Page 5 of Love by Design (Club Rapture: Risk Aware #1)

SILAS

L incoln was right. Getting out and going to Rapture had been a good call.

He and I danced together in the middle of the dance floor, the sweat from his chest dripping against my back.

His hand on my hip, steering my body in whatever way he determined would be most appealing.

It was nice to shut down and forget sometimes.

He’d already found someone for himself, a wisp of a man who smelled like gardenias, pressed against us both from the side, his fingers skating delicately across Lincoln’s waist.

“There’s a man watching you,” Lincoln murmured in my ear, and I slowly blinked my eyes open.

“Which one?”

“Over by the new addition,” he said. “He’s just kind of swaying there.”

I hummed, finding the man Lincoln had spotted. He was definitely watching, his stare raking over me heavy enough to feel it even with the dozens of people between us. He looked from me to Lincoln to…

I angled my head to the side. “What’s your name?”

“Riot. ”

I snorted an amused sound in the back of my throat. “Riot?”

“What’s wrong with Riot?” he snapped.

“You just don’t look it,” I said.

“What do I look like?”

“You—” Lincoln interrupted, turning Riot’s face toward him with a gentle press against the underside of his chin. “Look like a man about to suck my cock as soon as I find someone to spank my best friend here.”

Riot sputtered out a gasp, and I rolled my eyes, stare shifting back to the man on the outskirts of the dance floor. He was older than me, but that didn’t mean much. Dressed in all black, like he wanted to fit in but he wasn’t sure how.

“You want to suck my cock, don’t you?” Lincoln asked.

“I do,” Riot purred.

Heat burned low and hot in my belly from the thought of Lincoln and Riot, and also from the promise of a rough spanking in my very near future.

“I’ll go talk to him,” Lincoln said, separating from me and Riot.

“I can do it.” I turned and dusted a quick kiss across Lincoln’s mouth. He tasted like cherries, which meant he’d been stealing kisses behind my back. The fire inside of me stoked to something very close to raging.

I swerved my way across the dance floor until I reached the man in question. He leaned against the wall, a drink in hand, and when I got close enough to make out his features in more detail, he rewarded me with an almost shy smile.

“Hey,” he said.

“I saw you watching me,” I murmured, my nerves spiking from the adrenaline that always came with finding a new hookup.

“Are you with those two? ”

I glanced over my shoulder to find Lincoln and Riot wrapped up in each other, arms and tongues tangled.

“One of them,” I said. “In some ways.”

“Not all?”

“Not the ones that matter.”

“Are you submissive?” he asked, and I laughed, dipping my chin toward my chest before locking my eyes on his.

“Do I look like it?”

He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again. “You look like you need to be taken down a couple of pegs,” he said.

It should have been a red flag.

Honestly, it should have been.

It was.

But from the corner of my eye, I saw Lincoln and Riot stumble into the private room, and I suddenly found myself overwhelmed with the need to know what Riot looked like with a dick in his mouth.

And the conversation from earlier still held true.

I needed a good spanking, and Lincoln had found someone to facilitate that.

The club was safe. Everything would be fine.

“I’d like to see you try,” I taunted him deliberately, then headed after Lincoln.

Around the corner into the newly constructed play space, and I found it barely occupied.

There was a couple sitting on the couch, lost in a conversation that looked a lot like aftercare, and Lincoln in the corner with Riot already on his knees.

We made eye contact, and he lifted a brow, his concern morphing into excitement when the man he’d scouted followed me into the room.

“On the bench,” he said, palm connecting with my back. He guided me toward the spanking bench, and I let him. “Pants around your knees.”

“I don’t even know what to call you,” I said, undoing my fly and shoving my pants down to my thighs.

“You can call me Sir. ”

I laughed. “Pass.”

He pushed me onto the bench.

It should have been another red flag.

Lincoln had his hands in Riot’s hair and his hips moved in slow, measured thrusts.

I bet his cock would taste like cherry lip gloss at the end of the night.

It was my own distraction that caused me to miss the man clipping cuffs around my ankles, attaching me to the bench.

I caught him when he came around to do the same to my wrists, and I rocked back into a seated position to stop him.

“Slow down there, buddy,” I warned, holding up a hand to stop him. “That’s not how this works.”

“How it works is you do as you’re told.”

In the corner, Lincoln was coming, lost to an orgasm that he shot straight into the back of Riot’s throat, and the man in front of me grabbed my wrist and tried to haul me forward so he could cuff me to the front of the bench.

“Stop,” I told him.

He ignored me.

Riot made a gagging noise.

The couple on the couch…. I had no idea about them. I couldn’t hear anything, and when I tried to turn to look behind me for help, the man tugged me—hard. My chest came forward, I landed against the bench with a thud, and then I only had one hand free.

“Lincoln,” I tried to call out for my friend, but the music in the room was almost as loud as it was on the dance floor and the restraint had it so my voice traveled straight into the floor. Panic reared its head, slamming against my rib cage alongside my frantic heart.

“Stop fighting me,” the man complained, trying to grab my other wrist. He succeeded, and I was bound to the bench with my bare ass up in the air. “You’re supposed to do what you’re told. ”

“Let me go,” I said again, fighting the cuffs.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a balled up bandana, then he shoved it so far into my mouth that when I sucked in a breath, the corners of it tickled the back of my throat, threatening to choke me.

Sweat prickled my temple, and my fingers tingled with anxiety.

Another set of feet came into view, not Lincoln, and my stomach sank.

I had no idea who this other man was or what I’d gotten myself into.

All I could do was hope Lincoln realized something was wrong before it got too far out of hand.

“Is this consensual?” a new voice asked. It was almost familiar, but I couldn’t make out anything over the quickly rising panic.

I shook my head frantically, trying to use my tongue to spit out the gag.

New fingers attached to new hands made quick work of unclasping the cuffs around my wrists, and I was back upright as soon as he finished my second cuff.

I yanked the bandana out of my mouth and flung it in his face, furiously tearing open the cuffs while the stranger who’d saved me went around back for my ankles.

“Silas?” It was Lincoln’s voice from the corner, coming out of his post-orgasm haze, and I didn’t want to know what the scene in front of him looked like.

“I’m fine,” I promised him, wishing more than anything I could climb off the bench and pull my fucking pants up.

As soon as the last cuff was undone, I did just that, yanking my pants up and taking a step away from the bench.

“I told you to stop,” I said to the man.

“Silas?”

My name again, but this time from behind me. From the man who’d saved me.

My brain connected the memories before I’d finished turning toward him, before I even saw him .

“Marshall,” I muttered his name, wanting to dig a hole under the club and bury myself there.

A thousand thoughts raced across his face, half of them clear as day, but he finally settled on asking, “Are you all right?”

All things considered, it was the best thing he could have asked, but the one with the most complicated answer.

“I’m fine,” I said, which tasted like a lie, but it was real.

I was free. I was unharmed. And I was protected.

Marshall’s expression morphed from concern to fury, all of the latter directed at the man who’d just had his hands on me.

“What part of stop wasn’t clear to you?” he asked, voice barely louder than whatever dance beat the DJ was spinning.

“I didn’t think he meant it,” he tried to say dismissively, and my body bowed forward, overcome with the need to vomit all over my feet.

“Do you know him?” Marshall asked, the question traveling over my head, so I assumed it was directed at Lincoln.

“Yeah.”

“Then help him,” Marshall ordered. I heard the sound of his shoes clicking against the concrete—he was still dressed for work, still dressed from our meeting—and then the other guy gasped, and something slammed into the wall.

Lincoln helped me right myself in time to see Marshall fist the other guy's shirt and shove him so hard into the drywall I worried they’d have to patch the wall.

Marshall whispered something into his ear that turned the other man a sickly shade of green, and then they were both on their way out of the room.

“Sit, Silas,” Marshall called out to me over his shoulder, and there was no argument to be had about it. Maybe another day or another time, but not now. “I’ll be right back.”

And then the room was quiet.

The other couple was gone. Riot was gone. It was just me and Lincoln, and Lincoln helping me around the room until the backs of my legs connected with the couch and I sank down into the cushions.

“I’m so sorry,” he said, grabbing my face and tilting my head all around to inspect me.

“It’s not your fault.”

He angled my chin up to check my throat, but what he couldn’t see was my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth, the tang of someone else’s dried sweat seeping into my tastebuds.

“I picked him.”

“You’re not my Dom.” I grabbed Lincoln’s desperate hands to bring him to a stop. “You didn’t do this. And it could have been worse. I’m really fine.”

“He was going to assault you.” Lincoln pressed the issue. “Right in front of me, and I?—”

I covered his mouth with one of my hands before the words could get out of his mouth.

“I’m begging you to not make this about you.”

He swallowed hard and nodded, and I dropped my hand into my lap.

I could still feel the cuffs around my wrists.

“Can you go get me some water?” I asked, voice cracking.

“I don’t want to leave you alone.”

“He’s not alone,” Marshall said from the doorway, a bottle of water in hand. He untwisted the cap and extended it to me. I took it and guzzled the whole thing in less than three gulps.

“And who are you?” Lincoln snapped.

I smiled down at my lap, appreciating the way he was ready to defend me at a moment’s notice.

“I know him,” I promised my best friend.

“From where?”

“Work.” I flicked a glance up at Marshall, who didn’t look concerned in the least that I was who I was and he was who he was, and that we’d just gone through this shared experience together. He did look concerned, though. Just…about me .

“Work,” he confirmed.

I gave Lincoln as much of an honest smile as I could manage, but his coddling was the absolute last thing I wanted.

“I’m fine, Lincoln,” I said again, willing it to be true. “What happened to Riot?”

My best friend looked at me like I’d asked him if pigs could fly.

“He went to the bathroom.”

The flush on Lincoln’s cheeks confirmed just why Riot had scampered off for a quick dose of privacy.

“Go find him then.” I nudged him until he reluctantly stood up from the cushion beside me. “I promise I’m okay. Go have fun, and I’ll come find you in a few minutes. I need to…”

I trailed off, because if I told him I needed to be alone with Marshall, he wouldn’t go. The guilt was eating him up, but I didn’t have it in me to convince him this wasn’t his fault, and it wasn’t his problem.

“I’ll stay with him,” Marshall said, which seemed to give Lincoln some ease.

He took a tentative step toward the door, and then another.

“I won’t leave this spot until you come back.”

“I’ll make sure of it,” Marshall confirmed.

Lincoln either believed us or knew arguing would get him nowhere. With one last look, he left me and Marshall alone in the private playroom, and he took all of the air with him. I sucked in a breath, dropping my elbows against my knees. It hurt to breathe, it hurt to come apart.

Marshall took the seat Lincoln had vacated, and he settled one strong hand on my knee, the other on my spine.

“You’re here, Silas,” he said, drawing a circle on my back with his palm. “All you have to do is breathe. Can you breathe?”

“It doesn’t feel like it.”

“Just one. In through the nose, okay? We’ll do it together. ”

I tilted my head to look up at Marshall, who had his shoulders up near his ears like he was ready to take a breath.

I managed a nod, blinked back tears, then breathed in through my nose.

We exhaled together, and without being asked, repeated and repeated and repeated.

His presence was a stronger salve than anything I’d ever experienced before, and I wondered how I’d never picked up on him before.

In all of our meetings, all our business engagements…

I’d never even thought of Marshall in a place like this, but if asked, he’d probably say the same about me.

I pushed back until I hit the couch, the stretch of his forearm across my shoulders like a shock blanket. Scrubbing a hand down my face, I swallowed back the last lingering threads of panic, then blinked back the tears I’d refused to shed.

I was fine.

I was fine .

“What do you need, Silas?” Marshall asked me softly, after it no longer hurt to fill my lungs. His voice was so quiet, he had to be so close to my ear to hear him over the drumbeat, and he was so strong, so warm…so very safe.

The answer tasted like sand, but sand was better than sweat.

“Just this,” I told him. “I just need this a little while longer.”