“Where did Charlotte go?” His words were even and measured now. Now that it seemed to be far too late.
“She was going up to her cabin. She was going to meet us there.” She’d explained what had happened on the way up the lift, her voice flat and monotone as she told the story of how they came to have Mr. Tilman’s kit. “Mr. Taggart should be there by now.”
Whenever she started talking like a Jane Austen heroine, he knew he was in trouble.
“Penelope, do you understand why I had to punish you?” He reached out and grabbed her elbow or she would very likely have kept right on walking.
She didn’t meet his eyes. “Yes, of course. We would have been disinvited from the dungeon if you had not.”
“But you’re angry with me. Damn it all. Did I hit you too hard?”
Her eyes were as blank as any doll’s. “It’s fine, Damon. I think I just realized what you’ve wanted me to all along. This isn’t the life for me. I’ll obey you from now on. I won’t attempt to use my own brain. I’ll remember at all times that you’re in charge.”
He should be jumping with joy because apparently he’d finally gotten through to her. All it had taken was a minor paddling and she wilted.
And then he’d been stupid enough to threaten to let all the other Doms spank her, too. Lesson number one in the Dom book was to never threaten something he wouldn’t go through with. He couldn’t stand it when another man touched her. He certainly wasn’t going to allow one to spank her, but he’d been so angry with her the threat had just popped out.
Anything could have happened. She’d taken off her collar. She’d lost herself in the crowd. He had no idea what Robert Tilman was capable of. If he’d caught her trying to steal his kit, he could have quietly carried her off and slit her throat and Damon would have gone utterly insane. He’d had a vision of her, broken, dead, cold. His Penelope was always so soft and warm, and he’d seen her rigid and trapped in the horror of death.
He wouldn’t survive it. He’d known in that moment that he couldn’t live through her death, and he’d do anything to prevent it. Hence his idiotic words.
He couldn’t work with her. He couldn’t think about anything but her when she was around. Since that first moment he’d gotten a taste of her, he’d lost his bloody mind to anything except her.
“I want to look at your bum. I want to make sure I didn’t hurt you.” He thought it had gone well after he’d calmed a bit. Yes, he’d spanked her hard, but he’d tested her. He’d felt her arousal, her relaxation. He’d thought she slipped into subspace. Even through his irritation with her, he’d felt a deep satisfaction because of the trust she placed in him.
And then she shut him out.
“My bum is fine, Damon.” Her lips moved, but there was no expression on her face. That killed him. She was always so vibrant, smiling or with a mischievous light in her eyes that only he seemed to be able to see. “Could we please get some work done? I would like to know if I endured that for something.”
“Then I did hurt you.” Something didn’t add up.
Her face flushed, her blue eyes narrowing as she snarled his way. “Yes, Damon. Hitting someone with a paddle hurts. My arse hurts. It will likely hurt for several days. Are you happy now?”
He’d never seen her angry before. He was shocked to find that what he really wanted to do was get on his bloody knees and beg her forgiveness.
But if she hadn’t been able to take that scene, he’d been wrong about her. Or she was attempting to manipulate him. She’d done that before. He let himself go cold. If she didn’t want aftercare, who was he to complain? She’d disobeyed the rules. She’d put herself and their operation in danger. It wasn’t his place to apologize. “Not at all. I didn’t enjoy that scene any more than you did.”
Except he’d rather thought they had both been enjoying it. After he’d slapped her ass silly and still been able to smell the arousal coating her pussy, he’d decided to take it a step further and fuck her mouth. She’d been enthusiastic. She’d sucked him down like a starving woman.
Was she mad he hadn’t given her an orgasm? Did she think sulking would fix the problem? He hadn’t expected that from her.
“Well, the good news is you won’t have to suffer through it again.”
He tightened his hand on her. “I meant what I said.”
Except the part about allowing other Doms to get a smack in. It was a common enough punishment at both Sanctum and The Garden. Some subs enjoyed it. No hands were allowed because most Doms Damon knew didn’t share even the touch of their sub’s skin, but paddles and canes and floggers were all on board. Hell, for some subs’ birthdays, he’d arranged spanking parties, but he couldn’t allow it with Penelope. He had hard limits, too, and letting someone else touch her was his. But he couldn’t tell her that. He needed to stay in charge.
“I believe you.” There was such accusation in her eyes that he nearly folded and just apologized.
He was saved from that fate by the door opening down the hall and Tag stepping out, a grim look on his face. “I was just coming to find you. Pen, you all right?”
She nodded. The smile she plastered on her face didn’t come anywhere close to her eyes. “Of course. What did you find?”
Tag gestured them inside the cabin he shared with his wife. It was the cabin next to theirs. The balcony between them had been opened to form a long outdoor space.
“I’ve got Jesse on his way here,” Tag explained. “Chelsea, too. Simon and Jake are herding our targets. Jake is going to have a talk with Rob, and we’ll get the reporter. Though from what I hear, I should have sent Pen down because she’s totally into threesomes.”
Jealousy flashed through his system. Tag held the door open, and Penelope entered.
“Dude, chill.” Tag held a hand out, his voice going low. He let the door close. “You have got to check the caveman. She wasn’t trying to fuck the guy.”
“I know. She wouldn’t do that.” Damon shook his head. Why did everyone seem to think he was accusing Penelope of cheating? “I might kill him though.”
“Okay, that’s slightly healthier, but seriously, she’s pissed. What the fuck did you do?”
Yes, he’d certainly figured that out. “I spanked her with a paddle. Her arse is red, but I didn’t break the skin. I doubt she’ll even bruise. I fucked her mouth. I told her if she ever did it again, I would let every Dom in the room paddle her and see how she likes it.”
A chuckle came out of Tag’s mouth. “That’s going to go so well. You’ll go insane when the first one touches her.”
Damon felt himself flush. He never used to get embarrassed. “I know. It was stupid. Now she says she understands this isn’t the lifestyle for her.”
“It isn’t for everyone,” Tag said with a sigh. “Give her some time. Some subs freak out after their first intense scene. The good news is Baz is likely to try to kill us in Helsinki tomorrow, so she’ll probably forget you spanked her.”
His stomach turned. If she wouldn’t even look at him, how was he going to protect her? “Don’t remind me.”
“And if Baz doesn’t kill us, the unholy amount of smoked fish they’ll offer us might. Man, I know why Northern Europeans are so skinny.” Tag started to open the door again. “Pull it together. You’re going to endanger every single one of us if you can’t control yourself. You could have handled that situation in a way that her punishment would have been private.”
“Really? So if Charlotte had done the same thing and you found her with another man, you would have been perfectly calm?”
“Not at all. I would have thrown down with the fucker, target or not. But then I admit freely that I love my wife. Last I checked, Penny was just your unwanted partner and part-time fuck buddy. So check yourself, man.”