(I know it’s not Friday my time yet…but it is Friday somewhere. Right? I didn’t want to torment my Twitter buds until tomorrow!)
When the beta readers replied back after reading Victor’s story Hurt Me So Good, several people mentioned wanting to know more about how he and Shiloh first met. There’s a reference in the opening chapter about how that interview “set his desk on fire.” That sounds like a great free read, right?
Luckily, Victor agreed, so he’s here to tell you all about that first meeting in a short story “Lie to You.” Over the next week or two, I’ll serialize it for you here, and then you’ll be able to download it in pdf or epub.
Warning: BDSM and sexual content.
Victor Connagher stared at the nearly nude woman squirming against her bonds and felt nothing but boredom.
Silken, Dallas’s exclusive bondage club, was packed with eager, fawning submissives and spectators alike. A few Dominants mingled in the crowd, but only two that he knew, and they were both already involved. Oh, there were posers who flapped around and crowed like roosters in the hen house, but if they obviously couldn’t control themselves, they wouldn’t be getting too serious with anyone.
The owner would be desperate for an unattached Dominant to give a real show tonight.
Victor knew he ought to leave, no matter how much he needed to do something, anything, to ease this brutal need. There was no way in hell he’d play it cool enough to pull off a demonstrative scene, not when he felt this raw and out of control.
Once upon a time, he’d been able to put on a pretty good show. He’d drawn out every sweet cry of his submissive, taunted the audience to a fevered pitch, and endured the torment of his own unanswered needs. Even that denial had been a secret pain that he’d enjoyed.
Nobody had known he’d been playing a game. Lying. To himself and everyone.
A pained gasp drew his gaze back to the bound woman. Her lover—because if that moron fumbling with a velvet flail was a Dominant with a capital D, then Victor would eat his own crop—landed a blow to her buttocks that wouldn’t have killed a fly. She squealed dramatically, and Victor clenched his jaws to keep from letting out a derisive laugh.
So fake. So scripted. So boring.
He glanced at the sweating, eager faces watching so avidly and he wanted to scatter them with a few well-placed blows. Bored out of his skull and pissed that he’d lied this game for years, he turned around to leave but jerked up short.
His ex-fiancée, Kimberly, stood in front of him, twisting her delicate hands together with anxiety, as beautiful and fragile as he remembered. She’d never kindled any true passion in him, which is exactly why he’d chosen her. Another lie, that he could pretend long and well enough that she’d never find out what he hid beneath the constant mask he wore.
I can’t believe I was stupid enough to date her so long, let alone ask her to marry me.
The man she was with wrapped an arm around her waist. Victor tracked that male arm up to his face and bit back a curse. Ryan, the owner of the club, boomed a welcome. “Victor! It’s so great to see you again! We’ve been wondering where you’d been lately.”
At least Victor’s boredom was gone, but his stomach churned with a multitude of emotions, shame and regret leading the charge. He tried to think of something he could say that didn’t make him sound like a jealous asshole, because he really wasn’t jealous. Not even when Kimberly turned more into the other man’s embrace, clutching him frantically like she thought the big bad wolf was going to eat her whole.
Eyes bright with hope, Ryan asked, “Could you do a scene for us tonight? You’d bring the house down!”
For the briefest moment, blinding terror flashed in her eyes, and Victor knew she must be remembering their last night together. The illusion that he could be a loving, protective husband had been shattered that night, when he’d hurt her so badly that she’d fled, still babbling her safeword.
He felt his face freeze into a cold, empty, and terribly familiar mask. “No.”
Ryan said something else in that jovial blustering way of his but Victor didn’t hear him. Without another word, he turned away. He strode to the exit, his pace measured but determined to get out of there as quickly as possible. He didn’t let them see the terrifying need hammering away inside his body, or the disgusted shame burning like acid up his throat. He didn’t let them see him run. Another lie, because he fled into the night.
Only when he made it to the privacy of his car did he let the rage bubble free. He trembled with the force of it. God, he’d been such a fool. He’d deliberately hidden his true nature from the woman he professed to love and honor. He’d lied to everyone, especially himself. There was no way in hell he could ever step foot back in that club and pretend to be a normal, sane Dominant having a little fun with a willing submissive.
Not with this darkness clawing inside him.
He reached beneath his seat, fumbling a bit until he found what he was looking for. In the shadowed parking lot, he couldn’t see the details of the crop, but the leather wrapped around the shaft bit into his palm. He cast a furtive glance to make sure no one was around, and then he brought the crop down across his thighs. The steering wheel and close quarters hampered his blow, but blissful pain still cut across his skin.
The sharp crack dissolved some of the desperation shrieking inside him. So sweet. It’d been so long since he’d indulged. Since Kimberly dumped me months ago.
He laid the crop in his lap, started his car, and drove home, fingering that leather with anticipation. In record time, he stood in his bedroom. He forced himself to methodically strip and put away his clothes. He yanked out the band holding his shoulder-length hair back so tight from his face and he felt his control falter.
Some days the only thing holding him back was that fiercely tightened hair, the constant dull ache on his scalp reminding him to keep the monster at bay. Tonight, the beast refused to be denied. Yet he still made himself wait, letting his need build in intensity.
He tried to imagine a submissive waiting for him to begin. A woman, bent over the side of his bed, every sweet curve of her body begging for the crop to fall.
He brought the crop down on his right thigh in a whistling blow that made his entire body jolt, but it was her scream he heard. She’d be loud, rewarding him with every cry, curse, and shout. She would be afraid of him…but not terrified. Not disgusted. She would endure the pain because he willed it, because he needed it, and she needed and wanted to please him above anything else in this world.
If he were incredibly lucky—and since this was a fantasy, he might as well enjoy it fully—she’d even get off on the pain, too. No silly games, no bondage or role play to distract him, only the ecstasy of pain.
He brought the crop down again. He didn’t need to slowly build intensity, because the need was always there, digging vicious claws into his spine. He knew exactly how hard he could strike without cutting his skin wide open, but tonight, he did it anyway. He bled. He cursed. And he came with such intensity that his bad knee gave out and he nearly planted his face on the carpet.
He’d punished himself because he had to have pain, and without a willing submissive, his own would have to do. Most of all, he’d punished himself for the greatest lie of all.
There was no submissive out there somewhere, waiting for him, his pain, and his love.
Victor’s story HURT ME SO GOOD will be released Oct. 5th from Samhain Publishing.
