Charlie could spend her life like that. She could walk away from Ian and she would very likely be able to find a man who would acquiesce to her demands and she would get exactly what she said she needed.
Or she could trust Ian and discover a whole new world of what she wanted.
She tried to see exactly what was on the table. It looked like there was a large wad of cotton balls, several plastic bottles containing god only knew what, and she could see the glass pieces for a violet wand.
“Charlie?” Ian gestured to the massage table in the middle of the stage floor.
Already there were people standing around, including Serena, who gave her a wink and a little thumbs up. She was probably already writing a fire play scene in her head.
It was just a scene. Just play. Ian had never hurt her. She’d been the one to hurt him. He’d kept his end of the bargain. It was past time to keep hers.
She was afraid of fire, but then she was also afraid of elevators, and when she held his hand, she could handle them.
A deep sense of peace settled over her. Most of her life she had shoved her fear down because fear could get her killed. But it would be all right to be afraid at Sanctum. He was here. It was all right to feel afraid because nothing bad would happen to her.
She let her heart race as she walked to him.
“You’re overdressed for the scene, love.”
Well, of course she was. He certainly wouldn’t want to set her micromini on fire and the corset was probably expensive. Surely her skin would heal.
She stepped toward him, leaving a foot or so between them. She had to tilt her head up to look at him. It was so rare for a man to truly tower over her. She was almost six feet herself and no one could call her underfed, but Ian Taggart was a mountain of a man. She let her eyes drift from his lean waist to that gorgeous line of skin shown off where his leather vest had been left open. His leathers hung low on his hips, exposing deep notches where his cut torso met strong legs. His abs were washboard perfect. His chest was big, his shoulders broad. He could pick her up and not notice her substantial weight.
And then she got to that perfectly square jaw. She wanted to kiss it, to soften it so he would smile at her. He almost never smiled, but when he did it lit up the room and he got the sweetest laugh lines. She loved the way they crinkled around his eyes. When he really smiled, when he forgot everything but his own amusement, he got the cutest dimples in his cheeks.
“Charlotte?” Ian asked. “Have I lost you again? Might I ask what’s going on in your head?”
She was aware there was a crowd and they were all avidly watching the exchange, likely wondering if she was going to safe word out. Ian looked like he was wondering, too. “I was just thinking about how pretty you are, Sir.”
Ian’s eyes closed briefly and that straight jaw tightened as though he was holding in a laugh. He stifled it, but his eyes were warm as he stared down at her. “I’m pretty, huh? I have never once been described as pretty.”
She was sure he’d been described as hot, as sexy, as intimidating. “Then they haven’t looked at you, Sir, because I think you’re the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen.”
There were whispers all around and she heard some people talking about how Taggart wouldn’t take “that” from a sub.
Had she fucked up again?
His hand came out, tilting her chin up. “I think we should check your eyesight, love, but I’ll take it. And all the Doms out there giggling behind their hands like schoolgirls can shove it up their asses because apparently I’m prettier than all of them put together. Now show them how pretty my sub is. Let me get you out of that corset.”
Warmth filled her. He was a man who could take a compliment when it was well meant. He’d taught her how to accept them, too. Before Ian there had been no compliments, no sweet words from men.
No scary fire.
She took as deep a breath as her corset allowed and lifted her arms up, ready for him to work on the laces.
Instead he held up a knife. “You won’t need this for the rest of the night.”
He placed the knife under the laces and lifted up as though he was moving it through butter. In an instant, she was exposed, the corset falling aside. Cool air hit her skin and her nipples puckered immediately.
Ian placed the corset and knife aside and dropped to one knee. His hands came up to her waist, pulling at the skirt and dragging it down her hips. Shivers ran along her skin everywhere he touched her and she couldn’t miss the way he stopped at her pussy and took a long breath. He was such a nasty pervert and it made her spine curl, her heart soften.
He tossed the skirt aside and got back to his feet. That icy look in his eyes from earlier was completely gone, replaced with what she knew was a deep anticipation. He was looking forward to the scene. It wasn’t just a punishment for her. It would bring him pleasure. It made it so much easier for her to move forward.
“Should I lie down, Sir?” She wanted to call him Master so badly.
He leaned over and picked her up with an ease that took away her breath. “I’ll put you where I want you, sub. Don’t worry about a thing. All you have to do is lie there and look pretty. It shouldn’t be hard for you.”
When he talked like that, she melted in his arms. So much of her life had been about being told where she’d failed, how she was flawed, how she needed to make up for all her shortcomings. But Ian thought she was lovely and that was all she needed. It was a miraculous thing to find the one person in the world who made all the bad things meaningless. Ian was her talisman against the dark.
He carried her to the table, laying her down on the sheet that covered it. He studied her for a moment, those hot eyes of his roaming her body. A single finger traced one of her scars absently as he inspected her. He smoothed back her hair, dragging it out of the way gently and twisting it to the side. “It’s very important to make sure your sub’s hair is well away from the play space. The play space, of course, is all your sub’s fun parts.”
He tweaked a nipple and she felt it in her pussy.
He turned away abruptly and she hated the loss of connection. When he was touching her, there was no hesitation. When he looked at her, she felt confident, peaceful. The minute he turned away, all her doubts and fears returned—that she didn’t deserve him, that she’d already betrayed him so badly there was no hope.
“So I know some of you have been asking about fire play. I thought we could take this time to do a little demo. If there are enough Doms interested, I’ll teach a class in the next couple of months, but you should all know damn well, there’s no play until I say.”
Because even among Doms he was a control freak. He would never allow a Dom to touch a sub in his club until he was sure the Dom knew what he was doing.
“Ryan is the only one here besides me with experience, so you can ask your questions of either of us. This is my personal submissive. Her name is Charlotte and this is her first fire play. I think.”
She opened her eyes and sent him a look. What was it going to take to get him to believe she hadn’t been gallivanting about with every Dom in the Western world? “Yes, Ian. It’s a first for me. I haven’t been out there setting myself on fire.”
“We’re having to perform a fire play scene tonight because her ass is already red from multiple spankings. She’s a brat of the highest order, but we’re working on the problem.” His hand came out and quickly twisted her nipple, causing her to gasp. “When I need your input, I’ll let you know.”
“Where did you learn?” Jake was standing close, Serena at his side. “I’m sorry, but I’m very curious. I’ve never seen this done. I’ve certainly never seen you play this way.”
“I learned it in England. You were too busy playing house with Serena. Li was working when he wasn’t fucking our objective. Alex was mooning over Eve. So I had some free time on my hands and I have a British friend who is an expert at explosives of every kind.” He seemed so confident and comfortable standing in front of this group. He usually stood in the back, watching and waiting, but this was his home. This was his club and these were his people.
God, she hoped she didn’t freak out and make an idiot of herself. Was it going to hurt? Would she burn before he could put the flames out? She had to make sure she didn’t scream.
“The truth of the matter is, fire play is a very effective mind fuck. If you can’t tell, the sub is terrified. I would bet her mind is playing through a million scenarios of how this is going to go and some of them aren’t good. Is the adrenaline flowing, love?”
Oh, yes it was. It was thrumming through her system. That was supposed to be the high of extreme play, the rush a sub got off it. She’d read some about it, but she and Ian had spent most of their time together in bed. He’d introduced her to impact play and bondage, but mostly he’d made love to her and talked to her and held her.
It was only a couple of months of her life. When she really looked at it, it was an inconsequential amount of days compared to all that had come before and after it, but those weeks had changed the course of everything. Those weeks with Ian had taught her the difference between surviving and living.
It wasn’t just adrenaline flowing through her. It was hope. He was here and she was here and she would use this experience to bind them together. “Yes, Sir. I’m both scared and a little curious.”
“That’s exactly what I want to hear.”
She heard the crack of the violet wand being turned on. She looked up, though she didn’t raise her head. Moving was a definite no no. He had attached the mushroom-shaped glass head to the violet wand. Purple light sparked from the head where he ran it over his own skin. “I like to warm the sub up a little. I thought I would use the wand on her. This is one toy she has used before.”
One night in Paris. He’d introduced her to the violet wand. She’d been afraid at first and then she quickly grew to love the sensation. He had kissed her while she held the wand in her hand, sparks flaring from her tongue to his. Like they were a live wire waiting to go off.
She closed her eyes as the sound hit her first. The sound of electricity, of man-made lightning. Then the faintest whiff of ozone hit her nose. Then her skin was sparking in the most delicious way as Ian ran the wand over her torso. The sensation of bubbles playing along her flesh made her smile.
“This is on a low setting. Charlie enjoys a bite of pain, but she isn’t a pain slut. If I give her too much, I’m likely to get it returned to me,” Ian said with a self-deprecating laugh. “But don’t let it be said I’m too kind to my subs.”
She heard the change in the wand and then fought not to come off the table as he ran the damn thing over her labia. A little burn started and then the sensation intensified. He moved on to her thighs, but her pussy was definitely awake and alive now.
Charlie focused on the sensation. Ian seemed determined to not leave an inch of skin untouched. He turned the wand up so the lightest burn scraped across her. It brought her warmth where she’d been cold before.
He pulled the wand back and she missed its bite.
“The trick with flash cotton is that you have to make absolutely sure you’ve gotten rid of all the bunched-up pieces. You want flash cotton to be thin, spider web like. If you leave too much together, it could burn the sub. So the first thing the Dominant partner has to remember is to fully part the cotton.”
His big hands went to work on the mound of flash cotton. In no time at all he had pulled it apart so it resembled a filmy spider web. He separated a piece of the cotton about the size of his palm and held it up. “This should work for our first demonstration. I like to call it mound o’fire.”
Ian’s friends all groaned, but Charlie was trying to figure out if he was about to place that cotton on her pussy. She breathed a quick sigh of relief as he covered her right breast with the stuff. Her skin already sensitized by the wand, she could feel every tiny movement as he adjusted the thin, filmy material.
He was really going to do it. He was going to light that cotton on fire and it was going to burn her. Right? Surely it would burn. That was what fire did. Yet she knew this was a perfectly acceptable form of play in the BDSM world. She hadn’t seen a bunch of torched subs running around so it was only rational to come to the conclusion that she would be okay.
But her lizard brain was telling her to punch Ian, jump off the table and run away.
Ian looked down at her, those gorgeous lips of his curled up in a sexy smirk. “Scared?”
Asshole. “Yes.”
“Good, because I’m going to light you up, baby.” He held the violet wand up like it was a torch, the electric sound blotting out the murmurs around her.
Her heart was pounding, almost beating out of her chest. That was what she heard—the sound of the wand and her own loud heart.
Inside, she was shaking, but outside she kept completely still like that cotton on her breast was a spider and it would strike if she moved a single inch.
Then it started. Purple sparks flew from the wand to the cotton and she was on fire. It started at the outer edge, and red and orange flames marched a quick step across her breast, leaving a warm heat trail that fanned over her. She watched with a mix of horror and fascination as the fire flared, and then as quickly as it came, it was gone and she was left with nothing but a warm sensation and a crazy endorphin rush.
She laughed, a wild urge she couldn’t contain. She’d been so afraid, and now that fear morphed into joy.
Ian looked down at her, his previous smirk softening into a smile that showed those creases on his face. “That’s why they call it a mind fuck, baby.” He turned back to his audience. “Now, let me show you how to form some fun patterns. You start with the flash cotton.”
He talked on, but Charlie relaxed, letting his voice flow over her, finding that connection that had been missing most of her life except for those precious weeks.
She would do whatever it took to never lose it again.
Ian helped a very subby Charlie off the table. After the initial demo, she’d seemed to relax and allowed him every possible liberty with the rest of the scene. She hadn’t protested once when he drew the cotton out in elaborate trails that led from between her breasts all the way down to her toes. Each time he lit her up, there was a momentary breathlessness and then a brilliant smile as the flame died out, never once harming her.