by Angel Payne
Like right now.
No.
This wasn’t a muck-up, damn it. This wasn’t a sudden attack of needy, even if it looked exactly like that—though it occurred that maybe the man couldn’t read all her thoughts, and “clingy crazy” was exactly where he’d gotten busy slotting her in his mind.
“Okay, just—” She pushed away from him. It was not easy, damn it—as a matter of fact, it was agonizing—but she succeeded at getting a few inches between them. “Forget I asked, okay? I was really just curious, and—”
And really just a huge, freaking liar.
Because when she managed to push out another inch, it was beyond agony.
It was scary.
She shook, battling not to throw herself back against him. Forced down a sharp breath, opening her mouth from the effort to prevent her teeth from chattering. Less than five seconds from tearing herself from the sun of him, and the galaxy was already a cold, lonely, empty place.
But soon, the space suit would be waiting.
And presidents didn’t get time to alter any of the gear—or the course of the journey.
They were expected to latch in, hang on, and fly, no matter what the damn sun did. Or how beautiful he was doing it.
Or how glorious it felt when the sun flared, reaching out arms so forceful and knowing, and dragged them right back to his searing, soul-dissolving heat.
And rumbled a sound of warm satisfaction as soon as they sighed against the breadth of his chest.
The plane of such perfect light and heat, they could forget the space suit even existed.
Okay, maybe she was a little crazy clingy. And maybe she just had to be okay with that—for just another moment longer.
Then maybe another.
One more couldn’t hurt.
As if she needed another affirmation of that, aside from his heartbeat under her cheek and his arms wrapping her close, Franz’s kiss brought a rush of wonderful heat on the top of her head. He kept his lips there while finally murmuring, “I like it that you asked, popoki.”
She started, but only by a little. No way in hell was she giving up his closeness this time. “You do?”
He nodded. Kissed into her hair again. Began stroking the strands near her ear, which were still damp from how hard he’d worked her. The subtle reminder of their passion, along with his rhythmic combing, drenched her in a hazy languor. “I just want to give you an answer not involving ponies.”
She pouted. “What’s wrong with ponies?”
“Not a damn thing. I simply prefer felines over equines.”
She laughed softly. “Well-played, Captain Franzen.”
“And I do enjoy playing, kitten.”
“You mean blowing a submissive’s ever-loving mind?”
“Yeah. Something like that,” he chuckled back.
“You’re still avoiding the question, but keep rubbing my head and I’ll let it pass.”
“Hmmm.” He expanded his touch, massaging deeper. “Well-played yourself, Tracy Rhodes.” He pulled in a long breath, raising and lowering her head along with his chest. “And still another reason why I never thought someone like you existed.”
She let out a breath on a hum before burrowing tighter against him. Hopefully, it demonstrated how thoroughly she absorbed the confession into her heart. It was more than just the words. It was the walls he smashed through to speak them…the basement he had to push out of.
“It’s really been that hard for you?” She tilted her face up so he could see the sincerity of her gaze. “I mean, I get it, John; a life in public service doesn’t lend itself to a lot of Netflix-and-chill. On top of that, you usually can’t talk about your day at the office.”
“And there’s the small issue of not being able to leave the orders on the battlefield. And the handcuffs. And the rope. And certain blunt instruments capable of leaving interesting marks on a bare ass.”
His rejoinder made her frown. “Wait. Has that seriously been an issue for you?” Because just the idea of him, wielding any or all that stuff on her, flipped about a dozen new switches of arousal between her thighs.
“At first, yes.” A frisson of something strange took over his face, especially his eyes. After a couple of seconds it was gone, though Tracy still felt the tense twitches in his body, indicating an inner battle. “But not since I partnered with my best friend to open a club of our own.”
Aha. The war of the psyche, explained. She’d seen enough internal skirmishes like it, sitting across conference tables from people debating what truths to reveal in the name of political gain, to peg the behavior. But in this case, he was willing to lose—doubling her esteem of him.
That felt…
Really nice.
Even nicer, when she was able to lift an impish smile and dancing eyes, enjoying the new flare across his face as she purred, “Well. Just when I thought you couldn’t get any hotter.”
He grinned. Not just any grin. It was his look of supreme, sexy pride, curving his lips into curves more enticing than she’d seen on him yet. “Lighting it up is a favorite specialty.”
“You mean like fire play?”
His smirk gave way to a new gape. “Shit.”
“What?”
“You know about that kind of kink?”
He was being honest. She had to do the same. “If you must know, I’ve dreamed about that kind of kink.”
He blinked. Stared as if she’d just slapped him—to the point she reached up, spreading fingers across his jaw. “Have I officially freaked you out?”
He snorted. “In about seventeen ways.” After sliding his tongue between her lips for a brief but searing suckle, he ensured, “All the best ways.”
The words, and that kiss, spread tingles through every extremity of her body—to the point she almost ditched the conversation just to have more of that contact. She forced herself to focus on words instead. Essential ones. “So at your club, surely you had a line of subs waiting to get beneath you.”
A line. Ha. Who was she kidding? The queue had probably wound out the door and down the block—a conclusion she was so certain of, it pitched a damn tent in her mind despite Franz’s rough laugh.
“Bastille isn’t McDonald’s, kitten,” he chided. “One just can’t drive in, order their Dom or sub with no pickles and extra mayo, and then get busy. There are nuances. Variables. A lot of them.”
She mulled on that for a second. “I get that, I think.” Tilted her head in deeper thought. “I guess, the way I always perceived it, was that BDSM had gradients…lighter play to the hardcore things…and as long as you met someone with the same tastes, you were pretty good.”
He dropped his head the same direction as hers, lining up their stares once more. “True, if one is only in it for the obvious surface benefits.”
“And you’re not a surface-benefits guy.” She was damn glad she could issue that as a certainty too—but even more joyful about his matching conviction of an answer.
“Never was. Never will be.”
For all the surety of his statement, there was another blatant ingredient. Sobriety. Resignation. And yes, sadness. A double dose of the last—slapping Tracy with a solid stunner.
Well…hell.
For as much of the man as she already saw—thought she saw—she’d committed the same sin as a lot of others, considering only his exotic beauty, boulder vista muscles, and hypnotic baritone, and then assumed he simply “picked from the line” at the club, like a superstar selecting groupies to accompany him behind the velvet VIP rope.
She’d been a moron.
She’d looked at the beyond-the-surface guy and painted him with her just-the-surface assumptions.
Her brains. Back pocket. Yeah, the one she’d just sat soundly on.
Not anymore.
She’d look deeper, damn it. See him for more.
The universe was all about insta-rewarding that—and she sure as hell didn’t complain—with a rush of new insight. A hunch she was so sure of, sh
e went ahead and spoke it aloud.
“So what was her name?”
John took his turn to jerk with surprise. His eyes narrowed, but his lips smirked as he returned, “So it’s no longer what were their names?”
Tracy arched both brows. “Oh, I’m sure there were plenty of those too—likely anywhere your team stopped for more than a few nights—but I’m not after those gory details.”
“Why not?”
“Because they’re not the goriest.” She held up a finger. “Rephrase. They’re not the detail that matters.” Lowered that finger to the center of his sternum. “The one woman who got closest to this.”
Which was also the closest she’d get to actually labeling that shit, as well. Unfair? Possibly. Probably. Neither of them were fresh-faced and dewy-eyed anymore. They’d both had lives before this moment. The evidence of the one she’d lived and shared with another man filled her days in the miracle of her son. It was petty and silly of her to think he’d gone that long without the same thing, but she did. Her guilt about it grew when thinking of him returning from his dangerous missions, only to have no one home to greet and comfort him.
“There’s never been anyone…steady,” he replied at last, clearly pushing up a few more basement stairs to do so. “Not a girlfriend or wife, if that’s where this is going.”
Tracy hooked her finger into the V of his Henley and pulled lightly. After they finished their soft kiss, she didn’t let go. “It’s not going anywhere, Sir.” She slipped in the honorific, sensing he needed it. “I just want to know more about you.”
He pressed his forehead to hers. “I know. And you deserve to be told.”
“You deserve to tell it,” she countered. “Everyone needs safe ground for their secrets, and you sure as hell have been mine for the last few days. So let me reciprocate a little—but only if you choose to. I’m not here to make you reopen old wounds.” A teasing quirk sneaked across her lips. “Unless, of course, they’re oozing green pus and need to be cleaned out, in which case—”
“Christ.” He reared back, laughing and grimacing at once. “How’d we go from surface benefits to oozing green pus?”
“Fifteen-year-old son, dude.” She tapped a playful finger to his forehead. “Remember?”
“You mean that grinning hellion who beat me four straight sets at virtual tennis last night?” He caught her hand before she fully lowered it, dragging his firm, full mouth across her knuckles. “Yeah, I remember,” he added, his words and his gaze now infused with sobriety. “And yeah…it’s about time I told you about Abbie.”
And here it was. The brick she’d been relentlessly chipping at in his wall, finally loosened by their rapport—only to feel like it had dropped a hundred feet into the center of her head.
The brick had a name now.
“Abbie.” Somehow, she managed it without gritted teeth—and a small smile. A small one. “It’s a…pretty name.”
“It is.” His voice was a murmur, but his gaze was a miss-nothing radar. Tracy identified the mien at once. All the best diplomats she knew had it mastered. “And it’s a special one to me. Probably always will be.”
Okaaaayy.
Tracy schooled her reaction, going for pleasant but neutral, positive she failed on both fronts. Was this “Abbie” still an important part of his life? If so, how long had she enjoyed that status? And why? Not like the man was giving her anything to go on here.
Enjoy Vague Booking much, Sir?
And wasn’t she just trivializing his truth, hoping it diminished her jealousy about it too?
A truth you’ve been pushing for, missie.
A trust you’ve been begging him to give you.
Put on your big-girl panties, and prove yourself worthy of that trust.
“Did you meet her—Abbie”—she could do this, she could do this—“at your club?”
He nodded evenly. “In a way, yes.”
“In a way?”
“We met at a munch.” He went on, as soon as she questioned that with an open frown, “Fancy term for a kink community event at a vanilla venue.”
Welcome, deeper scowl. “And that works out for everyone…how?”
“It works out just fine.” An authentic smile twisted his lips. “Because it gives everyone a chance to connect without the possibility of clothes coming off.” He paused thoughtfully. “The best power exchanges start from the space over your shoulders, not beneath your waist.”
“Yeah.” Her lips curved into an answering smile. “I understand that now.”
His fingertip traced the edge of her face. “I believe that.”
She leaned her cheek toward his touch, cherishing the infusion of his energy from the simple contact. If anything proved the truth of his assertion, this was truly it. They were both fully clothed, but every fiber of her body acknowledged how easily he could claim governance over it again, if he so chose. “But I didn’t get it, before now. I guess I just saw what a lot of the world does. The wicked toys, the shiny furniture, the kinky costumes…”
“All fun in their own right,” he offered. “But not the main point of the dynamic.”
God, how tempted she was to follow him further down that tangent trail. She longed to talk about toys, torments, and “all the shinies” with him for hours—and to definitely do something about where their libidos went because of it—but that wouldn’t honor the path they were supposed to be on. She’d specifically pushed him for this information, and he’d climbed out of his basement with his honesty about it. Shoving him back into the darkness because she couldn’t handle anything more than a name was not cool.
“And Abbie? She comprehended that point too?”
A wistful smile began in his eyes and crinkled the corners of his lips. “She did.” His lips parted as if to add more, but he reined back the initial thought, seeming to change direction, before attesting, “Probably a little too much, now that I look at things with a little room.”
A little room.
An inner victory dance about that certainly wasn’t mature. Or diplomatic.
Maturity and diplomacy were overrated.
While her psyche cha-chaed around its private bonfire, she calmly said, “Well, there’s an opening for about a thousand stories.”
“Maybe not a thousand.” The reply was as reflective as his gaze, now directed across the room. “But we had compatible needs, in and out of the dungeon, and it worked out well for a lot of years.”
“Dungeon?” She repeated the word out of bafflement—or so she assured her inner dance party, quickly changing from a cha-cha into something more exotic. And erotic. Something much better suited for a dungeon run by a Dominant like John Franzen. If that was even what he meant…
“Another kinkster Easter Egg.” He glanced quickly to her, as if trying to gauge her reaction as he finished. “A way of saying play room, for those of us into fire, whips, and chains instead of pads, rope, and ticklers.”
Though he was casual about the innuendo’s tone, his watchfulness intensified—not helping her newest desire to just kiss him. Or strip for him. Oh hell, why not both?
Because that option would advance them nowhere.
She had to settle for jerking her head up and whispering, “Then I guess I’m a dungeon kind of girl.”
Franz’s groan, emanating from deep in his chest, almost changed her mind about the kiss-and-strip plan. She sucked it up for both of them, clearing her throat as if simply moving on to a new agenda item in a committee meeting.
“So tell me why Abbie was so…” Special? Remarkable? “Compatible.” In the end, his own term was truly the most tolerable one, driving her to yet another inward kick in the figurative ass. Since when had she settled for simply tolerable? The green monster in her psyche was more disgusting than her weight in pus, and she wasn’t proud of it.
“It’s pretty simple to explain.” John spoke slowly, as if the statement were a new revelation. “I mean, the libretto fits the score about how things matched up in our du
ngeon sessions—and aside from a few hours of aftercare, she was firm about not wanting anything deeper in a relationship with me.”
“So she was crazy?” The rejoinder spilled without a second thought, though she stood by it. The man was smart, funny, protective, and passionate. Then there was the whole body of a god and cock of a stallion thing too…
John chuckled as if reading that particular thought. “No. She was a psychologist—a leading one in the city, actually—with a couple of books about healing from your past, as well as one of those psychobabble call-in radio shows.”
Tracy brought up her head and shoulders, tacking on a crisp little nod. “And she wrote the stuff from ‘experience’?”
He nodded again, clearing his throat. Her new position, while lending professionalism to their upper bodies, fitted their crotches tighter. She could have—should have—rectified things by getting up and walking away, but maybe she’d just ask him for the call-in number to Abbie baby’s show. Clearly, she needed psychological help. She was growing addicted to this man and his incredible body.
“She had a rough deal growing up. After her dad was hauled to prison for embezzlement and fraud, her mom turned to drugs, and the story goes downhill from there. Abbie ended up as a foster care kid at the age of twelve. Her angle is that bad shit can happen to anyone, at any time, and can be survived. Her whole reputation’s built on it.”
“And dating a guy who’s part-owner of a BDSM club doesn’t jive with the I-am-woman-hear-me-roar rep.”
“Give the lady a prize.” He lightly nipped the end of her nose with two knuckles. In the wake of his touch, Tracy wrinkled it with irked emphasis.
“Have you tried telling her that’s bullshit?” She didn’t explain herself. She didn’t have to. He got it. He really did. He knew that a person’s strength was greatest when they were at their most vulnerable. And dear God, how she knew it. Had learned it, over and over again, to the point it was nearly a theme in her life.
“A few times,” he replied to her charge. “I did try. As her Dom, I had the responsibility to. I mean, I knew there were parts of her I could help with the pain…”
