Hazel St. James - Fighting For You (Redemption#1)[ Read online

  This part of the gig really wasn’t his thing…he loved the possibilities of the adrenaline rush that was sure to come from recreating the sensations he’d felt himself earlier in the day. Especially on a female that was cute and sexy as hell. On one that would love nothing more than for Tristan to overload her senses and then fuck her silly. But, he still saw her as a person, someone he wanted to connect with. Just because Tristan was habitually a loner, didn’t mean that he didn’t know how to have more than a physical relationship with someone. Just more often than not, he chose not to. The quick and easy fuck was fun too, but bored him to tears. Hence, why he was here in the first place.

  Valerie’s expression didn’t change as she rose from the floor and gingerly sat in the chair next to him, crossing her hands in her lap. “Sorry, Sir.”

  Tristan laughed, “Honey, don’t be sorry. I may be new to the public aspect of this, but I know that you and I make our own rules, and I don’t want you to kneel at my feet like a dog.” He reached across and pulled one of her hands out of her lap and sensually brushed his thumb across her knuckles. “I want to ask you some questions before we get started. Is that okay?”

  “Of course, Sir…I mean, Tristan. Do you want me to call you Sir?”

  “You can call me whatever makes you comfortable, honey.”

  “It is honestly a habit for me to say Sir, so if it’s okay, I will stick with that.”

  “That’ll be just fine. Now, I read through your hard and soft limits earlier and I agree with all of them. If things progress well, you are agreeable to penetrative sex with me, correct?”

  “Yes, Sir,” Valerie didn’t even hesitate for a minute, and the darkening of her eyes gave her away. She wants this as bad as I do.

  “Fair enough. I have an eight-foot bullwhip that I will be using tonight. You just need to tell me if you have reached your pain threshold and want me to stop.”

  Valerie tipped her head to the side and pulled her eyebrows together, “I have participated in many whip scenes, and I have a high pain tolerance. I promise to call yellow if I’m close to maxing out and red if I can’t handle it any further, Sir. Master Dominic said that you were just learning the art of whip play, but he’ll be monitoring the scene. I trust you, Sir. I know that we will have an enjoyable night together. Hopefully the first of many.”

  She squeezed his hand in hers for a second and let go. Giving her a wink, Tristan stood from his chair and pulled her up with him. He tugged at her hand and her small frame moved into his, wrapping his hands around her, trapping one arm behind her in his. Valerie automatically tipped her face up to look up at him with her pale blue eyes. Studying her face for a moment, Tristan could feel himself growing hard as he saw the lust lighting her up. There was even a look of adoration lining her eyes and a feeling of trust coming from her when he tightened his hold and their bodies melded together, removing the tiniest bit of space from between their near naked upper halves.

  Tristan lowered his face to hers and nibbled on the corner of her mouth. She held still as he gently caressed her mouth. There was no rush, no urgency as he softly kissed Valerie, and he felt her completely give herself over as she opened her mouth and he delved inside. Controlling the kiss, Tristan moved his head from one side to the other as he thoroughly mated their mouths together.

  He pulled back long enough to let her catch her breath and then moved in again, grasping her lower lip with his teeth and giving it a firm tug. Valerie whimpered, and wriggled in his arms, testing his hold over her. Tristan smiled as he continued to nip and lick her lips and then her jawline. He had to hold Valerie up in his arms since she had gone limp.

  Tristan lowered himself so that he could taste her flesh, all the way from below her ear, down her neck, and over the smooth skin on her shoulder. Tristan let go of his hold on her hands so that she could steady herself on his shoulders. Sinking down even further, he held onto her hips as he suctioned a bit of her exposed breast into his mouth and worked the soft flesh around, making sure to leave a mark on her skin. After he was sure that he had created a dark enough hickey, he clamped down on the tender skin until Valerie released a soft hiss and arched her back away from him.

  Satisfied that she was thoroughly prepared, Tristan pulled back and let go of her hips, but held onto her hands at her sides instead. Valerie staggered a little as she regained her composure, and then stiffened quickly as she said, “Master Dominic would not be pleased if we had a scene right here in the middle of the dining room, Sir.”

  Tristan couldn’t help but give a sinister laugh as he answered her, “Well, then I better get you into place then, hadn’t I, honey? Because I have a feeling you and I are going to be well acquainted before the night is over, and I may need to take you home with me.”

  Chapter Four

  “More, Sir. Please, more!” Valerie moaned on the other end of the room. Tristan stopped to take a break, both for himself and to give Valerie a rest. It had taken him a few lashes to get accustomed to striking at the curves and swells of a human body, but it worked to his advantage. The first strikes were somewhat haphazard and inconsistent but seemed to light a fire inside Valerie. She held to her spot as she moaned with each lash and was slowly lolling her head from front to back in a dreamlike state.

  Tristan was shaking both inside and out as he rolled his neck from side to side to loosen the kinks that had formed there. His chest was hammering wildly, and his breathing was erratic. He worked to steady himself for a few minutes and snapped back to the present when Valerie whimpered, “Tristan, I need you. Please…”

  The despair in her voice called to him in a very familiar way, one that didn’t fit with the situation at hand. Tristan felt disconnected from his body as he walked the length of the room and stood in front of a tear soaked Valerie.

  “Why are you crying?” he asked in a voice that was not his. Time seemed to cease moving as he watched her face contort in an unnamed emotion and she brought her legs together out of the deep V that she was standing in and pressed her thighs together. Anger coursed through Tristan’s veins and a coldness washed over him; not from a chill in the room, but from a chill deep inside him.

  “I…I…need to come, please, Sir. Please,” she begged.

  Valerie practically cried in relief when Tristan removed her thong and massaged her slickened folds with his fingers, careful not to touch her clit or she would explode. There was no way that he was going to give her what she wanted. Not now, not ever. She needed to know that he was in control. This bitch could beg all she wanted, but she needed to be reminded of who was in charge.

  Valerie had started moving her hips back and forth, trying to direct his fingers to where she needed it. Tristan stilled when she moved and pulled his hand away. “No. Back in the appropriate position, Valerie. You need to be punished for not doing as you’re told.”

  “Yes, Sir,” was her only response as her shoulders slumped forward and she slid her bare feet back out to brace herself.

  Tristan readied himself in position again and pulled the whip above his head in an ark and back down. He had made a tiny fraction of a step forward from his last position, to add a little more sting to the pain that he was giving Valerie. This was no longer about pleasure; things changed the minute she begged for him to help her. In Tristan’s delusional mind, she’d gone from being a submissive under his control, to being a crying, manipulative bitch. One that needed to be reminded that he wasn’t weak anymore. He was stronger…

  Time ceased to move as he watched in earnest as the petite brunette waited with shaking shoulders at the end of the room. His body was no longer responding to his commands; he was just a vessel for the anger that was flowing through his body, feeding on the energy that was coming from holding the pain implement in his hand. His anger was flowing from someplace deep inside, somewhere he hadn’t been in a very long time. The words, I need you, kept repeating in his brain as he lost the last bit of control he had over himself.

  With precise accuracy, Tr
istan threw out the first and then second lashes that landed perpendicular on the dark skin of the pitiful woman at the end of the room. His brain had shut off, and he couldn’t remember who was there with him anymore. Tristan couldn’t remember who was chained up at the end of the room, who was sitting behind him, or even where he was. Everything focused on the all-consuming need to bring this shrew as much pain as she brought to him.

  A crack split the air in the large space, and a scream pierced his brain. It wasn’t coming from him, but it was so loud and horrifying, making him drop the whip so he could cover his ears. Tristan didn’t feel the hands on his skin, but he did feel the room moving as he was turned around. Now he was looking directly into the eyes of someone he vaguely remembered, but couldn’t place right now.

  “Tristan! That’s enough!” the man yelled.

  “Thomas, get her down from there. Janelle! Someone grab…” The rest of the words were inaudible as the pounding in Tristan’s head kept up at an increasing rate, until the point that he could no longer hear anything except the blood rushing around. He turned to watch as the woman was carefully lowered from her position, and there were angry red welts that formed a haphazard corner of a box on her back. Tristan moved to walk towards the pair, but was stilled, held back by someone.

  “You stay with me, Tristan. What the fuck happened? Did you not hear Valerie yelling for you to stop? Are you a fucking sadist? Is that what this is all about?”

  Tristan, Valerie, whip, club. No, no, NOOOO!

  Tristan turned around again, able to remember who he was. His insides clamped tight when he turned and saw the other mark on Valerie’s lower back. It looked like a zipper had been undone, and blood was oozing out of the precision cut.

  His ears started ringing as the weight of what happened came crashing down on him. Tristan had hurt her…Valerie trusted him to lead her and take care of her and he’d physically abused her.

  On cue, Valerie cried out loud as someone tried to lift her limp body from where she had sagged onto the floor. The ringing changed to a thousand sledgehammers pounding and Tristan couldn’t help but press his fists against his temples to try to stop the pain and noise from getting worse.

  Someone tried to grab him from behind and Tristan flinched and pulled away. “Get your fucking hands off me!”

  The pounding in his head went on to feel like jackhammers beating his skull in. He spun in a half circle with his head clutched tightly in his hands, looking for a way out of the room. The only opening was directly behind Dominic and now there were other people standing there as well. They’re gonna grab me, he thought. I hurt one of their own, and in return they’re gonna beat the shit out of me.

  There was a small knife on the table in the corner, along with the different supplies that he had been using for their scene. Tristan picked up the knife and held it up in the air, warding off anyone that dared to come close to him again.

  One man tried to take a step forward, but was pulled back by someone else. Dominic was slowly coming at him from the side with his hands up in the air; walking like he was approaching a caged animal, which is exactly what he felt like right now.

  “I need to get out of here. Please, just let me go,” Tristan begged, the knife shaking in his hands as he spoke.

  Dominic just shook his head and kept walking towards him, but at a slower pace. “No, Tristan. You need help. Please, set the knife down. Let me help you.”

  Just then, Valerie whimpered behind him and Tristan clenched his eyes together at the pathetic noises she was making. “I didn’t mean to hurt her, man. I swear. I didn’t mean for it to go that far.”

  Tristan opened his hand and the knife fell from it, clattering against the tile floor in the room. His back touched the wall behind him, and Tristan slid down and slumped against the floor. Emotionally overloaded, he hung his head in between his legs and let the tears that he had been holding back flow freely.

  “I’m sorry, Dominic. I’m so sorry,” he sobbed as Dominic sat next to him with his hand gripping the back of Tristan’s neck in comfort, not control.

  “Okay, kid. Okay. Do you take any…”

  Tristan was aware that Dominic was speaking, but couldn’t focus on the words. Things were starting to go fuzzy and his vision was narrowing. Then, the darkness took him.

  Chapter Five

  There was no sound. Nothing at all. Not even a slow steady pounding of feet on the floor. No whispers. Nothing. It was Saturday, September 29th. Three weeks since Tristan’s world stopped turning. Since the walls came crashing down.

  This wasn’t brand new information that Tristan was bi-polar. He’d spent a few of his early teenage years working with a therapist on what they’d deemed was bi-polar disorder. Tristan would be flying high as a kite for days and even months on end, and then it would all come crashing down on him. The sense of never ending power was something he remembered from those days, but he honestly thought that it was something that he had outgrown. Never did he imagine it would be holding him hostage inside four concrete walls.

  Tristan lay in his single bed in his joint room, which was only occupied as of last week. His roommate was in his mid-forties, and thought the government was poisoning him with formaldehyde additives in everything that came from the store.

  Tristan didn’t talk much with him; not because he thought the guy was seriously fucked up, or even crazy. Though it was easy to follow that train of thought since the guy refused to sleep on the bed for the first two days he was here because it was full of “hyde” as he called it. Tristan didn’t talk to him for the exact opposite reason, actually.

  Tristan was fucked up, so fucked up that he had physically hurt an innocent woman that trusted him, as well as pulled a knife on people that were just trying to help him. His roommate had enough to deal with right now after being placed on a seventy-two hour suicide hold since he’d tried to set fire to himself in the middle of a local discount store. The road to recovery was all uphill, in blinding rain swells, with hurricane force winds blowing you over. Tristan wasn’t even sure that he was on the right road at this point, but he damn sure didn’t want to ruin anybody else’s chances of healing, or even just getting out of this psych ward.

  It was probably well into his third day here before Tristan even knew where he was, but it wasn’t for lack of trying by the staff at the Colorado Springs Mental Stress Unit. They tried to get him to participate in the nightly group activities, and occasionally he would fumble through them. Even though he didn’t have much of an appetite, if you did decided that you wanted to eat anything, you had to do that in the group area. There were no TV’s or radios in any of the rooms, either, so if you wanted something to occupy your brain, you had to sit with the other fifteen or so occupants of the psychiatric unit.

  Some of the poor schmucks in there were in far worse shape than Tristan was, but most of them were willing participants in their treatment. They were fully immersed in their mental disorders and had had time to come to terms with what was happening to them. Tristan couldn’t say that…he was a prisoner here.

  His Uncle Morgan had signed him in for a full month stay, no exceptions; not even a chance at leaving early for good behavior. Since Morgan was Tristan’s only living relative, and he was deemed medically unable to make his own decisions, his uncle had the right to do that. Dominic had been the one to take Tristan to the emergency room, but the emergency room staff had contacted his uncle when they realized that Dominic was not a blood relative. The rest of the details of the night were sketchy, but Tristan didn’t need to dwell on them anyway.

  He wasn’t surprised that his uncle had committed him when given the opportunity; Morgan was a cold-hearted bastard and Tristan was sure that his motives for keeping him inside these walls had nothing to do with healing, and more to do with keeping him out of his hair for as long as possible.

  Tristan had vague recollections of any of the events from that evening. The only things that he could remember were the bits and pieces that w
oke him up in the middle of the night: the blood dripping from Valerie’s back, the scream that tore from her lungs and pierced his soul…the look of fear on everyone’s face when he picked up the knife and started waving it around.

  The shrink assigned to Tristan had filled in the missing blanks at his first willing therapy session early on day six. Up until then, Tristan had refused to participate, and he wasn’t forced to, at least to start. They told him that he would have to work with them, if he wanted a chance at getting better. Fuck that. He didn’t want to sit through the hour-long breathing exercises, and fucking cry fests that he could hear from his room. He had no desire to bare his demons to anyone, and hoped like hell that they wouldn’t force him to.

  Instead, Tristan tried getting in touch with his Uncle Morgan to get him out of here. Once Tristan was lucid enough to rationalize the dire situation he was in, he started calling his uncle, but the fucker would never take his calls. He never answered his cell phone, and when he called the office, his secretary would say he was unavailable.

  Finally, after the sixth full day of being locked in here, Tristan had reached his limit. He screamed into the public phone in the hallway that they had better get his fucking uncle down here immediately, or he was going to find a way out of here and hunt each and every one of them down. Yeah, that got him nowhere fast. Well, the orderlies came and restrained him until a nurse came and sedated him. Another full day passed before he came out of that haze, and then Tristan came to the conclusion that he had to deal with this their way, or be forced to stay here for as long as Morgan, his medical guardian, saw fit.

  It was three in the morning, and Tristan had slept most of the day in his room. He’d spent his required one hour with the shrink and two hours with his therapist, but they weren’t making much progress. Tristan was now well aware of the fact that he had a severe mania break and a relapse with his bi-polar disease since he wasn’t taking his medicines anymore. But he had so many questions that needed to be answered, and no one seemed to think that they were important…right now. The biggest one for Tristan was how long until he would be fully recovered and could get on with his regular life? They had him taking lithium medication, which was making his entire body feel numb and stiff as a board. He hated the shit, but he knew he had to play their game if he wanted to get out of here.