Chapter 6
COLE
Iunderstood what I was taking on when I married Kaitlín Minola Lynch. Her father was an old-style mob boss, running his patch of Baltimore like a rigged slot machine, milking the city for every dime he could get. Nothing about Barry Lynch was noble or romantic or enlightened.
My marrying Kate was a simple business transaction. She was damaged goods—too loud, too crude, too angry. I put a ring on her finger, and Lynch paid me good money to run his computers.
It took me less than a week to realize Kate isn’t the stiff-necked witch I bargained for. Now, watching her tame her wicked temper, I’m nearly blinded with pride for my wife.
Jacobson hurries us back to our SUV as if he’s expecting an aerial bombardment. In less than a minute, our convoy is slicing through Baltimore streets, on our way to the interstate and home.
Kate already has her phone out. From a glance, I see she’s going after Ilya Danilov, digging up information on the bratva game piece. She snorts at something she finds. Sighs at something else. Snarls at another page before she tosses her phone onto the seat between us.
She spends the rest of the trip staring out the window.
I’m in foreign territory here. I’m Cole Wolf, CEO and president of Lone Wolf Enterprises. I’m the man in charge. I make the rules that everyone else follows. I’m the one in control.
But there’s nothing about the meal I just witnessed that I could control. I couldn’t heal Barry Lynch’s injured brain. I couldn’t order Ilya Danilov from the room. I couldn’t disrupt Orla Lynch’s disgusting plans.
I despise feeling powerless. Every single day of my childhood, I was a helpless pawn in Shannon’s cons. I’ve spent years building a domain where I’ll never be exposed like that again.
By the time we work our way through Georgetown, I know exactly what I need. Each city block ties down one more distraction in my brain. I shed all the things that don’t matter at this precise moment in time—Lynch, Danilov, Tarasov—and I reduce the world to one laser-sharp desire: Kate.
When we reach home, Jacobson navigates the new security, ferrying Kate and me directly to our front door. He says something about a three-sixty review, drilling down so we can maximize our core competencies for future firefighting.
“Do that,” I say, even though I know I won’t read a word of any report he prepares.
Kate precedes me into the house. She waits for me to close the door before she says, “I’m going to see what else I can find about Danilov.”
“Not this evening, you aren’t.”
“I need—”
I turn on her, using my size to back her up to the door. “You need to do as you’re told.”
I watch her as I say it. There’s a moment when she’s angry, annoyed at being interrupted. But that flicker disappears like a blown-out candle. She swallows hard, her sculpted cheekbones suddenly hollowed by a thirst that has nothing to do with water.
Looking up at me through her lashes, she says, “What if I don’t want to?”
I catch her throat in the V between my index finger and thumb, forcing her head back to the polished mahogany door. Her breath hitches, and I feel her swallow, but she tosses her hair in the scant room I’ve left her.
She bites her lip before she asks, “What if I say no?”
That worked well enough for her in Baltimore. But no doesn’t stop me. No doesn’t work in this house. Kate has a safeword—red—and she knows exactly how to use it.
So I use my weight to trap her. I force my knee between her thighs. I tighten my grip on her throat and tilt her head to the angle I need before I savage her mouth.
It’s not a kiss. A kiss is something sweet, something romantic. My lips against hers are demanding. My teeth are cruel. My tongue wants to take something from her, to steal it, to keep it forever.
She resists for a moment, hard and closed. But then my free hand finds one of her pebbled nipples, and I pinch, hard enough to make her gasp.
That breath of air transforms her. She becomes a different woman, a new creature. She’s indignant and imploring, sharp and meltingly soft.
Arching her throat, she opens to me. She’s hot and she’s wet, and she’s moaning even before I tug her top from the waistband of her pants. Need has already worked its magic. This time, when I pinch, she presses into me for more.
This is the mystery of the dungeon. On the one hand, excitement shuts down pain. Once I’ve awakened my sub’s desire, she’ll eagerly embrace a level of torment she could never manage cold.
On the other hand, every touch ignites new nerves. My aroused sub discovers awareness in places she never imagined were sensitive—the arch of an eyebrow, the knobby jut of a collarbone, the soft fold of an elbow.
As a Dom, my role is to manage those opposites. I’m a conductor and a warden, an avenger and a guide.
And right here, right now, I’m the man who has Kate Lynch pinned against the door—lips swollen, throat bruised, as she thrusts her hips against me and begs for me to pinch her clit, pleads for me to let her finish, hard, fast, now.
I take one full step back and drop my hands to my sides.
Kate’s screech is equal parts loss and lust, rage and regret. I know her well enough to understand she despises the power I hold over her. She wants to be the strong one; she wants to be in control.
But she wants the release I can give her even more.
So she drops to her knees on the cool marble floor. She reaches for my zipper with fingers that tremble like caged birds. She murmurs things she’d never allow me to hear if I hadn’t just stripped her to her most basic self.
She pleads. She begs. And when I catch her wrists with both my hands, keeping her from her prize, she wails in disbelief.
“Downstairs,” I say, my voice rougher than I expect it to be. “Now.”
My cock makes an impressive tent against my zipper, arguing there’s no reason to waste time finding light switches and descending stairs. I can fuck my wife here in the foyer, pushing her up against the door.
But she’s obedient. She’s already heading for the basement. I hurry to catch up, because I want to see her face when she gets to the dungeon.
I built the old room over several years, furnishing it with tools I needed to complete my work as a Dom. Stark and severe, limited to shades of black and gray and white, the space expressed my darkest desires.
Things have changed in the renovation.
The floor is still designed to serve a function.
The vinyl surface is waterproof and stain-resistant.
It’s heated from beneath with four drains set discreetly against the surface.
I paid for bespoke boards, so carefully designed to look like real oak that a dedicated sub could spend a lifetime counting growth rings.
The furniture has a purpose too. It’s still made of iron—nothing else will stand up to the activities I demand.
But all of it—bed, bondage chair, spanking table, three different cages, and a St. Andrew’s cross—is finished in antique brass.
The metal fittings capture a warm glow, as if they reflect the wood-like floor.
My tools are in a matching armoire—polished oak doors, gleaming wooden shelves, all the hinges and drawer pulls in the antiqued metal.
I’ve filled the cabinet with a full range of equipment—gags and restraints, vibrators and clamps, a complete range of options for impact play, for wax play, for ropes.
A refrigerator hums softly in the corner, stocked with water and fresh fruit. A nightstand has drawers for chocolate and arnica gel.
But it’s the bed I’m most pleased with, the bed I spent the most time planning.
The linens are emerald-green. They’re the color of Kate’s eyes when she’s at her stormiest—deep and rich and absolutely unwilling to compromise.
The moment I bought those sheets, I pictured Kate’s body spread-eagle atop them, her skin flushed deepest pink from my filthiest attention.
I imagined her hair tangled and damp, framing her full-lipped face.
I don’t have to imagine any longer. We’re finally here. Together.
Kate staggers to a stop at the foot of the stairs. Her breath catches in surprise. She takes her time studying the room, drinking in everything I’ve chosen just for her.
“I…” she starts to say. “It…” She turns to me, her eyes wide with wonder. And then she rallies. “My,” she drawls, slipping into one of our oldest jokes. “What a big dungeon you have.”
“The better to fuck you with, my dear,” I answer, because those are the words she’s expecting, and that’s why I did all of this, selected it, bought it, and had it installed in record time: So I can fuck my wife exactly the way she deserves.
And then, before she has a chance to discover all the secrets I’ve built for her, I say, “Clothes off. Now.”
She doesn’t obey, not precisely. She takes her time with the buttons on her top, playing shy the way she did upstairs, flirting with me through her lashes.
“Faster,” I warn.
But Kate has never been a woman who does as she’s told—not by society, not by her family, and not by me. Pausing with her tits half-bared, she cocks a hip. She licks her lips. She throws her head back, shaking out her magnificent hair.
And I pounce.
It’s not a fair fight. It never is, between us. I’m stronger than she is, I’m faster, and I’m even more motivated. Buttons fly as I tear open her top. She shrieks and then she swears at me in Irish, exactly as I expected she would.
She crosses her arms over her chest to keep me from her bra, which only allows me to grip her biceps, to steer her toward the bed.
With my height and my weight, I force her back onto the mattress, ignoring her slapping hands.
I have to move fast to strip away her linen pants; she nearly knees me in the balls.
I know all the things she’s lived through, all the nightmares from her past. There’s an argument that she should never want rough fucking, that she should need the most patient and gentle of lovers.
But Kate, though, needs to be overwhelmed.