Brazen and Breathless (Untouchable Book 6)

by Heather Long

  “I don’t mind if you drive it,” I promised. “If you’re making the decisions tonight and I’m trusting you with me, then I think I can trust you with my car.”

  His smile warmed me from head to toe. “Hit me with your questions, Angel.”

  “Can we get coffee?”

  “We can get anything you want.”

  “Tell me about where we’re going?” I asked after I had my hot mocha and he had his own.

  “We’re going to a gathering. There’s a fetish club in Dallas that I’ve gone to a couple of times.”

  Wait… “Didn’t you go with your dad to Dallas?”

  Ian burst out laughing. “I promise, Angel, I went to the club when I was there with him once, but not with him.”

  Relief had me sagging, and I shot him a grimace. “Sorry.”

  “It’s fine,” he soothed, rubbing my thigh. “I’d done some research and it was far enough away, I thought it was a good place to go and see. They don’t allow sex during open hours at the property, and they have to act as a private club so that they can vet anyone who joins. Membership means agreeing to their rules, particularly privacy. But one of the perks was I found out there was another club a lot closer to us.”

  “Seriously? I mean we have Kink on the Hill…” My face heated. I hadn’t really confessed the sex shop visit yet, though I had wondered if Coop told anyone.

  Jake had found my books, and I knew that because he left me a sticky note that said he’d borrowed one. He’d been returning them and borrowing the next one for the last week or so. But we hadn’t discussed it.

  “So, Rachel, Coop, and I went to Kink on the Hill,” I told him. Then I admitted to the books and the reading and maybe to the sex toys. It took us a bit to get back to where we were going, but as it turned out, we were there. Just forty-five minutes away from where we lived in a little industrial park. There were a few cars, but everything around it was closed. The club, Ian told me, was for members only, but he’d gotten me in as his guest.

  I’d need my ID and my order of emancipation, which explained why he’d checked about whether I had both in my wallet.

  “We’re going to observe,” he told me as we parked. “They have viewing rooms, and there are some where we can sit by ourselves. Though, this is more of a class, so I thought it would be better if we sat somewhere you can hear the questions others might ask. But that one is up to you, Angel. And…” He reached into the backseat and brought forward a small bag. “We can wear masks once we’re inside. But I promise, everyone agrees to protect the privacy of everyone else, and they aren’t going to stare at you…”

  “I don’t care if they do,” I admitted, even if my face heated in evidence to the contrary. “I’m going to be there with you, and since you’re making the decisions tonight…what do you want me to do?”

  He grinned. “I want you to be comfortable. This is one where you do make the call, Angel.”

  “Then I just want to go with you.”

  Anticipation curved through me. To be honest, even with all the reading, I still wasn’t one hundred percent sure what to expect. I’d half-considered checking out some BDSM fiction books. I actually had a few of those on my Kindle. But I decided against it, because from what I remembered of a couple of them I read, it was more like the kinds of things you’d find in a fantasy and not a real place.

  I wanted the reality of it.

  Weird maybe, but it worked for me.

  Hand in hand, I walked with Ian inside. The icy rain was still coming down, and he’d checked his phone before he shut it off and we’d tucked both phones away in the glove compartment. No photos were allowed. No recording devices of any time. They also had lockers if we decided we wanted to play where we could secure our stuff inside, and a shop if we needed items we hadn’t brought with us.

  They really had thought of everything. I didn’t think I was going to be up for playing here, but I hadn’t totally eliminated the idea either. There was paperwork to fill out inside, just a short sheet with my pertinent details, and then they examined both my ID and the emancipation order. When they asked to make photocopies of both so they could attach it to the sheet, I agreed.

  I got it. They wanted to protect themselves for any legal repercussions. Sex might sell big time, but we lived in a nation of bizarro prudes, where they wanted to be titillated while also holding on to some moral high ground to punish people from. Slut shaming, adult style.

  Either way, I didn’t mind. Once we’d done everything, Ian took a pair of dog tags from them and hung one around my neck and the other around his own. I glanced at it out of curiosity and found his name on it and grinned. It wasn’t quite military style, but it did have his last name and first initial, then a date pressed into the metal.

  “Membership,” he murmured against my ear. “They check for these when you’re coming in, not your ID, so on those nights when we just come to play, we can leave everything we want outside the door.”

  That made a lot of sense.

  Whatever I was expecting, the next room was not it. It was like walking into someone’s well-used and loved dining room and sitting room all rolled together. There were drinks and snacks set along one counter, and there were people at the table chatting. A few glanced up and gave us welcoming smiles or a hello and then went back to what they were doing. There was one guy who had to be in his forties and looked like I’d pictured every biker, ever.

  There was another guy with more tattoos than skin visible. Older. Younger. A girl with pink tips on her hair and six small piercings in her eyebrows, another lady who reminded me of the librarian at the high school right down to her silvery-gray hair and way too much blue eyeshadow, but her grin was so warm, it was hard to feel uneasy.

  Ian kept me tucked right under his arm, and I had an arm around his waist as he guided me through. “This is where people can socialize or rest in between sessions.” There was a couple on one of the sofas, a woman who sat with a man’s head in her lap. His expression was kind of far away, and she just kept stroking his hair as she murmured to him.

  Sessions.

  Okay.

  There was so much to take in, and it was so utterly…normal. A woman came through another door, and she looked like someone’s mom. Not that she wasn’t pretty, because she was. But she seemed so…ordinary, and like someone I would see at Mason’s ordering burgers with her family. It was weird and normal at the same time. She made her way around the room introducing herself to each person there, and then it hit me. A few were just like me—they’d never been here before.

  When she got to me and Ian, she greeted Ian with a squeeze to his arm and then a warm smile for me. “If you have any questions,” she told me, “we ask that you save them for the end of the demonstration. Then we’ll take the time to address them. It’s important that you listen and absorb. The Master and his sub who are doing the demo tonight have been doing this for over a decade. They are very experienced, but they also like to focus on each other so you can benefit from the full power exchange.”

  Oh. I had questions, but I nodded. I could make a mental list. I also gave myself a mental pat on the back for doing the reading. There was so going to be a test.

  I gave a little excited nod, despite my determination to keep it cool, and Ian pressed a kiss to the top of my head, even as he huffed with laughter. “I love you, Angel,” he whispered, and I grinned up at him.

  It turned out the lady who warned us to hold our questions until the end was the sub in the Master and sub who were doing the demonstration. The Master, a man they only introduced as Richard, specialized in silk ropes. For the next forty-five minutes, I sat glued as he created the most intricate pieces of art with his ropes and the sub.

  The ties eventually held her suspended, but the more he bound her, the more she seemed to relax, and I had to admit, I wanted to know everything about it. He explained that there was more to this experience than just tying someone up. For he and his sub, they shared a Master and sub relat
ionship, but not everyone would have that. But for them, it meant simply that she trusted him to give her what she needed—in this case, to be erotically bound.

  It was definitely erotic. Despite the fact that she was dressed, her peaked nipples showed through her shirt. The shorts she wore were super tiny and her thighs were damp whenever he threaded the rope between her legs, and yet nothing he did was overtly sexual. We were six feet away, so there was no missing anything, but at the same time, it was probably one of the most sensual things I’d ever witnessed.

  Beyond the simple power exchange, his job was also to monitor her condition. Subspace—I’d heard that one before—could pull a sub deep, and sometimes, the sub could faint from the over stimulation and rapid heart rate.

  That explained all the little checks he did in between different tying moments. For her part, she looked so blissed out, it left me a little breathless. By the time the demo ended, I almost whimpered that it was over. Ian had been holding my hand for the last half hour, tracing his thumb over the inside of my wrist, even as he kept his other arm around me.

  Sighing, I leaned back while Richard slid the ropes off of Lyssa, his sub’s name, and cuddled her close. He’d mentioned aftercare being something important, and then nodded for us to return to the little sitting area and dining room before he walked away with her.

  “How you doing, Angel?” Ian asked me, and I stole a look up at him. His pupils were a little large, but his whole expression was so intent and focused on me, I warmed.

  “That was amazing,” I admitted, a little breathless. “Is that what you want to do?”

  He curled one lock of my hair around his finger. “I’d like to experiment with it. I want—I could picture doing that to you. I still have to learn the ropes and it takes some time, but they have teachers. If you’d be willing to learn with me.”

  Oh, that didn’t even take me a moment to think about.

  “Yes.”

  His eyes flared, and so did his smile.

  We didn’t leave right away, though it was seriously tempting. Instead, Ian wanted to ask some questions and he wanted to give me time to ask them. Eventually, Lyssa and Richard joined us, and she looked so completely at peace, I envied her.

  Most of the questions that were asked, including the ones Ian asked, satisfied my own curiosity. I thought I’d want to ask more, but the questions I had were a lot more personal. I wanted to know how it felt. How did you know it was the right choice for you? I was all kinds of turned on from watching them, and I couldn’t imagine the level of pleasure if I’d actually been the one being bound.

  And that part made the most sense to me. I didn’t want to be the one doing the tying. I wanted to be bound. But not just by anyone. Ian.

  I trusted Ian.

  By the time we bid them farewell, I swore my head was swimming with questions and ideas, and not even the icy chill of the air outside could chase them away. I huddled into him as he got the car started and warmed it up.

  “Talk to me, Angel,” Ian ordered in a soft voice, and I grinned.

  “I don’t even know where to begin,” I admitted. “I want to do it all. I want to hurry, I want to go slow, I want to go back home and play…” I licked my lips.

  The relief on his face was obvious, even in the dark of the car. “So it doesn’t scare you at all? No turn offs?”

  “No,” I rushed out. “I mean, I thought it would be weird or maybe I didn’t know what I thought it would be. But they were all so nice and relaxed, and they made it seem so normal that it would even interest me. Which makes me sound all kinds of judgy and strange. But before all of this… I mean, Jake has spanked me a little. But not like you did, and I never knew that would make me feel so much.”

  I was pretty sure my face had to be flaming red, but I didn’t care. The words just spilled out.

  “And now it…it’s like there’s so much more we can do and try and…I want to.”

  He let out a little groan before he kissed me. “This is going to be an agonizing drive back.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  You’ll Be the Princess and I’ll Be…Me

  Ian

  Frankie’s excitement thrilled me, no lie. I’d been hesitant about even admitting my more adventurous interests. Not because I was ashamed of them, but I really didn’t want to scare her off. I’d already fucked it up trying to make things easier before, trying to protect her, and to insulate her against the bullshit.

  All that succeeded in doing was thrusting her away from me. Then Thanksgiving happened, and I had not a single regret. Even more, when she responded to everything I asked again and again, the need to tie us together even more firmly wedged its way inside of me. But I would never react to her from a place of fear again.

  If I wanted that control—needed it—if I wanted to be that strong for her, then it started with me. And the day I made that call, it hadn’t gotten easier, but I had a roadmap and I’d fucking stuck to it at home, at school, in the studio, and with the guys. Frankie first had been our unofficial and sometimes our official motto for so long, it fit me like a glove.

  She fit me like a glove.

  Tonight had been about exploring our options. There were so many things I wanted to do with her, but I wouldn’t without her consent or her understanding. Still, my cock had been hard as a stone from her first breathy exhale during the demonstration, and it showed absolutely no signs of diminishing. I’d been half-hard since she kissed me when she got in the car after work, but now that I could practically taste her anticipation and eagerness?

  Fuck.

  The drive back took forever and not even a blink of an eye, because we talked about everything on the way.

  “One of the things the book said was we should make a list of hard and soft limits,” Frankie said, and I had to bite back the smile stretching my mouth. The book. What the book said. She’d done research. But of course she’d done research—she was Frankie.

  She was so fucking perfect, it hurt.

  “Also, like what you’re curious about. I started making a list, and I thought we should talk about that on our way home, you know, if that’s okay, since you’re gripping the steering wheel like my car offended you or something.”

  Yeah, I white-knuckled the steering wheel, but that was more to keep from reaching over and cupping her pussy to see how wet she really was, or if her nipples were as hard and tense as they looked in the way the shirt hugged her. The jacket she’d worn had come off not five minutes into the drive. It was freezing and trying to ice storm on us, but she was too warm to wear the coat.

  Fuck, I tugged at the collar on my shirt, like I was in a button-down and not a T-shirt. “You’re right, we need to make a list,” I murmured. “I know some of what you like but I want to know all of it, and if you’re curious, then I want to be there with you when you figure it out.”

  Some of her curiosities weren’t going to be answered by me. The reality of that settled into my soul, but even as I searched for some sense of resentment, nothing was forthcoming. Archie introduced her to sex, Jake and Coop stretched her limits, and me? Well, we were doing our own exploring, and it was all…it was good.

  “You’re smiling,” she murmured, and I caught her studying my profile.

  “I love you,” I told her.

  “And that’s why you’re smiling?” Someday, the surprise in her voice would vanish and leave only the warmth. We just had more work to do.

  “Definitely one of the reasons.”

  She laughed, but she also bit her lower lip, and I shook my head. “I was thinking about the list of hard and soft limits,” I added. “And how much I adore that you’re making yourself comfortable by learning everything you can. I wanted to bring it up with you…” It was part of my plan for tonight, honestly.

  “Oops?”

  “No oops, Angel.” Never where she was concerned. “You have to trust the experience, too. I want you to have control over it.”

  “I’m still working on that part,�
�� she admitted. “The power exchange. The fact that the sub has control at all when she’s supposed to be surrendering it.”

  “But that’s the point,” I said with a soft exhale. Seriously, the conversation was doing nothing for the stone hardness in my pants. Nothing. Except making me harder, if that were possible. “It’s your control that you’re gifting to me. You’re allowing me to take care of you the way I want to and to see to your pleasure and give you everything you need.”

  And if that wasn’t sexy, I didn’t know what was.

  She squirmed a little in her seat, and when I got a look over there, her face was flushed and her lips parted. I grinned a little wider. “You like that idea.”

  It wasn’t a question.

  “I do,” she admitted. “Probably way more than I should.”

  “There is no should.” It came out far sharper than I intended, so I relaxed a little. “Angel, where we are concerned? There is no should. There’s what feels good. What we want. What we can give each other.”

  “I like that,” she said after a few moments of soft silence. “I really like that.”

  “Good.” I relaxed my grip on the steering wheel and settled a hand on her thigh so I could offer her a comforting squeeze. Part of taking care of her meant making these conversations easy. I didn’t think I could be any more thrilled with her enthusiasm.

  “Do you want me to just go down the list for you?” The frank openness in her voice threatened to mesmerize me. “You’ll answer, too?”

  “We can do that,” I agreed. “I know some of the answers already, at least for me. I’m definitely more dominant, but the whole Master and slave thing isn’t for me.”

  “She wasn’t a slave tonight though, was she?”

  “No, Lyssa is a sub, she’s very comfortable in her skin.” She was actually one of the first people I’d talked to about all of this and the one who gave me advice on how to approach it with Frankie in the first place, but that was not a conversation we were having right now. Mostly because Lys hadn’t known who or what I was looking for when I’d talked to her.