Love Is Danger (Club Aegis Book 3)

by Christie Adams

  “And now this.”

  Stacie lifted her hair to one side to allow her Dom to fasten the collar around her neck. The feel of it against her skin was enough to have juices flooding her pussy anew.

  “Tonight I’ll be with you every moment, Stacie, so you have no need to worry—no one else will approach you, unless it’s through me. In the future, though, if you’re happy to come back again, you may find yourself alone.

  “If that happens, and anyone approaches you who makes you feel uncomfortable, simply telling them no should be enough to make them leave you alone. However, if you do have any trouble, you’ll see various people wearing armbands with DM on them. Go to one of them. They’re the Dungeon Monitors and it’s their job to make sure there’s no trouble.”

  Cam looked at her for a moment, and then arranged her hair around her face and shoulders to his satisfaction. “Ready, honey?”

  With one last glimpse of his sternly handsome face, Stacie lowered her eyes.

  “Yes, Sir.”

  A couple of hours later, Cam was sitting in a leather armchair in the lounge, two glasses of fresh orange juice on the low table in front of him and his sub curled up on his lap. She was relaxed and happy, just the way a sub should be, especially with his hand under her skirt so he could play with her clit. That she was prepared to let him do that in public had momentarily left him dumbstruck. But then again, he could say the same about much of the evening.

  It had been a surprising success. They’d watched a couple of displays in the main play area, where Stacie had been particularly interested in the demonstration of the use of the flogger on a sub bound to a St. Andrew’s cross. The hot-wax play had made her wince, while she’d avidly watched the spanking, as he’d suspected she might.

  They’d then retired to the bar area, where Cam had taken the opportunity to catch up with friends with Stacie kneeling quietly on a cushion at his feet, until he’d lifted her onto his lap a short while ago.

  Her behaviour during the entire evening had been exemplary—she hadn’t put a foot wrong. He’d kept a watchful eye on her throughout, and while she’d come close to making a couple of entirely forgivable mistakes, she’d stopped herself just in time. Like any Dom, he had the utmost respect for all subs, but tonight his sub had been living, breathing perfection.

  “Everything okay?” he murmured, his lips brushing a gentle kiss over her forehead.

  “Yes, Sir. Very okay.”

  She sounded as contented as she looked. They’d talk about the evening tomorrow, once she’d had a chance to sleep on it, but he was cautiously confident that she’d want to come back to explore more, and possibly to experience more. She’d been very interested when he showed her a couple of the private rooms, set up for different scenarios.

  He’d known it would be a lot for her to take in, so when they had the opportunity to take a step back and relax for a while, he took it—as much for his own sake as his sub’s, if he were to be honest. Over the years, Cam had enjoyed most of the activities that went on in the club. Now, though, he was looking at them with fresh eyes, because he had to look at them in relation to the woman who felt so right on his lap. He’d test her limits, she knew that as well as he did, but he wanted to ensure that she knew nothing but pleasure.

  “Well, well, well—fancy seeing you here, boss.”

  Cam looked up to see two senior members of his team standing in front of him, a house sub sandwiched firmly between them. He rolled his eyes and shook his head. “You’re not tag-teaming the subs again, are you?”

  Always working together, Dylan “Bax” Baxter and Conor Devlin were two of his best people, as heterosexual as it was possible to be but with a predilection for sharing a submissive. The two men had been out of the country on assignment for the last six months, and on their first evening back in the UK, where else would they be but at Aegis?

  “Pixie here has no complaints, do you, love?”

  Pixie giggled. “No, Master Dylan.”

  For once, Conor looked a little more serious than usual. “Why don’t you go and find your friends now, sweets?”

  A small pout put in a brief appearance. “Yes, Master Conor.” And with that, Pixie almost skipped away to join a cluster of subs standing near the bar.

  “Mind if we join you, boss?”

  Cam gave silent consent and the men installed themselves in two of the remaining three armchairs grouped around the table. A male sub brought two more glasses of juice.

  “Okay, guys, what gives?”

  Bax was the first to speak. “Aren’t you going to introduce us?”

  “Aren’t you going to get to the point?”

  Conor laughed. “That kind of is the point, Cam. We’ve been wondering who’s been getting you hot and bothered, and now we think we can see who.”

  “And why,” Bax added with a grin. “She’s a sweet one, boss.”

  And didn’t Cam know it. “For fuck’s sake, will you stop calling me that?” They both knew he hated it, and they both did it deliberately to bug the shit out of him.

  It was at that point that a slender finger sneakily dug him in the ribs. Bax didn’t catch it, but Conor did, and the smirk on the man’s face told Cam that he was going to be in for a rough ride at work in the not-too-distant future.

  “Stacie, these two jokers like to think they’re the best in their field—I have it on my to-do list to set them straight at some point, but the ugly sod on the left is Dylan Baxter—”

  “And I’m Conor Devlin, and I’m very pleased to meet you, Stacie.”

  Objectively, Stacie had to admit that in spite of what her Dom had said about one of them, they were two gorgeous hunks of manhood, very much in the same mould as the man who held her so securely but lacking that unique quality that drew her to Cam and only Cam. She greeted them as she would any other Dom, accepted their compliments graciously, and then settled back into Cam’s arms while they continued to talk business—something to do with bringing Alex Lombard back into the organisation.

  With the conversation going on around her, Stacie was content to carry on taking in her surroundings. Or she would have been, had Cam not continued to ramp up her arousal with his expert manipulation of her clit. He hadn’t moved his hand from between her thighs—and Masters Conor and Dylan knew it, by the way their eyes occasionally flicked towards her skirt.

  Stacie turned her face more into Cam’s neck—not that she was embarrassed by what was going on, she was just desperate to stifle the giggle that clogged her throat at the thought of just how wanton she was becoming. A few weeks ago, the very idea of being here, like this, would have absolutely horrified her.

  Cam and Alex, and now Conor and Dylan. Or Bax—whatever. All of them Doms, and these two—she risked another glance at each of them—every bit as attractive as Cam and Alex. No wonder Pixie had looked so…satisfied.

  Finding that satisfaction with two men was not for her though, Stacie decided. One man—this man—was quite enough. End of. Still…a girl could look, couldn’t she?

  Her first impression was that Conor was the marginally more serious-minded of the two. While he and Dylan Baxter had been standing up, he’d looked to be of a similar height and build to Cam. His hair was dark and fairly short, thick and tousled, the exact colour of his eyes indeterminate in the subdued lighting, but his features…now they were striking. It was a face that could be capable of great kindness…but also great cruelty, she thought. For the right woman, Conor Devlin looked like a man who could kill, for all that he was cheerful and laughing now.

  And if he was the dark side, then his companion was the light—definitely a born joker, but again, Stacie sensed there were hidden depths to the man. His hair was light brown—too brown to be blond—and his eyes were lighter than Conor’s as well. He was every inch the easy-going, affable charmer on the surface, but when he’d been standing there, with his arm curved protectively around Pixie—a woman with whom he wasn’t even romantically involved, judging by what had been said
—Stacie realised that he too was a natural defender of the vulnerable.

  Both of them were wearing street clothes—casual on the surface, but there was something about the cut and finish of their shirts and jeans that screamed quality. They certainly knew how to dress. Stacie smiled to herself—it had to be a Dom thing. A few weeks ago she’d thought men like this only existed in the pages of novels like Beth’s—now she’d met four of them, and a quick scan of the immediate vicinity would seem to indicate there were quite a lot more. And that was just the ones who were members of this club. What of the other clubs Cam had told her about, not to mention the Doms—and Dommes—who kept their activities strictly private?

  With her thoughts returning to the here-and-now, Stacie realised that she felt completely at ease among this trio of blatantly alpha males. There was an undeniable bond between them—she guessed because of their work, as well as their shared interest in BDSM and their membership of Aegis—and because she belonged to Cam, she would be treated with the same respect by these men because of that bond.

  “Anyway, we’ll pick this up on Monday,” Cam was saying. “I know you two are on leave for the next four weeks, but something’s come up and I could do with both of you at the conference on the seventeenth.

  “Right now, though, I have to get my sub home for a good night’s sleep. This is her first visit to Aegis, and I suspect she has a lot to think about.”

  No, she doesn’t. Stacie had done all the thinking she needed to do, if he was referring to what she thought of the club and what she’d seen during the evening…not to mention which parts of it she wanted to sample firsthand. What she did want to do was talk about it, and when they returned to Cam’s apartment, he gave her the opportunity.

  “It was…incredible,” she began, snuggling into his embrace as they lay in bed. Her hand was developing a fascination with the planes and dips of his chest and abdomen. “I loved it. I never realised clubs like that actually do exist until Beth, and then you, told me about them.”

  “Be more specific, honey. Tell me what you loved.”

  She’d been thinking about it on the drive back. “It wasn’t so much the activities themselves as the connection between some of the Doms and their subs. You watch them, and you forget to breathe. It was almost…magical.”

  His hand covered hers. “It can be magic, when it’s right. Really right.”

  Stacie waited, but the moment passed in silence. He wasn’t going to say the words she wanted to hear—words that would tell her, or at least give her some indication of how he felt about her.

  She shouldn’t really have expected any sort of declaration—there was no reason to. It hadn’t stopped her hoping that the evening would prove to be a catalyst, though. Was that the reason why she suddenly felt a hard knot of desolation in her stomach?

  Chapter 13

  Stacie stirred the second mug of coffee, and had just taken the first sip from her own cup when Jen joined her in the office kitchen. She pushed the other mug towards her friend.

  “So what’s on your mind?” Jen asked without preamble. “You’ve been on a different plane of existence all morning.”

  She had—Stacie couldn’t deny it. And she did have something on her mind. Something big. “It’s Cam.”

  “Ah.” Jen clasped her drink in both hands. “Cam-in-general or Cam-specific?”

  In spite of her preoccupation, Stacie grinned. Jen had such a way with words. “Cam-specific.”

  Cam-very-specific, in fact. It was something she’d been mulling over for a few days now, debating the sanity of it, and she already knew that Jen thought her stark, staring bonkers for considering it.

  The fact of it was, she was hopelessly in love with the man—as if there’d been any doubt. She had been for a while, and she wanted to tell him. She was going to tell him, because a little voice at the back of her mind insisted that it was imperative for her to do so.

  “I know we’ve had this conversation before, Jen. I know what your views on the matter are, and I completely respect that, but my gut is telling me that I really need to do this.”

  Jen tilted her head to one side. “You’re going to tell him how you feel, aren’t you? And he still hasn’t said anything to you?”

  Stacie nodded. “I know you think I should let him take the first step, be the first to say something, but I’m really struggling with this now. I nearly told him twice over the weekend, and it’s getting to the stage where I need to say the words, no matter what the consequences might be. If I scare him off…”

  She swallowed hard. That was something she didn’t dare contemplate…or hadn’t until now. Now she was reaching the point where she had to take the gamble—all or nothing.

  What Jen said next took her completely by surprise.

  “You have to do what you feel’s right, Stacie. Now that I’ve met Cam, seen the way he is with you…” She sighed. “I’ve never experienced that, and I’m too scared to take the chance again with anyone else, so I never will—”

  “Jen, don’t say that. You never know what’s around the corner. Look, it’s going to be Christmas soon, and then there’s New Year—”

  “That’s not the point I was trying to make,” Jen said with a wry grin. “Before I went off on that detour to the land of self-pity—which is so not me—I was going to say, don’t let my cynicism get in the way of your happiness. Tell him how you feel, Stacie—even I can accept he’s not your average man. And I don’t think he’ll scare that easily.”

  Average was not an adjective that could ever be applied to Cam Fraser. Stacie tried not to compare the men around her to him, but she couldn’t help it. When she thought about Cam…the thoughts gave her such wonderful, crazy feelings inside. She didn’t just love the things they did together—she loved just being with him. One of her favourite activities, other than getting up close and personal, was as simple as it could get—an evening with him, a bottle of wine and a good movie on television.

  Thoughts like that, though, made the afternoon pass painfully slowly—a state of affairs that was exacerbated by the knowledge that she wasn’t getting to spend time with the man in question until later in the week, due to the demands of his business. Putting together the odd comments he’d made, she’d deduced that he was involved in some capacity with providing security at a high-profile international conference. A quick canter through the business and politics pages of a couple of broadsheets had told her all she needed to know.

  Back to reality, and what continued to prey on her mind was their conversations since that first visit to Aegis, and all the things that hadn’t been said. The more she thought about it, the more Stacie felt that her relationship with Cam was reaching a critical juncture, where things might easily be break rather than make. Stacie’s instincts told her repeatedly her that this was a relationship worth fighting for—worth taking risks for.

  So she had to decide—what was she going to do and when was she going to do it? Maybe surprising him would be a good option—telling him what she wanted him to know when he least expected it.

  Thursday…the conference on Thursday. He wouldn’t expect her to go to the venue, and since she’d have no other reason to be there, she couldn’t chicken out at the last minute—she’d have to tell him. It was a slightly crazy plan, admittedly, but she could be there to meet him when he finished, they could go for a meal somewhere…and that was when she’d tell him.

  ~~*~~

  Almost growling with frustration, Cam raked a hand through his hair. Celebrities, foreign diplomats, other dignitaries and VIPs visiting London were the bread and butter of his home market operation, but sometimes he could do without all the politics. What he needed right now was Stacie—what he had was the thorny problem of organising his available people around the additional requirements posed by the increase in size of his client’s delegation to the international conference.

  He swore under his breath. He’d had everything planned down to the last detail for weeks now. Movements
had been rehearsed and timed pretty much to the second. Then, a few days ago, they’d dropped the little bombshell that they were sending more people, who would be flying into Heathrow and would need escorting directly to the conference from there. This was in addition to the existing group who were being transported from their embassy, and it had turned a relatively simple job into a logistical nightmare.

  He’d figure something out—he always did.

  Leaving his plans and his laptop on the dining table, Cam went out onto the private terrace for a breath of fresh air—the advantages of working from home rather than hauling his arse to an office every day. In the beginning it had been just Alex and him, and a handful of their former comrades; they’d all been out in the Middle East together, so there’d been no point in having a fancy, expensive office in London. Over time it had become apparent that having a physical office wasn’t a necessity, thanks to modern technology.

  All of which meant that Cam could work from home when in the UK, although it did leave him with the disadvantage of being surrounded by memories of time spent here with his woman—a distraction he could do without, but one he very much welcomed. He’d not seen her since the weekend, and God, he was missing her. So was his cock.

  Sunshine in December was always a bonus. Cam liked sunshine. He liked it even more when he thought of spending time somewhere warm, with Stacie by his side. He flirted briefly with the thought of taking her away for Christmas, but then remembered that she’d said something about going home for the holiday.

  The words she’d used made him ache. He knew why—it was the realisation that she didn’t connect him with home. But then again, why should she? He’d known for weeks that he was in love with her, yet he’d still said nothing. He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. Get Thursday out of the way, and then he’d tell her. The weekend would be ideal. He had plans for where he was going to take her—a place where he could attend to his sub’s needs, the way every good Dom should.