Page 22 of The Secrets That Kill

She doesn’t answer.

“And if you’re very bad, or maybe really good, I’ll take you to O-Ring.”

“I don’t want to go.”

I turn, and her eyes catch mine. They’re sea blue now, deep and dark. Her pulse flutters in her throat. A bruise is forming on the other side from my mouth, and I stop to admire my handiwork. It’s the contrast of the smooth, clear skin and the filth of intent the bruise represents.

Bruises suit her.

Her breath catches and her lips part in unintended invitation.

“Don’t want to gowhat?” I ask.

Ivy swallows hard, her hands balled into fists, breasts rising and falling rapidly. She doesn’t pretend to misunderstand me.

“Sir.”

“Good little Pollyanna.” I want to breathe her in again, take in her fresh sweetness and the musk of arousal, but I don’t move closer to her. “We’ll be going to that club. I’ll put you on display for others to admire and then have you beg for my cock.”

Her nostrils flare.

She wants to hit me. But at the same time, she wants to take my hand and shove it back beneath her dress. The distaste and desire at war in her expression is a powerful aphrodisiac.

I’m being beyond cruel. Beyond crude. I’m flinging her into the deep end of Dom/sub play here. How I like to play. I’m breaking every fucking rule. It’s freeing. And…

Ivy’s taking it all.

I step away from her. “There’s a car waiting for you. I’ll be in touch.”

This time I walk off and take hidden stairs, leaving her there. My driver’s waiting for her by the elevator at the bottom level, and he’ll make sure she gets home safely.

She’s going to hate me more in the morning. She’ll fear for her sister’s life. She’ll be angry, frustrated, horrified. All the sharp and suffocating emotions will eat at her and tear her up inside. And still, when I turn up again, she’ll welcome me. If not willingly, with unwanted desire that she doesn’t quite understand yet.

I pass the floor between Lyre and O-Ring, one of the levels where some of the private rooms for the Obsidian Knights are. You can work, fuck, even sleep in them. I could go to O-Ring, find a willing sub and either whipher and have her suck me off, or tie her up and torture her by withholding orgasms before I fuck her hard.

I could just go and enjoy some old-fashioned voyeurism. Or go to the levels below O-Ring, into some of the darker rooms of play. Then there’s the real Obsidian Knights club. Members only. A place where we can relax and talk and drink and make deals without worrying about outsiders.

But I’m not in the mood. I don’t need any new deals right now. I don’t want a drink, bullshit conversation, or someone to fuck. I have everything I need right now.

And I know what I have to do next.

I hail a cab on the street and give the driver an address.

Tonight, what I need—beside rubbing one out—isn’t at the soulless Central Park West triplex I own. It’s in Brooklyn, out on the edges of Bedford-Stuyvessant where I own a brownstone. No one knows about it, not even Orion or Malone.

We cross the Manhattan Bridge and I lean back in my seat and close my eyes, the cab driver talking on his headset in Hindi.

Tonight was a power play. One I took further than I needed to, and the one at the end? Walking away from Ivy? Small but effective. She needs to see me as the one with all the power, herself with none and completely at my mercy. Not just sexually, but in every way.

I scrub a hand down the front of my face. The sweet scent of her is still on my fingers, and it smells so good.

Pollyanna’s all grown up. Lush, soft, and perfect. Almost ten years ago, she’d been pretty. Gawky and unformed, but pretty. She’d also been an annoying and sweet kid with a crush that even the fucking dead could see. The more I ignored her, the more persistent she became at making sure she ended up in my sights.

The driver pulls up to the brownstone, and I pay in cashbecause I don’t want there to be any record of me ever coming here. It’s the one place where I can exist in complete anonymity and I’d like to keep it that way.

The tiny yard, a little overgrown patch of cement and weed that might be bigger than a postage stamp, is inviting in a way that only something that’s yours can be.

I bought this place after I got out of prison when I made my first million. Some might say me wanting revenge on Ivy after turning my life around is a little overkill, but it isn’t. She tried to fuck me over. Her desire to have me rot in jail still pokes and scrapes at my mind.

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