Wicked Beast (Wicked Ever After Book 2) Read online

  I flopped on the bed and sighed, staring at the ornate ceiling. I just hoped that I wasn’t being as stupid as my brothers thought I was. I hoped I could help this poor girl more than I would hurt her.

  Chapter 6.

  At seven o’clock I finally rouse myself. Beauty gave me the day to rest and acclimate, to unpack and get used to the arrangement and intelligently, I didn’t—I slept instead.

  I’m due at her office door in thirty minutes. I shower quickly and slip on a pair of black sleep pants. I glance at myself critically. My hair is a little messy and wet, making me look like I just fucked, which actually works for me. I don’t have a lot of time so I shrug and leave the bedroom, padding through the penthouse on bare feet until I reach her office. I’ve got four minutes until I’m due here, but I figure she’d prefer early to late, so I sink to my knees, lower my head, and cross my hands behind me. I shake off all my thoughts and the concerns that cling to me, sinking easily into my place as a sub.

  I take a breath and let it out slowly. I let a smile twist my lips up because I may not be good at much, or know what the fuck I’m supposed to do in other situations, but this—this I am good at.

  The door to her office opens and Beauty stands there for a long moment, before she murmurs, “You are quite lovely, James.”

  I want to preen under her praise but I don’t. I haven’t done anything to earn it yet.

  “Come with me,” she says softly, and I rock to my feet, standing until she begins walking down the hall. There’s a single black door between her office and my bedroom, and she enters it without fanfare.

  The room is painted black, with a large four poster bed, tall white candles on the tables and cabinets, and a St Andrew’s cross against the wall. There’s a rack with paddles, whips, canes, crops—a whole host of toys and tools—and I shiver a little looking at it.

  Beauty’s voice carries a hint of amusement when she says, “See something you like, Beast?”

  I lower my eyes and hide my smile. “Yes, ma’am.”

  She doesn’t laugh at me, not the way Charm would and I want her to, but she makes a happy little hum in the back of her throat, and that feels like a win.

  Fingertips pressing against my bare back nudge me deeper in the room, and I resolutely do not lean into Beauty’s touch.

  She then flips off the lights, plunging the room into a darkness so dense it feels like a living thing. She moves past me, careful not to touch, and I wonder just how the fuck she can see in this black. A tiny flare of light—a match she’s lit—throws heavy shadows as it flickers and jumps, shining against her mask as she lights a candle before blowing it out and stepping around me.

  The rest of the room fades into black.

  “Stand by the cross and strip,” she orders, her voice that ever-flat tone that digs at my skin. I move slowly, cautious in the near darkness and when I reach it, I wish I’d worn a little more. Since I didn’t, though, I hook my thumbs in the waistband of my pants and wiggle my hips a little, scooting them down in one smooth glide. I wait for that first initial shocked noise, the one I always get when I strip for the first time, but it doesn’t come. Instead there’s a long, considering silence, and then—

  “Turn. Slowly.”

  The disembodied voice and the knowledge that she’s watching me, her voice monotone but intent, sends a cascade of goosebumps down my arms. I do as she says, turning a slow circle, letting her get a good long look. I’m fucking pretty and I know it, so yeah, let her see. Let her look at what she gets to play with for the next three months.

  Beauty is silent until I’m facing the cross again, and then says, “Please lift your arms above your head.”

  I do as she says, and she moves finally, a soft whisper of cloth in the dark room. Small, nimble fingers secure me to the cross. She kicks my feet apart, then locks them in place with a spreader bar. “You are very hard,” she observes and I shrug.

  A sharp slap to my erection pulls a hiss from me, and I smile through the flash of pain. “Yes, ma’am.”

  She makes another low sound in her throat. She steps away and returns with a small ring she slides over my cock, and then she tightens it until I gasp, riding that line where pleasure bleeds into pain, and she makes that noise.

  It means she’s happy. I don’t know how to describe it, but I sure as fuck know why she makes it. I want her to do it again.

  She runs an easy hand over my cock, and I whine a little, just enough that her grip tightens and she murmurs, "Do I need to gag you, Beast?"

  I shake my head, because no. I can be good. I can be quiet and good.

  I can be what she needs.

  Beauty smiles. I can't see her face, I can't see her eyes, and all I can feel of her lips is that damn mask, pressing cool and firm against my skin—but I know that she's smiling.

  "Good boy," she murmurs. "I'm going to whip you now. Would you like that?"

  I nod and she steps away, not giving me that noise or her smile, but it's ok, because she's moving like she can't wait, a quickness to her pace that is answered by my heartrate as I wait for her.

  The thing I've learned about most dominants is that they ease into things. They test the waters with a new sub, see how far they can push, working up to what they really want to be doing.

  But she doesn't.

  She lets the long whip slither down on the ground and in the silence of the room, over the rushing of my blood, I hear her heels shift, and her deep breath.

  The whip cracks and pain lights up my entire fucking world. I swallow my scream, because Jesus fucking Christ, but I can be good. I can be good. I can be what she needs.

  Beauty hums, and the whip comes down again. It's fast and hard and fucking brutal. By three strokes, my cock is heavy between my legs, no longer hard because of that damn ring, but hot and heavy and aching. By five, I'm tightening my jaw to keep from moaning.

  By ten, tears are rolling down my face and my hands are clenching rhythmically, and I'm beginning to float, finding that fucking perfect spot where pain falls away and there's only the high of this, of my Domme and her pleasure and everything I can give to her.

  By twelve, I break.

  I begin to babble. It's all nonsense—stupid shit, begging for more, for her to stop, for anything.

  She doesn't say anything, just keeps bringing that whip down on my back, a lightning flicker of pain.

  "I can be good," I whisper, finally, when I stop keeping track of how many times she's hit me, and everything is a wash of red and want and blissful agony.

  She stops. My shoulders sag, and she's quiet behind me as I lean into the cross, moaning the words like a fucking chant.

  "Do you want to come?" she asks, a disembodied voice out of sight, and I whine my answer.

  Beauty shifts forward, coming up behind me and framing me with her body, pressing hot and painful against my back as her fingers dance over my cock, loosening the ring. I moan, my cock filling in her hand as she strokes me.

  "You could come from that, couldn't you?" she murmurs. I jerk at the sound of her voice and it changes, goes the slightest bit uneven. "From my voice and my whip and nothing else. You could come untouched like that."

  I want to deny it, but I can't, and her hand is still hot moving heavy and promising on my cock while I writhe between her and the cross.

  My back is a mess of pain and her hand is too light, almost gentle, and I want more.

  "You were so very good, Beast," she whispers, mask pressed against my skin, and I come hard, my body shuddering and shaking. I give it all up, spilling hot wet splats of come over her fist, and land, hot wet splats of come, on the ground, and on my feet, filled with euphoria so fucking strong it blots out everything—the pain, the candle, her—for a single endless moment.

  Beauty holds me through it all, her body a curious coil behind me as she watches and absorbs my shaking.

  When she releases me, she does so without fanfare or care, just a quick unbuckling of the cuffs and the spreader bar, b
efore she steps back and I wobble for a moment.

  I stumble toward the bed and she makes a noise, vaguely alarmed. I freeze.

  Fuck.

  She's wrapped up in darkness still, but her head is tilted, the light shining broken off her mask.

  "You may retire to your room now. We're done for the evening."

  I stare at her for a long moment, disbelief washing away all of that happy good feeling, leaving me cold and fucking hurting.

  The woman knows her way around a goddamn whip.

  Finally, she turns, and at the door she hesitates for the barest of seconds before murmuring, "Good night, Beast."

  And then she's gone and I’m left to wonder yet again what the fuck just happened.

  It takes me two hours to put myself together. I take a long bath that hurts way more than it should, and dab ineffectively at my back with the soothing salve I keep on hand for this—because God knows after a scene, I'm also sore and my muscles like a little pampering.

  I slip on a fresh pair of sleep pants and crawl between the sheets, hissing a little when they brush too harshly against my skin. It's only then, when my body finally melts into the bed, and my hands stop shaking and unclench from the pillow, that I let myself think about what the actual fuck just happened.

  She's a Domme. A damn good one, which I knew.

  Beauty walked into the Kingdom a few months ago and dragged my best subs to their knees. It wasn't even that she made them use their safe words. It's that she made them want more. She established herself in our club as elusive and mysterious and fucking terrifying when she wasn't hot as hell.

  Yet she couldn't keep a sub to save her goddamn life.

  It's been months, and she's been through a series of one night hookups at the club and subs who couldn't handle her for more than a week.

  It wasn't as bad as Mal, who didn't even try, but it wasn't good either. In a way, it was worse, because Mal's issues at least made sense, if you got to know him.

  Now, after spending some time with her, I think I’m beginning to understand.

  There’s no aftercare.

  None—just that effortless soaring, the high of pleasure and pain, and then the crash with nothing to gentle it.

  If she leaves all of her subs like this, it's not really surprising that she's being abandoned. We need that, the comfort of aftercare to ease us back, the physicality to make sure we weren't actually hurt, even the praise to know after being beaten that we were still loved and cared for and good.

  Beauty is odd. She doesn't work like other people. She’s cool and detached and doesn't seem to get that people need affection.

  It’s....worrisome.

  It made me want to run just as much as I wanted to fix her. I hug my pillow a little closer, and whisper a promise into the night.

  "I can be what you need, sweetheart."

  Chapter 7.

  The next morning, my phone goes off and never stops. I'm sitting at the kitchen table in my sleep pants and messy hair, dozing over a cup of coffee, while Beauty reads on her tablet, flicking annoyed looks in my direction every time it goes off.

  Finally, she snaps. "I have meetings this morning and afternoon. You need to deal with your very annoying friends." She stands and even behind her mask, I can feel her scowl. "I don't like to share, James. Make sure that this," she waves at the phone rings again, "doesn't become a regular occurrence."

  I nod once, and let my eyes drop as she sweeps out of the room, all stiff imperious anger.

  She's freaking adorable when she's pissy.

  I mean, she’s a little terrifying too, but adorable.

  My phone rings again, vibrating crazily, and I stifle a sigh as I scoop it up.

  "Where the fuck are you?" Wolf snaps across the line and I do sigh this time. "You're house is empty, dude. Like, locked up, fridge emptied, mail suspended empty. Wanna tell me where the fuck you went?"

  "Not particularly.”

  He snarls across the line. "Look, I'm just staying with a friend. I needed a change of scenery."

  There's a long beat of silence before he speaks. "What the fuck are you doing, Beast?"

  "Nothing."

  "Bullshit. You did something stupid and you don't want to admit to it. So fucking tell me so I can fix this."

  I swallow my fury and say, lightly, "I gotta go, brother. I'll call you in a few days, but I’m fine. Safe, sane, consensual. Don't worry so much."

  I hang up while he's still cursing, and I try not to think about the fact that he won't drop this.

  It takes Wolf less than thirty minutes to rally the troops. My phone rings from Mal exactly once, and my stomach drops.

  It blinks at me, ominously, and I pick it up and dial.

  “Explain,” Mal says, not bothering with a greeting. I think we stopped using them midway through college. Mal stopped way before that, to be honest.

  “I’m fine.”

  “That’s debatable, and frankly, until you stop lying to us, I’m tending to agree with Wolf.”

  “Wolf is a worrier,” I huff, and Mal answers that with silence, heavy and waiting.

  “Look, it’s not a big deal.”

  There’s more silence. The bastard needs to remember that the whole world isn’t one long scene for him to control and play.

  “I hacked the cameras to get Celeste into the Audition. She wanted one night to remind Charm that he was an idiot, but I couldn’t do it by myself, and she wanted to be anonymous.”

  “So you went to Beauty for a favor. She’s a security expert and anonymity is her claim to fame, after all. Was the mask hers?”

  I nod even though he can’t see it.

  “What did she want in return?”

  When I was a freshman in college, Mal, three years ahead of me and fucking brilliant, was in his senior year and head over heels in love with a girl he couldn’t have.

  He knew he couldn’t have her and wanted her anyway, fucking pinned for her, and then, because it’s what would always happen, she married another man. She kissed Mal’s cheek and told him—one of her closest friends and the guy who’d worshipped her since he knew what the meaning of the word—to stay in touch. And then off she went, to live a happy little life.

  That was ten year ago.

  Mal crashed and burned. He fell apart, almost flunked out of school, was arrested three times in as many months. Wolf and I scrambled to keep him together, Charm used his money and powerful name to get him out of trouble, and we all fought to keep his head above water.

  It wasn’t enough. He was sinking, hard and fast, until I showed up at his house, knelt at his feet and said, use me.

  He did.

  We’ve never talked about that week, when I was his and he took everything he needed from me, wrote all of his pain across my skin, never talked about the fact that sometimes I think he still needs that, and sometimes, he watches me like he knows it.

  We never talked about him holding me down with his hands around my throat and his cock moving inside me, and the name that he whispered.

  Sometimes I think we don’t talk about it because it’s too much. Even ten years later, he’s hoping she’ll come back. Sometimes I think it’s because the only way we can keep working the way we do is because we both pretend we never saw each other at our most vulnerable.

  I’m about to rip the scar from that right open. I take a deep breath and force the words out.

  “I’m hers. Completely, for three months.”

  There’s a moment of dead silence and then, “Why the hell would you do that?”

  Mal’s voice is raspy and on edge, a sound in him that I so rarely hear. It shakes me a little. “It’s what needed to be done. We were going to lose Charm, and you know it. He was leaving us, going to Charming Pharmaceuticals, and marrying some sweet vanilla girl. He was going to be miserable.”

  “The Audition would have worked—“

  “The Audition was never going to work,” I snap, furious. “Fuck, Mal, you got it wrong. You fucked
up and I cleaned up your goddamn mess, and I don’t mind. I’m happy. Let it go.”

  There’s an enraged silence from him, one that is almost as hurt as it is angry, and I don’t want to think about that.

  My relationship with Malachi White is so many levels of fucked up, it’s not healthy.

  “Wolf won’t let this go. You know he won’t—I can’t call him off if he decides this is a bad idea.”

  “Then convince him it’s not,” I answer.

  “I’m not sure I believe that. She’s dangerous, Beastie.”

  I lean my head back against the wall and shrug. “I don’t think she is. I think she’s damaged, but no more so than any of us.”

  “You can’t fix everyone,” Mal says softly and I think about that. About all the time I’ve spent trying to fix him.

  I think about my very broken family.

  “No, I can’t. But I am doing this.”

  There’s a long moment where I’m sure he’s going to argue with me some more, where I think he’ll decide—as they all have so often in our history—that what I want isn’t as important as my perceived safety.

  Dominant, overprotective bastards.

  “Fine. Be safe. I’ll do what I can to control Wolf, but if he slips his leash, he’s your problem.”

  “When he does, I’ll handle it. Same for Charm.”

  Mal grunts an answer. The last thing he says is as much a plea as it an order, and I’m not sure if it’s from my best friend or my sometimes Dom.

  “Be careful, Beast.”

  Chapter 8.

  There is a learning curve. In a situation like this, even with Beauty's rigid control, there's a learning curve as we figure out how to fit around each other—as I figure out how life in the penthouse works, and what my Domme wants from me.

  It startles me, the nervous tension in both of us those first few days. It's not something I dealt with when I was with Mal, because we knew each other so well that it was like breathing to fall into a power dynamic like this.

  With Beauty, I realize very quickly that I don't know her. I don't what she likes and what she wants or where I'm supposed to fit into it.