JennasConsent

by Jennifer Kacey

  She was a woman in love and Jenna couldn’t be happier for her. Jared and Chris were two of her best guy friends and they deserved the love of the woman who sat across from her.

  They’d loved each other forever and never knew it. The brothers had kept her out of their kink life, certain she couldn’t handle what they needed.

  Turned out she was the missing piece to both of them.

  “As part of your maid of honor harem, I completely take on the responsibility of planning your reception. It’ll be my wedding gift to you. And I want to take pictures, too.” Haleigh smiled so sweetly and beamed at Cyn.

  “I was hoping you’d offer. If not I was going to ask. Your pictures are amazing.”

  “It’s such a wonderful hobby that I really hope to do something with it one of these days. Scott and Kyle have been helping me look for places but nothing’s been just right yet—”

  “Actually that’s part of what I wanted to talk to you guys about.”

  “What? Haleigh’s studio?”

  “More like a strip center with each of us having a piece of it.”

  Leave it to Skye to bring it down to reality. “I don’t get it.”

  Jenna took another drink, setting it aside and pulled a piece of paper from her purse. She unfolded it and laid it in the middle of the table. On it were two logos.

  One for the Nice and Knotty Boutique and the other for Jenna’s Kinky Pinky brand.

  “Oooooh.”

  “The name of the boutique is obvious and the other is the brand I’ve come up with. I’ve actually been using it for a few months. I started as soon as my trademark was approved.”

  Nice and Boutique were both in a girly font, feminine and pretty and Knotty was in a rope font with the tail of the y extending back underneath the first three words.

  Kinky Pinky was dark and naughty with an icon that looked like someone had kissed it with slut-red lipstick on.

  “These are both gorgeous, Jenna.” Cyn said it and Haleigh moved the paper closer, scrutinizing it with an artist’s eye.

  “They’re actually really great. Love them both but what are they for?”

  Haleigh handed the paper back and Jenna ran her fingertips over it. “You guys all know how much I like making clothes and costumes, and accessorizing our people.”

  She looked up and they were all with her, nodding.

  “I want to be able to offer what I make to a larger market. Plus, offer custom-made rope and restraints. Some made here and some imported from some of my friends in Japan. I want to be able to sell across the country and even internationally but every time I think about it, each of us has something to offer.

  “Haleigh, you’ve been talking for weeks about opening your own studio. That’s an amazing tie-in with what I make. I could make orders for people and they could have boudoir photos taken.”

  “I love that idea. Love it. Maybe we can even find a makeup artist to help with the shoots. I know you can do it but you’re already stretched so thin.”

  “Exactly. I’d help when I could but we’d need someone else to fill in too.”

  “But what about me?” Jenna faced Cyn and her eyebrows were pulled down low in concentration. “I can’t make clothes, sure as hell can’t take pictures.”

  “You already help me with ordering all the restraints and shoes and jewelry. We could even expand and have our own line of lotions and perfume, maybe even offer novelty items, fun and serious.”

  “But that’s just doing the books and creating a database and stocking level software. It’s not hard.”

  “For you it isn’t but if I had to go back to ordering I’d go nuts. But you have your magical spreadsheets, and—”

  “Mmmmm. Spreadsheets.” Cyn closed her eyes and had a moment.

  “You know how wrong that is? Right?” Skye asked her.

  “They’re sexy, what can I say?”

  “Maybe you need to get out more.” Skye offered. “All of that makes sense but I don’t have anything to contribute.”

  “Bullshit,” Jenna called behind her fist.

  “What in the world?”

  “You’re a painter, Skye. An amazing painter.”

  “All my stuff sucks lately.” She gripped her glass hard and Jenna half expected it to break.

  “Have you ever wondered if you just lost your muse because you weren’t looking for her in the right place?”

  “I’ve looked fucking everywhere. That bitch deserted me.”

  “I think she’s hiding,” Jenna offered. “At The Library.”

  “Huh?”

  Jenna took her hand and held it. “You’re a submissive, through and through. You understood it even when you fought it for so long. You’re work has always tended to be a bit dark but I think you could find inspiration with the scenes at The Library. The people, the tools and furniture. Don’t tell me you’ve never wanted to sketch some things you’ve seen their?”

  “All the damn time. But there’s no market for—”

  “There is,” Cyn added. “Fetish art is a huge market. I’m talking gigantic. You should really look into it. Sketches, pencil drawing, single line art pieces, paintings. You name it, art collectors cream themselves to get ahold of good erotic art.”

  “And for the people that come in to do photo shoots, a painting could be added as part of their packages.”

  Haleigh turned to her. “You’ve really given this a lot of thought.”

  Jenna nodded. “I really have. I think it would be successful. Widely successful, if we can find the right place, the right rent and get the word out there.”

  “I’d call my portion The Mantel. You know—since that’s where a lot of paintings get hung. I also like the idea of a really kinky painting being just different enough that it doesn’t look like straight-up sex.”

  “More like sideways sex?” Haleigh asked, tilting her head to the side.

  Skye laughed. “Exactly. And it could be maybe a gallery too, with my studio in the front or the back.” She actually sighed and Jenna rubbed her knee.

  “I know it’s what you’ve wanted to do full-time for a while, but…”

  “But,” Skye agreed along with an eye-roll.

  Cyn and her analytical brain kicked into high gear. One more reason Jenna loved her so much. She even pulled out her phone and pulled up the calculator app, crunching numbers even without her spreadsheets in front of her.

  “With all of us cross-promoting each other we could create some amazing packages and just think about the events we could cater to. Weddings, bachelorette parties, divorce parties, fiftieth birthdays. This could be truly epic, you guys. So we’d need a space big enough to house three separate stores—”

  “Four actually,” Haleigh interrupted. “The guys need to expand the shop and we were actually looking for space for both of us. Inktastic Tattoo Shop and Photography Studio. They’re so busy all the time they need to hire a couple more full-time tattooers, and I really think they would tie in well with the rest of what we’re thinking about doing. Hours-wise we’d stay up late anyway, and I’d love to still be able to see them as much as possible.”

  Cyn cleared her calculations and began again, her fingers flying so fast that Jenna never would have been able to keep up.

  “So, four retail spaces at least and maybe a fifth for us to rent out, to recoup some of our rental amount each month.”

  “I’d never thought of that.” Jenna thanked her lucky stars she’d met each of the incredible women sitting in front of her.

  “Do not doubt the almighty power of the spreadsheet.”

  Jenna held both hands ups. “Forgive me.”

  “This time.” She went back to her numbers for a few seconds and said. “This is really doable. We’ll obviously need start-up money but if we all pool our resources I think we could totally make it work.”

  “Real estate is going to be the key. It needs to be prime with easy access, preferably move-in ready so we don’t have to wait for renovations. We also d
on’t want to lose a lot of our start-up funds, turning the spaces into what we need. Obviously we’re going to have some of that, but we want to cut it down as much as possible.”

  “I’ve looked around. A lot. And I’m having a hard time.”

  “What? Finding something that’s right for this?”

  “No. Finding something that’s zoned for this.”

  “Ugh. Zoning.”

  Jenna figured Cyn would understand after having probably talked to the twins about all the research they’d had to do about the ins and outs of zoning when they’d taken over CJ’s, much less The Library.

  “We won’t have to get an alcohol license for what we want, and that’s great. But we would still have to go before the city council to get the C.O. and the license to operate a novelty shop.”

  “What’s a C.O.?” Skye asked.

  “Certificate of occupancy.” Cyn answered before Jenna could.

  “And no matter what kind of business we opened wouldn’t we have to get a license to operate?”

  “Sure, but asking for a license to open a Christian book store on the edge of the bible belt is much more likely to get a ‘yes’ than a novelty shop.”

  Haleigh leaned in close and waggled her eyebrows. “Isn’t it really a sex store?”

  Jenna snickered. “We will be selling sex toys but we’ll have to call them novelties. We may even have to get little stickers to put on the toys that say cake topper or something ridiculous like that. And because we want to sell those things I think we’ll be taken more serious if we call it a boutique and leave out anything else.”

  “But we do have one major thing going for us,” Cyn added.

  “What’s that?” Jenna wanted to know.

  “Sales tax. Whatever city we go into will love us, due to the sales taxes we’ll generate. Seriously with that many businesses all going in at one time, we have some major negotiating power. Maybe they even have some kind of economic development division of the city council and we can talk to them about incentives.”

  Jenna nodded. “I knew you’d be the fucking bomb at this. You know you’re sexy when you get that naughty librarian gleam in your eye.”

  Cyn smiled, digging a hair clip out of her purse. She wrapped her hair up and clipped it into a bun at the back of her head. “Better?”

  “Hell, yeah,” Jenna laughed and the other girls laughed with her. Then she surprised herself and got serious. “I’m so happy for you and your men. You’re all family to me and I can’t think of two men that could make you happier. You’re perfect for both of them and that’s saying something, considering how different they are.”

  “Aww…Jenna.” Cyn put her phone away and took a drink. “I want the same for you. I want you to be so deliriously happy that you lose your train of thought, thinking of someone—or a couple of someones?”

  “Bringing us back to the original question. How was last night? Was it delicious? If so—or rather, just because we want to hear them—we want details. Lots of them. Dirtier the better, but don’t leave anything out and we’ll decide if it’s dirty.”

  “I’d never had vanilla sex before last night.”

  A police-issued flash bang wouldn’t have interrupted the flow of conversation any faster.

  “Umm…never?” Skye asked, completely just as gob-smacked as the other pair of girls sitting across from them.

  “Nope,” she answered.

  “How is that even possible?” Cyn said, it seemed a bit more to herself than the group of them.

  Jenna shrugged, partially regretting saying anything. But she needed to talk it all out before she was in Nick’s presence again. And her countdown clock seemed to be running a fair bit faster, the more nervous she became.

  “My first.” She stopped and made air quotes and all the girls laughed. “He was kinky. We just used scarves and ties and things like that, but even from the first time he fingered me at a party, he whispered in my ear what he wanted me to do. Telling me what to do, what I could touch and couldn’t. Even that I had to ask permission to come. I’ve always gravitated to guys like that.”

  “I get that. But. I mean…never?” Cyn actually scratched her head.

  “It’s all been kinky. Orders, bondage, dominance. Something’s always kept sex from being vanilla. Or even vanilla with sprinkles.”

  “So what made the sex last night with Nick vanilla then? ’Cause he’s dominant with a capital A for alpha. I just can’t see him being all sweet and cuddly. He was anything but either of those things at Christmas.”

  Jenna bit her lip, willing her heart to stop fluttering out of control in her chest. She couldn’t even blame not sleeping well on her off mood. She’d slept so well next to his warm body she’d woken up dazed and confused, sure she was in the middle of a dream with Ian staring down at her. It wasn’t what anyone would call a full night’s sleep. It had been a few short hours but it was the best she’d had in weeks.

  “He told me whatever I needed, he was there. So I crawled up his body and fucked myself onto him until I came. He barely had enough time to get a condom on. I probably growled at him. Seriously. It wasn’t pretty.”

  “You make it sound like you took advantage of him. You didn’t. Or even that you were the aggressor. I can’t even imagine that. We’ve all seen you with him. Your submission to him is complete and utter from the second he so much as looks at you. It sounds like he wanted you just as badly. Barely whet his appetite, I’m sure.”

  A flash of how they must have looked flared in front of her mind’s eye. Her elbows on his chest, holding his face. Their foreheads connected. His arms wrapped tightly around her back, holding her to him, holding her together.

  Keeping her safe.

  Protecting her from everything he knew of and anything that happened across their path.

  It was too much to hope for.

  It was almost everything she needed.

  “That good, huh?”

  Jenna blinked, having no idea who’d asked what. She glanced around the table, catching sight of all of her friends staring at her, seeing everything she couldn’t say.

  She stared at her drink. “Better,” wisped out of her on nothing but a prayer. She swallowed, asking a question that had plagued her since that morning. “I thought vanilla was supposed to be boring and well—meh. That was anything but meh.”

  Not exactly a question but her girls knew what she meant and what she needed.

  Haleigh started. “It doesn’t have to be hardcore all the time. Moods change things, hormones, time of the freakin’ month.”

  “Ours and theirs,” Skye added.

  “Up top, sista.” Haleigh held her hand up and Skye slapped it with a high five.

  Jenna chuckled, feeling better—maybe.

  “And I didn’t dream last night, well this morning. You know what I mean.”

  Three sets of eyebrows went up and one by one they smiled.

  “You guys are way too smug for your own good.”

  “Us?” Cyn asked, with a hand to her chest and a fluttering of her lashes. “Why I do declare we have no, I say no, idea of what you speak?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Chapter Ten

  Jenna stepped into the playroom, shutting the door behind her, wearing a bright pink underbust corset with black sheer cups along with black panties, contrasting the pink word, “meow” screen-printed on the material covering her ass.

  She clasped her hands behind her back to hide the fidgeting she just couldn’t stop. Trying to keep them still proved impossible, because she didn’t know what to expect. It was getting to her more than she cared to admit.

  He’d hinted at something happening tonight that would rock her world. She’d tasted a little bit of everything over the years, so she had low expectations on him actually being able to deliver. But she was excited to see what happened and that plain-assed terrified her.

  He stood in the center of the playroom. Bare-chested, expensive leather pants, bare feet. Mouth wateringly sex
y from head to toe. The bulge in the middle made her inner kitty swish her tail.

  “Hi,” she whispered at him across the distance. It wasn’t some grand gesture. She didn’t sky write she was his across the state of Kansas, didn’t take out an ad proclaiming him taken but it still felt like a new beginning.

  He didn’t know about Ian yet. She hadn’t gone that far into trusting him with her past and her biggest failure, but he knew about the rope. He knew a very big piece of her that she hadn’t shared with a man she wanted to be with in years.

  It was a giant step forward and she decided their journey, wherever it might lead, started then. When she stepped into the room she gave herself to him.

  “Come here.”

  The way he watched her. The way he clenched his jaw as he looked at her across the room… She wondered if he felt it too. The change in her. She hoped he did. By morning she hoped to admit she was scared…but she wanted to try.

  With him.

  Shivers trailed up her spine despite the heated concrete floors.

  One look from him and she wanted to sink to her knees, offering anything and everything he wanted. Her body was already his, her mind in a close second, and her heart?

  Her heart finally stopped and paid attention. Something worth trying for stood across the room, with eyes for no one but her.

  The room couldn’t have been more than about two-thirds of the regular play spaces, other than the ceiling being just as tall. The smaller space made it feel immediately more private, more intimate.

  Several pieces of bondage equipment stood along one wall and several pairs of shackles hung from the ceiling.

  But the winner that day was the four-poster bed, dominating the center of the room. Bars at the top connected each post together.

  The voice of the big bad wolf whispered to her in her head. Better to cuff you to, my dear.

  “So fucking sexy,” he mumbled more to himself, tracking her movements as she sauntered up to him.

  Her heart thumped inside her chest and she told it to shut the hell up. That wasn’t what their time was about. A little bit of D/s with benefits.