“Screw appropriate,” he told her. “Lean in. Cry if you want to. My shirt can take it.”
She let out a quiet laugh. “But can I take the humiliation of crying all over you?”
“There’s nothing wrong with letting go and having a good cry every once in a while.”
“Yeah, do you want to cry all over my shirt? I’m sure it can take it.”
“Smartass,” he told her, glad to see a small smile on her face. “Bottling up your feelings and emotions isn’t healthy.”
“Sometimes letting them all pour out isn’t that healthy either.” She’d closed down on him, and he wondered at such a strong reaction. She tried to pull away from his hold. “I need to write up my notes.”
He’d come in here to tell her she didn’t have to hide from him. That she wasn’t in any danger of having him pounce on her like a ravenous lion who’d spotted a gazelle. Instead, he had her nestled all sweetly on his lap, or he had until he’d said the wrong thing.
“I really need to get back to work, Gray.”
“I’m the owner, I make the rules.”
“I don’t think Hunter would be too impressed with you paying me to sit on your lap.”
Gray laughed. “I’d like to see his face if you told him that. Honey, I don’t have to pay you to sit on my lap. You like being here.”
She blushed. Adorable. “I didn’t mean it like that. And I do not like being on your lap.”
“You do. You also liked when I kissed you. Even though you’ve been avoiding me ever since. Why is that?”
She bit her lip and looked away.
“Uh-uh, look at me.” He turned her face back, holding her chin firmly. “I think I deserve to know why you run the other way every time you see me coming. And don’t try to bullshit me with any of that employee-employer bullshit. There’s no rule about getting involved. I should know, I made the rules. And I don’t want to hear the same crap you told me the other night. I’m not perfect. Not even close. So don’t try to use that to push me away.”
She studied him, a dark and lonely look filling her gaze. “I just don’t think it’s a good idea. I had some bad things happen to me, and I don’t think I can trust you or any man ever again. I need this job. I like it here. I don’t want to argue, but if you keep pushing me on this, I’ll have no choice but to leave.”
She stood, and this time he let her.
“Believe me when I say you’re better off staying away from me, anyway.”
Chapter Seven
Lacey closed her eyes, leaning back as the sun beat down on her. Before coming to work here, she never used to sit outside simply enjoying the sunshine. The park across from where the building where Black-Gray had its offices was pretty and peaceful. Just a few joggers and people pushing strollers walking by. When Cady had first invited her to eat lunch with her, Lacey had been a little reluctant but she hadn’t wanted to insult her. She’d come to actually enjoy Cady’s company. The other woman didn’t feel the need to fill the silence with unnecessary small talk, which suited Lacey just fine. Although it did mean her mind could wander. And lately, her brain was fixated on one thing. Gray.
Don’t think about him. Don’t think about kissing him. About how much you long to touch him, to run your hands along his long, sculpted body. He didn’t have the bulk of Hunter or Tiny, but he certainly wasn’t lacking. In any way.
Beneath those designer clothes he wore, she just knew there was a six-pack, sculpted shoulders, and a tight ass. Damn, she loved a man’s ass.
Don’t think about how much you regret turning him away. He hadn’t tried to talk to her since she’d told him to leave her alone last week. It had been the right thing to do. If she let him get close to her then eventually she’d just disappoint him.
No, it was better to stop things now.
Cady snapped her fingers in front of Lacey’s face. “All right, where did you just go and can you take me with you?”
“What?”
Lacey had discovered that Cady was almost as blunt as Hunter, although she did have a bit more of a social filter. She was also funny as hell, loyal, and a hard worker.
“You had this dreamy look on your face and a small grin. Like you were thinking about something really good. I’m thinking that’s your sex face.”
“My sex face?” She gaped at the other woman. “What the hell is a sex face?”
“You know, the face you make when you’re thinking about sex or actually having sex. But unless you’ve got some way of orgasming without touching yourself then I’m guessing you were just thinking about sex.”
“Jesus, Cady.” She could feel her cheeks burning. “I don’t have a sex face.”
“Everyone has a sex face, trust me.”
“Oh, yeah, what does yours look like?”
“It’s real sexy. Too sexy for a prim thing like you to handle.”
Lacey threw her half-eaten apple at Cady with a laugh. “I’m not prim.”
“Hmm, are you saying you’re an angel in the boardroom and a tiger in the bedroom?”
“I cannot believe we’re having this conversation.” Lacey placed her hands over her face. Honestly, there seemed to be very little Cady wouldn’t talk about.
“You started it.”
“I did not.”
“Sure you did, with your sex face. You still haven’t told me what that was about, by the way.”
“I don’t have a sex face and I wasn’t thinking about sex!” Lacey half-shouted. Two older women, their gray hair tightly permed, turned to stare at them.
Mortified, Lacey gave them a small wave while Cady burst into laughter, practically rolling on the ground as tears ran down her face.
“Cady, shut up,” Lacey told her as the two ladies turned away in a huff, their heads bent together. They turned once to look back at the two of them, and one shook her head in clear disgust.
Lacey dropped onto her back and looked up at the sky.
“You’re a bad influence on me,” Lacey grumbled.
“No, I’m a great influence on you. You need to loosen up. If you were wound any tighter, you’d injure yourself. You need to have some fun. Laugh a little.”
Lacey wrinkled her nose, but she couldn’t really argue with her. When was the last time she’d had fun? Real fun? The type where she could let loose and laugh until tears ran down her cheeks. She smiled at little. Sex face. It had been kind of funny.
“You know, you should come to the club with us one Saturday night.”
Lacey rolled onto her side and leaned up on one elbow. She was probably wrinkling the hell out of her navy blue suit, but she didn’t care. She’d taken off the jacket already, it was too hot outside to keep it on. She was going to have to invest in some lighter office clothes once it got closer to summer or she’d melt.
Maybe it was time to branch out. Try something new. She looked over at Cady’s jeans and T-shirt with envy. She couldn’t be that relaxed, she needed to at least look professional. But maybe she could still be professional while dressed in something other than her drab and dreary suits.
“A club isn’t really my scene.”
“Oh, this isn’t a normal sort of club. And I think it will be your scene, you just don’t know it.”
“All right, now you’ve piqued my interest.” She sat up. “What sort of club is it?”
“Hunter and Gray own a club with their friend, Simon, who runs it. He seems a bit scary when you first meet him, but he grows on you. Sort of. His wife is a sweetie.”
“They own a club?” Somehow she couldn’t imagine Gray as a nightclub owner.
“A BDSM club.”
“A sex club?” Her mouth dropped open as she stared at Cady in shock. “They own a sex club?”
“Shh.” Cady looked over at some men jogging past with a laugh. “Do you want to draw an audience?”
It hadn’t seemed to concern her before.
“And it’s not a sex club. BDSM isn’t about sex.”
Could have fooled her. S
he raised her eyebrows.
“Well, that’s not to say people don’t get sexual fulfilment from practicing BDSM. But you can engage in BDSM without any sex or sexual release.”
“Wait, so you’re saying that you are a part . . . that you’re . . . um, a . . .”
“Submissive? Yep, sure am. And proud of it. Hunter is my Dom, obviously. I don’t think anyone would mistake Hunter for a sub.”
No, they certainly wouldn’t.
Nor Gray.
“So, Gray is . . .”
“A Dom, he sure is.” Cady watched her closely, studying her. “How does that make you feel?”
What was she getting at? “Um, how is it supposed to make me feel?”
“I’m not sure. I thought maybe it might interest you. You know because . . .”
It finally dawned on her, what Cady was trying to insinuate. “You think I’m a submissive. I’m not a submissive.” She’d never have imagined Cady was either. She seemed so strong, so tough, like she’d never let anyone tell her what to do. “I hope you don’t mind me saying so, but you don’t seem like you’d let, like you’d be . . . um . . . I don’t know how to put this . . .”
God, she was making a mess of this. And the last thing she wanted was to insult Cady and lose their budding friendship. But this was so out of left field it was taking her a while to catch up.
“I don’t seem submissive? I’m not. Not in everyday life. Hunter and I aren’t twenty-four-seven, although sometimes he acts that way. I’m submissive to Hunter during play. Because I choose to be. Outside of play, I’m not submissive to him in most things, however there are some rules that we live by.”
“Rules?”
“Yeah, like, rules about safety. If anything happens or I feel unsafe, I’m supposed to call him right away. Say, if I broke down while driving home, Hunter would want me to call him immediately so he’d know where I was and so he could help me. Just simple things that are kind of common sense, but for us they’re important. Hunter needs to know I’m safe, it’s a big thing for him. For both of us, actually.”
“So how does the submission thing work? If you don’t mind me asking.” She was curious, but she didn’t want to say the wrong thing and annoy Cady or make her think she was judging her.
Cady shrugged. “I brought it up, so nope, I don’t mind you asking. I’d been to a few clubs before I met Hunter. It never felt quite right, though. I was a cop. I was used to making tough decisions, to being in charge, and suddenly when I walked into a club with a Dom, I was supposed to give up control and let someone else be in charge? Be vulnerable? But what I’ve realized is that I couldn’t be submissive with just anyone. Only Hunter. With him, I can let go. I can just be. And the sex is off the charts.”
“So, you let him . . . ah, take charge when you’re at the club? Does he . . . what does he do to you?”
Cady let out a snort of laughter. “He doesn’t lock me in a cage for weeks on end and feed me rations of bread and water.”
“Of course not. I didn’t think that.” Not exactly that anyway.
“Hunter doesn’t do anything I don’t want him to. If you think about it, I’m actually the one in control of everything.”
She was?
“How?”
“Because I can always use my safeword. I can put a stop to everything. I have my limits, and Hunter respects them. Anything I don’t feel comfortable with is a hard limit. Anything I’m unsure about but think I could try is a soft limit. I’m in charge, although that’s not to say that, as my Dom, Hunter won’t push me within those limits. There have been many nights when all I’ve wanted is to come, and Hunter has made me work for it. The bastard.”
There was a fondness in her voice that Lacey didn’t quite understand. How could she feel so much affection towards him when he’d withheld an orgasm? That sounded kind of painful. Not that Lacey had really had an orgasm. Well, not one that wasn’t by her own hand.
“I thought you’d know a bit about this considering who your cousins are.”
“Who my cousins are?”
Cady’s eyes widened. “Uh-oh.”
“Uh-oh? Uh-oh, what? Are you trying to say that my cousins are Doms?” Shock filled her.
“Well, they’re certainly not submissives. Travis owns the biggest and most successful BDSM clubs in New York.”
She scowled. “That bastard. He never told me. None of them did. Are they all Doms?”
“I think so. I know for sure that Travis and Jace are, anyway, because I’ve heard Hunter talk about them.”
Okay, her mind was reeling from all this information. She scrambled for something sensible to say, but nothing came to mind.
“I just . . . wow.”
“Sorry, I shouldn’t have given you all this information at once.”
“It’s okay.” She thought everything out. It did make sense. For Travis, at least. She couldn’t quite imagine Jace as a Dom, but then she didn’t have a checklist of attributes for spotting one.
Could be quite handy to have one, though.
Might make her feel like less of an idiot.
“Why did you bring this up? I mean, why now?”
Cady bit her lip. “I thought you might like to come to The Twisted Thorn one Saturday night. We usually go each week. I could get you a visitors pass. It means you can’t play with anyone Simon, Gray, or Hunter don’t preapprove and you’d have to sign a confidentiality contract first. Maintaining the privacy of the people who go to The Twisted Thorn is important. But it would give you a taste. Maybe help you unwind a little.”
“You said that before, how would it possibly help me unwind?” And was she really that tense that Cady thought she needed to unwind? “I mean, doesn’t the stuff you do there hurt?”
Cady snorted. “Only as much as I want it to.”
“You want it to hurt?” She rubbed her temples. All right, now her brain really was on overload. It was too much to process. “Why would you want to be hurt?”
“It’s a great stress relief. Sometimes when everything piles up, and it gets too much, all I want is to just let go and forget for a while. When Hunter is in charge, I don’t have to worry about anything. All I have to do is what he wants me to do. Well, sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I do what I want to do. But normally my butt pays. Or he doesn’t send me to my happy place.”
She wasn’t certain she really needed to hear about Cady’s happy place.
“I don’t find it easy to talk about shit.”
She could have fooled Lacey. She was doing an excellent job of talking about things that Lacey would never feel comfortable bringing up.
“Especially when it comes to the way I’m feeling. A bit of pain can let out all those emotions you bottle up during everyday life. But it doesn’t have to be pain. Sometimes just letting go and submitting is enough to lift me out of my worries. And when I hit subspace, well, it’s like I’m floating. I’m free and I know Hunter will be there to catch me.”
“So you need to trust your Dom to take care of you.”
“For me, yes. Other people can play without having an attachment to the Dom. And that works for them. But not for me. That’s just who I am.”
Lacey got that.
“I couldn’t let go with someone I didn’t trust fully.” Um, okay, where had that come from? She couldn’t let go at all because she wasn’t a submissive, right? “
“I think you might enjoy it. With the right Dom.”
With Gray.
Oh shit. She had to stop thinking about him.
Lacey started to frantically gather up her leftover lunch. “Thanks for the thought, but I’m not a submissive. And I don’t think I could ever trust someone that much anyway.”
Cady sighed and grabbed her garbage. “All right. Sorry if I scared you.”
“You didn’t.” Lacey paused and stared back at her. She hoped Cady wasn’t angry with her, she couldn’t stand that. “I’m not judging you or anything, it’s just not for me.”
Cady shrug
ged. “Sure thing. But if you ever change your mind about visiting the club you know where I am.”
As Lacey followed her back to work, her words kept playing over and over in her brain.
Submissive. Release. Orgasm. Floating.
What would it feel like to give up all her worries for a time? To just live in the moment? To release all the stress and the continuously looping feelings of failure and fear she lived with constantly? Would she be able to give up control for a short time and trust someone to respect her limits?
But then, if she was in a room filled with people they would have to respect her limits, right? There had to be people monitoring and watching. Besides, Cady said she wouldn’t be able to play with anyone who hadn’t been approved by Hunter. He might have his faults, but he was one of the most protective people she’d ever met, even towards her.
And who said she had to play? She could just go and observe. Maybe figure out if it was something she could be interested in. She wasn’t turned on by the idea of pain, but she admitted to a small fascination with spankings. Some of her favorite romance stories involved the heroine being spanked by the hero.
She licked her lips as she sat down behind her desk. No doubt the reality was far less romantic than fiction. No, BDSM wasn’t be for her. She could never let go that much and allow someone to control her.
Better that she just put it from her mind completely and forget Cady had ever said a thing.
Chapter Eight
Gray sat at the bar and stared out at the club. The thudding sound as implements descended on bare flesh, the smell of leather, the moans of pain and delight, usually brought him a sense of peace. Some satisfaction. A touch of excitement. Tonight, he just felt tired.
Probably because he wasn’t sleeping well. Lacey’s fault. Every time he closed his eyes, he dreamed of her touching him, running her hands over his chest, down his stomach, of her circling his cock with her mouth and . . . Jesus, he had to get a grip, or he was going to come right there.
“Soon we’re going to have to start paying people to come here,” Simon commented as he sat beside him.
A Taste of Sir (Doms of Decadence Book 6) Page 7
