked my T-shirt, stinging the cuts and marks on my back with perspiration. Bruises lining my hips and the insides of my thighs, seemed to race the perfect circuit round to my ass and the reminder of Ben’s roughness. I’d given up on checking out the damage from scenes that had gone wrong long ago.

Jan’s lip would heal quicker than my knife-play wounds. I’d cried yes to each one knowing that, but it hadn’t taken away the shame of hitting him, nor how the whole episode turned vomit in my stomach.