She settled for saying, “I appreciate what you did that night.” Seeing Brian with a new woman before their divorce was even final had shocked her. That Kennedy had seen that and stepped in had earned her gratitude.
She’d been able to greet Brian with confidence. When he’d introduced the woman he was with as his new fiancée, she’d merely smiled and wished them well.
“It was selfish,” Kennedy said, bringing Mackenzie back to the present. “That blue dress flowed over your body. I wanted you in my arms. And I would have taken any excuse at that time. You’re an excellent dancer.”
“You lead well,” she replied.
“Not just on the dance floor.”
A tingle of awareness slithered up her spine, part warning, part anticipation, as he’d no doubt intended. Back then, she hadn’t realized he was a Dom. The newfound knowledge made her nervous.
Just for a moment, she fantasized about what it would have been like that evening, if she’d known.
“I’m wondering, too,” he said.
“About?”
“What might have been different had I realized you were submissive.”
“Am I that transparent?” Hyperaware of her revealing outfit and feeling exposed because of it, she folded her arms across her middle.
“Not at all,” he assured her. “I’m watching for clues as to what you’re thinking. You looked away, to the left. Sometimes that indicates people are remembering the past.”
“Did they teach you that at business school?”
“Among other things.” He smiled.
She supposed it was meant to put her at ease. Instead, he had created a small circle of intimacy that she liked and simultaneously wanted to escape.
“Are you meeting up with anyone specifically tonight, Dar?”
She knew what he was asking and that he was offering her a chance to gracefully excuse herself.
If she continued down this path, he would invite her to play.
She might feel his lash, or his fingers on her bare skin.
The pounding of her pulse urged her onward. A painful divorce had taught her to cage her impulsivity, sleep on reckless ideas—at least write in her journal before taking any action.
If he were anyone else, she could scene, then go home, have a good night’s sleep, get up and do her weekly shopping. But Kennedy Aldrich wasn’t any man. The time they’d danced had taught her that. Even then he’d been perceptive, making certain that her not-yet-ex and his fiancée had seen them together, her head on his shoulder. This man made her want to be reckless. “I came with a few friends. And…”
He waited, not pressing.
She should seize the out he’d offered her. Should… “No. I thought I would see who was here, where the evening led.”
“Alma is a taskmaster. I have to work for a couple of hours before I get a break. If your friends need to leave, I’ll see that you get home safely.”
“Thank you.”
“So that you’re thinking about it, paddle, flogger or single tail?”
Her mouth went dry, but her nerves took flight.
Just like earlier, he didn’t say a word.
“Ah.”
He lifted one eyebrow.
“Paddle,” she confessed.
He placed his thumb pad at the bottom of her chin. “The correct answer is, whatever you prefer, Sir.”
Oh God. Oh God. “I didn’t know you would demand we follow protocol, Sir.” When he didn’t respond she said, “But I could have asked or erred on the side of formality.”
He moved his thumb in a sensuous circle. “It’s going to be a pleasure, Dar.”
It wasn’t until he dropped his hand that she could find her voice. “It’s okay to call me Mackenzie.”
“You can call me Master Aldrich.”
Her knees went weak.
“There you are, Dar!” one of her friends shouted, coming into the kitchen. “You need to see— Oh. Sorry. Didn’t know you were busy.”
“Master Aldrich, my friend…” She tried to remember her scene name. “Lulu.”
Lulu, whose real first name was Luella, was one of her most adventurous friends. When she’d found out that Mackenzie and Cathy were both members of a BDSM club, she’d begged for an invite. Now, in the presence of Kennedy Aldrich, she all but curtsied.
“Happy to meet you,” he said before nodding and promising to find Mackenzie later.
“Holy shit!” Luella whistled when he left. “He really is into kink.”
“You believe everything you read online?”
“He can put me in stocks and have his wicked way with me anytime,” she said, still looking toward the swinging door.
Mackenzie snapped her fingers near her friend’s face.
“Oh, sorry. I just never suspected. And, wait. Did he say he’d find you later? Damn it, Dar! How did you land Kennedy Aldrich?”
“I didn’t land him,” she objected.
“You’re finally getting out of your self-imposed restrictions? About freaking time. Hey!” she called out and waved when Bella entered the room.
“I’ve been looking for you two. Cathy’s got her playmate on the bench. I thought you wanted to see.”
“Dar’s been busy arranging a scene with Kennedy Aldrich.”
“The Kennedy Aldrich?” Bella demanded.
“Yep,” Lulu answered for her.
The two women gave each other high-fives.
“Glad you’re finally dismounting the can’t-make-a-mistake horse,” Bella said.
Her friends had always been there for her, from serving as her bridesmaids to showing up and going through half a dozen bottles of wine with her after she’d caught her husband in bed with another woman not long after their honeymoon.
They’d been patient with her for the first six months after the divorce. They’d called or emailed and had invited her to the weekly girls’ night out, and had accepted her excuses for staying home. But then they’d staged an intervention. All of them had shown up on her doorstep, each holding a bottle of wine—a red, a white and a blush so she’d have no excuses for not joining in. They’d said they were going to pester her as part of Operation Get Back on the Damn Horse. Afterward, she’d been set up with men they worked with, brothers’ friends, even with friends of friends.
Even if she accepted a first date, she almost always refused a second one, especially if she was attracted to him. It wasn’t so much that she distrusted men, it was more that she’d been married and had no desire to make a mistake a second time. And she didn’t have very good role models. Her father was on wife number three. It would have been four except one woman had given him back the engagement ring. Her mother was going through a second divorce.
All things considered, Mackenzie was happily single.
“What’s different about him?” Bella asked. “Other than him being young, eligible, handsome and oh, yeah, rolling-in-it rich?”
“It’s not a date,” she protested.
“She’s hoping he won’t expect a relationship or anything else from her,” Lulu guessed.
“It’s not like that,” Mackenzie protested, lied.
“It’s exactly like that,” Lulu said, adding a harrumph at the end.
Bella grabbed both their wrists. “C’mon. Let’s go see Cathy work her sub.”
Grateful that she was no longer the focus of their attention, Mackenzie went along willingly.
In the main play space music thundered, making conversation almost impossible, which was a good thing in her opinion.
Surreptitiously, she looked around and didn’t see Kennedy. She told herself she was relieved. Then she sensed rather than saw him.
She glanced up and spotted him on the second floor balcony.
He gripped the railing, and he looked down at her. One of his shirtsleeves was turned up, and his legs were braced apart. Despite the coolness in the brick building, her body warmed.
It was probably a good thing they were going to scene. No one coul
d be as good as her imagination was making him out to be. It was better to get it over with, deal with the disappointment, then have her morning coffee and relegate him to the past.
Mackenzie allowed Lulu to pull her to a corner where Cathy stood behind a spanking bench. A man was on all fours, his knees on a padded railing, his torso supported by a wide, covered plank. He wore a gold-colored thong, not that it mattered. Cathy had pulled it down, leaving him exposed.
She was talking in soothing tones to the man Mackenzie knew only as B. She had no idea if it meant beta or boy or if it was one of his initials. Other attendees speculated, but B seemed to enjoy the fact that he kept everyone guessing.
“Tell me what you want,” she instructed.
“The clamps, Mistress.”
“What about them?”
“They hurt.”
Mackenzie winced in sympathy. Cathy had placed at least a dozen old-fashioned wooden clothespins at strategic places on his body. Several were clamped to his testicles, others to his nipples, a couple on his inner thighs, one on his little toe.
“What would you like me to do about them?” Cathy asked B as she stroked his left buttock. “Do you want me to remove them?”
He shuddered.
Mackenzie knew the feeling. At this point, he’d be desperate to get them off, but he knew it would hurt like hell when she did.
“We can leave them as long as you want,” Cathy said, twisting the one on his toe.
B whimpered.
“I’ve never seen this side of her,” Lulu whispered. “I think I’d hate to work for her.”
“From what I’ve heard, she saves the hard-ass attitude for the courtroom,” Bella said.
“And Domme,” Mackenzie added. “She only gives people what they really want, what they’ve asked for.”
But Cathy was assertive, Mackenzie knew. The woman hadn’t become a partner in a law firm by hoping her bosses noticed her.
And, if Mackenzie’s guess was correct, it was Cathy who’d organized Operation Get Back on the Damn Horse. She cared about people, passionately.
“I want them off, Mistress.”
“Ask me nicely.”
Though she was a slight woman, Cathy looked imposing in leather pants and a leather blazer. She’d pulled the outfit together with platform boots. Every time Cathy dressed as a Domme, even Mackenzie felt a little intimidated.
The woman wielded a mean and precise single tail. Subs, male and female, sought her out and begged for her attention. She was known to be a bit of a sadist, and people requested time with her before she even arrived. Occasionally, she’d team up with another Dominant to torment a collared slave, but generally, she preferred to play with people who had no one else to top them.
“I’m waiting,” Cathy said to B.
“Please,” he whispered, never lifting his head.
“You’d like me to get rid of them all?”
“Yes, Mistress.”
“Choose the first one,” she said.
“The one on my toe.”
Cathy took a step back. She flicked the clothespin with the single tail.
B curled his toes as he tried to protect his feet.
Because he was obviously not expecting it, she snapped the leather whip, knocking a clamp from his nipple.
He twisted and screamed.
“Jesus. She’s diabolical,” Lulu said. “Is this normal?”
Mackenzie nodded. In the cab on the way over, she and Cathy had tried to prepare Lulu and Bella for what they’d see. But the truth was, a BDSM club had to be experienced. And seeing their fun-loving friend torturing a man had to be eye-opening.
Before he’d recovered, she smacked one that was attached to his testicles.
He shrieked.
“I think I’ll watch a bondage demonstration,” Bella said. “More my speed.”
“Want me to go with you?” Mackenzie asked.
“I’m okay.”
Since Lulu seemed fascinated, flicking her wrist to mimic Cathy’s moves, Mackenzie decided to follow Bella. “Was that a bit much for you?” Mackenzie asked when she caught up to her.
“I think I prefer the artistry of the rope stuff. Suspension. Bondage. No offense meant.”
“None taken. BDSM has a lot of facets. Not everything is for everyone. It’s okay to like some things and not others.”
“Are you really going to let Master Aldrich do that to you?”
The idea of Kennedy making her naked body quiver in anticipation of his lash made Mackenzie miss a step. Focusing on her friend, she explained, “B and Cathy have worked together before. She knows what he wants. They talked about it ahead of time.”
“And he has a safe word?”
“He does.” Mackenzie nodded. “If you noticed, Cathy doesn’t ever use restraints. Every person is on her bench by choice. They are free to get up at any time. But B is going to stay there for as long as she lets him.”
“You didn’t answer the question. Are you going to let Master Aldrich beat you like that?”
“Exactly like that? No. That’s a bit extreme for me.” She took a breath, imagining what he might do. “But yes. I’m going to scene with him.”
“You have a safe word? For the love of God, tell me you have one and promise you’ll use it.”
Mackenzie could reassure Bella that she’d done this dozens of times, but she suspected that wouldn’t help. Instead, she said what Bella needed to hear. “I promise.”
“Cripes. I should have had a margarita before I came.”
Since neither Cathy nor Mackenzie liked to combine alcohol with play, they’d had dinner but no drinks. “Do you want to leave?”
“No chance. I’m as fascinated as I am scared. But I don’t want to watch you.”
“My feelings aren’t hurt.”
Mackenzie glanced over her shoulder. Lulu still seemed enthralled with Cathy and B. It didn’t appear that she’d even noticed that they’d walked away.
Mackenzie and Bella stopped near the apparatus that Alma had called the Knotingham. A woman was winding her way through the netting. Afterward, a rigger had a slight man stand on one of the lowest beams then secured him to a pole.
He swayed back and forth to loosen the bindings over his head, and only a couple of minutes, the rope tumbled down.
“Even I could manage that,” Bella said.
“Give it a try.”
Her eyes went wide. “Oh, hell no.”
“Come on,” Mackenzie encouraged.
Bella glanced toward the flag waving from the top.
“Think about it.”
Bella scowled. “Maybe.”
A black woman was standing off to the side, holding several strands of red rope. As they watched the man extricate himself from the final bindings, the woman moved closer.
“You curious?” she asked Bella.
“Curious. But not interested.”
The woman, wearing blue jeans and a T-shirt with the name of an eighties rock band emblazoned across the front, laughed. “How would you get through it?”
“I wouldn’t,” Bella said.
But even Mackenzie heard contemplation in her tone.
“If you were to try it,” the woman prompted.
“If I were going to try it, which I’m not…” Bella pointed and explained the angles and curves and shortest, least challenging route. “That’s assuming I’d be tied the same way as that guy was.”
“And if you were on the outside, spread-eagled?”
Bella looked more closely at the woman. “I’d have to get turned around.”
“Without falling.”
“Without falling,” she agreed. “I’d try to go up and over.”
“Good plan.”
“She’s an engineer,” Mackenzie said. “Everything is simple math and a problem to be solved.”
“Let’s try.”
Bella’s face drained of color, which was something considering the amount of makeup she was wearing.
“Kani
sha,” the woman said by way of introduction.
Bella shook her hand, and Mackenzie had never seen her friend appear so confused.
“I’m not sure what to call you,” Bella said. “Are you a Domme? Do I call you Ma’am or Madame, or what?”
Kanisha moved the rope to her other hand. “I top, yes. But it’s more because I need to be in control to keep you safe. Just call me by my name.”
The man grabbed the flag and sat atop the structure. He lifted his hands repeatedly, encouraging applause.
“We’re up,” Kanisha said. “I’ll be with you the entire time.”
“Ah…” Bella looked to Mackenzie.
Mackenzie said, “You said you wanted a new experience.”
“You’re not being any help,” Bella protested.
Because it was easy to be brave when it was someone else’s dignity at risk, Mackenzie said, “Think of the stories you can tell around the coffee pot at work on Monday. A good-looking Domme tied you up and made you crawl for a flag.”
As the man climbed down from the top, Bella and Mackenzie exchanged looks.
“Am I crazy?” she asked.
“Only in the best way possible,” Mackenzie assured her friend.
“You could even do it naked,” Kanisha added.
“No freaking way,” Bella protested.
“I’ll let you keep your clothes on if you get over there now.”
That was all the encouragement she seemed to need.
“I’ll talk you through the whole thing, and I want you communicating with me.” Kanisha’s tone was perfect. Firm, but reassuring.
A shot of adrenaline hit Mackenzie’s bloodstream as she imagined Kennedy using that same sort of tone with her.
“You with me?” Kanisha asked.
Bella nodded.
“Have you ever been tied up before?”
“Virgin,” Bella confessed.
“We’ll start you out with some easy knots. You’ll be able to undo them without much effort. And this red hemp will look good against your skin. Mind if I take some pictures with my cell phone?”
“Uhm…”
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