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"You're a fucked-up soul," she said flatly. "Been lost in the woods for so long you stopped calling for Mommy, even though the need to do it is still there, pissing you off so you blame everything female for it. It digs into your heart and squeezes until you think the blood's gone, leaving stone. Probably why your eyes are the color of poured concrete."
They flashed. Feeling the thrum of tension through his shoulder, she tightened the screws, her hold on his wrist, before he could do something inadvisable. "But stone is what you better get used to feeling, boy, because you just hit rock bottom here."
He stared at the floor. A muscle in his jaw twitched, a quiver of reaction going through his body. As if he knew she'd detected it, he tensed from head to toe. The surge of reaction she felt like an impending explosion told her he was going to do something stupid, like break his wrist trying to throw her hold. Releasing him before that tension could translate to action, she shoved him forward, forcing him to catch himself on his palms.
She left him on his hands and knees and moved across the room, refusing to look at him again. "You don't have any injuries requiring formal medical treatment, though you're going to be sore as hell the next few days. Won't be the first time, so I expect you know how to handle that. Put something on those welts to minimize the chance of infection."
It wasn't until she closed the door behind her that she let her own reaction surface. Leaning against the door, she blew out a breath. Shit and double shit.
Over the years, she'd explored and binged on a lot of BDSM practices. Primal play, Mommy/boy, rope, electric, wax, impact, interrogation, pony and puppy play. All the basics in restraint and pain for punishment and pleasure. The Zone had been her place to indulge and learn, and network into other opportunities in private homes and at BDSM events during her work travels. The skills had earned her the regard of others, a resource in her own right for other Masters and Mistresses.
Her work as a correctional officer had helped pay her way through engineering school. Now, as a consultant in the technology and manufacturing industries, staying on top of all the latest advancements was critical. She had the type of mind that sought and devoured new information. If she had interest in acquiring a new skill set, she wasn't a dabbler. She wanted to master it and did.
Yet there was a type of interaction with a sub that had nothing to do with the mechanics, and it had kept BDSM an enduring passion long after she'd mastered and moved on from other interests. That connection simmered beneath the surface of scenes, a potential treasure that could surface during any of them. She'd played along the edges, dipped her toe into it now and then, keep
ing it a casual addiction. She was too busy and had far too many other pastimes to bog herself down in a relationship.
Yet when she'd seen others experience it at far deeper levels, she'd felt the twinge that told her one day she would want to go deeper and find that treasure for herself.
She was aware that emotions were her unknown frontier. She wasn't averse to the idea of getting involved with someone; in her practical way, she simply knew it would take the right opportunity to motivate her in that direction.
Months of studying him, chewing on the enigma in random moments, should have told her that she wasn't yet done with him. The thrum that went through Regina's bones now was a message easy enough to read.
"Yeah, he's trouble. But there's something shiny hiding under the heap of hurt he'll dish out."
His violence and Siren's distress had packed the room with dense negative energy, but that glimmer remained as hi-def clear as the cold starlight in Marius's gray eyes, impossible for her to ignore. A diamond dug out of a septic pond was still a diamond. The question was how dirty a person was willing to get to obtain it.
She wasn't a romantic. She'd rarely seen that glimmer of treasure and, when she did, often it was fool's gold. But she could feel the difference in that part of herself that knew such things. If she doubted it, she only had to defer to the equal surge of "oh shit no" that came along with it now, afraid she was right.
Yeah, the timing might suck, or it might be where it was supposed to be. Didn't matter anyway, did it? His ass was so done here. As quickly as the realization of her serious interest had happened, the optimal conditions in which to pursue it were going to close. She wasn't going to chase the boy down in whatever corners of the world he inhabited outside The Zone.
She strolled back to the floor, to all appearances dismissing the whole thing. Yet she kept a close eye on the corridor until Marius emerged from it, moving stiffly. Alex intercepted him on the way to the locker rooms. Marius balked at whatever the DM told him, but Alexander set his jaw and put a hand on his arm. An ultimatum had been delivered. When he pointed, Regina glanced up to the third level and saw the light on in Tyler's office. Fuck, she hated to be right. They'd called the boss man himself. She suspected Alex was saying Tyler wanted Marius in his office now, no time to change. He could either comply or clean out his locker and leave, period.
Forfeiting his membership, one of the perks of his employment, wouldn't be the only penalty for noncompliance. He'd broken the common-sense rule of not shitting where you work.
Marius's gaze flicked to the contact point between the two men, an obvious warning. The DM removed his hand, but he kept his hard gaze pinned on Marius.
Even at this distance Regina felt the crackle of electricity she'd experienced when she'd laid her palm on Marius. He was still in high rev mode from the scene, the whole situation. Guilt twinged through her for leaving him so abruptly, though the proper aftercare for a sub who'd shoved himself into sub drop through his own sadistic behavior wasn't in any BDSM play manual she'd ever read. Chaining him to the back of a car and making him run to keep up for a couple miles, naked and barefoot, came to mind, but local law enforcement would frown on the tactic.
Still... At least one club Domme was a state trooper. Maybe Violet would provide a police escort.
Regina wanted to shadow him up to Tyler's office. Maybe she could devise an even less plausible scheme to get herself into the meeting, or within hearing distance.
It turned out such strategies were not necessary. When Alex saw her, he held Marius in place with a gesture and crossed the room to her. "Lady Regina, if you're willing, Mr. Winterman has requested your presence. He feels your insight and participation would be valuable."
An interesting way of phrasing it, and one she was sure was deliberate, knowing what she did of Tyler Winterman.
"It would be my pleasure," she said.
Chapter Two
Tyler replayed the feeds, the two tapes displayed on side-by-side monitors. He'd already digested the full session between Marius and Siren, confirming what he'd unfortunately anticipated the situation would be when Terry gave him the high points. But it was the end of both feeds that had his interest now.
Pressing play, he watched Regina take Marius down to one knee. Plenty of Mistresses had the ability to manhandle an unruly male sub, since some of them craved that, but what she'd said to him... Tyler hadn't heard it, but whatever she'd said had compelled an interesting reaction from the pain-in-everyone's-ass that Marius had become.
Tyler had been a practicing Master nearly all his adult life. He'd employed some of those skills for the CIA, in ways that still gave him bad dreams. It was not his preferred way of exercising his Dominant side.
But whether to extort information or give pleasure, he knew the significance of every movement or expression, the smallest ripple of muscle, the flash of an eye. Typical for most security cameras, the feed offered wasn't hi-res, but when their gazes had locked, Marius's body language suggested Regina's words had struck a nerve. Even more importantly, Regina had known it. It might have been a blind shot in the dark, but intuition had guided her arrow with accuracy.
