To Sir

by Rachell Nichole

  “Yeah, I know,” he said. “I talked to her this morning. She told me she was feeling better already. They’re releasing her from the hospital tomorrow.” It had almost fucking killed him to stay here while his mother had surgery last week, but there wasn’t anything he could have done for her at home. The rest of his family was closer, and they would take good care of her, or so they’d assured him when he’d said he would be driving home for a couple weeks. Giselle had flat-out told him not to come. “So what gives?”

  “They’re sending her into a rehabilitation clinic, not home.”

  “Yeah, I know. Giselle, cut the crap and tell me what gives, would ya?” He couldn’t handle the suspense any longer.

  “Well, it’s… Oh, hell, Chase, this is hard for me. Roger and I… We were supposed to be helping Mom and Dad with the medical bills, but I…” She paused, her voice hitching. “I got laid off. And we’re barely going to be able to survive as it is. There’s no way we can—”

  “How much do you need?”

  “They only owe about two thousand out of pocket now. And they can cover some of it, but not all, and they’re talking about three months in a long-term care facility doing rehab. I have no idea how much that’s going to cost. Four or five thousand. Maybe more.”

  Christ. No way could Mom and Pop afford that. “Look into it and get me some solid figures this weekend, okay?”

  “Yeah, of course. Listen, I wouldn’t ask, except…”

  “Except I’m the only other kid who’s got any financial stability. Yeah, I know.” He hadn’t told them he was having troubles with the club. Senator Johnson and Judge Wilcox were local power players, not people who would make national news with their nonsense, thank God. So his East Coast-based family had been spared the drama of the past months. And now that was going to come back to bite him in the ass. He wouldn’t tell his big sister that he couldn’t help. It would crush her. Making this phone call had to have cost a lot of her pride, and he wasn’t going to add to her worries with his troubles. He could take care of himself. And everyone else. Like he always had.

  “I’ve got it covered, sis. Get me those figures, and I’ll see what I can do, all right?”

  She huffed out a breath. “Yeah, sweets. Thanks. I’ll talk to you soon. Love you.”

  “You too. Bye,” he said and dropped the receiver back in its cradle.

  If his parents needed the money, he would find a way to get it to them. No matter what. All he had to do now was save his failing club, raise a bunch of money to pay off what they owed on the bank loan, and make sure the senator’s rezoning bills failed. And scrape together another five or six grand to help out his parents. Sure, no problem.

  Chase hung his head and gripped the edge of his desk hard. He had some money saved, but it was supposed to go toward business finances, though it would barely put a dent in the ten thousand bucks they owed the bank. Now he’d have to tell Dusty they wouldn’t even have that much to try to keep the wolves at bay. But there was no way in hell he was going to watch his parents suffer under the weight of those kinds of medical expenses. He couldn’t.

  After a soft knock, his office door opened, and he lifted his gaze to see Dusty holding a hysterical woman in his arms.

  I’m sorry, Dusty mouthed to him over the blonde’s head.

  “Oh, Chase,” she cried and flung herself at him.

  “Whoa, Suzanna?” Chase automatically wound his arms around his former sub. When had she moved back into town?

  Son of a bitch. How much was one man supposed to take? He couldn’t fucking catch a break today. He pushed his selfish thoughts aside and focused on the shaking woman crawling onto his lap.

  She nodded against his shoulder. “You can’t let them close this club. You can’t!”

  “I couldn’t talk any sense into her. She was frantic,” Dusty said.

  “I see that,” Chase said wryly and waved Dusty away. She was his emotional mess to deal with, and since D had been dealing with every knock at the door and most phone calls for the past three weeks, Chase figured he owed the man. Big-time.

  As soon as the door clicked shut, Chase rubbed Suzanna’s back. “Okay, honey, relax. We’re doing everything we can to get back up and running. You have to calm down for me. Now, all right?” He tried to make his voice more confident than he was feeling.

  She looked up at him with those blue eyes and sighed. “You won’t let it happen? I j-just came back. I knew I could. That I would be welcome here, regardless of what went on between us before. But now…” Her voice broke with a sob. After a hiccup, she continued, “When I heard about the club being closed, I was devastated. This place was half the reason I moved back here instead of staying in Texas after I broke it off with Anthony.” Those hopeful eyes cut him deep. Suzanna wasn’t the first person in the past few weeks to come to him pleading that he fight for the club.

  But she was the one who made his gut clench. She was the whole reason he’d opened this place to begin with. And here she was, all innocent and a beautiful mess, begging him to save it.

  “It’s all right, Suzie Q. I won’t let it happen, okay? I won’t let them shut us down and run us out of town. No matter what.”

  “You promise?” she asked, sniffling and then taking a deep breath.

  “I promise.”

  Chapter Five

  Liz stood in front of the sprawling red-and-tan brick house, worrying her ear with her fingers as the midsummer heat enveloped her. So not what she’d expected when she’d agreed, sort of, to meet Chase at his home. The sprawling McMansion before her made her cringe. Didn’t look like he was having financial problems like he’d implied. If he sold this monstrosity, he’d have no cash-flow issues. Stubborn jerkface.

  The orange door opened, and she hastily yanked her hand away from her ear. There he stood framed in the doorway—the man who’d made more than a cameo appearance in her dreams over the past two weeks. He wore a pair of almost-too-tight, low-slung jeans and a snug black muscle shirt. Clutching her purse strap, she stepped onto his stone walkway and up to his front porch.

  “Good afternoon, Ms. Clark.”

  How could he make a name sound so dirty? And the fact that he called her Ms. Clark instead of Liz made it sexier. Maybe because in every power-based relationship fantasy she’d ever had, one person was always referring to the other with a term of respect and deference.

  “Hi,” she said icily. She had to keep her guard up around this guy. Or else. She wasn’t sure what would happen, but she knew it wouldn’t be good.

  A slight half smile quirked up his bow-shaped lips as he moved back to allow her entrance. Barely stopping herself from gulping like an ingenue entering the house of a serial killer, she stepped over the threshold in her low-heeled sandals. She’d dressed a bit more conservatively today for their meeting. Skintight, lightweight jeans had replaced leather pants, and instead of a lacy black top, she wore a light blue tank top. The lower heels were certainly easier to walk in, but they left her at more of a disadvantage in front of the six-foot Chase.

  Even with five-inch heels on, she’d had to tilt her head back to meet his gaze, and now that she wore her two-inch ones, she had no hope in hell of looking him square in the eyes. She hated having to crane her neck to see a man’s face. What was wrong with short guys? She’d never understood why women didn’t actively seek out guys more their size instead of hulks like Chase.

  Crud. She was rambling again. At least it was inside her head and not coming out of her mouth. She glanced around the house as Chase led her silently to the back. The color scheme inside was as earthy as outside. Taupe walls, thick beige carpet, rust-colored overstuffed sofa and chairs, huge TV, a sunken formal dining room with an empty table and little on the walls. Where in the world was he taking her? More importantly, why was she blindly following? Say something, Clark!

  Before she could, he pushed his way through a swinging door and held it open for her. The kitchen made her gasp. More modern than the rest of the house,
it shone from top to bottom. Stainless-steel appliances, dark, glass-fronted or open cabinets, and slate-blue countertops contrasted with the warm red walls and oak floors. Copper pots and pans hung from a rack above a huge island in the middle of the space that had bar stools on one side and a range top on the other. Double ovens in the corner completed the look of a professional kitchen. Other than a couple of small appliances and some utensils in ceramic jars, the counters were bare. A bank of bench seating around a corner table on the other side of the kitchen looked out over the rock-and-cactus backyard.

  He smiled at her gaping and shrugged. “I like to cook.”

  “Clearly,” she muttered. No, definitely not what she’d been expecting when she showed up today.

  “Come on,” he said, letting the door swing shut behind them and padding on bare feet to the table. Her heels clacked on the hardwood floors as she followed him. They sat at the table across from each other, and she set her purse on the bench beside her. She opened it and took out a notebook and her purple pen. She was going to make this meeting as professional and nonsexy as she could, no matter what dirty things she asked him or he told her about. She would not blush, comment, feel slick with need, or run screaming from the room.

  She’d promised herself.

  “Well, don’t you look the part, Ms. Clark?”

  “Stop calling me that. I’m not a teacher, and I’m not your boss,” she snapped. Crap. So much for her promises. They obviously meant squat.

  “What shall I call you, then, Ms. Clark?” The glint in his eyes told her he’d known all along the name got under her skin, and he didn’t care. In fact, he seemed to relish making her squirm. She refused to give him the satisfaction.

  “You may call me Liz,” she said in her most authoritative voice.

  “Okay, Liz, let’s start at the beginning. I’m sure you’ve done some kind of book research?”

  “Yes. I’ve done some reading, some trolling of message boards and websites. I know what the DSM-V says in all its psychobabble about sadism and masochism no longer being considered psychological conditions requiring psychiatric intervention and blah, blah, blah.”

  “Don’t put much stock into head doctors, huh?”

  “Not really.”

  Therapy had made her more miserable than ever as a kid. Her father’s insistence that she needed help to control her urges had meant staying locked in a room with some guy or lady in a white coat telling her it was wrong and unhealthy to be sexually active at sixteen. The one and only time she’d tried to talk frankly with any of them about how she felt inside regarding sex had turned into a disaster, ending with her getting put on antidepressants.

  She shuddered, remembering how she’d walked around like a zombie for those first few months, until she’d found a pill that looked the same that she could take in its place. Dumb kid move, she knew, taking the wrong meds, but she couldn’t function in such a haze, and since her father practically crammed them down her throat, there hadn’t been any other way to avoid taking them. As an adult, she’d had some success with one therapist who’d helped her get a handle on her anger. But out of the half dozen shrinks she’d seen over the years, Dr. Reynald had been the exception, not the rule.

  Chase snapped his fingers in front of her face, and she blinked, shaking her head and clearing her mind of the vestiges of those horrid memories. “Sorry. Anyway, I’ve been reading a bit more in the BDSM erotic-romance subgenre. But I can’t seem to re-create the right balance in the book. The scenes either come off sounding rapey or stupid or not sexy at all. And it needs to be sexy.”

  “Rapey?” He shook his head. “Yeah, that’s definitely not sexy.”

  “Hence my issues. I need to understand a true, healthy Dominant/submissive relationship before I can write it out, I think. Sarah and Hawke are good people, and I need to do right by them.”

  “You talk as if they’re real people.”

  “To me they are.” She stared straight into his chocolate-brown eyes as she said this. It was nice to be able to look him in the eye without straining her neck for once.

  He shrugged again, one bulging shoulder lifting in an almost delicate gesture. Nothing about this man was delicate. Except maybe his ego. “Okay. Well, at the base of the relationship is usually the need to be yourself, to be comfortable. Doms need to be in control the way you need to write, whereas subs need to be controlled.”

  She tried to take notes as he talked, she really did, but she couldn’t stop staring at the way he formed his words, at the way his lips moved sensually over each syllable, almost purring.

  “That doesn’t really explain anything, you know.”

  He groaned, picking up a napkin from the holder on the table between them and fiddling with it. “There’s not necessarily a why, a motivation behind it for a lot of people. It’s like they’re just hardwired that way. You’re either kinky or you’re not. The same way that you’re either gay or you’re not.”

  “So it’s not like the Kinsey scale of sexuality? There aren’t, like, two ends of the spectrum—totally gay and totally straight, and everyone is pretty much in the middle?”

  He twisted the napkin tighter in his fingers. “Well, maybe. So let’s put nuns on one end of that spectrum, then the vanillas—you know, people who only like straight sex, and by straight I don’t mean not gay; I mean sex without any kind of kink. Think like total-missionary, once-every-six-months, and blowjobs-on-birthdays kind of vanilla. Then as you move more toward the middle, you get people who like different positions, more spice, maybe ménages, and a bit of tie-me-up, tie-me-down with silk scarves and soft blindfolds. Then as you keep moving, you get to people who like the harder stuff, like whips and nipple clamps, spanking, debasement, orgasm denial, reward and punishment. Then all the way out here are the real edge players who use blades and fire and stuff.”

  Liz shivered. Fire and blades. How could you ever trust anyone like that? She started drawing the scale, in a completely nerdy bell-curve kind of way, trying to slow her pounding heart when she thought of a blade pressing against her skin while she was utterly at someone’s mercy. According to Chase, most people fell somewhere in the middle, between vanilla and kinky as hell.

  “For some, the line is here.” He reached over and traced an invisible line down the middle of her bell curve with his thick index finger. “They’re mostly vanilla, with a little slap and tickle, and they won’t go any further. For a lot of people who come on the scene the first time, they fall somewhere in here.” He rubbed back and forth from the middle to halfway through the second half of the curve in a sensual slide that made her throat go dry. She could picture that finger rubbing back and forth like that along her skin, and she clenched her thighs together, holding the heat at the center of her body close.

  “Sometimes they push themselves and find they’re actually out here.” He captured her hand in his, and she let him trace her finger to the outlying edges of her curve. “And some people think it’s cool and trendy and dangerous to pretend they lie here.” He brought her finger back toward the middle. “When really, they’re way the hell over here.” He jerked her hand all the way across the page to where she’d written Nun. The soft paper teased the pads of her fingers with every movement.

  “Others who have been taught how evil and dirty it is to want to be spanked spend their entire lives miserably stuck in Vanilla Land.” He circled her finger around the word. “They never admit to themselves, let alone their partners, what they want, what they need. And then they have unfulfilling sex for eternity. It’s sad.”

  She’d been watching his large, calloused hand as it held hers captive and skittered across the page. But now she looked up and locked gazes with him. His penetrating stare seemed to see deep into her soul, and she tried to shrink back from it. He didn’t let her. Was he talking about her? Her sex life wasn’t unfulfilling. It was nonexistent.

  “Okay, so I get the whole where-sexual-preferences-lie scale thing. I understand the hardwired stuff. An
d the need to be truthful to yourself about your desires.” Did she sound like she was admitting she was one of those people in denial? Or like she was consenting to let him show her how to stop denying herself? She wasn’t sure. “Hawke and Sarah know who they are, what they want. It’s not about them exploring boundaries or where they are on the Masters Kink Scale.”

  “What is it about?” He didn’t seem inclined to release her gaze, or her hand, anytime soon.

  “I can’t take notes with you holding me hostage,” she said, her voice breathy, restless.

  His tongue darted out and wet his bottom lip. Her thighs clenched tighter together, the pressure at once feeling wonderful and awful at the apex of her legs. He leaned in close over the table, his large frame suddenly crowding her, though there was still at least a foot between them. “If you really want me to let you go, you have to say so. Don’t make some passive-aggressive comment about not being able to write in this position.”

  God, this was like the best and worst game of are you nervous ever. She’d played it as a kid at those parties she’d sneaked out to attend. She’d always won, while some boy’s—or girl’s—hand crept higher and higher up her thigh, attempting to make her squirm. But this guy made her squirm without even trying.

  Still, he was going to make her say it. Make her admit what she wanted and voice it. “Let. Go.”

  There. An implacable direct order that didn’t make her sound weak at all. She wasn’t asking, wasn’t pleading with him to release her. She was demanding it. But what the hell would she do if he refused?

  CHASE WANTED TO keep the connection between them. But she’d been very clear this time. After he’d pushed her, that was. Reluctantly, he released her hand and slid back onto his bench. Her almond-shaped eyes were dilated again, and he could see them better today. She’d chosen less dramatic makeup around her eyes, with a softer blue liner in place of the harsh black she’d worn the first time they met. Even her outfit was less harsh, showing him the vulnerable inside he’d glimpsed when she posed, ass in the air, for him on the spanking bench. His cock spasmed with the memory of her in that position every time he thought of it. Now, as he sat across from her, with her sweet vanilla scent wafting around his kitchen and her sassy voice trying to order him about, his dick was roaring to life in his tight jeans.