Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
Nick
“Mother fucker!”
Nipple clamps fucking hurt!
He glanced over at his brother, who was standing and watching with vast amusement on his face.
Luke not only was wearing his clamps without protest, he’d been wearing them for the past few minutes while the students received theirs.
Olivia had taken care of Connor and Q, while Nick had opted to have Master Law apply his.
Sam had reacted with what sounded like a sigh of happiness to having hers applied. Q had cursed under his breath, and Connor sounded like he was breathing hard… but Nick could barely contain another shout.
Fuck.
The damn things were throbbing. His nipples were two tiny points of pain on his chest, and not in a fun way—not that he’d ever thought anything about pain was fun. A part of kitchen work, yes, but actually fun? Nope. This wasn’t changing his mind.
But Avery had marked down on her sheet that nipples clamps were a go.
He glanced at Sam next to him, trying not to be obvious since she was the only woman in the room who currently had her breasts out.
Nick wasn’t trying to ogle her chest, although she had a gorgeous pair.
He was trying to understand her reaction.
Her eyes were half-closed, and even though she’d obviously felt the pain—heck, her bigger nipples meant they were being pinched even tighter, right?
—her reaction was so opposite of his, he wondered if hers was the typical submissive reaction.
No, not submissive. Masochist.
Like his brother.
Nick winced when he looked at Luke again. His big brother met his gaze evenly, still grinning with amusement.
I can do anything you can do, dammit.
Yeah, that brotherly rivalry was going to get him into all sorts of trouble in this class.
“Once you’ve applied the clamps, you need to keep a close eye on your submissive,” Olivia said, walking up to Luke and patting his shoulder before turning her attention back to them.
Beside Nick, Q was flexing his hands at his sides.
Nick tried it to see if it helped. Maybe a little.
It was distracting, at least. “Different people have different pain tolerances. Luke’s pain tolerance is pretty high. ”
Nick made another gagging noise as quietly as he could so as not to draw Olivia’s attention, but she still shot him a look. He endeavored to appear innocent. Next to him, Q was grinning but didn’t otherwise give him away. On his other side, Sam still seemed lost in her own little world.
Her reactions were making him feel a lot better about putting clamps on Avery, despite how much he disliked having it done to him.
This was probably good, though. If he’d only seen Sam’s reaction, he wouldn’t have realized how much the fuckers actually hurt.
So, he got why Olivia was doing the practical demonstration.
“Some clamps will be easier than others. These tweezer clamps are often the easiest for men because of the size of your nipples, but we’ll go over spring-loaded clamps, clover clamps, and clamps with weights as well.”
Next to Nick, Sam winced when Olivia got to clover clamps and winced again at the idea of weights. Onstage, Luke appeared to be impassive, which meant Nick had to be as well.
It was going to be a long night.
Avery
She was having such a good night.
They’d moved to a table after tasting a few of the meads, each of them choosing a different one.
Domi liked the sweetest one, Rae went for one that was heavier and more robust, and Avery liked the spicy one.
Apparently, every Father’s Day, the meadery made a batch with the spiciest rated pepper available—this wasn’t that since it was a limited batch—but the ghost pepper mead was freaking delicious.
Hanging out with Rae and Domi, some amazing mead, and a delicious cheese and fruit platter—she was one happy camper.
“Okay, I am fully converted to mead.” Rae sighed happily after taking a bite of cheese and another sip of her mead. “I cannot believe I’ve never had it before.”
“It is kind of niche,” Avery said with a shrug. “I have seen it at more beer and wine stores, but that’s a fairly recent development.”
“Well, I’m definitely taking some home with me,” Domi said. “Especially since I can’t have more than this one glass since I’m driving home.”
“Good call. Maybe we can all get a bottle and have a girls’ night in next time.” Avery did like going out, but she didn’t want Domi to feel left out.
“That sounds like a plan.” Domi grinned before changing the subject. “So, what are the rest of the people in class like? You mentioned the tall Dom…”
“Connor.”
“Connor, right? What about everyone else?”
“Well, you already know Freddy, Morgan, and Sam.”
“I still can’t believe she’s a switch.” Rae shook her head. “Did not see that one coming.”
“I told you about Connor, the really tall one. There’s also Q, who definitely knows Sam from somewhere, and they don’t get along, but I don’t know anything more than that.” She told them about Q and Sam’s reactions to each other.
“Samwise… that’s from Lord of the Rings, right?” Domi’s forehead wrinkled.
“Yeah.” Personally, Samwise was one of Avery’s favorite characters, but Sam had balked at the nickname, so she knew Q hadn’t meant it in a favorable way. “Then there’s Iris. She seemed really nice. She’s a submissive and said she’s the little sister of someone at Stronghold—Andrew.”
“Woah, Master Andrew’s little sister?” Domi sat up straight, her eyes widening.
“Have you met her?”
“No.” Domi glanced at Rae, who shook her head as well. “But Master Andrew is Mitch’s mentor, sort of. When Mitch wants some advice, he usually goes to Master Andrew or Master Michael, but usually Andrew. I’m having trouble imagining him letting his little sister play at the same club as him.”
“I’m not. All these Doms are control freaks,” Rae pointed out. “He probably prefers her at a club where he knows she’ll be safe. Even so, that’s so…” She shuddered. “I cannot imagine going to the same club as one of my siblings. What if we accidentally saw each other getting freaky?”
“Well, Luke and Nick will be at the same club…” Avery’s voice trailed off as Domi and Rae considered that fact.
“I think it’s the opposite gender thing that squicks me out,” Rae said after a moment. “It would be one thing to see my sister there but my brother? Nope. Nope, nope, nope. I haven’t seen him naked since he was a little boy, and I’d like to keep it that way.”
Avery and Rae laughed, but she could see what Rae was saying. There was something different about the sibling relationship. Maybe it was a societal thing, but that was how she felt, and obviously, Rae and Domi agreed.
“Master Patrick’s sub is his best friend’s little sister.” Domi grinned. “Which is probably why she usually wears a t-shirt around the club.”
“Yeah, that’s even weirder.” Rae shook her head before refocusing on Avery. “Anyway, Iris is cool?”
“I didn’t get a chance to talk too much to her, but yeah, she seemed fun.
She reminded me a bit of you, actually.” When Rae raised her eyebrows questioningly, Avery smirked.
“Very sassy. She said she was volunteered to be a submissive for the class so she could get more practice. I get the feeling she’s had some issues being on her own without supervision. ”
“Well, if she’s interested, see if she wants to hang out,” Rae said, and Domi nodded.
Pausing for a moment, possibly partially fueled by the mead buzz she had going, Avery went ahead and asked.
“Not that it’s a bad thing at all, but… are you two looking to make friends for a particular reason? I’m thrilled you reached out to me, and I think it’s great that you want to befriend Iris too, but I feel you two would have been perfectly happy on your own.”
Avery really didn’t begrudge them. She was happy to have friends, and Rae and Domi had proven to be good friends.
Sure, there were times when she was a little envious of how close they were, but they’d been friends for years, and it showed.
Hopefully, she’d be there with them one day—although they might be even closer by then, if that was even possible.
The two of them exchanged a look. Sometimes, they were like a couple in that whole managing to say volumes without speaking a word to each other.
“We got a talking to from Freddy,” Domi finally admitted, heat filling her cheeks. “We hadn’t realized it, but we were so involved in being besties, we really shut out a lot of people at the club. It was eye-opening, and we didn’t want to be unfriendly.”
“Then you showed up and were completely awesome and…” Rae shrugged. “One thing led to another.” Her smile faltered a touch. “I hope you don’t feel like a third wheel. We don’t mean for you to be.”
“I know you don’t, and I usually don’t. When I do, it’s only because you two have known each other for so long, and I just met you.
I don’t expect you not to talk about the past, even though I wasn’t there.
You’re great at including me,” Avery said hurriedly.
She didn’t want to make them feel bad. She’d wanted to satisfy her curiosity but felt like she’d made things awkward.
“Next class, I’ll see if Iris wants to hang out with some other submissives.
I got the feeling she feels a little out of place in the club. ”
“Good, then she’ll fit right in with Rae.” Domi elbowed her friend, cackling. Rae rolled her eyes. “Seriously though, we can be the misfit bunch. Sounds like fun.”
“Sounds like something a masochist in a kink club would say,” Rae muttered.
Nick
He’d thought putting clamps on was bad—taking them off was so much worse. Unexpectedly so.
Sam let out a hiss of breath as she removed hers, which set the stage for everyone else’s reactions. No one wanted to be the first to yelp or whimper. Q clenched his jaw so hard, tears sprang into his eyes, and he had to wipe them away.
The tweezer clamps hadn’t been too terrible, but the spring-loaded clamps were a whole other story. The next ones, the clover clamps, were supposed to be the worst?
Red hot pain flashed through him as he removed the clamps, but he breathed through it. Up on stage, Luke caught his eye and gave him a thumbs up. It was ridiculous to feel pride at his brother’s approval over nipple clamp removal, but that didn’t stop the emotion.
“Okay, before we do the clover clamps, we’re going to give your nipples a rest.” The evil smile Olivia gave them was not at all reassuring.
“That means we’ll do spankings next. We’ll start off with Master Law and me administering them, then you four can take turns with our practice dummies and eventually on each other. ”
That didn’t sound odd and slightly humiliating. Avery’s face flashed in his mind. It was a good thing she was worth it; otherwise, he might tap out right now.
Well, maybe not right now while his brother was watching.
He eyed the others. They were all into kink and had come to the class because of that, whereas he was doing it for Avery.
Yes, he was interested now, but also he knew himself well enough to know he’d never be here on his own.
He’d never have made that leap without Avery as motivation.
Did that make it easier that they knew what their goals were?
His only goal was making Avery happy. Maybe he needed to figure out what to do beyond that.
“Alright, Sam, you’re over here with me,” Olivia said, pointing to one of the spanking benches.
Master Law stood beside the other, his arms crossed, looking formidable.
Luke had ambled over to the side of the room.
His nipples were no longer clamped, but like everyone else’s, they were darker and looked angry.
Nick suppressed the urge to rub his own.
“Nick, you’re with Master Law. Pants down, everyone. ”
He wasn’t sure how he felt about going first, but he supposed getting this over with sooner rather than later wasn’t the worst thing in the world.
Following Sam’s lead, he moved to the spanking bench, lowered his jeans, and draped his body over the leather padding, acutely aware of the watching eyes.
He liked the audience even less than the rest of it.
Glancing over, he caught Luke’s gaze. His brother must have seen something there because, after a moment, he headed to the door to the bathroom as if he needed to take a break at the exact moment that Nick was going to be spanked for the first time.
Pure relief and gratitude for his brother’s understanding filled Nick.
Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all.