She rakes her fingers down my front, easing them beneath my sweater. Her fingertips over my bare skin make my stomach contract.
‘We have so many lost nights to catch up on.’
‘Coco...’
I can’t speak any more, can only claim her mouth with all the hunger, all the love, all the pent-up pain I can now let go of because she is here. And she loves me. Just as I do her.
She yanks my sweater over my head and I grip the hem of hers, but she presses her palms into my chest, stopping me from going further. I drag in a breath, my eyes burning into hers.
‘Tell me again,’ she says, her eyes bright with desire, her cheeks flushing pink.
‘I love you, Coco Lauren!’ I grip her by the waist and lift her onto the counter, her resultant laughter music to my deprived ears.
‘And if you let me...’ I step between her thighs, drawing her against me ‘... I will show you just how much every day and every night for the rest of our lives.’
I seal my vow with my lips upon hers and start to show her...one stroke, one lick, one kiss at a time...
CHAPTER NINETEEN
I LOOK DOWN at the leather-bound book clutched in my hands and smile. I know this is the right thing to do now. I know I need Granny to understand my mother—her good heart and her love for my father. I also need her to know that I’ve found my happiness too. That I am in love and loved in return.
I turn to look up at Ash beside me.
‘You okay?’ he asks, his arm around my waist giving me a gentle squeeze.
‘Yes. It’s the right thing to do.’ I’ve already marked out some pages in the diary—the ones that shine with my mother’s love. ‘Will you wait for me downstairs?’
‘Sure.’
He presses a kiss to my brow and I breathe in his scent, his love, his support.
‘Thank you.’
And then I turn to face Granny’s bedroom door and give it a gentle knock.
‘Come in,’ she calls from the other side, her voice still perfectly controlled, even though I know each day becomes more and more of a struggle for her.
I blink away the tears that form and step out of Ash’s embrace to open the door and walk inside.
She’s propped up in bed, her eyes bright with her love for me, and the sense of doing right swells. ‘Granny, I’d like to read you something...’
EPILOGUE
Eighteen months later
‘IF YOU’D TOLD me I’d be wearing a skirt I would have said no—you know that, right?’
Philip fluffs out the sides of his kilt as he says it and I can’t help erupting into a giggle.
‘Who would’ve given me away, then?’
‘I could’ve done it just as well in trousers.’
‘And you wouldn’t have been half as dashing.’ I waggle my eyebrows at him. ‘Haven’t you seen the ladies eyeing you up?’
‘You are joking.’
‘Not at all, and you’re quite the eligible bachelor now. You should make the most of it.’
Now he grins, his eyes seeking out one redhead in particular, currently slow-dancing with Jackson in the recently refurbed ballroom of the Livingston Castle.
‘Oh, no, you don’t. Cait’s off-limits.’
He flashes me a cheeky look. ‘Surely as your maid of honour she should be top of my list.’
‘You’re not the best man.’
‘Best man, brother...’ he shrugged ‘...same difference.’
‘Philip!’
‘Oh, dear, that’s her warning tone...’
I turn at the sound of Ash’s voice and feel the warmth of his hand through the white lace at the base of my spine.
‘What have you done now?’ he asks Philip.
‘He’s setting his sights on Cait.’
Ash gives a hearty laugh, his eyes dancing. ‘I think that’s a great idea.’
I frown up at him.
‘See?’ Philip blurts. ‘Even your husband agrees.’
‘Really, Ash?’ I’d stamp on his foot if I could find my feet beneath my dress. Instead I fire him a glare. ‘Not helpful.’
He shrugs. ‘What’s the worst that could happen? Although, he might have Jackson to get through first...’
‘The question is,’ Philip says, as he considers the couple on the dance floor, ‘does she want a bit of rough—no offence to your mate—or does she want Prince Charming?’
‘Prince Charming?’ Ash mimics, choking on his giggles now, and I elbow him in the ribs.
‘Right, Livingston.’ Philip straightens and offers out his hand. ‘Fifty I get the girl.’
I stare between them in disbelief. ‘Don’t you—’
‘You’re on,’ Ash interjects, shaking his hand, his grin rivalling Philip’s own.
‘No time like the present to get started.’
My brother extracts his hand, rearranges his cravat and makes for the dance floor.
‘Philip Lauren...’ I wait for him to look back at me. ‘You dare mess her around and it’ll be me you answer to.’
He chuckles. ‘Keep your knickers on—I wouldn’t dare.’
I watch him walk off and I can’t be angry. I’m too happy.
Happy that I’ve married the man I love.
Happy that I have the brother I always wanted.
Happy.
Just happy.
Ash leans into my ear. ‘Now, about those knickers...’
A shiver runs through me. ‘You’re just trying to distract me from your bad behaviour...’
‘No, Mrs Livingston. If I wanted to do that, I’d do this...’
He scoops me up in the air with ease, the abundant layers of my dress creating a cloud between me and his face.
‘Ash!’ I bat them down and laugh and glare at him all at once. ‘Put me down!’
‘Only when we’re alone.’
He’s already heading for the double doors that lead out into the hallway and the guests are parting before us, laughing, cheering and offering up smiles and salutes with their glasses.
My cheeks flush red as I plaster on a smile. ‘Ash, what will they think?’ I say between my teeth.
‘That I’m desperate to have my wife all to myself.’
‘Ash!’
‘What?’ He looks down at me as we enter the hallway. ‘Aren’t you keen to find out whether I’m a true Scot in a kilt?’
I frown. ‘A true...?’
He wouldn’t be...not all day!
‘Are you?’
He grins. ‘You’ll see.’
* * *
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Teach Me
by Caitlin Crews
CHAPTER ONE
SHE WAS IN.
Finally.
Erika Vanderburg tried to breathe as elation and anticipation coursed through her in equal measure, as if in time to the deep thump of the music that wound its way around and through the crowd and seemed to rest against her clavicle. Like a heavy hand.
The notion made her warm. Maybe too warm.
Concentrate, she ordered herself.
She’d worked too hard to get in the door to waste her one chance...fluttering.
No one could simply walk into the infamous Walfreiheit Club, though many tried. The line of hopefuls stretched for acres on its once-a-month semipublic exhibition nights, like tonight. Some waited outside every night and never got in. And though Berlin was a city filled with sex clubs to suit any mood or experimental phase—or all of the above, all at once—Walfreiheit was its most exclusive.
Erika had been trying to get in the door for going on six months now. She would fly in the night before, then spend the day treating her jet lag at the Hotel Adlon Kempinski Berlin, her favorite hotel in the city. She liked to take her time selecting an outfit from the high-end shops on Friedrichstrasse before relaxing in the hotel’s five-star spa. The routine was familiar now, and got her ready for a long night of waiting in line with the rest of the hopefuls outside the converted old building in East Berlin. All of them trying to look appropriate, whatever that meant when the place in question was an upscale bondage club. And when the opportunity to enter was entirely at the whim of whoever was at the door.
She had been reminding herself—sternly—that there was a point to all this, despite the annoyance of being denied entry month after month, when one of the terrifyingly calm and formidably solid bouncers had pointed straight at her. Erika had frozen solid.
“You,” he’d said in German, then shook his head at the dark-haired woman next to Erika who surged forward. “The blonde.”
Erika had been certain that he’d shake his head at her when she moved toward the door, but he didn’t. He opened the rope and waved her through. It was on her to somehow...not fall apart with sheer giddiness as she was actually let in.
The Walfreiheit Club specialized in kink. Specifically BDSM, though it was whispered that definitions were kept loose to better serve the imaginations and desires of its exclusive clientele. Members played as they liked within the walls, and membership was never automatic. No amount of money could buy someone a place if the other members didn’t vote them in. Unanimously. There were always stories about this or that celebrity or tycoon trying to buy his way in, only to be summarily denied, because the club did as the club liked. Always.
In the same vein, on exhibition nights, the men on the door made their selections from the vast line outside according to their fancy. Selected hopefuls were brought inside to the large, cavernous foyer where Mistress Olga waited, dressed in full fetish gear—though what was actually terrifying about her was the arch amusement she wore on her distractingly beautiful face.
Erika had not been prepared for Mistress Olga. She wasn’t sure a person could be prepared, especially because the bouncers outside were only collecting a group of potentials for the mistress to sort through. Which she did.
With brutal precision.
The tiny yet ferocious woman reputed to be the most sought-after Domme in Berlin threw out most of the people who’d waited in that foyer with Erika at a glance. She sauntered down the line, flicking a finger to dismiss each person she didn’t like. She nodded at a stunningly pretty-looking man. She studied a woman with a bowed head, then murmured an assent. By the time she’d reached Erika, she’d gotten rid of most of the people who’d been let in. And she stood there, magnificent in her spike-heeled boots that stopped midthigh, training her very cool, assessing look all over Erika until Erika rather thought she might scream. Or otherwise embarrass herself beyond repair.
She would never know how she managed to just...stand there.
“You will do,” Mistress Olga pronounced, in crisp German.
Erika had been ushered into a smaller foyer, this one in all black. She and the other two selected were met by another woman, this one clearly not a Domme. Or so Erika assumed from the way she bowed her head to Mistress Olga. The three of them were made to fill out extensive paperwork, were given bright yellow wristbands that they were warned sternly not to take off, and were then treated to a long list of the club’s rules and regulations.
The truth was Erika would have agreed to absolutely anything to get inside.
She’d played around with various outfits for months. How did a person broadcast the necessary submissiveness required in a place that took its sexual roles very seriously while also making sure to advertise to one specific person exactly what he’d been missing all these years? She’d fiddled with different attempts to hit that sweet spot every month. Tonight she wore a strappy little top that cupped her breasts and lifted them up, but left most of her shoulders and her midriff bare. And a tiny little skirt that flirted with the bottom curve of her ass. The only other thing she wore was a thong that peeked up over the waistband of her skirt.
It wasn’t her most subtle outfit. But what was subtle about sexual escapades that started with a frank negotiation of terms, needs, expectations, desires and limits? Erika had decided to fully embrace what she was walking into.
Though that had seemed more like a power move before she was actually doing it.
“All right,” she muttered to herself beneath her breath as the huge doors were opened and the three lucky selections were led through into the wall of noise and simmering dark. “You need to settle down.”
The main floor of the club was big, soaring up from the open space where most of the crowd was gathered to a second-floor gallery that offered views of the action down below. And, the club submissives had told them, private playrooms. Not that a person sporting a bright yellow guest wristband would be allowed up there.
There was a bar against one wall, though that, too, was subject to strict rules. No more than two drinks for anyone who wanted to play, no exceptions, and no drinks for yellow wristbands at all. Alcohol is a privilege of membership, they’d been told. There were a number of small, private seating areas tucked into nooks along the dark walls, and then a wider, more open collection of sofas and table
s and comfortable-looking chairs, which Erika assumed were as much for aftercare as for socializing. She’d read all about it.
There was a dance floor, and there were people out there working off their energy and anticipation—or maybe that was just her—to the seething, brooding electronic music that filled the space. And made everything feel edgier. Cut through with danger.
But beyond that, Erika knew thanks to the hand-drawn map they’d been shown up front, lay the dungeon. Here there be dungeons, someone had written in bold letters and they’d all laughed on cue—and had all sounded equally nervous, to her ears.
She pulled in a breath now, then let it out in a rush. Because she knew without a doubt that the dungeon was where she would find him.
And she would finally be able to set her plan in motion.
There were butterflies in her belly as she began to make her way through the crowd, her gaze skimming over couples in leather and latex or jeans, submissives in various chains and collars or merely kneeling at their dominants’ feet. She took an extra moment to admire two buff, beautiful men on the end of their top’s leash wearing bridles and jaunty tails.
She skirted the edge of the dance floor, her feet bare against the hardwood. It felt strange to be barefoot in a club, but it was deliberate. Submissives are encouraged to go barefoot, they’d been told at the desk, where they’d surrendered their phones, wallets, coats and bags, as well as their shoes.
Erika would have worn clown shoes if asked, and had thought it was a silly request meant to make the club more mysterious—but now she got it. The wood beneath her feet felt silky and warm. It was one more sensation to add to the mix. The heat of so many bodies in one space. The cool prickle of air moving over the flesh she’d left uncovered. She could feel her pulse pick up as she wove her way through the crowd, carefully keeping her gaze averted from anyone she passed.
Especially if they had that particular look about them, too calm and too direct, that she knew meant they were dominants.
Getting Dirty Page 18