by Lilia Moon
Chapter Seven
Chloe
There’s something rising between us, and it’s so soft and tender I’m not sure what to do with it. He’s always been able to find those parts of me, and I’m realizing just how few people in my life I let do that.
He heads us down a quiet residential street, one that’s headed toward the water, but taking its own sweet time. “How long have you had your store here?”
That’s an easier question than his last one. “Since a year after I graduated. I put myself through an accounting degree as a pole dancer. I knew I didn’t want to be an accountant or a pole dancer, so I opened my shop.”
His chuckle rolls out low and easy into the night. “Accounting?”
I grin. “Most people are more shocked by the pole dancing.”
His fingers are warm in mine. “You always wanted to be seen. Do you still do theater?”
It was my life back when he knew me, and the reason I knew he needed his music. “In college, I discovered that making the costumes was even more fun than being onstage.” And the tribe was tighter, which filled my army-brat heart in the very best of ways. “Making theater costumes for a living is a good way to starve, so accounting was the backup plan I came up with one evening. There might have been martinis involved.”
He laughs. “You went to college here?”
“Yes. Dad was stationed here for a bit. When they moved on, I stayed.”
“Roots.” He kisses the top of my head again. “You always wanted those too.”
The gentle touches and kisses are calling me home, but I don’t know if that’s a place that exists between us anymore. “It sounds like you turned into a gypsy instead.”
He shrugs. “I found my home in the music. In the four of us who played together.”
He lets me hear the pain this time. “It must have been hard when that ended.”
“It was.”
Two words, spoken by a man resilient enough and strong enough to let himself hurt. I lean into him this time.
He runs a fingertip along the black lace peeking out from the neckline of my dress, sliding the dress aside enough to reveal a lacy strap. “Is this one of your designs?”
He’s lighting up small fires under my skin again—and triggering my sense of self-preservation. “It is. You might find it easier to inspect in my shop.”
He puts my dress back in place, but he takes his sweet time doing it. “You make beautiful things.”
I take a big gulp of cool night air. “I wanted to make things that would last and feel wonderful to wear. Most lingerie stores sell terrible, scratchy garbage.”
He meets my gaze carefully. “I know.”
Chapter Eight
Eli
She doesn’t duck her eyes. She wouldn’t. Chloe has never run from uncomfortable. That used to be me. “Tell me who you’ve become, Eli.”
I know what she’s asking. It’s time to have the conversation that began the moment she walked into my club. The one that is going to ask both of us to stand deep in uncomfortable.
She needs to know I can do that now. I get us moving again on our slow, inexorable meander to the water. “A fellow musician took me to a BDSM club in Budapest, a ritzy one where a foreigner in a nice suit was a hot commodity. I discovered that I liked playing with control and surrender.”
She tilts her head curiously. “Both ends, or are you purely a Dom?”
Someone’s been educating her. Probably Ari. “I’m a Dom. Music is where I find my surrender.”
She smiles. “It’s balance for you, then. There are parts of your life where you offer structure to others, and parts where you can let go and let something else do the holding.”
She’s just described kink beautifully. I raise a questioning eyebrow.
She grins, pleased that she’s surprised me. “I make lingerie for a living. I think a lot about where to put structure and where to leave it out.”
Damn. She thinks like a Domme. “You see that very well for someone who’s never been in a kink club before tonight.”
Her cheeks dimple. “You seem very sure about that.”
I wince. Pole dancer. I’m forgetting crucial facts. “Sorry. Pretend that was a question.”
She laughs and squeezes my arm. “The club where I danced was pretty upscale. It had a similar feel to Fettered’s lounge, but the power dynamics weren’t nearly as polite.”
I blink. “That’s not usually a word people use to describe kink.” Especially on their first visit.
It’s her turn to shrug. “The manager at the club where I worked did a good job of keeping the dancers safe, but I still saw plenty. I don’t know the rules that govern what happens at Fettered, but they’re lovely. When a woman wearing practically nothing can walk across a room and have several flirty conversations and never once get touched or leered at without her clear consent, that’s a beautiful thing.”
I don’t know who she was watching, but any unattached sub would have gotten that kind of respect. “Not all clubs are that well run, but when it’s done right, that’s exactly how kink is supposed to work.”
She glances at me, and I can see the color in her cheeks, even in the dim of night. “I was impressed. And a little daunted. It’s going to be an interesting design challenge.”
That’s the first time she’s tried to step us to safe ground. Which is like waving a red cape in front of a Dom. “How did it feel personally?”
She snorts. “You’ve gotten more direct.”
Holding a paddle in your hand teaches that lesson fast. “There’s a pretty intense vibe running between us. I want to know more about the shape of it. Part of that is whether you find my lifestyle interesting.”
Her look is quiet and serious. “You’re in it deep.”
It isn’t a question, but I answer anyhow. “Yes. It’s as much a part of me as my music.”
She’s silent for nearly half a block. “Thank you for letting me know.”
She’s trying to head us to safety again, but I’m not done. “Remember how I used to play half a dozen instruments? For me, sex is like that. There are a lot of ways you can choose to be part of the music, but only some of them make my soul sing. The rest are fine, and fun for a Friday-night jam, and I do them well enough, but they’re not where I want to live. Not where I can live and be whole.”
She nods. “I’ve seen people like that give up theater. They bleed and it never really stops. I hope neither of us would let you do that.”
She’s never let me walk away from who I am. “This is the first time in a long time that I wish my insides were a little more flexible.”
She smiles a little. “Maybe mine are. I don’t think I’m kinky, but I’ve never really asked the question.”
I thrive on power imbalances, but this one sucks. It asks everything of her and so little of me. Other than holding steady, even if what lives in my core might be the reason we both need to walk away.
She stops abruptly and turns us face to face. “Show me.”
I stare down at the parted lips and laughing eyes of a woman who totally intends for me to kiss her.
She slides her hands up my flummoxed arms and grins at me. “I’m an actress, Eli. I understand through doing. I need a demonstration, please.”
All the remaining notes fall off my sheet music. “What?”
“I watched tonight. I understand some of what you play with, but I don’t understand how it feels. I’d like to, because I’m still too curious for my own good, and because it’s important to you.” She touches her fingers to my cheek, gently repeating her obvious invitation. “So kiss me like a Dom would.”
I groan. If this two minutes is any indication, I’m about to kiss Fettered’s next trainee Domme.
She leans into me and my Dom training finally gives me a good swift kick upside the head. I run my fingers into her hair and take a good hold, reveling in the way it flows over my hand. I tip her head back a little, holding her away from my lips. Unbalancing her
. Sending her hands flying to my shoulders.
That will work. “Keep your hands there, shorty.”
Her eyes widen in surprise, and she pulls against my hand in her hair, testing.
I keep holding the structure. Letting her feel it. Using my fingers in her hair to keep her head, her very kissable mouth, exactly where I want it. I close the gap and tease my tongue along her lips. Intentionally denying what she thinks she needs. Offering up something that might meet a deeper, bigger need.
Or not.
Chapter Nine
Chloe
Who is this man and what did he do with my soft, sensitive, tentative Eli?
The hand in my hair tightens and angles my head a little more. His lips trail down the line of my jaw, the side of my neck. Not softly. Darting licks. Nibbles. Ones that almost hint of pain.
Every inch of skin on my body pebbles.
He chuckles, low and deep, and runs his free hand up my ribs and cups my breast. His fingers find my stiff, suddenly aching nipple and give it a squeeze.
Fork, meet light socket. Wiring I didn’t know I had shoots sparks into places nowhere near my nipple. I stare at him, and I’m pretty sure my mouth is hanging open for reasons that have nothing to do with the kiss that hasn’t happened yet.
He pulls me in tighter against his chest, and I’m suddenly aware of just how much he’s holding me up. I squirm, needing my feet back underneath me.
“Stop.” It’s a sternness that has my eyes flying back to his. “Stay where I put you.”
My legs feel like they’re made of marshmallow goo. “I’m off balance. I don’t want to fall.”
“Hush.” He punctuates his words with a light kiss this time. “You wanted to know how a kiss from a Dom feels. Be quiet and learn.”
I want to tell him where he can take his orders, but he’s right. I did ask. And this is Eli, who used to hold me for hours while I talked and cried and worked through all of my teenage spilled milk. I tell my objecting muscles to stand down, and consciously relax into his hold.
He smiles, and there’s approval in his eyes. “Beautiful. Thank you.”
My spine nearly stiffens again.
He leans in and nibbles on my chin. Works his way over to my earlobe, using the hold he has on my hair to guide my head. The movements are almost random, not related to where his mouth is traveling at all. Slowly, my neck stops trying to guess where he wants me to be and simply lets him put me there.
He tilts his head, and his soft curls brush the fingers I have resting on his shoulder. I lift my hand to touch his hair and he growls. “Keep your hands where I told you to keep them.”
I’m not at all sure I like this bossy Eli. “I want to touch.”
“You touch if I tell you that you can. Not before.”
That doesn’t sound like fun for either of us. “How do you get pleasure from that?”
He tips his forehead into mine. “Do you get pleasure from being the boss of your own store?”
On the days that don’t involve inventory or crying brides. “Yes.”
He brushes his knuckles against my cheek. “I get my pleasure, I just take it differently than how you imagine I should. Forget what you know, Chloe. Just let go and see how this feels.”
I realize how hard I’m fighting against doing just that. Slowly, I unclench the knotted muscles in my back, the ones trying to snap my spine straight against all of this, and sink into where he’s trying to put me. Let his hand support my head again. Notice how safe and held I feel—and how shaken, all at the same time.
“That’s it.” His lips are traveling my neck again, his breath finding all the hollows that make me quiver. His fingers roll my nipple, more firmly this time, and my new wiring runs a current straight to my clit.
I pull against the hand holding my hair. I need to do something. Resist. Melt. Hide my face.
He firms his grip and turns my head to nibble my ear, rubbing the scruff of his beard against my cheek. When he bites down hard on the lobe, my whine of protest morphs into something that sounds almost like begging. His mouth is on mine in an instant, hot and demanding and swallowing the long, liquid moan that runs up my throat.
My brain implodes. This isn’t sixteen-year-old Eli. This is a man who knows exactly what he wants and how to take it.
Chapter Ten
Eli
The sounds she’s making are shooting rockets of need straight to my cock.
Which I need to ignore, because the woman in my arms isn’t at all clear she wants to be there. Not like this, anyhow. I was waiting for her brain to disengage and it finally has, but her body signals are a mess of confusion. Which is making all my Dom senses cringe. I don’t know if I’m kissing a woman with a sub inside her or not, and asking for surrender if she doesn’t want to give it goes against everything I believe in.
Except for the part where this is Chloe and kissing her again feels like coming home.
I gentle my mouth on hers, not sure whether I’m doing it because I’m a Dom who likes to play with rhythm or because I need to be home more than I need to be in control.
Her lips tremble against mine as she exhales. Her moans have quieted into a hum, one full of pleasure and bliss. I tug a little on her hair, listening to how it changes the notes.
Interest. Uncertainty. Curiosity. Resistance.
A song that hasn’t found its melody line yet.
The one inside me is much clearer. The happy, lilting joy of my fingers in her hair. The rich low notes of my nose drinking in the smell of her that has never been anything as silly as strawberries or flower petals or spices and has always been purely Chloe.
Her hands squirm on my shoulders again.
Damn. This is supposed to be a demonstration. I nibble on her lower lip, giving it a sharper bite and running my tongue over the stinging hurt.
She growls, a sound full of pleasure and intent, and nips mine.
I growl back.
Her body freezes, but I don’t have to use words this time. She remembers the experiment, the rules I laid out so very poorly. Her hands settle back on my shoulders, and her body molds back to mine.
Compliance. Willing enough, but not nearly complete.
I brush my lips over her temple. We’re not going to get an answer tonight, and whether she might want to someday play sub to my Dom is only one of the questions we’re out here asking. I’m so very tempted to walk her around the corner to my new condo with the sleek lines and sexy artwork and see if I can pick up where sixteen-year-old Eli was dumb enough to leave off. She’s absolutely luscious, and I want her as badly as I want my next breath.
She’s also written deep into my DNA, and that’s why we’re still standing out here on the sidewalk.
She sighs in my arms and rests her cheek against my shoulder.
I don’t want to let her go, and she clearly doesn’t want to leave, but this song doesn’t have anything that resembles a melody yet, and my need to protect that is sudden and hot and fierce. We need time. I could take her to my bed, but I don’t know what either of us need there yet. Underneath all her strength and self-assurance, Chloe might have the bones of a sub—or she might not.
I tuck my cheek against the top of her head and breathe in the intoxicating scent of the woman who just walked back into my life. “We need to talk before we take this a whole lot further.”
Her laugh is breathy and pleased and frustrated and real. “That isn’t what I was expecting you to say.”
It isn’t what I want to say, but some parts of me are a lot smarter than they were at sixteen. I tip up her chin so that I can see her eyes. “There’s lot of fire here. I want to talk so that we don’t burn things that matter.”
Her need dissolves into tenderness. “There he is.”
I don’t need to ask who. I can hear him too.
The sixteen-year-old boy who never stopped loving her.
Chapter Eleven
Eli
I punch in the special access code for the band
and let myself in Fettered’s front door, cello under my arm. I’m hours early, but the acoustics in the lounge are surprisingly good and I need somewhere to play and think.
A plan that lasts just long enough to walk in and spy Quint behind the bar, drying glasses and doing whatever it is bartenders do when they have no customers.
He raises an eyebrow in my direction. “Hey. Scorpio call a practice session I don’t know about?”
“No.” I lean my cello against the bar and take the glass of sparkling water he pushes my way. “I’m supposed to be in symphony recording sessions for another three days, but apparently the woodwinds don’t have the brains of worms, so they’re in extra rehearsals and the rest of us got sprung.”
Quint looks amused. “Worms?”
Our conductor isn’t the most tactful guy in the world. “One of his lesser insults.” Which we all tolerate because he’s really good at his job, and because if any of his worms ever need anything, he’s always the first guy in line to make sure it happens. I’ve only been here six months and even I know he’s gold.
Quint switches out his drying towel for one to wipe down his already pristine bar. “How’s the lady in the sexy red dress?”
Kinky people suck at small talk. I shrug. I don’t have an easy answer for him.
He snorts. “How are you?”
Underneath the hard-ass, this guy is gold too. “I’m not sure. I feel like I’m halfway stuck in a time warp. Hard to get my head into the right place.” Made harder by my trip down memory lane this morning. The shoe box didn’t take long to find. I’m used to traveling light, but that, I’ve always kept.
“Harlan and Ari really like her.”
That’s a leading statement if I ever heard one. “I really like her too. And back when I was a gangly teenager, I loved her as deeply as I was capable of loving anyone.”
“What happened?”
No judgment—but no dodging, either. Which is probably what I need even more than a couple of hours in a dark corner with my cello. “Our dads were stationed at the army base in Heidelberg for three years. It only took a week of that before we were inseparable. Then her dad got transferred to Hong Kong and I got a full-ride scholarship to Juilliard.”