Beyond Shame (12 page)

She must have begged for mercy. She
must
have, because the pleasure faded and she found herself limp and trembling, Ace grinning up at her—no, not her. He was grinning at Jasper. "Shit, man. I barely got started."

"Go easy." Jas dragged the backs of his fingers down the inside of her thigh. "Soft."

Ace chuckled and pushed her knees even wider, like he was holding her open for Jasper. "Your girl likes hard just fine, brother. Maybe too much."

"Not for long. She'll be finished." Jasper's hand trailed lower, fingertips brushing the drenched inner lips of her pussy. "She has to keep up for a while yet if you're doing her cuffs today."

Noelle shuddered and met Jasper's eyes. "Cuffs," she whispered, turning the words into a challenge. A reminder that he'd promised her freedom, for all that she was bound and helpless. "I want them today. Now. While you touch me."

"Today," he agreed, moving his fingers slowly. He stroked her, slicked through her wetness, and teased her with the promise of how much better it would feel when he pushed those fingers inside.

She was so fixated on Jasper's touch that she didn't realize Ace had moved until a drawer rattled behind her. "I bet she'd like these."

Jasper reached out, and Ace dropped two metal circles into his hand. No, not circles—rings with jeweled crossbars through them. Only when Jas pulled the bars apart and let them fly together with a metallic clack did she realize they must be magnetized.

As to their purpose... Her mind stumbled over the likeliest possibility. Memory supplied an image of the woman at Dallas's party, the one whose shamelessly bare breasts had been adorned by sparkling jewelry.

Imagining the sensitive tip of her nipple pinched between cool metal set Noelle to squirming again. "Is that...?"

Jas answered by bending his head and tonguing her nipple, drawing a gasp from her as her flesh puckered. "They go like this," he murmured, situating the first ring around her nipple.

The bars snapped tight, and she hissed as pain bloomed for a moment. Only a moment; the pinch wasn't strong enough to do more than ache in a way that made her heart pound. She forced her gaze to his and wet her lips. "The other, too? Please?"

"Told you," Ace muttered. "Such a bad girl."

"Maybe." Jasper pinched her other nipple before putting the ring in place, then slipped his fingers down to brush her clit. "What else do you want, sweetheart?"

She wanted him. She wanted to come. She wanted to belong in this life, where the shame burned away and nothing but giddy pleasure remained. "I want my cuffs."

"You'll get them." He pushed one finger inside her and curled it, stroking over that sensitive spot that sparked a feeling too intense to be called pleasure. Pressure, maybe, and a desperate hunger for
more
that had her voice breaking on a plea.

Ace's voice rumbled close to her ear. "Maybe I'll give you your cuffs while you're riding Jasper's hand. Would you like that, princess? Do you want him to feel your pussy clench around his fingers? He'll know how hot the needles get you. He knows how hot this is getting you right now. I bet you're squeezing him so tight he's imagining you all hot and wet around his dick."

"She wouldn't be still," Jasper whispered. "She's fighting the restraints right now." He pulled his finger free only to return along with a second, thrusting deep.

Noelle let her head fall back as the stretch drove a moan from her. What a picture she must make—bound, spread wide, her clothing sliced away and her body writhing under the intoxicating mixture of pleasure and pain. Anyone could walk in and watch her work her hips up and down, and that pushed her tension to a dizzying peak.

It wasn't bad enough that she wanted to be defiled. She wanted people to watch. "I'm so bad," she whispered, voice slipping into a moan as she teetered on the edge of release. "I'm dirty."

Jasper shook his head, his jaw tight. "If it were shameful, you think I'd do this to you?" He moved his hand faster, his fingers fucking in and out of her with firm strokes.

No. Ace would. Dallas might. But Jasper was so careful with her. So controlled, so deliberate, coaxing her forward one step at a time as he stripped away her defenses. She could trust that it wasn't disgraceful.

But trusting wasn't feeling. She struggled against the straps, panted at the bite of leather, and groaned at the pinch of steel. When his broad fingers slammed into her one last time and she came screaming, she felt
dirty
, crude and broken and so, so good. Humiliation and pleasure twisted together, fed on one another until the illicitness felt better than the physical release.

He stopped thrusting and curled his fingers, making firm little rhythmic motions inside her as Ace bumped his thumbs against the metal rings pinching her nipples in painful, beautiful counterpoint.

Jasper's voice rasped over her. "Again."

"I can't," she protested, a stupid thing to do when fluttery spasms were already driving her higher, but it couldn't be possible to feel so much, so fast. "I
can't
."

Ace's hand closed in her hair and twisted roughly. Another layer of confused sensation, and she whimpered as he flicked one of her nipples. "Sweet little liar. If I were you, brother, I'd make her come two more times for every lie."

"Just once." Jasper licked her jaw, her lower lip, and then nudged Ace's fingers aside to tease his tongue over her nipple.

It burned, and then she burned, propelled beyond herself for one exhilarating, wild moment. No shame, no guilt...no body. Just floating bliss and
him
, and she stopped fighting and rode the first of a dozen waves.

Up and up and no down, no end. Not until fingers stroked her cheek and a rumble shook her, and she realized she was wrapped in a blanket and cradled against his chest. Blinking, she let her head fall back and caught sight of Ace watching them with an oddly intense look, one she swore was jealousy.

It vanished a moment later as he smiled. "There you go, Jas. Your girl's drifting down."

"Beautiful." Jasper stroked her hair, brushing the tangled, damp strands away from her forehead.

The gentleness made her shiver. She turned her face toward his palm and closed her eyes. "I don't know what happened."

"Before or after we made you come?"

She laughed. "After. And maybe while."

"You took a little trip, sweetheart." Jasper kissed the spot just behind her ear. "Now Ace is going to ink your cuffs."

"But you took me out of the chair." And she felt no pressing desire to leave the warm cocoon of his embrace.

Ace snorted out a laugh. "Under the circumstances, I'll make do. For all I know it's going to send you flying again, and your big, dumb brute will rip my balls off if he can't pet and cuddle you."

Jasper kicked the footplate. "Less talk, more work."

They were situated so it was easy enough for Noelle to squirm her arm out of the blankets and lay it down for Ace. He winked at her before bending to his work, and Noelle looked away with the first prick of the needles.

It barely registered as pain, just a buzzing that vibrated through her, and she closed her eyes with a humming sigh. "What happens after this?"

"You get ready for tonight." Jasper smiled against her cheek. "Every time Ace lays O'Kane ink, we have a party."

"What kind of party?"

"Not like the one in Dallas's rooms. We drink, and we celebrate the fact that there's another one of us."

"Fun." She was floating again, floating on his voice and the warmth of his body and the sweet kiss of pain that was its own sort of claiming. Jasper was claiming her. Dallas's mark and Ace's ink, but every jab of the needle plunging into her skin was Jas, binding her to the gang, binding her to him. "Don't let me go."

"I won't, Noelle."

Dallas

O'Kane Liquor prospered through hard work, and that work had to be done every day, even when Dallas's right-hand man was wandering around like a pussy-whipped fool. Not that an outsider would be likely to notice the change in Jasper's stony expression, but Dallas had known his friend too long. Noelle was a sweet little piece of ass, and Jasper was well and bloody hooked.

Even now a tiny smile played around the edges of the other man's mouth. At least Bren looked like his usual violent self. In five minutes, the door across the room would open, spilling out reluctant allies who could become enemies with damn near no provocation. Dallas had picked the meeting point this time, an abandoned bar on the border between the third and fourth sectors. Everyone was less twitchy in neutral territory, but violence had broken out before—and would again.

But hopefully not today. "So is your girl ready for her big welcome party, Jas?" Dallas asked.

"Yeah, bandaged wrists and all." Jasper arched an eyebrow. "Having second thoughts about letting her in so fast?"

He'd left second thoughts behind the day the girl had stumbled into Jasper. Tonight, he was having fifteenth thoughts. "Just counting the days until you mark her."

That straightened out the edges of the man's smile. "We'll see."

At least the bastard was glaring, and none too soon. Footsteps shuffled in the hallway, and Dallas nodded to Bren and Jas before relaxing into a deceptively casual sprawl that left his hand close to the gun strapped to his thigh. "Here we go."

Wilson Trent
always
glared, and today was no exception. He walked in, followed by four of his men, and surveyed the room before taking a seat. "O'Kane."

"Trent." The other leader had brought more than the customary two lieutenants for backup, but it was the tightness around his eyes that told Dallas they were treading close to a trap. Trent's glare seemed too forced, too fixed. Anticipation hung in the air, so thick Dallas could taste it.

Fuck. The bastard was going to play one of his games.

He confirmed the suspicion a heartbeat later. "I'm surprised you didn't just send your men tonight. Word in the sectors is you've got your hands full playing daddy over in Four."

Damn Jasper, and damn Lex too. They'd plucked a girl off the street like shining heroes, and everyone smelled weakness. "Never too busy for you, Trent," Dallas replied mildly, trusting Jasper to keep a leash on his temper for the words that followed. "But we can talk about the new girl if you want. Big eyes, tight little pussy. Ever defiled one of Eden's angels? They start out shocked, but if you break 'em in right, they'll beg for cock."

Trent shrugged one shoulder. "What new girl? I was talking about that dancer—" He turned to the muscle on his left. "What's her name, again?"

"Alexa," the man rumbled.

"That's the one."

Lies. They reeked of deception, but Dallas couldn't blink. Couldn't flinch, couldn't stir so much as an eyelash and give them the impression Lex meant a damn thing to him. He certainly couldn't cut out the man's tongue for daring to say her name.

Watching him bleed and cry would brighten up Dallas's shitty day, though.

He hadn't gotten this far without being as good at lying as he was at spotting liars, so he smiled. "Lex is a hell of a dancer. Not too easy to shock, though, if that's your thing."

Trent lifted one hand and signaled his men. "I brought her something. Figured you could deliver it for me."

It took everything in Dallas not to tense as the door opened again. A feminine growl of outrage preceded the unmistakable sound of an open palm cracking against skin, and he put it together with Trent's taunting question about Noelle—and it
had
been about her, before the bastard had wiggled the knife for a weak spot—and saw the shape of the trap.

So he wasn't surprised when one of Trent's men dragged a struggling brunette into the room. She was a sleek creature, curves over muscles and shapely legs shown off by a skimpy miniskirt. Her leather bra matched. So did the cuffs that trapped her wrists together and the collar around her throat. Her cheek bore a vivid handprint, but she seemed unsubdued. When the man dragging her jerked the chain connecting her collar to her cuffs, she snarled and spit on him.

"Charming," Dallas drawled, turning his attention back to Trent. "But Lex already has a new toy. If I give her two girls to play with in one month, she'll get spoiled."

"Slavery," Jasper spat. "It's dirty, even for you, Trent."

"Don't be such a snot. You might call it something different over here in Four, but pretty words don't change facts. You peddle more flesh than I'd know what to do with."

Dallas raised two fingers. "Enough." Trent's men would beat the shit out of the girl if they thought it would goad one of Dallas's men into a reaction, and Jas was just softhearted enough to walk into the trap.

He'd give him hell if they had to leave the kid to Trent's nonexistent mercies, though. Dallas gave her poor odds of surviving the night.

With an internal sigh, he tested the edges of the trap. "If she's such a prize, why are you getting rid of her?"

"Because she's—" Trent stopped short when Bren yawned, then shook his head. "She's not my type. I like blondes."

The brunette bared her teeth in a half-crazed grin. "And he couldn't stay on top of me."

It earned her another backhanded slap and a choking jerk on her collar, and Dallas hardened his heart against her involuntary tears of pain. Only a mewling excuse for a man had to beat a woman to keep her in her place, but this girl wasn't his responsibility. Every time he showed weakness, he endangered the women who already trusted him with their safety. He couldn't save them all.

Seeing the unfeigned hatred in her eyes, Dallas wondered if it might be worth it to save this one. There was intelligence there too—though it was difficult to see through the rage—and his gut told him she could be a useful source of information. Trent, in his idiocy, had always underestimated women.

Intimate association with Lex had long since taught Dallas better. "Bren, you like girls with fight in them. You want to break this one in?"

He inclined his head in a slow nod. "I can handle her."

"In your dreams," the girl snarled.