Collared (Vegas Nights Book 1) Read online

  Tapping her bottom lightly with the palm of his hand, he prepared her. He had not spanked her on the bare before—save for a few well-placed swats to the tops of her thighs, and this would be a slightly humiliating, but humbling, and cleansing experience for her.

  Working the audience, he picked up the wooden paddle from where he had placed it on the stage floor, and waved it in the air, before setting it back down. Not yet. He raised his hand once more, and even though Diamond had not moved from her position facing the back of the stage and her eyes were scrunched tightly shut, her cheeks instinctively clenched in anticipation of the blows against her bare skin. A quick tap of his fingertip to the small of her back told her what he needed from her. He heard her exhale deeply and watched as her bottom relaxed into its bouncy, pliable form, awaiting more of his correction. Finally, he began to spank, watching in delight as his hand connected with her creamy white skin, leaving a delicious but faint handprint on her left butt cheek. Entranced, he attempted the same mark on her right cheek. When his hand lifted the third time and he glanced down at his work, he saw two perfectly symmetrical mirror image handprints, and couldn’t help but smile at his accomplishment. It was like a work of art, and if this wasn’t a scene in a club, he would have pulled out his phone and captured the image for all eternity. Too bad he was going to have to ruin it, he thought as he brought his hand down again over the top of it, blurring the lines of the perfect image with a crisscross pattern where the two prints intersected. Now he focused on completely covering the two prints, turning her bottom an all over pink hue, until every line of the handprint was an indiscriminate pink blob. After about twenty swats, her bottom glowed a hot pink shade all over, and she was no longer able to be stoic and she wriggled and squirmed all over his lap, shrieking her pretty little head off with each new blow. Pax was no longer engaging the audience, and Diamond was putting up enough of a show with her reactions that they no longer cared.

  Finally, he bent down and picked up the paddle, waving it in the air above his head, halfheartedly this time. The crowd was now just an afterthought. He heard their cheers as a dull murmur, and their presence was a blurred sea of faces in the not so distant distance. He was totally focused on Diamond, and his own handiwork. He took in her every breath, every wiggle, and squeal of pain and adjusted accordingly. Before the first punishing blow of the paddle was laid against her flaming rear, he tucked her in closer, and held her tighter. The first touch of an unforgiving wood paddle against a hot bottom had sent many a naughty girl flailing.

  Diamond proved to be no exception. The paddle thudded, crushing her round fleshy bottom flatter than a pancake for a fraction of a second, and she reared up, forgetting her stubborn positioning she had thus far kept for the duration.

  “Ow! Dammit!” she cried loudly, bringing a smile to his lips.

  “Watch. Your. Mouth.” Each hard word was punctuated with a loud resounding smack across the middle of her bottom.

  “Yes, sir!” her voice was a thick whisper but at least she had remembered “over-the-knee etiquette.”

  The paddle fell again and again, wreaking its havoc across the fleshiest and most spankable part of her bottom, until she was crying in earnest. Pax was nowhere near finished. Not yet. Diamond responded to a spanking different than any bottom he had ever come in contact with. She more than any of his girls, craved that release. She didn’t just crave it—she needed it, and he was going to give it to her.

  He had learned over the years that the quickest way to a sub’s tears was through her sit spots, especially when an implement such as a paddle or strap was involved. But Pax wasn’t interested in quick. Not this time. He lifted his knee, resting his foot on the bottom rung of the chair, tilting her body forward so that her nose was nearly touching the stage. She let out an “oomph” of air as her body adjusted to the change in position.

  Her panties still rested right below her bottom, blocking his access to her tender crease where bottom met thigh, and he frowned impatiently. If this were a private scene, they would be on the floor in a hot minute. Instead, he carefully pulled them back up, smiling as she whimpered at the chaffing of the itchy sheer fabric against her hot and tender bottom. More for his benefit then her own, he gathered the fabric on both sides, pulling it to rest in a bunch, held into place by the crack of her bottom, leaving the still pristine skin of her sit-spots bared for his chastisement.

  Her breathing, her soft cries of acceptance, every small shift in her body language told the same story. This was it. She was on the border between acceptance and release, and what he did next would make all the difference. He had never felt this much pressure to execute a spanking so exquisitely. His performance spankings were just that, performances—the spanking equivalent of a “wham, bam, thank you, ma’am.” Bend ’em over, spank ’em, hard, make ’em cry, and move on. This was different. At least he thought it was—his other girls could be battling the same kind of dark demons from their past that Diamond was—they could need a gut wrenching, sob inducing, guilt cleansing release. He didn’t know, he had never asked. It hadn’t even been on his radar to care.

  But Diamond had come along, with her horrifying past, and her tangible pain, and acted herself out of a job and into his heart. And he couldn’t help it, from the moment he had scooped her up, and carried her off the stage at Aubergine, he had wanted to be her savior. Save her ass, save her job, save her identity, and save her from her demons that she hid so well.

  These were the thoughts running through his head as he lifted his paddle once more, and launched a full on assault on her tender sit-spots. There was no audience now—not on his radar anyhow. There was only his paddle and her ass—nothing else mattered. Pax was in the zone; every fiber of his being was tuned in with every fiber of hers. Her pain, her cries, his application of the paddle in just the right spot at just the right time. It was like they were singing a beautiful duet that only the two of them could hear.

  She was crying, full on sobbing, but she wasn’t there yet. There were no words coming from her, no cries of guilt being released, or sorrow being expressed. Her back was tense, and the stress was still evident in the lines of her shoulders. But her bottom was red—redder than he had ever seen, and red hot bottoms were his specialty. In a split second decision made entirely on impulse and out of sympathy for a girl who had certainly more than paid the price for her misdeeds, but wasn’t yet finished, he dropped the paddle, letting it clamor to the floor without ceremony. Sometimes there was nothing more effective than the simple combination of hand and butt. It was like peanut butter and jelly or macaroni and cheese. Not fancy in the least, but a comfort inducing classic.

  The clatter of the wooden paddle on the hard wood floor caught Diamond’s attention. It was evident in the slight turn of her head, and the sagging of her shoulders. She thought he was done, and she wasn’t happy about it.

  “Not quite yet, sweetheart,” he murmured. “Not quite yet.”

  * * *

  She experienced a split second of paralyzing disappointment before Pax’s hand slammed against her ass in a blinding rush of pain and pleasure, and the breath returned to her lungs. The slap of flesh against flesh was wildly loud, and oddly comforting. In her satiated state, she concentrated on the sound, giving meaning to each powerful blow. One by one she released her grievances—dating all the way back to her mother’s heartbreaking and unexpected death, to her completely horrifying behavior on her birthday two days prior. She was sobbing, crying out her pains and sorrows unintelligibly, in a garbled language only she could understand. Somewhere in the back recesses of her mind, it registered that she was still on stage, and that she was having a very noisy public breakdown, but she was beyond embarrassment, beyond self-consciousness, beyond caring.

  Her entire body had gone numb—she could no longer feel his hand—she could only hear the blows as they fell; the noise a rhythmic lull as she collapsed against his lap and seemingly floated away. She didn’t notice when he stopped, didn’t hea
r the roar of the crowd as they erupted in cheers of excitement and arousal. She didn’t notice when the floating sensation she was experiencing became actual floating as Pax stood and lifted her into his arms, carrying her off the stage, still in her prone position.

  She felt higher than a kite, and more relaxed than she ever remembered feeling. All she knew was that this had been the single most painful, humiliating, and arousing experience of her life, and she was as weightless as a feather, as if all the cares she had in the word had been spanked away.

  And then there was Pax. Never had her view of a person changed so completely and so quickly. Prior to yesterday morning, she had thought him to be a self-serving pimp of a man. A narcissistic money-hungry player with an overly inflated ego. At this moment, he was an angel—the hottest, sweetest, most dominant angel to ever fall down from the heavens—if angels had hands like two-by-fours and biceps bigger than her neck.

  Each time Pax spanked her was harder and more unyielding than the time before. It was also more cathartic. She should be hauling off and decking him right about now, but there was nothing she wanted to do less. The humiliating act of accepting a spanking for wrongdoing, the release from pain and emotions that had been weighing her down for years, and the pain induced euphoria she was currently experiencing combined, leaving her in a state of unrelenting happiness and peace. She was so damn relaxed, so damn happy and hornier than she had ever been.

  Her giddiness increased when they made it to the dressing room, and Pax carried her through the doorway, closing the door behind them with his hip. He laid her gently on her back on the red suede chaise in the corner of the room and she smiled as she finally saw his face for the first time in over an hour. He knelt next to the chaise and she was shocked to see his beautiful smiling eyes were a mask of concern—and longing.

  He opened his mouth to speak, and she put a finger to his lips. “Shh.”

  Wrapping her arms around his neck, she pulled him close and kissed him more deeply and fully than she had ever kissed anyone before. Pax hesitated for a split second, and then they were a frenzy of passionate kisses, and he was on top of her on the chaise, so entwined that it was hard to tell where he stopped and she began. Their movements were rushed and impatient—shirts and undergarments flew across the room in their rush to have that skin to skin contact. Soon they were nearly naked, her in her white ruffled panties that were chaffing against the heat radiating off her ass, and him in a pair of sexy black boxer briefs. Pausing for a minute, her eyes raked over his body with a happy grin, so that was what healthy eating and a strict workout regime looked like. Damn.

  Lowering his head to her waist, he took the waistband of her panties in his teeth and lifted her off the chaise with one giant hand underneath her butt, just high enough to drag her panties down her hips, guiding them down her legs with his mouth until they, like all of her other clothes, were on the floor.

  Just the simple act had her ready to orgasm on the spot. She had never been so filled with need for anyone before tonight. Her connection to Pax was primal—a hunger that ached deep in her belly and spread its fire to her pussy, until that too throbbed with a deep aching need that she knew wouldn’t ease until she was rewarded with the sweet release of his cock thrusting into her with a force that was only rivaled by the impact of his hand slamming into her ass only minutes earlier.

  His body covered hers like a blanket, and he wasted no time filling her with his manhood. Their movements were as connected and tuned as they had been on stage, and their organs strummed together like a bow playing a violin.

  Diamond was beyond coherent thought. His body on hers was the only thing that mattered. Her movements were frenzied and without inhibition, a feeling that was completely new to her. It hit her like a powerful drug, and she wanted more. She grabbed his tight ass and squeezed, relishing in the irony of the contrast. One of his large hands could completely cover her own ass cheek, but her own tiny hand barely grazed the surface of one of his.

  She pushed on his buttocks, using them as a guide, thrusting him deeper into her folds, screaming as she teetered on the edge of an earth shaking orgasm. Her face flushed as if somebody had suddenly lit a fire in the room. Her hands curled into fists, and her muscles tightened around him. She was there.

  Chapter Six

  They came simultaneously, having achieved an out of this world connection that was beyond explanation. Every movement they had made had been as one. Afterwards, Pax rolled off of her, squishing onto his side to lay next to her on the narrow chaise, panting, sweating, and in a euphoria induced fog.

  All good things must come to an end, and as the fog cleared, Pax took in the scene with a mixture of horror and arousal. On one hand, Diamond lay next to him, snuggled under the crook of his neck, as if it was a spot on him, made just for her to fit. Every inch of her sexy curves glowed with a thin sheen of perspiration that is only achieved through a glorious session of intense lovemaking, the likes of which Pax had never experienced. The sexy half smile permanently affixed in place on Diamond’s restful face said that this had been a first for her as well. On the other hand, he had just had the best sex of his life, in a dressing room just offstage in the nightclub full of people housed in the hotel that he was the sole proprietor of. It was so completely unprofessional and totally out of character. Add to that that the beautiful woman he had had sex with was not only his newest employee, but an heiress in hiding. Not only had he broken the cardinal rule of employee-employer relationships, he hadn’t even had the good sense to be discreet about it. And now, he had to figure out a way to get them both out of here without alerting the 700 plus people in the club as to what they had been doing for the last hour, and why Diamond hadn’t immediately gone back to work in the club as he would have expected his other girls to.

  This wasn’t who he was, emotional, impulsive, reckless. Paxton Donovan was the exact opposite of all those things. Rigid, disciplined, methodical—in business and in his personal life. He thrived on order and discipline and schedules. Or at least he had, right up until the moment that Diamond came drunkenly barreling into his life.

  The last two days had been a beautiful train wreck and he had set himself up on a collision course with disaster—that needed to be derailed—ASAP. Groaning, he rolled off the chaise, and quickly began to gather his clothes, pulling them on piece by piece as he found them. Annoyed that her comfortable dozing place had been disrupted, Diamond regarded him lazily with one eye open.

  “Why are you getting dressed?” She giggled. “Don’t get dressed. Stay naked and let me look at you some more.”

  It took everything he had not to give into the temptation. For Pax, Diamond was a powerful seductress. The irony here was that she really wasn’t. She wasn’t trying to seduce him, she just did. From the moment he had laid eyes on her twerking in the club, he had been drawn to her like a moth to a flame. It wasn’t that she was flirtatious or overly experienced, or even trying. It wasn’t any of those things. It was, for a lack of a better word, undeniable, unavoidable chemistry. Plain and simple. Pax had never experienced anything like it, and he was helpless to stop it.

  But he had to try—because this situation was trouble.

  “No,” he told her firmly, his voice hard. “I have to go. We have to get back to work. Both of us.”

  “Work?” Diamond blinked up at him, looking dejected. “But, my bottom hurts. And I miss you already.”

  “Working with a sore bottom is part of the lesson,” Pax informed her with a growl, feeling less sure of the fact than he ever had before. To his dismay, she began to weep softly, pulling herself into a sitting position and wincing as she did so.

  “Why are you mad at me?” she wailed, beginning to cry piteously.

  “I’m not mad at you,” Pax growled again, annoyed at her tears. A sub’s tears outside of a spanking were his kryptonite. “I’m mad at myself. I broke the cardinal rule of an employment relationship. It was thoughtless, and reckless, and that’s not who I am.�
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  “Sometimes rules are made to be broken,” she argued, looking less dejected and angrier by the second, with a fire in her eyes and a stubborn tilt to her chin.

  “Not by me,” Pax countered. “I like rules. Rules and order and discipline. Those are the things that have served me well in life, and made me what I am today.”

  She couldn’t argue that fact, and she didn’t try. Instead she also stood and began searching for her clothes. Pax had dressed while they argued, and all he had left to do was lace up his boots.

  I’ll leave first. I’ve got to go do the casino rounds. You go work the club.” The concern on her face at his choice turn of phrase made Pax laugh. “Talk to people, take pictures. You’ll endure a lot of good natured teasing, but nobody will touch you or say anything inappropriate. If they do, you call me, and I’ll come take care of it.”

  “Oh.” Her mouth rounded in surprise. “Wouldn’t it be faster to just tell the bouncer, since you’ll be across the hotel at the casino?”

  Pax, who had been hovering near the door, crossed the room to her in two giant strides, taking her chin in his hand, and tilting her head so that her gaze met his own. “What did I say? I said, if anything happens, you call me.”

  The change in her demeanor was instant. Watching a girl go from bratty and full of attitude, too sweet and submissive was one of his greatest pleasures in life, and with Diamond it was amplified tenfold.

  Her head, still cradled in his hand, dipped slightly, and her eyes cast to the floor. “Yes, sir,” she agreed softly.

  The sweet phrase, falling from her heart shaped lips, made his cock swell with want. What in the fuck was happening? Two words and he was ready to fall at her feet, dreaming of plunging into her soft folds once more. He had never been this affected by anyone in his life. Swallowing hard, he tried to ignore the lump that had formed in his throat at the thought of leaving her here, alone and vulnerable. Fuck. He had to get out of here.