Fighting Attraction Read online

  “Don’t you dare come,” he barks.

  Humiliation floods me with heat almost as intense as my burning ass. My breath catches in my throat, and I press my forehead to the cool bench and moan in frustration. “I’m sorry.” I don’t know what else to say. Every time he touches me, I turn into a raging horny beast, and that’s not why either of us is here.

  “Nothing to be sorry about.” Still holding me firmly with one hand on my neck, he strokes down my back with a firm, knowing touch. Not sexual—thank God—but assessing. When he reaches my stinging ass, I wince.

  “Nicely warmed up,” he says. But his voice cracks the tiniest bit.

  Every muscle in my body tenses at once. That was the warm-up?

  “You didn’t give me that promise I asked for.” His next blow sends me jerking forward so hard the small bit of friction from my knickers sliding on the bench is almost too much to bear. My breasts are aching and swollen, the nipples hard and peaked beneath my bra.

  “I promise.”

  “What do you promise?” The next few blows come in rapid succession, and I struggle to tell him what he wants to hear, but it’s so damn hard with my ass on fire and every muscle in my body tensed as I fight the urgent, desperate need to come.

  “To call you if I feel the need to cut myself.”

  “Good girl.” He gently removes my ponytail holder, and my hair sheets down my back. His breath catches in his throat ever so softly, but before I can turn to look at him, he twists my hair in his fist and yanks my head back.

  “You’re right,” he says, musing. “Your back does like to arch. And it brings your ass up all ready to be spanked again, just like it did in the gym. I wanted to spank the sass right out of you the other day, but I thought about how much more fun it would be to do it here, where I could make you scream.” He jerks my head back so hard tears come to my eyes. “Do you like to be spanked?”

  “Yes,” I whisper. But only by him.

  Jack leans down and brushes his lips over my ear in an intimate caress.

  “I can’t hear you, darlin’.”

  “Yes.”

  Jack gives a satisfied grunt in his throat and smacks my ass over and over, hard and fast with no discernible pattern. I try to breathe through the pain, try not to cry as the blows continue, but I can’t help myself. Tears run down my face, and I cry in earnest. My brain fuzzes, and I feel a rush of pleasure. Suddenly, I’m floating, free of pain and the guilt and shame I carry with me every day, free of feelings of unworthiness that weigh me down. I am…just me.

  * * *

  RAMPAGE

  Sweat beads on my forehead, and I smack Penny’s perfect ass again. She whimpers but doesn’t scream. I suspect she has a high pain tolerance after what she’s done to herself, and I ramp up the intensity, hitting her harder with the next blow. I still can’t believe this is real, my perfect English rose strapped to my table, begging for my hand. Her lacy green thong covers the top part of her ass, an attempt at modesty that serves only to heighten my desire, and with her creamy skin now pink, marked by my hand, I’m painfully hard, my cock straining against my leathers.

  Sex and pain. I was taught that hitting girls was not only wrong but also morally reprehensible and against everything we stood for in the South. So when I was thirteen or fourteen years old and started having thoughts that involved inflicting pain but were somehow mixed up with sex, I was appalled at myself. I suppressed those thoughts and urges and tried to be normal. I dated. I fumbled. I had my first sexual encounter with a sweet blond Southern belle named Daisy. But around the time I was seventeen, those thoughts and urges came back, more intense, more disconcerting, and I thought I was twisted, broken. Desperate, I searched the Internet for answers and finally stumbled on BDSM. That’s when I realized there was a different kind of normal and I wasn’t alone.

  Still, I’ve never been able to fully accept my kink or get rid of the self-loathing, the incongruity of an upbringing that is fundamentally incompatible with my need to blend sex and pain. Avery didn’t help. Although I knew sadism wasn’t socially acceptable, I wasn’t prepared for her disgust or revulsion. I didn’t expect to be judged by the woman I loved and who claimed to love me. I never even touched her. She condemned me on my words alone. Rejected me. Betrayed me. Broke my fucking heart. Ruined me for women forever.

  Or so I thought.

  Penny moans softly, and I strike her ass again. Sweet and soft, she shares Avery’s fragile beauty, and yet she is not destroyed by my touch. Her body responds to every blow, absorbing the pain. She whimpers but doesn’t scream. Moans but doesn’t sob. She is aroused even though she didn’t expect it, and her embarrassment at her body’s natural response only fuels my fire. I feel a rush with every strike, like I’m high. My senses magnify. I can smell her arousal and the fragrance of her perfume. I can feel the softness of her skin beneath my palm. I can sense when she needs me to continue and when she needs to catch her breath. I could push her to come with one well-placed blow, but I know that would send her over the edge. She wasn’t ready for this connection, but then neither was I.

  I raise my hand to strike again, pulling back when she goes limp on the bench. Awareness swamps me in a rush, clearing the haze from my mind. “Pen? You with me?”

  My heart skips a beat when she doesn’t respond, and I walk around to the front of the bench. Her head is turned to the side, resting on the flat surface, eyes closed, cheeks streaked with tears.

  “Pen?”

  She draws in a shuddering breath. “Tickety-boo.”

  “What?”

  “Crackin’,” she mumbles.

  “Since I don’t have my British–American dictionary handy, I’m going to guess you’ve had enough.”

  She opens her eyes and frowns. “Don’t be daft.”

  I undo the clips holding her wrists and ankles to the bench. Her hands are cold, her limbs soft. She mumbles British swear words as I lift her and carry her to the couch.

  Lust rages through me as I hold her in my arms, and I wrap an aftercare blanket around her, as much to keep her warm as to curb my desire to take the scene one step too far. Her pain fulfills me, soothes the dark passenger who rides my heart, yet for the first time, pain isn’t enough. I want something else—something to fill the longing that burns in my soul.

  “I think we went too far. That’s my fault. You were so damn responsive. So brave. So strong.” I stroke her hair as she snuggles into my chest, knowing this intimate moment won’t last. A scene that intense requires some form of release—either emotional or physical—and Penny has had neither.

  “Easy peasy,” she murmurs.

  I cradle her in my arms. Her curves sink into my body, her ass resting on my painfully erect cock. I never fuck my play partners after a scene, preferring to take my release by my own hand. But right now, if she wanted me, I’d rip those panties off her and take her right here.

  She shudders, and I pull her closer, tuck her head beneath my chin, and tighten my arms around her. She fits perfectly into my body, as if she were made for me.

  “Oh God.” She stiffens suddenly, thrashes against me, struggling to get out of the blanket as her mind and body become one again. Her ass grinds against my cock, and I can barely breathe with the effort of holding myself back.

  “Shh.” I tighten the edges of the blanket, trapping her hands, and drop my voice to the low, commanding tone she responded to the other day. “Be still. You’re okay.”

  “I need to go.” Her body trembles, and she chews on her bottom lip, squirms on my lap.

  “When I think you’re ready.”

  “No,” she snaps. “Now. I have to go now. You don’t understand.” Her cheeks flush crimson, and as she struggles, the blanket falls away, giving me a clear view of her taut, hard nipples, straining beneath her bra.

  “I do understand.” I rest my hand on her quivering stom
ach, stroke my finger along the lacy edge of her panties. She needs to come, and although I will have to wait for my physical release, I can give Penny hers.

  She tenses, caught between need and fear. I slip one finger beneath the elastic and stroke over her mound.

  “Yes?”

  She turns her head, looks away. “Yes,” she whispers.

  I glide a finger over her mound and through the slick folds of her pussy. “You’re so wet. So fucking wet. I never thought a spanking would arouse you this much.”

  She grabs my shirt, moans in frustration. I push two fingers into her tight, wet heat and pump. Once. Twice. I press my palm against her clit, and she comes apart with a scream, back arching, body rigid. Her first scream for me, and I drink it in, taking my pleasure from her erotic pain.

  I thrust my fingers deeper, dragging out her orgasm, watching her totally let go. She is beautiful. Wild. Breathtaking. But she doesn’t belong to me.

  When her body goes limp, I withdraw my hand, pull her up against me, and rest her cheek against my chest. For a long time, we sit in silence. My cock is still painfully hard despite the lack of stimulation. Just being near Penny, it seems, is enough to keep me fully aroused.

  Finally, her muscles tense, and she pushes away. “Can I go now?”

  “You need water. Some chocolate.” I reach across her to the table where I keep snacks to replenish my subs after the scenes.

  “I’m good,” she says stiffly. “Really. I just…I’m knackered. I need to go.”

  “Look at me.” I cup her jaw and tilt her head back. Her eyes dart to mine and then away.

  “You don’t need to be embarrassed around me,” I say softly. “There is little I haven’t seen in here. Less I haven’t done. Although I have to admit I’ve never pushed anyone the way I pushed you, never had anyone respond so beautifully to the pain I gave them.”

  “I have to go.” She pushes hard against my chest and wriggles out of my arms. I don’t know what to say to soothe her or assuage her fears without letting my Dom loose again, and that would scare her away for good. I don’t know how to make her stay, simply because I’ve never wanted anyone to stay before.

  “You’re not ready. We should talk about the scene,” I say, folding the blanket as she crosses the floor toward the locker.

  Penny pulls open the door, turns away as she gets dressed. “I don’t want to talk. Please. Jack. It’s over. No more.”

  I feel a curious tightening in my chest, and I cross the floor toward her. “You need to sit down for a few minutes. You aren’t thinking straight.”

  “Don’t tell me what I need,” she snaps. “You have no idea. I needed pain. You gave me—” Her voice cracks, breaks, and she shakes her head.

  Pleasure? Release? What did I give her that has triggered this storm?

  “Good-bye, Jack.” She slings her purse over her shoulder, and I follow her to the door.

  “I’ll ask Kitty to call a taxi. Let me do that for you.”

  Her shoulders drop, and she sighs. “Okay.”

  I head over to the table to grab my phone. By the time I turn, she is gone.

  11

  What if we weren’t friends?

  PENNY

  Monday morning I try to bury myself in my work while Amanda is in court, but every five minutes I’m on my phone looking things up. First I search spanking and how long the bruises last. I am relieved to discover my two days of tenderness is normal. Next I search for articles on people getting aroused by spanking. Many people. So, still normal. How about people who get an emotional release through spanking so they don’t feel the urge to cut themselves for the first time in years? A few. How curious. Now I’m on a roll. I search for blogs about people getting so aroused when they are spanked by their friend that he has to get them off right there and then and they die of humiliation. A few. Except those bloggers don’t seem to be humiliated and are keen to repeat the experience. Me? Not so much.

  I don’t know what to think. I don’t know what to feel. And the only person I can talk to about it is the one person who confuses me. Is this just part of what happens in the club, or is it more? I can’t imagine doing anything I’ve done with Jack in the club with anyone else. My kink experiences are intimately tied with him. I like him. I trust him. He’s my friend, but now he’s more. At least to me.

  Amanda walks into my office, and I quickly tuck away my phone. Not that she can see it from the doorway, but sometimes she likes to sit and chat, and I’m not sure what she would think about my interest in spanking.

  “Gerry’s here,” she says. “Can you meet us in the conference room? The hearing didn’t go well, and he’s unhappy, to put it mildly. I want at least three of us there.”

  “What happened?” I grab my notepad and pen from my desk and follow her out into the reception area. Amanda isn’t usually concerned about being alone with male clients. She once had to defend herself from an attorney who became obsessed with her, and she did a bang-up job, giving him a solid beating using some of the techniques she learned at Redemption.

  “I don’t know.” She grabs a tray while Jill pours four cups of coffee. “Damien Stone showed up with his attorney and half a dozen affidavits that made the judge turn down our application. It was like they knew exactly what I had planned to do and spent the weekend collecting the evidence to refute my arguments.”

  “How could he know?” My forehead creases in a frown. “The only people you shared your plan with were Gerry, Jill, and me. Gerry isn’t about to let the cat out of the bag on his own case, and you know we wouldn’t talk.”

  Or did I?

  Things got pretty foggy for a while there when I was at Club Sin two nights ago, and what I do remember I don’t want to remember—restrained on the spanking bench, Jack’s hand on my ass, fire, pain, and arousal so fierce I thought I would die if I couldn’t come. I remember mumbled words as he took me off the bench. I remember being snuggled in his arms. And then it all went away, and suddenly I was a raging, horny beast begging him to make me come. Oh God.

  “You okay?”

  Amanda’s voice pulls me off the humiliation roundabout, and I am wrenched back into the moment. My pulse kicks up a notch. Did I say anything to him about the case when I was on the bench, floating on the pleasure train?

  “Penny?”

  “Sure. Yeah. Just…knackered today. And the hearing. Wow. What are we going to do?”

  “We have to calm Gerry down first,” she says. “Then we’ll come up with a new plan.”

  We file into the bright, airy boardroom with its cream leather chairs, polished oak table, and sea green carpet. With his blue-black hair, thick features, cruel slash of a mouth, and dark Armani suit, Gerry looks more mafia than real estate magnate, and he shares a similar disdain for the law. I had a bad feeling about him when he first walked in the door, and now that we’re up close and personal, my bad feeling gets worse. Gerry nods at Amanda and openly leers at Jill as she hands out the coffee. His dark gaze rakes over me from head to toe and zooms in on my chest. I lift my notebook, blocking his view as I sit beside Amanda. From the corner of my eye, I can see her lip curl, and I know she feels as disgusted as I do.

  “There were really only a few ways around the lease provisions.” Amanda forestalls Gerry, who has just opened his mouth, no doubt to rant at us. “They must have prepared for all the possibilities over the weekend so they were ready for us this afternoon. It’s a setback but not a disaster. I’m confident we can still get them out without having to wait the duration of the notice period. I mentioned before that mediation was an option—”

  “I got a plan.” Gerry gives us the kind of smile that sharks give before they chomp off your leg—all teeth. “A lot of high-profile people go to the club using a hidden entrance. Under the terms of the lease, I have access to the property to make improvements for security. I’m thinking of putting
cameras on all the doors and then sending the tapes to Stone. I’ll tell him to get out or I’ll make them public and let the world see all the fucking celebrities who got a dirty secret.”

  “That’s not the kind of mediation I was thinking about,” Amanda says calmly. When Gerry first came to us, she’d pushed for mediation to avoid the high costs of litigation in a case ill-suited to the courts, but Gerry wouldn’t hear of it. He’d already talked to Damien Stone, he said, and they hadn’t been able to come to an agreement. So why waste time with more talking?

  “Blackmail is illegal,” she continues. “I can’t condone it as a course of action, and if you were to tell me that it was something you planned to do or had done, I would be forced to withdraw as your attorney. We do have other options available to us, however, and I’m happy to discuss them. Mediation would be much faster.”

  Gerry’s face tightens, and he pushes back his chair. “I need them out of that building now. I’ve got plans for that property, and I won’t let Stone and his fucking sex club get in my way. He was supposed to give in as soon as he got served with the papers. I never expected him to hire a fucking lawyer and go through with the damn court case.” He slams his fist on the table and stands so quickly his chair topples over. “You didn’t do your fucking job. You were supposed to scare him off.”

  “I’m a lawyer, not an enforcer,” she says as he storms out the door. “If there are any legal avenues you want to pursue, just give me a call.”

  “He’s a real piece of work,” I say after Jill follows Gerry out to make sure he doesn’t cause any trouble. “Do you think he really will try to blackmail Stone?”

  “I wouldn’t put it past him.” Amanda sighs. “I’ve been fighting him to keep everything legal ever since I took him on as a client. Personally, I don’t like trying to kick the club out early when there are notice provisions in the lease that would give them time to wind up the business, but I’ll still do my best for my client. I almost wish he’d do something illegal so I have an excuse to drop him. I only agreed to take the case as a favor to one of the guys at the gym because Gerry’s a distant relation. You know how it goes.”