Vulnerable [Club Pleasure 4] (Siren Publishing Classic)

by Allyson Young

  Chapter Five

  For the first time in his entire working life, Ross felt the hours drag by, and he checked his watch obsessively. He had taken Elise home midevening, after their meal and a couple of hours of cuddling and talking on his couch, for despite his urging her to stay overnight with him, she insisted she had to prepare for her Monday classes. Ross suspected that, while it might have been partly true, she also wanted some time away from him again to process their relationship. Relationship. Now, that was a word he was altogether unfamiliar with, truth to be told, but one he was rapidly becoming comfortable with. He didn’t have her landline number, but had already called her cell twice and had to be content with the sound of her voice on her message. He couldn’t tell anything much from those brief words. You’ve reached Elise Cooper. Please leave your message.

  The sound of her voice made the little hairs on the back of his neck prickle, and Ross couldn’t think of a thing to say the first time he called, instead fumbling to punch the phone off before he was caught sucking air like some kind of breather stalker. He was initially proud of the message he left the second time, advising her it was Ross Lassiter and to call him, and then immediately after he hung up and reflected on it, felt like an ass. As if she had more than one Ross in her life! Ross Lassiter. As if she might have forgotten his name! Shit, he hadn’t said anything hot, or sweet, or even Dom-like. He didn’t know where she worked either so he couldn’t send her flowers there. He hadn’t sent a woman flowers since Mother’s Day, and his mom had taken him to task for wasting his money instead of calling.

  He had it bad, whatever it was, and this smiling off into the distance and remembering how she had tasted and how her eyes looked when she came, the sounds she made…Ross got a grip. He had to finish the quote he’d been working on, and then he would pick Elise up as arranged. They would go out to dinner and continue learning about one another outside of the bedroom. Elise had secrets, although she only alluded to them and avoided providing any information that would give him insight. Ross wanted to know what they were and if they would interfere with or affect their relationship. That word again. Well, he would help her and see where the relationship went. That settled, he focused and got it done.

  * * * *

  Elise pulled her classroom door shut and tested the lock. It had been the most bizarre day. For the first time ever, she had been distracted from her teaching, and a couple of the students had remarked on it, although thinking she was ill. She knew that her pale cheeks and the dark shadows under her eyes that makeup hadn’t concealed had lent credence to that belief, and while she hadn’t agreed with their assumption, hadn’t denied it either. The hours had dragged, and she had hidden several yawns and then forgotten to assign a reading project. She wasn’t certain how she had made it through the day and knew she had to pull herself together and do her job. She owed her students the best she could offer, because she knew how hard it was to get a high school diploma many years after adolescence, especially when the education was provided in such a concentrated format. She herself had taken her final year as a young adult before going on to get a teaching certificate.

  After Ross had driven her home, she’d puttered around her apartment, making ready for her classes the following day, choosing her clothes and packing her briefcase, putting together a lunch, when her mom called. Elise talked with her mother at least once a week, and was glad she had been home for the call, because she hadn’t given a thought to her family since Friday night, and her mom in particular was her anchor. She told her mom a little about Ross, omitting where they had met, but her mother picked up on something and provided a little lecture out of love and concern that succeeded in challenging everything Elise had come to believe about herself of late. It challenged everything she believed since she had met Ross. In the discerning focus of her mother’s worry, the impetuous weekend took on a whole new light. It totally brought back the past, and the unspoken questioning of her intelligence changed everything in her new perspective. History was repeating itself, and she hadn’t learned a damned thing. Her mother intimated it, and Elise believed it, falling back into the horrid memories of that time, asking herself how she could have been so stupid again.

  She laid awake much of the night, trying to hold onto the memory of Ross’s last fierce kiss that still felt branded on her mouth, but her mom’s advice and her past colored her thoughts and overtook her. She tentatively touched her lips now, and tried to focus. She had taken a warm bath and warmed up some milk, but neither had helped her sleep. The marks of passion Ross had left on her body showed up even clearer after the bath, silently mocking her attempts to put things into perspective.

  Elise had even tried making a physical list of pros and cons about their relationship. Fourteen years was a long time between this kind of thing, and while she had done her own kind of healing, she couldn’t help but accept that this was going in the wrong direction, just as her mother implied. Surely nothing this intense could be a good thing, just as her first marriage hadn’t been. She had married Terry at age seventeen, a union supported by the patriarchal society she had lived in, trusting that he would take care of her and that their marriage would reflect the ones around her, like the one her parents had. Terry had been twenty-four, a mechanic at the local gas station, and a man favored by her father because of his work ethic and ability to support a wife and family. Her mom was less impressed, because she didn’t approve of how Terry’s dad behaved toward his mother, but really only had suspicions that anything really untoward took place. For her part, Elise had been smitten by the handsome and experienced man who romanced her and swept her off her feet with such flattery. Their sex life had really been quite amazing, because she was eager and Terry an able, patient teacher, at least in the beginning. The sex had been all they had really had, and she hadn’t realized her husband was simply grooming her for what was to come.

  The Cooper clan was notoriously close-knit and closemouthed. It was like Vegas. What happened in their homes, stayed there, and Elise had gotten out with her family’s support and only because her mother had stopped by that day. Elise quit thinking about that time. It was in the past, and if she was seeing parallels in this thing with Ross, then she should be running for her life. She wished she hadn’t let him know where she lived, hadn’t been so impulsive, and wondered how to tell him to leave her alone or at the very least, slow down. She suspected she wouldn’t be able to tell Ross Lassiter anything, and it was too late to slow things down. She had been foolish again, starry-eyed with lust and excitement. And hope. She ached inside.

  She walked out to her car and considered her options while she sat behind the wheel, and a tap on the window forced a startled cry from her lips. Elise looked up into Emily’s indignant face and quickly rolled the window down.

  “I thought you were going to call me after you finished at the soup kitchen! I called you at home and called your cell over and over, but you didn’t pick up. I had to take the bus this morning.”

  Elise felt her face flush with guilt. She had forgotten about her promise to Emily, forgotten that she had offered to pick her up and drive her to work this morning because Em’s car was in the shop. She’d forgotten because she was getting involved with a man who could hurt her in all the ways she had been hurt in the past and probably break her heart, too, and there was the really important reason to put a lid on it. She smiled apologetically at her friend.

  “Sorry, Emily. I had something come up that distracted me, and I can’t apologize enough. Hop in. I’ll drive you home and maybe we can order in and then catch a movie or something.”

  Emily looked at her with her usual hauteur and then shrugged, walking around to snatch open the passenger door and slide inside. “Okay,” she said. “But I’m still ticked with you. What was going on, anyhow?”

  Elise did her absolute best not to let on that anything out of the ordinary had taken place. Instead, she said her mom had called with some bad news, not really so far from the truth, and
then rummaged in her purse and fished out her cell. As usual she had forgotten to turn it on, so she waved it at Emily to show her why her calls had gone unanswered. She powered it up, and Emily was distracted by the number of her calls on the screen. She folded her arms and sat back in the seat with a huff. Elise scrolled ahead and deleted Emily’s number until she came to one she didn’t recognize but knew anyhow. She forced her finger to press the delete key and nearly dropped the phone when the voice mail came up. She punched in her code and held the phone to her ear as though it might bite her, carefully screening her face from Emily’s now puzzled, if impatient stare. Ross’s voice, well remembered despite their short acquaintance, spoke briefly in her ear, dispassionate and abrupt, almost formal. The message belied their time together. There was no affection, nothing but arrogance and entitlement, and Elise realized her mother was right to worry, right to remind her, and that she was right to pack it in while she still could. She snapped the phone closed and turned it off again.

  “Battery’s getting low,” she said to Emily before stuffing the cell back into her bag. She started the car and took Emily home, making desultory talk to distract herself and keep Emily from grilling her. Ross would go to pick her up and get the message that she was blowing him off when she wasn’t home. His male ego wouldn’t allow him to put up with her behavior, and he would drop her, she hoped. It was the coward’s way out, but she didn’t feel that she had any choice. Maybe when she could put a coherent thought pattern together, she would call him to say good-bye properly or send him a note. Sudden tears blurred her vision, and she blinked furiously in order to make the final turn onto Emily’s street safely.

  * * * *

  Ross sat in his car in the parking lot and waited on Elise. He had shown up at her door with a coiling excitement in his gut and a bouquet of roses in his hand. When she hadn’t answered the door, he had called her cell and got the same message, to his frustration. If she had been held up at work, surely she would have called. He told her that he had programmed his number into her cell, and Elise had good manners, so he grew concerned. A chat with one of her neighbors elicited her place of work, something he was grateful for, but the lack of confidentiality annoyed him at the same time. What if he had a nefarious interest in Elise? That woman in the next apartment had not only opened the door to him but had parted with Elise’s work place information with alacrity.

  He sped to the address, only to find the place locked, the students from the last class of the day filing to their respective cars. He had been standing by his car, pushing redial on his phone when a mature student nodded to him, clearly admiring his choice in vehicles. Ross mentioned that he had just missed his girlfriend, a teacher, and the fellow, Adrian somebody, inquired after the name. He knew Elise from the previous semester and called another student over, a young woman who was one of Elise’s current students. Alice told him that Elise had left with Miss Brown, the math teacher, maybe an hour earlier. Ross made himself nod and make a civil farewell before heading back to Elise’s, stopping to pick up a coffee and a sandwich. It was a far cry from the meal he had hoped they would share and didn’t do much to assuage his anger and disappointment, but he understood that Elise was deliberately avoiding him because something had happened in the intervening hours between their time together. He wasn’t prepared to allow her to run from him, at least not until they could talk about it, after he expressed his disappointment and worry.

  By nearly midnight, Ross was entertaining thoughts of marking Elise’s ass with his belt in front of the entire membership of the Club, followed by a thorough fucking of that sweet ass. He had been forced to drive to a service station twice to relieve his bladder, and was convinced that Elise would return home while he was gone and pull up the drawbridge. Then he thought that moving his car had probably been a good idea in case the tenants in the building had noticed him hanging around and called the police. He began to wonder if she was planning to stay overnight with Miss Brown to avoid him, and added that to the list of punishments to be meted out. He knew he was thinking along the same lines as he would if they had an established D/s relationship, although most Doms surely wouldn’t have lost control of their subs the way he seemed to have done, but there you had it. He and Elise were invested in one another, and he wasn’t letting this go, her go, until they hashed it out.

  The next car that pulled into the lot disgorged its driver, and Ross recognized Elise’s tall, elegant stature in the orange-hued sodium lighting. He was out of his own vehicle without any memory of making a move, and at her side just as she pulled open the building’s main door. She froze at his touch under the more natural light flooding from the structure and turned to look at him, her mouth slightly open in shock, drawing in a breath, probably to scream, when she recognized him. Her eyes widened and then shut, the long thick lashes fanning over the crest of her cheeks, her shoulders slumping in acceptance. She didn’t say a word, allowing him to usher her through the doorway and down the hall to her garden apartment. It was yet another thing that bothered Ross. Women were not safe in ground floor apartments, where intruders had such easy access. It was something else to talk with her about. He plucked her keys out of her hand and shuffled through them to find the right one. Once he had her door open, he gently pushed her inside and closed the door behind them, throwing the dead bolt before turning to face her.

  Chapter Six

  Elise fought exhaustion and exhilaration in equal parts. She had stayed at Emily’s as long as she had dared until her friend had quit making hints about her leaving and had come right out and told her to go, that they both had work in the morning. Emily had complained about Elise’s uncharacteristic quietness and inattentiveness much of the evening, but seemed to accept her explanation of a headache, resulting from a poor night’s sleep. Em had then gone on about her own insomnia and delicate constitution until Elise could have screamed, but did penance, because the whole time she had been thinking about how Ross would have felt once he realized she had blown him off. And she tried really hard not to think about how she missed him, trying to tell herself that it was just because she hadn’t had sex in forever and had developed an appetite for it.

  It now appeared she had done it all for nothing, because he was looking at her with an impassive face and eyes that resembled nothing less than chips of blue ice. She had simply put off what she knew she would have to face, and she wasn’t any better prepared. She waited for Ross to speak, and when he didn’t, was momentarily puzzled. Then it came to her. She remembered his edict from Saturday night and accepted that it applied now. She could use her safe word and he would leave, but she couldn’t make herself do that. Her behavior had been unacceptable, and she needed to make amends.

  Elise prayed her mother was wrong, and forced her fingers to go to the hem of her sweater. Ross’s face relaxed infinitesimally, but Elise read him. He hadn’t been certain she would comply and would not have forced her. He was nothing like her ex-husband, and she had been wrong to be such a coward. She began to tug the top up her body and over her head. Ross moved past her, and she could hear him heading in the direction of her bedroom, stopping to draw the living room drapes. She understood immediately that he would not put her privacy at risk by leaving her exposed, back lit by the inside lights of her apartment, for anyone on the street to view.

  By the time he returned, she was kneeling in the proscribed position, privately amazed that she had remembered it so well, and how natural it felt. She wanted to plead her case and seek his clemency, to please him, and it had nothing to do with fear or coercion, because she felt none. She needed this, both for forgiveness and clarification, because she thought she had given it away, lost it. He gently tapped her knees further apart with the toe of his right foot, having taken off his shoes somewhere along the way. Elise felt exposed under his bright gaze, under the merciless overhead light in the kitchen, and accepted it. Ross would fix this, and Elise wouldn’t allow herself to consider what would become of her if he didn’t.
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  Ross stepped away, and from the corner of her downcast eyes, Elise could see him move to the table again and drag a chair out from its tucked position under it. He leisurely unbuttoned his shirt and rolled the cuffs up to his elbows, stretching the moment out with excruciating slowness before settling himself on the chair. He finally spoke.

  “Get over my lap, sub.”

  Elise stood and walked to her destiny. She lay over Ross’s lap and he trapped her legs between his strong thighs, placing a firm hand on her back as her shoulders dropped forward, her forehead nearly brushing the floor, her hair falling wildly about her face and obscuring her vision, serving to mute the cacophony of her thoughts. He waited, motionless, and she felt her heartbeat level out and her mind settle.

  “You’ll take twenty from my hand and count them, Elise. You have your safe word but if you use it, we are finished.”

  Elise heard the myriad of emotions that vibrated through Ross’s tone and accepted his ultimatum. It wasn’t blackmail. She had deliberately hurt him, and he wasn’t going to let it happen again. If she didn’t cooperate, he would walk away and this would be over. She would do this for him after her unconscionable behavior earlier this evening, worrying him needlessly. She would do this for her.

  “Yes, Sir.”

  Ross ran his big hand over her buttocks in a caress and then brought it down in an entirely opposite action. Elise gasped at the sensation. It hurt like the devil, and she couldn’t make her brain work to count. She took two gulping breaths and said, “One.” The number emerged on a whisper, but it satisfied Ross who administered another stinging wallop.