Page 11 of Ruin

“Are you going to be all right getting home? I can drive you.”

She shook her head. “I drove. I’ll be fine. Throw some metal on in the car and sing loudly the entire way home. Badly, too. I’m a terrible singer.” She grimaced, but the reveal gave her no embarrassment whatsoever.

You’re too fucking cute for your own good, Kiera Blythewood.

“Good. Next Tuesday at seven. I’d like to … explore a few more avenues with you.” I tweaked her nose when her eyes widened with a delicious dose of fear and excitement. “Pleasure, sweetheart. I want to see how much you can take before you break.”

“Oh.” She blinked and hurried to correct her lapse. “Thank you, Sir. I enjoyed tonight immensely.”

I smirked. “Oh I know, little floof. Don’t be late. I want to spend every minute learning exactly what makes you scream.”

Her sharp inhale told me I’d hit the right level with her after tonight’s brutal fucking. Not that the next week would be any less, or the week after that. She’d get used to it.

I leaned forward to kiss her before I caught myself and pressed my lips to her temple instead, ignoring the way my dragon roared softly for her pussy. Or maybe it was her cat. “Goodnight, Kiera.”

“Good night, Sir. Thank you.” Emotion shone in her eyes as she turned slowly on her heel. Her shoulders made a straight line, though her stunted walk told its own story of rough sex and a girl who wanted more.

Kiera walked stiffly away from me, the pain already setting in, despite where I rubbed arnica on her skin after playtime finished. By the time I saw her next week, the damage on her stomach and thighs would’ve faded somewhat, but I would also enjoy replacing the marks I made on her flesh again, marking her as mine.

I leaned one elbow on the bar as the crowd began to thin, come the early hours of the morning before Fray closed. Beside me, a couple snuggled on a stool, her arms wrapped around him, his head resting on her breasts where he kissed and sucked gently.

Fray catered to all sorts of kinks, and I was grateful to have a place to share mine with Kiera.

I nodded to the bartender, then flicked my fingers. The movement belied my own trembling hand, and I knew he missed nothing.

He slipped a double shot of cheap Jack in front of me. “Does she know?” James Kwan rested his forearms on his side of the bar bench and stretched his back. The Korean’s razor-cut hair flopped into his eyes, a shot of luridly bright lime green visible somewhere around the roots.

He looked up at me through thick, curled natural lashes that were wasted on a smooth-skinned man like him. Not that he wasn’t rough when it came to his own form of dominance and submission, but he didn’t need the dark frame around his eyes to give his brand of androgyny to his tall build.

The swan shifter was a switch who made a good Dom and a better sub. More than once, I considered playing with him, but my tastes ran a little differently to what he liked on the submissive side.

He studied me for a long moment that stretched out. The club quietened around us before he asked his question.

“Is she the one?”

I swallowed the shitty Jack, relishing the burn. “Looks like it.”

“Does she know?”

My lips curled up, my cock still hard from watching Kiera writhe in her chains. “Does she know? No.”

James snorted and dropped his head. His shoulders rolled back and he groaned at the tension there. “You play some fucked-up games, Blake.” His gaze flicked over my shoulder, deeper into the club.

He’d be looking for Lux; the staff knew of his long-running crush on the emu shifter before Killian caught her eye. Shaking himself out of it, he turned and stared at his newest co-bartender instead.

I shook my head, laughing. “You’ve got your own shit to work through, man.”

“Fuck off, Blake.”

“Haven’t found a regular partner?”

“Not yet. Rafe said he had someone I might be able to help train. See how it goes.” He polished a glass that didn’t need work, aiming for nonchalant and missing it by a mile.

I leaned forward. “That’s a pathetic lie. Just go for it with one of them. What’s the worst that can happen?”

James snarled at me and stalked to the other end of the bar, grabbing a cleaning cloth and slapping his co-worker on the ass with it. Zoe, our resident python shifter, screeched and turned on him, slapping him across the face with an open palm. A hand print bloomed on his cheek as he laughed at her, and she made a matching one on the other side, snarking at him as she went.

He turned on his heel as her eyes flashed. One moment he was looming over her, the next a thick-set python reared above him, hissing in the same frustrated tone she exhibited a moment before.

---