Liam studied me with every bit on intensity in his being. I felt adrenaline begin to shoot through me.
“The people in the lobby, pet, they are all here for the club. The club that I own and run.” His face was a study in patience as I blinked rapidly, trying to gain my bearings.
“He hasn’t spoken to you about any of this.” I read disapproval in Liam’s tone, and found myself even more horribly confused.
“Liam, cut the crap. What the hell is going on?” I wanted to back away rapidly when Liam closed the space between us, cupping a large hand around each of my upper arms and moving in so close that our lips almost touched.
“Austin is an old college friend of mine, pet. Though he has only just realized that the problems in your marriage might stem from his frustrated dominance, I, on the other hand, have always known that a vanilla lifestyle does nothing for me.”
He might as well have been speaking Greek, for all that I understood. My brow furrowed, and I saw in my peripheral vision one of the latex clad couples from the lobby.
I only now noticed that one was leading the other on a leash.
My stomach rolled as my mind rapidly began to put things together.
“He was supposed to talk to you before he left you with me.” Liam didn’t look pleased that I seemed to have no prior knowledge of what on earth he was talking about.
I gaped, astounded at the words.
“Before he left me with you?” My fists curled, my nails biting deeply into my palms. “And where in this do I get a say?”
“That is the entire point, pet.” Liam waited quietly. I was frozen in place.
“The point of what?”
“This club, this casino, cater to those with a taste for kink. As manager, I help those new to the lifestyle to explore their needs.” Kink? Even as I shivered and backed away, I felt my nipples contract with need.
What was wrong with me?
“Austin thought that I could help to bring out the dominant in his nature, and your true self, as well.” His lips curled with the slightest hint of amusement, even as dark need shimmered in the air between us.
“And I suppose that you are going to tell me who my true self is, stranger?” I was angry, and more than that, embarrassed. Austin had contacted an old friend, discussed our marital problems, and then left me in the hands of someone who ran a kink club without having the guts to tell me any of this first.
I could have killed him, and his actions only caused half of my anger. No, despite the situation, I was drawn to Liam like a moth to flame.
“Discovery of yourself is a journey that only you can take, Anna.” I was feeling—
oh, I was feeling too much. I wished for an outlet, because I felt like I was going to explode.
“In preparation, you might want to start thinking about the possibility that you have a yearning for something beyond vanilla yourself.”
Chapter Four
“In preparation, you might want to start thinking about the possibility that you have a yearning for something beyond vanilla yourself.”
“You’re crazy, Liam. Certifiable. And my husband is right there with you.” My body and mind were awash in uncertainty and pain from Austin’s betrayal... and at the same time I felt heat echoing between my legs.
What was wrong with me?
“Watch yourself, little pet.” Liam watched my hand, which had risen to slap him across the cheek. I needed an outlet for the sensations that were rioting through me, but the look on his face told me that if I slapped him, there would be consequences.
It aroused me, and I felt shame because of it.
Unable to process the sensations rioting through me, I spun and began to half walk, half run back the way we had come. Liam stayed with me every step of the way.
“Go away!” I hissed the words through my teeth. His presence was so commanding, I couldn’t block him out, couldn’t think. “Why would you agree to something so stupid, anyway?”
“Because I wanted to.” The words were simply said, falling off of his tongue one by one, but they made me shiver. Did he always do things just because he wanted to? Could he be stopped if he wanted to do something? The idea scared me to death, because I was certain that the attraction that I was feeling wasn’t just one sided.
I glared at him, then found my wrists clasped in his hands. He pulled me to the side of the breezeway as easily as if I weighed nothing.
“Good evening, Master L.”
Liam held tightly to me as he turned, very slightly, to the sound of the voice. I looked, too, and found a young woman kneeling half a foot away. My mouth fell open a bit when I saw that the girl, a pretty redhead, was clad solely in a gold leather bustier and miniskirt.
She looked up at Liam adoringly, and when her eyes flickered in my direction they contained an unmistakable hint of annoyance.
“Is there anything I may do to serve you tonight, Master L?” The woman’s voice was full of longing. I wanted to dismiss her as a silly bimbo chasing after a good looking man... but the desire evident on her face was raw and real.
I felt my stomach do as slow roll as my mind began to run through a list of everything that the woman might mean.
“Lecia.” Though the woman was offering herself to him with words, her body language told me that she hadn’t actually given up control. It annoyed me, though I couldn’t have said why.
When I looked at Liam, my breath was taken away. He looked down at the young woman with displeasure written on his face, and that should have repulsed me. But he had become... well, dominant was the word I would use. Yes—he had drawn dominance around himself like a cloud, a whole aspect of his personality that I had seen hints of throughout the evening.
Seeing it in full force made me want, and I hated myself for it, a bit.
“Lecia, you know better.” He didn’t yell, though his voice was full of reproach. The woman’s expression changed in an instant from one of adoration to fear... fear mixed with a flicker of excitement.
Though I couldn’t claim to understand her motivations, I could certainly empathize.
“Sir. I’m sorry, Sir.” She licked her lips and arched her breasts forward just a hint, and I scowled. Liam, however, kept his eyes on her own, not seeming to notice the offering of flesh that she displayed.
“Lecia, I know that you fairly new to the lifestyle, and we are outside the club’s doors, so I will be lenient. But let me remind you. It is not a sub’s place to approach a Dom. Ever. If and when the Dom wants your attention, he or she will take it.”
“Yes, sir.” She whispered. My head swung back and forth between the two. I was mesmerized by the exchange. “I’m very sorry, Sir.”
“You will be.” Liam’s voice was tight. It would have been impossible to miss the flush of arousal that stained the woman’s cheeks as he spoke.
I had no claim on him, but her attraction made me see red.
“Go inside. Report to Master Micah. Tell him that you have displeased me. Since I am busy, in my stead he is to punish you in whatever way pleases him.” The woman blanched and opened her mouth as if to argue. One look from Liam quelled her words. She bent her head and nodded.
“Yes, Sir.” Though she trembled, she continued to kneel, seeming to wait for something.
“You may go.” Without raising her eyes, her cheeks still flushed, the woman began to rise. Liam growled, and she froze.
“Those with poor behavior do not receive the privilege of standing tall.” The woman’s cheeks flushed even darker, and I watched, dumbfounded, as she crawled away towards the door of the club.
Most of the traffic in the casino by this point seemed to be people headed in the same direction. Though many people looked the beautiful girl over, even commented on her situation, not a single one seemed shocked.
No one except for me.
“Stay the hell away from me.” It felt wrong to run away from Liam, especially when he still wore that dominance like a well cut suit. If I was honest, I wasn’t
running from him so much as I was from the knowledge that I wasn’t actually disgusted by what I had just witnessed.
No, I was intrigued. I was aroused.
I couldn’t. I wouldn’t.
“Stop!” Liam spoke quietly, but the command reverberated through the single word regardless. Though I’d intended to ignore him, my feet halted of their own accord. Fighting the dual needs inside of me, I turned to face him, my face a mask of anger.
Though his dark eyes momentarily flashed with something that I couldn’t quite identify, he seemed to swallow back the most intense aspects of his charisma. Tilting his chin in a barely perceptible nod, acknowledging and, thankfully, respecting the boundary that I had silently set— albeit reluctantly, it seemed. “I’ll walk you upstairs.”
“That’s not necessary.” I started and was cut off by the ferocity of his sudden glance.
“It wasn’t a question, Anna.” Not sure how to reply, and still unable to break the connection that resonated between us, vibrating like a taut wire, I allowed myself to be tugged along in his wake, fuming all the way.
What on earth was I supposed to say to Austin?
The elevator ride was long and silent, the heat of Liam’s proximity made bearable only by the press of the cool mirrored panels pressing against my feverish skin. Once upstairs and down the long hall that lay outside the room that I shared with Austin, I turned to Liam, forced myself to look him in the eye. “This was not necessary, Liam. I am quite capable of walking to my room by myself.” The glossy wood of the door was all that separated me from my husband, from a space that should have been safe.
I remembered that Austin had engineered this entire situation, and my stomach rolled.
I had no choice but to confront the problems in my marriage, head on.
“Anna, you may be in denial about what you truly want, but be easy on Austin.” Liam sounded rueful, and I could see in his eyes that he knew his supposed best friend had made the wrong move in not telling me. “Bt remember... he only contacted me because he wants to make you happy.”
I shook my head as though I could remove the strange sensations from my mind. I needed space. I needed to breathe.
“What do you get out of this, anyway?” Intrigued as I was, deep down, I couldn’t imagine why a man like Liam would feel the need to indulge his friend in... whatever the hell this was. He could surely have any woman he wanted.
And what was with the kink? Wasn’t normal sex with probably any woman that he wanted enough for him?
Those dark eyes assessed me steadily, probing deeply until I squirmed beneath his gaze.
“We all have our own reasons, Anna, the most basic being that the vanilla world does not offer something that our very natures require.” His face showed no judgment of either lifestyle. “For myself—I own a lot of things, Anna. For me, I enjoy knowing that it is a part of myself, a part beyond my money, that can bring a woman pleasure.”
I noted that he had avoided telling me why he was here, specifically with me, and something told me he was too smart to not have known what I was asking. But then the rest of his words caught up with me, and realization ran over me in a rush. Oh, how could I have missed it? Everything in his being spoke of power.
“You own the casino, not just the club.” My voice was flat, and I felt deceived yet again. “I’m assuming that you own more than that.”
Liam nodded, and his eyes glinted with a hint of danger, pushing at me.
“I’m a very rich man, Anna. I’ve grown accustomed to indulging myself, and I very much enjoy doing so in this manner.” He reached out to stroke a finger over my cheek, and though I flinched, I also found that I wanted to rub my head against the heat of his touch.
“I wasn’t sure that I would be able to help the two of you when Austin first contacted me. But I once promised him that if he ever needed me, I would help. And now, having met you...” His hand trailed down until he cupped my chin in his jaw.
“Now, I can think of little I would enjoy more than introducing you to a world beyond vanilla.”
The dark need that washed over me was the final straw. I jerked back, severing contact. I wanted him, I couldn’t deny that. I was intrigued by everything that he represented.
But normal people didn’t go around calling one another Master. Did they? I thought of the books on my e-reader, the ones that had frustrated me so much, showing me what it was I wanted... what it was that I didn’t have.
There were so many books out there on the topic of kink... Sara Fawkes and Eden Bradley, Cathryn Fox and Daire St. Denis, Suzanne Rock and Joey W. Hill.
So many books... there had to be an audience for them. An audience of people who yearned for what I was wanting... people who maybe even did those things that I’d read about.
But I was married. Married to a man who’d never shown the slightes inclination towards... I could barely even think the word without blushing. Kink.
And that same marriage was entirely up in the air at the moment, thanks to this insane scheme concocted by Austin.
“I can’t see you again.” Why was this so painful? I’d only met him that afternoon. Somehow, though, I felt as if I’d known him forever, as if our meeting at the service station in the desert had been preordained by the echoes of a past life.
I thought that I saw a flicker of regret flash over his face, and then it was gone. The billionaire stood, confidence in every line of his form.
“The door will never close, pet.” He smiled, though it didn’t quite reach his eyes.
“Goodbye, Liam.” Biting my lip, I turned to the door, fighting back the bile that rose in my throat. A small, choked cry was caught on my lips when he grabbed my arm, hard enough to bruise, and with a twist yanked me against the hot, solid planes of his long body.
Yes, was all that I could think. Yes. I was desperate for the touch of his lips on my own, was immensely relieved that the decision had been taken out of my hands. But the touch didn’t come. Instead he lowered his lips until they hovered a mere whisper away from my own, ran a firm, cupped hand over the back of my head and down to the small of my back.
“Be well, Anna.” I tasted the words rather than heard them, and found that they turned my lips numb as, blindly, I slid my key card in the lock, swung open the heavy wooden door.
Austin sat in the middle of the bed, dressed simply in jeans and a black t-shirt. I had always liked him dressed casually, found him at his most attractive.
Now, though, I felt nothing but disappointment and hurt.
He took one look at the expression on my face, and I could see his guilt.
“Liam told you.” He was clearly angry with himself, slamming one fist into the open palm of his other hand. “Fuck. I’m such a coward. I’m sorry, baby.”
“You’re sorry that you let a stranger tell me that you thought our marriage needed some freak show to fix it? Or sorry for arranging this whole scenario to begin with?” Wariness crossed his face as anger began to vibrate through my entire body.
I felt as though I had been betrayed by the one person who was supposed to have my back, forever and always.
“Anna.” Austin stood and crossed to me, grasping me in the same place in which Liam had touched me only moments earlier. I wanted to shake him off but instead stilled, tears prickling at the backs of my eyes.
“Anna, you know that we need something big to change if we’re going to make it. You know that.” His fingers pressed into my flesh firmly.
Oh God, oh God, how had my life come to this?
I knew without a doubt that he was right—entirely right.
It still didn’t excuse his actions.
It didn’t excuse my feelings towards the man who called Austin friend.
“I need to be alone.” My voice was clipped, angry, though what I felt more than anything was hurt.
Austin hesitated, then nodded.
“All right.” He raked a hand through his golden hair, and it spiked under his fingers. “I’m going to g
rab a shower. When I’m done, we’ll talk.”
I turned away, hugging silence to myself as he closed himself in the bathroom. As I heard the water in the shower turn on, listened to the whir of the bathroom fan as it engaged, I finally gave in and sagged down onto the floor, weeping bitterly. I wasn’t feeling sorry for myself, no, not really; the tears that flowed were a release of the frustration that I’d been keeping bottled up inside. Liam or not, my marriage was sick, perhaps terminally so, and I would have given anything to find a cure.
The flood from my eyes abated before the matching downpour of the shower. After a huge, honking blow of my nose, I gave myself a shake and changed for bed. I didn’t want to talk about it. I didn’t want to talk about it at all. In fact, I didn’t want to talk about anything, so before Austin could come out of the bathroom, I stretched out on the bed and pretended to sleep.
Chapter Five
“Anna, are you okay?” Fingers stroked over my hair, pulling me from the depths of a nightmare. “Ssh, pet. You’re just dreaming.”
Half asleep, half awake, the storm of emotion that had began to percolate outside the door with Liam made its full presence known again— it seemed that that storm inside of me wasn’t finished yet, that it had one last aftershock to release.
“No!” The word was almost a scream, and to my horror my eyes overflowed at the same time as I scrabbled awkwardly to my knees, trying to gain purchase on the slippery satin of the sheets. “No, I am not fucking okay! We are not okay! And I don’t know if we ever will be again! And I sure as hell shouldn’t have to dress in rubber and let you beat me to fix it!” The sobs racked my body, more violent and intense than they had been only minutes earlier, and I flailed out when Austin tried to wrap his arms around me, tried to calm me down.
“Fuck you! Fuck you, Austin!” I squirmed as he held me tight, and we rolled over the king sized mattress, the residual dampness from his shower sticking to my bare legs. “I can’t fix this alone, damn you! Give me something back!”
Seduction in the Sun: Adult Romance Box Set (9 Sizzling Tales with BBW, Billionaires, Bad Boys, and Alpha Males) Page 66
