Re/Bound

by Michele Zurlo

  “Oh good,” he said. “I was seriously hoping you had better taste than this.”

  The tension broke, and she laughed. “Perhaps I should have ordered what was on tap.”

  His smile returned, and the somber Dom vanished for a moment. “I like that you're not afraid to take chances.”

  She wondered whether she was up for a chance like the one she was taking with Theo. Heat crept up her neck as she let her mind consider the other kinds of chances she'd like to take with him.

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  * * *

  Chapter Two

  Malcolm twined his hand with hers in the elevator. For all intents and purposes, he had satisfied one aspect of his mission. There was no way in hell Darcy had done anything to Scott Yataines. The raw hurt in her eyes had made something in his chest clench painfully. That kind of grief couldn't be faked.

  He would have ended the charade right then, but he needed Darcy for the rest of his mission. He already had four months invested in building his cover persona, and she could provide entree into Snyder's life at a level he couldn't achieve as a mere employee.

  The cover persona chosen by his handler hadn't been a Dom, but that role would get him close to Darcy and keep him there. She desperately needed someone to talk to who understood the relationship she had enjoyed with Yataines. From the transcripts, he deduced that nobody in her life accepted that part of either of them. Her family maintained that he abused her. His family hung their heads in shame and tried to point out how happy they seemed together. His sister had broken down and confessed she'd told Darcy to leave him.

  A low ding announced their floor—his handler had arranged things so that Malcolm could stay close. He exited with her, determined to see her safely inside her room. He needed to find out the identity of the asshole who had accosted her at the convention. Perhaps the callous statement had been only that. Perhaps the man had been making a veiled threat against Malcolm. Either way it was worth investigating.

  She paused at a door three-quarters of the way down the hall. Her gaze fell to the floor. After the awkwardness had passed, the rest of the night had gone well. He had kept the conversation on innocuous topics and had learned a lot about her relationship with Victor Snyder. The prick had her thoroughly and completely snowed. She considered him a friend and a benefactor.

  He hooked his finger under her chin and encouraged her to meet his gaze. When she complied, he rewarded her with a smile. Without a doubt, she was one responsive submissive. Yataines had trained her well.

  He cupped the side of her face and traced his thumb over her eyebrow. Adjusting the position of his hand, he repeated the caress along her lower lip. She trembled a bit, but she clearly awaited his command. His earlier intention had been an impulsive act of affection. It had taken all his willpower to keep his cock from saluting her submissiveness.

  “I had a nice time tonight, Darcy. Thank you for making this trip worthwhile.”

  Her eyes widened a bit, and he knew she wanted to ask if he'd decided against seeing her again now that he'd found out about some of her baggage.

  He replayed his caress of her lip. Suddenly he needed to taste her lips more than anything in the world. “Can I kiss you?”

  She began to nod, but she caught herself in time. She swallowed and licked her lips. “Yes, I'd like that, Sir.”

  Malcolm had never once taken the trust of a submissive lightly. Part of him wanted to play the gentleman and leave her alone. A larger part of him needed to know the flavor and texture of her kiss. He recognized the blurring of the line between his cover identity and his real self, and he couldn't keep from crossing it.

  He feathered his lips over hers, a reverent caress that teased a small sigh from her. That tiny sound proved to be his undoing. He traced the seam of her lips with his tongue, and she opened for him. He cradled her head with one hand to hold her close, and he snaked the other around her waist to press her body closer.

  She moaned and leaned into him as he directed with the pressure of his hand on her back. He tasted her lips and teeth. He sampled the roof of her mouth and tangled his tongue with hers. A piece of his heart he'd never before used came to life. It beat a furious staccato rhythm he felt echoed in her chest. Blood rushed to his cock. He thrust a knee between her legs and ground against her.

  She mewled, and her fingers dug into his shoulders. Inflamed with her flavor, he moved his lips to sample her neck. She moaned and threw her head back.

  The sharp crack of it hitting the door brought Malcolm back to his senses. He had shoved her against the door, and he had ravaged her with everything in his arsenal. He released her abruptly, keeping one hand close in case she needed more than the door to hold her up.

  She gazed up at him, her eyes heavy-lidded with desire and blurred by shock. She took a deep, ragged breath and pushed away from the door.

  Malcolm ran a shaky hand through his hair. “I'm sorry. You consented to a kiss, not a public mauling.”

  A little laugh escaped before she could bite her lip to keep it inside. “Now I'm wondering what will happen if I consent to a public mauling.”

  The visions she evoked meant he would need an icy shower before going to sleep. Wisely he changed the topic. “I'd like to see you again. Can we have breakfast together? I could swing by around eight, and we could walk down together.”

  Malcolm didn't know whether he asked her for the mission or because the pounding heart in his chest wanted to shrivel up and die at the thought of not seeing her.

  She nodded. “I'd like that.”

  He motioned to her door. “I'll see you safely inside before I head down to my room. I'm in 1072, just down at the end of the hall.”

  Darcy melted against the closed door. Theo's kiss had left her knees weak. Need pounded between her legs, something that hadn't happened since Scott disappeared. Surprisingly she didn't feel nearly as guilty as she thought she would. Theo possessed so many of the same qualities that she loved about Scott. He hadn't known her when he stepped in to assert his dominance over her. He had reaped no reward for his generous act. Scott had also possessed a generous soul. He had been a Dom who gave as much as he demanded. Darcy had blossomed as they'd learned the ropes of BDSM together.

  Theo looked at her when he talked to her. He listened when she spoke. Some Doms, especially one who had rendered such a necessary service, would have expected her submission the entire night. They might have expected payment for services rendered, a bit of give-and-take. Theo's signals had been clear to her when he expected submission. He also hadn't expected anything sexually. He'd even asked her permission before kissing her.

  Theo exuded confidence, and so he didn't need to subvert her individuality in order to feel in control of the situation. He openly respected her as a person, which wasn't always the case in a relationship. Darcy had toyed with the idea of finding a Dom like that, one who wanted her body and her submission but who didn't really care if her cat needed a trip to the vet or she had a bad day at work.

  Perhaps she could have lost herself in subspace, hoarding those precious moments when she didn't have to think about the magnitude of what she'd lost.

  Darcy had honestly thought she could never find someone who touched that part of her soul again. She didn't harbor the delusion that fate had sent Theo to her, but for the first time in far too long, she felt something other than the profound grief that haunted her nights or the nothingness that marked the minutes of daily life.

  “Scott, if you're watching over me, please give me a sign. It's only a weekend, and I've been so incredibly lonely.” She dropped her whispered prayer into the darkness, letting it settle before she flicked on the lights in the room and prepared for bed.

  The knock on the door came as she was finishing a phone conversation with her parents.

  She opened the door with an apologetic smile on her face and motioned for Theo to come inside. He wore tan chinos and a white button-down shirt, just as he had the night before, and he
looked every bit as handsome. He sat on the queen-size bed closest to the door. The room boasted two beds but no chairs. Given the tight space, she didn't see how a chair could fit. She mouthed sorry in his direction. He smiled and waved her apology away.

  Darcy wrapped it up as quickly as possible and set her phone next to the television. “Sorry about that. My cat needs antibiotics, and my parents aren't confident about getting her to swallow the pills.”

  The smile playing around his lips matched the gleam in his eyes. It made Darcy wonder what kinds of salacious thoughts might be rattling around in his head. That led to images of what it might be like if he acted on those thoughts.

  “Does she have a cold?”

  She drew her brows together. “Who?”

  “Your cat.” That smile grew a bit, and more than a few pussy-themed double entendres floated through her mind.

  “Oh, no. No cold. I forgot to keep up with clipping her nails, and she got an infection. It gives me the willies to do it. The vet gave me the name of some groomers who'll do it for me.” She held her hand out to him. “But you didn't come here to talk about my cat. Hungry?”

  He took her hand and stood up, but he didn't use his hold on her for leverage. Slowly he brushed his thumb over the backs of her knuckles. Her breath caught, and he held her in place with the look in his eyes. She didn't get the sense he wanted her submission, but the temperature in the room rose by more than a few degrees.

  “I'm always interested in anything you want to tell me about your...cat.”

  When he drew out the pause, the spell he cast broke as she realized he meant to go for the obvious joke. She took her hand from his hold and smacked him lightly on the chest. “You're a dork, you know that?”

  “Computer geek,” he corrected. “It's important you know about my geeky sense of humor from the start. I've carried on a love affair with obvious jokes and blatant puns since I was old enough to understand them.”

  Before she could think to formulate a response, his lips brushed against hers. Small, pleasant sparks raced down her spine to tingle in her toes. She swayed, and his body drew her like a magnet. He massaged her mouth with his until she opened to him, and then he let loose his tongue. She wanted to grab him and hold him close, but he kept his arms by his side and she followed his lead.

  When he released her, she realized what he had done. The night before, he had taken more than he asked for, and this demonstration was meant to prove he could exercise self-control. In the D/s classes she and Scott had taken, the importance of self-control had been drilled into both their heads as a responsibility lying in the Dom's department.

  She met his questioning gaze. “Thank you.”

  He nodded briefly. “Darcy, you hit me. I know you meant it playfully, so I'm going to warn you this once. That kind of behavior will earn you a punishment. You can roll your eyes at my jokes or push me away, but I can't compromise on that kind of insubordination. Each Dom is different, and that's one of my rules.”

  The image of her naked bottom on the receiving end of his hard palm caused moisture to rush to her pussy, and a shudder rocked through her body. It had been so long since she'd had the pleasure of a punishment. Theo might be in for a rude shock if he tried to discipline her that way. She was more likely to orgasm than to learn the lesson he sought to teach.

  He blinked at her and took a step back. “Did you just come?”

  She shook her head.

  The critical squint to one of his eyes and the way his head tilted meant he didn't quite believe her. “You're a masochist?”

  That question required a respectful response. She dropped her gaze accordingly. “Yes, Sir.”

  “You do realize a punishment doesn't include completion, don't you?”

  “Yes, Sir.” She raised her eyes and boldly challenged him. “You do realize you aren't my Master, don't you?”

  He thought about that for a moment, but the edge of anger she thought he might display from being put in his place never came. He offered his arm to her. “Ready for breakfast?”

  She reached for his arm, but she stalled halfway there. “You aren't mad I said that?”

  “No.” He captured her hand and lifted it to his lips before he placed it on his arm. “I'll never get mad at you for telling the truth, and I would never punish a submissive without her permission.”

  MALCOLM BREATHED A silent sigh of relief as she curled her hand around his bicep and followed him from the room. The trust she placed in him floored him, but it also set off warning bells. She barely knew him, and yet she had already submitted to him in small ways. He could argue that her statement challenging his authority had been a test on her part. Fortunately, he had passed. Only she could grant him that authority.

  She roused his protective instincts like no woman ever had. Once this case ended, he knew he would be on her doorstep, begging her to understand the nature of his work.

  “You got your key?”

  “In my pocket.”

  The longing he had glimpsed in those baby blues when he threatened to punish her called to him on a primal level. She didn't say anything as they walked down the hall. She maintained silence as the elevator made its way down ten floors to the main level. He glanced at her several times. By the time they entered the room where breakfast was offered, the contented expression she had sported shifted. She worried her bottom lip between her teeth.

  “Darcy?”

  Her head jerked up, and her attention focused back on him.

  “You okay?”

  She released her tortured lip. “Fine.”

  He watched her as she loaded a quarter of a waffle, fruit, and an English muffin onto her plate. That lip spent more time being abused.

  She looked to him for his opinion on table choice, an affectation he took as politeness and not submission. He led her to the nearest empty table and pulled out a chair. She favored him with a soft smile, and he melted under the power of her flirtation.

  “Tell me about you, Theo,” she said as he took his seat. “You kept the conversation about me last night. I want to know about you.”

  He stirred his coffee and shrugged. This part of the process usually didn't bother him, but he desperately didn't want to lie to Darcy. That was why he had steered the conversation to safe topics the night before. “What do you want to know?”

  She laughed. “I don't know what to ask. Tell me about your family or your work or how you figured out you wanted to be a Dom.”

  The safest topic also happened to be the thing they had in common. However that wasn't the first thing that came to mind. He cut a pineapple wedge into manageable pieces. “I first knew I was destined to be a computer geek when, in high school, the teachers started calling me out of my other classes to fix their computer problems.”

  “Oh.” Her eyes softened with sympathy. “Did that lead to social problems?”

  He laughed. “No, but I think I got better grades than I deserved, especially from my biology teacher. The man knew every piece of meat in a fetal pig, but he couldn't figure out how to make a group on his e-mail.”

  Darcy shivered. “I hated dissection, and I can honestly say I have no need of those skills to this day.”

  A working knowledge of human anatomy had come in handy in the field more than once, but he couldn't tell her that. “I imagine you batted those long eyelashes and turned those blue eyes to full power, and your lab partner did all the work.”

  “I wish.” She shook her head. “If I had it all to do over again, I still think it wouldn't have been effective. My lab partner was prissier than me. He squirmed in his seat the whole time and went home sick for two of the three days we dissected. I ended up working alone.”

  He made a sympathetic sound to encourage her to speak. Just like the previous night, he turned the conversation around.

  She batted those blue eyes at Malcolm, and his pants grew a little tight. “If you were my lab partner, maybe things would have worked in my favor.”

  “If
I had been your partner, I would have shown you a Web site with a virtual dissection and you would have seen all the same things.”

  She wrinkled her nose and stabbed at her cantaloupe. “Let's not talk about this while we're eating.”

  The topic hung in the air like stale cigarette smoke. Malcolm barely suppressed the urge to wave it away. It hadn't bothered him, but he didn't like the slight expression of distaste lingering around her mouth.

  “Why don't you tell me how you got to be a Dom?” She took a bite of her English muffin and dabbed at the corners of her mouth.

  A safe topic. He buttered a slice of toast, scraping the plastic knife across it in a smooth rhythm. “I met a girl. You know how the story goes. She was hot and she wanted to tie me up, so I let her.”

  Darcy's jaw dropped. This particular peach wasn't something he'd shared with many people over the years, mostly because it encouraged submissives to misbehave. Why he had revealed it to Darcy now, he didn't know. Perhaps he wanted to make up for lying about his reason for being there, his name, and his profession. “You started out as a sub?”

  “Don't be so shocked. Most Doms do. Even if they don't, any decent Dom is going to spend some time under the lash or in the stocks if only so we know what the sub is experiencing.”

  Her eyes took on a faraway look, and she nodded absently. After only a few seconds, she returned to the moment. “But you said your girlfriend dominated you. That's different than spending fifteen minutes bound and gagged when you know you haven't really handed over power to anyone.”

  He shrugged. “The sex was intense. I liked that, so I let her do other things. Nothing I regret, and nothing I didn't enjoy.”

  “So you switch?” She set her fork on her bare plate, not that it had ever contained much food.

  “Not in a long time. Do you switch?”

  She shook her head. “Never. I mean, I tried it a few times, but I think I was too jealous of Sco—of the sub to enjoy it much.”

  Malcolm closed his hand around the fist in her lap. She didn't relax at all. “You can say his name, Darcy. I don't expect you to forget him or to pretend like he meant nothing to you.”