Nate explodes in laughter. “Mysteries of kink.” Still chuckling, he leaves the room and returns with a small black case. “Face down on the bed. Let’s get you lubed and drugged.”
I groan. He cackles.
There’s not enough ibuprofen in the world to tackle the full scope of my misery. An afternoon of resting while Nate pampered me, fed me, and eventually helped me shower was challenging enough. I figured working tonight would be hard, but worth it for the chance to see Cross.
So wrong.
“Whoa, you okay?” Another bartender grabs my shoulder as I sway toward a stack of glasses. I can’t prevent a tiny moan as he inadvertently touches the edge of a welt.
I step away from him, nodding spastically. “Good, fine.”
He follows me—what’s his name again—and lays a hand on my forehead. It feels wrong, too slim, too cold. “You don’t look so good. Hey, Jack, I’m going to help London to the back. She needs to sit down.”
“Okay!”
“London?” Steph’s face swims into view. “What’s going on? You sick?”
It’s too loud. Too bright. I can’t find my voice to protest when a heavy male arm comes around my shoulders. My whimper is pitiful, lost beneath music and revelry. I’m guided to the end of the bar, out through the small portal, and toward the back hallway.
A shout somewhere in the club, “Master Cross!” I recognize Nate’s voice, urgent and panicked.
“What the—” mutters my well-meaning captor.
“Release her right fucking now.”
I sag with relief at the dark, edged voice. When I’m released like a leper, my knees buckle, but strong, familiar arms catch me and hoist me up. Miraculously, his embrace avoids all points of pain. He knows exactly where he marked me. The thought is unaccountably soothing. I’m safe.
Steady, long strides carry me away. I tuck my face into his warm chest, breathing him in, relishing in the momentary absence of pain. Like his very presence is morphine. A door opens, music fades. Another door, then stairs. Scent of the loft—leather and spice.
“Dammit, London,” he mutters, “I told you to call me if you couldn’t work tonight. I knew I should have cancelled your shift. What the fuck was I thinking?”
“I missed you.”
The words slip out, divorced from rational thinking. I’m so loopy, I don’t take them back. Cross pauses for a moment, then continues across the loft and into the dark bedroom. Setting me carefully on my feet, he bends to pull back the coverlet.
“Undress. On your stomach.”
It’s more painful getting the dress off than it was getting it on. The only item from my work wardrobe that promised to cover my marks, the dress is high-collared and long-sleeved, made of snug, tensile material. As much as I want to, I don’t ask Cross for help. He probably wouldn’t give it, anyway. I recognize the tone of reprimand. I’m being punished for foolishness.
By the time I’m naked except for underwear, I’m shaking and sweating. My back is aflame, pulsing in time with my heart. Whimpering, I crawl onto the bed and collapse.
Cross sits beside me and opens the drawer in the nightstand, removing a tub of salve and uncapping it. The mild scent of Arnica floats to my nose, stimulating memories of last night.
“How do you feel?”
“Sleepy, sir. Relaxed. Thank you.”
“It was my pleasure, kitten. Stay in bed tomorrow. Do you have ice packs at home?”
“No, sir.”
“I’ll give you a few to take with you, and I’ll have Nathan check on you in the afternoon. You’ll call me if the pain is more than you can stand.”
“Yes, sir.”
He sighs, rising from the bed. I miss the heat of him instantly. “I’m going to pull the car around, then I’ll come get you.” Bare footsteps pad across the room. When they stop abruptly, I open my eyes to see him paused in the doorway.
“London?” he asks softly.
“Yes?”
“Thank you.”
Now, the man who blew open my universe last night sits frozen on the bed, salve in one hand and his other clenched in the thick hair of his crown.
“Jesus, I’m sorry.” He sounds choked.
“What? No.” I reach for him, laying my palm on the small of his back. He flinches but doesn’t move. “Sir? Dominic. I’m fine, really. Just stupid. I should have called out today.”
He glances back, brow furrowed. “Last night I treated you as I would a seasoned submissive. The blows you took…” He shakes his head helplessly, gaze tracing the welts. “You were so unbelievably perfect—your pain threshold is incredible. I hit the zone fast and forgot how green you are. It’s inexcusable.”
The vulnerability in his voice triggers alarm bells in my head. The earth is shifting, quaking and opening beneath us. Something huge waits in the steaming fissure. Something I don’t think either of us is ready for. I’m sure as hell not.
“No.” My voice is sharp enough to wipe the softness from his expression. “I fractured my arm at summer camp when I was a kid. I thought it was a little bump and a bruise. It barely hurt. The whole thing swelled up like a balloon before anyone thought something might be wrong.”
He’s skeptical. “Is that true?”
“One hundred percent. I’ve always had a high pain tolerance. My older sister is the opposite—cries when she stubs her toe. Total sissy.”
A smile flirts with his lips. “You are definitely no sissy.”
I grin. “I know, right? I’m badass.”
He laughs, the sound rich and warm and utterly intoxicating. It does horrible things to my body, causing my heart to squeeze, my stomach to dance. And I realize my error. In trying to veer the conversation away from the cliff of intimacy, I inadvertently drove us right off the edge.
“You can’t have it both ways, you know,” muses Cross, his smile gone, his keen gaze on my face. “Trust me, I’ve tried.”
My breath stills. “Can’t have what?”
“The benefits of a Dom/sub relationship without emotion of any kind. At the very least, we have to be friends for this to work.” His eyes crinkle at the edges. “I can’t handle another boring dinner.”
A short laugh escapes me. “It was bad.”
“So bad.”
“Friends?”
He nods. “Friends who play.” Shifting on the bed, he scoops out a wad of the salve and warms it between his hands.
Tension drains from my body, and with it the majority of my pain. I’m still going to let him massage me, though. He has a magical touch.
At the first gentle touch, I sigh and close my eyes. “I can do friends, Dominic, but that’s it.”
Whack.
“Ow!” I shriek. My efforts to bolt upright are thwarted by a forearm on my now-screaming ass. Grumbling, I relax again. “No calling you by your first name?”
“Good catch.” He’s smiling. “Like my cock, you have to earn it.”
I roll my eyes, but I’m smiling into the pillow.
“Yes, sir.”
23
I’m dreaming. I know I am, but I can’t escape. I’m in the airy, elegant room with its library and fresh floral fragrance. Midday, bright sunlight. The air is cool, the breeze warm. A man sits in one of the high-backed armchairs before an open window with a view of the garden and groomed acres beyond.
“I know why you’re here, London.”
My feet carry me toward him… this man who destroyed my life. Destroyed my dreams, my hope, my love. When I reach him, he smiles up at me, blue eyes crinkling warmly. Gray-haired, handsome, and distinguished. The look, as always, is grandfatherly. Full of acceptance and affection.
Lies, all of it. All of him.
“Why?” I ask him.
He shrugs. “‘If you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.’ Better to be the monster than be eaten by one, no?”
I grip the back of his chair, the urge to strangle him visceral. “Don’t quote Nietzsche to me, you pompous, arrogan
t fuck. Tell me WHY!” The word is a scream of primordial rage. It echoes in the dream, shattering the windows. Glass rains down like harmless confetti, disappearing before impact.
He sighs, smoothing a hand down his silk tie, his gaze on the lush garden. “Do you remember what I told you the night we met, London? No? I do. I told you to be careful, because there would come a time when you would have to choose between instinct and self-preservation.”
“You always were a cryptic sonofabitch,” I snarl. “Is this the time? Am I choosing now?”
“You were the daughter I never had,” he says wistfully, “and Paul was like a son. I’m truly sorry it’s come to this.”
Pressure on the back of my head. The cloying smell of gun oil. I don’t look back. Don’t need to see who it is—I can smell his distinctive cologne.
The man I loved like a grandfather stands and straightens his suit jacket. He’s not smiling anymore. “What will it be, my dear? Will you join us at the top of the world, or will you hold to meaningless ideals?”
I spit in his face. “Fuck you. Just kill me.”
The sad, blue gaze lifts over my head. He nods, and the world explodes white, then black.
“Hey, hey, it’s okay, you’re safe.”
I open my eyes to Cross’s face above mine. My mind is fuzzy, my mouth dry. I’m still in his bed, still naked, but cradled in his arms against the headboard. His bare chest is a furnace against my cool, damp skin. The lights in the bedroom are off, but there’s an ambient glow from the living room. Enough to register his concerned expression.
“What…” I trail off, my brain stalling in confusion.
A warm hand strokes my sweat-soaked hair. “I gave you a little something to help you sleep, remember? You were out for a few hours, then had a nasty nightmare. It took me a while to wake you up.”
It all comes back—the dream memory, the betrayal, the blackness and bleakness… I feel it again like it happened yesterday, not eighteen months ago. Mortified and near-tears, I try to jerk away, but Cross’s arms only tighten.
“PTSD is nothing to be ashamed of,” he murmurs, gentling his grip as I surrender to his embrace. “Neither is asking to die. Trust me, I’ve been there.”
I screw my eyes shut at the realization I must have been talking in my sleep. Just kill me. “It’s not what you think.” The words are empty, blatantly false.
“Mmm.” The noncommittal hum vibrates his body, sending soothing waves through mine. I begin to relax in earnest, a detached calm stealing over me.
“He didn’t,” I say vacantly, “kill me, that is. Obviously.”
“Who?” Curious, but without expectation.
“The man who murdered my husband.”
Cross goes still. Almost inhumanly so. In the silence, I imagine him weighing the pain in my voice against his own pain, trying to find common ground where there is none. His wife used him, betrayed him. My husband died because of me.
Sparing us both, I say, “I don’t know why he didn’t follow through. Sentimentality, I guess. But he ended up killing me in other, just as permanent ways.”
Torching my reputation. My career. My life.
“This is what you were talking about,” he muses softly, “when I accused you of being a criminal.”
My laugh is soundless, mirthless. “Yes.”
“Someone orchestrated a smear campaign against you,” he deduces. “I’m guessing you discovered or learned something you shouldn’t have. And your husband… he was law enforcement?”
“Good guess. ICE agent working for Homeland Security. I thought you Googled me,” I add wryly. “That didn’t come up in your search?”
“I didn’t read past the first few headlines. I’m not in the business of judging people by their pasts.”
I snort. “Didn’t seem that way.”
“Yeah, it probably didn’t. You were right to tell me off that day.” He pauses. “If it matters, I never actually thought it was true.”
I look up, startled. “Why not?”
“I’ve only known you a few short months, but there’s no way you seduced a fat-ass Russian mobster and asked him to kill your husband. No fucking way.” The words are calm, matter-of-fact, and their certainty nearly brings tears to my eyes.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
His brows lift, eyes soft and unguarded. “For what?”
“Believing me.”
He smiles slightly. “In my former line of work, the ability to read a person’s character sometimes meant the difference between life and death.” There’s a layer of darkness beneath the words, an unspoken current of history. His instincts failed him when it came to choosing a wife.
I want to ask—want to know—and the impulse shocks me enough to remember how dangerous Dominic Cross is. Especially this version of him, the man whose presence makes me feel… safe.
I need to get out of here.
“I… I think I’m okay to drive home.” I shift in his arms, angling for escape, but his laughter stills me.
“Not happening. It’s four in the fucking morning, and even though you don’t feel it now, you’re going to be in pain in about an hour.”
I still, narrowing my gaze on his face. “That wasn’t Tylenol?”
“It was. The kind with codeine.”
My eyes widen. “You drugged me?”
“Oh, kitten. It was just enough to take the edge off.” He chuckles, big body shaking beneath mine and bringing immediate attention to the thin sheet separating us. His lack of pajamas. His swiftly thickening cock, which sits nestled against my core.
Gasping, I squirm again toward the edge of the bed.
Only to be reeled back in.
“Relax,” he says chidingly. “It’s just an erection. You’re going to have to see it eventually.”
My face flames, my gaze averting from his teasing grin. Now that I’m aware of his nakedness, I can’t seem to think about anything else—or stop myself from teetering toward intimacy I don’t want.
“I can’t right now,” I whisper, “not after talking about… that.”
His hips subtly flex, teasing my softness with hardness. “I think you can.”
Low, controlled voice. The voice. My limbs go liquid with surrender. With relief. For an instant, I quail at the transition that seems so divorced from my control. I’m like Pavlov’s dog, rolling over on command. But as he effortlessly shifts my legs so they fall open on either side of his hips, then drags me directly atop his long, thick ridge, I realize giving in is a gift.
There’s no memory here—just feeling.
His hands cradle my neck, fingers massaging, drawing a soft sigh from my lips. “There you are. Do you feel me?”
“Yes, sir.”
Another, stronger movement of his hips. Sensation unfurling, heat cascading. My head falls back into the support of his hands as my body obeys a biological command to move. To seek and find the perfect friction, the perfect rhythm.
“Don’t stop until you come, kitten. And don’t forget to ask for permission.” His dark head lowers to my chest, sucking and biting, devouring one breast, then the other.
“Oh, God, sir, don’t stop.”
He hums in pleasure, one hand falling to my hip, anchoring me, moving me faster and harder against him. His groan lights every nerve ending in my body. “I can feel you dripping on my cock. So wet. So hot. Fucking you is going to be so good.”
“Please, please,” I chant.
He bites my nipple so hard I see stars. I cry out, seconds from falling apart. “Don’t you fucking come.”
“Please.”
“Not yet,” he snarls. “I want to feel it.” My thong is wrenched away, three thick fingers shoving inside me without warning, curling and mercilessly massaging my G-spot.
I scream through my teeth. “Please, sir!”
“Kiss me, kitten.”
Our open mouths collide and fuse in savage darkness. It’s not a kiss. It’s a battle for power on the only level playing field b
etween us. As he claims me, I claim him, my fingers clenched tight in his hair. As he devours my cries, I devour his groans and hissing breaths. All the while his fingers pump inside me, his shaft tight against my clit. His taste, scent, grace, power… it’s ambrosia. Perfect agony.
Teeth clamping on my lower lip, he growls, “Now.”
I’m gone.
And I don’t care if I come back.
24
On the nights I work at the club, it’s business as usual. Dominic broods and prowls, monitoring the playrooms and the Epicenter. I work my ass off, fast becoming one of the most popular—and lucrative—bartenders. I even earn a special drink called The London: an Earl Grey Martini with lavender-infused simple syrup and a twist of lemon peel. Charlie’s idea, coinciding with her new playmate, who’s one of the city’s top mixologists.
The community at Crossroads is familiar now, full of faces and personalities instead of nameless customers. Everyone knows I’m Dominic’s submissive, but I’m not treated or spoken to any differently. At least not to my face. Nevertheless, I’m mindful of avoiding rumors of special treatment and offset the risk by working as hard—if not harder—than my colleagues.
Nate, Steph, and I still meet for breakfast after shifts. We do occasional movie nights, dinner dates, or shopping excursions for more accessories for my apartment. I talk to Paris several times a week and call my parents every Sunday. I pay my bills and funnel money monthly into my savings account. Once in a while, I let Steph drag me to get manis and pedis. In my private time, I binge-watch The Walking Dead and House of Cards, or read whatever latest science fiction novel my dad has recommended.
And yet, despite what could be labeled as normalcy in my life, the axis of my world has drastically shifted. The rotation was slow and subtle over the course of weeks. I barely noticed it happening, and only occasionally do I glimpse the full scope of my transformation. When I do, it’s mind-blowing.
I’m no longer an automaton going through the motions. Work. Eat. Sleep. Now, I am more. Changed. Myself and not. London 3.0, perhaps, if I didn’t recognize that thinking about myself in the third person was fundamentally bizarre.
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