Deposition and a Dare

by Evelyn Adams

  She was slipping back into the persona she’d had at the deposition, but it felt genuine this time. She was telling her truth and she’d clearly spent a lot of time thinking about it. If she ever got the chance, she’d make a damn fine professor.

  “And it’s not easier for men,” she said, sitting forward in the chair as if the idea excited her. “How are they supposed to reconcile the alpha asshole thing with being the guy who picks up the kids from daycare?”

  She was right. I’d known from the first moment I’d started thinking about sex that I was dominant and even I didn’t understand the full spectrum of BDSM, from a little light tie me up/tie me down to the master/slave arrangement and everything in between. I’d simply accepted that everyone had their own kink comfort zone and beyond safe, sane, and consensual, I didn’t have to have an opinion.

  I watched as her expression shifted from excitement to something else, something sadder.

  “I’m so sorry about what happened with Kyle. I wanted to help him find his confidence. I never meant for anyone to get hurt.”

  Things would have been different if her response held any of the arrogance or posturing of our initial encounter. I might not have fallen if I hadn’t seen the honest remorse in her eyes.

  “The sub he worked with would have been hard for an experienced Dom to handle. She was, for lack of a better word, a pain slut.” I hated the phrase, but in this case it fit. My firm did legal work for Bacchus. I’d reviewed the tape myself, trying to decide how to handle the potential liability. All the players signed a disclaimer but that didn’t mean someone wouldn’t try to sue. The sub had never given any indication of wanting to use her safe word, and I didn’t believe it was a case of her forgetting. “She pushed him harder than either of them should have gone. A more experienced Dom would have known how to set limits even while she seemed intent on pushing past them.”

  “I guess that makes sense,” she said, looking like it was a very small comfort.

  “Not knowing doesn’t make the guy a bad person, but it doesn’t absolve him either. And it doesn’t make him any less dangerous. The problem, or one of the problems, is that because of his time with you, Kyle thought he was trained. He believed he knew more than he did, and it made him take risks he wouldn’t have otherwise.”

  I felt conflicted about the direction our afternoon had taken. Being able to talk to her about what she’d been doing wrong and more importantly having her hear and understand it gave me an enormous sense of satisfaction, but I hated seeing the way her thoughts had turned in on themselves. She’d slipped out of the present in the courtyard with me and back into the spiral of her work and the past. That didn’t work for me.

  “Our time’s not up yet.” I pinned her with my gaze until she had no choice but to look up at me. “We can talk more later if you want, but right now I want to get back to where we were.”

  Her lips curved in what might have been a grateful smile and she nodded. As I watched, she drew in a shaky breath and her chest rose under the fabric of my suit coat.

  “Take off my jacket.”

  It was comfortable in the courtyard, not the normal muggy heat of early September. The shade and fountain kept it from ever feeling like the oven the rest of the city could feel like, but it wasn’t so cool she needed the jacket and I wanted to see her nipples through the silk of her blouse.

  “I thought you wanted me to feel it move over my breasts and imagine your hands on me?”

  I loved the fact that she remembered that part of my instructions ahead of the part about not letting anyone else see her. And I loved that she was so eager to move past our conversation and meet me back in the present.

  “Pretend my gaze is the same as my touch. We both know you’re good at pretending and I want to see the way your nipples tighten underneath the silk.”

  She slipped the jacket off with a practiced ease that let me know we were heading back into familiar territory for her. I swear this woman took her clothes off the same way other women put them on, with no sense of false modesty at all. She turned to put the jacket on the back of her chair and I took it from her, draping it across my lap and my thickening cock. Fuck, everything she did made me hard for her.

  I would be the one to put the jacket back on her when we were ready to leave. Catching and holding her defiant gaze for a moment, I saw her shift so she sat straighter in her chair, shoulders back and spine bowed slightly to press her breasts toward me. Taking my time, I let my gaze follow the curve of her jaw, down the slender column of her throat to pause at the place her heart beat hard under her pale skin. She slid halfway back into her sex kitten persona, but her body gave her away. The hammering of her pulse meant she wasn’t as immune to this as she might pretend.

  My gaze followed the line of her collarbone, peeking out from the open neckline of her blouse. I couldn’t wait to run my tongue along the same path my gaze took, and I didn’t bother trying to hide my desire from her. I couldn’t expect honesty from her if I didn’t offer it up myself—at least in part. I wanted her. It would be foolish to try to hide it.

  The swell of her breasts and the dip between was just visible at the edge of her blouse. Sometime very soon I was going to hang a rough-cut diamond around her neck and watch the way it flashed against her gorgeous flesh. Her already hard nipples tightened to points under my gaze. I’d put diamonds there as well. Small jewels on chains that I could cinch around the tips of her swollen nipples. She’d wear them until her breasts ached with the pleasure of the bite of pain and then I’d take them off with my teeth, suckling her abused flesh until I got her to come with nothing more than my mouth.

  “Fuck.” She breathed out the word, more of a prayer than a curse, and I wondered for a second if I’d spoken aloud.

  It was my turn to arch a brow at her. Her dark eyes had dilated to almost black and her cheeks flushed a pretty rose color. I wondered if the rest of her skin would flush as easily, and my cock throbbed at the idea.

  “The way you look at me. As if I’m treasure and you’re some kind of pirate.” She let the rest of the thought trail off and her posture slipped from posing to something that managed to be both more relaxed and somehow more vulnerable at the same time.

  “You’re beautiful, Alexandra. Your body and your mind. You’re meant to be savored.” I let the words carry the certainty I felt. I didn’t doubt she was used to being desired, but I had a feeling honest appreciation was another thing entirely. I didn’t have any trouble giving her that.

  Ignoring my aching cock, throbbing in time with the beat of my heart, I watched her for a few moments longer, like a diabetic with his face pressed against the window of a candy shop. I intended to look my fill, but I wouldn’t touch her again. Not yet. Not until she begged me for it and only then if I was sure she was really ready.

  Every breath she took drew the silk across her tight nipples and I imagined what it must feel like to her. What it would feel like for me to put my mouth on her and suckle her through the silk. Watching her shallow breaths, I tortured us both by keeping her on edge and denying myself what I wanted from her. When she squirmed in her chair, shifting to press her thighs together to relieve some of the ache, I didn’t bother to hide my grin.

  WE’D GONE FROM THE WEIRD baby bird thing to talking about Kyle and finally ended up with me wriggling in my chair, so close to coming I was sure a single brush of my clit would set me off. I couldn’t get my bearings around Erik. Every time I thought I knew where we were going, he changed directions on me. It was maddening. And almost as delicious as the beignets.

  Any relief I felt at finding out what happened with Kyle was mitigated by the fact that the whole thing was my fault in the first place. I hadn’t wielded the cane but I’d given him permission to do it, permission he’d never have accepted without my prompting him. I was going to unpack all of that later. I hadn’t been lying when I told Erik I started the Gentleman’s Submissive to help people, not hurt them. If there was a better—safer—way to do m
y job, I’d take the new information and adjust. For now I was going to concentrate on trying not to come, sitting in the chair next to the too sure of himself attorney.

  “Do you usually orgasm during your sessions, Alexandra?”

  Well, fuck. I sucked in a breath and tried to figure out how to parse my answer while blood my brain needed headed to my lady parts.

  “No, not usually,” I said, careful to keep my words as neutral as possible. Talking to Erik about orgasms was a bit like Red Riding Hood dancing through an arena with a revved-up bull. The last thing I wanted to do was throw down the orgasm gauntlet. He sure as hell didn’t need to know how close I was just from his words. From the way his gaze traveled over my body. Hell, even from the way he’d fed me with his hand. “It’s easier for me to do my job if I keep my physical responses out of it.”

  The truth was I almost never came with anyone else around. I had a pretty extensive collection of vibrators—business expense (take that, IRS)—and I knew my body. I orgasmed regularly; it was just usually a solo affair. I liked it that way. It was easier for me to relax and enjoy myself when I wasn’t worried about what the guy was thinking or feeling, assuming they put their attention in the right place to begin with. I had a feeling Erik knew exactly where to focus his attention. Sexy bastard.

  “What a shame,” he said, sounding like he meant the exact opposite. “Are you ready?” He stood without waiting for my response and held out his jacket for me to slip into.

  “Sure. Yes, thank you,” I said, wary of the turn our afternoon had taken.

  I stretched my arms out to put on his jacket and felt the silk slide over my aching nipples. They were hard enough to use as engraving tools and showed absolutely no sign of changing. Not unless Erik decided to take mercy on me and suck them into submission. The thought of his mouth, hot and wet, tugging on my silk-covered nipple was enough to make my knees give way and I had to reach for the back of the chair to steady myself. I tugged his jacket tighter around me before I did something crazy—like tear open my blouse and offer myself to him.

  “I can find my way back from here,” I said, knowing before I said the words that he’d never let me off that easy. “I’ll message your jacket back to you.”

  “I’m walking you back,” he said, his grin almost predatory.

  “Of course you are,” I said, turning toward the doorway we must have entered through. I heard his chuckle, a warm, deep rumble behind me. Fuck, even his laughter turned me on.

  I didn’t give him a chance to blindfold me again, although I didn’t doubt he’d insist if that’s what he really wanted. He didn’t strike me as the kind of man who had any trouble getting what he wanted. As I started across the courtyard, I felt his hand, a warm and solid presence on the small of my back, guiding me even when I no longer needed him to. I murmured my thanks to the stunning coffee-colored woman who carried herself with the grace and bearing of the granddaughter of a voodoo priestess. I wasn’t often self-conscious but it would be hard for any woman to stand next to the breathtaking woman and not feel like the ugly stepsister.

  Erik leaned in to brush a kiss over the woman’s cheek. He murmured something in her ear, and she replied softly, too low and fast for my high school French to translate. Something tightened deep in my chest. If I looked closely at my emotions, I’d have guessed it was misplaced jealousy. Good thing I wasn’t looking closely. At my feelings anyway. I concentrated my attention on the elegant room I’d missed when I walked through it blindfolded. The windows were shuttered against the afternoon heat and partially, I imagined, to preserve the elegant furnishings. There were new pieces but I’d bet money I didn’t have that the furnishings that looked like antiques were original. The place whispered old money in a mixture of soft Southern drawl and French Creole.

  Erik held the door for me and followed me outside. I recognized our location on the edge of the Quarter. I must have walked by the spot dozens of times and never noticed anything more than a tidy stucco exterior with green-black railings and shutters. Somehow knowing the courtyard was hidden from people walking past made it feel even more special. Like a secret we shared. Except it wasn’t; he’d obviously been there lots of times, presumably with many different women. Which didn’t matter, because it wasn’t like we were a couple or anything. Hell, at the beginning of the day, we hadn’t even liked each other.

  That part, at least, seemed to have changed.

  Aside from the fact that I liked it much better when random people didn’t hate my guts, it might mean that I wouldn’t lose everything after all. Of course, given my new perspective, I wasn’t sure exactly how I was going to handle things with the Gentleman’s Submissive moving forward, but I’d figure all of that out.

  “So you’re really completely off the case?”

  “Yes, Alexandra,” he said, shocking the hell out of me by taking my hand in his.

  He laced our fingers together like we were on some kind of date. Like we were a couple. I was pretty sure one of his goals was making sure I stayed as off-balance as possible. Every time I got my bearings, he tilted things again.

  “So what happens with the case?” I might have gone way off script where Jensen was concerned. My nipples and clit seemed firmly in his camp, but I still had a business to run and student loans to pay back. And I wouldn’t mind having enough money left over to buy myself some of those beignets again. Maybe there was some kind of black market for the delicious pillows of tarragon-scented dough.

  “You’re going to have to ask your attorney about that. It’s better for both of us if we don’t talk about it.”

  I glanced over at him, searching his profile to see if he was telling me the truth or feeding me convenient bullshit. There was the barest hint of stubble along his strong jaw and I got distracted imagining for a moment what it would feel like scraping against my inner thigh. The thought of beard burn made me inadvertently squeeze his fingers, and he glanced in my direction, giving me a smile when he caught me watching him. Oh, for fuck’s sake. Clearly my body didn’t need me for anything related to Erik. My lips curved in response to his and heat pooled low in my belly. Didn’t matter, apparently, whether my mind thought it was a good idea; my body was all in where he was concerned. But I didn’t think he was trying to bullshit me. At least not about the legal stuff. I’d take the rest on a case-by-case basis.

  In a few minutes, we were standing in front of the door to the building that housed my studio, and I realized I had no idea what happened next. Did I give him his coat, tell him good-bye and never see him again? That idea didn’t sit as well with me as I’d expected. I was still super shaky on the whole I’m a Dom thing. A little blindfold and café au lait wasn’t enough to change my long-held beliefs that quickly. But I had to admit, I’d never felt anything like what Erik made me feel.

  I’d never backed down from a challenge, although I was starting to have a harder time thinking about whatever we were doing in term of winners and losers anymore. I’d also never turned away from knowledge that could make me better at my job—better at anything. Whatever he might call himself, Erik knew things I didn’t. I searched my head, trying to figure out a way to ask him to teach me without having to give up too much power in the process and drawing a blank.

  “I want another session,” he said, still holding my hand as we stood on the sidewalk in front of the door to my building.

  I resisted the urge to do a mental touchdown dance.

  “I charged you double,” I said, still not sure how I’d ended up in this crazy place. I’d started my day terrified of the law and ended it aroused past the point of reason.

  “I figured,” he said with a laugh.

  I liked it when he laughed. It was a rich, throaty sound, like burnt sugar or good Scotch. For a brief moment, when he laughed, he looked lighter somehow. Easier. It would be worth it to figure out how to make his face wear that expression.

  He reached into his pocket with his free hand and pulled out his phone, swiping his finger
across the screen a few times. I didn’t need to hear it to know that somewhere up in my studio my phone was dinging with an incoming message.

  “I sent payment for the next session—regular rate this time.”

  “I never said yes.”

  “Are you saying no?” He watched me, waiting.

  “No. I mean yes.” I felt my face heat and bit back a groan. The very last thing I wanted was for Erik to know how flustered he made me. I imagined he had a pretty good idea, but I didn’t need to make it easier for him. “Another session would be okay.”

  He grinned at me and the pirate thing was back. All he needed was a cutlass strapped to his hip and a compass tattoo. Of course, for all I knew, he had a tattoo hidden somewhere underneath the polished cotton of his expensive dress shirt. Without thinking, I licked my lips and it was his turn to squeeze my hand.

  “I’m going to save us both and go back to work,” he said, bringing our joined hands to his lips and pressing his mouth to the delicate skin on the inside of my wrist.

  Feeling my pulse hammer against his lips, he kept his gaze locked on me for a moment and I wondered whether he was reconsidering his earlier position. In favor of a position that had me bent over the spanking bench upstairs with him driving that long, thick cock I’d felt earlier inside me until I screamed his name and promised him anything his pirate heart desired.

  “I need you to do something for me.”

  I nodded, an overwhelming cocktail of sexy hormones making me momentarily mute.

  “You said you didn’t orgasm with clients and with the cease-and-desist you won’t be seeing anyone else this week anyway; sessions with me don’t count,” he hurried to add. “Until we have our next session, I don’t want you to orgasm alone.”

  I didn’t hold back my groan. I should have seen this coming. Orgasm denial was classic BDSM stuff. I should have known we’d end up here, but I’d wanted to believe so much that he was different than the your orgasms belong to me alphaholes I’d read about. I let my desire cloud my judgment. Like every other woman on the planet.