The bouncer at the door didn’t even stop him. Only at Arty’s parties would Danny look dressed for the occasion wearing black jeans, cowboy boots and nothing else. He didn’t notice the leather and corsets, was blind to lipstick, high heels and dog collars as he scanned the inside of Arty’s mansion filled with deviants. The lights were sparse with candles in every corner, making it hard to see faces in the shadows.
“Carlow!”
Danny turned around, stuffing his keys in his pocket as he spotted Arty walking toward him wearing a pair of extremely short leather shorts and a dog collar. Any other time and Danny would have considered it his duty as a card-carrying smartass to make fun of him. This time he rushed at him fast enough that Arty cowered, his dark eyes wide in fear. Arty was Tony’s accountant and go-to guy, but Danny was the muscle. Between the two of them, Danny won the intimidation contest.
“Where is he?” Danny growled, his voice fierce in his panic as he grabbed Arty and resisted the urge to shake him.
“You gotta understand,” Arty started, his voice quivering. “I can’t babysit everyone and I’m not one to tell people what they can and can’t do, ya know?”
“Where is he?” Danny asked slowly, punctuating each word.
“I’ve never seen anyone with a pain tolerance like him,” Arty said quickly, obviously still in excuse mode as he turned and started walking down the hall. “They swear he didn’t safe word, but I just don’t see how that can be true. They gotta be full of shit. I banned them. They’re never playing at my place again.”
Danny followed him, his apprehension mounting as Arty continued to ramble in a cowardly, weak-spirited way he found repulsive. He and Paul may both be submissives, but Paul was the exact opposite of Arty. There was a core of raw strength to Paul that was unshakable. He was powerful because of his submissiveness. Instead of becoming angry and violent to survive his brutal childhood, Paul had simply taught himself to like it. That made him near invincible in Danny’s mind. It was an incredible feat, one Danny had spent a lot of time thinking about over the past few weeks.
Once again he found himself wishing for a chance to take back pushing Paul away, but he couldn’t. Now he was stuck swallowing back the sick dread of raw fear, the taste bitter on his tongue as Arty stopped in front of a door at the end of a long, marbled hallway.
“He won’t talk to us,” Arty explained, his hand on the doorknob. “We figured the hospital was a last resort.”
Danny’s head snapped back, his eyes widening as his body went into flee mode. He was suddenly very afraid of seeing something he couldn’t handle. Instead of bowing to his instincts, Danny shoved Arty aside hard enough that the smaller man stumbled. In comparison to the dim flicker of candlelight, the shock of track lighting had Danny squinting against it as he opened the door himself.
A man he didn’t know was kneeling on the floor, leaning over Paul, whose back was to the door. Danny’s stomach lurched. He turned away because the sight was more than he could take. This made last time look like a paper cut. Someone had literally destroyed Paul’s back.
“W-What…” he started, not even recognizing his own voice as he searched for inner strength to deal with this when the guilt was tearing him up inside.
“Caning,” explained the man who was kneeling next to Paul, obviously understanding the question behind the sputtering horror. “In the right hands it can be a pretty extreme weapon of torture.”
“What the fuck?” Danny choked, turning around, forcing himself to stare at Paul’s back more as punishment to himself than anything. “How could someone let this happen?”
“They were playing with him privately. When he passed out, one of the Dommes panicked. No one would have let this happen if they’d been doing a public scene. We didn’t know he was playing with Raven. She’s banned from everywhere, but her friend used her invitation to sneak her in. We usually have some safeguards against things like this.”
“Who are you and why are you touching him?” Danny growled, his mind snapping into a strange survival mode where details and solutions became essential.
“My name is Jason,” he explained, looking up at Danny with warm brown eyes that gleamed with compassion. “I’m a doctor.”
Arty, Danny could give or take, but this man radiated a calming energy Danny immediately trusted. He just had a difficult time wrapping his mind around his title. “You don’t look like a doctor.”
Jason smiled, showing off deep dimples in both cheeks. “We’re allowed to have social lives. I was playing when Arty found me and explained the emergency.”