JennasConsent

by Jennifer Kacey

  “Would you care to dance?” Ian’s voice snapped her out of whatever emotional fog she’d been drifting in. He was no longer across from her but stood next to the table, looking down at her.

  She glanced at Nick because she couldn’t help it.

  “I dig that you think you need my permission.” He moved a piece of hair, touched beneath her chin and brought her to his lips to kiss. It wasn’t a particularly sexy kiss, but it curled her toes nonetheless. “But you don’t. We’d both like to dance with you, if you’ll give us a chance.”

  She searched his eyes, his face and then did the same to Ian who stood there, waiting for her. Longing to believe them flooded her system and blood rushed in her ears. There was no way to know exactly what they were asking for or offering but she nodded anyway.

  Being strong enough to say no to them wasn’t something she could do. Before she could second-guess herself, Nick slid out of the booth and then helped her to stand.

  He kissed her cheek. “Have fun. I’ll be there in just a minute.”

  Without another word, Ian took her hand, leading her to the dance floor. With it being a Wednesday there weren’t huge crowds and the music was slower. Ian pulled her into his arms and she automatically wrapped her arms around his waist and laid her head on his chest.

  “I’ve missed you.”

  For three little words, they sure packed a wallop.

  She didn’t answer back. Couldn’t, around the lump in her throat but she hugged him and that seemed to give him as much answer as he needed.

  He held her close, swaying them to the music.

  There was no elaborate routine, nothing fancy or rehearsed. It was them, together, holding each other. It was like it had been when they first got together. It was magical and reminiscent of a past she’d thought never to be touched again.

  He lifted her chin, staring down into her eyes and kissed her. The kiss was so complex due to its simplicity.

  There was no expectation in it, no coercion, no question.

  Simple desire fueled it and she couldn’t help but respond. Just as she was about to move up onto her tiptoes and ask for more, she heard, “May I cut in?”

  She broke the connection and almost moved away from Ian, who stiffened almost imperceptibly. Nick stood no more than a foot away, trained on her face, waiting.

  “Yes.” She flipped back to Ian, who took the opportunity to kiss her one more time. Again it didn’t seem fueled by jealousy. It was just nice. Almost as good as the last time they were all together, before she knew it was Ian.

  He stepped away and motioned for Nick to take his place.

  Nick moved toward her, tugging her hands up onto his shoulders and snuggled her against his body. His muscles were hard beneath her fingers and she nearly moaned when she realized he was aroused. By what?

  There was no way it was the sight of her dancing with another man.

  Could it be?

  She shook her head, trying to clear it. Maybe she’d walked into an episode of the Twilight Zone or Body Snatchers.

  “Stop thinking.”

  Jenna glanced up at Nick and he looked at her mouth, the quickening pulse in her neck, and then back to her eyes.

  He leaned in close and whispered next to her ear. “I wish you were naked. Completely. Beneath my hands. His.”

  Her breath caught in her chest somewhere back behind her heart, jump-starting it to beat hard against her ribs.

  “My turn.”

  Nick rubbed his thumb along her bottom lip, nipping it gently and tugging on it before he passed her off to Ian again.

  “You’re so turned on right now.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  He didn’t get mad, pissed off or storm out. Nothing. He just gathered her in his arms and swayed with her to the soft jazz music piping in around them.

  There were other couples on the dance floor but Jenna didn’t notice any of them. All she saw was Ian. And Nick. The two men she still loved and didn’t want to walk away from.

  Ian held her close and his erection pressed against her.

  She wanted to be naked, at his feet. At their feet. She sucked in her bottom lip, chewing on it, not certain how to talk to them. Maybe broaching the subject of them having a threesome was too soon.

  Yes.

  Totally.

  Too soon.

  She relaxed into disappointment, wondering if she’d read too much into it and they meant they were sharing her for dancing and that was it.

  That at least made sense, but…

  She couldn’t help hoping for more. A lot more.

  “Jenna?” Ian said her name as if it wasn’t the first time.

  “Yes?”

  “We’d like to continue our discussion.”

  She raised her eyebrows, holding her breath and she didn’t utter a single sound.

  “Yes, we would.” Nick walked up and held one of her hands, Ian had the other. “You up for it?”

  “Where?”

  “The Library.” He whispered it low enough that it couldn’t have been heard by anyone but them.

  “For what? Sorry.” She closed her eyes for a second and then blinked up at them in turn. “I’m totally lost. Can you spell out what you’re asking me to do? I don’t want to assume but I also don’t want to go in expecting something that isn’t even on the table.”

  “Or spanking bench,” Ian offered helpfully.

  Her smile crept in and both men seemed to relax just a tad.

  “We’d like to play with you.” Ian kissed her forehead, cupping her cheek.

  “Maybe a bit of wax.”

  “And canes,” Ian added.

  Jenna disentangled herself from the men and walked away to grab her purse. She lusted after the rest of her margarita but knew she needed a clear head if she were really going to do this. She tossed a few bills on the table to cover the tab and turned around to find the men less than five feet away. “I’ll meet you there.”

  Both men smirked but she held up her hand. “We’ll talk and then if things are…comfortable we can continue. Deal?”

  “Yup.”

  “Yes.”

  Jenna beat them both out the door and to her car. They each parked close to her and she liked the feeling of being protected, even if she didn’t know about it.

  She was freaked out and nervous when they pulled out of the lot, each of them in their own vehicle but sent up a bit of a prayer that everything would turn out well.

  * * * * *

  Somehow the men beat her to The Library. They texted her the playroom they wanted her to go to and she tried to hide her grin when she walked inside.

  They were across the room, standing face-to-face and talking low.

  Friendly even.

  “She did what?” Ian’s angry voice filled the room and she stopped dead in her tracks with her heart thumping away in her chest.

  She knew it was too good to be true. They couldn’t get along for even a few… “Wait. What?”

  Ian headed toward her, the tendons in his neck pulling with each step. “You self-suspended without a spotter? And had no fucking clue how long you’d been up there?”

  Her mouth fell open and nothing came out.

  Her worried gaze switched to Nick, who walked up beside Ian and his expression was dark, unreadable. He crossed his arms over his chest and waited.

  “You’re fucking kidding me, right?”

  “Do I look like I’m fucking amused?” Ian didn’t simply ask the question, he growled it at her. He leaned a tiny bit closer, making her pussy wet and her temper erupt.

  “That was how long ago? You weren’t there. It had nothing to do with you, and—”

  “Nothing? Really? The mask you wore says otherwise.”

  “The mask.” She tossed her purse down and stepped up to him, going toe-to-toe if that’s how he wanted to play this evening. Sex be damned. He wanted to know some things? She’d be more than happy to fill him in. “I wanted to burn it when you walked out. Your stuff. Yo
ur rope. Your scent. I wanted to have a gigantic bonfire about a week later when I realized you’d really pulled such a chickenshit move as to leave me in the condition I was in.”

  He stiffened and opened his mouth and she narrowed her eyes at him.

  “I had bruises for weeks after the beating I took from you that night. It was the hardest I’d ever been played and you walked away. When I dropped after that scene, I was in a hole so deep there was no light anywhere to be seen. You ripped away my security, my foundation and my Sir in one fit of panic. When I clawed my way back out I got rid of everything. Every tiny scrap of our life together I disposed of, just as easily as you disposed of me. The one thing I kept? Your collar.”

  She growled, not at Ian but at the tears that altered her voice, making it hard to talk. She swallowed several times until she could continue. For years she’d imagined what she would say and it surprised her how easily it all poured out, as if a levee had broken. No way that much emotion could be diverted quickly enough to prevent the devastation this conversation would cause.

  “Once the bruises faded, I needed something with me. I felt so lost. I carried your collar with me, wore it as a bracelet or kept it in my purse to have something to keep me grounded. I couldn’t fall back in that hole. I wouldn’t be able to climb out a second time. I knew it, even then. And that’s how it went, until I found rope again. I needed it with me when I tied, because… I just did. I turned it into the mask. It was the last several ounces of hope I had left that I’d be okay. That I could find my way. My way. Because I had no one else to guide me.”

  She shook her head, lost in the past, staring at his chest. Her eyes flipped up to his, locking on his brooding gaze.

  “So, yes. I’ve worn that piece of leather for years to remind myself of what I lost and how I survived. I did that. Not you and your ‘I am an island’ bullshit excuse for walking away.”

  Nick had walked up next to her and placed a hand on her shoulder. She shook him off and stepped away.

  Being comforted by him wasn’t something she could handle. Not as the tremors of defeat had already begun in her knees.

  “I’m sorry I hurt you. It wasn’t my intention.” He actually believed the verbal diarrhea that came out of his mouth.

  “The decisions you made were designed to do nothing but hurt me. Just because you were too stupid to know the difference is no longer my concern.”

  Saying the words, blaming Ian for everything—she’d always expected it to make her feel better. It just…didn’t.

  She scooped her purse up off the ground and headed for the door.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” Nick called from behind her.

  She flipped them the bird. Actually thought about calling them cocksuckers too but she figured her middle finger stood loud and proud enough for all three of them.

  “You’re still mine for the rest of the month.” His growled ownership was right next to her ear. How in the hell he could move so fast for how big he was, she had no idea.

  Instead of waiting for him to grab her, she stopped in her tracks. It was probably inevitable anyway.

  Whirling around on him, she had to look up quite a ways because of how he towered over her. A moan almost slipped out when she saw how he stared at her. Sex appeal rolled off him and her panties grew damp. She’d never gotten to have angry sex before and she decided that was one checkmark on her bucket list she wouldn’t mind ticking off. “I no longer have your collar around my neck, so you don’t own any—”

  “I’d watch that smart mouth if I were you.”

  “Make. Me.”

  Topping from the bottom had never been her style but she full well knew how to play the game.

  This would be her goodbye and she was going to take every single second of it. If it had to last her for several more years until she was brave enough to try again, then so be it.

  It was going to suck either way when she walked out this time. But at least it would be on her terms, not his. Not Ian’s. Not either of theirs. She just hoped the damage wouldn’t be as severe.

  “Ian, a little help? The cuffs are in the closet. Two pairs. It seems Jenna needs to learn a bit of a lesson tonight.”

  She rolled her eyes, her expression dripping with bratty hostility. “And who’s going to teach it to me? You two? Please.”

  Nick jacked a shoulder in her abdomen and hoisted her up so fast it knocked the wind out of her. Her purse clattered to the floor and she thrashed around. She tried to kick him and his forearm became a vise grip around her lower legs.

  “Grrr…” Her rumble finally broke free. Emotion turned to anger like lightening and it burned bright.

  Steadying herself with one hand, she pounded on his back as he walked across the dungeon space to a flat table.

  She shut off her feelings and lashed out because it was either yell or cry and she’d cried enough over them both to last a lifetime.

  “This is your fault. You let Ian into our bed. Into my body. I did not consent to that. Not ever.”

  Yes, he tried to call her. Yes, she’d ignored him. But he’d left her to drop on her own and that was an emotional trigger she’d never been able to get over.

  He flipped her over onto the table as soon as he stood over it and it was a bit lower than she expected. The top that her head rested on reminded her of the horseshoe-shaped, padded section on a masseuse table. Ian shed her shoes and tried to place a cuff on one of her ankles. She kicked at him but missed. He latched on to the top side of her knee, squeezing down on a pressure point that had to be attached to three thousand nerve endings she didn’t know she had.

  “Oooo, ooohhh.” Strange noises came from her chest as she tried to process the pain. Her overwhelming desire to submit to them flipped something in her head. She had to fight to maintain the anger.

  The cuffs were attached to her ankles and wrists while she processed in silence. Ian clipped her cuffs to the bottom corners of the table and Nick followed suit.

  One glance up at him told her he hadn’t forgotten the problem she posed to him before he walked away.

  Her throat tightened and fear settled in, digging its claws in deep.

  Shh click.

  Ian’s knife. He never went anywhere without it but hearing the noise as if he were more than ready to use it were two very different things.

  Her gaze went back to him and he started at the bottom of her clothing.

  Slicing away the fabric a few inches at a time did something for her she couldn’t explain.

  She shivered, tugging at the cuffs, thankful for the corset she hid behind.

  Nick moved up to her head and never looked away. Even as she snarled at him, biting at him if he moved closer. He grabbed a handful of her hair, making her pant. The fist in her hair tightened until she moaned from the delicious pain. “He was already between us. You never revealed that. You think I consented to that? So I don’t see what the difference is here. Semantics. Nothing more.”

  He had a gag in his hand that she hadn’t seen and he shoved the large ball between her teeth, strapping it behind her head before she could shake it loose.

  But he was right.

  Ian had always been between them. Nick had an inkling there was something she wasn’t telling him on the day she’d agreed to be his submissive. He’d asked why she’d finally agreed to him and he’d known. Not the who or the what, but that something had triggered her need to submit to him.

  She was thankful for the gag. Words were pointless. Nothing was going to be solved by them talking about their feelings about the past or their nonexistent future. She rolled her eyes, so damn sick of being emotional about Ian. And Nick.

  Fucking?

  That she would at least get something out of.

  Several orgasms would be a completely acceptable parting gift for having her heart throat-punched over and over again.

  Regret she tried to ignore clawed at her.

  Getting what she wanted by acting the part wasn’t her
.

  She’d always taken her pleasure in submitting to the needs of the man she was with. Taking what he needed her to take because it brought him pleasure is what had always gotten her rocks off.

  Orgasms for the sake of taking them left a bad taste in her mouth.

  She closed her eyes, willing the disappointment away and tried to focus on the two men she wanted. The two men she wanted to love her.

  A flutter of fingers stroked her cheek and her lashes fluttered open. Nick stared down at her with something like concern on his face. “Where’d you go?”

  He unbuckled the strap holding the gag in place and slipped it from between her teeth. “You were with us and then you were just gone.”

  Warmth registered on her calf and she glanced down. Ian stood beside her, a hand on her lower leg.

  It was more than she could handle.

  “I can’t do this. I want to but I just can’t.”

  “Okay.” The simple acceptance came from Ian. They released the cuffs and sat her up. Ian grabbed the comforter off the bed and wrapped it around her.

  Her pants lay in a pile of torn fabric next to the table and she couldn’t look away from them. “Sorry, Nick. Red. Ian. Fuck. Whatever,” she mumbled, unable to say anything else. In all her years in kink she’d never stopped a scene. Not ever.

  She thought about it, glancing up at Nick who leaned against the table next to her. She’d actually safe worded. She’d said “Ian” to Nick in the middle of a scene.

  Maybe that was why she couldn’t continue.

  Or maybe not. Could have been her lack of sleep or heartache.

  I hate disappointing you.

  Need to say it clawed at her insides. She opened her mouth to say it—

  A knock on the dungeon door shattered the moment.

  “I’ll get it.” Ian turned and headed to the door, opening it only a crack so she couldn’t see who was there.

  Nick hugged her close, stroking her hair and he kissed her on the top of the head.

  “Nick, it’s for you. Jackson sent Skye. There’s a problem on the main stage. They need your help on something before a scene can start.”

  Jenna wondered why Jackson would have told Skye to come interrupt but then she remembered the cameras. He would have known she’d stopped everything.