The Consequence

by Giana Darling

At least, that was what I was banking on.

  My lids shifted to half-mast matching Sinclair’s hooded gaze as I stared intently at the fingers playing over my wet core.

  “I need you,” I panted.

  He jerked slightly and I knew I had him, just one more little push…

  The mechanical vibration of a cell phone cut through the room, bringing us both to a complete halt. We both stopped breathing and looked over at the phone buzzing away on the nightstand.

  Sinclair was the first to move, swiftly walking to the phone and answering in a clipped voice. He didn’t look at me as he dived into a rapid-fire French exchange and moved out of the bedroom into the living area of the suite.

  I sat in the chair for a long moment while I listened absently to the exchange. My mind refused to acknowledge that Sinclair didn’t want me. He did. I had never doubted that, not through any of the turmoil we had been through. Yet, now he denied himself and me what we needed?

  Robotically, I got ready for bed, letting muscle memory and habit guide me through brushing my teeth and moisturizing before I slipped beneath the covers and turned off the lamp beside my bed. I stared into the darkness for a long time, well after Sinclair finished his phone call and hung up.

  Eventually, he came back, stared at my back for a few minutes, and then got into bed. He rolled into me immediately, tucking me tightly into his body so that we were pressed inch for inch, front to back.

  “My love for you is bigger than the world,” he murmured into my ear after he pushed my hair away from my neck. “I love you more than my need to dominant.”

  He thought I was asleep, obviously, so I tried to keep my body from going hard with shock and then soft with relief. It wasn’t me he was disgusted by but himself. I should have known that and it irritated me that I was so slow on the uptake when he had been struggling with his sexual deviancy for years before he met me. Now that I knew what the problem was, there was no way in hell I would let it defeat us, not when I finally had the love of my Frenchman after months of longing.

  Chapter Eight.

  The next morning I was up before Sinclair and I took immediate advantage of the fact. Normally, I wouldn’t breach his privacy so flagrantly and I had a momentary pang of guilt as I checked his phone for any evidence of contact with my sister and his ex-girlfriend. Elena was the only person I knew who had the power to turn Sinclair against himself like he had last night so I followed my gut and was rewarded when I found an email from her in his inbox.

  Rage ignited like a bonfire in my belly, rushing through my blood until it had burned everything clean and clear.

  She was officially a bitch.

  I didn’t care how badly she might have belittled me, but subjecting her lover, former or current, to her unfair biases was absolutely not okay.

  I worried that the crushing force of my fury would wake up Sinclair, so I carefully closed down his phone and lay in bed beside him as I struggled to digest the news. In a way, it made me feel better to know that at least I hadn’t done something to turn Sinclair away but at the same time, I was disappointed that he hadn’t shared the email with me so that we could talk through it. If our situation had been reversed he would have expected, no demanded, that from me.

  Slipping out of bed, I tiptoed over to his computer and fired up the search engine. Before our one night together at Cosima’s apartment, I had done a bunch of research on BDSM but I wanted to know more. I wanted to know everything. The small taste that I’d had of the power dynamic was addictive. It was more than just my attraction to Sinclair that had wooed me, it was the idea of being under his control. The messy mass of desires, shame, fear and power that made up my complicated sexuality was tamed by the skilled touch of Dom Sinclair. My traumatic history with Christopher also ceased to exist when I was under Sin’s spell. These were things that I refused to give up, especially when it was Elena’s influence and not his desire was the driving force behind his sudden need to live vanilla.

  I looked over at him as he laid peacefully asleep, the crest of his thick lashes casting long shadows across his cut glass cheekbones, the fall of his rich mahogany hair across his forehead. He was so achingly beautiful, so deeply perfect for me in every way. I just needed to remind him of that.

  Moving into the other room, I made the call I need to make in order to set my rash plan into action. Thirty minutes later, Sinclair still in bed with a note I had left explaining that I’d gone into Odile’s studio to paint for the day, I met Cage at Quotidian to have a tartine and enlist his help.

  “Absolutely not.”

  “But Cage--”

  “Jamais. Pense-tu que je sois con?” he asked me incredulously.

  “No, I don’t think you’re stupid.” I looked up at him from under my lashes, my eyes wide with sincerity. “I thought you were a friend, that you would want to help me with this.”

  He scoffed, unmoved by my act. “You know better than to ask me this, I think, cherie. Sinclair would kill me without a second thought if I took you to such a place without him.”

  “I love Sinclair but we need this,” I leaned in to whisper. “He won’t dominate me since Elena sent him that awful email. Last night, he wouldn’t even touch me!”

  “Even without the kink, he is still more passionate with you than he has ever been with another woman. Maybe he doesn’t need it like you think he does.”

  I gave him a look.

  He opened his large palms wide and sighed. “I will not deny that he needs some level of control in the bedroom, d’accord? But he has lived the last four years of his life thinking it was inhumane to dominate his partner. Do you really think that is something you can bounce back from overnight?”

  I hadn’t thought of it that way. Elena had been condemning him for years about his sexual preferences. That sort of thing left a mark on someone.

  I tilted my chin in the air. It was something Elena did when she wanted to get her way and even though appropriating her behavior was the least of my transgressions against her, it still felt wrong.

  “I’ll go without you,” I threatened.

  Cage glared at me but humor sparkled in his thickly lashed eyes. “Ah, well that changes things, doesn’t it?”

  “I think it does.”

  He chuckled darkly and leaned back in his chair, the big, strong leather-clad rocker in a tiny chair in a feminine French restaurant. A thick fingertip traced his ridiculously full bottom lip as he contemplated me.

  “Je suis d’accord, cherie. I will let you play but I will not take you to some club, oui? My friend, Madame Claire holds a monthly soiree for like-minded people. I will take you to this but I have to warn you again, even this is not for the faint of heart.”

  “I’m not some shrinking violet,” I retorted.

  He gave me a long, languorous perusal. “Non, not anymore but this change is recent. You may change your mind and then where will Sin be, ugh?”

  “I would never leave him,” I said, and I had never meant anything more.

  Cage waved a dismissive hand through the air as he knew that already. “He will kill me, you know this? If he finds out I took you out as my submissive.”

  I frowned. “Your submissive?”

  Cage nodded. “I will not take you to something like this unclaimed. As it is, you will garner too much attention as a newcomer and looking like you do. You’ll have to be mine for the night. Don’t worry, cherie, I will try not to enjoy it too much.” He winked.

  I laughed nervously. “When is it?”

  “So eager. We will go this Thursday. Can you get away from Sinclair?”

  I bit my lip but nodded. Sinclair was supposed to be going to a business dinner with Paulson and a few other investors in the Dogwood project so it should be easy enough to slip away.

  “Do you have anything to wear?”

  “Excuse me?”

  Cage sighed dramatically. “I cannot take you to something like this without the appropriate attire. We’ll have to go shopping.”
r />   He stood up and placed a few euro notes on the table before pulling on his beautiful black leather coat.

  “Come,” he encouraged, when I just sat there.

  “Oh, right now?”

  He grinned, extending his huge hand to help me up. “Yes, right now.”

  He took me to Agent Provocateur and laughed at my expression of intimidated awe as we swept through elegant displays of delicately webbed lace and gorgeously constructed corsets. Cage stopped briefly at various racks, picking out things that caught his eye and transferring them into the hands of an eager, and beautiful, saleswoman who followed us around the store. He didn’t ask for my size but I knew enough about Cage Tracey to know that he would make an accurate guess.

  It occurred to me that Sinclair would be furious at the idea of someone else dressing me in racy lingerie, of another man taking me to a public playroom. I didn’t want him enraged, with me or anyone else, but I truly felt that the only way to convince him of my investment in the scene was to pursue it independently of him. If he could only see what submitting did to me, he would have to understand.

  And maybe if I were a better sub, he wouldn’t be able to keep himself from me like he had been.

  “You’ll invite him then?” I asked Cage as I followed him into a spacious change room.

  I was only mildly surprised when the saleswoman left us alone inside, this was Paris after all, the city of romance and not America, which Sebastian often claimed was run by prudes.

  I began to strip, unashamed in front of Cage. He was a rockstar, for God’s sake, he’d seen way more appealing naked bodies than mine.

  For his part, he averted his eyes as he took a seat on a velvet bench.

  “I will. We will get you settled first and than I will let him know that you followed me to the event. Give it fifteen minutes and he’ll show up in a rage.” His obsidian eyes flickered my way and widened. “Especially if you are wearing that.”

  I blushed as I pulled up the last stocking and attached it to the garter belt strap. I struck a silly pose for him. “Do you like?”

  His eyes smoldered but his posture was casual as he leaned back against the wall. “If you do not take your own sexuality seriously, Elle, how can you expect anyone else to? Look in the mirror and tell me what you see.”

  I swallowed hard past the knot of insecurity growing in my throat but did as he said. Even though I knew Cage wasn’t as into the scene as Sinclair was, he still had a very effective Dom voice.

  The woman staring back at me wore a tight black corset with stiff lace embroidery and sheer panels that nipped in her waist to extreme proportions and highlighted the creamy swell of her full breasts above the rise of the sweetheart neckline. Inky black thigh highs encased her curvy legs, exposing a panel of white skin that was somehow extraordinarily sexy against the starkness of the black lingerie. Her red hair spilled like wine across her shoulders and down her back and her lips grew wet with moisture as she chewed on one.

  “Look at yourself and tell me the truth, that you have never seen a sexier woman before in all your life.” Cage’s voice reached me through the haze of my own self-infatuation.

  “I wouldn’t go that far,” I protested on a breath.

  “Then you are wrong,” he retorted. “Maybe this will be easier for you; how would Sinclair react if he saw you like this?”

  I could picture the exact shade of blue his eyes would darken too, the color of the sky just before it tips into nightscape when it is still just barely electrified with light. His jaw would clench and tick with restrain and his voice would wind itself around me, seductive and heady as drug smoke.

  My entire body shivered and flushed.

  “Exactly,” Cage agreed, satisfied with my response. “This is the one you will get. And this, you will wear as well.”

  He got up swiftly and gently tied a length of velvet black ribbon around my neck, like a makeshift collar. It reminded me of the painting from the museum, Olympia, with the woman collared in much the same way. My fingers fluttered against the ribbon as my pulse hammered.

  “Hopefully, by the end of the evening at Madame Claire’s, Sinclair will give you a collar of your own but for now, this will do.”

  I swallowed heavily and straightened my shoulders. “I’m going to get him back, Cage.”

  He nodded soberly. “I’ve no doubt of it.”

  Despite both our confidences, my knees shook as I took off the expensive garment and gave it to Cage to pay for as my Christmas present.

  If things didn’t go the way I needed them to, Thursday could very well be the last night of my new relationship with Sin.

  Madame Claire lived, unsurprisingly, in Montmartre, the trendy, artist neighborhood built on steeply curving streets surrounding the Sacré Coeur. Her apartment was two floors but oddly constructed because the top level had at one time been the servant’s quarters. Now, it was a spacious, open concept space where nearly everything was visible as soon as you opened the door.

  Which is why I frozen in the frame while Cage moved further into the foray.

  My eyes danced over the scantily clad people present, some talking innocuously over glasses of champagne while others took up more daring poses. There was a man in leather chaps kneeling on the floor on all fours with a tray of drinks balanced on his back. Another man, this one dressed in an impeccable suit, pet him on the head as he spoke with a friend. A woman wearing nothing but scarlet red nipple tassels and a matching leather collar was strapped onto some kind of enormous cross. The man before her was carefully but brutally, laying into her with a red leather cane, leaving vivid red stripes along her skin.

  My own flesh tingled at the thought.

  I jumped when Cage reached out and tugged me further into the room.

  “It’s a St. Andrew’s Cross,” he whispered in my ear.

  A quick flash of Sinclair strapping me into such a thing made gooseflesh break out over my skin.

  Cage chuckled. “A bit advanced for you, Elle.”

  “Isn’t that the point?” I countered.

  Sinclair and I had made love once in the four days since Elena had sent him that email. He had done a relatively good job of avoiding me, throwing himself into work and encouraging me to visit with Odile and spend time with Candy and Cage. I knew it was because he couldn’t control himself around me, which gave me some level of comfort, but not much.

  I missed him acutely.

  I had tried to talk to him about the problem, mentioning Elena’s cruelty at Thanksgiving, how wrong she was to condemn him for his interest in BDSM. He had shut me down with a flick of the wrist before he removed himself from the room to take a call. I was trying to be patient with him even though he was hurting both of us with his obstinate behavior but having a plan made it easier.

  Four days was long enough.

  It was time to bring my Dom back.

  A slight smile pulled Cage’s full lips but he ignored my comment in favor of leading me towards an older woman reclining in an antique chair while she used a naked man as a footstool at the back of the room.

  As we drew closer I could see that she wasn’t a very attractive woman, her features were too broad and plain for that, but the elegance of her bearing and the cutting wit in her dark eyes was enough to arrest me.

  “Madame Claire,” Cage purred as he inclined his head towards the woman. “May I introduce the lovely Elle?”

  “You may,” she replied but her sharp eyes seemed to reprimand me as they trailed over my body. “Is this how you wish to present yourself?”

  Without thought, I folded to my knees and tilted my head towards the ground, my hands clasped behind my back. Immediately, my mind cleared of anxieties and I let out a deep exhale of relief when I felt Cage’s approving hand on top of my head.

  “Better,” Madame Claire praised. “It is unlike you to have a pet though, Cage.”

  “Yes, she isn’t mine. In fact, she belongs to Sinclair.”

  I didn’t have to look at her
face to feel the surprise this elicited.

  “I have not heard that name in a very long time. As I understood it, he had settled with some vanilla American,” she said with disdain.

  “He has rectified his error,” Cage said with faux sobriety. “Elle is both his woman and his sub now.”

  “Then why is he absent, mm?”

  “May I speak, Madame?” I ventured.

  A pause.

  “You may.”

  “The vanilla American accused his kink of being sexually abusive.” Even repeating the words made me irate but I gritted my teeth and sunk further into my pose to find calm.

  Madame Claire sniffed loudly, in that quintessentially French show of derision that I had always loved.

  “Monsieur Sinclair has suffered from this fear for too long. Look at me, sub,” she ordered softly, waiting until I looked up at her before she continued, “We will do what needs to be done to get your Dom back, oui?”

  My smile was almost painful as it blasted across my face. “Je suis d’accord.”

  Sinclair was having a late dinner meeting until nine o’clock so Cage insisted on taking me on an introductory tour around the room to acclimatize myself to the situation. I protested at first but it was a good idea because the nervous, bouncing ticks of my diaphragm like a precursor to hiccoughs, disappeared after we had made a few rounds of the room.

  We paused before a scene where a Domme had bound her bulky male submissive at his wrists, elbows and ankles so that he was prone on his knees, ass in the air on the floor. She played idly with his erection, with the beautiful muscular swell of his ass while she spoke to him about everything she was preparing to do to him, at length. From his throaty groans, I knew he was ready for whatever she deemed worthy of him.

  I was most excited to talk to the woman in red who was now cradled in her Dom’s lap after their session. Her eyes were half-closed as if even that effort cost her energy that she no longer had to expend.

  “Laurent, Miss Pascale,” Cage greeted warmly, clearly familiar with the couple.

  “It has been too long,” the handsome Laurent noted with a wide, affectionate grin.