Page 26 of Salt in the Wound
The fifth man was sitting too far back in the shadows for me to see much, other than the suggestion of wide shoulders and gleaming eyes.
“Ah, my bride,” Mark said. “Thank you for bringing her to me, Ms. Lim.”
“Of course, Mr. Trevena,” she said crisply. “Will there be anything else?”
“I think our needs are met for now, thank you.” I could feel his eyes on me even though I couldn’t see them.
Ms. Lim left us, and I saw Mark’s fingers lift from the arm of his chair. I knew what he wanted; we’d exchanged emails about tonight and about my performance. I would kneel; I would be silent unless asked a question. I would call himSirorMr. Trevena.He might touch me, and I’d already sent over a list of my soft and hard limits, so however he touched me would be something I’d already assented to.
I hadn’t had as many hard limits as I’d thought. I wasn’t sure what to make of that.
Hyssop,I reminded myself as I knelt in front of his black dress shoes.Hyssop. I could stop this at any moment, although I already knew I wouldn’t. It was too important for selling our story, the image of me as a financial princess turned submissive turned wife. And if it bothered me thatIsolde Laurence—black belt, perfect student, devout Catholic—would be reduced to that timeline, I wouldn’t let it change anything about my decisions.
Whatever impression of me the world had, I would use it against them to get what I wanted. If they saw me as weak, depraved, unimportant, under someone else’s control…all the better for what I needed to do.
“Lovely,” the woman next to Mark said admiringly. “If young.”
“I didn’t know you liked them so fresh and untrained, Mark,” said the suited woman next to the first. “You’ve always gone for more seasoned types. The ones who can keep up with your…tastes.”
Mark reached forward and tucked a strand of blond hair behind my ear. I kept my eyes down—Mark himself preferred eye contact with his submissives, he’d said, but around other Dominants, it would be polite to keep my eyes on the floor—until he took my chin and lifted my face to his. In the flashing lights and dancing shadows, it was impossible to tell if his eyes were blue or black. “Andrea thinks you can’t keep up with me, darling. Do you think that’s true?”
What could be true between us when this was all a lie? “No, sir.”
“I think you’re right. And half the fun will be showing you my tastes, one by one. Training you to serve me how I like,” Mark said. He was still studying my face, raising my jaw even more to study my throat and clavicles. Like he was wondering what a collar would look like there. “Isn’t that right, Ash?”
A noise of assent from the shadows.
“Ash here had a submissive of his own when he was young, although I don’t think he knew enough to call it that,” Mark explained.
“It didn’t need to have a name,” the man called Ash said. His voice was deep and strong. “We just called itus.”
“Hmm,” Mark said, running his thumb along my jaw, like a new buyer mapping some freshly bought vase at auction. “And what do you call it now? Or your infatuation with that former vice president’s granddaughter?”
A laugh from the shadows. “Hopeless.”
The music behind us changed as Mark released my face. I tilted my face back down the moment he did, and he ran his thumb over his fingertips. Our agreed-on signal forgood.
A thumb in the middle of his palm meantwatch me. A thumb and a forefinger pressed together meantstop. A subtle way for him to guide me through any club etiquette we hadn’t anticipated.
The conversation ebbed into club gossip as I stayed between Mark’s planted feet, watching the arrow-straight cuffs of his suit trousers shivering on the tops of his shoes. The floor was polished concrete, but I was unbothered by the pain of kneeling there. Kneeling had been the closest I’d come to corporal penance on my own, kneeling on a hard surface for as long as I could stand it, and I had lots of practice embracing the discomfort.
It was cool there in my slip of a dress, so much of my thighs exposed, along with my arms and the tops of my breasts, and after a while, I felt goose bumps pebbling my skin. I wondered how the other submissive on the floor was faring, the shirtless man, but when I tried to slide my gaze sideways without moving my head, I could only see his leather-clad thigh. He didn’t seem like he was shivering or anything. Maybe this was another thing subs were expected to endure without complaint.
And then without warning, I was picked up, just like I had been in Mark’s penthouse, and nestled in his lap. He didn’t miss a beat in the conversation he was having with the man next to him about the increase in international membership applicants, and no one else seemed to react either. My flat-clad feet dangled on the other side of the thick leather armrest; I was resting against his blissfully warm chest with my eyes on my lap. He had a strong arm wrapped around me, also warm, and his free hand drew idle circles on my knee as he spoke.
Like the last time, it was startlingly pleasant. That hypnotic, rainlike scent. His firm body, his chest moving against me as he breathed. And this time I could hear the rumble of his voice against my ear as he murmured back and forth with the other Dominants.
And here with Mark tonight, I understood why Mortimer was so keen for this engagement. No one paid me the slightest bit of mind while they discussed other members and other potential members. Andrea and the woman next to Mark both worked at Lyonesse, I gathered; the man with the kneeling submissive was a regular. Same with the man in the shadows, who barely spoke throughout it all. I could feel when Mark evaded certain answers or changed the angle of his questions just enough to deflect around something, but I didn’t know enough about the people or situations they were discussing to say why.
As it was, I knew it was all information my uncle would be ravenous to hear—these wouldn’t be the crumbs brought from the parties of the well-heeled on their best behavior, but hills and mountains brought from the darkest corners of their sins.
The Bulgarian attaché who drank martini after martini at the bar and was far too loose with his words.
The Oscar-winning actor who could only orgasm after watching his wife get railed by someone else.
The princess from Averna who came four times a year to have a mistress lock her in a cage.
The megachurch pastor. The socialite. The billionaires and almost-billionaires and former billionaires.
