Chapter 18
Angel
The music filtering out from hidden speakers was low and pulsating. It was sensual, a deep rhythmic beat without lyrics meant to enhance the listener’s volatile emotions or … in this case, lust.
I was practically twitching with awareness as I entered the main club.
I should have known Gaven wouldn’t let me out of my cage without an agenda.
The man was nothing if not a wicked pervert.
The moans. The gasps. The pain-filled and pleasure-filled screams of release.
Just the sound of it, combined with the people’s voices in the room, put me on edge, reminding me of the limo ride here.
As if he could sense that, Gaven’s hand came down on my back, his fingertips brushing lightly along my spine, making me stiffen. “Something the matter, darling?” he asked, though his tone was a bit taunting.
Was he trying to make me uncomfortable? I tipped my head back and looked up into his face, but like always, he seemed to have the majority of his emotions hidden. Well, I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of my discomfort. He’d learn that his precious wife was a new woman—a different woman.
“Of course not,” I lied, offering him a small smile. “Thank you for bringing me out tonight, Ga—Master.” I quickly corrected myself, mindful of our location and just what that phrase meant to him here.
Here, in this club, he was the Master and I was the slave.
Gaven’s gaze narrowed on my face. “Shall we take a look around?” Though it was phrased as a question, it was evident by the way he took my arm without waiting for a response that he didn’t expect an answer.
I didn’t fight it. Instead, I glided gracefully alongside him, allowing Gaven to take the lead as I perused the area in search of an escape. I couldn’t do so right now, but there was no telling if—later—I might get an opportunity. I’d have to take any chance I could get.
The further we traveled into the club’s main floor and the further away from his friends we went, the darker the scenes got.
Women chained to walls as their male counterparts stood at their backs.
Sometimes, a man would stand back and cast a particularly evil-looking whip against their spines, eliciting shrieks of pain.
Occasionally, we’d pass by a darker alcove and a man would be much closer with a naked woman bent over various objects—wooden spanking benches, leather couches, and more—as they took them in quick, animalistic thrusts.
My lips twisted with distaste. I’d learned a thing or two in the last few years about the world of bondage and submission, and if this is what Gaven expected from me, he could fucking forget it.
Though there were plenty of ways to live the lifestyle of BDSM, I’d found one and only one that had ever appealed to me, that had actually made sense.
A Dom who didn’t understand where the true control lay wasn’t a Dom at all, but an abuser. In the end, it was the submissive who gave them permission.
Curiosity had me cutting my gaze to the man at my side as his fingers moved up and down my back almost absently, as if he couldn’t stop himself from touching me.
At first, I didn’t think he’d noticed, but after several moments, the corner of his lips twitched.
And without looking at me, he spoke. “Something you’d like to say, Angel? ”
I blinked. “Maybe.”
Finally, he turned his attention to me and I was settled with the full brunt of his midnight blue eyes. “Nervous?” he asked.
I shook my head. “Just … confused.”
He arched a single dark brow. “About what?”
I gestured to the room around us and he urged me back against a wall, out of the way and far from the small crowd of onlookers taking in the scenes—a mixture of Dommes and Doms and their submissives all taking in the sights of exhibitionism.
“On what you expect from me,” I said blatantly. There was no point in prevaricating with him, not anymore. He wouldn’t get what he wanted from me, not for long, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t curious.
Gaven turned and crowded me closer to the wall.
Over his shoulder, my attention caught on a particular Dom, showing off for the onlookers.
The man, though obviously well-muscled, had several scars lingering across his bare chest and back.
They whitened against his otherwise tanned skin, rippling with the movements as he reared back and struck the woman he had tied against the wall.
She was a larger woman anchored with ropes, her hands tied above her head as a dark-haired man at her back took a nine-tailed whip to her spine.
She cried out when he struck her again, her body shaking with the blow.
A moment later, though, a low moan reverberated from her throat, letting everyone know she wasn’t just in pain.
She found pleasure in the sensation as well.
Gaven’s fingers found my chin and directed my eyes back to him. “See something you like?” he asked. His low voice rumbled through my ears as he bent his head close to mine.
I swallowed against a suddenly dry throat.
Whips and kinks aside, he could absolutely talk me straight into an orgasm with that silky, deep voice of his.
Despite the fact that I’d been forced to be in his space for the last several days, somehow, now that I was out of his home and surrounded by others, I realized just how close we were.
His body heat practically burned into me where he leaned close.
It’d been so long since I’d been in his presence.
Five long, lonely years. Somehow, I was reminded of that now that we were in front of something that appeared so brutal.
We’d only known each other a short time.
Hell, we’d only been married for a single night before I’d left him and gone on the run, yet somehow, he’d become quite a big part of my past. The greater piece of my motivation to run from Jackie hadn’t been what she’d done to our father but what she’d threatened to do to him.
My father was gone, and there was no changing that fact, but Gaven didn’t have to suffer just because of Jackie’s hatred for me.
I shook my head, unintentionally dislodging his grip. Gaven’s hand moved downward instead, and this time his palm touched my throat. My breathing hitched and the sole of my attention slammed into his face.
“There we go,” Gaven said. “Keep your eyes on me, love. Now, answer my question. Do you see something you like?”
“It looks painful,” I replied.
“Pain is in the eye of the beholder,” he said. “Everyone’s tolerance is different.”
I swallowed beneath the grasp of his hand. Though he was careful, his grip still pressed the necklace around my neck harder into my flesh. “You never answered my question,” I switched topics. “What do you want from me, Master?”
“I want what I was promised,” Gaven said, his gaze darkening the longer he stared at me. “I want my wife. On her knees. On her back. Legs splayed. I want her to give me everything. Her very soul as well as her submission.”
The hand around my throat constricted as he spoke. The tips of his fingers squeezed the sides of my neck, causing me to shiver. How the hell could he have such mastery over my body without even trying? It wasn’t fair.
“I don’t like pain,” I reminded him. “If that’s the kind of—”
He interrupted my words with a low, rumbling chuckle. “Oh, baby,” he said, shaking his head, “if you think you don’t like pain, then you don’t know yourself. You don’t like pain, you fucking love it.”
My lips parted and irritation flashed through me. “No, I don’t—”
His hand clamped down harder on my throat, cutting me off. Blood rushed through my veins as he tightened, squeezing impossibly hard until the world began to fade—black encroaching on the edges of my vision. I gasped for breath, and my hands came up, locking against his forearm.
“Do you remember how I took your virginity, Angel?” he whispered against the side of my face. “How I wrapped my tie around your throat and tied your legs open for my fist? How I fucked you with my hand, adding finger after finger until your tight, virgin little pussy took it all?”
I tried to shake my head, but his grip was too much. I couldn’t breathe. Yet, below, I felt the stirring of my insides as my pussy gushed with wetness. Heated humiliation burned through my flesh, lighting me up from the inside. I closed my eyes against his expression.
“No, no, no,” Gaven tsked at me. “Open your eyes, Angel. Look at me when I’m talking to you.”
Choking, still unable to breathe, my lashes lifted and my gaze met his. He smiled. Smugly. Wickedly. The way a cruel master would. “There she is,” he said. “My pretty little bride. My lying little slut.”
Shame. Humiliation. Degradation. I felt it all.
His chest brushed against my breasts as they were plumped up between us.
His free hand trailed over my body, running up my side until he lifted one in his palm.
More darkness spread into me. His hand relaxed, releasing me briefly—just enough for me to gulp down a breath of air—before tightening all over again.
A strained whimper emerged as he pressed his thumb over one hardened nipple.
“You look at the people in this club like they’re monsters,” he said, his voice quiet. “Because you see me as a monster, and though I am—there’s no denying that—the truth is that these people aren’t nearly as wicked as you see them. Look over my shoulder at the man whipping his submissive.”
His grip eased enough for me to breathe. I sucked down breath after breath and adjusted my eyes, refocusing over his shoulder as he’d told me to. “I don’t want to be whipped,” I snapped, coughing slightly.
Gaven’s low laugh was enticing. Fuck him, but it was sexy. “That’s not why I asked you to look, love,” he said. “If you’ll look closer—she’s not being whipped bloody. In fact, her Dominant is taking quite good care of her.”
The two of us were slightly towards the back, but still close enough to see everything with an unobstructed view.