“I’ll take the sawhorse. And get my kit. I have to deal with my sub. I fear if I take a hand off her, she’ll disappear again. Where the fuck is the collar I put around your neck?”

For the first time, she was actually a bit afraid of him. And oddly aroused. He’d done his job far too well. He’d trained her to respond to him, and even when he looked like he might truly take a pound out of her flesh, she was already warm and wet. “It’s in my corset.”

The time for prevarication was over. Especially when she realized everyone was looking their way. Everyone in the dungeon. All of the scenes had stopped.

The dungeon monitor, who had been talking to Simon, elbowed his way through the crowd. “Is there a problem?”

“My submissive decided to see if she could find a more pleasant Dom,” Damon said, his jaw tight.

Penny shook her head. “No, I didn’t.”

Robert held his hands up. “She offered a three way with me and me girlfriend. She didn’t say anything about being attached.”

The DM glared at her. “Are you trying to get away from him?”

“No.”

“Do you have a safe word?”

“Of course she does,” Damon bit back.

The DM looked disgusted with all three of them. “Then I suggest you make her say it because you just ruined everyone else’s scene with this one. I should ask you to leave the dungeon and not come back.”

Horror settled in her gut. She couldn’t get them kicked out of the dungeon. They needed to be here. “I’ll do whatever I need to. Please don’t kick us out.”

“Are you so ill-trained that you speak to him and not me?” Even in the low light, she could see how red Damon had turned.

It was time to play her part to the hilt. She fell to her knees, head down, and knees wide apart. Tears were starting to fall because she’d screwed up so horribly. He couldn’t think she was really trying to pick up that man. But then she thought about it and perhaps in the moment, he could. He didn’t trust anyone. Not really. There was always a part of Damon that would be waiting for her to betray him, like everyone else had. He’d learned the lesson young, taking it into his soul like an education on how the world worked.

How could she prove she loved him when he didn’t believe in love at all?

“Don’t think that will save you.” He turned to the DM. “I would rather she didn’t spend the rest of this ridiculously expensive holiday in our cabin. Allow me to make up for the scene. I think this crowd would love to see her cry a bit.”

There was a general consensus that her ass should be something the Americans called grass.

It didn’t sound pleasant, but she’d nearly wrecked their cover and she had to make it right.

The DM stood over her. “Eyes up, sub.” She looked up and there was some small amount of sympathy in his eyes. “Tell me your safe word.”

“Penguin.” She couldn’t stop the tears from falling.

“Use it if you have to.” The DM nodded Damon’s way. “Let me know if you need anything.”

“Get up,” Damon growled.

She turned her face up to him. “Damon…”

He hauled her up and immediately laid five hard smacks on her arse, lighting her up with pain. “You don’t seem to learn.”

“Master.” She could barely talk because he’d meant business with those smacks. Her hands were shaking and she gave serious thought to spitting out her safe word and ending everything here and now. He was barely leashed.

But that would get them kicked out. She had to trust him. She had to trust that he knew what he was doing.

“Hey. Where’s my bag? Oh, fuck me.” Robert started to panic, looking about for the kit Charlotte was likely rifling through at this point.

Damon started to haul her toward a raised platform.

“Please, can we talk?”

“Not a word from you. I suppose this proves you meant what you said to me. You’re going to happily hop away and find some other bloody man to take my place.”

“Damon, that’s not fair.”

He stopped and forced her to turn. “When are you going to learn that nothing in this life is fair? Nothing at all. You dance through life treating it like it is a tea party.”

She tried to pull away from him. “How can you say that? I know very well life isn’t fair. I spent years learning that.”

She’d watched her mum try to please her absent father and then when she’d finally started to find a life without him, her disease had taken over, making her final years a living hell.

“Yes, and you’re going to learn again, aren’t you? Maybe this time the lesson will stick.” He hauled her along until she stumbled a bit. He turned and cursed. For a moment she thought he would just drag her across the floor, but he leaned over and lifted her up, cradling her to his chest though his face was a cold mask.

He strode to the sawhorse, a long apparatus she’d seen used at The Garden. Taggart had kindly adjusted it, apparently knowing exactly how high to place it.

Damon set her on her feet, her heart pounding in her chest. He pulled a knife out of his boot and neatly sliced her corset off. He really was hell on her wardrobe. “Give it to me.”

She was holding it to her chest because everyone was looking at her. The entire dungeon seemed to have moved to this one place, silently staring up at her in utter disapproval.

Shame washed over her.

“I said give it to me.” Damon tapped his foot impatiently.

She couldn’t have it out with him here. Couldn’t. They had a job to do and it seemed she was the only one thinking straight. Tears pierced through her as she passed him the ruined corset. Her collar fell to the floor with an audible thud.

She’d been naked at The Garden, but it hadn’t felt like this. She started to reach for her collar, but Damon was faster.

“I’ll decide if you get this back.” Damon tossed the corset aside, moving close to sink his hand into her hair. With a bite of pain, he tugged her head back so she had to look in his eyes. “Even when I’m brutally angry with you, I want you. Don’t stand there and think you’re anything less than gorgeous. Fuck, Penelope. I’m blindingly mad and I still can’t leave you like this. I can’t let you think you’re less than perfect.”

And just like that she was comfortable again. “Please, can we talk?”

He shook his head. “Not until we’re done. And then everything is going to be different. Ian? Tie her up for me. I need a moment to calm down.”

He stepped away, leaving her with Taggart, who softened slightly the minute his back was turned from the crowd. “Where did my wife go and what did she steal? I’m not crazy in love with you the way Damon is so I can figure out that you two decided to do some work without us. She’s getting her ass spanked, too. If you don’t want him to ruin the thong, you should probably hand it over.”

Somehow after what Damon had said, it was fairly easy to step out of her last bit of clothing. It hadn’t really covered her anyway. “He’s not in love with me. And Charlotte took the target’s kit.”

Ian grinned slightly, though it merely made him look like a happy predator. “The one he’s had with him all day, even at the pool?”

Penny nodded. “Yes. The reporter went to the loo so we thought it might be our only time.”

“I need you to hug the sawhorse. Find a comfy spot.” Taggart held up a nice length of rope. “He has to go through with this, you know. He lost it and now he has to play the badass Dom. He has no idea how to handle himself. Give him some slack, okay?”

She nodded because it was obvious Damon was in over his head. She settled herself over the sawhorse. The long apparatus was padded, the plastic cover touching her breasts.

Taggart knelt down, looping the rope around her wrists with a practiced hand. The knot was tight, but not so much it would cut off her circulation. “He might say some things he doesn’t mean because that man is terrified of what could happen to you. He’s used to losing people, and he can’t stand the thought of losing you. And I swear I’m going to beat the next dude who forces me to play Cupid. I’m not good at it.”

But he was good with a rope. And apparently a spreader. He grabbed a spreader bar and she found her legs spread wide, her ass in the air.

Oh, god, this was going to hurt.

Taggart swiftly locked her ankles into the spreader bar. She was caught and there was no way out except to say her safe word and possibly get both herself and Damon locked out of the place they needed to be. She had to endure whatever Damon was about to give her.

She had to hope it was worth it, that Charlotte had found something that could help them.

Damon stepped up, putting a hand on her. His voice was steady now. “Thank you, Master Ian.”

“You’re welcome. You all right to do this?” Taggart asked.

Damon kept his tone low. “I’m fine. You know I have to do this or we’ll lose access to the dungeon. I’m perfectly in control.”

“Try not to make it so she can’t walk,” Taggart said. “We have a tour of Helsinki tomorrow.”

“I promise nothing.”

She could hear the frown in Damon’s words. She watched as Taggart’s boots moved out of view, and she couldn’t see anything but the floor in front of her.

“I apologize for the actions of my submissive. Her disobedient, reckless behavior reflects on me and my weakness.”

She hated how desolate he sounded. “Master…”

She nearly screamed at the pain that flashed through her whole system as he brought something horrible across her ass. It hit her with a thunk, moving up her spine and speeding along her every nerve ending.

“Do not speak. Do I need to gag you?” Damon moved around the sawhorse. She could see his boots as he stood in front of her.

She shook her head because she wasn’t speaking again.

“Excellent. Perhaps you’ll learn to obey me.” He knelt down, his voice lowering. “You think I’m doing this for show, but I’m not. I didn’t tell you to stay where you were for my happiness. I did it for your safety. And you took your collar off. I don’t care what you thought you were doing or why. The minute you took that collar off you put yourself at risk. The minute you stepped away from where I’d left you, you put yourself in the bloody line of fire, and I won’t have it. You will understand that when I’m done with you, love.” There was a paddle in his hand. A nasty looking round paddle.

He stood back up and almost immediately she felt the paddle on her backside.

“You don’t need to count. I’ll let you know when I’m done.” He smacked her three times, each one harder than the last.

Tears dripped from her eyes. She’d cried more in the last week than in the years before, but it was oddly satisfying. She’d learned that emotion wasn’t a flat thing. It could be multicolored, with more sides than a prism. The pain ached, flaring and causing her to bite her lip against the cries in her throat, but the tears were purifying. They were a release she’d needed for years. She’d been so numb before Damon. She’d smiled and been kind, but it was mostly because she’d been taught to do those things.

She felt it now. Her kindness flowed from an open soul and she never wanted to close it again, never wanted to go back to that place where pain was just pain, where tears were an annoyance, where she had no idea who she really was.

He’d opened her up in more ways than one. Because she was tied down, she had no choice but to endure because she wasn’t going to say her safe word. The spreader bar kept her open, leaving her pussy on display for him.

He was watching. He wanted her like this, needed her naked, and there was nothing wrong with it. He loved her body. He’d proven it over and over again.

He needed this. She needed this.

Penny relaxed and felt the pain, but also a deep peace. A floaty feeling came over her as he continued to paddle her. He struck her arse, her thighs, smacked right between her legs where her pussy felt the reverberation of the slap.

Every now and then, he slapped right on her pussy, making her gasp and squirm.

She lost track of time. Heat suffused her, making her skin feel more like a tether than flesh, holding her to the place where she floated along, holding her to Damon. Her partner. Her Master.

Her Master was so scared. She had to give him what he needed. She had to give him this. He could be so indulgent with her. He would spend hours pleasing her, making sure she was happy and satisfied. In the time she’d been his sub, he didn’t let her carry her own anything, insisting on bringing her coffee in the morning, on making sure she had the best of everything. It wasn’t hard to give him her submission in this. Their needs dovetailed beautifully.