“Yeah, I think I will.”
“Great.” Dylan’s face split into a big, goofy smile that he was unable to wipe away. “See you then.”
Dylan was hoping Kendra would join them again for dinner, even though he knew she would probably eat with the kitchen staff. Just in case, he got to the private dining early and took a seat with a view of the door. Ella and her girl, Maya, came in first, along with a guest of Ella’s—a Domme visiting from Houston called Ariella. Ryan came next, and Caelan and Skylar entered a moment later. Skylar lowered herself gracefully to her cushion, exchanging a secret smile with Maya, who knelt at Ella’s feet, her head resting lightly on her Mistress’s knee.
Dylan understood the protocol of forbidding slaves from sitting on furniture as a way to reinforce their status. He was aware that many Doms regarded their slaves as objects to be subjugated and controlled, and that that dynamic suited both parties, but it had never really worked for him.
When Cynthia had moved in with him, she’d refused to sit on the furniture or sleep beside him. She wanted to be chained at the foot of his bed at night, instead of nestled in his arms as he would have preferred. She was never happier than when confined in a cage, bound hand and foot, a vibrator in her cunt, a butt plug up her ass, a ball gag in her mouth, a blindfold over her eyes.
Their sex had been explosive—the kind of wild, sweaty, panting convergence that left them both completely spent. It had been super-hot—at first. It was exhilarating to engage in the intense edge play Cynthia craved, and it had stretched Dylan’s dominant boundaries to see how far he could go with her before things got dangerous.
She would crawl to him, his cane held in her mouth, her lovely breasts and ass swaying. If he covered her ass and the backs of her thighs in welts, she would only beg for more, more, more. She adored being suspended and whipped until droplets of blood speckled the floor beneath her. She especially loved to be choked. She craved the dark, perfect thrill of putting her very breath in another person’s hands.
When they scened, he felt like a god—powerful, invincible. Sometimes he gave free rein to the fiery intensity of his darkest impulses, which she was so adept at stoking. Though it shamed him to think on it now, on more than one occasion, he had taken things too far. He’d been caught up in her wild, insatiable need for erotic pain.
But she would never stop him. It just wasn’t in her DNA. Cynthia had categorically refused to use a safeword or hand gesture. “Safewords are for pussies and players,” she would insist. “I trust you to take me where I need to go. I want to suffer for you, Sir. I want to bleed. I want to scream. I want to be obliterated.”
When she talked like that, it made him nervous. Because he sensed, even early on, that her need for ever-increasing intensity of experience might one day get out of hand. She had no boundaries and no limits. She’d been the one to walk away from their relationship. Though it had hurt terribly, in retrospect, if she hadn’t ended it, he would have had to.
“You okay, buddy? You look like you’ve seen a ghost or something.”
Dylan was snapped from his dark reverie by Ryan’s voice. Looking up, he realized they were all staring at him. He forced a smile. “I’m fine,” he said, mentally shaking away a past he couldn’t change, no matter how much he obsessed about it. He turned to Ella’s guest, eager to change the subject. “So, how are you enjoying your stay on Desire Island?”
Ariella replied enthusiastically. Dylan somehow managed to respond appropriately as the conversation continued around him, at least he hoped so. But a part of his mind was still held captive by a memory he could never erase.
Chapter 3
There was a quick, impatient rap on Kendra’s bedroom door. “Kenny? You ready?”
Kendra walked to the door and pulled it open. Abbie stood there, already dressed for that evening’s play party in a sheer black mesh bustier. Matching panties, black stockings and black stiletto heels completed the outfit, along with the ever-present staff slave collar around her neck. Her long, shiny red hair hung loose down her back. Her eyes glowed with excitement.
Kendra, having just finished her evening shift in the kitchen, was still wrapped in the towel from her shower, her short hair curling damply around her face. “Wow,” she said appreciatively. “You look incredible, Abs. Every time I see you, you’re in something sexier than before. How many of those gorgeous outfits do you have?”
Abbie grinned. “It’s all I have to spend money on, with everything else paid for around here. You know I always was a clothes hound. While you were running around in cutoffs and T-shirts, I was saving for Prada and Jimmy Choo.”