by Livia Grant
He loved her.
Her heart skipped a beat. Just like it had when she’d first walked into Black Light tonight and she heard his voice calling to her from the locker room doorway. Just like it had when she saw him coming toward her, with Noah urging him on as if… well, as if a stranger had known exactly what both their hearts wanted while hers had stubbornly refused to accept it. Ethen had been a miserable first lesson in lifestyle submission, but Garreth wasn’t Ethen. Hadlee could see that now, but for months she’d made such a point of pushing him away. How did she go about undoing that damage now, because obviously Garreth expected it. Already he was stepping away, withdrawing physically in order to protect himself emotionally.
“You might still have a little soap in your hair.” He gestured to his shower bag. “Use whatever you need. I… have to go back to work.”
She was such a coward. The entire time he toweled off and dressed, she tried, but couldn’t think of one thing to say that might open the door for something other than simple friendship and missed opportunities between them. She was still trying when, dressed now in street clothes since his uniform was covered in chocolate and honey, he gave her one last look, a nod that was at once both acknowledgment and defeat, and then he walked away.
Chapter 8
“I had a blast,” Noah said as he shook Chase’s hand.
Standing guard at the stage stairs, Garreth watched the visiting whip-master make his goodbyes. It was almost midnight. The party was over, the winners congratulated, aftercare dispensed and the dungeon was empty of all guests. Only the staff remained. Ling was mopping down behind the bar while servers moved around, stacking chairs on tables and sending the last dirty glasses through the washer. A vacuum was running somewhere in the back. The incident report for earlier in the evening had been filled out (twice—first to get the facts straight, and the second time to change every occurrence of ‘the motherfucker’ to a much more professional ‘Ethen’). It didn’t make him feel better about how he’d handled his part in what had happened, but he was pretty sure when Chase and Jaxson reviewed the file later on, at least on the surface he wouldn’t look like he was holding a grudge.
And he absolutely was. One day he might find a way to let go and, if not forgive Ethen for his shit, at least release the matter for Karma to resolve. He had a lot of faith in the power of Karma and its ability to never overlook a slight when it mattered. Anything that had to do with Hadlee mattered.
Right. Of course, it did. But now came the hardest part of the evening. Now he had to remind himself that this had been nothing more than a Cinderella night—a magical, fun-filled evening in which he’d scened with the woman of his dreams, only to lose her again. That was his fault. He’d gone back to work when every nerve in his body had screamed for him to grab her by the hair, pull her into his embrace, kiss her until her toes curled and then tell her she wasn’t leaving Black Light until they’d hashed out where they stood. Because this ‘friendship’ thing they had going on was killing him. But he hadn’t done or said any of that, because she’d been fragile, both from her run-in with Ethen and from the effects of the discipline he’d laid into her.
You don’t love me! How can you? How could anybody?
Garreth rolled his shoulders, bristling all over again. For him to have demanded anything of her while in that state of mind was nothing short of predatory. So, what had he done instead? Why, he’d gone back to work, like an idiot. And Hadlee had gone home. He knew, because he’d gone back to check on her not twenty minutes later and the shower had been empty. So had the co-ed locker room, and the dungeon proper, and the bar. Well okay, those hadn’t been empty, but none of the women laughing and chatting and winding down for the night in any of those locations had been Hadlee. A quick check in with Danny at the front desk had confirmed his suspicions.
“She left about—” Danny consulted his log and then his watch. “—ten minutes ago.”
So. There Garreth was, standing at the gates of his kingdom while his princess fled into the night. He didn’t even have a shoe to remember her by.
Which wasn’t exactly true. He knew the identity of his princess. He also knew where she lived.
That definitely would be a creeper move, though. Showing up at her door in the middle of the night, asking if they could talk. She’d probably already be in bed. She’d probably get that wincing look that women did right before they said the words no man—dom or otherwise—wanted to hear the woman of their dreams say: I like you, just not that way. Or: Can’t we just be friends? Or, God forbid, the ever devastating: But I do love you… like a brother.
His heart would never be the same.
Still, some risks begged to be taken. Because if he had to continue on the same way that these last six months had gone, with Hadlee right within his reach and yet never more untouchable, he was going to give up.
“Hey.”
Garreth startled to find Noah and Chase were no longer on the stage. They were, in fact, beside him, with Jaxson standing beside them. Noah’s hand was offered. Embarrassed to be caught not paying attention, Garreth quickly accepted before anyone thought he was snubbing him. “Are you off?”
“In the morning,” Noah replied, all smiles and Aussie cheerfulness. “Hotel tonight, then early flight out. I just wanted to say it was a pleasure. Thank you for allowing me to play with your girl.”
“She’s not mine.” That denial came out sounding much harsher than it should have. It didn’t convince anyone, either. Not Chase, who folded his arms across his chest and returned his stare with one of pure ‘You could have fooled me’. Or Jaxson, who rolled his eyes. Not even Noah, who outright laughed at him.
“What are you doing, blokey?” he countered, still laughing.
“I’m trying not to be a dick, or a predator, or an asshat, or…” Garreth floundered, frustration mounting beyond his ability to see through.
“Or Ethen,” Jaxson continued for him.
Shoulders sagging, Garreth deflated. “It’s not like I haven’t opened the door for her. She just won’t… step through it.”
“Not because she doesn’t like you.”
“Yeah,” Garreth couldn’t help mumbling. “Like a brother.”
Noah’s eyebrows arched high. “Did she tell you that?”
“No,” he admitted. “It’s probably too late tonight, but tomorrow morning I’m paying Hadlee a visit. I fully expect that’s exactly what she’s going to tell me.”
Chase hid his eyes behind an exasperated hand. “You’re killing me, man.”
Noah took a more direct route. He stepped up to Garreth, coming shoulder to shoulder and eye to eye with the slightly taller man. It was the sternest ‘Now you listen to me’ look that Garreth had ever received from anyone. It both startled and rankled his inner dom.
Noah lowered his voice for Garreth’s ears only. “If she tells you that, mate, you tell her her Uncle Noah will make a special flight all the way back to the U.S. solely to pay her a visit. You can tell her he’ll be bringing his heavy roo-hide belt with him and that liars get spanked. Now, you can think whatever you’re inclined to in that overly cautious and slightly thick-headed brain of yours, and she can say whatever she’s comfortable admitting to when she’s too afraid to tell the truth, but the fact remains I did a dip test while we were scene-ing. Put my fingers right up between her shivering thighs, and she was wet. Not just a little, like most women get when they’re doing naughty things with two hot, fantastic doms they barely know. But a lot,” he emphasized. “It was a flood worth building an ark for, mate, and women don’t do that, no matter how good the scene, unless they like the bloke what’s leading them through it. And I mean really like him.” Cocking his head to make sure Garreth understood the implication, Noah said, “It wasn’t me she was submitting to out there. That was all you. Why do you think I told her to lock her eyes on you during that flogging? You’re her rock. You’re her guardian. You make her feel safe, so try not to be a dandelion here. What does your
gut say you should do about it?”
“Grab her by the hair, push her face to the floor, shove my fingers in her pussy and my thumb in her ass, and demand to know who owns her,” Garreth said without hesitation, but that right there was the biggest reason why he didn’t think his gut should be trusted. And yet, Noah’s smile only broadened.
He spread his arms in an all-encompassing shrug. “There,” he declared. “You see? All is once more right in the world.” Thumping Garreth on the shoulder, he said, “If you get arrested, give me a call. Met an awesome lawyer at my last whip tutorial. Really seems to know his stuff.” Turning towards the tunnel, he threw up a hand in final farewell to Chase. “G’night, all. Thanks for having me.”
Whistling as he slung his playbag over his shoulder, Noah vanished into the security locker room. The door closed softly behind him, which left Garreth alone with the owners of Black Light.
Rubbing a hand down his face before slowly letting it drop, Jaxson looked at him. “There is a reason,” he said, picking his words carefully, “why we screen for sex offenders before people are allowed to play here. I don’t care what Noah says. If you get arrested, you risk losing more than just your place in the community and the respect people have for you as an experienced dom and play partner here. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“Think with my northernmost head?”
Snorting, the closest Garreth had seen him come to a real laugh all night, Jaxson shook his head. He also tapped Chase’s arm and, his submissive in tow, headed back into the club. “Go home, Garreth.”
“My report…” Garreth started to remind him.
“We’ll look at it in the morning, but we both know I’m not going to argue with it.” Pausing, Jaxson called to him, “A real dom takes care of his submissive; Ethen only cares about himself. Someday, he’s going to hurt somebody. I’m glad it won’t be Hadlee. Seriously, go home.” The club owner’s voice hardened in a warning that was only half joking. “Try not to make a serious mistake.”
Garreth didn’t intend to. What he did intend to do… hell, he still didn’t know, but he was pretty sure it wouldn’t include following his gut’s stimulatingly erotic and yet really bad advice. But what did that leave? The whole way back to his locker to gather his dirty uniform and shower bag, and then while he stood at Danny’s desk, signing out for the night and waiting for his security room locker to be opened, Garreth considered his options. Inviting Hadlee to coffee seemed pretty anticlimactic. The conversation he wanted to have with her wasn’t fit for a public coffeeshop, either. Nor did he want to have it standing outside her front door like some love-struck version of his high-school-aged self. Unless, of course, she invited him in. Then they could have it with him holding her head to the ground, while he shoved the fingers of his other hand…
Don’t even think it, he told himself sternly, taking his keys and phone from his locker. You laid it out for her once in the shower; she ran the first chance she got. She’s going to look at you sadly, say ‘thanks, but no thanks’ and that’s going to be the end of it.
He needed to brace himself for that. He wanted her. God knows he did, but he couldn’t keep chasing after a woman who didn’t want to be caught.
“You okay?” Danny asked, eyes narrowing in concern.
“Bracing myself for some hard decisions,” Garreth said and shrugged into his heavy winter coat.
Danny wasn’t the type to pry. He only nodded. “Want me to call you a cab?”
“Please.”
“You got it. Have a good night.” Danny reached for the multiline phone on his desk.
“You too.” Garreth walked down the tunnel, zipping his coat against the growing chill and trying hard not to fixate on just how ominous he’d made that sound: hard decisions. There was no other way to say it, though. When a man drew lines in the sand—like he was preparing to do—there was always a risk that the love of his life would step over them and just keep walking.
God, it was cold. February in D.C. usually was, and this was no exception. Even before he’d opened the door to the psychic shop and stepped outside, he could feel the cold wafting through the store. They really needed to up the heat in here on club nights. Garreth hunched his shoulders, pulling his coat collar up to protect his ears. Thankfully, he only needed to be outside long enough for the cab to arrive. Something he repeated to himself twice more as winter slapped his face with tiny flecks of snow-like ice on a frigidly bitter wind. It bit at him right through his clothes.
“Jesus,” he said, shoving his hands in his pockets. He navigated down the sidewalk to wait under the security light by the curb. Few businesses here had their own parking lots, which meant the cabs made great tips on play nights. Usually, one was already waiting here, but when the weather got bad like this, not even taxi drivers wanted to be out in it. It would likely take ten minutes before someone came for him. Garreth stomped his feet for warmth, already re-thinking whether he ought to wait inside.
“If you come back here, you’ll be out of the wind.”
Startled, Garreth whipped around.
“Hadlee?” He couldn’t believe it. He could barely make out the shadow of her, huddled up in the darkness under the eaves of the psychic shop that hid Black Light’s entrance. “What the hell are you doing out here?”
“Freezing,” she said, between chattering teeth.
Striding over to her, Garreth had his coat unzipped before he knew it. The wind swept in, biting through his shirt before he could wrap her in the halves of his coat and hug her fiercely close. It was like hugging an icicle. She’d been out here long enough for a thin layer of snow and flurries to have built up on her hair and clothes. They promptly melted against his body heat, sharing their icy wetness with the absorbent fibers of his shirt.
“What were you thinking?” he scolded, rubbing her through his coat. He could feel her shaking, and not all of it was because she laughed.
“I was tr-trying hard n-not to chicken out, to b-be honest.” Curling her gloved hands up by her mouth, she didn’t protest at all being stuffed into his coat with him. “B-but I didn’t w-want to leave until I t-talked to you. A-about what you said. In the shower,” she ended, shyly.
If she noticed his hands paused mid-rub, she didn’t say anything. Garreth switched from rubbing to just holding. Already he was bracing himself for rejection, but damn if his fool heart didn’t stumble a beat anyway. “All right, what part do you want to talk about?”
“I o-owe you an apology.”
And here it came. I love you like a brother. That was the one he was putting his bet on.
“All right,” he said again. A flash of passing headlights lit up the side of the psychic shop, but it wasn’t a taxi and it kept going. When their cab got there, he decided, he was going to put Hadlee in it, send her on home, and then he was going to catch another. He’d take it straight to the nearest bar and drink until she was out of his system. Tomorrow would be a new day and it was going to have to start without the possibility of ever having her as a permanent fixture in his life. Sometimes, that was just the way it was. “Go ahead. You can say it.”
It was going to kill him, but he needed to hear it. Maybe then he’d be able to let her go.
“I don’t know how,” she hedged.
“Just spit it out.” Do it quick. Like ripping a band-aid off a fresh wound.
Her teeth had stopped chattering, but she still stammered when she said, “I can’t think of anyone I’d rather be with than you. I’ve felt that way for a long time now. But I’m scared. All I can see is the mess that I am, and I’m afraid that mess is going to be bigger than you want to deal with.”
That was not I love you like a brother. In fact, to his startled ears, this was starting to sound like the ass-opposite of I love you like a brother. The silence dragged from intimacy into awkwardness before she craned her head to look up at him. Oh shit. That was where he was supposed to say something reassuring, but he’d missed his cue.
“Thank yo
u for spanking me,” she told him softly. “I really needed that. Also, thank you for tonight. If you’re very angry with me and you… you don’t want to take this any further, then I totally understand, but at the same time, this has been one of the best nights of my life and I know it wouldn’t have been if you hadn’t been a part of it.”
Garreth’s arms tightened, drawing her that much closer.
“My only regret is not having the courage while you were still standing in front of me, yelling at me…”
“I wasn’t yelling,” he corrected. “I never yell.”
“Scolding me, then,” she amended.
“That I was,” he accepted, but this all felt a little like a dream. His mind was racing. Where did he go from here? How should he do this? He knew how he wanted to do it. He wanted to take her home—either to her apartment or to his. Where they went didn’t matter. Once they got there, he’d make some coffee, sit her on the couch or at the table, with the heat turned up and a blanket wrapped around her, and then he’d lay it all out. What he looked for in a relationship, what he expected of her, what she could expect from him. Everything. He liked to use pen and paper, writing down the bullet points so it was all there in black and white, and when he was done, and everything had been spelled out as plainly as he could, then he’d give her time to think about it if she needed it, but tell her they could hammer out the specifics over breakfast in the morning. Because, by God, he was going to take her to bed tonight and he was going to curl her tiny little toes.
“My only regret,” Hadlee continued, “was not finding the courage to kneel down before you and thank you for m-my correction th-the way good submissives should thank their doms.”
Forget the coffee. Forget the bullet points. They were going straight to his bed.
“I-I know you’re not my dom,” she stammered. “I do, but I also know I’ve thought of you that way for a very long time now, and… if I haven’t screwed this up too completely and if I’m not too big of a mess for you to consider, I’d really like to talk to you about… maybe…” She faltered. “I d-don’t know, we c-c-could be… play partners.”
