Page 1 of Rise By Sin

PROLOGUE

AVA

I was officially in a good mood as I stepped onto the street from the subway station and almost skipped towards my brother’s club. Okay, so maybe skipping was a stretch for me. I wasn’t exactly a sunshine and rainbows type of girl, but I was feeling free and light right then.

That was because I had just officially finished college forever. All assignments were handed in, classes over, and exams completed. In less than a week I would officially graduate with a degree in psychology and I would finally take steps to achieve my ultimate goal – to become an FBI profiler. I had a way to go before I’d achieve that dream, but I was finally on my way.

I’d had plans to go out with a few of my girls to celebrate that night, but as soon as I got home and started searching through my closet, I knew I was going to blow them off in favor of what I really wanted to do to celebrate – go toTemple. It was a club owned by my older brother – Colt.

He owned several businesses across the city, including the club, several restaurants, and his newest venture – an upscale cocktail bar inside a newly built and recently opened luxury hotel downtown.

My brother was a successful business man, despite the fact he was only in his early thirties. Of course, he’d started out with the luxury of a large inheritance left to him by our father, not that I liked to refer to the man as that. Timothy MacMillan had been the sperm donor who created me in the course the very brief affair he had with my mom, but he had never ever been a father to me. He hadn’t wanted me from the day my mom told him she was pregnant with me, and he made that clear enough when he fired her from her role as a receptionist, at one of his fancy ass hotels, and shoved two hundred bucks in her hand as he showed her the door.

He had died of a heart attack when I was five years old, and in that time I had only ever met him when my mom was desperate enough to go to him for cash. On all of those occasions he never once even acknowledged I was there and I had no memory of him even looking at me. I did, however, remember Colt from those times. He was ten years older than me, and several times he had taken my hand and led me off to get a soda, or candy while my mom and his dad stood arguing in hushed tones, usually in the lobby of one of his hotels. Colt had been kind to me then, even when I didn’t really understand who he was.

Then, seven years ago, when my mom’s crippling depression and bouts of mania led her to take her own life, Colt had come into my life once again. I’d been seventeen at the time and pissed as hell at my mom for her selfish actions. I’d also been traumatized after finding her cold and gray, in our tub, blood stained water surrounding her, and her violently slit wrists sitting on the lip of the tub, blood pouring even still. Yeah, I’d been a real messed up, bitchy, angry teenager then, but Colt had taken me in. I’d had no one else, and when CPS called him, he'd come for me instantly with no hesitation, despite the fact he was only a kid himself.

We’d had a rough road for a few years. I’d been so angry and scarred by what my mother had done, and Colt had no idea what to do with me. We’d fought like cat and dog, and he’d tried everything he could to keep me in line, not that it ever worked. I’d partied hard, drunk even harder, and screwed anyone who showed me even one iota of interest. My wake up call had come just after my nineteenth birthday when I’d woken up in a bed with three guys, all of whom were naked just like I was. I had no idea how I got there, or memory of what had happened, but by the bruises all over my body and the pain that lanced my every step as I got out of there, it hadn’t been anything good.

I’d called my brother that morning as I stumbled down a road I had never seen before, from a house I was terrified to stick around in long enough to find my underwear or shoes. By the time Colt found me I’d been a mess, and I’d cried hysterically the second he wrapped his arms around me. I never told him what happened, and I never remembered myself either, but everything changed that day. I put all of my focus into my studies and centered on one singular thing – my goal to join the FBI and become a criminal profiler.

Now I was one step closer, and that was why I had the little half smile on my face as I walked down the familiar, crowded sidewalks of the hectic city. I was headed toTemple, with a little pep to every step I took, desperately hoping the two guys I most wanted to see that night would be in there and ready to show me a good time.

Templewas no different from any other club in the city from the outside, except it was obviously higher end. It was housed in the basement and ground floor of one of the older buildings in the city, and the entrance was framed with wide stone pillars. The sign over the door was innocuous, just an LED lit board with theword ’Temple’ at its center. The club had a very elite clientele and Colt needed no huge signage or advertising to bring people through the doors.

“Hey Denny,” I greeted one of the doormen who was stationed outside of the entrance. He gave me a nod but didn’t speak otherwise. He just stepped aside, allowing me entry into the open, opulent reception area. Two further guards were posted near the door into the club, and behind a tall marble topped counter stood Jean-Pierre. He was French and had worked at the club for as long as I had been allowed through the doors. His role was something of a concierge. He greeted guests and dealt with checking memberships and identities. He also took care of a lot of the customer care side of things.

“Miss Ava,” he smiled as he stood to greet me. “A pleasure to see you, as always. Are you working, or playing tonight,ma chérie? he asked, his adorable French accent showing through.

“Definitely not working,” I told him happily. I had been working behind the bar at the club, part time, for the last few years, in a desperate bid to pay back Colt just a small fraction of all that I owed him for everything he’d done for me. Of course he hated that, and always made sure my wages went right into my bank account, no matter how much I tried to argue. He was always trying to give me money, but I refused. Colt hated that our father left everything to him and nothing to me, but as I told him often, I didn’t want a thing from the old bastard who never even acknowledged me. “I came for a celebratory drink. I finished my last college class today. I graduate next week.”

“Congratulations! Of course you must celebrate!” Jean-Pierre, or ‘JP’ as I had taken to calling him, cheered happily. “Go through. I believe your brother is walking the floor.”

I nodded and smiled gratefully to him, then I headed for the doors into the bar area of the club, one of the security opening it for me with a nod of greeting as I passed him and slipped inside.

Inside the club was alive, as it always was on a Friday evening. In the bar area, which I had stepped into, the hypnotic, sultry music was quieter, and the atmosphere was more relaxed. The room around me was luxurious, but modern and fresh too. The floor beneath my feet was tiled in black and white marble tiles, in a diamond checker board pattern. The walls were white with black detailing around the edges and at the corners. There were mirrors everywhere and hanging down low from the high ceiling was a huge crystal chandelier that sparkled like an enormous diamond in the low, character lighting. The lounge areas scattered around the room, were each set with a low black round table, with comfortable looking, scarlet tub chairs around them. People were seated around the bar, sipping cocktails and chatting amongst friends.

I bypassed the area all together and walked through another set of double doors, passing another security team member where he was stationed just inside the much larger and livelier room that awaited beyond the bar. The music was louder in this area, and while the floor and vast walls surrounding the cavernous space were just the same as the bar, everything else was very different.

Templewas a very private and exclusive kink club. There were rooms leading off of the main space for all manner of sexual kinks, such as age-play, pet play, medical play, and everything else you could possibly think of. There were several harem rooms that were usually fully booked, and all manner of private fetish rooms too.

I had been fascinated and slightly terrified when I first started working there. I knew something of what to expect from the vast amounts of research I’d done when I found out my brother owned a kink club, but seeing it in real life was a whole other experience. Now when I walked into there though, my skin tingled and my core clenched. Excitement built inside of me instantly and I came alive in a way I just couldn’t seem to any where else.

I glanced around me as I walked in, slipping off my long wool coat as I went. Underneath I was wearing a skin tight lace dress that stopped just above my knees and had sleeves that covered my long, too thin arms. Underneath the lace was a satin slip that covered the fact I only wore panties beneath, and I had paired it with a towering pair of black heels. Compared to other members walking around the club, and playing at various stations and on platforms, I was extremely over dressed, but baring myself was still the part I struggled with most about all of this, not to mention I had been aware Colt would be working that night and I did not want him seeing me wearing anything less.

I looked all around me again, especially at the bar that ran the entire length of the back wall, hoping to catch a glimpse of the two men I had come hoping to see. Jack Hilton and Mason Williams.

Jack was the manager atTemple. He kept the place running smoothly while my brother ruled over his ever growing empire. He was British and everything that was sexy and sinful in one deliciously muscled package.

Mason was Colt’s best friend and had been since they were teenagers. He was a detective with the NYPD, and when he wasn’t working insane hours, he usually spent most of his free time hanging out at the club, usually just drinking and chattingto Jack at the bar. He was tall and broad, his perfectly toned body ripped with muscle. When he looked at me with the sexy flirty smile he wore so well, I melted right before him every damned time.

The two of them were both into the lifestyle and were dominants. They didn’t play often, but when I mentioned to Jack that I wanted to try a few scenes, and detailed my interest in submitting, he and Mace had been firm that if I were playing, it needed to be with one of them. Or both of them.

For the last two years I had scened with them a lot, usually on one of the stages that surrounded me and always when Colt wasn’t in the building.

I wasn’t heavily into pain, so the scenes we planned and talked out together, before enacting them, were usually pretty tame. Some spanking or light flogging. There was always touching and it always ended with me finding my pleasure. We had never had sex, and I had never even allowed them to remove all of my clothing – my own hangups about my body not something I could overcome. But there was magic between the three of us when we played. I was not a submissive person in life, but I could be with Jack and Mason, because I trusted them to abide by my limits and hear my safe word if I ever used it, not that I ever had. I trusted them and we’d had amazing times on the stages around me. The problem was that was all they seemed to want, while I had these insane feelings building for each of them.

My attention was pulled to the center stage where one of the regular submissives – Chloe – was completely naked and strapped to a St. Andrew’s cross. I didn’t recognize the dominant who was with her, but he was flogging her back, and she was quietly groaning in enjoyment as he took her higher and higher. The look on her face was one of peace and calm, as she got lostin finding the pleasure she needed. The pleasure her Dom was giving her.

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