by Lilia Moon
She twirls a red leaf in her fingers. “That’s not your safeword, buddy.”
I scowl at her. “Didn’t you have breakfast with Scorpio this morning?” There are rules about talking in our lifestyle, but we try hard not to put people in the middle. Even when they’re really nosy and volunteer.
She sighs. “Yeah. That makes this a little sticky, but if you talk to one of the guys they might agree with that thick head of yours.”
“What are you now, a mind reader?”
“You’re thinking you went too hard on her. That you should have backed off.” She raises an eyebrow. “How close am I?”
Pretty much on the button, but she doesn’t know the half of it. “She came to me this morning. Couldn’t get the truth out, so she lied and spewed some nasty crap. I kicked a punishment scene into gear. Sent her a maid costume to wear.”
Ari stares at me for a full minute without blinking.
I plunk down on a rock beside her. “So yeah, I’m pretty damn sure I pushed too hard.”
She leans into my shoulder. “You’ve fallen really hard for her, huh?”
I shake her off. “Why the hell is everyone telling me that?”
She snickers and leans back into me. “Remember when Emily came to see Damon in the dungeon? The second time, when she waltzed right in and dared him to spank her?”
Nobody at Fettered will ever forget that—or the scene that came after, where they both put their hearts on naked display for everyone to see. “Emily still doesn’t know we were there the next night, does she?”
Ari shakes her head. “We’ll tell her when she asks.”
I know where she’s going with this. “Not all big gambles pay off. What if Scorpio walks?”
“Then you grovel and you fix it.” She touches my cheek. “You’re not just her Dom, big guy, and she knows that. Trust her. Trust that what the two of you are building together will survive this moment.”
I let my head tilt down to her shoulder. “It could be really bad.”
She nods her head slowly against my cheek and wraps two warm arms around my middle. “I know.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Scorpio
If looks could kill, every living thing between my apartment and Fettered would be dead.
I can’t believe I’m here.
I stomp up the front stairs—I’m not going in the damn servant entrance. Not dressed like this. The door opens before I can kick it in, which sucks, because I need to take my temper out on something. I don’t give a damn if I’m the first maid ever to wear steel-toed boots. Maybe I’ll start a trend.
Right after I set Seattle on fire with my eyes.
I know why I’m angry. I know it’s a cover for hurt and shame and a dozen other things I don’t want to be feeling. Ari and Leo almost had me convinced there’s purpose in this, that Harlan’s doing it to give me a chance to be something more. Something that doesn’t have a tourist bone in its entire body.
They didn’t see how I look in this fucking maid gear.
The lounge is empty when I storm through it. I’m not surprised. I warned Ari I was coming.
I shove the dungeon door open and that’s where I find him. Standing in the middle of his domain, in leathers that say just how long he’s lived here. Waiting for me to show up and grovel.
If that’s what he wanted, he left way too many loopholes in his instructions. I’m following them. To the letter. And not a damn hair more.
I stop a foot from his nose. I refuse to be scared of this.
I shake off the trench coat I borrowed from Leo and dare him to say a word. His stupid note didn’t say anything about walking here dressed like a freaking porn extra. Clearly he went out of his way to find the most revealing maid getup in the history of the universe—and then bought it a size too small to spite me.
Edges. Blood. Today I want it to be his.
He doesn’t laugh. He doesn’t even ogle my boobs, and this getup doesn’t leave much of them covered. He just studies me with silent, serious eyes. When he finally speaks, his voice is quiet. “Why are you here?”
I wonder if he’s ever been kicked in the balls. I’m here, I’m furious, and I did what he asked. He just needs to fucking get on with it. “For my spanking.”
“For your punishment.”
I will not crawl. “Call it whatever you like.”
He backs slowly over to the same spanking bench we used yesterday and sits down. “Come here.”
There’s no sign of softness. No sign of the man who did this so playfully last night while everyone listened. “No.” My anger is gone, a freaking bloody coward that fled the moment he spoke. I can’t do this.
His eyes are uncompromising granite. “That’s not your safeword. Use it or get your ass over my knee.”
Lightning. I’m going to say it. I intend to say it. I open my mouth to say it—and then I start shaking like a leaf, because somewhere in here is an edge I need and I don’t know how to leave without it and I don’t know how to stay.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Harlan
So close. So fucking close and I almost lost her and now I need to honor the fuck out of her choosing to stay, even if she doesn’t know it yet.
I do the work she can’t. I get her sexy ass bare and bent over my knee, make sure her face is comfortable on the spanking bench, because she’s going to go way deep now and I need to take her there and take amazing care of what she’s about to do and be.
I run my hand over her ass, letting her feel me. I can see the stunned look on her face. Her brain’s totally shut down. The rest of her is trusting me to get this right.
She whimpers as my hand lands on her ass, and it’s still sounding mostly scared. I can’t let that be where she goes. I pick up the rhythm, splintering the last of her resistance and giving somewhere for the shattered pieces to go. She’s absolutely silent for long enough to worry me—and then something in her releases on a long, aching cry of relief, and her ass reaches for the next swing of my hand.
My sub has found her surrender.
I give her exactly what she needs. Freedom. My hand raining down absolution on her ass. The reminder that she can go scary places and do scary things and find the woman she wants to be out the other side. The hard, sharp knowing that sometimes fire is the best way through.
I feel her riding it—and then I feel her let go. Beyond sensation, past surrender.
I gentle things slowly so that whatever part of her is still tuned into my hand gets the chance it needs to exhale.
My touch, her heartbeat. And then, when she’s done, I pick her up and turn her gently over and find the big armchair where we can sit forever if we need to.
My legs try to protest the walk there, but I don’t let them. I’ll shake later. Right now everything I am is for her.
I sit down, and I hold her in tight to my chest, and I breathe in the smell of trust and shattering and doing hard things. She shudders, and I snug her in tighter to my heartbeat. I’m not a Dom who’s afraid of earthquakes, and she needs to know I’ll hold her while she shakes. For as long as it takes.
I’m so fucking grateful she’s here.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Scorpio
I don’t know how long I’m in the timeless place. Ari’s told me about it. Subspace. She says it’s better than orgasm.
She’s wrong. It’s in an entirely different galaxy.
This is peace, like the kind that comes when three notes in a song find each other and the whole world stops to listen. The place where holy exists and absolute rightness is totally a thing and humanity divides into people who get it and people who don’t.
The man who has wrapped his whole body around me brought me here. Turned my fire and brimstone into something so beautiful I can’t stand it—and I can’t leave.
I don’t know if the sound under my ear is his heartbeat or mine. It doesn’t matter. It’s the sound of utter safety, of a promise so vast I had no idea what it meant until
now.
I almost walked away from this.
I’d kick myself all over hell for that, but the peace of here would never allow that—and neither will the man who gave me this.
He faced my anger, my fury, my impending flight. He made me face them too. Now it’s time to thank him.
As soon as I find the part of me that knows how to speak.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Harlan
She’s coming back to me. One heartbeat at a time—and her body is the liquid calm of a sub who has totally gone through something huge and come out the other side.
It’s me who needs to shake. I almost lost her.
I pull her in tighter to my naked chest. She might not need it. I do.
She runs her fingers over the lace of the only maid uniform I could find on really short notice. “You used this to get past my crap.”
That she can see that, even as she sits totally wasted in my lap, is like magic oil for my heart. I take my first really solid breath in hours. The man needs her to hear what the Dom would never say. “I was scared you wouldn’t come.”
She’s rubbing her cheek on my chest like it’s all that’s holding her to the world. “Leo helped me.”
The list of people I owe on this is getting ridiculous. “I’m glad he was there for you. For us.”
She nods.
I tune into her breathing, her muscle tone, her heartbeat. Sub calm and aware, and clueless about where she might have left her armor. It’s time to finish this. I slide the grimy, stained picture that has caused such grief onto her lap. “Talk to me, beautiful.”
Her fingers trace over the lines that have formed in the picture. “The lingerie is a symbol, somehow. Of what her eyes are saying. Wearing on the outside what she’s feeling on the inside.”
I kiss her hair. We both know plenty about making statements with our outsides. “What do you see in her eyes?”
She shakes again, but these are the good kind. “I want to say weakness, because when I’m scared, that’s what it looks like. But it’s not. It’s softness.”
Now we’ve hit truth. Deep, beautiful rivers of it. I stroke her hair and let it soak into both of us.
She pushes herself off my chest, but she isn’t backing away. She’s seeking my eyes. “I need to say this before I get scared again. I want soft. I want cuddles and candlelight and to be taken care of. Not all the time, but some of the time, and I’m scared that you’ll think I’m weak if I need those things. That I’ll think I’m weak. And I’m scared of what will happen if I say I need those things and then open up for them and they aren’t there.” She blew out a breath. “Music used to open me up like that, but there wasn’t any safe place to be soft.”
Because no one expects a chick in black and chains to need tenderness.
I cup my hands around the face of my gorgeous sub who wants to be surrender that isn’t weak. I kiss her forehead, her cheeks, the cold tip of her nose. “Beautiful, I’m a Dom. I live to hear that the woman in my arms wants those things.” I tip back her head, brush my thumb down the curve of her neck. “It’s not weakness. It’s not even softness. You want to be cherished.”
Tears fill her eyes and spill down her cheeks and I don’t think she even knows they’re there. She’s too busy letting a single word sink in and reshape the hidden thing, the shameful thing, into something that can live in the light. I cuddle her into me, needing to feel her everywhere. Needing to hold her while she reforms.
She wants to be cherished.
Doing that job right will take more than man or Dom has ever given.
Chapter Forty
Scorpio
Cherished. It’s like he’s yanked all the clothes off the part of me that I thought was scarred and ugly and made me look and see that it’s not ugly at all.
I stare down at a crinkled, abused photograph, and suddenly it’s all I can see.
Cherished.
Something that can only happen if I’m willing to be soft. I huff in a breath. “Ari looked like this. At charades night when she peeled off her pants and stood there looking all ravishable.”
I can hear the low, proud growl above my head. “Yeah. She did.”
I won’t be that brave in a thousand years of trying. “How does she do that? Be so open and so tough all at the same time?”
Harlan shifts us in the big chair so that I can see his eyes and lays his hand under my cheek. “I don’t know. But this is about you, not about her. You have that same need to be tough and to be vulnerable.”
Even that word is scary. “How the hell do I do that?”
He grins. “In the vanilla world, I have no idea. In this one, you trust me to give you what you need.”
I can feel my body trying to squiggle back from him.
He stops me with a snort and a kiss to my forehead.
My brain kicks into gear, since clearly my body is a total pushover. “So like the shrinky-dink flogger—that’s part of giving me space to be brave and tough, right?”
He’s laughing. “Shrinky-dink?”
I poke his ribs. “You know the one I mean. The hot-rain one.” I flutter my eyelashes at him. “That I hope you use again soon.”
He shakes his head and glares, but I can see the amusement in his eyes. “You know what we call subs like you, right?”
I grin. “Yup. Brat.” Based on what I saw at charades night, I’m going to have to work if I want to earn that title.
He leans in and kisses me, and it makes all my non-bratty parts go soft and gooey. “Yeah, things like sensation play, impact stuff, anything that pushes you towards pain lines, those are all ways a sub can breathe into her own power.”
I remember how I felt after the hot rain. “I like that part.”
He touches a finger to my nose. “You also find it easier than most subs, because that’s power you already know how to wear well, inside and outside.”
I trace a finger down his tats. I’m not the only one. I can also hear where this is going, and the part of me that’s tough decides to get there first. “So basically I’m weird because I like a flogger and I’m scared of lingerie.”
He chuckles. “Weird doesn’t have much meaning in this lifestyle.” He pauses, and his eyes look so deep into mine. “What it means is that things that look soft or vulnerable or weak are sharper edges for you. It will take more trust between us for you to find your surrender in those ways.”
I eye him suspiciously. “I’m not a big fan of punishment as a trust-building exercise.”
He groans and squeezes me tighter. “Me neither.”
I snuggle in a little closer, because I can see that he really means it. “The in-between after doesn’t suck, though.”
He’s breathing me in, his hand running up and down my back. Soaking in this gift he’s given us, because Ari and Leo were totally right about that part. “You’re not going to stop pushing on me about this, are you.” I don’t make it a question—it totally isn’t. More of a pout, really.
The rumbling laughter under my ear isn’t an answer.
It’s a promise.
Chapter Forty-One
Scorpio
Friday morning, and miracle of all miracles, we don’t have any weddings this weekend. Which should make this meeting really short. I slide into the seat beside Leo and sigh gratefully. “I love fall. Nothing to do.”
He grins and leans into my shoulder. “Want to help edit video?”
My job ends about six hours after a wedding is done. His rolls on for weeks, especially when we’re coming out of the slammed end-of-summer season. “Sure. Can I pick music, too?”
He snorts and fills my coffee. “Not a chance.”
I pretend to pout. “You let me do Doxy and Jimmy’s video.”
“Exactly.” He casts me a careful look, under the guise of slurping his own coffee. “How are you?”
There are some things even I can’t manage to talk about at work, but he helped me out in ways I’m only beginning to understand, and h
e deserves an answer. “I showed up. I almost safeworded out.”
He breathes slowly into his mug. “It doesn’t get much bigger than that.”
“Mountains moved. Some of them might still be moving.”
His hand runs down my forearm. “He’ll need you today.”
“I’ve been wondering about that.” I put my hand over his. Leo’s been a really good friend through this, and clearly he’s not done yet. Screw work and privacy. I need to know. “Have you and Sam ever done anything like that? A punishment thing?”
“Yeah.” He sighs, and the look on his face is so stinking happy it nearly kills me. “Sam asked me to marry him two days later.”
Whoa. I pick up my coffee cup, trying not to look horrified.
He laughs, right from his belly to his snazzy hair. “Don’t worry, I don’t think it’s contagious.”
I elbow him, trying to process what he’s just told me. My brain cells aren’t firing in high gear today. I think some of them decided to take a vacation somewhere between subspace and Harlan’s hand. “You’re telling me it’s going to change things between us.”
“Nope.” He leans over and kisses my forehead. “I’m telling you it already has.”
“Cut that out, you two.” Emily walks in, rolling her eyes. “No kissing at work.”
Leo stands up and plants one right on her lips. “We love you too, boss lady.”
She backs away from him, holding up a folder to ward him off, but she’s smiling while she does it. “I have no idea what’s in the water around here lately.”
I snort. Like hell she doesn’t. “You totally started it.”
She blushes, and it’s pretty darn clear her imagination has taken that remark and run with it.
Leo hides a grin and pulls out a chair for Gabby, who has just walked in and noticed all the energy zinging around the room. She blinks at each one of us in turn and then takes a seat. “Is everyone ready for the charity ball tonight?”
I stare at her.
Leo takes one look at my face and nearly snorts coffee out his nose. “You forgot, didn’t you?”
