Chapter One

Music, beer, tie up a willing woman, maybe use a flogger lightly…should be a no-stress evening. Nolan King leaned an elbow on the bar and took a hefty pull of Corona to wash the sawdust from his throat. With his paperwork finally caught up, he’d been able to go on-site and swing a hammer with his crew. Now his back and biceps had the muted ache of a good workout.

The edgy music of Nine Inch Nails from the dance floor mingled with the hum of conversation from the scattered sitting areas around the huge club room. Above the background noise came the sounds of BDSM play: the crack of a whip, a hand slapping flesh, screams and stern commands from one scene area. Just another Saturday night at the Shadowlands.

On the bar stool next to him, Mistress Anne, a tall, slender brunette in glossy red latex mini, sleeveless top, and black vinyl boots, handed her kneeling slave a bottle of water. She glanced at Nolan and patted his arm. “You’re looking a bit tired, honey.”

“Long day.” Good day. The office building neared completion, right on schedule. A wail rose from a roped-off area, and Nolan turned to look. The sub being flogged on the St. Andrew’s cross had finally been permitted to climax. Her sobs of relief continued for a good minute, and Nolan chuckled. “Raoul hasn’t lost his touch.”

“He’s not bad at all.” Anne stroked her slave’s red hair. “We’re up next, Joey. Finish your water. I intend to use you long and hard.” Joey gazed up at her in adoration before lifting the bottle to his mouth and chugging the water.

“Aren’t you monitoring tonight, Nolan?” Anne nodded at his black muscle shirt and leather jeans that lacked the gold trim designating a dungeon monitor.

“No. Z had enough people. I figure I’ll grab a sub and put one of the upstairs rooms to use.” Nolan glanced at the women sitting on the nearby couches. All were unattached submissives hoping to be noticed. Each had her own needs and desires. Finding one whose needs matched what he wanted to give was the trick and took not only good assessment skills but a willingness to communicate with the sub, before, during, and after a scene. Oddly enough, he’d come to enjoy the pre-scene negotiations: the mixture of attraction, flirting, and discovering the sub’s wishes even while trying to uncover her hidden needs. Like constructing a house, a scene needed to be built from the ground up, starting with a solid foundation of trust. He snorted at the imagery. Next he’d be writing poetry.

“Really, Nolan, you should find someone a little more permanent. It’s worth it.” Anne smiled. When she leaned Joey’s head against her bare thigh, the young man’s nostrils widened as he obviously caught a whiff of his mistress’s arousal.

“Been there, done that.” Nolan returned to studying the subs. That little curvy blonde had potential. He liked soft under his hands. “I had a fulltime slave last year. Uncollared her before I did that consulting job in Iraq.” He gave Anne a rueful smile. “Damned if it wasn’t a relief. I don’t like being a master full time.”

Anne shrugged. “Some people don’t. But a different sub every week gets tiring.”

“Maybe.” He glanced at the cross. “Raoul’s cleaned up. You’d better grab the cross before someone else does. The place is busy tonight.”

“This is true.” Anne rose to her feet. She ran her fingers through her slave’s hair and tipped his face up to take his lips in a demanding kiss.

When she stepped back, Joey rose to his feet and looked down at her, his lean muscles displayed by the leather harness.

She cupped his balls in her hand, curled her fingers around the jutting erection. “Let’s see if you can last as long as Raoul’s sub.” Her fingers tightened enough to make the slave’s muscles jump. “You won’t disappoint me now, will you, Joey?”

“No, Mistress. Never.”

Anne walked away, the slave following a step behind.

“That’s one mean mistress.” Cullen wiped a few drops off his gleaming bar top. “Glad my pride-and-joys aren’t under her care.”

Nolan snorted. “As if you’d put your balls anywhere near a Domme.”

“Not in this lifetime.” The huge bartender shook his head and grinned. “By the way, Z was looking for you. He’s over by the chain station.”

“Thanks.” Nolan picked up his beer and rounded the bar to the left, heading toward a roped-off area midway down the wall. A few club members were watching the scene—a slender, redheaded sub, probably around thirty, with her arms chained over her head.

Seated on a couch nearby, the owner of the club looked up as Nolan approached. From the grim expression on his face, Master Z was in a mood dark enough to match his black clothing. He nodded at the adjacent leather couch.

Nolan sat and propped his boots up on the coffee table. “Problems?”

“A few.” Z motioned to the chain station. “See what you think.”

Nolan leaned back, sipping his beer. The redhead’s arms had been shackled to the hanging chains but obviously not tight enough to jeopardize her sense of control. No spreader bar to keep her legs apart. Although obviously without underwear, she still had a corset and miniskirt on. The scene sucked already.

In his mid-twenties, the Dom didn’t project much confidence. Even worse, he kept consulting a paper. What was with that? How-to instructions on topping? “What’s he looking at?”

“Elizabeth has a few hard limits,” Z said in a dry voice.

From what Nolan could see, her list of what she wouldn’t do took up the whole paper.

The Dom spent a few minutes playing with her breasts, then used some ice and a spiky Wartenberg wheel without eliciting much response from the redhead. When he spun her around so her back was to the room, Nolan’s eyes narrowed. Some major scarring there. Several wide scars. A few long ones from a single-tail. Shorter, precisely placed thin lines.

As the Dom turned the sub to face them, Nolan leaned forward. There were ugly, knotted scars on her right shin. The round shiny marks on her breasts suggested cigarette burns.

All the marks were white, so nothing had occurred within the last few months. Nolan’s gaze traveled up her body to her restrained arms. More scars. “How bad are her hands?” he asked Z, his gut twisting.

“About what you’d expect from the rest. Old fractures, old burns. Puncture wounds in her palms.”

Some bastard had played crucifixion games? “Hell, Z, have you killed the guy or are you saving him for me?”

Z rested his elbows on his knees, steepling his fingers. “It happened before she moved to Florida, and she won’t discuss the Dom or her relationship with him.” He nodded at the young Dom unfastening his leathers. “Can you see the problem here?”

Nolan took another sip of beer. The sub looked calm. Too calm, with her color even, eyes clear, muscles relaxed. No anxiety. No arousal from what he could see. The Dom’s distress when he touched her dry pussy could be seen in the way his shoulders stiffened as he stepped back.

“Is she his sub?” Nolan asked, motioning toward the Dom. For all the synergy between the two, they might as well be on opposite sides of the club.

“No. She takes a new top every week with the same dismal results.” Z sighed. “Elizabeth has a gardening service that she started about a year ago without any help. I hired her a couple of months ago, and she does a superb job.”

“And this is leading up to?”

Z rubbed his eyes, looking tired. “She’s a good person. Honest, full of enthusiasm. But when she gets here, she turns into a mouse. She’s not just submissive; she’s terrified. She comes to the club because she requires more than the vanilla world can offer, but we’re not meeting those needs.”

Nolan studied the scene some more. Pretty obvious what the problem was. She was too scared to give up control, but she needed to give up control to get her needs as a submissive met. “She wouldn’t be an easy sub to top.”

“Exactly.” Z tilted his head. “You up to the challenge?”

As a boy, Nolan and his brothers had pretended to be Knights of the Round Table. Now Z had just thrown down a gauntlet. Wasn’t that nice. Nolan scratched his jaw, thinking it over. He’d been back from Iraq for a few months now and had settled into his life. He had work he loved and good friends. Had subs and sex here at the club. Did he want more?

His gaze drifted back to the redhead. The Dom was working her clit and getting nowhere. Nolan shook his head. Nine-tenths of sex was in the head, and that little sub’s head wasn’t into the scene at all. What would it take? First her idiotic list would have… He stopped and scowled at Z. “You are one manipulative bastard, you know that?”

“Thank you, Nolan. Might I say, you’re not an easy mark?” The corner of Z’s mouth lifted. “You in?”

The club owner was smooth, sleek…and as easy to stop as a steamroller. “She has a Dom already,” Nolan pointed out. “She might not want to change.”

“I will handle that.” Z rose to his feet and moved to a place outside the roped-off area where the young Dom would catch sight of him. Most of the people watching the scene had already left, lured to the next station down where Jake was caning a wailing blonde restrained on the spanking bench.