Wicked Charming (Wicked Ever After Book 1) Read online

  “I’m going to hurt you now, pet.” She inhales at my words, but she doesn’t speak, just sways back, towards me a little, before she steadies herself as I go on. “I’m going to use three things tonight, pet. Can you take that?”

  “Yes, Sir,” she breathes.

  She jumps a little when I nestle the butterfly against her, strapping it in place with quick, sure fingers. I slip the remote in my pocket and smile.

  She’s perfect.

  Well, almost. When she’s tear streaked and red from my paddle—then she’ll be perfect.

  I pick up my paddle, a solid wooden thing covered with supple black leather, comfortable and familiar in my hand, and study her ass.

  “There will be ten of these. You will count, and you will not come.”

  I don’t wait for her to respond, just pull back and hit her. She doesn’t make a noise, nor does she move. Her body sways a little under the impact before she firms her feet and murmurs, “One.”

  The first three are merely getting a sense of her, of what she can take. When her head twists in my direction, her lips set in a frown that is just short of petulant, I grin.

  I stop holding back. I hear the hitch in her breath, and the shake when she breathes, “Five.”

  Her ass is red, this delicious bloom of color that makes something dark and possessive unfurl in my gut. I click on the vibrator and her voice climbs as she counts out the remaining strokes.

  I don’t want to stop.

  Celeste is doing so fucking well, her skin hot and pink and gorgeous, and I want to keep paddling her. I want to see her writhing and crying, riding that edge of pleasure and pain that is so fucking sharp and perfect.

  I want it so badly that I almost don’t put the paddle down.

  Reluctantly, I do, and shift forward. She’s trembling when I lower her from the hook on the ceiling, and she makes a low, distressed noise, her head tilting up to me.

  “Easy, pet. I want you lying down for this.”

  Some of the tension eases from her shoulders as I lay her out on my bed.

  I can’t help but smile. She’s all pale pink skin and golden curls, red bitten lips and want. I want, very badly, to kiss her.

  The thought startles me.

  I don’t usually want to kiss my subs. Fuck them—sure. Watch them hurt and watch them shatter—yes. But kissing is so...intimate. So sweet.

  And I still want it.

  I shove the urge down, and busy myself stretching her out and securing her to the restraints on the four posts of my bed. I don’t think about how superb she looks there.

  She relaxes into the restraints as I step away from the bed. I pick up the candle and move a few things to the small bedside table—for easy access—and then I kneel on the bed, trailing a hand over her arm to let her know where I am.

  I wouldn’t, normally. Half the fun is the anticipation of keeping her guessing, but not today—not this first time. She tilts her head toward me, and I smile at the way she’s panting, just a little, a flush in her cheeks.

  “Don’t come, pet,” I whisper, and she whimpers.

  I run a single feather up the center of her chest, twirling it over her left nipple and watching her stomach contract in reaction.

  “Do you like sensation play?” I whisper.

  She gasps as I trail the feather down the inside of her arm, tickling slightly. She nods, and I pull back.

  “Answer me.”

  Her voice is high and achy when she says, “Yes. I love it. Please.”

  Ignoring the way my cock jerks at that soft plea, I resume trailing the feather over her, watching her carefully. I take note of every tiny sigh, the little shivers she can’t quite help but give, the gasp when I slide it down the soft inside of her thigh.

  She’s going loose and pliant, giving in to the high of submission. It’s not something I get. Beast talks about it, and Wolf will switch (when the mood hits) but I’ve never had any desire to have anything but control.

  But God, she’s gorgeous like this.

  I pick up the pinwheel and run it over her nipple, pressing down hard and she arches, the first noise that sounds like pain sliding free.

  It's fucking perfection. I do it again, again and again, until she's shaking, writhing in the cuffs, her pretty breasts and heaving belly criss-crossed with the bright red marks of the pinwheel, until tears have stained the silk. She's biting her lip hard enough to draw blood, but even that doesn't contain her whimpers.

  When I run the pinwheel down, over the curve of her pussy above the vibrator, she moans a long drawn out plea that's somehow my garbled name. I smile and push down hard while I nudge the vibrator setting higher. Her whole body tenses, and arches, and—

  I pull back.

  She groans—a noise of frustration and want—and slumps back into the mattress.

  I pick up the riding crop.

  “There will be ten of these. Can you count?”

  She nods and licks her lips, and I run a gentle finger over her arm. “You’re doing beautifully, pet.”

  She shudders, from my words or my touch, I’m not sure—and I pull back.

  The first four blows are fast, quick and brutal across her belly and thighs, with her gasping out the count. Then I pause, watching her. She shaking now, her makeup a messy smear on her face, skin red and hot.

  “Almost done,” I whisper.

  I hit her again and she arches into it, her lips moving soundlessly.

  She tries again. “Five.”

  The crops lands.

  “Six.”

  She's panting now, silent tears sliding down her cheeks, and I don't think I've ever seen anything as hot as the pleasure and pain that twists her face when I hit her again.

  “Seven.”

  I shove the setting for the vibrator higher and bring the crop down over it. Her mouth opens in a scream.

  “Eight!”

  I tweak her nipple and murmur, “You can come when you reach ten.”

  Her whimper is almost lost in the crack of the crop on her left breast.

  “Nine.”

  I jerk the blindfold off and hit her again, shoving my free hand under the vibrator, into her as she gasps, “Ten,” and comes around my fingers.

  It's hot and wet and messy, all shaking limbs and slack lips and the wet clutch her pussy around my fingers as she groans. Even when her eyes roll up and away, I can't stop watching her.

  For a few long minutes, we stay like that—her panting and trembling, me watching her avidly, my hand buried in her.

  She whines, a little, when I pull away and I bring my fingers to her lips. She doesn’t hesitate to take them, licking them clean and sucking slightly, and my cock aches in response.

  I want to fuck her.

  I want to keep her.

  The thought rattles me, and I pull away. I can feel her eyes on me.

  When I told Mal and Beast that I wanted a sub of my own, I wasn’t really thinking. I don’t do attachments. None of us do—except Mal, but Mal had been obsessed for years, so none of us paid that any attention.

  But then this girl came along.

  I clean Celeste carefully, and undo the cuffs, massaging her wrists gently. They were red but I didn’t think they’d bruise, and that kinda bothered me.

  I wanted her bruised.

  When she was free, I slide down next to her and pull her close to me, ignoring the fact that I don’t do this. I don’t snuggle with subs after a scene.

  I explain it away with an easy lie: this is aftercare and aftercare is fucking important.

  She’s stiff for just a second, but then she huffs a soft laugh and curls into me. I can feel a subtle tension settle over her as I pull her close, tucking her under my chin and pressing a kiss into her hairline. “Scene’s over, pet. You can ask.”

  I expect her to pull away to check my face, to confirm it before she talks. Instead, she snuggles closer, and I make a note that she likes to cuddle, for next time.

  Shit. When the fuck did I dec
ide that there’d be a next time?

  “I heard Charm doesn’t touch the staff,” she says, more statement than question.

  I shrug, jolting her a little. “You heard correctly.”

  She’s quiet, running a finger up, down, and around my wrist, almost absently. It’s soothing in a way I don’t really know what to do with.

  “Then what was this?”

  I hesitate, then shrug. “I haven’t kept a sub for longer than one night for over a year. Most girls don’t make it through a night. Mal was beginning to doubt I could dominate a sub.”

  “So I’m proving a point?”

  “Candy was proving a point,” I say honestly, and she pulls away to scowl at me. I grin, hopelessly enchanted. She’s a bratty little thing. “You were….intriguing.”

  She snorts softly, and I shrug, drawing her close again, annoyed with the space that’s between us. “Don’t analyze it, Celeste. Just enjoy the afterglow.”

  There’s a quiet moment, and then, “Ok, Charm.”

  I don’t smile, and I certainly don’t think about the way her pretty voice shapes my name as I listen to her fall asleep.

  Chapter 4.

  I wake up in my dungeon alone. The sheets are cold—which means Celeste has been gone a while.

  For some reason that thought depresses me a lot more than it annoys me, and that disturbs me.

  I can’t afford to get hung up on a submissive pretty blonde, not right now, not with Mal watching me and the club doing so damn well, and my parents—

  Shit.

  I jerk upright, and scramble for my clothes, yanking a pair of jeans from the bottom drawer of my toy chest.

  A black button-down gets added, and I splash some cologne on before shoving my feet into shoes. I hope like hell that wherever we’re meeting, it’s not where Mama normally picks, and that I don’t reek of sex.

  Wolf is, predictably, leaning against the wall opposite my door when I exit. He pushes himself off and falls in step beside me as I almost run through the club.

  Most places like this look different in the harsh light of day. They lose their shine, the mystery and sexy gleam that makes them so fucking appealing in the low lights and thrumming music.

  The Kingdom doesn’t.

  The Kingdom, in the daylight, is all black lacquered walls, swirling woodwork, arching angles, and overdone sophistication. It screams class and calm and understated wealth. The floor is a shining white, and low music sifts through the quiet. Couches are populated by club members who prefer their kink in the day and a bit more sedate.

  I smile at a businessman who joined the club a few years ago. He’s on his knees in an Armani suit, while a girl I know damn well is his assistant's assistant sits at the table with her lunch and a novel, ignoring him completely.

  We do get all kinds here.

  “Boss wants to see you.”

  “He’ll wait,” I say. Wolf doesn’t answer, just keeps pace next to me. I glance at my phone and curse. He laughs, a low rough noise that today, aggravates me.

  We’re ten minutes late when I finally pull up to the small, upscale Italian bistro and toss my keys at the valet. Mother hates when I’m late. Maybe it’s because I don’t spend enough time with her. Wolf tucks his hands in his pockets as a pretty hostess directs us to a table reserved for the Charming party.

  The table is empty.

  A flash of white teeth in Wolf’s scruff makes my eyes narrow.

  “I told her you had a meeting and were running about ten minutes late,” he explains, too pleased with himself

  “You’re an ass, you know that?”

  He shrugs, genial, and drops into the seat opposite mine. Mama will sit between us, same as she always does.

  Wolf and I grew up together. There was prep school in Atlanta, and when Father decided I needed more than that, we were both shipped to a boarding school in Virginia for six years. It’s where I met Mal, and a year later, Beast.

  Wolf wasn’t my blood, but he was as good as. He’d followed me home when his political family was too busy for him and Mama adopted him without hesitation. At school, he was my quiet ghost and, later, my fiercest defender.

  “Mal was impressed,” he says, eyeing me, and I shrug.

  “He knows what I'm capable of.”

  “But you haven't pushed into that edge in a while. He was beginning to think you'd lost it.”

  There's a smirk hiding in his words, more reserved and dangerous than Beast’s wild amusement at the world, but still there. Still quietly laughing at me. I glare at him, and he grins.

  “Stop scowling, Samul,” a clear, crisp voice says, and I flick a wide smile at my mother. “And you stop baiting him, Charles.”

  Wolf mumbles something as he rises and she let's him kiss her cheek, a smile that's all warm affection tilting her lips up.

  “Why are you late, boys?”

  Wolf glances at me, amusement dancing in his eyes, and Mama’s follow it. She arches an eyebrow.

  I shift, grumpy under her gaze and his amusement. “I was with the staff.”

  He snorts at that, and I kick him under the table as our server approaches, a lithe brunette with dark, interested eyes.

  All I can see is Celeste, pale and pink and spread out on my bed.

  “Your father would like you to attend a business dinner in two weeks,” Mama says, after ordering drinks for all of us and watching the girl retreat. “The Board would like you there.”

  “The Board hates me, Mama,” I say, easily.

  I might be Samul Charming III and the only choice to inherit Charming Pharmaceuticals, but I hadn’t ever wanted to be the next owner of the company any more than I had wanted to be president of the company. I was happy to let my sisters run the empire, and they were really fucking good at it.

  I was good at running a sex club.

  It made the polite, political dinner parties Dad liked me to appear at awkward as hell.

  “Be that as it may,” she says, eyeing me over the menu she’s probably got memorized, “I’d appreciate if you were both there.”

  Because, of course, she invites Wolf. And Wolf, being the man he is—and more than a little adoring of my mother—nods and flashes his most innocent smile. “Of course, Mama. Send me the details and I’ll make sure we’re both there.”

  She gives him a pleased smile, and then adds, “With dates.”

  I freeze, then exchange a quick, startled glare with Wolf because he just fucking committed us to this, and now she’s pulling the plus-one card.

  “Ma’am?”

  “Dates, Samul. Bring a nice girl that can smile and say pretty, useless things to the Board. I’d like you to maybe make them happy, if that’s not too much trouble.”

  She frowns at me. “You’ll have a few functions over the next few months that you’ll need a date for. It wouldn’t kill you,” and here she glances at Wolf too, “Either of you, to find nice girls.” Her frown morphs into a pretty pout. “I’d like to attend a wedding at some point this decade.”

  Wolf laughs and leans forward, catching her hand. “Mama, you tryin’ to get rid of us?”

  “I’ve been trying for the better part of ten years, Charles, but neither of you will take the hint,” she says, dryly.

  He laughs at that and I kick him again. “Back off, dude,” I grumble, and she flashes a quick smile my way, all the easy mocking that I inherited from someone.

  “Just think about it. It wouldn’t hurt your standing with the Board if they thought you had some stability, and a steady girlfriend wouldn't hurt that.”

  I frown. That’s the second time she’s mentioned the Board, and it’s making me nervous.

  “What’s happening? The Board has never given a fuck what I do.”

  Her lips press into a thin line.

  “Mama,” I say, my voice edging toward the sharp command I use to bring a sub to her knees.

  “Watch your tone, Samul,” she says, tartly, but then sighs. “Your father wants to retire. You're the he
ir. The Board could ignore you and that implication, as long as Sam was running day to day operations.”

  “Rachel is CFO. Beks is groomed to take over day to day operations. I might be the titular head of the company, but we all know that’s only on paper. Why the hell do they care?”

  Mama watches me.

  She looks like a high-society wife. The kind that spends her day at the country club, gossiping and drinking and fucking her personal trainer before trotting off to meaningless gallery openings and charity functions.

  She looks like the trophy wives that are so familiar in our strange world.

  Looks, though, can be deceiving.

  Mama met Samul Charming Jr in college. They were lab partners and she kept his sorry ass from failing while steadily turning him down for a date on a weekly basis. She ran circles around him for two years before she finally relented and went out with him, and then she ran circles around him for the rest of their lives. I can remember sitting in my bedroom as Dad read stories to me, and Mama read over the daily reports from the company, and the way they discussed it before they fell asleep in their bed.

  She didn't work. Of course she didn't, she was the wife of Samul Charming—but she was just as important to the company as my father was, in her quiet way.

  I forget that sometimes.

  I forget my mother is brilliant and powerful.

  She slides a folded slip of paper to me and I read it quickly before my gaze darts back to her.

  “This is bullshit,” I say, firmly.

  “Maybe, but it is what it is.”

  “I don't want the controlling vote,” I snap. I don't want the company.

  The problem is, no one has ever actually cared about my opinion.

  Chapter 5.

  She’s behind the bar when I arrive at The Kingdom a few hours before the night shift kicks off. I catch her gaze and let mine slide down her body, over the familiar uniform and the newly discovered curves.

  Her arms are pinker than yesterday, long red marks marring the delicate inside curves.

  My marks.