They walked together and Pamela marveled at how different she felt in the midst of city lights and busy streets. It all seemed loud and intrusive. The firm muscle of Christian’s arm and warmth of his skin contrasted sharply with the cold December air. Their breath made clouds in front of their faces as they moved slowly down the street.
For the first time she considered the way they looked together outside of the club scene. He was tall, lithe, sexy. Women glanced his way and men gave him a wide berth as they negotiated foot traffic. They didn’t speak to each other, but it wasn’t an uncomfortable silence. The anger she’d felt coming off him in waves seemed to have dissipated for the moment, but she was well aware she’d stepped over his boundary.
Why had she done it? She’d rejected him because he was dangerous to her emotions, to her heart. She’d chosen a woman to stay safe, contained, in control. Yet, just the sight of his resentful, angry face as he stroked his cock in front of her was enough to drag him back into her sphere, her soul. He scared the fuck out of her. Of all the men she’d known in her life he was the only man who’d reached inside that locked box of need she kept hidden from everyone. Only David had even guessed at its existence, but Christian threw open the locks and reached inside as if he owned her.
They reached a quiet coffee shop and Christian opened the door for her. Inside, the muted lights, the Christmas decorations and the holiday music flowing through the room reminded Pamela of the intense loneliness that had driven her to the city in the first place. As they ordered coffee and sat down, Pamela marshaled her thoughts. How much should she tell him? What did he deserve to know? “Know thyself” did not mean “show thyself”.
Did it?
Christian waited, his golden eyes focused on her face, his hands rested on his coffee cup. She took a deep breath and stared at the Christmas tree in the corner. In a way, it was no surprise she had reached a crisis during the Christmas season. After all, that’s when it all started. It began with her brother’s death and ended here in this coffee shop. “How much has Dominique told you about me?”
His breath eased out and he stared at his coffee. “She told me you were an experienced Domme from a small community up north and to be careful.”
A cold fist gripped her stomach and the hot coffee burned her throat as she took a sip. “Why would she tell you that?” Was her judgment fucked up again?
He sighed and frowned, small lines appearing beside his mouth. “I think it’s because I don’t really play like the others do.” He ran one of his hands through his hair.
“Oh?” She kept her voice noncommittal.
He nodded. “All my life I’ve been in charge, responsible for everyone.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Even my job in security is about being completely in control. Then Dominique needed a security consultant for the club.” His smile was crooked. “I got curious and tried it.” The smile dropped from his face and he stared at her. “I’ve been both a bottom and a top. Neither role really suited me. I like the pain. I like the power.” He clenched his hand into a fist. “But until you, I didn’t really understand it.”
A wild sense of hope swept through her. She squashed it. “What didn’t you understand?”
He seemed to struggle to find the words. “The…interaction. The way your response to power turns me on and they feed off each other.” His eyes narrowed. “Maybe you didn’t feel that way.” He glanced away.
Here was an easy way out. If she said she had felt nothing, the conversation would be over and she’d be off the hook. But it would be a lie. She reached across the table and touched his hand, waiting until he met her gaze again. When he did, she said, “I did. You know I did.”
Part of her wanted to leave it there. Maybe she could just have this time with him. Maybe they could be together until she had to go home. Then the past rose up to slap her and she couldn’t do it. Every minute they spent together would add to the pain that was inevitably going to come. Why the hell couldn’t she be like David or one of the other Doms she knew? They didn’t seem to have so much baggage.
Suddenly, the room seemed too closed in, too crowded, the traffic too loud. Her heart raced and her hands shook. She stood up so abruptly the chair crashed to the floor. “I have to go. Please, I—” She stopped, her mouth shut with a snap.
His eyes were wide as she walked so fast to the door it resembled running. When she reached the sidewalk outside, she tossed a glance backward to see if he was following her. He stood in the picture window, his hand on the chair that he’d righted and his face serious as he followed her progress.
She walked faster, her heart shattering with every step away from him that she took.
Chapter Five
Two days before Christmas. It was two days before Christmas and she was a wreck. The morning after walking away from Christian she’d woken up in her friend’s apartment and an intense restlessness had seized her. After a night of sobbing in a cold and lonely bed, she didn’t want to stay there anymore. Her cell phone kept ringing so she shut it off. Her head hurt, her body ached and the muted daylight made her eyes sting.
Frantically, she threw her clothes into her bags. Fuck this. She wasn’t going to turn herself inside out for anyone, least of all a man. Her stomach hurt. Her lungs burned. Her head was pounding. Tears were so close, like a hangnail that remained painful and bled if you picked at it. She tore out of her friend’s apartment like demons were chasing her. And in a way they were.
In her car on the freeway, even the music didn’t drown out her thoughts. The incoming rain didn’t distract her from the storm within. All these years and she still couldn’t get past it. Time dragged on, she was alone and her baggage followed her everywhere.
For the next five hours, as she fled for home as quickly as she’d escaped it, it all replayed in her mind. By the time she reached Humboldt County, she was a mess. There was only one person who would understand, who would know where she was coming from.
Instead of going to her lonely little house, she drove out to David’s home. If anyone could talk her down from a ledge it was him.
David had gone all out for Christmas this year. Lights bordered the roof, a big Grinch glowered in the front yard and a huge tree loomed in the living room window. This had been her home away from home. No family, few friends and several secrets meant there were few places Pamela felt comfortable. But David’s house was one of them. The addition of his girlfriend, Lee, only made it better. She loved them both.
It was around three in the afternoon and she hadn’t called first. She didn’t even know if he’d be home. But when she flung open her car door, David stood on the porch with a worried expression.
“I’m so glad you came here first. Don’t you ever answer your goddamned cell phone?”
“I turned it off.” She walked slowly to the front door. “I don’t suppose you have a few minutes, do you?”
“After I lecture you for a few, yeah, sure.” His glare softened, but not much. “Dominique called me. She was concerned that you were a danger to yourself.”
“I made a mistake,” she began.
“You certainly did. Get your ass in here.”
She stomped past him and realized that no other member of the BDSM community could tell her what to do except him. Even Dominique didn’t command her respect the way David did. Still, nobody likes to be chastised and she was probably going to get blasted. She collapsed in one of his overstuffed leather chairs.
He lit into her. “What in the hell possessed you to disappear like that? Your submissive was worried about you. He asked Dominique to check on you, saying you appeared to have a panic attack.” David’s blond hair was askew, which was extremely rare, and his usually cold blue eyes were sparked with anger. “Then you disappear without a word and no one knows where you are.”
“Did you think I’d slit my wrists?”
A muscle moved in his jaw. “That is not funny.”
She stared at the floor and heat rushed to her face. “I didn’
t mean to worry you.”
“It’s not me you should be concerned about.”
Her head snapped up and she stared at him. “What do you mean?”
“Despite the fact that Christian Nolan is a male submissive, he is no fucking pushover. What the hell happened between you two?” David glared at her. “He’s so worried, he’s threatening people to find out where you are and you’re having panic attacks. Is this about Frankie?”
The room closed in again. Her breath froze and she couldn’t inhale. Dizziness swamped her and David’s face seemed far away. Suddenly, his hands clamped on her shoulders. “I see that it is. Breathe, Pamela, breathe.”
She inhaled and then began to cry. David sat on a foot stool and stroked her hand. Her tears flowed and she couldn’t stop them. Just like she couldn’t stop Frankie.
“Pamela, he was your brother, but you were not responsible for what happened.”
She glared at David, her eyes misty and blurred. “He never would have done it if I hadn’t been a Domme. He never would have gone into the lifestyle if I hadn’t been in it.”
“He was a natural submissive,” David reminded her. “If you hadn’t led him there, he would have found it himself or been pretty unhappy. He was pretty extreme if I remember correctly.”
“But it was my fault.”
“Why? Because Roger trained you?” David’s tone was harsh.
“Yes. Because I trusted him. Because Frankie trusted me.” She twined her fingers together.
“That’s bullshit and you know it. Frankie died because Roger went too far.”
“It shouldn’t have happened,” she argued.
David stroked her hand. “We’ve been over this, Pamela.”
She sprang to her feet and wrenched her hand from David’s. “Why? Why did it happen? My brother had done it a million times before.”
“You know what happened.”
“I know what Roger said happened.” Her fists clenched.
“Christmas Day.”
Tears flooded her eyes. “Did you know I can’t buy a Christmas tree? Even now, after all these years.”
“Understandable. You found Frankie under the tree.”
“It was my fault,” she insisted, her eyes closed, her fists clenched.
“No, Pamela. It wasn’t.” David’s voice was soft. “Frankie took too many risks. Roger allowed it. You weren’t responsible for what happened that day.”
“Tell that to my parents.” The pain was excruciating. They tried to have her and the rest of the BDSM community banned from the funeral. Every holiday they were reminded their only son had died on Christmas Day. Frankie died naked with a plastic bag around his head, the man he was sleeping with probably buried balls deep in his ass.
The police wanted to call it murder. Her parents wanted to call it murder. Instead, she’d told the truth and earned the rejection of everyone involved. If it hadn’t been for David she might have put a bullet in her brain too.
It was David who’d suggested she leave the city where she lived and move to Humboldt County where he was starting up a BDSM community of his own. It was David who’d pulled her into training other Dominants when he’d argued she could prevent the carelessness that killed Frankie in the first place.
“You’ve kept your distance from all of us, Pamela. We’ve allowed it because we all know why.” David took her hand in his and held it. “But it’s time you let Frankie go.”
“I don’t know if I can.”
“Tell me what happened with Christian.”
She felt a little frantic, wild, out of control. “He did everything I asked him to do, let me do whatever I wanted to do to him.”
David squeezed her hand. “Did you break the rules?”
“I ordered him to—” she swallowed, “—I ordered him to fuck another club member.”
“Did either of them object?”
“No, but that’s the problem.” The words rushed out. “I had to be the one in control. I was responsible for both of them. I can’t do it. I can’t be responsible for them. What if they die?” The minute the last words were out of her mouth, she realized how crazy they sounded. But that was how she felt.
“Did either of them die?” David asked.
“Of course not,” she snapped. Then the expression on Sheena’s face as she’d come and the pleasure on Christian’s face as he’d licked Pamela’s pussy rose to the forefront of her mind. “No, they didn’t.”
“What are you really afraid of?” David pressed. “Are you afraid that if you get close to someone they’ll leave you the way Frankie did?”
She wanted to say “no”. She wanted to deny that she hadn’t been thinking that. But she’d deliberately chosen a man who lived nowhere near her, who had seemed the least submissive of all the other choices at the club, and who had every reason to avoid her from now on. Was she so afraid of being rejected she’d launched a preemptive strike?
All the fight left her and her shoulders slumped. “I don’t know what to do.”
David’s arm came up and wrapped around her shoulders. “Yes, you do. You owe Christian an apology and an explanation.” He led her back to her chair and she covered her face with her hands. “Luckily, you’ll have a chance to give him one at the Christmas party.”
Her hands dropped away and her head snapped up. “What?”
David grinned. “He’s on his way here. And I’ve invited him to our party. I suggest you go home and get some rest. He’ll be spoiling for a fight when he gets here.”
She glared at David even as her heart soared. “Why didn’t you tell me that in the first place?”
He grasped her hand and yanked her to her feet. “One, because I was pissed at you for worrying me. And two, because you needed to talk about Frankie to me so you can talk about it to Christian.”
“I never said I was going to tell him about Frankie.”
“You’d better, Pamela.” He herded her toward the front door. “If you don’t, I’ll tell everyone about your real hair.”
She glared at him. “You wouldn’t.”
“I would. Now go home and think about what you’re going to say.” He shoved her out the door and closed it behind her.
“I’m not getting you a Christmas present!” she shouted through the door.
“Seeing you get played by a submissive is present enough.” His voice floated from a window as she got in her car.
She wanted to be angry at him for that comment, but she couldn’t be. She wanted to get played by Christian too.
Chapter Six
The party wasn’t a large get-together as far as Chris could tell. It was festive, light-hearted and the people were all friendly. The one person he wanted to see wasn’t there yet. Each minute after the appointed start of the party, the anger that had waned over the last twenty-four hours surged forward again. He fidgeted. He came as close to gnashing his teeth as he ever had in his life.
David had welcomed him with open arms and cryptic statements. His bottle of wine was chilled and fawned over by David’s submissive, Lee. The place felt like home. He didn’t wonder that Pamela had escaped back to this place and these people. Still, she’d run from him without explanation, worrying him, causing him to make frantic phone calls to Dominique. Even now, he had no idea what had caused her to run. He only had David’s assurances that Pamela would be here and he would have his answers.
He wasn’t interested in the answers anymore. He just wanted her.
Being left standing in that coffee shop had taught him where his own feelings stood. It didn’t matter what she did to him. It didn’t matter that she’d demanded he fuck another woman. It didn’t matter that she didn’t let him get off. None of it mattered. He wanted her, no matter what. It made no sense and, as he’d watched her escape down that San Francisco street, he stopped trying to resist his feelings.
But then the hours, the minutes, had ticked by where he didn’t know where she was, what she was doing or if she was okay. The fear, the worry an
d finally, the relief, had all ground him up like hamburger. Now all he wanted was to see her.
He didn’t mingle. He didn’t eat or drink. He waited.
Every time the doorbell rang, he peered. A few times Lee sent him pitying glances that he studiously ignored. David, however, didn’t even smirk. It must have been difficult. He was well aware how he looked.
Pamela arrived. Lee opened the door when she rang the doorbell and David stood beside Christian. Hungrily, he stared at her. He noted she’d dressed in her most dominatrix outfit like the one she’d worn the first night he’d seen her. Black leather pants that fit her like a second skin, stiletto-heeled thigh-high boots, a leather corset that displayed every curve she owned perfectly. His gaze narrowed at the message. Armed and dangerous. It screamed “back off”. “Not this time,” he thought.
In her right hand was a long, leather crop. She’d shown up tonight ready to do battle. So be it.
“I’m afraid I’m going to be disrespectful to one of your Dommes, David.”
David gave him a steady look and glanced at Pamela. “Just as long as it’s not a habit.” He stepped over to Lee and herded her and the others into the living room. In a loud voice, he called, “Nothing to see here, folks. The party is in there.” He shot a grin at Pamela and disappeared.
Alone, Christian and Pamela faced each other. Two feelings warred within him—anger and hunger. “I was worried about you.”
Her black eyebrows shot up. “And what right did you have to worry?”
So that was her tactic. She was going to try and trivialize what had happened between them. “The right of a submissive for his Mistress.”
“I never signed a contract.” She made a step toward the living room.
Anger spurred him forward. “Get a key,” he said as he blocked her way.
“No.”
He leaned closer. “In the bedroom, I’m submissive, subservient. But in the real world I’m all man. Do you want to test that?”
She said nothing.
He nodded. “Get a key.”
She was forced to tip her chin to meet his gaze. “Why?”
The Christmas She Rules Page 5
