Molly's Lips: Club Mephisto Retold by Annabel Joseph Page B

and then led her back out to his work table. Should he take her to a hospital? A plastic surgeon?
    “Sit here. Just sit here and don’t move.”
    He went back to the bedroom and closed the door and dialed Clayton’s number. Clayton picked up on the third ring.
    “Mephisto. How are you today?” he asked.
    I’m shitty. I maimed your slave. It’s going to scar and there’s nothing I can do about it.
“There was— Molly had— There was an accident.”
    “What happened?” asked Clayton sharply. “Tell me.”
    “A burn,” Mephisto forced out. “Nothing serious. She’s okay. She got a burn. She was ironing.”
    “Ironing?” Clayton sounded incredulous. “She can’t iron, my friend. You’re lucky she didn’t burn down your entire dungeon, and I’m sure she ruined your clothes!”
    “Clayton—”
    “How bad it is?” the other man asked.
    “Not bad. A little blistery. Thin, a couple inches long. I’ll take her to the hospital if you want.”
    “For a little burn like that? Answer me this, is she crying?”
    “No.”
    “Just put some antibiotic cream on it and bandage her up, then. She’s a slave, not a Ming vase.”
    “But I promised to return her free of scars. And I think this will leave a scar.”
    “You and I both know I was talking about impact scars. Not something like this. What’s really the matter?”
    Mephisto blinked, taken aback by his blunt question. He took a moment to think before he answered. “I wanted to return her to you in perfect shape. Exemplary condition, with lots of edifying and educating experiences. I wanted to improve her for you, and I’m not sure I’ve been doing that at all.”
    Clayton tsked softly. “You know what I’ve learned in my advancing age and experience? Owning a slave shouldn’t be so much work. I really believe that. At some point you have to trust them to serve you. Not with trials and tests, and hoops to jump through, and some measurable result. Sometimes you have to just appreciate what’s in their hearts. Tell me this. What kind of condition is Molly’s heart in at the moment?”
    Mephisto sighed. “Pretty good condition, I think.”
    “Is she still on orgasm restriction?”
    “Yes.”
    “Perhaps it’s time to release her from that. And release yourself a little too.” Clayton paused. “What’s in
your
heart, my friend?”
    Molly. Molly is in my heart, goddamn you.
    Mephisto hung up with Clayton a few minutes later, promising to give Molly an orgasm spectacular enough to distract her from the pain of her burn. That part would be easy. Saying goodbye tomorrow would be hard. Would she miss him? She had a scar to remember him by, if nothing else.
    “Master,” she said as soon as he came back to her. “It—it already feels better.”
    Lovely, lovely girl. She deserved to feel better. She was really such a lovely, obedient girl. “I need to see you in the bedroom,” he said.
    She followed, not questioning. Perhaps she expected him to beat her, or tease her some more, or put her back in the dreaded harness. None of it mattered to her; she would do as he asked and so all the decisions lay with him. It was such a shocking level of trust, and, as Clayton had reminded him, that came not from practice and trials, but from her heart. In the bedroom, he drew her close and ran his fingers through her soft, curly hair. He stroked her injured arm and kissed her wrist just above the loosely wrapped bandage. “Your Master misses you,” he said. He looked at her as if he expected an answer, because he wanted to hear her voice.
    “Oh. You talked to him?”
    “Yes.”
    Yes, I talked to him. Yes, you and I are talking now. Yes, I want to feel you shake and cry out under me with all that passion in your heart.
He ran his fingers over her breasts, across her flat belly and down to the apex of her thighs. He kissed her, tasting loyalty and courage and that note of sweetness that destroyed him as much as it turned him on. He stripped off his shirt and