She was making her third pass, going down the outside wall of the warehouse, trying to decide if she wanted to take another pass through the bodies, clearly-dump-acquired furniture and frighteningly stained mattresses to give it another shot when she saw the clumsy whip work of a pleather-wearing Domme.
One really should not wield a whip after taking Ecstasy or shooting heroin or whatever made someone wobble like that (and by “wobble” she meant the woman’s head; the rest of her body was weaving—she was barely keeping her feet).
However, she did manage to crack the whip, doing so falling out of the top of her bustier, both breasts, exposing it all, and not looking at her target, but stupidly staring down at her breasts like she forgot they were there.
Lord.
This wasn’t a wasteland beyond Thunderdome.
If the ghosts of Sid and Nancy stumbled sluggishly out of the ten-person orgy happening on two stained twin-bed mattresses beside her, swearing (Sid) and screeching (Nancy), she wouldn’t be surprised.
Evangeline tore her eyes off the woefully-lacking-in-skill Mistress to glance at her poor sub when she stopped dead in midstride.
She’d seen it once and she’d know that back anywhere.
Branch.
Branch with his T-shirt not even taken off, just pulled up and off his arms, the material hanging around his neck. His cargo pants were also up, hanging loose at his hips as that was the way he wore them even if he was also wearing a belt. His hands were not bound but they were up, fingers curled around a hook that looked like, without much effort at all, he could tear it right out of the wall.
Heck, it looked like she could tear it out of the wall (if she could reach that high, which even in her pumps, she couldn’t).
But his back.
The wobbly Domme had been too close to him and too high (the last of the drug-addled variety).
She’d opened skin.
Twice.
Evangeline saw red fog her vision as the music and noises all around her muted.
Then she saw the Mistress, who’d stuffed herself back in her bustier, starting back for another go.
Without thinking how crazy, and possibly dangerous, it was, Evangeline darted forward, arm raised.
By nothing other than a miracle, the length of the whip moved through the webbing of her thumb and forefinger, giving her a bite, but nothing more.
Instantaneously, she curled her fingers around the tip before she could lose her chance and she gave it a rough yank, pulling the handle clean from the befuddled Mistress’s grip.
She wobbled and weaved, looked around idiotically, then glanced up and focused with effort on Evangeline.
Baton now tucked under her arm with her purse, Evangeline was coiling the whip in her hands.
Surprisingly, the other Domme stayed focused.
“Hey, what the fuck?” she demanded, only slightly slurred.
Evangeline looked to Branch.
He hadn’t moved, turned to look over his shoulder, nothing.
“I said,” it came from closer and Evangeline cut her attention back to the Domme, “what the fuck?”
“You touch what’s mine?” she asked.
“Ain’t me who’s got their hands on my whip,” the Domme fired back, still advancing and not understanding the point Evangeline was making.
Evangeline retreated, warning, “Don’t get closer.”
“Give me back my fuckin’ whip.”
“I said, do not get closer.”
“And I said,” the woman started rushing toward her, “give me back my fuckin’—”
But Evangeline had uncoiled the whip and started rounding it in a circle at her side to get a feel for its weight.
However, as the woman kept coming, she stopped it just beside her head and lashed out, cracking it at the woman’s high-heeled, thigh-high pleather boots.
The woman jumped back.
Evangeline struck out twice more, now advancing, the other Mistress retreating, the tip of the whip striking within inches of the woman’s toes.
It was then she executed an overhead crack, landing the tip near the woman’s midsection, which made her stumble back, nearly losing balance, her face getting pale with fear in the darkness.
“I told you,” Evangeline snapped, deciding to mentally thank Sixx for her excellent whip-cracking tutelage later, “do not get closer.”
She dropped her whip arm, if not the whip, and looked to Branch, not surprised to see him turned, his shirt still bunched around his neck, but his arms were crossed on his chest and he was watching the Domme who’d been working him with a bored expression on his face.
Not looking at her.
Not indicating in the slightest he was stunned she was there.
Or glad.
Or anything.
In fact, it was like she wasn’t even there.
A month she’d searched for him only to find him in this cesspit, his back opened by a whip that had Lord knew how many germs infesting it, and he looked bored.
And he’d called her unknown ministrations “lame-ass”?
Right, she wasn’t going to open up his back (that had already been done, and not by someone who knew what they were doing … or had earned that privilege).
She was going to tan his ass.
She stormed up to him, and as she did, in a way that was reflexive only due to the fact that a human being was aggressively approaching him, his attention shifted to her.
But it was only a cut of his eyes. He otherwise didn’t move.
Yeesh, he was something.
She kept moving anyway, right at him. She got close, whereupon she transferred the whip to her left hand and reached out with her right, firmly cupping his package.
His lower half jerked back, his crossed arms slightly loosened against his chest, and she saw in his eyes that she now had his full attention.
“Not even hard,” she hissed, tightening her hold on him to see in the flashing lights only his lips thinning in response. “She opened you up,” she jerked him by his crotch, “and you’re not even hard.”
He hadn’t been but she felt him stirring in her hand as his eyes bored into hers.
She released him and ordered, “Put your shirt on, we’re going.”
“Listen, lady, no trouble. He’s yours, he didn’t say. No trouble. I just want my whip back.”
Because she was angry, she turned, stepped well free of Branch and did another overhead crack, followed by a quick flick, totally showing off and not caring, especially when the woman cowered in front of her.
She then, handle down, spun the whip in a circle in front of her before she sent it spiraling and skidding across the floor to the other Domme.
She turned back, hoping to God Branch had pulled his shirt on because she’d lose her mind if he’d disobeyed her.
He’d put his shirt on.
“End of your belt out of the loop,” she bit out.
He studied her silently but his hands moved to pull the end of his belt out of the loop.
His easy acquiescence was a shock she didn’t allow herself time to fall into the wonder of it.
She approached him again, latched onto his belt and tugged him hard, stomping toward the door.
Those close who’d watched the show got right out of their way.
Those who were not as close and involved in whatever they were doing didn’t even notice them so it took some zigging and zagging to make it to the door.
Evangeline made as short a trek of it as she could.
And then they were free.
She thankfully breathed in clean air and pulled him into the gravel, hoping to all that was holy that her talents in heels led her through the stone without her turning her ankle, going down and breaking her wrist, which would mean annihilating her ego.
“Not surprised that one scored a tight ass,” one of the “security guards” muttered loudly.
She ignored him and kept dragging Branch, who was letting her, something she wasn’t concentrating on or she might not turn her ankle in the gravel. She might do something wholly un-Mistress-worthy and sink to her knees in gratitude.
Once free of earshot if not eyeshot of security, she yanked him to a stop and turned on him.
“Where’s your truck?”
“You wanna lead or you wanna follow?”
He didn’t sound amused but somehow she got that from him.
And it ticked her off.