by Angel Payne
“You could say that.” Dan didn’t look comfortable about the admission. But nor did he look heartbroken. “She pulled the plug.”
Yesssssss.
Straight. To. Hell.
“Pulled the plug? In what way?” Wow. She had no idea she could play this stupid. It was sort of scary.
“As in, pulled the plug,” Dan reiterated. “Broke it off.”
Ohhhhh, yesssss.
In crappy flip-flops.
“Oh, my God.”
He cocked his head, going into let-me-see-if-I-can-freak-you-out-with-the-scars mode, before giving in to an eye roll. “Oh, come on. You’re not that shocked, little ruby, and we both know it.”
Tess grinned. Sneaky charmer had her at the nickname. He was the only one who called her that—who she let call her that—and since it was the deepest intimacy she’d ever share with him, it was special.
“Fine. I’m not rushing to catch the Twitter feed on it, okay?”
There was a great follow-up to that, wasn’t there? She couldn’t remember—not after he retaliated by softly tugging on one of her dark red curls. She’d gone for a new shade yesterday, Rose Temptation, which was darker than the usual tint that simply enhanced her natural color. The result was more startling than she thought, and she’d expected Dan to pop a joke involving Strawberry Shortcake, Jessica Rabbit, or both. Instead, he’d been pretty fascinated, an energy she didn’t remember from the other times she’d opted for the retro, tube curl hairstyle.
And maybe she was reading too much into everything he said and did now. Because hell, that had never happened before.
“But…” He canted his head the other way. “You’re still surprised, aren’t you? Really surprised?”
She let out a careful breath. “I suppose I am.”
“Why?”
Shit. Did the man have to punctuate everything by yanking on her curls? As he did it again, his knuckles grazed the side of her neck. Heat radiated from the contact, permeating her with a thousand sparks, forcing her to lick her lips before concentrating on coherence.
“I guess—well—the two of you have been at it for a while. I assumed everything was going great.”
And because it was easier than contemplating any different. Dan in a relationship was much less painful to think about than the Dan of a year ago, dating a different woman every month, none of which had been her. Of course, a year ago, they’d also been work pals who barely spoke. Hadn’t stopped her from fantasizing nonstop about the man. The fire and his disfigurement had changed everything between them—for the better and the worse.
The better? Dan talked to her about everything now.
The worse? Dan talked to her about everything now.
Including the one big “everything” she’d suspected almost from the day she’d met him—that he was a lifestyle Dominant, as dark and kinky as desert summer days were long.
Like he hadn’t given her enough to fantasize about already.
Like she hadn’t dreamed of giving herself over to a man in the exact same way, in the exact same scenarios he described—which had become only memories to him since the accident and his recovery. She’d always listened eagerly, eventually slipping in enough questions that Dan must know she was curious about this stuff. But by the time they’d arrived at that level of disclosure, he was heavy into things with Brynn Monet—meaning lunches like this usually ended with her driving back to the office with a racing mind and soaked panties.
Yay.
Dan’s snort brought her back to today’s daily dole-out of frustration. “‘Going great?’” He reiterated her assertion by throwing air quotes around it. “That’s really what you thought, eh?” He dropped his hands with a grunt. “Guess that depends on your idea of great.”
She leaned in, resting an elbow on the table. The move was for caution, not flirtation. Sure, honey. You just go ahead and keep believing that—especially with what you’re about to let slide from your “virginal” little lips.
“You already know what my idea of ‘great’ is.”
He tilted his head again, as if he’d yanked the cord on the lightbulb inside it. “Yeah,” he said slowly, “I suppose I do.”
“Then why do you sound so stunned?”
“Do I?”
His head dipped lower as his grin inched higher. The little-boy-bashful look was one of his hottest moves before the burns. Now, he used it to hide those scars—like Tess even remembered they were there by this point.
“Okay,” he declared, “so now that we’ve gone there with the conversation…how are things going with the FetLife guy?”
The question affected her like a physical shove. She returned to her original posture, greedily grabbing the chance to regain her composure.
Well, she’d walked right into this one, hadn’t she? That’s what she got for meeting the man for lunch, knowing he’d wear a suit, which would in turn make her forget her own damn name, let alone that if she went for the subject of kink, he’d bring up the lifestylers’ version of Facebook, which replaced prompts like “mood of the day” and “favorite movies” with “favorite fetishes” and “hard limits.” Dan had encouraged her to form an FL profile about two months ago, after she’d finally confessed that a lot of reading, research, and soul searching had led to the conclusion of wanting to explore the Dominant/submissive lifestyle more deeply.
She remembered the day he’d made the recommendation to her. He’d seemed wistful—and that wasn’t a surprise. By that point, she’d known he hadn’t stepped foot into a BDSM dungeon in over a year, and that Brynn was digging her heels in about ever giving it a try.
The situation had never met Tess’s approval. To be more accurate, she was incensed. But some of that was due to her baggage, not Dan’s—shit that would likely take her a lifetime to figure out. From the outside, life in the Lesange household made Mattie, Viv and she the envy of all their schoolmates, raised in an atmosphere that appeared the epitome of “Parisian hip”—though in reality, was a gilded cage of strictures, limits, and bigotries that she hadn’t seen clearly until a few years ago. Who the hell had the right to throw sludge on another person’s choices, unless it was dangerous or stupid? And going priss-prude on a man like Dan Colton, who offered to be a patient, loving guide into all the best of the D/s dynamic? Instant induction into the stupid column. When she’d said as much, Dan had chuckled and called her “cute.”
Cute.
Brynn was giving the man vanilla sex in a handful of positions, and Tess got “cute.”
You need to be grateful for what you do have with him—a hell of a lot more than what you dreamed of having in the first place, right? Don’t mess with the goodness, Tess. Not now.
It was the same reasoning she’d used to finally open the FetLife page—but so far, with disastrous results. She didn’t sugar coat that truth for Dan. “Nowhere,” she muttered. “They’re going nowhere.” She managed a small laugh to set up her next revelation. “I’m not sure why the guy called himself a Dom. Every time he loaded a new profile photo, he’d message to ask me if his butt looked big.” She giggled as Dan nearly spat out his beer. “Sorry. Should’ve warned you that was coming.”
He shot up a brow. “Euphemism intended?”
“Probably.”
The brow descended. A heavy breath left him. “Fuck. Sorry about that, ruby.”
She shrugged and smiled as the waiter delivered their lunch, beef enchiladas for him and chicken for her. “Well, don’t cry me a river,” she quipped, spooning some sauce from her plate to the ridge of the big flour tortilla. “A wise man, who happens to like a little food with his salsa,”—she eyed the three salsa dishes mounted next to his plate—“once told me this process might take a while.”
“Pssshh.” Dan winked at her duh, mister stare. “Sounds like the idiot didn’t know what he was talking about.”
“Oh, sure he did.”
“Oh, no he didn’t.”
Whoa. Commander Colton is in the house. Only
she couldn’t figure out why. When his direct order of a statement came accompanied by an incisive gaze, she gulped down some more tea. Cleared her throat. Drank again. Yet he still stared. What the hell was going on? Or was nothing going on? Wouldn’t be the first time she’d read too much into his actions just because she longed for it to be so.
“Errrm…I’m lost.” At least it was the truth.
Dan didn’t let up on the stare. Not helping, screamed her frazzled nerves.
“Men can be idiots, ruby.”
That was what she got worked-up about? She made up for it with a hard snort. “You said it, not me.”
He loaded up his fork but didn’t bite. Instead, after blowing out more air through his nostrils, he stated, “That ‘wise man’ told you it would ‘take a while’ because he didn’t think you were completely serious about finding a Dom.”
She felt her brows reach for her hairline. “Is that so?”
“Yeah. That’s so.”
Forget frazzled. She was miffed. “What? Because he thinks he knows me?”
“Well, yeah. Probably a little more than most people.”
“Well, screw that.” She stabbed into her own food. “And screw you.” Oh, how you once wished. Thank God for the friend zone now. “I appreciate all the things we’ve talked about, okay? But I meant it when I said I’ve been reading about the lifestyle on my own. Believe it or not, ‘Laser’ Lesange knows how to apply herself to more than spread sheets, satellite shots, and classified intel.”
“Okay, okay.” He reached over, grabbing her hand before she could think to yank away. “Men? Idiots? Remember?”
Damn. Skin to skin, the man was even harder to view on a platonic plane. His hand surrounded hers in heat, strength, and command. She looked at their entwined fingers, telling herself not to savor the sight, before letting her stare, which could still pass for disgruntled, slide to his face. Damn. God had given him classic but rugged features that gave women whiplash but somehow never intimidated men. If he’d been born fifty years ago, his long-lashed eyes, aquiline nose, and forceful jaw would’ve been splashed across movie screens from beneath a white Stetson, chasing bad guys alongside John Wayne and Clint Eastwood. Every time she saw him again, even just a half hour ago in front of the restaurant, her breath caught and her heart stopped.
And yeah, that was even with the scars.
Who the hell was she kidding? The scars were just another giant crank on her helpless libido. The mottled strip of skin was like Wayne’s strut and Eastwood’s cigar, a signature symbol that proclaimed much deeper waters than the surface—a much more dangerous message than the placid outside. You really want to fuck with me, man, after seeing what I’ve taken already?
Shit. What were they talking about again?
“Idiots.” She grabbed onto the one word she remembered before her logic had decided to feed itself to her lust. “Yeah, well…that might be an exaggeration. At least sometimes.”
“Well, not this time,” he said, humble and soft. “Put that together with a guy who’s been in the lifestyle for six years, and seen more than my fair share of subbies who dive into it for all the wrong reasons, and you end up with a guy who looks at things cynically.”
She took a bite—using her other hand. She was going to enjoy the crap out of the physical connection to him, even if it was only from wrist to fingertips. “That’s understandable,” she conceded. “Kind of like bringing in civilian consultants on cases, who then think all of us are Sydney Bristow and Jason Bourne.”
“Wait.” His forehead crunched. “I’m not Jason Bourne?”
“Smart ass.”
They laughed together. And that, she concluded, was the end of that—
Until he squeezed her fingers tighter.
The ruby has officially melted. The second grasp confirmed what the first couldn’t. He hadn’t reached for her just to prove a point. He wanted to be holding her like this.
Dry out your panties, girl. Holding hands in a public restaurant is a long way from stepping into a playroom together. Would you really let the man tie your ass down to a spanking bench right now—after he admitted to privately bankrolling an off-books op to catch a bastard, before nearly flaying the man open for the vultures in Red Rock Canyon?
Her heart answered that before her head could. And that answer was no relief for her dilemma.
I’d trust him with my life right now if I had to.
So letting him work some Dominant magic on her bare ass? There was a no-brainer.
As she allowed her mind to rev with that daydream, she was conscious of wetting her lips again—but very little else. Even Dan’s voice was dim and distant, until he all but yelled her name.
“Huh?” she stammered. Looked up at his face, so filled with rugged intensity, and gave up on walking out of here with anything less than a pussy that would beg for her vibrator all afternoon. Juuust great. “What?” she snapped at him.
His tawny brows settled harder over his piercing blues. “Where the hell did you go, ruby?”
She managed another shrug. “Doesn’t matter.” It couldn’t matter. Not where he was concerned.
“Unless you were strolling through the mental weapons room, contemplating which one to use on me.”
A laugh spurted. “Shut up. I’m over it.”
“And I’m sorry.”
“What?” Her confusion was genuine. Then her awkwardness. She was used to chip-on-the-shoulder Dan, not this new, different gentleman Dan. It was weird—and seriously messed with her dungeon fantasies of him. And dammit, she needed those fantasies. Swiftly, she demanded, “Why?”
“For lumping you into the wannabe subbie box.”
“Pssshh.” She took another bite to smooth the moment. Apologies from him were like straight talk from back channel radio chatter: weird and unnatural. “You explained that reasoning. Made sense. Water under the bridge. Can we move on?”
“Right after I tell you that you’re going to make some Dom into the luckiest guy on the planet.”
So much for smoothing things out. Hell. He’d never spoken words that affected her so deeply. They warmed her in depths she never imagined him reaching—but brought an arctic freeze in their wake.
I don’t want some Dom.
I want you.
And he was going to know that…how? The question made a ton of sense—and brought a truckload of hope. Every book she’d devoured about BDSM stressed the importance of communicating one’s needs, even if it wasn’t comfortable. Doms weren’t gods, psychics, or mind readers. They were simply men who did their best with what their subbies gave them. With being entrusted with the truth.
Maybe it was time for her to heed that advice.
Suck it up, Lesange. You’ve tracked terrorists and human traffickers and drug kingpins. So just apply the laser to your own damn insecurities.
“Well…” Shit. This felt like the first step off the high dive board. Now she was committed to the plummet. “I just heard one of the hottest Doms in town is newly available.”
Dan’s fork fell out of his hand. Clattered to his plate.
Salsa and cheese spattered, dripping down the salt and pepper shakers like blood and guts.
Freaking. Great.
Tess set down her own fork. Gulped again—this time hoping the heat across her face didn’t look as mortifying as it felt. “Well. Who’s sorry now?”
“Tess—”
“Don’t.” She yanked her hand free from his. “Just—don’t—okay?” The last thing she needed was some empty excuse about how this “had nothing to do with her” and how he just “wasn’t ready” to go there with anyone right now—when they both knew he’d been damn ready for at least the last six months.
Silence stretched. The most uncomfortable minute of her life.
“Tess. Listen.”
“No.”
“Yes.” He pulled her hand back in. She yanked back. He held fast. “You are so goddamn beautiful. And stunning. And smart. Everything a Dom c
ould ever dream of—”
“Except a Dom like you.”
Deliberate pause. Determined stare. “Yeah. We might as well drill that one in. Except a Dom like me.”
“Because you like it rough?”
He blew out a tight huff. “Darlin’, ‘rough’ is just the tip of my whip, okay?”
“Ooooo. And that’s supposed to make me scared?”
“Dammit, Tess. Look—”
“‘Listen.’ ‘Look.’ ‘Drill that in.’” She set her own fork down. “Awfully bossy words from a guy who doesn’t want to be my Dom.”
He reared back. Narrowed the corners of both eyes. If he was still going for scary, it wasn’t working. Even the guy’s ticked-off look stopped her heart on every track it possessed. “Is that what you think?”
She rolled her eyes. “Oh, here it comes.”
“Here what comes?”
“The big lecture.”
Tighter eyes. Blue steel irises. Anger and power that turned her panties from moist to soaked. Damn him. “What ‘big lecture’ would that be?”
“The one when ‘I play too hard for your virginal ass’ isn’t working. The one about how you’re too fucked up right now to even think about training a submissive—and about how I’d be better off with a guy who better knows where his life is at, what the hell he’s doing, and how to treat a ‘gift’ like me. Hmmm. I’m sure I’m leaving something out. Give me a second…”
As she tapped at her jaw, his tightened to the texture of canyon cliffs. Right before he yanked out his wallet, tossed some twenties on the table, and swept a hand out to jerk her to her feet. Okay, so the commander was back—but Tess wasn’t sure she dug the pissy upgrades. At all.
“Dan! Sheez!”
“Grab your phone and purse,” he ordered from locked teeth.
“What the—”
He didn’t wait any longer. Instead, snatched up her phone and dropped it into her purse before wrapping the pocketbook’s straps in a fist. Hell. She’d have to pull everything out in order find the device again. No time for fuming now. She struggled to keep up with Dan’s long strides out of the restaurant, even on the sturdy heels of her trendy boots.
