Casual for him, that was.
Had she misread his intentions that badly last night? Okay, so she didn't expect him to immediately break off mid-conversation just because she'd walked in the door, but she'd been here close to ten minutes now. Surely if he was that interested in her, he could have wrapped up the conversation by now. Or did he plan on playing with more than one person tonight? The little ache beneath her chest that had started when she’d first seen him with the other sub was growing larger.
But it's not like she had any real claim on him. Heck, she had no idea what he'd done with himself on the two nights they'd scened together after she'd left. After all, it's not like he'd gotten off with her. Maybe he'd gone and found himself a pretty redhead. There was nothing between them, not really, and so no reason for her chest to feel so tight or like she was about to cry. Just because she'd had him in mind when she'd talked herself into wearing this ridiculous contraption.
Maybe it was a ridiculous outfit. Silly and not sexy. Or just way too much. She definitely felt silly right now, coming by herself, looking like this. Leigh was calling Michael tonight and had said that Angel should definitely go to Stronghold because it could be a really long conversation and she didn’t want to have to kick Angel out of her own room for so long. And Mike had a date with a submissive that he’d met the week before, although they might show up later. Still, she wouldn’t have come alone tonight, especially not dressed like this, if she didn’t think that she and Master Adam were going to do a scene.
"Hey there, beautiful." The deep familiar voice stopped her and Angel looked up, forcing herself to smile into warm blue eyes. Too bad those blue eyes didn't set her body tingling the way the ones across the room did.
"Hey Rick." He'd told her that she could call him that, even in the club, rather than having to refer to him as Master Rick. Only Master Patrick and Master Andrew insisted on the honorific, for the former it was a way of maintaining his authority, for the latter it was obviously to distance himself from any of the submissives. The rest of the group had all told her to call them Sir (in the case of Justin) or by their first names. "What's shaking?"
He studied her expression. "Are you okay?"
"Fine. Wonderful." Taking a deep breath, Angel made her eyes follow her lips. She was an actress so it was something that she was experienced at. A lot of people couldn't smile from the eyes if they didn't mean it, but she was practiced at forcing down one emotion to portray another. Most important was not to let her eyes stray over to where Master Jerkface was. "The club looks great doesn't it?"
"It does." Rick's eyes didn't move from her face and she had a feeling that she wasn't fooling him. "I think everyone likes it, which should make Lexie happy."
"There's a lot more people here than I thought there would be."
He chuckled and she could feel herself relaxing now that she had someone to talk to, someone to focus on and distract her from the angry, jealous energy that had been pulsing inside of her. "There's a lot more people than we all thought there would be. I'm pretty sure Lexie's going to use that to try and convince Patrick to allow her to plan more themed events for the club."
Angel grinned. "Which will also mean allowing her in the doors again."
"But not past the main floor."
She just shook her head and rolled her eyes. "Eventually you guys are going to have to give up on that you know."
Instead of responding, Rick just held out his hand. "Wanna dance?"
This time she couldn't help it, her eyes flicked over to where Adam was standing. The redhead was still with him, her hand on his arm, gazing up at him with adoring eyes. Whatever. If he wanted to play with her first then Angel wasn't going to wait around for him. She'd dance with Rick and then she'd leave. As long as she did something before she left then it wouldn’t look too pathetic, she wasn’t going to wait around for Adam to ask her to be second in his line-up.
"I'd love that."
It took a lot of willpower not to look over at Adam again to see if he was watching as Rick pulled her out onto the dance floor. The music was what she'd once heard described as "industrial." It had a throbbing beat that was easy to dance to, not quite techno, not quite club and completely enthralling. The way the music flowed it encouraged movements that were fluid, sexy.
She wasn't sure if Rick did it on purpose, but she found herself positioned so that Master Adam and the redhead were far enough out of her field of vision that she would have to actually turn to see them. And there was no way she was going to do anything that obvious. It also meant she could just relax and dance and enjoy Rick's company, because she couldn't see whether Adam was watching or what he was doing.
Dancing with Rick was fun. He didn't engage in the erotic bump and grind that a lot of people around them were doing, but his movements were easy to follow, and although their bodies were occasionally pressed up against each other, it was usually because of how crowded the dance floor was. More than once he pulled her up against him to get her out of the way of someone about to step on her or who was moving a little too wildly and enthusiastically.
When the song started to change, signaling that whoever was DJing was blending it into the next song, hard hands came down on her hips and jerked her back. Angel automatically lashed out, her elbow digging into what felt like a rock hard stomach.
"Ow!"
Her only consolation was that Adam apparently hadn't been expecting that either, which left him gasping for breath as one hand immediately covered the place where she'd jabbed him. In front of them, Rick burst out laughing. Putting her hands on her hips, Angel glared at Adam.
"What part of 'I teach self-defense' did not get through to you?" she shouted over the music.
Adam's lips thinned as he straightened, still rubbing his stomach. "Come over here where it's quieter."
Giving them both a salute, Rick melted into the crowd as Adam wrapped long fingers around her arm and steered her through the gyrating people and over towards the bar. The acoustics in the club were amazing; the music was still loud but it was completely possible to have a conversation unless you were on the dance floor.
Yanking her arm out of Adam's grasp, she glared up at him, crossing her arms beneath her breasts. For a moment his eyes flitted down to the way her curves were hefted up by her position, but she ignored that. Well, not ignored, since it made her insides flush with warm pleasure, but she didn't let it distract her.
"What makes you think you can just come up behind me and grab me whenever you want?" she demanded.
There was a long pause and she wondered if he was going to try to do the Dom thing on her - not that she was going to go along with that, at least not without a serious attempt at resisting - and reprimand her for her tone, but then his big body just seemed to drain of tension.
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that," he said, his hand straying back up to where she'd elbowed him. A little rueful smile crossed his face. "Although you got me pretty good."
Dammit, why couldn't he have stayed hard and mean? That little smile he was giving her made her want to smile back, and the apology sounded completely sincere. Plus she liked that he was man enough to acknowledge that she'd got him good instead of trying to play it off like the elbow to the gut hadn't affected him at all.
"I'd apologize, but you kinda deserved it for grabbing me." She scowled at him, but she knew that she'd lost the edge and intensity to her anger. The little smile that played on his lips said that he knew it too. Damn observant Dom.
******
"Yes I did."
He knew that he'd grabbed her too hard the moment he'd done it. The only defense he had was how out of control she'd made him feel. Again. Watching her dance with Rick had been like exquisite torture, because she was beautiful to watch but he'd been roiling with jealousy the entire time. At first he'd been grateful that his friend had given her someone to talk to, he'd been all too aware of the dominants that had been eyeing her from the moment she'd walked in, but he'd need
ed a few minutes to control himself.
So he'd taken the time to chat with Laurie for a few more minutes, pointing out some of the other Doms that might be to her liking - ironically Rick had been one of them.
That had taken care of Laurie, but by the time she'd trotted off to approach one of the Doms he'd pointed out, Angel and Rick were already on the dance floor and another submissive had come up to see if she could "serve" him. What was it with the submissives tonight? Normally that kind of thing wasn't the way interactions at the club were handled; the subs were supposed to wait for the Doms to come to them. They could show interest, of course, with looks or smiles or whatever, but they weren't supposed to be the first to approach. It had taken him another few minutes to let her down gently and by that time he'd already reached his limit when it came to watching another man dance with Angel.
Even if the other man was one of his friends.
"So why did you?"
"Why did I what?" Crap, his mind had completely wandered, he'd been looking over the straps covering Angel's body again. Although "covering" might be too strong of a term to use. They weren't covering a whole lot, but the caged look was hot as hell, especially now that he was close enough to see that she was wearing matching red leather gladiator sandals. He didn't have a foot fetish, but he really liked the way those looked.
"Why did you grab me?"
Not a question that he wanted to answer really. It made him feel too vulnerable. So he decided to give her a partial truth.
"I wanted to arrange that scene we talked about last night."
Her mouth made a little 'o', as if she was surprised. Which didn't make any sense, but that round little opening made the blood surge to his cock, as if it wasn't already hard enough from looking at her, remembering exactly how he'd used that sweet mouth last night.
"Excuse me, Master Adam?"
With a sigh he turned to see a leggy brunette standing next to him, looking up at him with obvious admiration. Although he'd seen her in the Lounge area before, he'd never talked to her and he didn't know her name; she'd shown up around the same time he'd met Angel, so right around the time he'd stopped playing. She was about the same height as Angel, dressed in nothing but a lacy red thong, black high heels, and dangling hearts from her nipple jewelry. Feeling decidedly impatient, especially as he sensed Angel's start to turn away, he reached out and snagged her arm again. Too bad if she thought he was being grabby. At least this time he didn't get an elbow in the gut, she just stilled and waited for him as he raised his eyebrow at the interrupting submissive.
To her credit, the brunette blushed, her eyes going back and forth between him and Angel as if just realizing that she was interrupting something. Then she ruined it by drawing herself up and tilting her head at him in an inviting manner.
"I heard Master Patrick was going to do a spanking demonstration this evening... I was hoping that maybe you could give me a more intimate spanking demonstration?"
A low growl built in his chest, but no one would be able to hear it over the music. He didn't know why the subs were propositioning the Doms tonight or why they kept pestering him, but he didn't like it. Still, he wasn't about to be cruel.
"Not tonight," he said curtly. "I suggest you speak with Master Will over there." He nodded at the handsome Dom who was currently at the bar chatting with a few other tops. "He's very good at spanking scenes."
"Oh, thank you." The brunette looked disappointed, but that wasn't his problem. No, his problem was with the other brunette standing very stiffly next to him. Dammit, now what had he done wrong?
"Come on."
Doing his best not to actually drag Angel, he pulled her over towards the wall, nearer the entrance and completely out of the crowd of people. She only resisted a little bit before obviously giving in, although she was still holding herself away from him. Her body language had completely changed again, going from wary but interested and now she was so reluctant that she might as well have been holding a sign that said 'hands off.'
It was all very well and good to be able to read her emotions, but not if he didn't understand why she was feeling them or what she was reacting to. She couldn't possibly blame him for the fact that another woman had hit on him while she was there, could she?
******
This was so not happening. She might not really have a right to be angry that he’d basically told another woman that they could scene together some other time, right in front of her, but that didn’t stop her from feeling that way anyway.
Not tonight.
The response echoed in her head. Before she heard him say that, she’d managed to convince her emotions that she was basically okay with the fact that he might be scening with other women. Ha. Talk about living in a fool’s paradise. She was totally not okay with it and she should have realized that the second that she’d cared about giving him pleasure as much as she cared about getting hers. The fact that he obviously wanted to scene with her one night and was willing to do that with other women on a different night, and to blatantly say so in front of her, hurt more than she had realized it would.
It was silly of her to think that the first Dom she’d be attracted to would want the same things as she did. Sure, they got along and they had a ton of chemistry, but he was obviously used to doing club scenes, with no emotional involvement.
Funny, but when she’d first gone to a club she’d been so worried about being physically hurt that she hadn’t even considered the emotional dangers.
“You look incredible,” he said, turning her to face him. Angel felt herself a little warmed by the compliment. After all, he was obviously a highly in demand Dom and he wanted to play with her.
For tonight anyway.
Yeah. She wasn’t going to be one of those girls who took whatever crumbs were offered to them. That wasn’t what she was about and it wasn’t what she was looking for. Maybe if they hadn’t already shared three incredibly intimate scenes that had seemed to indicate that there was something more going on than just sex, but she couldn’t keep doing scenes like that when she knew that he was scening with other women.
It didn’t cheapen what she’d experienced with him, it just meant that she’d misinterpreted some things. But she’d learned a lot about herself and what she wanted already, and after tonight she could regroup and come back to Stronghold and she would just stop scening with him and find someone who wanted the same things that she did.
“Thank you,” she said, and smiled back at him, determined that he not see the upset that was roiling inside her. But she was immediately aware that, while she’d been able to force the smile to her eyes for Rick, she just couldn’t do it now. And Master Adam’s brow furrowed as he looked down at her, and she knew that he knew everything was not okay.
When he touched her face, cupping her chin in one hand and running his thumb over her bottom lip, it was such an intimate, sweet gesture that it actually physically made her chest hurt around her heart. But she was an actress, she knew how easy it could be to make such a gesture seem real. Besides, he probably did care, in the way that a Dom cared about a sub that he’d taken under his wing, but that didn’t mean that he cared about her in a way that meant expanding past doing scenes together.
“Are you okay? I didn’t hurt you when I grabbed you did I?”
“No.” She shook her head to emphasize that point. Even though his fingers had been rough he hadn’t hurt her. Not then and not physically.
He opened his mouth to say something back, when shouting on the dance floor made both of their heads turn. The words were indecipherable, but there was no mistaking the roar of sound, punctuated by much shriller yips. It was pretty easy to see where the focus of the uproar was, every head in the place was turned, looking at Patrick. And from the glimpses of black hair, bouncing around him, Angel knew that whatever was going on must have to do with Lexie and Trevor.
Adam cursed. “I need to find out what’s going on. Stay here for a few minutes and I’ll come back and we
can talk.”
“Actually I think I’m going to go home.”
The look he gave her was so incredulous she almost laughed. Geez… he really thought he was something didn’t he? Couldn’t believe that she was just about to leave him high and dry when they had a scene arranged. But that wouldn’t last long, she’d already witnessed how easy it would be for him to arrange another one.
“But you just got here.”
“And now I feel like going home.”
The muscle in his jaw tightened, his head swiveling back towards the commotion in the middle of the room before returning to her. “We planned to do a scene together tonight.”
“I’ve changed my mind.”
Cries spread out from the center of the room, filled with shock and something like glee. Lexie’s shrill scream of “Stop!” was like the cherry on top of the noise sundae. Adam cursed again.
“Stay here. Don’t leave.”
He turned and started to push his way through to the center of the crowd. As much as Angel wanted to stay and make sure that Lexie was okay, she just couldn’t face Adam again tonight. Not if she wanted to stay true to herself and keep going after what she wanted rather than scening with him again.
And she so wasn’t doing that.
Chapter 17
It took longer than Adam expected to sort out the chaos that had exploded around Patrick, Lexie and Trevor. Especially when he and his friends were having to get third hand accounts from the witnesses rather than any of the three who were actually involved. Patrick had shut down and gone stoic, Lexie was huddled in Hilary’s arms crying, and Trevor was icing his jaw. And eye. And ribs.
And the kid was damned lucky it hadn’t been more than that.
From what Adam could understand, when Lexie had refused to try and sneak out of the main floor with Trevor and head to one of the private rooms, her idiot boyfriend (and Adam really hoped that the kid was an ex-boyfriend now) had decided that the middle of the dance floor was just as good a spot to try and push things a little farther with their relationship. After all, wasn’t everyone else around them? Lexie had told him no.
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