The Velvet Collar

  THE VELVET COLLAR

  by

  C. P. MANDARA

  Published by Chimera Books

  Distributed by Smashwords

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  This work is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published, and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. The author asserts that all characters depicted in this work of fiction are eighteen years of age or older, and that all characters and situations are entirely imaginary and bear no relation to any real person or actual happening.

  Copyright C. P. Mandara. The right of C. P. Mandara to be identified as author of this book has been asserted in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyrights Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  This novel is fiction - in real life practice safe sex.

  It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.

  - Marcus Aurelius

  The Velvet Collar

  I made a bet with my newlywed submissive wife. I told her that if she could behave herself impeccably for a week, she could wear the trousers for a day. That included being able to dominate me. The bet was almost guaranteed to be impossible to achieve, and yet somehow she did it. It looks like I'm in for a fun night, doesn't it?

  If that wasn't bad enough, Kyle has been spotted near our home. It scares me. I can feel the net closing in, and I'm still no closer to unravelling the pieces. We need to figure out what Redcliff wants, and fast.

  In order to do this, I'm going to have to talk to my mother-in-law, who still isn't speaking to me. I have no idea what her problem is. She tried to kill me, not the other way around...

  Chapter One - Kyle

  "Kidnap her, lure Mark in, then threaten to kill the girl in front of him. That'll get him to sign anything we want him to, just in case he has a prenup." Michael wheezed for a bit after that, and the old boy didn't sound good. I didn't think the bastard had too many years left in him, but I'd said that about five years ago and he was still here.

  "Why would I do that?" There was no way I needed an enemy like Matthews breathing down my neck wherever I went, so if I was killing Jennifer, I was killing her husband straight after. I'd play with them first, though. If they were going to die anyway, I could have a little fun with them.

  "You're not actually going to kill her, you idiot. If we kill Jen our lives will end rather abruptly." Michael's sarcastic tone was not lost on me. "Actually scrap that; if either Jen's mother or father find us, they'll end our lives very slowly and extremely unpleasantly. We need to kill Mark. He's the key that will get us out of this mess."

  "You think you'll be able to control Jen as soon as she inherits all the money?" I was sceptical. Although I didn't doubt dad would make some obscene threats if she didn't toe the line, she had more leverage now - lots and lots of money. With that came very powerful and influential friends.

  "We've done it before, so I see no reason why we can't do it again. All it will take is a couple of perfectly placed warnings and she'll give us whatever we want. She doesn't have to know what the money's for. We can share the spoils between us." Dad then began coughing and spluttering, trying to clear his chest, and it wasn't until someone had given him a glass of water that he managed to calm down.

  "What is the money for?" Dad already had bags full of the stuff so I couldn't understand what all the fuss was about.

  "None of your fucking business. Just do as you're told," he snapped at me, and the tone he used pissed me off. All I did these days was run errands for him, and the rewards of being an obedient son weren't great. It was about time I got something worthwhile out of our arrangement. So if daddy dearest thought I was giving him any of my money, after I'd done all the dirty work, he was much mistaken. Once I had Jen the rest would be easy - just as long as I could get away with it, and that remained to be seen.

  "How are you going to make sure no one finds out?" There it was, the most important question I'd asked all morning.

  "I have connections. We'll make sure you are out of the country with an ironclad alibi." Nodding to myself, I decided that was a reasonable plan providing it could be pulled off. I'd want details of his "alibi" and my supposed whereabouts, but we'd talk about that later.

  "Anything particularly nasty you want me to do with the pair before I get rid of Mark?" Dad always enjoyed a spot of torture. He loved to drag out the moment.

  "I thought you'd never ask," came his slow, but brutally cold reply.

  Chapter Two - Mark

  "I adore being married to you, Mrs Matthews."

  A very unladylike snort greeted my remark.

  "Well of course you do. You get to tie me up, spank me, and generally drive me absolutely crazy and there's not a thing I can do about it."

  She had a point. I currently had her pinned to the wall, and she looked very fetching in the cast iron shackles I'd had made for her.

  "Thank goodness you came into my life when you did. I might never have discovered this marriage thing otherwise." I gave her a feral grin as I plucked a vicious rubber flogger off the wall.

  "Exactly," she purred, blithely unconcerned by my wicked instrument, or maybe I should say the two wicked instruments that were currently walking towards her. At the moment we were both naked and very comfortable with the fact. "Marriage has been a wonderful walk in the park for you, Mr Matthews. You get your meals cooked, your shirts ironed, and your every instruction obeyed to the letter." She looked deadly serious for a moment, but I caught the light twinkling in her eyes, and it just made me want to whip my wife all the more. Oh, happy days. Naturally I had to have the last word, though.

  "You burn food, you set fire to clothes, and you purposely disobey me in nearly anything that matters in order to get your ass tanned. This is probably why I avoided marriage for so long. You have no idea how hard it is to keep you in check." I kept my face straight, but it was a hard-won battle.

  "You like your food well done, shirts are extremely overrated, and at least I'm thoughtful enough to give you plenty of reasons to punish me. It would be even harder work if you had to come up with your own, darling." She batted her sultry little eyelashes at me, and the merest hint of a smile appeared at the corner of her lips. I swear she did it on purpose. My wife knew how to press all my buttons without even fucking trying. It was infuriating sometimes.

  "You know I want to throw you on the bed right now and fuck you until you're a sobbing, screaming, hot mess?" I thought about for that a moment. "Actually, that's a lie. I want to fuck you every which way there is, every single second of every single damn day until there is no breath left in my body or yours." I ran the flogger gently up her stomach, and the annoying woman grinned down at me.

  "You're quite the romantic, Mr Matthews. Too much more of that kind of talk and you'll start freaking me out. Now put your money where your mouth is and whip me until I've forgotten which day of the week it is." She eyed the flogger, as if to encouraging me to do my worst. My wife really was incorrigible.

  "Am I freaking you out?" I grinned wolfishly at her but knew better.

  "No." Her voice was clipped, and her eyes were still lustfully glued to my whip.

  "Could I freak you out?" Yes, I was using delaying tactics to annoy her, and yes it was working.

  "I doubt it. Unless you want to re-enrol me back at the ponygirl farm, we're probably good." She then wriggled her hips towards me as far as the restraints would allow and stared lustfully at my c
ock which was straining for attention. Down boy, down. We have work to do.

  "I bet I could freak you out without even having to mention the words sex, kink or BDSM."

  Jen wrinkled her nose at me. "This isn't where you confess to me that you're a World of Warcraft geek and that you secretly go by the name of 'Night Elf' is it?"

  My eyes narrowed. "You really want to be whipped that badly, huh?" I raised my eyebrow at her, but my mouth twitched in amusement.

  "For God's sake whip me already. You've left me on my own for a week while you were swanning around at some conference in Edinburgh, and now you're home you want to talk? We've been talking all week on the telephone," she wailed, "just let loose with that flogger and fuck me before I go crazy."

  "Crazy, mad, bad?" That was our code for the intense, dark stuff. I just wanted to make sure that we were on the same page.

  "Crazy, mad, bad. Mark, I've been waiting all damn week for this. Don't leave me hanging." Her voice was all breathy and ragged, just how I liked it. Christ, this woman could turn me on with the sound of her voice. Some dominant I was.

  "Sorry, darling. I've just got to go grab something. Be back in ten mins." I swirled the flogger up her inner thigh and watched as her leg trembled.

  "Mark Matthews, you dare pull that stunt on me and I'll..."

  I didn't hear the rest of her sentence because I'd already left the room and swung the door shut. I did catch the resulting scream, however. A smug grin settled on my features at the thought of letting her stew for a while. When would Jennifer learn that she did not wear the trousers in this relationship? It shouldn't be necessary for me to have to demonstrate the obvious nearly every damn day. Honestly, the woman was going to drive me nuts.

  I left her hanging for twenty minutes. I knew she'd go berserk, and that was exactly how I wanted her. If there was one thing I particularly enjoyed, it was tormenting my wife, and there were numerous ways to go about it. This time I was going to be particularly evil, but not in the way you're expecting. Oh no, I had another agenda this evening, and though I'd put off talking about it for the past year or so, it was time to bring it up again.

  Rifling through Jen's handbag downstairs it took me a while to locate what I was searching for. This was mainly because Jen carried her whole life around with her in that bag, and if she could have fitted the kitchen sink in there, I'm sure she would have. Scrap that, Jen would have gone for a dishwasher.

  Inside I found makeup, perfume, a diary, a cell phone, car keys, mints, earrings, a travel coffee cup, a pair of sunglasses, a purse, a book, an iPad, a cereal bar, and I'd barely touched the surface. Everything was placed haphazardly, and there was no rhyme, reason, or order to anything that was in it. How did the woman live like this? Sighing, I emptied the bag on the floor, and by a long process of elimination finally found what I was looking for. I smiled grimly to myself. I was about to create World War III but this was important to me, so I needed to get it off my chest.

  When I re-entered the bedroom Jen was ready for me.

  "Mark, you're a complete bastard. We've been apart for a week and I'm desperate. You know this because we've been having phone sex for the last five days, and you've refused to let me climax every single time. If I don't have sex soon I'm going to explode, and you made this monster. I just want you inside me. Don't make me wait." She was almost wailing in need, and the sight was nearly my undoing. It would have been so easy to have taken my pants off and slammed into her up against the wall, but I meant to make my point tonight, and if I ended up going to bed with blue balls, that was a risk I was prepared to take.

  "How much do you want to bet I can't freak you out?" My voice was dangerously low.

  "Are we back to that again? Couldn't you have just said that earlier?" Jen sounded exasperated, as well she might. "I'll bet whatever you want. Now get over here and finish what you started, darling, else I'll start screeching, screaming, and crying - all of which you seem to be allergic to these days."

  She was right. Tears don't usually bother me, but for some reason Jen's do. I can still spank her to the point of tears and not suffer too much, but if I know I've upset her until she gets to the point she's sobbing her heart out, I'm a mess. It's annoying, but I guess that's what this being-in-love-thing is all about. Ugh. I'd been bitten by the bug. Concentrate. Let's get back to the situation in hand.

  "If I successfully freak you out, you will accompany me to Escape." Jen's face immediately turned frosty, as I knew it would. She had nearly died after our last visit there when someone had tried to poison her. We knew her father was behind the episode, but we still didn't know why. Although I'd made it my life's mission to find out, at the moment I was still none the wiser despite my best efforts on the project.

  "I will not." She bit the words out one by one, and her eyes shot daggers at me. I sighed.

  "I need to go, as they're honouring me with an award of some sort, and the instructions stipulate that I need to bring a partner. Would you rather I go with someone else?"

  "You wouldn't dare," she growled. She was right, I wouldn't. There would be tears and everything.

  "Just this one time, sweetheart, and then I'll pull out as one of the partners and pass it along to someone else."

  "Can't you just say 'no'?" It was a reasonable question. I could just say no, but it wasn't as simple as that.

  "There are a lot of powerful people in my sphere of influence there, and some close friends. I can't insult them by not appearing. Anyway, I haven't freaked you out yet so there's still a chance you might not have to go."

  "And do I get a bet in return?" Jen's eyes darkened as she used them to glare at me full force. I almost took a step back under their vicious pull but managed to get a hold of myself.

  "Absolutely." It couldn't be this easy, could it? I held my breath and waited for what would come next. The glare suddenly disappeared from my wife's face, and a cunning little smile replaced it. Uh-oh.

  "I get to dominate you for an evening. Just one evening, darling. Shouldn't be anything to worry about. You're a big boy, right?"

  My jaw suddenly locked itself in place, and it was my turn to scowl. "You're not playing very fair, darling." I picked up the flogger again and began caressing its rubber tails.

  "Neither are you." That was a fair comment. Now how did I wriggle myself out of this one, while still getting what I wanted? Decisions, decisions.

  "OK, but I have a condition for your bet. You have to behave yourself impeccably for a week as my submissive, without putting a foot wrong, and then you can have your night. If that's acceptable, we have a deal." There was no way Jennifer would be able to behave herself for a whole week, so I would never have to worry about upholding my side of the bargain, thank God.

  "Why does there have to be a condition?" Jen was obviously going for the hard sell here, but I was having none of it.

  "You get a condition on mine, too. If you don't freak out at what I'm about to do next you don't have to go." I held my empty palms up on either side of my body, to indicate our deal was a good one.

  "Will you be using pain to freak me out?" Jen's eyes narrowed as well they might. I was fond of dishing out pain, but as it happened I wouldn't need to touch her for what I was about to do next.

  "Nope. I'll be doing that later though, and you're going to love it." I grinned wickedly and tickled her left breast with the end of my flogger, watching as she danced and wriggled underneath its teasing trails.

  "Fine. We have a deal. You do your worst." She then looked at me expectantly and waited.

  Slowly I pulled out the thing I had stolen from her handbag. Jen immediately rolled her eyes, but to her credit she didn't go berserk on me, which was what she'd done last year when I'd brought up the subject.

  "Are we really going to go through this again?" She gave me a look that should have been accompanied by a great big sigh and her hands on her hips. She then sighed, as if to prove me right, but her hands weren't going anywhere at the moment. I smiled smugly
.

  "No, we aren't going through this again. This year I am going to be crazy, mad, bad and flush all of these beasties down the toilet. As today is Friday you'll either have to go without sex for at least three days or risk giving me what I want. Either way, it will be hugely entertaining." My smile was big and wide, and yes, I know I'm a complete bastard. I'm also not above resorting to dirty tricks to get what I want.

  "You wouldn't." Her horrified look spoke volumes.

  "I absolutely would." I waggled the packet of birth control pills at her one more time, to let her know I was serious, and then began popping them out, one by one, into my hand.

  "Mark Matthews, I am far too young to have babies. We've only been together for just over a year, and we've only known each other for about eighteen months. It's too soon."

  "I'm getting old. It's not too soon. Besides which, one hundred years ago women were probably on their third or fourth baby by your age." I nodded my head encouragingly. She hadn't freaked out yet. "It's far better to have them while you're young. The medical profession also agrees with me." I winked at her.

  "Mark Matthews, we were born in the twentieth century, where life expectancy is much greater than it was one hundred years ago, and the medical profession might be right, but I'm not ready to have babies just yet. Can't we wait a year?" There was a wailing note behind Jen's voice, so I was heading in the right direction. My visit to Escape was in the bag.

  "That's what you said last year."

  "But I want to travel the world." Jen was rattling her fists quite animatedly against her cuffs now, as she made her point clear, but I was ready for her.