by Marie Force
“Of course not. This is Southern California. It would be considered conservationism.”
“In that case…” He gets up and offers me a hand.
His growling stomach got him out of the conversation for now. But I still want answers to my questions, even if I’m a little afraid of what I might find out.
She wants to know about my life as a Dominant. Bloody hell. Flynn’s sister wants to talk about dominant sex. He’d kill me dead if he knew I was even hinting at that conversation with her. Telling her about me doesn’t necessarily mean telling her about him and the others. But I need to tread carefully here—very, very carefully. Their secrets are not mine to tell, and I’d never betray my friends that way.
Ellie’s curiosity is dangerous, but I can handle it. Or so I tell myself as we walk toward the boardwalk with Randy on a leash. She suggested pizza at a nearby restaurant, and that’s fine with me. We find a table for two outside, and Randy lies down on the sidewalk next to us as we peruse the menu.
Ellie raves about the cheese pizza here, so we settle on that, an antipasto to share and a glass of red wine for me when she assures me she doesn’t mind if I have a drink, even though she’s officially off booze while we try to get her pregnant. My stomach is in knots because I know she’s not going to forget the conversation we were having before my stomach growl interrupted us.
The young waiter returns with a bottle of cheap red wine and pours me a glass. For some odd reason, I think of my father and what he would have to say about this place. He’d probably complain about the cheap wine, the rushed service, the carnival atmosphere of the boardwalk and anything else he could think of to gripe about. To me, it’s the perfect kind of warm Southern California night, and with a beautiful, sexy, intriguing woman across the table, I have no complaints. Well, the wine could be better…
“So,” she says, eyeing me expectantly. “You never answered my question earlier.”
“No, I didn’t.” I swish the wine around in my glass, watching the play of the dark liquid because that’s better than trying to figure out how to tell her something I never talk about with people outside the lifestyle.
“Are you going to?”
After a slight hesitation, I decide that after the trust she’s put in me by allowing me to father her child, I owe her the truth. “The woman I mentioned, the one I was involved with at uni? She’s the one who introduced me to the lifestyle. I had no idea it existed prior to meeting her, but I always knew there was something in me that wanted… more, I guess you could say.”
“What do you mean by more?”
“To be blunt, basic fucking was fun, but tying up a woman, dominating her, having her willingly submit to me, well, that was bloody fabulous.”
“So what we’ve been doing…”
I reach across the table to cover her hands with mine. “Is also bloody fabulous.”
“But it’s not enough for you?” She casts her gaze down at our joined hands, which tells me she’s embarrassed to be asking these questions, but that’s not stopping her.
“It’s not about enough or not enough. It’s about more.”
“What does more usually entail for you?”
“You want, like, details?”
She draws her bottom lip into her mouth and nods.
I zero in on her lip between her teeth and forget what I was going to say.
“Jasper?”
“Oh, right, so for me, more usually involves restraints of one sort or another, toys of every kind—I love toys—light flogging, spanking, any and all kinds of sex. You name it, I like it.”
“You’re so matter-of-fact about it. You sound like some people would reciting a grocery list.”
I scoot my chair around the table so I’m within inches of her and reach for her hand, placing it over the hard bulge in my pants. “I’m hardly matter-of-fact about it, darling, especially when I’m picturing you trussed up as my willing sub.”
She snorts out a nervous laugh. “I’ve never been submissive a second in my life.”
“That doesn’t mean you wouldn’t enjoy being sexually submissive. The good news is you don’t have to check your girl-power card at the door to enjoy being dominated.” Still holding her hand, I raise it to my lips and nibble on her knuckles. “It’s a common misconception that the sub surrenders all power to the Dom, when it’s actually quite the other way around.”
Her raised eyebrow conveys a healthy dose of skepticism. “How’s that possible?”
“First of all, everything is agreed upon beforehand. There’re never any surprises in a Dom/sub encounter. Furthermore, the sub has the power to stop the whole thing with a single word that’s also negotiated in advance. So you see, the Dom is, in many ways, at the mercy of his or her sub.”
“What if a woman you were interested in or had feelings for wasn’t into having a Dom/sub sexual relationship?”
“Truthfully?”
“Of course.”
“I don’t think I could do without it long-term. It’s such a big part of who I am that I’d find it hard to deny that side of myself indefinitely.”
I can see that she’s mulling it over in that thoughtful way of hers. One of the things I find most attractive about her is her crackling intelligence, and while I’m slightly uncomfortable to be confessing my secrets to Flynn’s sister, telling Ellie just seems right somehow. I don’t want there to be other secrets between us besides the necessary one I’m keeping from her and everyone else in LA, and though I never would’ve volunteered the information, it’s a relief that she knows about the BDSM.
“Do you have a lot of friends in the lifestyle?”
Oh crap. Like, all of them? “A few.”
“Anyone I know?”
“Now, darling, I can’t tell you that.”
“You can’t or you won’t?”
“Both. It’s not my place to ‘out’ someone else who might not want others to know they’re kinky. I can only speak for myself.” I can see that she’s intrigued by the possibility of other people she knows favoring the lifestyle. What would she think if she knew most of her closest friends, including her brother and now his wife, too, are in the lifestyle? She won’t hear that from me.
“So the women you’ve been with over the years… You’ve done that with all of them?”
“Not all, and there haven’t been that many.”
She gives me a look filled with skepticism. “You’ve talked to me about most of them.”
“It’s a case-by-case thing. Sometimes we go there, sometimes we don’t. And there’re places I can go if I’m looking to hook up with someone who likes what I do. Clubs and whatnot.”
“Would you take me to one of these clubs?”
I’m not sure if I blanch or recoil, but the net effect is the same. “What? No. I won’t take you to one.”
“Why not? How will I know if I’m interested in trying it if I’ve never seen or experienced it?”
Bloody hell, I’m hard as rock at the thought of her wanting to try it, not to mention taking her to one of the local BDSM clubs. Of course I can’t take her to the one I own with her brother and the other Quantum principals, but ours is certainly not the only game in town. Our friend Devon Black owns Black Vice, one of the best clubs in LA, especially for people who might be recognized. Discretion is the name of the game at Black Vice, and it would be the perfect place to introduce Ellie to the lifestyle, if I were going to introduce her, which I’m not.
Our food arrives, granting a reprieve in the increasingly uncomfortable conversation as we dive into the pizza and salad.
Randy pops up when he smells the food, and Ellie feeds him a piece of salami. I swear I hear him moan with pleasure. I like that he doesn’t beg relentlessly the way some dogs would. He’s satisfied with his sample and goes back to his nap, leaving us to eat in peace.
I’m still on edge from talking about my kink, a topic I rarely venture into with women unless I’m about to do a scene with one of them. Then there’s a lot of talking and
negotiating. This kind of conversation that I’m having with Ellie is highly unusual. But I have to admit that I like that she knows the truth about my sexual preferences and didn’t run away in horror.
Quite the opposite, in fact. She seems… intrigued. Is it possible that she might want—
No. Just no. That’s not what this is about. I need to keep reminding myself of what we’re doing and what we aren’t. She wants a baby. I want her. Why does it need to be any more complicated than that?
Chapter 10
“Would you care if I went to a club with someone else?”
I nearly choke on what had been a rather satisfying bite of pizza.
“Jasper? Are you all right?”
No, I’m not all right. My throat is closed and my eyes are watering, but my raised hand keeps her from getting up. “Christ,” I mutter when I can speak again. “Give a guy some warning before you ask something like that.”
“It’s the new millennium, Jasper, and I’ll let you in on a little secret.” She leans forward, as do I, desperate to hear all her secrets. “I’ve even watched porn.” As she covers her mouth, her eyes get big, and I can see she’s totally mocking me. However, the thought of Ellie watching porn makes me harder than I already was. “So, I’ll ask again. What if I went with someone else?”
“Obviously, I can’t stop you from doing whatever you want. I can tell you that not all Doms and not all clubs are created equal. I’d hate to see you end up in a situation that frightens or overwhelms you.”
“That would be unfortunate. Of course, there’d be no chance of that happening if I took a friend with me, someone who knows the scene and can guide me through my first exposure to it.” As she says this, she picks up a hot pepper from the antipasto, holds the stem between two fingers as she dips the end of the pepper into her mouth. I’m riveted by the movement of her lips and tongue, jealous of a hot pepper for the first time in my life.
J.T. isn’t immune either. He’s pulsing against my fly, like an inmate in solitary confinement, banging on the door, begging to be released.
“Right?” She draws me back to the conversation. What were we talking about again?
“Um, right, yes, I suppose so.”
“You’ll take me, then?”
Oh, I’ll take you, love. I’ll take you every which way to next Tuesday and then back again.
“What club should we go to? I want to look it up online.”
Wait. What? When did I agree to take her to a sex club? Rarely do I find myself outmatched by a woman, but Ellie Godfrey isn’t just any woman. No, if my life was different and I had the options regular guys have, she’d be the woman. I wouldn’t hesitate to go all in with her, but since that’s not possible, I have to settle for whatever I’m able to get, and I’ll be damned if she’ll be visiting any sex club without me.
“I’ll talk to my friend Devon Black, the owner of Black Vice, about taking you in for a visit.”
“Really? Like when? Soon?”
Rolling my eyes, I nod. “As soon as he’s available. Now, can we please talk about something else?”
“You don’t like talking about sex? I thought that was every guy’s favorite topic.”
“I like talking about it.”
“Just not with me?”
I take her hand and once again place it on the hard column of my cock. “Any questions?”
She giggles like a schoolgirl, and I’m absolutely smitten with the sound of her infectious laughter, but I can’t let her know that. She’ll be completely unmanageable, rather than just mostly unmanageable.
“It’s not funny. You think it feels good to sit around with an angry beast inside my pants while you go on about visiting sex clubs and wanting to know more about BDSM?”
“Angry beast?”
“Is that all you heard?”
“Did you say something else?”
Shaking my head with amusement, I signal for the check. Time to get out of here before I do something embarrassing like take her right on the table. When the beast is angry, he tends to lose his decorum.
We stop for ice cream on the way back to her place, and as I try not to stare while she licks her cone, it occurs to me that I haven’t been on a sweet, innocent romantic date like this one in years. What’s the point of “dating” when there’s no hope of an actual relationship?
“Why haven’t you ever gotten married or had a girlfriend?” she asks between licks. Is she capable of reading my mind now, too?
“That’s sort of a long story.”
“I’ve got time.”
Why did I know she would say that? I rub the late-day whiskers on my jaw, trying to decide what I should say. Tell the truth or a portion of it? “I haven’t met anyone I cared about enough to marry.” That’s true. That’s absolutely true. But it’s not the whole truth. Not even close.
“And why would you want just one when you can have them all?”
God, it kills me to know she thinks of me as a total gadabout, even if the label suits me. I’m exactly what she thinks I am, even if it’s not necessarily who I’d choose to be. The opportunity to decide that for myself was taken from me before I was born.
“True enough, darling,” I reply with a lighthearted tone and the charming smile that’s become my trademark over the years. You can hide a lot of heartache behind the right sort of smile. I’m oddly and strangely disappointed in myself at this moment, which is a rare and hopefully fleeting feeling. I made peace with my lot in life ages ago. There’s no sense whatsoever in wishing for things that can never be at this point.
Except, being around Ellie, helping her make a baby while knowing I can’t ever be a real father to her child has forced me to confront a reality I thought I had accepted decades ago. The baby isn’t even conceived yet, and I already want more of him—or her—than I’ll ever be able to have. The very idea of a baby with my eyes and her golden hair has unlocked a sense of yearning that can’t be tamped down no matter how hard I try.
Ellie curls her hand into the crook of my elbow and leans her head against my shoulder. “I feel like you’re out of sorts since I asked about the BDSM.”
“Not out of sorts.”
“What, then?”
“Maybe a tad off-kilter. I’m not accustomed to talking so openly about something I’ve gone to enormous lengths to keep private.”
“Why do you care what people think of you?”
So many reasons. “You know how it is in this town. If something like that were to become public, I’d be on the front page of every tabloid and the lead story on every gossip show. Plus, it’s none of anyone’s damn business how I like to get it on.”
“That’s true.”
We arrive back at her house, and I wonder if she’ll invite me in or send me packing. After all, we aren’t about extras such as sleeping together or anything that would smack of an actual relationship.
My phone rings before we can work out the logistics of what comes next. I withdraw it from my pocket and see Emmett’s name on the screen. “I need to take this.”
“Sure, come in when you’re done.” She leads Randy into the house, leaving me to take the call in private on the porch. I’ve been with many a woman who would’ve hovered nearby, wanting to overhear the conversation. Ellie is not that woman.
“Hey, Em, what’s up?”
“I heard from Ellie’s attorney, and we’re set for a meeting Thursday at two to go over the details. Does that work for you?”
It doesn’t, but I’ll move things around to make it work. “I’ll be there.” He gives me the address for Ellie’s lawyer’s office.
“The attorney requested that you bring evidence of a clean bill of health.”
“I’ll have it.”
“Jasper… You’re really sure about signing away your rights to a child who hasn’t even been conceived yet?”
No, I’m not sure, but it’s what I have to do. “Yes.”
“I really hope you won’t regret this.”
O
f course I will. I already do, and it hasn’t even happened yet. But this is the way it has to be. That’s all there is to it. “I’ll see you Thursday at two, Em, if not before. Thanks again for your help with this.”
I hear his sigh before he says, “Sure, no problem.”
As I stash the phone back in my pocket, I’m filled with the kind of rage that marked my younger years and caused me huge problems with my father. It’s been a long time since I’ve given the rage free rein to overtake me the way it does now.
Duty.
Obligation.
Responsibility.
The words of my youth, pounded into my head by my father, the ninth Duke of Wethersby, one of the most prosperous, historically significant dukedoms in all of England, and someday, in the not-too-distant future, it’ll all be mine. I’ve chafed against those three words my entire life, and I’ll be damned to hell before any child of mine will be saddled with obligations on the day he or she is born.
So when Emmett asks me if I’m sure I want to sign away my rights to the child Ellie and I will make together, you better believe I’m sure. Even if it breaks my heart to know I won’t be able to acknowledge my own child. I’ll give him every possible thing I can, but the one thing I won’t give him is my name.
Thus the heartache, the overwhelming rage and despair unlike anything I’ve experienced before, even during the horrible years I spent fighting my father’s plan for my life that most certainly did not include a career in the film business. I won that battle, but I’ve always known he would eventually win the war. The life I’ve made for myself in LA is on a timer, sand slipping through an hourglass in a morbid sort of countdown toward my inevitable destiny. As my father gets older, I can almost hear the tick-tock of time going by far too quickly. I live in fear of the phone call that will one day tell me my time is up.
“Jasper?”
I turn to her, captivated by the sight of her framed by the screen door, the lighting behind her outlining the subtle curves of her body. I’d like to capture her on film the way she looks right now.
“You want to come in?”
