Command (Changing Roles Book 1) Read online

  I despised the twisted wreck inside myself, that part of me that craved pain. Because of my past, I could never allow myself the freedom to seek out that sweet bliss. Never again would I allow myself that vulnerability.

  The muscles of my hands throbbed from gripping the flogger. Sweat matted the hair beneath my platinum wig and trickled between my shoulder blades. The leather of my outfit stuck to my skin, constricting my movements, until I wanted to rip it off. I had felt out of sorts the entire scene, not at all in sync with the rhythm of my throws.

  Everything had been wrong. Energy should have been humming in my veins. Instead, emptiness consumed me.

  And worst of all, hesitation almost cost me the scene. A rookie mistake. When my hand grazed his flesh, he’d trembled while I had stiffened with the pointlessness of it all. There had been a moment when I almost walked out on him, but his tremors drew me back from the brink of despair. His fear and desperation reminded me of my responsibility.

  As his Domme, I never should have wavered.

  The shame of my hesitation welled up inside me, even though he hadn’t noticed. He’d been so far into his journey that he’d been incapable of doing anything more than reaching out with his cries. Just as powerful as my whip, his agony flayed me down to the bone and snapped me back to him. My duty to him had crystalized, giving me what I needed to finish.

  With a flick of my wrist, I had propelled him toward climax, allowing pleasure to ride the swell of his deepest agony.

  He had exploded with ecstasy, coming with long, startled gasps, jerking his hips forward as he released his pain. The beauty of his orgasm had brought an upwelling of pride within me. I had brought him exactly where I’d wanted him to be.

  Tyler gathered his breath, then sagged back on the cross. I removed his bindings. The Dungeon Monitor, a man dressed in black and wearing a hood, stepped forward, but I assured him I was touching Tyler only to release him. The man took a step back and allowed me to care for my submissive.

  “Mistress Kate,” Tyler gasped, sounding drugged, “that was…”

  I helped him to a waiting chair and lowered him down, wrapped him in a blanket, and offered him some water. “Shh, I know. Don’t talk.”

  A soft knock sounded outside the door, and I turned, surprised. Aftercare was vital after scenes. I didn’t appreciate the interruption. With a jerk of my chin, I asked the Dungeon Monitor to find out who dared to intrude.

  Moving as quietly as he could so as not to disturb Tyler, he opened the door, whispering to whoever was there. The hooded man glanced back, surprise filling his voice. “Mistress Kate, it’s Bryce. He’s asking to provide aftercare to Master Tyler if you would allow it.”

  Bryce? I knew the angelic submissive—a tall, muscular defense attorney with a frame of golden curls around his head. Stories claimed he was a shark in the courtroom, but here at Stripes, Bryce was deeply submissive and an extreme masochist. We had shared several intense sessions in the past.

  This couldn’t be more convenient. I hated providing aftercare, and truthfully I did have a job to get back to.

  I gave the Dungeon Monitor a nod. “Let him in.”

  From the way Tyler was slumped in the chair and burrowing into his blanket, he was going to need extensive aftercare. Time I needed to work. I was more than willing to allow Bryce to take over.

  While I had issues with this scene, I had accomplished something important with Tyler. With the crowd gathered in the Gallery, I’d firmly reestablished myself in the local scene. Tyler’s response couldn’t have been more perfect. I was no longer a stranger. My notoriety was spreading to the upper floors ahead of me. People would be excited to speak with me. They would barely flinch when I began asking about a dead girl and a club called the Edge.

  Mission accomplished.

  Bryce entered and bowed before me. “Mistress Kate.”

  I didn’t spare time for small talk with Bryce. “You wish to provide care for Master Tyler?”

  “If you would allow it.” He knelt before me and kept his eyes downcast.

  “Who is he to you?”

  Bryce bit his lower lip and took in a breath, holding it for half a second before letting it out. “A special man, Mistress Kate.”

  I cupped Tyler’s cheek. “Tyler,” I said softly, “would you like Bryce to take care of you now?”

  A grin cracked Tyler’s handsome face. He huffed a laugh and reached for Bryce. “Come here.”

  Evidently these two had something. It was all I needed to reassure myself that Tyler would receive the aftercare he deserved.

  I gestured to the Dungeon Monitor to follow me out of the room and gave the two men their privacy by closing off viewing from the Gallery above. Having an observer wasn’t required at Stripes, but my scenes could get edgy fast, and for my safety, as well as the safety of my submissive, I had always insisted on having a Dungeon Monitor present.

  “Thank you for supervising my scene.” I didn’t know his name and didn’t care to, but he knew to expect this from me.

  He gave half a bow. “My pleasure.” Without another word, he left.

  I pulled out the card and photo Mrs. Westmoreland had given me from a zippered pocket at my hip. The thick card stock screamed exclusivity. The card and the club’s emblem were emblazoned in gold.

  As clues went for finding a dead girl’s murderers, this wasn’t much to go on, but it was all I had.

  My scene with Tyler may have left me rife with insecurities about my personal issues, but there was nothing to question my skills as a detective.

  I’d closed cases with weaker clues than this.

  I returned to the main level of Stripes on the sixth floor. Another deep inhalation shot the heady scents of leather, sweat, and sex straight to my core. All around me cries of women melded in harmony with the deep guttural rutting of men. Sharp pops, cracking whips, and slapping of flesh on flesh had me soaking in the sounds of coming home.

  How had I ever thought I could walk away from this?

  The flickering lamplight bathed the upper floor in an eerie otherworldly glow. Each pool of light illuminated an alcove where silent watchers gathered at the edges of shifting shadow. Here they observed intimate partners engaged in sexual play.

  Crowds formed at the usual, more popular bondage areas, and I headed toward those. Only now I didn’t avoid casual contact with the other members of the club. I welcomed it. Drank it in, as it were.

  My admirers swarmed me, with fake smiles and how-ya-doin’s from those who remembered me and those who wanted to know me better. I was shielded behind my white leathers while the Mistress of Pain strutted her stuff and reclaimed her old turf.

  I glanced down at the photo. Elizabeth had once had such a pretty smile. The pale, vacant stare of the woman in the police photo, strung to a beam, looked nothing like the vivacious young woman I was looking at.

  Elizabeth’s picture brought forth a memory from my distant past. It bubbled to the surface unbidden and unwanted: my arms strung overhead, straining with terrible pain, my feet immobilized.

  I remembered strength draining from my limbs as blood seeped from cuts on my wrists. I shivered and shoved the dark thought out of my mind. My finger stroked Elizabeth Westmoreland’s face on the photograph, using it as a talisman to draw strength. Finding justice for Elizabeth was my duty. I blinked once, twice, and focused again on my task.

  I held the photo in my fingers, like it meant little to me, and watched the scene in an alcove before me. This Saint Andrew’s Cross had a lively redhead strapped to the wooden beams. Her Dom wielded a doe-skinned flogger in each hand and threw in an overhead figure-eight pattern. He was stripped to the waist. A light sheen of sweat covered his back. Eyes tight with concentration, he huffed at each calculated throw.

  The light falls of the flogger struck the redhead’s naked back.

  The girl’s cries filled the air with earsplitting shrieks, overplayed and overdone. Doe-skin was the lightest of leathers and caused the most superficial s
ting. Barely the top layer of the girl’s skin moved. Her skin wasn’t even red. I shook my head. What a drama queen.

  Now buffalo or boar…those leathers had weight behind them. I could move a man’s entire body with the heft of those behind my strikes, and the welts they raised were angry and red, thick as my finger, and beautiful to behold. The bruising lasted for days. And the shrieks from the men wormed their way deep into my soul, filling some of the emptiness inside.

  A man leaned in, rapt with attention, watching the girl. I tapped his shoulder, and he rewarded me with an initial look of irritation. But at my hard stare and a glance at my outfit, his eyes widened.

  “Mistress of Pain…”

  Jaw-dropping awe. God, I loved it.

  The corners of my lips curved upward. My time with Tyler had indeed served its purpose. I showed him the card with the Edge’s logo. “Do you know this club?”

  He shook his head.

  “What about her?”

  He glanced at Elizabeth’s photo and gave another shake of his head. I moved on to the next person, then the next, until I’d exhausted all the watchers of the redhead and the Master with the doe-skin whip. None had heard of the elusive club or remembered the beautiful girl.

  Stepping from that first pool of flickering lamplight to the next, I continued, stopping where people played and others watched. I played it cool, pulled individuals aside to make my inquiries.

  Halfway through my interrogations, a new development had my nerves lighting up. Someone was following me.

  An itching sensation crawled up my back and settled between my shoulder blades. Part of my training on the police force had taught me how to pick up on a tail. My old partner, Pete Lawry, however, had showed me how to take one down.

  The only sense I had of my follower was from the fleeting glimpses I caught out of the corner of my eye. He was a tall man, with thick and powerful shoulders. Finer details remained hidden in the dark.

  I tracked him in my periphery while I moved into progressively brighter and more social areas of the club. I crossed through the throngs gyrating on the dance floor to the bar area, with its black lights and erotic wall art glowing in every psychedelic hue.

  I sat at a table and ordered two beers. The waiter punched my wristband, indicating I’d had alcohol. I fiddled with Elizabeth’s picture, waiting for him to approach, but I didn’t want to appear nervous. I placed her picture facedown on the table and leaned back.

  He emerged from the dance floor and made a beeline for my table. No hesitation in his powerful walk. Now why would a Dom be following me around the club? He didn’t look like a newbie, nothing like the hesitant and new Dom, Tyler, who’d wanted to experience what a submissive endured.

  I waved him to my table, indicating the beer waiting for him. “You might as well join me. We can talk about why you’re following me and why I shouldn’t get you banned from the club.”

  Stripes had strict protocols on how to approach people you didn’t know. Stalking a Mistress was not on the approved list, especially for me. He needed to know I didn’t appreciate him shadowing me around the club.

  His low, throaty laugh was one of those sounds wrapped in sin, sex, and seduction. It was the chuckle men used to tease women and send shivers down their spines, turn them into malleable piles of goo, gullible and willing to please.

  It set my teeth on edge, precisely because it did just that to me. Manipulation irritated me. When it came from a man, it hardened my resolve to kick him in the nuts. From this particular man, I was tempted to string him up first, whip those balls to a pulp, then kick him to the curb.

  “Somehow,” he said with a lazy Southern drawl, “I don’t think you’ll be getting me kicked out of this club.”

  “Want to bet on that?” I had clout at Stripes. I could carry through with my threat. Confidence radiated off me in waves. I’m pretty sure he felt it because he shifted back half a step.

  Another low, throaty laugh. “No, darlin’, but I’ll have that drink.”

  A cocky grin framed his face in mischief. My first view of him presented a body full of hardened lines. His physical features gave me pause. Dark tousled hair cast deep shadows over his eyes. His black waves were long enough to wrap my fingers in and give a good hard yank.

  Standing well over six feet, he would tower over me. I should have been cowed by his physical size, but I wasn’t. All I saw were broad shoulders, which practically begged me to strap him in bondage.

  What could I do with all that cocky brawn? I imagined tracing those shoulders with my fingertips. I would slide my fingers down the curve of his biceps. From there they would continue their path until they reached his wrists. I would stop to bind his hands over his head, until he was powerless and under my control. Then I’d run my hands over the ridges of muscle beneath that shirt of his and feel him tremble with desire. I’d slowly strip him of his clothes, revealing the naked glory of his flesh for my examination while he begged me for release.

  But he was no submissive for me to dominate.

  He stood before me, leather boots spread on a solid base, one hip jutted forward, arms crossed over his powerful chest: defensive, proud, and quite dominant. A black wristband graced his wrist, and a Dungeon Monitor’s vest draped his shoulders.

  More than a simple club regular, then. He appeared to be a vetted member like myself. Clearly, this man held power within Stripes. The vest spoke of a position of trust and authority, but a simple article of clothing didn’t intimidate me. Underneath it, he was still only a man.

  His eyes stared down at me, full of self-confidence. He didn’t appear surprised I knew he’d been following me or guilty he’d been caught. He raised an eyebrow and gazed directly into my eyes, holding my attention with the power of a superior male.

  I wanted to rip that smug expression right off his face. I wanted to fall to my knees and… No, stop that line of thought.

  I’d only ever experienced such raw power once before. I’d made a mistake then, and I had no intention of making the same mistake again.

  Instead, I stiffened my spine and fisted my hands.

  The force reaching out from him pulled at me, and my breath hitched. My damn heart sped up. My pulse actually had the nerve to hammer in my ears. Like I’d let a man ever control me again. The need to curtail his power overwhelmed me because it threatened me on a level I hadn’t experienced in a very long time.

  Under his gaze, my lungs caught on an exhalation as instinct identified a threat.

  The smirk on his face spread as our gazes locked. Here, in this moment, our struggle for dominance began. A ripple went through me, sending a warning note. I needed to be cautious.

  His gaze broke away first, passing over me as a man’s eyes did when he saw something of interest.

  I knew how my outfit defined my curves. He could look all he wanted. I’d never let him touch. But the heat in his eyes caught me off guard. I was used to men desiring me, but he wanted to consume me.

  I kicked out a chair. Making my statement again, I shoved one of the beers across the table. “You’ve been following me. Explain yourself.”

  If he was taken aback, he didn’t show it. He grabbed the beer and lowered his large frame into the chair. “Guilty as charged.” Dark bangs crested over his eyes, shadowing them. “I watched your scene tonight. You’re quite impressive.”

  Disappointing.

  He was a simple voyeur. No wonder he’d been following me around all night. Probably trying to work up the nerve to ask for a session with the Mistress of Pain.

  I flashed my bracelet. “I’m done for the night, but if you’re really interested… We could arrange for some other evening. Seems I’m running a special on submissive Doms.”

  Couldn’t help inserting that little jab. He deserved it, and frankly, fatigue pulled at my bones. After my substellar performance with Tyler, I didn’t think I had it in me to take on another dominant male. This one looked to present a challenge. Couldn’t risk a fuck up with him.<
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  Tyler exuded inexperience. This one had all the trappings of a true Master. Probably why my eyes kept gravitating downward. A natural, reflexive instinct I thought long since buried.

  Damn. I jerked my gaze back up and caught the pallor in his face. Made me smile. The power dynamic turned in my favor.

  “Uh, that’s not what I meant,” he said on a stammer, shifting in his chair.

  “Then why were you following me?”

  He reached across the table and brushed the hair off my shoulder.

  Men did not touch me, not without invitation, and I rarely invited. His finger lingered a second too long at the hollow of my neck.

  I wasn’t certain what bothered me more: that he touched me, that I didn’t slap his hand away, or that my skin beneath his fingers prickled with a flush of heat.

  A pleased look crossed his features, unsettling me even more than his touch. And like that, the pendulum of power shifted back to him.

  I adjusted my platinum wig and rubbed the spot where his fingers had touched, erasing his caress.

  A deep, rhythmic beat played through the sound system of the club. The breathy moans of a couple at a nearby table melded in a sweet counterpoint to the music.

  I lifted my beer and sniffed. The bittersweet aroma of hops filled my nose. Under the pretense of swallowing, I let my gaze wander while the organic rhythms of the club filled the space with a primal beat. At least, I pretended to distraction. In reality, I couldn’t get him out of my head.

  I focused my gaze out into the darkness of the club in a calculated move to feign indifference. The truth was much different. My heart hammered away in a frenetic tattoo beneath my breastbone, and each time he swept his gaze across my body, he filled me with molten heat.

  Never did I react to men this way. I never responded to men at all. Hell, my electric fuck toy was my most intimate lover. Despite the leather, whips, and a lifetime membership to a sex club, there was no action going on south of my waistline. Simply put, men weren’t safe.

  “I thought we should meet.” He extended his hand in greeting.