by Lexi Blake
He was oddly easy to talk to, but then he reminded her more of Kai now. She could see it in the way they both smiled, in the set of their shoulders. But mostly it was in the way he put her at ease. “I guess if I had to break it down it would be the people. Don’t get me wrong. This is absolutely the swankiest club I’ve ever been in. Most of them are industrial spaces or renovated homes. After the first Sanctum blew up, Big Tag went all out on this one.”
Jared stopped. “It blew up? I hadn’t heard that. Was it a gas leak?”
“Oh, no. It was a brainwashed asshole. Kai was pissed because he was living over the club at the time. I like our new building. We’ve got a lot more room.”
Jared shook his head. “I thought he was expanding when he bought that building. I didn’t realize it was because his office had blown up. Thank god he wasn’t there at the time.”
“Oh, he was there. He ended up getting nearly buried with Big Tag and this CIA agent, and he was pissy for days about his back being sore. I finally managed to get him to go see a massage therapist because when that man is grumpy he takes it all out on me.” She was warming up to her subject. “I think it’s because of the whole therapist thing. He can’t exactly take it out on his patients. He has to look all calm and stuff and like he knows what he’s doing at all times. It makes him cranky, and who does he turn to? Naturally it’s me.”
Jared had stopped, his expression turning blank.
“He’s all right. It wasn’t that big a deal.” It had been a huge deal, but it was over.
“He didn’t call me. He almost died and he didn’t fucking call me. Would anyone have called me?”
“I’ve got a package set up with Ian in case I die or am incapacitated,” a familiar voice said. “Your number is there. He would have called you.”
She turned and Kai was standing there. She would never get over how different he looked. By day Kai was the deliciously attractive academic in his slacks and button-down, his golden hair tied back and his glasses on his face. He put in contacts for the dungeon and let his hair down. It flowed around his shoulders. It should have made him more feminine, but somehow all that gorgeous hair turned him into a decadent, dominant creature. The leathers showcased the lean body he hid behind khakis and Oxfords. He turned primal and so male.
Yeah, she’d probably spit out an egg, too. There was a lot of that going around tonight.
“And it wasn’t a big deal. Like Kori said. The place went boom and then Big Tag started complaining about potential dust on his freaking lemon pie. I barely had a scratch on me.” Kai moved over, standing beside her. “I did lose several plants I’d been nurturing and some very good textbooks. I still think if I’d been Ace’s therapist, we could have worked through the issues that turned him into a brainwashed asshole, as my assistant explained. You’ll have to forgive Kori. She’s very technical when it comes to the work we do.”
Jared relaxed slightly. “I thought you ditched me.”
“You said you were interested in watching an impact play scene or a ropes one. I was busy setting it up. I think I can handle both in one scene,” Kai explained.
He’d been busy finding a sub. She wondered who he’d found. There were some truly gorgeous women running around Sanctum wearing very little clothing. Maybe he’d chosen Lisa Daley. She was lovely and slender and not in the Lena, I-trade-food-for-nicotine way. Lisa was naturally thin, her body lovely and graceful. She would be beautiful wrapped in Kai’s ropes.
“That sounds like fun. I’ve got to start getting comfortable with this kind of stuff if I’m going to play Pierce Craig.” Jared moved to her other side. “I’m sure I’ll have a million questions.”
So he obviously didn’t want his brother to know he’d been in the lifestyle for a while. Why tell her? Was he testing her? She decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. Kai didn’t seem interested in spending time with Jared except to teach him about the role he was supposed to play. If he didn’t need to teach Jared, he likely wouldn’t talk to him. For all that glorious masculine himbo vibe he gave off, Jared knew how to get to his big brother. Kai was always serious about teaching. “Well, the good news is Kai loves to talk. He’s a fount of knowledge.”
How soon could she get away? She felt ungainly standing between these two gorgeous, ridiculously tall men. Did they have to be so freaking tall? She barely came up to Kai’s chin. She would fit neatly against him, her head easily resting on his broad shoulder. She barely made it to Jared’s collarbone. Maybe she should rethink wearing stilettos. Of course, then she would do that horrible ankle rolling walk chicks who never wore heels inevitably ended up doing when they finally put a pair on.
“I set up the scene in the back of the dungeon,” Kai was explaining. “I thought we’d try to be discreet. I know Big Tag gave everyone the speech, but I’m sure there will still be gawkers. We should go ahead and start moving that way. You can watch and then I’ll walk you through a scene yourself.”
Jared smiled down at her. “What do you say, pretty girl? You want to watch the scene with me? Maybe after Kai’s done, you can be my test subject.”
She tried not to watch Kai scene. In the beginning she had, and she would watch utterly fascinated with how hot the man was when he got his freak flag flying high, but lately it made her want to be the woman he was lavishing all that pain and pleasure on.
Lately she’d started dreaming about being the woman he tied up.
It would be easy to ask him. She doubted if she was open with what she needed that he would turn her down. In that case, he was a lot like his brother. If someone came to Kai and explained that they needed a scene in order to cry or relax, he would give the sub what he or she needed. The trouble was she wasn’t sure she could hold back with Kai. The minute he put his hands on her, she was worried she would dissolve and go back to her old habits, needs she hadn’t fed for years. It was easy to shove them down normally, but Kai moved her.
She was about to tell Jared that she needed to go find her friends when she felt a firm hand on her elbow, pulling her close.
“She can’t watch the scene. She’s in the scene,” Kai said. “You’ll have to find your own sub, Jared. This one is mine.”
Kori felt her jaw drop. Yes, it was going to be an interesting evening.
* * * *
What the hell had he done? It wasn’t like he’d planned for that to happen. No, he’d planned something else entirely. He’d set up his scene and walked off to find a sub and he’d found Jared and Kori instead. He’d just walked up to his brother and heard the sorrow in his voice and it had thrown him off.
Jared was a better actor than Kai had given him credit for.
Or he’d been really upset to find out Kai had nearly died and no one had contacted him. Kai felt like a total dick. He hadn’t even thought about calling his brother. The first person he’d wanted to talk to was Kori. She was always the first person he called.
Then Jared had moved in on Kori like he had a right to touch her and Kai had lost his damn mind.
“What are you doing?” Kori asked the minute Jared stepped away.
Yes, that was the question of the hour. He shrugged, trying to make it look like this was no big deal. “I need a sub. Do you have a play partner for the evening?”
He’d been intending to ask Charlotte to find him a sub. He didn’t even want to make the decision. He’d known going into tonight that this was an academic exercise. He wasn’t going to get what he needed tonight. Another issue he could lay at his brother’s doorstep. He certainly wasn’t going to relax knowing his brother was watching him. Judging him. So he simply needed a sub who wouldn’t mind taking a spanking and answering some questions about it.
Maybe one of the training subs.
That wouldn’t work now because he’d seen the way baby brother looked at Kori, like he could eat her up, and his inner caveman had started grunting and dragging his knuckles on the floor.
“I don’t have a partner,” she replied, her blue eyes wide.
“I haven’t had time to find a partner because the minute I walked out into the club your brother found me.”
“Well, then you’re free to bottom for me.” Found her? Yeah, Kai bet Jared had run from the locker room looking for Kori. She was exactly Jared’s type. Curvy, pretty, round breasts and an ass he could grab and hold on to.
He turned to the prep table. He didn’t need to look it over. He’d prepped it himself. He’d used the time to psych himself up to not murder his brother’s friends. It was so obvious to him that they were hanging on Jared like parasites, and his brother didn’t see it. He never saw things like that and when Kai tried to point it out to him he got called out for being pessimistic or dragging everyone down.
He’d show Jared dragging someone down. Little asshole didn’t know what the phrase meant.
“Kai, I don’t think this is a good idea.”
He was definitely losing his mind because Kori’s soft words made him angry. It was irrational. He knew it even as the questions floated through his head. Did she think it wasn’t a good idea because she wanted Jared? Had she gotten a good look at the man she’d known at some point and realized she wanted him? Had she already had him and now Jared was back and she wouldn’t even look at another man?
Irrational. Emotional. Out of control. He hated it.
“Hey.” A soft hand moved over his bicep. “I was only saying that because we’ve never played before. We’ve always kept a certain distance between us.”
Had they? Maybe a physical distance, but now that he thought about it she was the person in the world he talked to the most, relied on more than any other. He fixed breakfast for her because she would eat crap if he didn’t. She would show up before work and they would sit together and have a nice breakfast and coffee and talk about what they would do for the day.
He missed her on the weekends. He would sit alone and wonder what she was doing, who was taking care of her.
Why hadn’t he played with her? He could tell himself all day long that it was about being a professional, but it was wrong. He knew the truth now.
He was afraid of losing her.
What if she was afraid of him? What if she couldn’t handle what he needed? What if they played and she hated it?
He knew she played with other Doms and he also knew she didn’t have sex with them. He knew she’d asked some of her Doms to go easy on her.
He went hard.
“I won’t hurt you.” He would hold back. He wouldn’t give her a reason to fear him more than she did. “It’s for Jared’s education. I’ll go easy and we’ll use the stoplight system.”
Green meant keep going. Yellow meant the sub needed the Dom to slow down, and red put a stop to the play.
He didn’t intend to get her to say red. He could control himself.
Her hand moved over him, stroking him. Somehow he could feel her warmth seeping from her skin to his. “Are you all right? Do you think he’s here to hurt you again? He told me he slept with your fiancée. Kai, I’m not going to sleep with Jared. I’m not going to walk away from my job to be some Hollywood type’s girl on call for a few weeks. That’s the furthest thing from my mind, so if you want me to go and find a sub for you, I will. Mia’s in the lounge. She’s in the training program so this would be like extra credit for her.”
She was giving him an out. An easy out at that. She’d seen right through him, gotten to the heart of the issue, and was now allowing him a free pass. He could go firmly into teaching mode and that would help defuse the situation and nothing would change between them.
“I would rather use you unless you’re afraid of me.” The words were out of his mouth before he could think to keep the damn thing shut. His inner caveman was super talkative and made bad choices. Well, maybe not bad exactly but certainly not the most expedient decisions.
He waited for her to explain all the ways he frightened her. Since she’d come to Sanctum, she’d played around in what Kai liked to call the shallow end of the pool. She stuck to Doms with a light touch, the friendly ones who winked and never brought their subs to tears. She seemed drawn to suspension play and loved rope bondage, but any impact play he’d seen her participate in had been restrained, light. So she would tell him to go pound sand and they would go back to their nice, safe, comfortable relationship.
Kori’s eyes flared. “Afraid? Of you? Do you honestly believe that?”
Maybe she didn’t understand what he was talking about. “Scared of my sadistic side. I can be rough on a sub. I would keep this scene very restrained. I would respect your limits and try very hard not to hurt you. This isn’t about my needs. It’s about teaching Jared, so you’re safe.”
Her arms crossed over those round breasts of hers. In her corset they were shoved up and on display, as though she was presenting them to him. He knew it wasn’t true, but it looked like if she took a deep breath her nipples might pop out. They would be right there begging him to twist them and turn them a pretty red color before he would soothe them with his lips and tongue.
“You think I’m a wimp. You think I can’t handle a spanking.”
Something about the way she was standing, the tone of her voice, brought out the Dom in him, and he found himself moving into her space. “I am attempting to respect your limits.”
“You have no idea what my limits are, Sir.” Though she put that polite “Sir” at the end, there was no way to mistake the challenge in her voice.
That challenge got his dick humming. He towered over her, meeting her eyes. There was something happening between them, something that hadn’t happened before. Electricity seemed to crackle in the air and he couldn’t find the will to step away. “Why don’t you explain them to me, Kori? Do you think I’m such a novice Dom that I can’t read your body language? I think I can tell when you’re enjoying the play or when you’ve had enough. If I can’t you’ve always got the power of speech.”
“Unless you gag me. Then I’d be totally helpless and at your mercy, Mr. Sadist.” She inched closer to him, her chest almost brushing his. “You don’t have to go easy on me, Kai. I can handle anything you can dish out.”
“You’ve splashed around in the kiddie pool.” His voice had gone deep and low, his inner caveman utterly squashed by his Dom. She was challenging him in a space where that wasn’t acceptable. At the office she could run his life all she liked. He welcomed it, needed it, and honored her for it. But here. Oh, here, she did not get to be in charge. “You’ve waded in to your ankles with your water wings on, little girl. If you scene with me you better know how to swim.”
How had they gone from polite to damn near sexual intercourse in point three seconds. Oh, yeah. It was because she’d leaned in, lowered her voice, and opened all sorts of doors that should have remained closed.
“I’m a freaking Olympic gold medalist when it comes to this particular pool, Sir. And I’m a woman, not a little girl, as you’re about to find out. Where do you want me?”
Where did he want her? On her knees. Bent over the couch in his office. Bound to his bed, her legs spread and waiting for his penetration. “On the spanking bench eventually, but first I think you should show Jared how a proper submissive greets her Master and prepares for a scene. Does your gold medal cover that?”
He needed a minute. He needed to get himself under control because she was pushing all his buttons in exactly the right way to get him hot and bothered. The need to sink his hand into all that hair and force her down to her knees in front of him was almost overwhelming.
She stepped back, her eyes on him as she moved more fully into the scene space.
“Does Sanctum set the protocol?”
Jared had asked the question. He’d nearly forgotten Jared was there. Damn it. Kori sank gracefully to her knees in front of him and he had a difficult time concentrating. Teaching. He was supposed to be teaching, and that meant answering questions and not worrying about the fact that he had a boner to end all boners and likely everyone could tell.
“Ther
e are certain protocols set up in Sanctum contracts. As you’ll see when we go over how a training class would work, submissives and Dominant members have roles and duties they owe to everyone in the club. Discretion is first and foremost. We don’t talk about what happens in the club with outsiders.”
“So no gossip,” Jared said.
“Oh, the club runs on gossip. If we put that terminology in Big Tag would get kicked out of his own club.” Fuck, but she looked sweet kneeling on the middle of the stage. When had she perfected that pose? As far as he knew she didn’t practice protocol with most of the Doms she played with and yet her spine was perfectly straight, her knees splayed so that if she weren’t wearing the boy shorts, he would have a lovely view of her pussy. Her hands were palms up on her thighs and her head bowed submissively. He could almost believe she loved this. No one could look that perfect and at ease without loving it. “We talk very freely amongst ourselves, but discretion is urged outside the confines of the membership.”
Jared stepped up, coming to stand at Kai’s side. His brother looked down at Kori, his eyes watching her, taking in the lines of her form, the swell of her breasts. “And this protocol?”
“Doms and subs form their own protocols based on their needs, but this is generally accepted here as a proper way to greet a Dominant partner and begin a scene.” He placed his hand on her head, the connection nearly making him sigh. What the fuck was he doing? The question kept running through his head, but it was drowned out by louder voices that told him to go with it. She’d agreed to the scene. They hadn’t done all the normal bargaining he would have with another sub, but then there hadn’t been a lot of time. They’d gone from casual talk to him nearly bending her over and fucking her right there. He was worried if she turned that saucy mouth on him again, he might do just that.
“So this is what you would do with a submissive who doesn’t know your habits?” Jared was the one who sounded academic now.
He needed to get his shit together. This wasn’t a pleasure tour. This was about the contract he’d signed to train his brother. It was also about showing his assistant that he could control himself. She was pushing him. For what reason he had no idea.