Betrayed by Love Page 3

  “You cannot have them. What else?”

  “Please, please, don’t stop caning me… Just a few more… Please, please.”

  “Where, where do you need them?

  “All the soft places, my ass, yes please…my ass and my nipples, right across them please, please, please. And balls, cane them, cane them.”

  “What if I break you, so no other can have you?”

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  Cursing, she opened her eyes. That memory wasn’t helping.

  She turned the TV on, volume up, and tried to relax.

  Car insurance, window cleaner and grocery store ads flashed on the screen. Her mind wandered to a past she tried so hard to forget.

  A brightly lit loft near the beach. The roof sloped, skylights meeting the floor-to-ceiling windows so there was a seemingly endless expanse of glass. It let in the light from the west, from the beach. If she stood on a chair, she could see the ocean over the roofs of the houses that stood between her and the water.

  He’d bought it for her, bought her the light that streamed, golden and wonderful, into the room, warming the wood floors and her toes.

  No, no, no. Watch the TV.

  A sitcom about a family with some improbable quirk came on. Savannah tried to concentrate on the plot.

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  She sat before an easel in the bright light, a ragged bit of canvas carefully placed beneath it to catch flying flecks of paint. She couldn’t have a potter’s wheel in here, but there was a co-op not far away with wheels and two badly dilapidated kilns.

  She was happy, blissfully so. She painted scenes of red and purple, lovers dancing in the dark. She used a single swipe of precious cerulean to highlight the woman’s dress.

  The door opened. He was home.

  She jumped from her easel, the work she’d devoted the past week to forgotten. She skipped to the door, throwing herself into his arms. If she got paint on his suit they didn’t care. If his briefcase scuffed the floor as he dropped it, they didn’t notice. There was nothing and no one else in the whole of the world.

  Their friends said there were too old to behave like high schoolers in love—they were twenty-five, they should be more dignified—but they didn’t care. He was her prince, her beloved. She dug her fingers into his chestnut curls as he pressed her against the wall.

  “Play?” he asked, his eyes promising dark and wonderful things.

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  Savannah sat up, heart beating so hard she felt she might choke on it.

  There would be no escaping memories tonight. She brushed at the tears that had formed in her eyes. She’d been happy there. It was the last time she could remember being happy.

  But memories of the loft were only the backdrop for memories of him, and memories of him would soon lead her to places of darkness and suffering she dared not go. At least not as Savannah.

  She pulled the catsuit from her bag, stripped off her clothes and put it on. In this suit, in the persona she’d created, she could go to those dark places, remember those dark things.

  She put on jeans and a turtleneck to cover the suit, leaving the hood-piece and mask off. It was early and the summer dusk still lingered. She would walk, use the time to morph herself into the monster.

  As Savannah stepped into the elevator, the phone in her hotel room began to ring.

  Roman put down the phone. He clenched his hand into a fist and stared at it. What was he doing? It had been four years since he’d made a vow to himself to give up on her.

  She’d run away, left him.

  But more than that she’d called him a monster, smeared everything they’d had together and torn out pieces of his soul.

  She’d left him and never looked back. After months of chasing her he’d let her go. In the process he’d lost the smiling, gregarious, confident man he had been and become this cold, dark thing he was now.

  But was it her? After all these years, was she this close?

  Savannah Jones. The girl he’d lost had not been “Jones” but she’d been Savannah. His Georgia peach.

  Roman paced the floor of his townhouse on the outskirts of Chicago. His skin itched with restlessness. The urge to follow up the ten phone calls he’d made with a personal visit was nearly overwhelming.

  Peter had assured him that the artist didn’t know his name, that it had never come up, but it wouldn’t have been hard for her to figure out. She knew the name of the building she was designing it for, had sketches with the architecture firm’s logo on them, knew Peter. Any of those things could easily lead her back to him.

  Was this an elaborate game of cat and mouse?

  If it was, then the woman named Savannah wasn’t the woman he’d known. His Savannah was light and bright, with quick wit and startling blue eyes. All she was, all she wanted, was on the surface, exposed fearlessly to the world.

  This was making him insane, thinking of her.

  As he paced, the question of why, why, why circled around him like a chirping bird. Why had she left him?

  He had to stop thinking about her.

  Roman sank down into his overly stuffed brown leather recliner and flicked on the TV. Five minutes later he turned it off.

  Head back, he let himself remember.

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  “You’ve been a naughty girl,” he said sternly.

  Savannah, eyes bright, hair spilling in straight ribbons around her bare shoulders, shook her head. “No, I haven’t.”

  “Oh, but you have.”

  “What did I do?” She tossed her head, flicking her hair behind her shoulder, drawing attention to her bare breasts. Their tips were rosy in the fading sunlight seeping in through their wall of windows.

  It was dusk. She knelt naked on the floor of their loft. Her easel and his stacks of paperwork were put away. The white couch with its mint-green pillows was hidden under a dark-blue cloth. When they played, they set the stage and played hard.

  “You back-talked,” he said, raising a brow. She fluttered her lashes, teasing him. They were still early in the night’s play. Soon there would be no banter, no teasing, only raw power and sex.

  “You make me want you too much,” he said, voice rough. God, he loved her.

  “How much?” The teasing light was gone from her eyes and her chest was rising and falling, her nipples now hard. She shifted her weight and he knew she was getting wet.

  He caught her long hair in his hand, wrapping it through his fingers. He jerked her head back. She gasped, licking her lip as she looked up at him.

  “I would die for you,” he whispered. He kissed her. Her hands came up, cupped his neck, but he pushed them away and down. She did it again, slowly, deliberately.

  He stepped away, to their toy box.

  He was the Master, her Master, but he was under her spell. If she didn’t want to be restrained she would have kept her hands to herself after the first warning, but she wanted to be tied tonight and he pulled a few lengths of soft nylon rope from the box.

  His cock, already hard, swelled to bursting as he forced her to her feet. He bound her arms so they were folded behind her back, multiple loops of rope easing the pressure on her elbows and wrists.

  The position thrust her breasts forward. Roman took them in his hands, thumbs flicking the nipples. She spread her legs.

  “You’re mine,” he said, looking into her eyes.

  “Yes, Master.” She whispered the last word. They were still playing with it and it could be awkward, but on this night it felt right.

  He needed to have her, now.

  Roman savaged her lips with a rough kiss, pinching and tweaking her nipples with his fingers.

  He spun her around, braced a hand at her hip and bent her forward. She swayed, almost falling, but he slid his arm under her belly, holding her in place.

  With his free hand he positioned his cock, rubbing the tip through the wet crevasse of her sex. She was hot and slippery. She wanted him, wanted this, as much as he did.

  He’d nev
er had the courage to indulge in these fantasies before he met Savannah. He had no secrets from her.

  He pressed the tip of his cock forward, slipping it into her. He pushed her upper body farther forward and slid his cock fully into her.

  He wanted to ask her if she was okay, if he was hurting her by holding her like this, but he didn’t want to break the mood. Instead he held still, though he desperately wanted to thrust. Savannah was patiently still beneath him. Her body’s weight lay trustingly on his arm, her head was bowed, hair sweeping nearly to the floor.

  Roman grinned, happy and in love.

  “I’m going to fuck you.”

  “Yes, Master.”

  “Beg.”

  “Fuck me, fuck me, please. I need to feel you in me, filling me.”

  She shifted her hips, squeezing him with her sex. Roman groaned in pleasure. He pulled his cock from her warm channel then thrust back in, sinking balls-deep into her.

  He fucked her, long and hard. He controlled her body, pushing it away as he withdrew, then slamming it back onto his cock as he thrust forward.

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  Roman pushed himself out of the chair. He paced his living room, running his hands through his hair.

  He remembered the feel of her skin under his fingers, the smell of her hair. It had been five years since he last saw her, but he’d forgotten nothing.

  He had to get out of here, he would go insane if he stayed. He thought about calling Peter and going out to a bar but he wasn’t in the mood to play games. At least, not those sorts of games.

  He grabbed his cell phone and placed a call to a private BDSM club in the heart of the city. He didn’t want to participate but he was in luck. There was a special show tonight—just announced. Some famous Domme was in Chicago and would be performing.

  That was just what he needed, something dark to match his mood. A Domme wouldn’t remind him of Savannah and what he’d lost when she left him.

  * * * * *

  The room was crowded and only his reputation got Roman a seat. He ended up on a couch, pressed next to another Dom, whose sub was curled up on his lap. As the Dom tickled the girl, whose hair was up in pigtails, her ballet-slipper-shod feet kicked Roman’s thigh.

  He turned and gave the Dom a long, cold stare. He didn’t recognize the man, who was portly in the extreme. The Dom looked him up and down, sniffed when he saw that Roman didn’t have a sub with him, but pushed his own sub off his lap. She curled up on the floor, cooing and batting her lashes.

  Roman turned to the stage. He didn’t have a regular sub, but once he’d had the most beautiful and graceful of women. He’d had a woman whose passion and fire could be expressed in submission. A woman who’d followed him into the darkest parts of the BDSM world.

  And he’d lost her.

  The show started, tearing Roman from his dark thoughts.

  The house lights went down and the packed crowd of BDSM enthusiasts fell silent. The majority of the women in the room were subs, the men Doms, but they all wanted to see the Domme.

  The single spotlight on the stage lit up, illuminating a naked man. He wore a collar, the leash dangling down the center of his body like a too-long tie. The Domme stepped into the light.

  Roman sat up, eyes wide in surprise, then narrowing. The Domme wore a black catsuit over a too-thin body. A black half-mask covered her face, crystal beads catching the light as she walked around the sub, her gloved hands skimming his chest and arms.

  It was the hair that gave her away. Auburn hair fell to the middle of her back in a straight curtain. The tilt of her head, the way she stood, weight back on one leg, hips tilted, were all familiar.

  Roman’s heart was thumping so loudly he could barely hear. It was Savannah, his Savannah.

  No, it wasn’t. This woman was too thin, pronounced cheekbones showing under the mask. Savannah was curved, perpetually failing at diets as she tried to lose ten pounds. She had a round face with full cheeks and hair more black than red.

  But there was something about this Domme that reminded him of her. Surely he was seeing things, seeing Savannah because he’d been thinking of her.

  He watched the Domme skillfully torture the sub. The sub’s face was a picture of ecstasy. The Domme engaged his body and his mind, taking him deep into sub-space but not allowing him to become passive. The audience watched, breathless, as the Domme wielded the whip. She had been whispering to the sub, but now she spoke a command loud enough for them to hear.

  It wasn’t Savannah. This Domme had a faint Southern accent. Despite Savannah’s name she wasn’t from the South. She’d talked about moving to Savannah, Georgia, where her grandparents lived, but it had only been a daydream, no more. He couldn’t imagine his beach-loving California girl giving up the beach and palm trees for the South.

  Roman relaxed and tried to focus on watching the show. It wasn’t Savannah.

  The sub sassed her, a gentle teasing meant to show her that he could handle more. The Domme threw her head back and laughed.

  Roman sat up.

  That laugh.

  A million memories flooded him—Savannah sitting on his lap, laughing at one of his bad jokes, her out with friends at the bar, head thrown back, her giggling softly as they lay together in bed, covers up over their heads to block out the rest of the world.

  The Domme was too skinny, her hair too red and her accent wrong. But with that laugh all Roman’s doubt was washed away.

  It was Savannah.

  He was so stunned that for the next fifteen minutes all he could do was stare at her, at the tableau before him. He felt as if he’d been punched in the gut. Around him the audience gasped, moaned and fell silent in response to what they saw, but Roman sat silent, too shocked to react. When the performance was over those around him clapped, and the sound of their applause knocked Roman into the present.

  While most of the audience was busy indulging in the arousal the show had awakened, Roman slipped backstage. Emotions rolled through him, making his muscles tremble with tension.

  The Domme leaned one shoulder against the wall, her back to him. A bottle of water dangled from her fingers.

  He tried to say her name and failed. If he was wrong, if it wasn’t her, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to stand the disappointment. And yet, he didn’t want it to be her, didn’t want this dark creature to be the laughing, loving woman he’d once known.

  “Savannah?”

  The Domme slowly straightened away from the wall.

  “Savannah,” he sighed her name. It sounded like a prayer.

  She turned. The mask was still in place, hiding her from him. The anger he expected to feel wasn’t there. Instead he was filled with sweet relief. He’d found her.

  “Roman.”

  He’d heard his own name a million times, and yet when she said it, it was different.

  “I’ve missed you.” It wasn’t what he meant to say. He didn’t want to admit softness. Since she’d left him he’d learned to protect himself. He never again wanted to be hurt the way she’d hurt him.

  “How dare you?” Her voice was trembling with rage. Roman fell back a pace as she took a step. “How dare you?”

  “How dare I?” Roman stepped forward, regaining the ground he’d lost. He wanted to rip the mask from her face. “You came to my city, designed a piece of art for my building and perform in my club, and you ask me how I dare?”

  “I didn’t know it was your building. If I had I wouldn’t have come. Why aren’t you in L.A.?”

  “Where did you get the accent?”

  She took a deep breath then shook her head. She turned to a chair behind her and grabbed a pair of jeans, which she put on over the catsuit.

  “I’m leaving.”

  “Not until you answer my questions.” He’d found her, after all these years. The questions he’d lived with for five years were going to be answered, right now. “Why? Why did you leave me?”

  The shirt she was in the process of putting on fell from her hand
s. “How could you ask me that?”

  “You left me. You walked away without ever looking back.”

  “I left you?” She turned, gaze scorching him. “You’re pouting because I left you?” She threw her head back and laughed.

  Angrier than he’d been in a long time, Roman grabbed her arm. They froze. His hand tingled from contact with her, even if it was through the leather. Their gazes met for half a second. Roman thought he saw longing, passion, but then her gaze went hard. Savannah reached for the cane that rested on the chair. She lashed his arm. Roman jerked his arm back, a stinging line of pain on his forearm making him grit his teeth.

  “Don’t touch me. Don’t you ever touch me again.”

  “If you hated what we were doing, if we’d gotten too deep in the scene, you should have told me.” Roman clenched his hands into fists. “Instead you walked away, told me I was a freak for wanting the things I did. You were the only person I’d ever trusted enough to try those things with, and you used it against me.” It rankled that she was here, in a BDSM club, clearly a master of the art. She’d left him because he liked BDSM, and yet it was clear she’d been an active player for years. The club had called her a famous Domme. That didn’t happen overnight.

  That could only mean it wasn’t the BDSM she’d left, but him.

  “You cannot possibly think you are the injured party.” She looked up at him and he got his first clear look at her eyes through the mask.

  “You left me.” I loved you, so very much, and you tore me apart.

  “I left you? You betrayed me,” her voice caught on a sob. “You murdered me.”

  The anger and grief were thick in her voice. Roman stared at her, startled by the pain she showed.

  Savannah picked up her shirt and ran. She slammed out of the building, setting the alarms blaring as she exited through a fire door. As people came running, shouting questions, Roman stood, as still as a statue.

  He’d pictured that first meeting with Savannah many times. He imagined she’d be cool, haughty. She’d flaunt the white-picket-fence life she’d left him for. She’d look down her nose at him and call him a perverted freak. He’d respond with cool civility, flaunting his success and wealth.