“‘Heaven.’ Bryan Adams.”
“One more.” This time he did shift his grip and compress the muscle in that way that hurt and pleasured at once. She gripped his leg. His other hand covered hers, tangled with her fingers. He kept his eyes locked on hers, his mouth firm.
“‘Angel of the Morning.’ Juice Newton.”
“Good.” He eased his touch, both a relief and a disappointment. He guided her legs over his so she was half on his lap, her butt on her chair but the rest of her leaned into him, held by him. He slid his lips over her brow. “You know, Alison Krauss does bluegrass. Not far from country. And Juice Newton has done some country, I’m sure. You may be a closet country fan, struggling to break free.”
“The same way you’ll embrace rap music tomorrow, Cowboy Troy.” She curled her fingers against his shirt, played with one of the pearl snaps and flattened her palm to feel the man beneath the cloth. He’d said she’d have to wait for their next session another couple of days. She didn't want to go home alone, and she wanted to be with him, as a sub. Tonight.
Staring at the wall, she wondered if she had the courage to do what she wanted to do. She gripped his collar, leaned in closer so she didn’t have to talk over the noise. “I know you said Friday. But is there anything that would make you reconsider that…sir?”
“Sincerity,” he said after a long pause. He’d dipped his head to hear her low words, his eyes trained on her thighs until he shifted his attention to her face. “What will be different if I take you home tonight, Celeste?”
He’d left his hat on the table, and her nervous hand had wandered over to it, was playing with the felt brim. “I'll tell you…if I'm scared. I won't use my safe word unless I want to be done…”
“For two weeks. Second strike.”
“For two weeks.” She took a breath. “Leland, I…”
“If you're talking to me as your Master right now, address me properly.” Tracing a line up her arm to her collarbone, he skimmed his knuckles along her sternum and the rise of her breasts over the vee neckline of the angel wing shirt.
“Okay. Sir.” She kept hesitating over calling him Master, though it wasn’t because she didn’t want to call him that. It was because she really wanted to do so, and that need made it seem like such a huge word, so portentous. “What happened the other night… When things start getting crazy, I go crazy. Something dark takes over in my head. Dark and angry and… I can't explain it. It's me but not me. You say I'm bratting, but when I looked up bratting, there are some bad definitions for that, like I’m deliberately trying to manipulate you. A brat misbehaves to force a Dom to punish her, because that’s what gets her off.”
“In BDSM, terms can mean a lot of different things,” he responded. “It depends on the Dom and sub. You do brat, and yes, you do it to try and control the situation. But you’re motivated by fear and uncertainty, not by a calculated desire to manipulate me. There’s a big difference.”
He said it so calm and easy, like it wasn’t really so bad. But she thought of spending two weeks without him, without his touch. Crazy as it sounded, because that really wasn’t a long time, she wasn’t prepared to risk that. She had to be entirely honest and hope he understood.
“I can’t control that reaction. It doesn’t seem like I can. I fight it, Leland. I want it, but I fight it. I’m afraid I'll use the safe word because of that, and I won't want to.”
“You don’t want to do without your Master for a couple weeks?”
She wasn’t sure she could do without him for the less than two days between tonight and Friday. The energy around them had heat and weight, his gold eyes so penetrating she couldn’t move. “No, sir.”
“All right.” He stroked her hair, curved one of those longer strands behind her ear. “You fight because you have to fight. Because you need the punishment, a firm hand, to get you past the need to fight. But think about this. You didn’t fight it the first night.”
“Because it was different.” She trailed off uncertainly. Was it? He hadn’t used restraints or punishment, but he’d restrained her with his voice, his touch. She’d felt totally under his command.
“Like this?” He gestured to the dance floor. “The vanilla sex, dating stuff. Maybe you fight because you don't want the overt Dom stuff.”
She thought of how often she’d dreamed of the night at Club Surreal, how she’d responded to the Dom side of Leland the first time they’d met, the way he’d touched her in Jai’s parking lot.
“Is it okay to want both?”
“Hell yeah.” He smiled, showing his pleasure with her answer. “It’s not 24/7 for most of us, Celeste. Being your Master isn’t at odds with me taking you to a country bar to romance you some.”
His expression changed, transforming from affable warmth to a hard stare that startled her. “Just like romancing you at a country bar doesn’t change the fact I’m going to punish you good for calling yourself shit. When I look at you, I see a woman who wants to improve something already good at the core, not someone creating an image to cover or replace shit. You want me to stripe your ass for something, tearing yourself down like that would top the list.”
His tone brimmed with a sensual menace that sent her scrambling for her defenses even as a part of her hoped he would jerk them out of reach before she got there. “I’m not tearing myself down,” she managed. “It’s just the truth.”
She didn’t want him messing with that reality. It had taken too long for her to accept it, build everything on it. Including the walls that surrounded her as a result. She set her jaw, plowed forward, hoping they could just skip over all that. “So I guess that’s a no, right? About tonight.”
“Not up to you to draw the lines in the sand, darlin’. You’ve asked. Now it’s up to me to decide.”
She fidgeted at that, resenting but understanding at the same time. He nudged her shoulder, making her look at him. His expression was easy again. He could be so matter-of-fact and straightforward about things. Dancing, singing to her, threatening to beat her ass.
“You have a decision of your own to make,” he said. “I want to take you to a wedding.”
“What?”
“I have some friends in New Orleans getting married this month. I RSVPed single, but I’m sure they won’t mind if I bring a plus one. They aren’t likely to run out of food if a few extra folks show up. I figured I’d go to NOLA for the wedding on Saturday, stay overnight, make a trip of it. It’d be nice to have female company.”
“I’ve lived in NOLA. Finding female company isn’t difficult, even on a cop’s bank account. Long as you use protection and have all your shots up to date.”
She yelped as he pinched her thigh, then locked his arm down over her shins when she tried to scramble back in self-defense. The restraint meant she had to keep her legs over his lap and do nothing but squeal as he kept pinching her, tickling her. She struggled, but he had his arm securely around her back, holding her to him.
“Stop, stop. Mercy.”
He paused, eyed her. She dropped her head back on his shoulder and gave him an exasperated look. “Didn’t we talk about the using-your-size thing?”
“This wedding is a classy affair,” he said, ignoring that. “Something a little above the twenty-five dollar hooker range, which hits the ceiling of my illegal sex budget. So have pity on me and go as my classy date. You can wear a slinky dress to make the bride mad, and I’ll be all puffed up and territorial around the other guys.”
She looked away, toward the dance floor. “Seems a little soon.”
“We’re going to watch them get married. Not get married ourselves.”
“You know what I mean. To go off together like that.”
He touched her face, guided it back toward his. “You know it’s not too soon, Celeste.”
“Yes, it is. It’s too fast. It’s all too fast.” She started to get up, not playing this time, and he wouldn’t let her go.
“Easy,” he said. “Talk to me, Celeste.”
“Can we just… I want to take it a step at a time. All I wanted was to have you take me home tonight. See how that goes. All I’ve been doing is thinking about that, and wondering if it’s real or…hell, I haven’t been thinking about it, as in thinking about it, because if I was really doing that, I probably would have cancelled our date altogether. I’ve just been wanting it.”
Realizing how that sounded, she shook her head, her cheeks warming. “I don’t mean that. I’m not looking for a desperation hookup.” But she was desperate, she realized with a hopeless surge of disgust with herself. “I’m done. I need to go.”
She thrust herself out of his grip with a sudden burst of temper and energy, and underestimated the propulsion of both. The table wobbled, her empty beer bottle toppling as she snagged the adjacent chair and tangled up her feet so she had to catch herself on the chair back or fall over it. She felt his hands at her waist, steadying her, but she pushed away.
“I’m going to the ladies room. You don’t need to take me home. I’ll just catch a cab.”
She was already walking away swiftly, making a beeline for the bathroom. She wasn’t sure if he’d heard her or not. The faces she passed were a blur, and when she got to the restroom, she shut herself into one of the stalls. A mural of wild horses was running along the cinderblock wall across from them. She could see it through the cracks. What the hell was wrong with her?
Same thing that was always wrong with her, and she always tried to bolt. It was so fucking tedious. It was one thing to push someone away when they were getting close. Classic abandonment issues, do it to them before they could do it to you. But Leland seemed to trigger it in her randomly. She couldn’t predict anything with him, so she was unable to protect him from her fallout. Dragging him into her train wreck wasn’t fair to him.
She’d go back to making do with her solitary Dom/sub fantasies with her vibrator. Or just focus on the functional, ‘apply electronic device to responsive part, turn on full power, have quick orgasm and then move on with the evening's blog notes and research.’ Yet even when she tried to do that, her imagination would sneak into it. She’d find herself hearing an authoritative male voice, commanding her to spread her legs. She’d see the shadow of that Master holding the vibrator in his hand as he whispered wicked things in her ears. When you come without permission—which was going to happen, since he was the one making sure she would fail—I’ll spank you, then fuck you.
She'd hold the vibrator trapped between her thighs and tuck her hands under her ass. Cupping her buttocks, she’d imagine her arms were tied behind her back, her breasts thrust up shamelessly, so she was unable to hide their aroused state. She’d bite into her pillow so her screams were muffled.
Up until Leland, she’d come harder during those solitary sessions than she’d ever come during vanilla sex with a living, breathing person.
She could say the Dom at Club Surreal had corrupted her, ruined her, but he’d only taken her to the door. She’d chosen to open it, and discovered a part of her identity that made her feel less miserable about the other parts of who she was. But she'd closed the door before she could get more than a taste, hadn't she? She hadn't gone within a foot of a BDSM club since. She hadn’t encouraged her blind dates or one-night hookups toward topping her, because none of them had that vibe that made her want to test that boundary.
Okay, well…maybe that wasn't entirely true. During sex, she’d found herself pushing them, taunting them in passive-aggressive ways, and some overtly aggressive ones. One guy had evacuated the hotel bed as soon as the sex was done, put on his clothes and left her with the terse farewell of “Nobody wants to be in bed with a total bitch.” Another had suggested, not too subtly, that she was too mean, too aggressive. She challenged a bed partner to the point it was exhausting, not pleasurable.
With a sigh, she came out of the stall, washed her hands, looked at herself in the mirror. Her eyes were guarded, her mouth firm, her body set in tense lines. Time to get a grip and apologize. Go home and resume her life. Forget the throbbing, screaming need that told her he’d been about to agree to another session tonight. He’d have taken her back to his place and made wonderful, amazing things happen to her. But that was that bad definition of a brat, wasn’t it? Misbehaving to get exactly what she wanted. Well, she wasn’t going to reward her own bad behavior. Leland might be kind enough to do so, but she had enough honor not to put him through that.
“Christ, you are fucked up,” she told her reflection. “Get back to what you do best.” If she was home within the hour, she could work off her nervous energy with some writing until she found exhaustion and sleep.
But first, time to swallow pride and offer her date a heartfelt apology. He was a great guy. He deserved way better things than putting up with her shit.
Chapter Seven
When she came out, she wasn’t surprised to find him leaning against the wall, waiting on her. But he had that rock carved look to his face that suggested she should retreat behind the deceptive safety of the door that said Cowgirls Only.
“Listen,” she said, forcing the words free. “I’m sorry. I know I’m not worth all this. I—”
He straightened, took her elbow. “Come with me.”
His tone was probably the one he used when he escorted suspects to the car. A tone that said everything would be all right, as long as they didn’t do anything that would compel him to totally kick their asses. He guided her out the door, back into the parking lot. She parted her lips, but found she didn’t know what to say. His set expression didn’t encourage conversation anyway. Opening the passenger door of the truck, he lifted her into the seat, guided the seatbelt over her and buckled it at her hip. She wanted to lay her palms on his broad back, inhale his scent off his neck and shoulder. She knew she shouldn’t touch him now, no matter how much she wished to do so. He was probably taking her home as fast as he could be done with this.
An ache rose in her throat. When he circled around and got into the truck, she turned her face toward the window, her hands clutched in a knot in her lap. When his hand covered them, squeezed, she looked toward him.
“Your fingers are cold.” He released her to fiddle with the vents, direct them toward her lap before turning it on low. “It starts out cold, but heats up pretty fast.” Turning over the ignition, he twisted around to back the truck out of the cramped parking area that was little more than a narrow gravel perimeter around the bar. His hand was on the headrest behind her as he navigated the vehicle. When he removed it to put the truck in drive, he touched her shoulder briefly before pulling out of the parking lot.
He wasn’t mad at her at all. She’d acted like a bitch and an idiot, and he was concerned that her fingers were cold. She turned her face away again, stared sightlessly out the window at the passing scenery. The ache had moved down, like a heavy padlock in her chest, making it hard to breathe. Her mind went away a little bit, because thought and awareness were just too difficult. She only surfaced when the truck came to a stop. They were in his driveway.
“Celeste.”
She wouldn’t look at him. She’d locked her neck in this position, denying herself the sight of him. She ascribed it to her usual perversity. A ruggedly handsome, patient, good man. What woman would want to look at that, right?
Every single one of them, unless the woman in question was certifiably insane.
He left the truck, came around to open her door. When she met his gaze, she realized why she hadn’t wanted to look at him. He was blurry around the edges, which was what happened when her eyes were filled with tears, spilling silently down her cheeks. She didn’t believe in crying. He cupped her face, his brows drawing down over his kind eyes as he followed the damp tracks with his thumbs. “C’mon darlin’. I know what you need.”
He unbuckled her seatbelt, put his arm around her and slid her out of the truck against his side, holding her suspended that way before letting her feet touch. He locked the doors, kept the arm around her as he too
k her up to the porch, again holding her close. She felt like she could have tucked herself against him, lifted her feet, and he would have carried her forward without a hitch in his step.
He didn’t turn on any lights in the house. He held on to her elbow as he closed and locked the door after them, set the security code, and then took her around the circle of furniture in the living room to the short hallway. He brought her to the empty room where he’d wrapped her in rope, that incredible session that had made her long for more connections with him like that.
A table had been set up in the shadows in the far corner. As her eyes adjusted to the dimness, a street light filtering through the window shade showed her the picnic blanket-size mat was still in the center of the floor, but it had been folded over into a rectangle and there was something else arranged at the four corners, a small pile of glinting chains and gleaming silver cuffs.
She jumped as the door closed behind her. Leland’s hands had slipped from her, and she turned to see him leaning against the door.
“Stays warmer in here with the door shut. Can you see well enough to go to the corner of the room, darlin’? By the window.”
“Y-yes.”
“Go there now. To the card table.”
She complied. The top third of the windows were visible above the shades, showing a sky lit with a scattering of pinpoint stars, competing with the rose glow of the city. Looking down, she saw a cluster of candles and a long-necked lighter in front of her.
“When you light the candles, your session will start. When you light them, you’re telling me that I’m your Master, in charge of everything that happens in this room.”
“And if I don’t light them?”
“That wasn’t multiple choice, Celeste. I’ll stand here as long as you need to wrap your mind around it, but the plain fact is I am your Master. You lighting the candles tells me only that you know that. That you accept it for tonight.”
“I’m afraid of what I’ll do. I’ll ruin it. I thought I already had.”
Soul Rest: A Knights of the Board Room Novel Page 17
