Step Beast Read online

  He smacked her again. Now both cheeks tingled. Her whole ass felt hot.

  “Youch!” She bit her lip, trying to draw some of the feeling away from the other end of her body. “Okay, now it’s seven.”

  “No, Tilly,” he admonished. “You have to go back to six.”

  “OUCH! Six! Ow! Seven!”

  “That’s more like it.” He sounded pleased with her progress, and if it didn’t hurt so much, she might have been pleased with herself.

  What the hell is wrong with you?

  She didn’t really have time to analyze it, though. Beast had caught a rhythm, now that she was counting regularly, her voice high, thin, reedy, just a whoosh of air every time his hand came down against the tender skin of her behind. She couldn’t imagine how red her ass was. She knew how red it felt. Her face, too. The music, somewhere below, pounded through them, a steady beat. She felt it in between blows, a strange off-beat to his hand striking her flesh.

  Tilly tried to keep still, waiting for it to be over, counting it out. As she went from eight to nine to ten, she stopped complaining and crying. The sensation of his flesh striking hers, rocking her body across his lap, was hypnotizing. It sent her into another world. She was both out of her body, and more aware of it, than she ever remembered being. It was like a heightened sense of reality.

  She moaned softly, squirming in his lap, and he hesitated. She felt it happen, a hitch in her chest when the rhythm briefly stopped. But then he struck her again. Another moan escaped her throat and she wiggled, although her thoughts weren’t about evading the blows, not anymore. She wasn’t really thinking at all. Her body did what it wanted, and to her surprise and shame—it wanted this.

  Tilly tried to hide it—from herself, from him—but her body’s response couldn’t be denied. The wetness on her cheeks was beginning to be overpowered by the wetness between her thighs. She was getting turned on by this whole thing!

  What in the hell is wrong with me?

  But there wasn’t time to think. He barely gave her time to breathe, even though she managed to keep counting. She was shocked by her arousal, afraid he would see, know somehow, and be disgusted by it. Because her pussy felt so fat and swollen between her legs, she thought he must be able to see it, even if she kept her legs tightly closed.

  And she wasn’t, so much, anymore. Her writhing and shifting had brought her ass up higher, not to get away from him, but almost as if she could present herself more completely to this mastery. From eleven to twelve to thirteen, she was thoroughly ashamed of herself, but uncontrollably aroused. Her clit pulsed and her nipples hardened to sharp points that rubbed the leather every time her body jostled in his lap.

  That’s when she noticed that Beast was getting hard.

  Holy fuck!

  Her body stiffened, her toes curling, feeling the heat of his erection against the soft flesh of her middle. She couldn’t see the look on his face, and she was almost glad. The dark look of lust in his eyes—he’s getting off on this!—would just fuel her own. Even so, she became more aroused by his arousal and couldn’t help wriggling and writhing in a way that any unbiased observer couldn’t help but interpret as something more than a desperate attempt to escape.

  She wondered if he knew how much it was turning her on, and flushed with shame and humiliation at the thought.

  But from fourteen to twenty, it was all she could do to keep from coming.

  She fought it so hard, squeezing her thighs together, pussy swollen and throbbing between them, that it shocked her when it was over.

  “That’s it.” Beast pulled her yoga pants up unceremoniously.

  He gave her one more smack for good measure, throwing her quickly up onto her feet, where she tottered and had to lean against the desk for balance, wobbly, stripped now of any dignity. She rubbed her ass, which was still stinging mercilessly. She couldn’t look at him.

  “Now you’ve learned your lesson, haven’t you?” His voice had a little more grit to it. She saw him give a curt nod out of the corner of her eye. “You are not, under any circumstances, to follow me around or come here again. Do you understand me?”

  Still gasping, Tilly just nodded her submission.

  Meekly, she followed him out of the office, down the creepy stairs, and out of the club to his car. There were others in the lot now, people milling about. The club was clearly open—and busy. But Tilly was too distracted to pay much attention.

  Beast unlocked the doors, and she sat down in the passenger seat very slowly and carefully. Holy hell, her ass was on fire!

  Tilly said nothing on the ride home. She snuck glances at him occasionally, when they were stopped at a red light or when he was distracted, merging onto the highway, but couldn’t gauge what he was feeling. No surprise there. He’d always been good at covering up.

  But his body didn’t lie.

  Neither did hers. She was only glad that her t-shirt was long enough to cover the crotch of her yoga pants, because she’d soaked the damned things through. She even slid her purse into her lap, hoping to hide the evidence of her arousal. As ashamed and shocked as she was by her body’s reaction, she was even more surprised by his.

  It doesn’t mean anything.

  That was probably true. So he’d gotten off on “punishing” her. Why was that so surprising? He enjoyed hurting her and it made him hard. Sadistic bastard.

  And still, the memory of his cock throbbing against her belly made the pulse between her legs even more unbearable. It didn’t matter to her why he was turned on—even if his arousal came from her pain—it was the fact that it had elicited a feeling from him that mattered. Maybe he wasn’t as indifferent as he appeared to be after all.

  As Beast snaked his powerful car up the long, curving driveway of her mother’s house, Tilly could think of nothing but getting back to her bedroom as fast as possible. Alone, she would strip down and climb under the covers, and ease the precious ache between her legs, reliving the memory of his “punishment” again. And again.

  And again.

  Chapter 4

  Telling Frankie had been a mistake. Tilly didn’t know it until it was too late, though, because she didn’t see that naughty flash of mischief in her best friend’s eyes until she neared the end of her tale. Tilly relayed what had happened after Frankie left to get her hair done. She told her how Beast had driven her to the club and locked her in the office, how her stepbrother had punished her with a spanking—a fact that both fascinated and appalled her friend.

  “He fucking spanked you?” Frankie had asked, incredulous. “I would have twisted his nuts off and fed them to the squirrels.”

  “I don’t think squirrels eat those kind,” Tilly had replied, making them both laugh.

  Her biggest mistake had been telling Frankie the name and location of the club.

  Frankie had listened, open-mouthed, to Tilly’s sordid tale of woe, interjecting with an “Oh my God,” or a “fuck me sideways” from time to time, but when Tilly got past the spanking part to being out in the parking lot afterward, music blaring from the warehouse, people streaming in and out, that’s when the mischief-look showed up.

  And alarm bells went off in Tilly’s head like fireworks. But by then, it was too late.

  Frankie was already insisting they had to go check out The Block.

  Tilly protested, but her objections were waved away. How could Tilly not want to go check out a new club they’d never heard of before? It was the promise of something new, an adventure. Frankie had caught it like a bloodhound scenting a quivering rabbit. They were doomed, Tilly thought, as Frankie pulled her car into the lot.

  Just looking at the place made Tilly’s bottom tingle with the memory.

  From the outside, The Block looked like a typical nightclub. There was almost nothing to distinguish it on the outside from the other warehouse buildings except that the parking lot around it was filled with cars—mostly upscale vehicles like Porsches and BMWs—and the fact that The Block looked somewhat older.
/>   The building was likely from the early part of the twentieth century and probably the very first building in the area, Tilly thought. In very faded, old style letters near the top of its chipped brick surface, the words “MacDougall’s Meats” could still be deciphered, along with what looked like some 1890s butcher with a walrus moustache, an apron, and a giant cleaver in one hand. Right next to him was—of course—an old butcher’s block.

  “I wonder what old MacDougall would make of his warehouse now?” Frankie mused as they stood in line to get in. The line wasn’t long, but it was being policed by a no-nonsense looking bouncer, a guy almost as big as her stepbeast.

  “Old MacDougall had a block,” sang Tilly experimentally. Frankie laughed.

  Frankie was wearing black stockings and heels. Her flowery top was large, loose, and flowing. Lots of glitter and large necklaces. Her hair was pulled back away from her face, but splayed out, long and luxuriant behind her. Tilly, on the other hand, had on a skimpy purple top. She had hesitated to wear it, and even wondered why she had bought it, but Frankie was delighted by it when Tilly had pulled it hesitantly from her drawer.

  “Oh God, yes, you’ve gotta wear that,” Frankie had insisted.

  “Ugh, I don’t know...”

  “I know. Trust your fairy godmother, m’dear.” Frankie had stuck out her tongue and rolled her eyes, waving an imaginary wand. “Bippity-boppity-boo!”

  Tilly couldn’t help laughing.

  Then Frankie had worked her magic, rooting around in Tilly’s closet and pulling out a short, pleated, black leather skirt. It was all the way at the back—hidden from Liv, of course. But Frankie found it. And made Tilly wear it. Then it had been time for make-up. Tilly had drawn the line at the heavy glitter Frankie had wanted her to wear around the eyes, calling it cheap, while Frankie rolled her own eyes in exasperation.

  Otherwise, though, Tilly had given her fairy godmother full rein.

  And the result was…

  “Oh my God,” said Tilly in amazement, when Frankie was finally done. “I look like a raccoon. I look like Daryl Hannah in Blade Runner when she spray paints her face.”

  “You’re far prettier than Daryl Hannah, and you do not look like a raccoon. Now shut up and enjoy going to the ball, Cinder-fucking-rella!”

  If Liv had been awake, she wouldn’t have let the girls out of the house, but she was asleep in her room, the TV still on, when they crept down the back stairs.

  Now, in the line to get into The Block, Frankie asked, “What do you think your brother does here, anyway?”

  “Really, I have no idea.” Tilly both hoped and feared she would see him tonight. His car wasn’t in the driveway at home, that was all she knew. She had looked this way and that as they went through the parking lot, searching for his Mustang, but hadn’t seen it. That meant nothing, however. There were a lot of cars there.

  “A bouncer, maybe?”

  “He could certainly do that, but I think it would bore him.”

  “Do you think,” here Frankie lowered her voice and spoke into Tilly’s ear, “this is some kind of front for something?”

  Tilly shrugged, made a face. It had been one of her first thoughts, too.

  “Ooh. That reminds me.” Frankie pulled out her cell phone. She took a selfie, doing duckface, knowing full well how much of a pet peeve Tilly had about duckface. Frankie laughed as Tilly looked away, arms folded in disgust. Frankie snapchatted the pic.

  “One of these days,” she said. “I’m going to make you do a duckface, too, somehow. Just you watch. It will trend on Twitter.”

  Tilly shook her head. It was too warm out for any kind of coat, but there were several people in line wearing long, light trench coats anyway. She wondered if it was to cover something up? But what?

  “Oh God,” groaned Frankie, as they neared the front of the line, watching the bouncer checking somebody over. “I hope this doesn’t turn out to be one of those places where you have to know somebody to get in—have to be on some fucking list.”

  “No,” said a man in Elton John looking sunglasses behind them—he was wearing them, even though it was already dark. “That’s the other part,” he added, smiling strangely.

  Tilly was about to ask him what “other part” he meant, when the bouncer motioned the girls forward impatiently to show their IDs. They did—both of them being barely twenty-two— and they were let in. Just like that.

  Inside, it was crowded and loud and too dark to see so easily the remnants of early twentieth century butchery—the brick and steel underpinnings, the various exposed pipes running across the dark ceiling. There was the odd meat cleaver, and some rather brutal looking grinding machinery chained or bolted to walls and ceilings—a decent air of nostalgia from the days when epidemics from badly packaged meat were not uncommon.

  Kind of a creepy theme for a night club, Tilly thought, but she supposed it fit the goth sort of crowd. There was drinking, dancing, and an ongoing lightshow. There were two floors. Or rather, a ground floor and a mezzanine. The people on the mezzanine gave the impression somehow they were the more important ones, languidly lounging about at larger tables, on more comfortable chairs. The place was lit, apparently, so that they could observe the groundlings more easily than they could be observed by them. She got the impression that you had to be somebody to be up there, even though there was no visible attempt to block the lesser mortals from ascending.

  Tilly had feared at first she and Frankie were overdressed, but standing in line and later entering the club, she felt they fit right in. Her “smoky eye” was tame compared to the make-up on most of the girls there. The place was bouncing, hot, but definitely upscale. The bartenders wore white shirts, black vests, and black ties. The bouncers—except for the more informally dressed one outside, for some reason—wore expensive suits, which somehow accentuated the appearance of a potential for physical brutality. Should it be necessary.

  Tilly always found entering a club was like jumping into a lake—you knew you wanted to swim, but it was unpleasantly cold until you got used to it. But Frankie, as usual, dove in right away. Tilly almost lost sight of her as she launched herself onto the dance floor, and Tilly had to run after her. They got thirsty so they went to the bar where Frankie started chatting people up, laughing loudly, flirting with guys, who then bought them drinks.

  It wasn’t long before Frankie was the center of male attention in that little part of the establishment, but Tilly wasn’t envious. Too many men drooling over her made her feel uncomfortable. In fact, just the looks she was getting in her short skirt and tight top were enough to make her want to slink into a dark corner and blend into the shadows.

  But Frankie and Tilly went out onto the floor again, mostly because Frankie wanted to dance. They yelled occasionally to each other over the music, and Frankie talked close intermittently to other men. Tilly saw Frankie look up to the mezzanine across the room, smiling at someone, but Tilly couldn’t figure out who and it was too loud to ask for details.

  Then a bartender came up to Frankie and shouted something in her ear over the music. He smiled and gestured to a man on the other side of the room, way up on the mezzanine where Frankie had just been looking. Tilly saw an older guy—tall, dark, and handsome. Nice suit. Expensive. Tilly could tell, even from a distance. He smiled and gave a kind of casual salute, gesturing at Frankie to come on over.

  The bartender left and Frankie leaned into Tilly’s ear—“See that guy?” She pointed him out, but of course, Tilly had already noticed. “He wants to buy me a drink. You coming?”

  Tilly followed Frankie, of course, like she always did. She was amazed that the two of them could have been passing signals to each other at such a long distance. Tilly felt like she could only ever flirt at point blank range. And even then, it was hit and miss. She was like the A-Team when it came to flirting.

  Frankie took Tilly’s hand and pulled her towards the stairway, keeping her close. It was a good thing, too, because the place was packed with peop
le.

  Up on the mezzanine, the man sat in a large booth behind a table that looked out on the dance floor below. The music was still loud there, but not quite as loud as on the main floor. Silento was starting up with that ridiculous song Tilly recognized from Frankie’s ringtone—watch me whip, watch me nae nae—as the man stood up, smiling and gesturing graciously for the two of them to sit down. He introduced himself as Erich. A waiter appeared, surprising Tilly on her left—there was clearly table service on the mezzanine.

  “What would you ladies like?” Erich looked at Frankie first. The waiter listened carefully and was off the instant they had spoken their desires.

  The man wasn’t exactly rude to Tilly, but it was pretty clear it was Frankie he was interested in. He praised her dancing and her clothes, and Frankie drank it all in. She was no witless ingénue by a longshot, but she knew how to enjoy compliments. Frankie was, after all, on the rebound, and this sort of attention went a long way toward healing that big Dante-shaped wound she’d recently sustained.