Chapter 20 #3
Everett is watching me too closely for me to spit the mouthful out.
Anyway, D’Angelo has trained me to swallow and not spit.
I grab Robyn’s hand underneath the table. She gives me a sympathetic look. I swallow as fast as I can.
What the fuck did Everett put into that? Salt, rather than sugar?
“Is it all right?” Everett asks.
I do a thumbs up, swallowing as fast as I can. Then I take a quick gulp of tea.
When Cassian starts to reach for a cake, my eyes widen.
I honor Eden, by saving the Kitten. Hurriedly. I give a subtle shake of my head, and Cassian quickly drops his hand.
Now, that’s sub solidarity — saving a sub from cake poisoning.
“Okay, bitches, I didn’t turn up empty handed either.” Axel’s eyes glint with excitement. “This is our inaugural event of what will no doubt be a legendary club that will go down in history.”
“Just like the Bay Rebels,” Robyn declares.
“I’ll drink to that.” I raise my cup.
“I can make sure you do it with something better than tea.” Axel ducks under the table and pulls out a luxurious, heavy bottle of Vodka with a golden cap.
The bottle is a work of art, and not the type of thing that I’d see at a student party. The glass is frosted and inlaid with goldleaf.
Immediately, Everett stops smiling.
He launches himself to his feet and stalks around the table. “That belongs to Mistress. It is part of her special collection. It’s worth…I don’t even know how much. She will skin you alive when we get home.”
My mouth drops open.
Kay is terrifying to me. Axel has serious balls.
Yet Axel merely smirks. “Then future me will worry about my skin. Present me is looking forward to drinking this bottle with my friends. Of course we need to toast our first meeting. I already opened it. You can’t save the bottle now, Ev. We may as well drink it.”
Everett stands facing Axel like a butler faced with a whirlwind that has destroyed the entire inside of the house just before his Mistress is about to return home.
Overwhelmed, he has no idea how to deal with this.
“Are you in trouble, Ev?” Cassian asks in a small voice.
Everett shakes his head. “Even Mistress wouldn’t make me responsible for Axel. That would be too cruel.”
I chuckle. “Called out, Axel.”
Axel slams the bottle down in the center of the table. “Fucking fair. Ah, come on, Ev. Just think about what Kay’s face will look like discovering that I had the daring to take this. Worth it.”
Respect.
“On your ass be it.” Everett pats Axel on the shoulder like he’s saying goodbye to a soldier on the eve of war.
Axel claps his hands together. “Let’s play a game.”
“That’s it. I’m out.” Garcia pushes his chair back to stand.
“Woah, it’ll be fun.” Axel drops to wrap his small arms around the larger man’s neck.
Gracia shrugs him off, but I notice that it’s gently enough to make sure that he doesn’t hurt Axel. “Touch me again, lose a finger.”
“Only one?” Axel winks. “I’m disappointed. I was hoping to have provoked a whole hand hacking threat.”
“I wouldn’t hack. I’d use my gun.”
Axel throws himself over the table on his back almost knocking over the vodka. He looks as seductive as if he’s in the middle of a routine, dragging his leg up at a startlingly flexible angle.
His gaze becomes half-hooded in what I know from the lessons he’s given me in erotic dancing is an act. “Are you going to show me your gun, big boy?”
“Do you want me to show you where I can stick it, brat?”
“Promises, promises.”
“I thought that we were going to play a game?” Robyn grabs another scone, nibbling it.
“You had to go and remind him…” Everett mutters.
“Yes!” Axel spins onto his stomach like he’s at a slumber party and not lying in the middle of our table. “Ryn here is fun. It’s called Kinky Never Have I Ever, and we’re playing it with this yummy seven-thousand-dollar exclusive bottle of vodka.”
Seven thousand dollars…? Axel must have a death wish.
“Seven…?” I groan. “What if Kay charges us? Any chance you can, you know, just put it back…? She may not notice.”
“Nope.” Axel pops the ‘p’ at the same time that he pops the stopper off.
It bounces onto the table.
Oh, well.
No turning back now.
I guess that we may as well enjoy it then. Perhaps, Kay will take its cost out of our asses.
I’ve never drunk seven-thousand-dollar vodka before. Honestly, I’d rather have a beer.
“How do we play?” Cassian asks, worriedly. “Is it hard?”
I glance at him in surprise. He’s at college. Surely, he’s played a version of this at parties or at least, when he was at high school.
Everett shoots me a quelling look, however, and I don’t say anything.
“Don’t panic, Cas, it’s easy,” Axel says, softer than he’s spoken to anyone else.
“The rules of this game are simple. We’ll each take a turn saying something that we have never done.
Then anyone who has done it can take a swig from this fine vodka.
Actually, is that positive reinforcement for losing?
I’d make a shit dom. Still, the one who is the least drunk at the end wins. ”
“I think everyone wins in this game.” Robyn grins.
Axel jumps to his feet. “See, this is why you understand me, Ryn.”
Cassian surprises me by confidently offering, “I’ll go first.”
“Good boy,” Everett praises. “That’s brave.”
Cassian glows, before tipping up his chin. “Never have I ever played this kinky game before.”
We all stare at him.
Smart kitten.
“I don’t tend to play party games,” Cassian admits. “I also don’t usually…never have been…invited to parties. Mistress allowing me to organize these fetish events has been amazing because suddenly, I can be part of something.”
“Here we go.” Axel takes a worryingly long swig of vodka; he’s definitely losing.
How high is his tolerance?
Then he passes the bottle around. Garcia looks like he’s drinking water.
Shit.
Everett gives a long-suffering sigh, when he takes the bottle. “Axel, you won’t be the only one who is royally fucked if I drink this. Mistress didn’t give me permission to drink tonight.”
“You shouldn’t feel pressured to drink,” I say, quickly. “What about if I drink for you?”
Everett glances at me surprised, before he smiles. “You’d do that? But then you’ll lose for sure. It’s not fair.”
I shrug. “I’m competitive. But more than that, I’m supportive of my family and friends.”
Everett’s eyes gleam suspiciously like he’s holding back tears. “And I’m that, am I?”
“Of course you are. That’s why you’re going to lend me that awesome coat of yours, right?”
“Good try.”
He passes me the bottle, and I take two small swigs from it. It tastes creamy with a hint of citrus underneath. When I swallow, it goes down as smoothly as velvet, rather than burning.
Huh, so that’s the difference between luxury vodka and the type that I used to buy at college in brown paper bags from the corner shop.
“Try this.” I tip the bottle up to Robyn’s lips. “It’s not as nice as beer but it doesn’t burn or…”
I catch Garcia’s amused expression, and my cheeks redden.
Robyn swallows, licking her lips. “It’s nice.”
Of course, she’s drunk alcohol like this before. I’m guessing that they all have, apart from Cassian maybe.
I avoid everyone’s gazes.
“My turn.” Garcia kicks his boots up onto the table. “This game is easy.” He lets the moment draw on, until Axel is hopping on the spot with impatience. “Never have I ever been sexually attracted to anyone.”
Axel groans. “You’ve just broken my heart.”
“Are you sure it’s not your cock? Ty was showing me some interesting techniques just last week—”
“Not my kink.” Axel pales.
Garcia relaxes in his seat. “I receive the sensation that I need from BDSM. Ty helps me with ropework and bondage and Kay with impact play. Subspace is what feels good to me. It’s intimacy and trust without sex. I get enough touch from the aftercare.”
When he explains it like that, I understand, no matter how much I desperately need love, sex, and kink.
We just experience it in different ways.
Robyn smiles at me. “Well, I sure lose that one.”
She drinks, pulling a face.
I glance at Everett.
He nods. “Sorry, I am so sexually attracted to my Mistress that she has to cage my cock to stop me being hard all the time I am around her.”
Poor Everett. I should start a campaign to unlock the cock.
“TMI.” I drink for him and then myself, kissing Robyn and enjoying the crisp taste on her lips.
I pass the bottle to Axel who drinks far more than is sensible.
I am guessing that he knows if he must go back and face Kay’s reckoning for stealing the bottle, he may as well be happy drunk when he does it.
She can only kill him for one crime at a time, right?
“Cas?” Everett prompts.
Cassian blushes, holding out his hand. He takes the smallest possible sip. He immediately chokes, coughing and spluttering.
Everett pats him on the back, before fixing Axel with an icy stare. “He’s not drinking again.”
“Spoilsport.” Axel leans against the table dramatically. “I guess that his next never ever would be that he’s never had alcohol before. Okay, since Shay is already drinking for you, then I’ll drink for Cas. But it’s your turn next.”
“Fine. Never have I ever…” Everett hesitates.
“Give me a minute, I’ve done a lot of kinky shit.
What haven’t I done…? Mistress trained me for two long years, before I earned this collar.
I’ve participated in most demonstrations at the club.
I have some hard limits but I’m not talking about those because… ”
“It can be about relationships too,” Axel offers. “Don’t worry, we know that you’re the BDSM veteran here.”
Everett tilts his head, thinking hard.
Then he becomes very still. “Never have I ever had someone romantically tell me that they love me.”
A sudden silence descends on the room.
Cassian loops his arms around Everett’s neck in comfort. But Everett doesn’t look distressed just calmly accepting.
Isn’t that worse?
Kay hasn’t told him that she loves him…?
I want to kick her arse.
I open my mouth to say something, but Robyn boots me underneath the table.
I snap my mouth shut.
D’Angelo has told me privately that Kay’s relationship is different with her subs, than his is with me.
I am his boyfriend, as well as his sub.
He fucking loves me — he tells me almost every day now.
Yet what if at some point he wants to return to me being the type of sub that Everett is? Collared and owned but not loved?
“Well, I don’t drink.” Garcia makes eye contact with Everett across the table in solidarity.
“I don’t want to drink,” Cassian says in a broken voice. “Ev, I—”
“Drink for him, Axel, and then yourself,” Everett says in a steady voice like it’s not the most fucked-up thing that Kay has told two of her subs and not the third that she loves them.
Not the sub who she has been with the longest.
For the first time, Axel looks like he’s regretting bringing out the vodka.
Suddenly, my phone vibrates.
I drag it out partly to break the uncomfortable silence and partly because the text may be from Eden, wondering whether his scones were a success.
“Are you in trouble?” Everett demands. “Have we kept you out later than you had permission for?”
“Pfft, I don’t need to have my Sir’s permission to stay out late.” I turn on my phone, but then my brow furrows.
Robyn’s unfocused gaze suddenly sharpens. She sits up straighter, dropping her half-eaten scone onto the table.
“What’s wrong?” She edges closer to me, until our shoulders bump. “Is our Sir in fact demanding that we come home? Because unless it’s for more of that thing he did earlier with his tongue…”
Wow, how drunk is she on that vodka already? How powerful is it?
“It’s from an unknown number.” I am suddenly entirely clearheaded with fear. “And that shouldn’t be bloody possible after Jude bought me this new phone. I don’t know how anyone could have got hold of it. I swear that I didn’t give it to anyone or—”
“Hey, I know. Calm down. What does it say?” Robyn selects the text, when I am too paralyzed to do it for myself. “It’s an address by the coast. Fuck it, have you been hiding something from me again? Or is this from a stalker? You thought that you felt someone watching you, right?”
“I’m not hiding anything,” I whisper.
I’m trembling.
What if Robyn doesn’t believe me? After the secrets I hid and what I did with Blythe, why should she trust me?
D’Angelo and Robyn punished me for that and then said that they forgave me.
Yet it doesn’t change that I broke their trust.
Now whoever is contacting me is making me look guilty again.
This time, however, I haven’t done anything.
I jump, when a second and then third text follow the first.
Together, Robyn and I read them. Then my blood freezes in terror. Yet an awful, chilling hope also seeps through me.
We r sorry. We regretted losing u all our lives. We love u
We want 2 meet. We will only offer once. Then we will leave u alone. Tomorrow 8 a.m. Mum & Dad
“Are you all right?” Everett asks, worried.
But I’m not.
I’m shaking apart.
“They’re not my mum and dad.” I throw my phone onto the table, unwilling to touch it like the Webbs have contaminated it.
I know that I’m making no sense to the rest of my friends in the room who are watching me alarmed.
I try to bring myself under control. I won’t ruin the evening for them.
Yet my biological parents are saying the words that I have craved to hear from them my entire life.
It’s a siren call.
I clutch my head.
Eden would kill the Webbs if he got hold of them. They would deserve it.
So, why am I desperate to at least meet them?
What the bloody hell should I do?