by Cathryn Fox
A shiver moved through her, and she wrapped her arms around herself as she climbed to her feet and walked to her window. She glanced at the sofa, or more specifically, to the package she’d found waiting for her when she returned to her office Monday morning. It had been delivered to her office complex last Saturday, which meant Quinn must have arranged to have it here for her when they were still at the resort.
Two steps took her to the sofa. She picked up the parcel and was about to drop it into the trash, but hesitated. Her fingers rasped over the pretty bow, and even though it might not be in her best interest, she gave a little tug. The silk fell away and she lifted the top of the pretty box to find a sexy red bra and panties. She removed them from the white tissue paper and smoothed her fingers over the material. Her glance moved to the slip of white paper and the instructions to wear them to work Monday morning.
Had Quinn intended to show up, to remove them from her body? She touched the warm, buttery leather on her sofa. It was just last week he’d taken her right here. Put her over his knee and disciplined her. A cry lodged in her throat, half of her wanting to be with him again while the other half wanted to run farther away. The constant tug of war on her emotions and her senses was turning her into a mad woman.
She threw the lingerie back into the box and struggled with the lid, slapping the corners with her palm to force it back in place. Giving up on it, she turned to her window, bracing shaking hands on the sill as she struggled to find some semblance of balance. Horns blared on the street below as heavy rain clouds darkened the sky and blackened the pavement—a fitting match for her somber mood.
There was, however, a part of her that was grateful her friends were all free tonight. She’d called them first thing Saturday night after Quinn had dropped her off at her condo. They were anxious to hear the details of her weekend, but the instant they caught the tremor in her voice they knew something had gone terribly wrong. They’d wanted to check in on her, but she just needed time to herself, and instead of explaining it three times over, she convinced them to meet tonight after work. The less she rehashed the events of the night and the way the situation had dredged up memories best left buried, the better.
Giving her head a hard shake to clear it, she pushed away from the window and grabbed her purse from her desk drawer. She slung it over her shoulder and snatched her umbrella from the rack near her door. She turned her lights off, left her office and hurried down the hall to the waiting elevator. A few seconds later, it deposited her on the main floor, and Tim, the building’s main security guard, gave her a worried look as she signed out for the night.
“How are you this evening?” he asked. His tone held concern. This wasn’t idle chit-chat.
A wave of embarrassment moved through her and her cheeks warmed as she lowered her eyes and scribbled her name on the pad. God, did everyone who played at the resort know what had happened to her? Whatever happened to the rule “what happens at Freedom stays at Freedom”?
She mumbled that she was fine and darted outside. A flick of the switch on her umbrella opened it and she slipped into the stream of people rushing along the sidewalk. Zigzagging through the crowded streets, she hurried to Onyx, her favorite Manhattan cocktail bar. The heavy front door opened just as she reached for it, and she came face to face with fellow lawyer Rick Douglas, a guy she’d dated in the past.
“Rebecca,” he said, his smile so bright, his teeth so straight, she couldn’t help but think he’d paid for some dentist’s summer home. “Where have you been? I haven’t seen you around lately.”
“Didn’t know you were looking.” She closed her umbrella and ducked under the overhead awning with him.
He laughed, and his gaze fell from her face, the look in his eyes almost lecherous. “You know, I always loved that smart mouth of yours.”
“Oh yeah?” She held back a smart-assed reply. She knew what it really was about her mouth that he loved. Too bad he never reciprocated such favors in the bedroom. Between the sheets it had always been about his needs.
Blue eyes that any other girl would get lost in narrowed in on hers. “Yeah, so where have you been?”
“Busy working,” she explained, not about to tell him anything.
His smile widened. “Beautiful and driven. You’ll be partner before you know it.” He looked over her shoulder. “You alone?”
With the tip of her umbrella, she pointed to the lounge area. “Meeting my friends.”
He stepped closer, crowding her. “Then maybe we can meet up for a drink later. I’ve missed you.” He gestured to a restaurant across the street. “I’m meeting a client in a few, but we should be wrapping up around eight.”
Her first reaction was to say no. Been there done that. If she wanted an empty experience that let her know something was missing from her life, she’d use her vibrator. But with Quinn out of the picture and the BDSM lifestyle behind her, if she ever wanted to feel a warm body next to her again she’d soon have to settle for someone like Rick, and a sex life that was less than orgasmic.
But as she visualized herself between the sheets with him, her blood turned cold—her body’s way of saying it wanted Quinn, and Quinn only. She shivered, crossed her hands over her chest and hugged herself. For some reason Rick took that as an invitation to touch her. He pulled her into his arms and ran his hands up and down her back to create warmth with friction. Too bad all he succeeded in doing was cementing her belief that climbing between the sheets with him would leave her with nothing but a dull, needy ache in the pit of her stomach.
She shook her head, once again wishing she’d never met Quinn, never felt his touch or known the pleasures of submission. She breathed deep and let it out slowly. Honest to God, the man had ruined her for every other.
“Thanks,” she said. “But I can’t. I’m seeing someone.”
Rick’s eyes narrowed and he angled his head, those ocean-blue eyes of his moving over her face.
“Oh, I didn’t realize.” He rolled one shoulder, like he was brushing it off because he didn’t believe her. “Well, if things change between now and eight, you know where to find me.”
He pulled the door open for her and she slipped inside. She exhaled slowly, fixed her damp hair, then made her way to her friends. From the empty drink glasses in front of the trio, it was clear they’d been there a while. She dropped into her chair beside Sophie, and three sets of eyes stared at her with unease.
Rebecca couldn’t help but laugh, her mood lightening slightly. Either that, or she’d crossed the line from mad to crazy. Quinn was right. She really did have great friends. As ribbons of tension left her body, those three pairs of eyes narrowed in on her.
She held her hands up. “I’m fine.”
Directly across from her, Lilliana reached out and grabbed her hand. “Who are you trying to convince of that? Us or you?”
“Quinn better not have hurt you,” Sophie said.
Rebecca turned to look at her friend and had never seen such worry in her eyes. If looks could kill and Quinn was anywhere in the vicinity, he would have been dead by now.
She exhaled slowly. “He didn’t, but Felix did.”
“Felix?” Melanie asked, pushing a cocktail Rebecca’s way. “Who’s Felix?”
She took a much-needed drink, leaned forward in her chair and told the entire story.
“Oh, my God,” Sophie said, putting her hand on Rebecca’s back and giving it a rub. “Thank God Quinn got there in time before he…before you were…well, you know.”
Eyes still wide with worry, Melanie gestured to the bartender for another round, and Rebecca tagged on, “After that, I came home, and now I’m putting that whole world behind me.”
“Wait, when you say whole world, do you mean Quinn too?” Melanie asked.
Rebecca fished the olive from her drink and plopped it into her mouth. “Yes. I mean Quinn too.”
“Becs,” Melanie began. “I’ve never seen you so happy before, and the chemistry between you two was off the
charts.”
“You need more than chemistry to make a relationship work,” she said matter-of-factly.
“So you’re saying you want a relationship with him then?” Lilliana asked.
“Yes,” she answered without thinking, but as soon as that word left her mouth, her head jerked back with startled surprise. “Wait, no.” A beat passed and then, “I don’t know.”
Was it possible that she wanted a real relationship with Quinn? Hadn’t she learned to keep a measure of distance because no one ever stayed? That when someone was done with her they tossed her out like she was yesterday’s garbage?
“It doesn’t matter,” she added. “He told me there was no middle ground with him. I want him to be happy, and I can’t give him what he wants.” She pushed her hair from her face and looked at Melanie. “Enough about me, what have you three been up to?”
Melanie smiled. “Sophie just made partner.”
“What!” Rebecca squealed. She turned to Sophie. “Oh my God. Congratulations.” She pulled her friend in for a hug. “Here I was monopolizing the conversation when you had something very important to share.”
“You weren’t monopolizing, and what you had to say was just as important, if not more so.” Rebecca’s heart squeezed, and she touched her friend’s hand. Sophie smiled in return and added, “The firm booked Onyx for a private gathering Friday night. I hope you’ll come.”
“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Rebecca assured her.
“Don’t forget your plus one.”
“Plus one?”
“You get to bring a date.”
Rebecca shook her head. “I’m coming alone.”
“Have you heard from him?” Lilliana asked, turning the conversation back to Rebecca.
“He texts me every day to make sure I’m okay, but he hasn’t been by to see me, if that’s what you mean.”
“Maybe he’s giving you space,” Melanie suggested.
“Maybe.” She straightened in her chair and reached for her drink. “Or maybe we’re just finished and he’s only checking on me because he’s worried I’ll sue him after what happened. I mean, our firm did sue him last year and we won.”
Clearly not buying that, Sophie leaned toward her and placed her hand over Rebecca’s. “I have a question.”
“What?” Rebecca turned to her friend. She took in the seriousness on her friend’s face and braced herself. Sophie was about to challenge her.
“BDSM is about trust, right?”
“How do you know that?” Melanie asked, her brow wagging. Mel winked at Rebecca and Rebecca forced a smile. Each friend was dealing with this situation differently. While Sophie went the stern route, Melanie chose the playful. She loved her for that, but wasn’t in a laughing mood.
“I did a bit of research,” Sophie explained. As her friends continued to stare at her she took a sip of her drink and said, “What? I was curious.”
Rebecca eyed her friend. “What are you getting at?”
“Did you ever stop to think that maybe Quinn feels guilty?”
“Guilty?”
Sophie took a sip of her martini. “I only met him briefly, but he strikes me as the kind of guy who’d hold himself responsible for this.”
Rebecca recalled the rage in his eyes, and how he’d left Felix for dead. “Maybe, but it wasn’t his fault.”
“If you don’t hold him personally responsible, then why can’t you continue to have a relationship with him?”
“Because I’m done dabbling in that lifestyle.” Everyone at the table went silent, waiting for her to continue. “Look, it’s like this, a leopard can’t change its spots. Quinn is who he is and I would never ask him to change for me. I want him to be happy and he won’t be able to find that happiness with me.”
“You’re right,” Melanie said. “A leopard can’t change its spots.” She paused, jabbed her finger in the air toward Rebecca and added, “What you fail to see in that old adage is that it applies to you too.”
Rebecca eyed her over the rim of her martini glass. “What do you mean?”
“He introduced you to a world you liked, right?” Melanie said.
“Yeah, but—”
Melanie cut her off. “Do you think you can just go back to vanilla sex after that? You were so completely and utterly bored with the men in your life, Becs. Quinn changed that for you.”
She set her glass down. “I can’t.” The olives collided, splashing gin over the side. She grabbed a napkin and wiped her stemware before adding, “I can’t go back to that. Felix put a blindfold on me, Melanie. That was a hard limit for me.”
Lilliana squeezed her hand. “I’m sorry, honey. I really am. But it was Felix who did that, not Quinn.”
Rebecca blew out a breath. “I know but…” She knew her friends were trying to help, but what they failed to understand was the significance of the blindfold, or how her foster mother used the dark, rat-infested basement to punish an innocent child. If she stepped back into that lifestyle something horrible could happen again.
Her stomach knotted as she thought about the woman who claimed to be taking care of her because she cared about her well-being. What Dorothy Kean really cared about was the money she received in return for providing a roof over Rebecca’s head. The second Rebecca turned eighteen and Dorothy could no longer collect government funds, she’d tossed her out the door. Rebecca was glad to go. She’d never had any intention of staying in the abusive household once she was of legal age anyway. From that day forward she’d worked two jobs, sometimes three, to put herself through college. She’d met these three wonderful women she called her closest friends when she went to work at the firm a few years ago, and had never once revealed her abusive past. They had no idea how hard it was for her to be blindfolded, how the darkness had suffocated her, choked her until she couldn’t breathe.
Her hand went to her chest, and she could feel the room closing in on her as her heart pounded against her ribcage. She took another drink to wash away the anxiety rising in her throat.
“I think you should give him another chance,” Sophie said quietly.
“The only way I could do that is if he left that lifestyle behind, and like I already said, I would never ask that because I care about his happiness.”
Just then, her cell phone pinged. She swiped her thumb over the screen and her pulse leapt when she read the message.
“Is it Quinn?” Sophie asked.
She nodded. “Yeah.”
“What does he want?”
“To see me.”
“Don’t you think you should at least talk to him, see what he wants?” Melanie asked. “Maybe he’s ready to give it all up for you.”
“I told you, I’d never want him to do that…”
Melanie looked past her shoulder, and when her eyes went big, Rebecca’s words fell off. She didn’t need to turn around to know Quinn was standing there. She could feel him long before she could see him. A beat passed, then she pushed from the table. The scraping sound her chair made as she turned broke the sudden, uneasy silence of her friends, and when she twisted and caught the uncertainly in the eyes of the masterful Dom, the world around her went a little fuzzy around the edges.
“Quinn,” she managed to get out past the lump in her throat. Her glance left his face to take in his rumpled shirt and the wrinkles in his pants. How long had he been sleeping in them? She took in the deep lines around his eyes, the scruff on his chin. Her heart squeezed with the need to go to him and make it better. But she rooted herself, forcing herself not to smooth the worry from his brow, kiss away the grim line of dejection on his mouth. Reaching out to him meant going back to his lifestyle, and that was out of the question. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“Rebecca,” he whispered, his voice cracked and raspy, like he’d just swallowed a handful of nails. “This is exactly where I should be.”
“Quinn, no…”
The tender way he looked at her dissolved her words. He dropped to his knees
beside her, and she took in the tension in his body as he cupped her face. His fingers tightened with care. “I need you to come with me. We need to talk.”
Chapter Three
Quinn took Rebecca’s hand in his, ignoring the buzzing phone in his pocket. His brother had been calling for days, but Quinn was in no shape to talk to him. The only one he wanted to speak with was Rebecca. He was desperate to make things right between them.
He turned to her friends. “You ladies don’t mind if I steal Rebecca away for a few minutes, do you?”
“No,” they all said in unison. He nodded, feeling a degree of relief. At least her friends weren’t trying to convince her to stay away from him. Although, after what she’d been through at the resort, he wouldn’t blame them if they were.
Rebecca opened her mouth to speak, but he put his finger to her lips. “I’m sorry, Rebecca. I’m so goddamn sorry. You have to believe me.”
She shifted in her chair. “Quinn…” Her voice sounded different, defeated.
Refusing to let her push him from her life without at least hearing him out, he rushed out with, “I take all the blame, and if you’ll give me a chance I’ll make this right between us. No matter what it takes, I’ll make it right.”
Her face softened. “It’s not your fault, Quinn. Felix tricked me into going to the castle. Neither of us could have known what he had planned.”
The world crushed in on him, his thoughts reeling from the emotional whiplash he’d been suffering since finding her blindfolded and tied to that fucking cross. He brought her hand to his mouth and just held it there as he worked to pull himself together. He squeezed slightly, and said, “It is my fault. I’m a man of my word and I asked for your trust. I promised I’d respect it. You gave it to me freely, and I let you down.” He breathed deep, his nostrils flaring as he pulled in the warm, sweet scent of her skin. “I let both of us down.”
Her friends pushed away from the table. “We’ll leave you two alone,” Sophie said.
