Collared [Excerpt]

Chapter Two

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SOMETHING WAS TERRIBLY broken within Abigail Bennett. Something was marvelously wrong. Somehow, the wires in her head hadn't aligned properly and the part of the brain used for reasoning hadn't developed. She didn't need anyone to tell her that. Abigail had known this for a long time.

She knew it when she was a little girl and dry-humped the teddy bear her dad gave her for her seventh birthday. Although she didn't know what she was doing, she knew it was inappropriate enough not to do it in front of others, though the desire was never lost.

She knew it when the sight of the purple and green bruises left on her knees from humping against the marble floors made her pussy clench at such an early age.

She knew it when she turned eleven and realized she didn't have to dry-hump more of her toys because she could get herself off with a hard tweak of her nipples.

She also knew it after she fucked Jackson O'Brien for the first time and rushed to the bathroom to give herself a proper orgasm. From under the sink, she'd gathered a used candle and lighter. She saw as the fire melted the candlestick, creating droplets of wax down her breasts, stomach, and inner thighs. With the melted wax leaving tiny blisters on her skin, she inserted three fingers inside her pussy and pushed forward until she came after the disappointment her boyfriend had been for a lover.

After giving herself pleasure for years, she thought real sex would be as explosive as the orgasms she'd given herself. It turned out they weren't, lasting only mere seconds. Hers always lasted longer. They were waves of pleasure that made her back come off the bed and her toes curl in ecstasy.

Early on she figured she had to settle for a missionary sex life because the type of shit she was into only happened in erotic books.

There was no Christian Grey waiting to be interviewed by a closeted masochist.

There was also no way that the daughter of Melissa Sinclair—women's rights activist—had the desire to be flogged, gagged, and fucked by a chauvinistic asshole whispering what a dirty little whore she was.

If Mrs. Sinclair ever found out what her daughter was into or what she was about to do, she'd lock Abigail in her townhouse and throw the keys down the Empire State Building, never to be found again.

Because of this, Abigail gave up dating...and fucking.

Why explain her need to be gagged to a stranger she was never going to see again to later have to explain herself to another stranger the following weekend?

With all the sexual assault charges going around, men didn't want to get in any trouble, even if she assured them it was consensual.

The little pussies.

She wasn't an expert when it came to sex. She could count the number of men she'd slept with in one hand. Sexual desire, that she specialist in. She'd been desiring something more her entire life. Not plain old boring vanilla sex but the whole damn sundae with sprinkles and whipped cream on top.

Abigail needed a man—a real man. One who took without asking. One who made her scream, not out of pleasure but out of agonizing pain. A man that elicited tears to pool in her eyes, not from an intense orgasm but from having his dick shoved so far into her mouth she couldn't breathe. She craved a man who fucked in search of his pleasure because the thought of being used was enough to set her off. More than anything, she yearned for a man who knew of her desires and made her feel normal.

If she ever found him, she swore she'd give him everything.

Her attempts at finding the perfect master had been frail. She'd only gone to two other events besides this one. Just thinking about her most recent one made vile rise in the pit of her stomach. The event was amateur and filled with old balding men and women. After being there for five minutes, she fled.

She hoped to the heavens this place wasn't one of those because if it was, she'd finally stop searching for him.

A shiver ran down her spine as a gust of January wind ruffled the emerald coat her brother had given her a few weeks back. Abigail didn't care if this wasn't proper attire for a place like this. If the club was anything like the events she'd been to, she'd be out of there in no time. No point in going all out if she needed to catch a cab later.

With a flick of her thumb and index finger, Abigail turned the little black card in her hand.

124 Orchard Street, NYC

That's all it read.

She looked at the green sign on the sidewalk that read Orchard.

This was it, she was in the right place, so why was she hesitant?

The shame. The guilt. That's why it felt wrong.

Shame for being a woman who wanted to be dominated by a man. Guilt for betraying her gender.

She needed to stop thinking of unwarranted opinions. If people could have resolutions to lose weight, why couldn't she have one too, even if hers was to be fucked in as many ways as her body allowed with a man who controlled her every move?

She took one last breath before taking the last steps that would seal her life forever...and then froze.

Was she really doing this? Why was she so nervous when she'd longed for this and had been to BDSM clubs before? Maybe because the other clubs were so popular, they weren't authentic? It had been too easy to find them with a simple Google search.

This one, however, wasn't easy at all. This place was so secluded it scared the living shit out of her. There was no sign at the front door, so she had no idea what she was walking into. And even if the street name was the same as the one on the card, Abigail wasn't one hundred percent sure she was at the right place.

It was one thing to desire something she knew she'd never have the guts to do and it was something completely different to actually do it.

Just one night, she told herself, and with that, she mustered up the Super Woman courage her mother taught her and took a step. Then another. And another. Until she was standing in front of a rusty iron door.

Her first instinct was to reach for the knob but there was none. She balled her fingers into a fist and just as she was about to knock on the door, a masculine voice halted her movement.

"Password," it said. At the sudden voice, she jumped, reaching for her chest to make sure her heart hadn't escaped.

Password? The woman who'd given her the card hadn't said anything about a password.

She closed her eyes and willed herself to think back to last month when she went to that awful event, to the day the nameless woman gave her the black card she held in her hand.

"Um...mythology?"

"Turn around and leave."

The other events hadn't had a guard outside, let alone a password to enter. This was real, she felt it in her bones and the thought of not being able to see what laid inside because of a stupid password made her eyes water.

Think harder, Abigail, come on.

"Wait," she said, more like pleaded. "Sirens."

The night went silent. The rustle of iron doors was the only sound that grazed her ears. Goosebumps rained over her skin. Abigail blamed it on the breeze and not the cocktail of fear and excitement inside her. She was more than ready to live her fantasies, if only for a night. She was ready to be fucked, abused, assaulted, but mostly she was ready to be her true self without the fear of being judged.