Page 41 of Secret Submission

Though that was extenuating circumstances.

Traveling around the club, pausing to observe scenes as he went, Connor’s brain was whirling with thoughts. One of the nice things about being a monitor at Stronghold was that people knew the rules and mostly followed them. At most, he needed to keep an eye on some of the newbies, make sure they were paying attention to how tight restraints were, and keep an eye on submissives who didn’t want to say their safeword… that kind of thing. There were very few instances of actual emergencies or abusers here—Patrick ran a tight ship—and while some assholes managed to sneak in every now and then, they didn’t last long.

Which meant it gave him plenty of time to think. Observe. Especially when it came to watching the male submissives scening. He and Mistress Julie were still exploring what his limits were, and he honestly didn’t know. Some things he thought he might not like, but then he’d think about her, and he’d figure that he could maybe put up with it if it made her happy. Thinking about crawling on the floor didn’t do much for him, and he could definitely go without having someone kick his balls… but he wasn’t sure he’d want to tell her no if she wanted to try something.

Shit.

He might be one of the submissives who didn’t want to say their safeword and disappoint their dominant.

Connor blew out a breath as he moved away from watching Frank getting his balls spanked—with a full-blown erection throughout. Not for him. But could I say no if Mistress Julie wanted it? He wasn’t sure.

The sound of a sob—not an impassioned sob, not a pleasure-pain sob, but actually full-on tearful crying—had him turning with a frown. A busty blonde wearing nothing but her underwear was sobbing, strapped to one of the St. Andrew’s crosses, and a tall, dark-haired man was by her side, hurriedly trying to get her out of the leather cuffs holding her to the wooden X. Red streaks marred her pale skin across her thighs, buttocks, and upper back—the kind of raised welts that came from a whipping. The cuffs were quick release, but Zach was fumbling in his haste.

“What happened,” Connor demanded to know as soon as he stepped up next to Zach, both of them crouching down to get to her ankles.

“It’s not his fault, Connor,” Amy said, though she was still crying harder than he’d ever seen her cry before. As soon as she was free, Connor straightened up and held out his arms for her to fall into. She did, burying his face against his Dungeon Monitor vest.

Beside them, Zach frowned and looked like he wanted to say something, but instead, he clenched his jaw, keeping his mouth shut. There were bags under the other man’s eyes and a bit of a five o’clock shadow on his jawline, which wasn’t like Zach, but he’d been a lot less put together ever since he and his boyfriend had broken up. Connor had heard they were working on getting back together or that things were on the mend or something, but Kincaid was nowhere to be seen right now.

“She…” Zach sighed, scrubbing his hand through his dark hair, making it stand up on end. Somehow, he didn’t notice. Which was also very unlike Zach. Though now Connor wasn’t sure if the other man’s state was caused by his ex or by Amy’s slowly quieting sobs.

“I asked him to make me cry,” Amy said, sniffling. Her voice was a little muffled since her face was still buried against him, but he could make out what she said. Zach looked at him guiltily.

Ah. Well. Amy was a masochist. Zach was a sadist. The two of them had been scening off and on fairly regularly over the past year… or was it two years? Damn, time flew. Amy had a vanilla fiancé who didn’t mind her doing platonic scenes at the club, and Zach had been scening with her pretty regularly. The fact that they were both partnered up had made it seem like a good fit for platonic scenes, though sometimes, Connor thought maybe there was more to it than either of them was willing to admit.

Still, they always kept it within bounds, never scening in any of the private rooms. Which was why he knew he’d never seen Amy cry like this before.

“Let’s go over to the aftercare corner,” he said, scooping her up in his arms, leaving Zach to clean up his equipment and follow after them. Feeling her soft curves trembling against him, he had to sit on the protective feelings that were threatening to run rampant. Amy was one of the sweetest, kindest, most giving people he’d ever met, and he hated to see her upset.

Considering how often she and Zach had scened together, Zach should know her limits. She shouldn’t have been crying like that, even if she’d asked him to make her cry. That was way more than tears over physical pain. He didn’t think Zach would have done anything to deliberately hurt her, but he also knew it was his duty to make sure. He wouldn’t be leaving Amy’s side until he was completely convinced she was alright and that he could leave her in Zach’s care.

“He really didn’t do anything I didn’t ask him to,” Amy said, sniffling, as though she could read Connor’s mind.

“I know.” He did believe that. But one thing he’d learned about being a Dom was that sometimes what the submissive wanted and what the submissive needed were two different things. And some submissives were too willing to go past what was actually good for them. He sat down on the couch, cradling her on his lap and reaching over with one hand to grab a blanket from the top of the stack. Zach was already on his way over, so Connor figured he could take care of the water and snack. “Why did you want to cry?”

She sniffled again, her voice turning watery. “It’s so dumb.”

“I bet it’s not.”

“It is, though.” Sorrow threaded through her voice. “I saw this stupid challenge online… you’re supposed to ask your partner to peel an orange for you. And then see how they react. Jeremy didn’t want to do it for me, and I started to get upset, but when I explained it to him… I mean, he’s right. I was trying to trap him into a certain kind of reaction without telling him my expectations, and that wasn’t fair to him. It was a trick. It was really shitty of me, yet even though I know I messed up, I’m still upset he didn’t peel the orange for me, which makes me feel even worse.”

“Why didn’t he just peel the orange?” Connor’s brain was having trouble getting past that one simple fact. If Julie asked him to peel an orange for her, he would, and he didn’t think it had anything to do with being submissive. Hell, if Amy asked him to peel an orange for her, he would.

“Because I can do it myself. Which I can. But you know, it’s just… it’s stupid. It’s a stupid test that’s supposed to tell you if your partner cares enough about you to do something for you that you can easily do yourself, but he’s right. It’s a trick and a trap, and he didn’t know what I was trying to do. I was being dishonest. I was setting him up to fail.” The words poured out of her, leaving her breathing hard. Zach had caught up to them by then, a bottle of water in one hand and a chocolate bar in the other.

“You did not,” Zach said grimly as he opened the bottle and handed it to her, making it clear that he’d had a conversation with Amy before the scene about why she was asking for a hard one. “You made a perfectly reasonable request, and he was a jerk, then he made you feel bad because he knew he looked bad.”

Amy sniffled, keeping her gaze averted from both Connor and Zach.

“I was testing him, though. We’re getting married. I shouldn’t be testing him. It’s childish.”

“Maybe he shouldn’t be failing the tests,” Zach muttered. Taking the bottle from her, he held out the chocolate, which she took—still not looking at him.

Privately, Connor agreed, but he wasn’t sure it was his place to say anything.

“Anyway, I was feeling… well, bad, so I texted Zach to see if he could be here tonight because I needed some release.” Amy spoke loudly, as if she could drown out Zach’s words, even though they were already out there. “I’m grateful he was available.” Even if he does need to keep his opinions to himself.

The words hung unspoken in the air.

---