That was what had always held the appeal for him the few times he’d acted out that dark of a scene. That feeling of holding all the power, of putting his sub in the mindset of total helplessness. It could be freeing as hell for both sides. That total acceptance of normally unacceptable desires all within the safe confines of a scene. Not that he’d ever experience that again. Even if he wasn’t on sexual lockdown, he could never go there again. Couldn’t leave himself that vulnerable to anyone or enjoy that kind of scene anymore.
He cleared his throat. “As I’m sure you can imagine, it’s not the type of scene to take lightly or mess around with. There’s a lot of pre-work. I had her sign a contract with all the limits and safe words, everything spelled out. Multiple parachute cords for both of us to pull if things didn’t feel right or go the way we wanted. All the things we were supposed to do. But we never met face-to-face. Because—”
“That would’ve ruined the stranger element,” she said quietly.
“Yeah.” He ran a hand over the back of his head. “So, I went forward with the scene, assuming both of us were on the same page. I met her at a bar and took her back to a hotel like planned. We got along fine. She seemed comfortable. She was supposed to resist me once we got to the room. I was supposed to get mean and not back off unless she gave me the signal or said one of her safe words. She never did. We went through with the scene. I provided aftercare and then I left. I thought everything had gone as planned. But a few hours after I left the hotel, the cops showed up at my door. She’d claimed I’d raped her and denied that there’d been any previous discussion or planning.”
Cora’s lips parted. “But the contract . . .”
“She said she’d never signed one. Said I was just a guy she’d met at the bar. And when I provided a copy of the contract, it wasn’t her real name on the document. I had no way to prove she’d been the one to sign it. I had never met her. I had no idea if she was the woman at all.” His stomach twisted, the memory of that always bringing back that sick feeling. “For a little while, I wondered if I had actually raped someone. Picked up the wrong woman and enacted some role-play she hadn’t known was going on.”
“Jesus.”
He peered up, that old torment rolling through him. “That was the worst part. Prison I could handle, but thinking I’d hurt an innocent woman? I didn’t know how I could live with that.”
“Had anyone else met her before?”
“Yeah, the head of the group. He’d gone over the contract with her, recognized her as the woman who’d made the request, but he hadn’t watched her sign it. The prosecution tore him apart on the stand. Made it look like he was just covering for a friend. And who wants to believe the head of some BDSM group anyway? Kink isn’t understood or respected out in the vanilla world, especially around these parts. So the prosecution brought up all the ‘sinister’ things about kink to scare the jury—sadism, age play, humiliation. After that, I didn’t have much defense in the case. They demolished my character, exposed my personal life, made my lifestyle look as dangerous as possible. There was never a doubt I’d go to prison.”
She shook her head, what looked to be real empathy there. “So how’d it get overturned?”
He smirked and looked down at his hands. “Ren and his hard head. I’d still be there if he hadn’t continued to hire investigators and lawyers. The guy wasn’t going to give up on me even when there were times I didn’t have any fight left.” He rubbed the center of his palm, remembering how dark his thoughts had gotten at some points, how he’d started coming up with ideas of how he could end things in prison. The only thing that had stopped him was knowing how much it would hurt Ren. “Eventually, one of the PIs dug up that Holly, the woman, had been an escort in the past and that shortly after I went to prison, she went from living in a one-bedroom place on the bad side of town to a big house in an exclusive suburb in Florida. She’d had some type of windfall that no one could trace. We kept uncovering stones and that’s what broke the case.”
He could still remember that visit with the lawyer. We’ve got something. Hayes hadn’t let himself believe the words at the time. His future had looked like a black hole and he’d been afraid to let any light shine through, to even grasp onto a thread of hope.
“It was almost two years before we had enough. But when Holly realized she could get arrested for lying on the stand and false reports, she came forward and admitted that she’d been paid by someone to set me up. She said she’d been threatened and was terrified not to go through with it. That she’d feared for her life.”
“Paid by whom?”
Hayes clasped the back of his neck. “That’s the million-dollar question. She gave a description of the guy who approached her, but it was so generic that we’ve got nothing to go on. And most likely, the person who approached her isn’t the guy but just a guy who knows the guy or whatever. This wasn’t some amateur job. And if she knows who it really is, she’s not telling.”
“Or is afraid to tell.”
“Yeah.” He lowered his head. He still felt that stab of guilt over Holly. Even if she had set him up, she’d probably been desperate for money. So desperate that she’d let herself go through that rough scene with him to get it. Taken his bruises, taken his body into hers. He felt sick thinking about it.
Cora peered at him, expression unreadable. “This is what you meant by the dominant is as vulnerable as the submissive.”
“Yeah. I was too stupid to realize just how much back then. It was all in fun, an adventure. I never considered how much power the other person has in that kind of he-said-she-said situation.”
She frowned. He could see her brain was working, taking all the pieces and putting them together, trying to make sense of them. He just had no idea where those pieces would land. He knew it was a far-fetched–sounding story. He wasn’t sure he would believe it if it hadn’t happened to him. He wouldn’t blame her if she didn’t buy a word of it.
“You have any idea who would want to hurt you that badly? You have to have some theories.”
He tipped his head back and stared at the ceiling, rubbing his brow. “Prison gave me nothing but a cage, bad food, and time to think, so of course I have theories. But none have led anywhere.”
“I’d like to hear them anyway.”
He lowered his head to look at her and blew out a breath. “The company was booming back then. We’d taken out competitors. We had partnered with another tech company and had developed some new virtual reality technology that had big promise for the adult market. The big names in the industry were courting us, wanting to get their hands on that and a few of our other products.”
“You had things other people wanted,” she said, all business.
“We did. But we were also cocky and young. Way too arrogant. Flaunted our success. I’m sure we made more than a few enemies that way.” God knows he had. The power and money had gone straight to their heads.
“We.”
His gaze flicked up at that. “Ren and I.”
She put her chin in her hand, gaze shrewd. “But they only went after you.”