Thorn
Belladonna Mansion
Virginia Beach Oceanfront
He turned over in his king-sized bed and flung his arm over his head, already having a bad feeling about the day.
The thunderstorm raging outside made the long, sweeping branches of the weeping willow tree beat against his bedroom window as if they wanted refuge inside too.
A flash of lightning brightened his room with a brief flicker of white before plunging him back into darkness.
The scent of rain slithered its way into his suite—fresh and edged with the saltiness of the Atlantic Ocean.
But storms were Belladonna’s Kryptonite. It dragged up old ghosts. His mansion was a sanctuary and tempests like the one ravaging the coast could seep into the soul.
Thorn was a man who weathered others’ storms for a living.
The knock on his door was light but urgent.
He had to clear the grogginess from his voice before he could call out.
“Come in, sweet boy.”
Bare feet moved quickly across the marble floor in his foyer before Casey’s silhouette appeared behind the antique Japanese screen in his bedroom.
“Thorn,” Casey’s voice trembled.
The storm answered for him. A crack of lightning so close that Thorn felt the following thunder in his chest.
He flung his comforter back in time for Casey to dart towards him and dive into his bed.
He wrapped his shaking arms around Thorn’s waist and buried his face in his chest. He didn’t ask the younger man if he was okay because he knew he wasn’t.
“Thorn, please,” Casey begged, hooking one of his long, toned legs over Thorn’s hip, pulling him in tighter and closer until Thorn was on top of him. “I need.”
“I know,” he rumbled, scraping his stubbled jaw along Casey’s forehead and down his cheek.
His comforter became a cocoon as Thorn sank all his weight down to shield his sweet gentleman from the fury outside.
Although his men were healers of the heart, each one carried their own fractures. They all had hurtful pasts that had landed them there.
“I’m here, sweetheart,” Thorn murmured. “You’re safe with me, always.”
Casey was quiet for a long time, soaking in the quiet dominance and the unspoken vow that Thorn wouldn’t move until he was no longer afraid.
The savagery of the storm continued to intensify, but the rapid cadence of Casey’s heartbeat began to slow, his breathing evening out, his body becoming submissive beneath him.
He caressed and soothed Casey’s warm body—his dick remaining unfazed in his satin pajama pants.
The boy in his arms wasn’t his. The love he had for him was and would always be platonic and professional.
“Thorn,” Casey whispered, his soft lips tickling the hairs on his left pec.
“Yes, baby.” He squeezed tighter, the branches beating like bullwhips against the glass.
“Where’s my Sir?” The plea was soft but aching, and Thorn felt his pain and disappointment. “You said you’d find him for me.”
“I will, boy. I promise.” Thorn kissed the crown of blond hair, catching the faint fragrance of sugarcane and vanilla. “Not much longer.”
Casey’s chest deflated as he dug his fingertips into the muscles of Thorn’s lower back. “There’s got to be a lonely Master out there somewhere…needing me.”
“I know.”
“I need him too,” Casey confessed.
“I know.”
Thorn felt that truth like a stone in his chest.
Casey wasn’t just speaking of loneliness—there was a void only a certain kind of love could fill in him.
The same void Thorn had long ago stopped believing could be filled for himself.
He tightened his arms around Casey, not because he thought it would satisfy his need, but because it was all he could give at the moment.
That was the deal he’d made with his heart nine years ago.
He’d hold and comfort his gentlemen, protect them, guide them back into the light so they could heal others.
And never let them see how much of that light he’d lost in himself.
Thorn would find Casey’s Sir. He swore it.
There was always a broken heart somewhere, and Thorn made it his priority to find it, even on the days when it felt impossible. Because the moment he stopped looking, Belladonna would become nothing more than a beautiful mansion by the sea.
Thorn dressed in a black Ralph Lauren suit, foregoing a tie since he didn’t have any face-to-face meetings today.
He descended the grand twin staircase and took the scenic route through his home.
Belladonna wasn’t just walls and windows—every archway and room possessed memories.
The public believed Belladonna to be a high-class escort service.
The police had made that mistake too—more than once.
But Belladonna wasn’t about sex, though sometimes it happened.
It was about restoration. About gathering fractured souls, bleeding hearts, and shattered men, and giving them belief in love again.
The foyer, living room, and conservatory were empty, but Thorn could hear hushed voices near the patio doors.
Thorn followed the sound and stopped short, taking in the scene instead of intruding.
He watched as Axel lowered his head and placed a tender kiss on the temple of the man whose heart he was mending.
Their arrangement was brand-new, still in its wonderment phase.
Thorn remembered the extensive interview he’d had with federal prosecutor Robert McIntyre before he’d allowed him to come to Belladonna to meet his gentleman, Axel.
Robert accepted the soothing touches as he leaned into Axel’s broad chest, drinking in the warmth as if it were oxygen.
The deep indentation along Robert’s jaw caught the bright sunlight, shining on the cruel reminder of the shattered bone that had never set right after his ex-husband’s brutality.
Axel didn’t shy away from it, didn’t treat it as an imperfection—he kissed closer, whispering against that broken edge as though it were sacred.
“Wow. Look at that, handsome?” Axel whispered, turning him in his arms until he was facing the magnificent view through the floor-to-ceiling glass doors.
The storm had left behind a bruised sky, streaked with pale shades of green, blue, and violet.
“To be blessed with something so beautiful after such a terrible storm.”
Robert blinked before a hesitant, slow smile tilted one side of his mouth.
“ After the tempest in the sky, how sweet yon rainbow to the eye ,” Axel said in a voice that melted away fragments of Thorn’s own iciness. “Charles Lamb said that. And you’re just as stunning as that rainbow, y’know.”
Robert gazed into Axel’s rich brown eyes, a faint smile tugging at his lips, tentative as if he was relearning how.
“Thank you,” he whispered.
Axel reached over and took Robert’s heavy sweater off the back of the chair and eased it over his shoulders.
“Why don’t you walk down to the surf for a little while and enjoy it, and I’ll come join you after my brunch with Thorn, okay?”
“Don’t be long.”
The plea in Robert’s voice was heartbreaking.
“Absolutely not,” Axel answered him, caressing Robert’s cheek with the pad of his thumb.
Thorn waited until Axel closed the patio doors before he approached him.
“Good morning.”
Axel continued to stare at his fragile heart as he made his way past the lawn.
When Robert turned toward the path to the beach, he slowed by the sand, careful of his limp—the result of a shattered femur after one of his husband’s “lessons.”
Each uneven shift was a reminder of the trauma he’d survived—and why Belladonna was the place that would embrace his scars and teach him they were to be honored as a part of his story, his beauty…and his strength.
“Morning, Thorn. How’d you rest?”
“A bit fitful, but enough to function for today,” he said around a tired smile.
“Casey come into your room this morning?”
“Yes. I know he would’ve been in yours if you didn’t have a new soul to mend. I have a very good prospect for him.” Thorn kneaded the knot at the base of his neck. “But Casey’s the first sub I’ve allowed to live here. I have to be extremely careful choosing his Sir.”
“I know.” Axel nodded, still not looking in Thorn’s direction.
“Last night must’ve gone well with Robert. He looks nothing like the man I followed to and from his job for two weeks. He’s holding his head up a bit more.”
“He’s doing okay, considering.” Axel’s voice was rough. “I can’t imagine that kind of abuse. Sure, I’ve experienced the mental, but nothing like what Robert lived through.”
Thorn put his hand on Axel’s shoulder. “Show him that while our loved ones may betray us, real love does still exist.”
“I will.” Axel put his hand over Thorn’s. “He’s so special.”
“Help him to see that in himself,” Thorn encouraged. “Your words can repair the most delicate heart, my friend. Heal him with your poems.”
“I plan to.”
Thorn had a weekly brunch with the seven gentlemen of Belladonna.
He looked forward to this time to connect with his men and find out if they had any needs and were doing okay themselves.
Sometimes it took a mental toll on a person to always give and not take.
For one hour, he got to bask in the aura of the most fascinating, caring men he believed existed.
Thorn’s business was often mistaken by police and city officials as an escort service, when it was far from it.
The men chosen to come to Belladonna—typically by prior exclusive members’ word-of-mouth—had to first meet Thorn’s strict criteria.
The men had to be heartbroken, wronged, neglected, abused, or mistreated.
Not the abuser.
If Thorn got a good feeling after shadowing the potential new resident, then he’d start the first round of the heavy vetting process by his team, consisting mostly of private investigators, before they were invited to a meeting with him.
There was never any solicitation.
The gentlemen and the heart-in-need had to make a connection.
No cash was ever put into his gentlemen’s hands. The gesture would be insulting.
The heart paid for an exclusive membership to a haven that would change their lives…maybe even save them.
The day slipped into evening, and Thorn had been held up in his office, going over the briefing notes and surveillance photos of Casey’s potential Sir.
The forty-three-year-old orthopedic surgeon had his own successful practice in Virginia Beach and had been referred to Thorn by one of his scouts, who was a member of a premier BDSM club downtown.
The story he received was that the doctor’s sub had gone to Paris for a job and had ended up sending back an email almost a month later, ending their contract with zero notice.
According to friends close to the surgeon, it’d been nine months of cold detachment and silence where there had once been life.
Thorn studied the surveillance photos, the subtle signs of a man still aching but trying to function.
His vetting process was more than background checks and interviews. It was a measure of intent, of emotional truth.
Thorn was feeling good about moving forward on this one.
After putting together a decent action plan for the Sir, Thorn locked away the file and reclined in his chair.
He tossed his reading glasses onto his desk and rubbed the fatigue from his eyes.
It was almost nine o’clock and he was ready to call it a night.
He’d take the back stairs to his penthouse to avoid interrupting anyone tending to their guest poolside, or in one of the romantic sitting rooms.
Before he got up, his cell phone buzzed in his pocket.
Thorn smiled. It was one of Lincoln’s previously healed hearts.
He answered. “This is Thorn.”
“Hey. I got a definite for you,” Oliver said, cutting right to the chase. “One for Lincoln.”
Thorn sat forward, a surge of energy hitting him in his chest. “No shit.”
Lincoln was one of the most patient, nurturing, considerate men Thorn had ever had the pleasure of inviting to live in Belladonna.
Lincoln’s last heart had only been with him for seven weeks before the man felt confident enough to put himself back out there.
Now, less than four months later, he was back in a happy, committed relationship.
It was a good time for Lincoln to work his magic again.
“You sound sure.”
“I’m fucking more than sure,” Oliver urged in his raspy voice. “I know this guy personally.”
“When can I get eyes on him?” If Oliver vouched for him, then he was ready to start the intake process immediately.
“How does now sound?”
He could hear Oliver’s urgency through the phone.
Thorn stood and yanked his suit jacket from the back of his chair.
“Where is he?”
Where was the man who was so destroyed inside that he needed a man like Lincoln?
“I’m picking him up for drinks at Pier Fortune tonight. We’ll be there by ten. I’ve already sent you his website and a couple of social media links so your team can get rolling.”
“Got it.” Thorn checked his phone.
“His name is Lucas Brewer. I’ve worked with him for almost ten years, and he’s, uh…he’s recently divorced.”
Thorn paused at his door. “Whoa. How recent?”
“Umm.”
“Oliver,” Thorn warned.
“It was finalized yesterday,” he mumbled.
Thorn closed his eyes and sighed. Too soon.
Time was everything in his line of work. But Oliver pressed on.
“Thorn, just trust me, okay? I’ve referred four men to you since I left last year, and they all worked out well, didn’t they? Not a single bastard.”
Oliver had a point there. But Thorn was a firm believer in approaching a man at the right moment. And that typically meant a smidge longer than the ink still drying on the divorce papers.
“Lucas really needs help, Thorn, please. He’s been burned, badly, and I’m worried this guy might’ve fucked up his head for good.” Oliver exhaled. “I’m just asking you to come and observe him…and you can decide for yourself if he needs Belladonna.”
Thorn grabbed his wallet and keys. “I’m on my way.”
END OF PILOT, Episode One