JennasConsent

by Jennifer Kacey

  She needed every moment between then and the next night at The Library because she was going to have to deal with, not only one but two angry Doms.

  The freezer—more specifically the ice cream she promised herself—called her name.

  “Jenna. Eat me. I’m so delicious.”

  She rubbed her temples, refusing to admit to the extent of her exhaustion and definitely not wanting to fall asleep with the taste of Ian still coating her tongue.

  She shook her head as she made it into the kitchen.

  “Sugar high, here I come. Midnight snack of champions.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Gossip in a BDSM club traveled faster than the winner of the NASCAR 500.

  Nick had been aware of that fact for years, being in the scene for long enough everyone runs into rumormongers here and there.

  Most people did tend to stay out of other people’s business but then sometimes the gossip was so good that even the best, most honorable people couldn’t help themselves.

  It was a fact of life, like death and taxes.

  But he was normally on the outside looking in. Like watching ants scurrying around, carrying little bits of sand—or information—talking about something that may or may not have happened the night before.

  This time he wasn’t on the outside watching. He was in the middle of the nest, wanting to knock the information out of people’s heads until those aforementioned heads rolled on the damn ground.

  The knowledge that Bryan had effectively hogtied his submissive and hauled her into her own room where her tied her, cuffed her and argued with her was spreading like scandal at a church convention.

  He’d already watched the footage of Bryan—Ian—the dead man, carting Jenna out of the playroom. He’d followed them on his new cameras through all the hallways, up to her space and watched him trussing her up as if she were a kinky virgin sacrifice being prepared for slaughter.

  He’d heard their argument, seen her face when Ian had her on his lap and had seen the kiss—several times, on several camera angles.

  Sitting at The Library bar, he nursed a rum and coke while trying to wrap his mind around the fact that he’d made the huge tactical error of bringing Ian into the fold with him and Jenna.

  That was on him and he’d belly up to the plate.

  His stomach knotted because he cared about it.

  Trying to tell himself it was just because his property did something wrong wasn’t working.

  Admitting it was because he had feelings for her in—God forbid—any kind of emotional way, made him feel like he needed to have a pedicure and join a bridge club.

  So there he sat, alternately giving his reflection and Oscar dirty looks. While the later lobbed them right back.

  “Did you know?” he finally accused Oscar as he plunked his drink down onto the sturdy wood.

  Oscar threw the towel over his shoulder. “Know what? That our new security head was why Jenna hasn’t slept well in weeks? No, I didn’t know who he was to her. But he had to hurt her something awful before, if she actually raised a fist to him how many years later.”

  Nick did have to give her a bit of credit for her right hook. If she’d put more weight behind it and connected, she could have laid him flat.

  He shook his head, trying desperately to pay attention to Oscar since he was the one who’d started the conversation.

  “So, no, man. I didn’t know. Sure as hell wish I had though so I could have warned her. She did seem a bit shocked. I hope she gave him a concussion. Asshole.” Oscar mumbled the last word under his breath.

  Nick didn’t know if he was speaking out about him or Ian. He decided to change topics because he already wanted to punch something again.

  “Do you know if she at least got home okay? And is she all right this morning? She’s not returning my phone messages.”

  Oscar nodded, tugging the towel from his shoulder. “She’s fine. Apparently needs to buy stock in ice cream now but other than that she’s physically okay.”

  “Mentally?” he asked, already knowing the answer based on Oscar’s eye-roll.

  “How do you think she is? She effectively had the biggest ghost from her past stomp up in her face in a very public way. She was totally fucked from the moment she saw him and now is stuck between a rock and a hard place.”

  “I’m not him.” Nick grimaced as he squeezed his beer bottle again.

  “Not yet.”

  Oscar walked off before Nick could counter what he said. His mood went from bad to worse when the owners walked up and sat on either side of him at the bar.

  Chris started, growling at Nick since that was about the only level of speaking he had. He didn’t beat around the bush or make small talk before getting to the point. “We knew he was part of your ménage with Jenna but we didn’t know if the scene continued afterward so we figured we’d see what happened and intervene if things went too far.”

  Jared continued, “If we’d have known what was really going on, we would have put our foot down immediately. We never would have let him continue and we never would have agreed to him taking Jenna anywhere. That’s on us. We fucked up.”

  Nick took a swig of his beer, holding it to his lips for a few seconds longer than necessary. He swallowed with a grimace, setting the beer down. It didn’t even taste good and he wondered why he kept picking it back up again.

  “I’ll handle it.”

  “We’re sure you will. Need anything from us?”

  “Ian’s pink slip in his inbox by the end of the day would make me feel just peachy.”

  Jared ran a hand over his head. Looked like he wasn’t all that shocked by the request. “We can’t do that.”

  “Why the fuck not? He lied—”

  “He didn’t lie.”

  The beer was halfway to his lips again and he clunked it down, drawing several stares from around the bar. Who the fuck cared?

  “He sure as hell lied about knowing Jenna.”

  “No, he didn’t,” Chris responded. “We knew he had a previous relationship with her. We didn’t know how much of a relationship but he did tell us he knew her and more than just a ‘hey how are you’.”

  “So he lied.”

  “Look,” Jared began again. “Are we thrilled he wasn’t totally straight with us? No. But what he did tell us about knowing her years ago was all true. She’s always been impervious to guys hitting on her. Who would have known she’d been so affected by some guy?”

  “I knew.”

  Jared chuckled, staring at him with a “what the fuck” face. “That’s because you’re some kind of bondage version of Cupid.”

  Crickets.

  “Huh? What the hell are you talking about?”

  “You helped us out with Cyn, then Kyle and Haleigh with Scott. You even helped Jackson with Skye, even though you had misgivings because of her friendship with Jenna. Can’t believe you don’t prance around here with a little set of a bow and arrows.”

  He shook his head, trying to come up with something to say. “I don’t prance. I leave that up to Oscar.”

  Without pausing in filling a drink order he shot Nick the bird. Whether he heard him or he was still mad at him for supposedly hurting Jenna, he didn’t know. Nor did he really want to know since everything was so fucked at the moment.

  “I’m no Cupid,” he countered. “All of that was sex only.”

  Jared downright guffawed in his face. Chris cracked a smile, totally freaking him the fuck out. To the tune of, he almost fell off his stool when Chris actually laughed.

  “Uh-huh,” Chris muttered, drying his eyes.

  “You’re both a bunch of assholes. Remind me why I work for you again? Especially since I don’t need to.”

  “The warm and cheery working environment?” Jared asked.

  “The free booze?” Chris pondered at the same time.

  “It sure isn’t the competent management. I helped my friends out so they could get laid. Hell, so I could get laid. Nothing mo
re.”

  “We’re going to sell tickets and laugh our asses off when you finally belly up to the bar in regards to Jenna.”

  “I’m not in love with her and we aren’t exclusive. We didn’t negotiate for exclusivity.”

  Admitting both of those things out loud made him want to rip someone’s nuts off. Preferably the new guy who was good and absent at the moment.

  “And what about the camera upgrade in the main stage area? What about that from the sneaky bastard?”

  “What upgrade?” Jared asked with a tilt of his head and a bit more concentration clear on his face.

  Nick pulled his phone out, logging into the DVR that recorded the video from the camera in question. Once he found out about who Bryan really was, he’d gone back to the night he’d untied her. He’d discovered then that the camera could move, which was not on the list of upgraded cameras.

  What was he trying to hide?

  “Watch.” He brought up a secondary PTZ menu and electronically controlled the camera, moving it back and forth and zooming in on something across the room.

  “Fuck.”

  Nick’s self-righteous indignation puffed up as if it were walking down the beach with a group of pretty girls sauntering toward him.

  “That’s awesome!”

  Nick deflated, banging his head against the bar.

  “I didn’t know our phones could do that. Did you, C?”

  Chris snatched the phone out of Nick’s hand to manipulate the controls himself.

  “Can we focus? It’s not on the list of one of the upgraded cameras. So he lied about that one.”

  “Actually that was the demo camera he installed to show us what the new ones could do. It didn’t have to be on the list because both of us already knew it had been altered.”

  “He didn’t disclose it to me.”

  “You’re really arguing he should be fired for doing his job?” Jared asked without even trying to hide the self-satisfaction in his rhetorical question.

  “We all have a past. Changes us. We all handle it differently,” Chris admitted it, handing Nick’s phone back to him. “We’ll be discussing the rules a bit more clearly with him since we now know he didn’t have express permission to touch Jenna after his scene with you the other night.”

  “Thank fuck—”

  “But…” Jared practically sang as he added that three-lettered word. “We also didn’t have anything stating that he was forbidden to touch her either. At least for the thirty days Jenna is yours.”

  “Consider this your memo.”

  Jared shook his head. “You of all people should know that’s not how it works. We can’t remember shit from day-to-day without having things written down and filed.”

  Nick swiped angrily on his keyboard, sending an email with those directives, nothing more. “There. It’s in writing. He doesn’t touch her unless I withdraw the order or Jenna takes her collar off.”

  “Speaking of Jenna.” Nick followed Jared’s gaze toward the entry door. “Looks like you’re up.”

  Jenna walked in, wearing a lavender corset, jet-black leather pants and fuck-me heels that he really wanted to test drive.

  His cock throbbed, instantly hard for her no matter how angry he was at her. Ian and himself were more apt targets for his wrath, if he was truly being honest.

  He stood, striding toward her, not having a fucking clue what he was going to say to her.

  But one way or another, they were going to come to some kind of understanding or he’d find a way to walk away.

  God almighty—she smelled like peaches.

  Chapter Fifteen

  She wasn’t one to cower.

  Not to any man, for any reason.

  But she sure as hell thought about adding a disclaimer to that feeling as Nick strode up to her.

  She’d barely made it into the room and he was there looming over her.

  Her eyes stayed glued to his even when every molecule in her body was screaming for her to bow her head and kneel.

  Begging forgiveness was coming in a close second.

  They stared at each other and she didn’t want to be the first one to speak. “Better to ask forgiveness than permission” kept rolling through her head. She kept trying to shoo it back but it nipped at her heels repeatedly.

  “Why the fuck didn’t you safe word?”

  “Excuse me? Why would you want me to safe word with you? Isn’t that counterproductive to our thirty-day agreement?”

  “Don’t be dense and don’t play stupid with me.”

  “Then maybe you should be a bit plainer with your questions and stop leaving them so broad.”

  “Why didn’t you safe word with Ian?” He bit out his name and she jumped a tiny bit.

  Oscar approached, oblivious to the dark stare Nick flashed him. “You okay?”

  He pulled her into his side, hugging her close and ignoring Nick, who snarled at him at least twice.

  “Fine. Ish.”

  He raised an eyebrow and she shook her head.

  “Really, I’m good. No need to worry.”

  He squeezed her again. “We’ll talk later.” He glared at Nick when he walked away.

  “Seems you have another male admirer.”

  “Yes and he’s a huge threat too since he’s gay.” She wanted to roll her eyes but somehow managed to keep it from happening.

  He crossed his arms, giving her a glimpse of exactly what his opponents used to face when he fought professionally.

  He was intimidating and big, and sexy as all hell. Her knees flexed, trying to kneel. She straightened to her full height and clenched her fists at her sides, trying to focus.

  “So. Ian. Makes your choice of safe word all that much more interesting, don’t you think?”

  She remained silent, assuming she would just get in more trouble if she opened her mouth to agree or refute anything at this point.

  “You could have warned me.”

  Her upper lip twitched and he squinted at her. “Warned you about what, Nick? How was I to know he was here? How could I possibly have known it?”

  “I’m not saying that. I’m saying you could have given me a heads-up you were still fucked-up over some dude.”

  “Who the hell said I was fucked-up over him?” She put her hands on her hips and stared him down.

  “The camera in your prep room with audio sure as shit didn’t lie.”

  Jenna paced away, huffing out a breath, and then stomped back. “You had no right to listen to that conversation. No right.”

  “I. Beg. To. Differ.” He glanced at her collar and back up.

  Her fingers automatically went to it. It already felt as if it were a piece of her and she forgot it was still on. Maybe it wasn’t as much a piece of her as she thought it was.

  “We never agreed to exclusivity.”

  “No, but you agreed to be my sub for a month. By my rudimentary calculations, I still own you for…” He craned his head and acted as if he were counting. “Twenty-seven days, two hours, and handful of minutes.”

  “Only in a scene,” she threw back at him, even when she didn’t really mean it.

  “Wow. Never figured you’d be one that I needed to get to sign a contract. I thought words were enough. Did you ever tell me there were limitations on your actual submission?”

  She opened her mouth to say something but he cut her off and told her, “A simple yes or no will do.”

  “No, Sir,” came out from gritted teeth and she tried to relax her hands.

  “Better. You’ve earned one hell of a punishment.”

  “What the hell for…Sir?” She was just taunting him then. Knew it. Enjoyed it.

  “How about opening those pretty legs to some other guy while wearing my goddamn collar?”

  “We already established we aren’t exclusive.”

  “That was out of your mouth not mine.”

  What the hell?

  He’d just gotten done saying the exact opposite to Chris and Jared. He plowed
forward because apparently there was no reverse for this conversation. “The least you could have done was discuss it with me. How would you have felt if you’d had to watch me on camera fucking Skye?”

  “I wouldn’t have watched it. Couldn’t have.”

  She tried to hide her reaction but he saw it all.

  Anger, jealousy, hurt.

  He hoped that was a good sign.

  Then she scowled. That expression didn’t bode well. “And I didn’t fuck him that night. Not downstairs, in the prep area or at my place.” Something made her eyes widen for just a second but whatever thought crossed her mind she locked it down just as quickly. “Not like I haven’t fucked him before. You were there the last time. You brought him into this relationship from the start.”

  “My choices, not yours. It’s different and you know it.”

  She paused, then nodded, knowing she was overstepping her bounds by a long shot. “I’m sorry, Nick. Okay? I fucked up and I know it.”

  Something loosened in his chest and he shook it off. “Do you love him?”

  “I…uhh…don’t know. Everything’s so jumbled in my head now. I don’t want to love him anymore if that makes it any better. Easier? Whatever.”

  She looked scared, vulnerable. He had the urge to comfort her and that pissed him off.

  “Tonight. Stage. Nine p.m. Don’t disappoint me.”

  He left.

  Didn’t look back at her or any of the other people in the room.

  He couldn’t talk to them right then or he’d go nuts.

  Padded cell.

  White coat.

  The whole nine yards.

  It was seriously the closest thing to running he’d done in years. The tightness in his chest felt the same as the past too.

  Fuck that.

  He didn’t need anybody. Especially not a girl to make him feel like that. Off balance. Pussy-whipped. Might as well start making dollies and get a microscopic dog named Schnookums to carry in his man-purse.

  He wouldn’t go down the same way his dad did.

  He’d walk away first.

  He could leave at any time.

  Maybe after he said that a few more thousand times he’d believe it.