Elie suddenly lifted his head and looked straight into her eyes. “Was this knife play done with your consent? I noticed you emphasized no knife play and with bondage you were smart enough to say you wanted time to work on trust.”
“I never, at any time, consented to knife play. I was adamant against it.” She tried to keep any inflection out of her voice. She still felt guilty, as if what had been done to her was her fault because she was the way she was. “Once he had cuffs on me, he used the knife.” Tears burned again and she tried not to think about the way it felt to have the blade go through her skin.
Elie gathered her to him, pulling her into his arms as he settled onto the side of the bed. She was shocked to find herself in his lap while he rocked her, one hand in her hair.
“Don’t think about the way it felt, mon petit ange. There is no need. But I do insist you give me his name.”
She pulled back to look at him. He was serious. Very serious if his expression was anything to go by. He looked every inch an Archambault.
“Elie, he doesn’t matter. He was a member of a club I went to. I wanted to experience a few things to see if I liked them or not. He was there quite a bit and seemed to have a good reputation. No one ever said a bad word about him. He’d asked me to be with him quite a few times and I’d turned him down. I was a little afraid of him.”
“Why?”
She didn’t want to say he had a similar intensity to Elie without being compelling and sexy the way she found Elie.
“I know I should have stayed away from him. He gave me a bad feeling every time he approached me. It was just that he was so persistent. He clearly had been with the club a long time. I was embarrassed that I had no reason to give him for avoiding him and he asked me straight out in front of several other Doms why I was so reluctant to allow him to play.”
Elie’s fingers tightened on the nape of her neck and then began a slow massage. “When he did that, what was the reaction of the others?”
“They got up and left. I think one of them protested, but he kind of laughed. That made me even more embarrassed.”
Elie brushed a kiss on her temple. “He had no right to do that to you and the others should have protected you. What happened next?”
“He told me to sit at the bar with him and go over my limits. I found myself following him to one of the rooms. Before I knew it, I had cuffs on and he had a knife out. He told me if I didn’t shut up, he was going to gag me, that I deserved it for making him wait. He said I’d been teasing him for months.” She wanted Elie to believe her. “It wasn’t true. I didn’t want anything to do with him.”
“Tell me his name and the name of the club.”
“It was a club in Barcelona called Fantasía Más Oscura. The Dom was called Master Serrano. I heard some of the men call him Izan.”
“When you screamed, I hope the others came and rescued you.” Elie made it a statement.
She nodded. “They did come. Serrano was angry with them and me. I never went back to the club and stayed far away from anyone I had met there. Once or twice, I thought I saw him when I was on the street coming out of a store, but I never could actually catch him and I’m really good in the shadows. Eventually, I had to put it down to being paranoid. I stayed in my apartment after that. I wanted to heal and I was already looking for the freighters. I’d agreed to an arranged marriage so I didn’t think I ever had to worry about Serrano again.”
“You don’t,” Elie stated firmly. “I’ll take care of Serrano.”
“Elie, just leave it alone. It’s over with. The scars have healed.” She could hear the unconscious plea in her voice.
“The trauma hasn’t, Brielle. He very well could be doing that same thing to other women. No one has the right to touch you or any other woman without consent.”
“But I went to the club specifically because I needed to alleviate . . .” She broke off, embarrassed, and then tried again. “Sometimes I reach this point and I need something.” It was so horrible to try to explain something to a man she wanted respect and eventually love from. Here she was, needing him to talk dirty to her. To spank her. She wished he would just let it go.
“This man was at fault, Brielle, not you. You told him no. No is no. You have no need to be ashamed because you went to a club and wanted to play. It was supposed to be safe. It should have been. This man took advantage and we don’t know if he had something to do with the bomb that was sitting on our front porch. He warrants an investigation at the very least.”