The Negotiation: A BDSM Romance

by Christina Thacher

  “Actually, I was thinking we could go out to eat. I feel I owe you a dinner.”

  She came into the living room, holding a cobalt blue vase, above which the yellow and orange mums looked fantastic. Better than that—they looked like they might just survive. She set them down on her dining room table, then came to sit across from him. Her body language was stiff as she leaned forward and clasped her hands between her knees.

  Clearly they weren’t going out to dinner. He waited for her to speak.

  “Sebastian,” she began. She looked down.

  This wasn’t going the way he’d imagined. He felt his face freeze in a detached mask, almost a sneer. He sat back and crossed his legs. If she was going to end things, well, that was her right.

  “Katie and I went to see Mac this afternoon.”

  Not what he’d braced himself to hear. “What? Why?”

  Isabelle looked up at him. Her eyes were filled with some emotion—concern, or maybe pain. “I needed answers. I’m falling in love with you.”

  Jesus, what a one-two combination. She really could knock a man around, couldn’t she? He could feel his body turn to stone. “That’s absurd. We barely know each other.”

  “I know that you’re a great Dom, a fantastic lover, off-the-charts smart, thoughtful—” She shot a glance at the flowers. “—and my favorite person to be with. Obviously there’s a lot I don’t know.”

  Sebastian tensed.

  She waved a hand in the air. “No, Mac didn’t fill in any of the blanks for me, so don’t get mad at him. What he told me, though, is that you’ve been going through the motions for a while now. That the only time he’s seen you express emotion has been…has been with me.” Her voice died away to a whisper.

  Sebastian was stunned. He didn’t feel any different, so what the hell was Mac doing, claiming that Sebastian suddenly felt something for Isabel? Absolutely absurd. “Mac is a wonderful lawyer, Isabelle, but he’s not that good a student of human nature. I’ll admit I was annoyed by your rudeness that first night at The Club, but I’ve forgiven you. I’ll also admit you’re a damned fine sub. But Mac’s wrong if he thinks I’ve undergone a personality transplant in the past month. I was an asshole Dom before you arrived and I think you’ll agree that hasn’t changed.”

  Her eyes went wide at that. Only, instead of the usual tearful death-throes-of-hope he normally saw in a sub’s eyes, Sebastian could see compassion in Isabelle’s face. She was concerned about him. She hurt for him.

  Jesus God, what had Mac said? What did Isabelle think she knew about him? Sebastian never talked about it. Not ever. And especially not to subs. Not even Isabelle.

  Red-hot fear and fury warred with his stony calm. He needed to leave before his icy defenses cracked.

  “Sebastian, please. Let’s talk about this.” Her face was sad but also hopeful. She twisted her hands in her lap. He could see her skin turning white when she squeezed them too tight. She really wanted him to open up.

  Outrageous. This wasn’t why he’d come, to get raked over the coals. To be tortured by a sub’s curious insistence that he might be human. Only he couldn’t leave. Isabelle wasn’t like the other subs. She was so beautiful, even in her jeans and a sweater, all that glorious fiery hair bundled up into an elastic tie. His control was slipping just looking at her. He could pull her into the bedroom, fuck her until they were both senseless, but that would only prolong the agony. He wasn’t clear whose agony he didn’t want to prolong, he just knew he needed to get out of her apartment.

  He stood up. “I’m sorry, little cat, that this couldn’t last longer.” He started for the door.

  “Why don’t you drive? Mac wouldn’t tell me.”

  Sebastian stopped, his hand on the doorknob. No, he couldn’t explain it to her. He never talked about it. Mac knew the story for legal reasons. Of course Mac would never tell anyone, not even someone like Isabelle, whom Mac believed Sebastian cared about. Someone Mac thought Sebastian could have a relationship with. Someone Mac wanted Sebastian to claim and treasure.

  Mine.

  That image of her in his mirror, the shadow of hot-wax lettering across her chest, tore at his heart. She’d been his then. Now…now he had to let her go.

  “Good-bye, little cat.” He didn’t turn to look at her. He didn’t think he could stand to look at her knowing it was the last time.

  * * *

  Isabelle stayed away from The Club for several weeks, but it was insane to pay that much for membership and never use it. She needed to quit or go. So she called Mac Lyon at his office.

  “Isabelle, how nice to hear from you. We’ve missed you.”

  “Thank you, Sir. I appreciate that.” She sounded exhausted despite her efforts to put a bright face on the situation.

  While she was trying to think what to say next, Mac said, “Sebastian hasn’t been to The Club either. We miss him as well.”

  “That’s why I’m calling. I daresay Sebastian can afford to ignore his membership at The Club, but I need to decide whether I’m comfortable going.”

  “Yes, I can see that.”

  “I would like you to negotiate the terms of our breakup, Sir.”

  Mac was silent for a moment. Probably not something he was often asked to do. “All right. What do you need from Sebastian?”

  “No, not over the phone. This is like tearing off a bandage—it’s best to get it off in one sharp yank. I was thinking we’d meet in the Founders’ Lounge, if that would be all right. As soon as the terms are agreed upon, I’ll leave The Club. Or he can.”

  “Or, based on how things have been recently, you both will leave.”

  Isabelle laughed bitterly. “But not at the same time.”

  “No, I guess not.” Mac sounded sad. “If Sebastian says he can make it, I’ll reserve the room for this evening.”

  Isabelle dressed carefully for The Club. She could have gone in an office suit, but that seemed unnecessarily formal. On the other hand, she didn’t want to be half-naked. So she picked a teal blue suit that was just a bit risqué for the office, particularly if she wore it with nothing under the tight-fitting jacket and nothing but a thong under the short skirt. She fussed with her hair, blow-drying some body and waves into it, then let it fall around her shoulders. It set off the teal nicely. She slipped on a pair of black stiletto heels and checked herself in the mirror. Smart and sexy—she was ready for her final confrontation with Sebastian. At least, she looked ready. Inside—well, no one could see how she was doing on the inside.

  After this evening, they’d never see each other again. She lifted her chin, determined to view that as a good thing.

  Even with all her primping, she was early. Mac was already in the Founders’ Lounge. He opened the door at her knock, and gave her a gentle hug. “You look stunning,” he assured her.

  She drew in a shaky breath. “A version of body armor.”

  He squeezed her hand. “May I pour you a drink?”

  It would be comforting, but probably not a good idea. She shook her head. “I should keep my wits about me.”

  She perched on the arm of a sofa, too nervous to sit anywhere. She kept her eyes trained on the door, waiting with an alarming eagerness to see Sebastian walk in. She pictured him as he’d been that first night, tall and invincible.

  When he finally arrived, she modified her description. Tall, certainly. But he looked tired and even a bit gaunt. It gave him a feral look, like a wild animal who’d been trapped and now wouldn’t eat. He wasn’t happy to be there, clearly, although when he saw her, his expression softened, just for a moment. Then he went back to looking feral.

  “Isabelle, Mac. Let’s get this done.” Even his voice was the snarl of a wild animal.

  “Of course. Isabelle, you asked for this meeting.” Mac poured himself and Sebastian each an inch of scotch, then went to sit on the sofa across from Isabelle. Sebastian accepted the drink but didn’t move from his spot by the door. He really couldn’t wait to get out of there, clearly.

>   Mac’s smile was her cue to get to the point. “Thank you, Sir. It occurred to me that all good BDSM relationships start with a negotiation, and this one should end with one as well.” She paused. Mac nodded at her with a look of kindly regret in his eye. When she glanced at Sebastian, he was focused on the amber liquor in his glass.

  She took a deep breath, then smoothed the hem of the jacket. “I’ve been avoiding The Club because I think of it as Sebastian’s. That’s clearly crazy.” She shifted so her body faced him. “You’ve been a member longer, but unless you need to be here every night, it should be possible for us to agree to a schedule.”

  “Come here every night. I don’t care.” Sebastian flashed her a dark look of loathing.

  Another deep breath. She’d practiced this in the long hours before she could fall asleep. “No, that’s not going to work. Unless I know for sure you won’t be here, I won’t come. I don’t want to cancel my membership. My best friend is here. I just want us to agree on who gets which nights.”

  Sebastian had adopted the pose he’d had that first night—one shoulder leaning against the wall, his legs crossed at the ankles. He didn’t bother to look up. “Fine. Pick. Leave me a couple of days. No worries.”

  She sighed and squared her shoulders. Mac started to say something, but she waved him off. “As you’re the member of longer standing, I think it would be fair if you got the weekends. I’d like Monday, Tuesday and Thursday. That gives you Wednesday and the weekend. Would that be acceptable?”

  “Whatever.” Now he sounded like a sulky teenager.

  “Fine.” She tried to feel relief, but her heart was too bruised. She smiled vaguely at Mac. “Sir? That’s all I needed to sort out.”

  “All right. Sebastian, what about you? Are there any terms you need Isabelle to agree to?”

  Sebastian looked at her, right at her, carving her with a black laser beam. “Yes, Mac, there is. I need Isabelle to add a couple of things to her list of hard limits.”

  Mac frowned. “I don’t understand.”

  Sebastian straightened and folded his arms. “She’s going to play with other Doms. I won’t be here. I need her to tell the SOBs she plays with that she doesn’t like it hard. No whips, no canes, no birch rods.”

  Mac looked horrified. “Good God, Sebastian, why the hell should she rule anything out based on your demands?”

  “Fine. Then I withdraw my agreement to her stupid schedule. I’ll come and go when I want.”

  “It’s okay. I can agree to that,” she said to Mac quietly. To Sebastian, she asked, “Anything else?”

  “Yes.” He branded her with his eyes. It was like he was trying to start a fire with his X-ray vision or something. “Another hard limit. No wax play.” His expression dared her to object.

  She couldn’t hold back her regret. “Oh, but I loved it—” She stopped suddenly, her eyes huge as she realized what she was about to say. He’d marked her breasts as his, and she’d loved it. She wished she still had the letters as a souvenir of their time together. She stared at her hands, clenched in her lap. “Never mind. I agree.”

  “Well, I’m not sure I agree.” Mac stood up, his hands loose in his pants pockets. “It seems to me, as the negotiator, that we’ve got apples and orange Lamborghinis getting traded here. Isabelle very reasonably wants some assurance that if she comes on a Monday, she won’t run into you, Sebastian. In exchange, she’s willing to stay away from The Club on Wednesdays and the weekends. In itself, it’s a very fair proposal, generous even.”

  He compressed his lips and rocked back on his heels a bit. “But now we have the Lamborghinis. Sebastian, you’ve demanded that Isabelle add some hard limits, at least one of which she actually likes to experience. There’s no negotiation, no quid pro quo. You just demand it, and if she doesn’t agree to your demands, you’ll withdraw the one thing she wants from you. You’re not offering anything in exchange for these hard limits. More importantly, you haven’t explained to Isabelle or me why you want her to have these additional limits.”

  “She knows why,” Sebastian said.

  Isabelle shook her head. She couldn’t think of a reason. She just wanted to say yes and get out of there. Being with Sebastian in a closed, windowless room no longer seemed like a good idea.

  Mac said, “Whether she knows or not, I don’t. So explain it to me.”

  Sebastian scowled and clenched his jaw. Now he looked like a teenager refusing to accept some punishment. Finally, he relaxed a little. “I don’t want anyone marking her skin, not permanently. You know what I mean, Mac. Someone gets carried away with a short whip and the next thing you know, there’s blood.”

  “No blood is already one of my hard limits,” Isabelle said.

  Sebastian bared his teeth, as if he wanted to growl at her. She looked back at her hands. She didn’t know what to think, how to feel about him when he was like this.

  “That’s not enough, little cat. You want me to stay away so you can come and play. I don’t think I—” He started again. “I need to know you’ll be all right.”

  Mac objected. “Of course she’ll be all right. The Club has a strict no-privacy rule for just that reason. No one plays in secret.”

  “No! You don’t get it. I won’t be able to stay away if I have to worry about her, about her—” Sebastian glared at Mac, tortured by some imagined disaster.

  Isabelle saw Mac stare at him, waiting for him to put it into words. What the hell was Sebastian afraid of?

  She could tell when Sebastian’s frustration boiled over. He threw up his hands in exasperation. “Her skin, damn it. It’s perfect. I don’t know how she’s managed not to be scarred, but she has and it’s a goddamned miracle. So no hard impact play.”

  Mac shook his head, still confused. “Why the edict against hot wax? That can’t scar her.”

  Sebastian balled his fists and glared at the floor. “That’s different. The wax play…that’s mine. I don’t want her to have it with anyone else.” He looked up, wild-eyed and uncontrolled. “Jesus God, Mac, it’s bad enough she’s going to get fucked by some other Dom.”

  She’d heard enough. She put a hand out and touched Mac’s arm. “It’s okay. I agree to make wax play a hard limit.” She picked up her raincoat. “I should go.” She slipped past Sebastian, deathly afraid of touching him or even just throwing herself at his feet. She wanted to tell him she wouldn’t fuck another Dom, but that wasn’t realistic. She wasn’t going to take a vow of celibacy just because she’d fallen head-over-heels for the Asshole Dom.

  Anyway, she had to believe that her pain would fade and she’d want to play with someone else. Eventually.

  Chapter Nine

  Sebastian nursed his drink, a gin and tonic that had been sitting for so long, it was mostly melting ice. The zydeco band due to play that night was setting up. Roseann’s, the nightclub over part of The Club, would get busy in an hour or so. The first set would last around forty minutes, then a half-hour break, then another half-hour plus encores.

  He knew the routine by now. He’d been sitting in the same corner seat every Monday, Tuesday and Thursday for three weeks. Sitting, nursing a crappy drink, and waiting to see Isabelle. She didn’t come at all the first week, which left a bittersweet taste in Sebastian’s mouth. He didn’t want her playing with another Dom but he desperately wanted to see her. When she finally made it the following Tuesday, arriving with Katie, Sebastian felt as though he could breathe for the first time in weeks, seeing her perfect skin and fiery hair. After that, it was a routine. Get to Roseann’s early, order a single drink, tip his waitress so generously that she didn’t mind him taking up a table all night, and wait for his thirty-second look at Isabelle.

  He’d officially lost his mind. And now, taking a sip of his watery drink, he admitted to himself that he’d lost his heart as well. She had it, tucked in that black shoulder bag of hers. She’d always have it. In an odd way, that thought comforted him. A little piece of himself would always be with her even as they drifted
apart in their actual lives. She’d find a well-adjusted guy with just enough BDSM skills to keep her satisfied in the bedroom, they’d marry and have a couple of gorgeous red-haired kids and buy a house in suburban Maryland.

  “Hello, Sebastian.” Mac smiled at him. “May I join you?”

  Where the hell had The Lawyer come from? Sebastian could have sworn he’d been staring at the door. “Mac. Do I have a choice?”

  Mac pulled out the other chair. “Not really, no.”

  The waitress hurried over and Mac ordered his usual soda water. “Can I get you another…whatever that is?” He pointed to Sebastian’s drink.

  “I’ll have a soda water too. With two limes, thanks.”

  After the waitress had brought them their drinks, Sebastian sighed. “How did you spot me?” What he really wanted to know, of course, was whether Isabelle had spotted him, but it was all he felt he could ask The Lawyer.

  “I always look around the crowd in Roseann’s. It’s an open secret that I belong to The Club, but I worry about some of our more prominent members. So I scan the crowd to see who’s scoping out the people heading toward the restrooms. And tonight, that would be you.”

  Sebastian nodded. No point in denying it. “Is she coming tonight?”

  Mac didn’t bother to ask who Sebastian was talking about. “I don’t think so, but she hardly keeps me informed of her schedule.”

  “Has she—?” Oh, God, he was actually going to ask, wasn’t he? Fuck it, he was. Mac didn’t have to answer him. “Has she played with anyone yet?”

  Mac turned his glass around and around, considering it carefully. “No, she hasn’t. But you know you shouldn’t be asking.”

  “I know.”

  “What do you want, Sebastian? Do you want her? She’d take you back in a New York minute, you know that.”

  Sebastian shook his head, then sighed. “I mean, of course I do. It just wouldn’t work. We’d get all of our pent-up sexual appetites slaked, and then she’d ask me again.”