by Lilia Moon
She exhales sharply, a volcano venting in relief.
I touch my fingers to her cheek. “Can I walk you home?”
She shakes her head. “No, thank you. I’ll take a cab.” And then she stands up, on steady legs, and walks out of my club.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chloe
Another bride, totally out of control. I know that as soon as I walk into my store. They very rarely escape Mandy’s velvet touch, but when they do, it tends to be epic. This one has an older version of herself in tow as she stomps through our carefully manicured displays, muttering a string of curses about our monstrously erroneous sizing.
I sigh. We go down this road at least twice a week, and it’s often the place where brides breach Mandy’s sandbanks. She doesn’t like to speak truth to curves. Or twigs, because tiny brides are just as prone to this particular display of insanity. In this case, however, the bride is straight out of a Botticelli painting, and absolutely certain a size ten is what she needs to look her wedding-night best.
Mandy looks ready to cry, which means I arrived ten minutes too late, but that can’t be helped. I needed bacon and time to think. I discreetly bury the two coffees I walked in with behind a pile of lace and walk over to my assistant, using the lines of my body to begin to lay the riverbanks of calm. “I’m so sorry I’m late.” I eye the mother of the bride, who looks almost as enraged as her daughter, which probably means she created this problem. “Mandy, why don’t you take Clarissa and fetch us some coffee?” I’m glad I took a quick look at our appointment book on the way over—names are power.
My assistant’s sigh of relief can probably be heard on the Canadian border.
Clarissa is not so easily swayed. “We don’t have a lot of time this morning, and I’m not sure your shop will meet our needs.”
I head around the snotty attitude and straight to what usually works. “She’ll have my undivided attention while you’re gone. The place across the street has the best barista in town, and you’ll know just how your daughter likes her coffee.”
Mandy takes Clarissa’s arm, already chattering, delighted to have a script she knows how to follow. I’m not sure the mother of the bride is entirely pleased to be taken out of the picture, but she’s going. Which gives me about fifteen minutes to get this train wreck back on the tracks. I look over at my Botticelli bride, who should never have been named Tiffany. “Now. Let’s see what we have that will make you feel like the absolutely beautiful woman you are.”
That gets rid of some of the rage—and under it, I can see the shame. “I’ve been working really hard to fit into my wedding dress, and everything Mandy brought me in my size doesn’t fit at all.”
That’s not on us. A couple of the bridal shops in town are prone to sewing tags with entirely imaginary sizing into their dresses. I wish they could see the harm they do. I lead Tiffany over to a chair and sit down facing her. “I’m going to tell you something really important, all right? I need you to listen.”
That gets her attention.
“The problem here isn’t our sizing. It’s that you don’t know just how beautiful you are, and just how little that has to do with the size on the tag.”
Tiffany isn’t going down easily. “I’m a size ten.”
Only if she plans on resembling a sausage on her wedding night. “You can keep saying that and walk out of here with something that doesn’t fit and will feel tight and awful on your special day, or you can let us make you shine in the size you are. Your choice.”
She stares at me, as well she should. Very few people in retail are this obnoxiously blunt.
Everyone at Fettered is.
The thought creeps in before I’m fully aware of it. Bringing my unfinished thinking over bacon into the one place it really shouldn’t be. I stand up, because Tiffany needs this show to stay on the road, even though I’m feeling uncomfortably like I’ve stepped into a tableau from last night. Tamelia would know exactly what to do with a curvy bride trapped in a cage of her own making. “I’ll go find some things I think will look spectacular on you.” I wait until Tiffany meets my gaze. “You can read the tags, or you can just try them on and trust my judgment.”
She nods, wide-eyed, and the similarities to last night strengthen.
I turn away. I don’t go far. I scoop up a design in red that was built for curves. I can find Tiffany other options if this doesn’t work, but after twenty years in this business, I’m rarely wrong.
I hear a strangled squeak behind me. “I can’t wear that—it’s totally see-through.”
The lacy bodice is, and it’s attached to a long, flowing skirt that will make her feel like a siren queen. “This lace is my own personal favorite to wear. It’s stretchy and supportive and it will tease your fiancé until you decide to give him permission to touch.” I hand the hanger to Tiffany and hide a grin as she carefully ignores the tag.
I can see her need to stay covered up warring with her deep attraction to the gorgeous red creation in her hands. I let the fight happen. If she can’t step in to who her curves could let her be, I’ll know soon enough.
Her next exhale sounds like a hot air balloon deflating. “I’ll try it on.”
I hear the fear and the loathing—and the fervent hope. I pull the curtain shut behind her. One more drop of molten wax, tracing a path to where she needs to go.
I hear success before I see it. The hushed, stunned, disbelieving gasp of a woman who has just looked in the mirror and dared to let herself see. I pull the curtain aside, because I live for these moments. Tiffany stares into the mirror, barely noticing me. Breathing into red lace and wonder.
A woman standing on the beautiful, fierce, trembling edges of who she is.
I shiver as my bacon-laced questions of this morning land smack in the middle of my dressing room. I’m fascinated by the Doms of Fettered. I know why they do what they do, and in this part of my life, I’m very much one of them. That would be the easy answer—but the quivers of my own skin say it might not be the right one. The harder, much scarier possibility lives in the brightness shining in Tiffany’s eyes.
I might want someone to hand me red lace and bring me to the edges of who I am.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Eli
I pull my bow across the strings, letting the vibrato in my fingers give my shakiness an outlet. Or at least that’s the story I’m telling myself. Mostly, I’m doing what I always do when the emotions inside me need to find some structure.
I’ve pulled out the big guns. This cello never leaves my home—heck, it rarely leaves my bedroom. It’s the one I learned on. Not my first beginner instrument, which was only slightly better than a banana strung with elastics, but the one my parents somehow found the money for when the old Hungarian guy who was giving me lessons after school said I needed a real cello to play.
I’ve always imagined that it holds the echoes of most of the important moments in my life. The one where I drew a bow across its strings for the first time and realized magic lived here. The day I knew I was different and needed to get out if I wanted to keep breathing. The random afternoon when my cello sat in the corner as I gaped at the vision of teenage wonderfulness that had just walked into the student lounge, taken a seat beside me, and started talking.
Chloe carried on that conversation without much help from me for the better part of an hour.
The cello laughs under my hands. It has born witness to so very many awkward Eli moments.
I let the piece I’m fiddling with morph into something lighter. Something less angsty, with more room for laughter and compassion and thought. I don’t want to be this much of a mess when Chloe finds me again. And I want to make sure I’ve mined all the richness of what she let me see last night.
I let my fingers wander as I make a mental list. Bondage is high on her interest meter. The tight, very thorough kind. Impact play is likely a lost cause, although no Dom worth his salt would take that as a final answer. It didn’t move her, though—not
in any direction that leads to arousal. But easily the most fascinating part of watching Chloe last night was seeing someone entirely new to my world read deep into the head game of kink. She saw so many of the layers. Understood them.
My bow scratches and makes me wince. Saying what I don’t want to.
She’d make a really good Domme.
Except I’m not sure that’s what I saw last night either. I drop my bow and pick my fingers across the strings, pizzicato accompaniment to the frustration of pieces I still can’t align. Chloe was intrigued by the psychology of kink, but her deepest moments last night were ones I would expect from a sub. One who might have a wish for utter and complete surrender—the kind that needs to be tied down and chased out with fire.
Or I’m a Dom with a bad case of wish fulfillment.
My cello sings my own ridiculousness back to me. I shake my head and make a face at the instrument that’s dealt with so much of my angst over the years and managed to keep a sense of humor. I pick my bow back up off the floor and play a few bars of Mozart. The structure and framing of classical music has always soothed us both.
All those music lessons probably laid the foundation that made me a Dom. Or both were simply a recognition of something foundational in who I’ve been since the day I was born.
I sigh and close my eyes, knowing I’ve arrived at the crux.
I’m asking Chloe to consider if she’s kinky. To consider revamping the entire foundation of who she is as a sexual being. I’m sitting here considering asking the same of myself, even though I know the answer. I can feel what could be with Chloe, and it’s so very tempting to lop off the corners of who I am to make it work. But I remember the bone-deep recognition the first time I walked into a club. The fierce glow that lit in my belly the first time a sub truly surrendered in my care.
Giving it up would be as hard, and as damaging, and as wrong, as giving up my music.
Sitting here in the light of day with my cello, I can be honest enough to say that pisses me off. I wish kink felt like optional wiring, like a part of me I could unplug and stick into any old outlet and have it still work. Or even a really great outlet—vanilla sex with Chloe is freaking awesome, and there’s so much more there.
But there isn’t space for all of who I am.
I realize that I’m not playing Mozart anymore. What I am playing is ragged and raw and beautiful. And old. It’s the first piece I ever composed, back on the day that Chloe sent me away to go be all of who I was meant to be.
Even if that meant I couldn’t be hers.
I close my eyes and let the strength of that flow into my fingers. She was riverbanks for me back then, and I need to honor that. To give her space to make her own choices, even if her wiring doesn’t end up any more flexible than mine.
I let those words sit a minute, and then I snort. I’ve caught a bad case of teenage melancholy from my cello. To hell with space. She absolutely needs to make her own choices, but I’m a Dom, and I don’t do riverbanks from afar.
I lean my cello against the wall and pick up my phone. I’ve given her space. An entire half-day of it. Now it’s time to try a little immersion.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chloe
I look down at the package in my hands, aware that they’re shaking. The text from Eli didn’t help. Time isn’t standing still while I figure this out. I take a breath. Knowing something in the comfort of my own shop and holding on to it out here in the big, scary world are two very different things.
The door in front of me opens, and a very smart pair of eyes surveys my face—and my package. Ari grins and reaches for the shiny wrapped present like a toddler on her birthday. “Is that for me?”
I laugh. “It is.”
She rips into Mandy’s careful wrapping job, pulls out a deep-blue velvet corset and matching mini-skirt, and makes a sound that’s most of the way to thoroughly delighted orgasm.
I make a note to let the man who sewed it together deliver it next time. He thrives on being appreciated.
Ari holds up the corset by a slinky strap, pleasure all over her face. “One of your new designs?”
Probably. “Consider it a gift to a really great business partner.” She’s been wonderful, and I’ve never stinted on thanking the people who make my world better.
Her grin goes goopy—and then her eyes sharpen and give me a thorough once-over. “This isn’t the only reason you came.”
Busted, and I didn’t even make it through the door. “I was hoping to talk to you.” I wince, because the next part sucks, but I’m not sure how to get around it. “Or to have you point me in the direction of someone else I can talk to if you’re uncomfortable mixing business with the inner workings of my sex life.”
The giggle that squirts out of her goes a long way to setting my mind at ease. “Sweetie, the inner workings of everyone’s sex life is my business.” She slings her hand through my elbow. “Come on into my parlor, and I’ll get us something pink to drink and chase all the nosy Doms out of the lounge so that we can talk.”
There are no Doms in the lounge, which is too bad, because watching Ari boss the world around is pure fun. I take the drink she hands me and let her herd us to a cushy loveseat in the corner. I’ve already learned that everyone at Fettered sits close to everyone else. Touch only happens by consent, but closeness is offered easily and often.
She clinks her drink on mine. “Okay, love. Dish. What’s on your mind?”
“I learned some things from my tour last night.”
She nods and sips the diabetic coma in her glass. “Most people do—the honest ones, anyhow.”
“You’re a Domme.”
Another casual sip and a nod. “Sometimes.”
“I have a lot of the skills to be one.”
A friendly grin. “Yup, you do.”
She’s not herding me at all now, even though she’s more than capable, and I breathe into the space she’s allowing for me to take this walk. The very jittery, nervy space. “I saw some people I didn’t want to be last night, but a couple of scenes surprised me.”
Her eyes are steady on mine. “Aroused you.”
This is so not a conversation to be having with a business partner. “Yes.” I frown, digging for what lived in my belly as I watched the falling drops of wax. “Or something beyond.”
“Mira.” Ari nods. “The woman in the wax play scene.”
She knows. Of course she knows. I take a deep, harsh breath. “It was so hard for her, and yet I wanted to be right where she was.”
“You got lucky.” Ari’s voice gentles, her eyes two deep-blue pools of compassion. “That sense of longing, even if you don’t understand it, is an amazing mirror into who you are. Into who your insides want or maybe even need you to be.”
I shake my head, nerves morphing into acute frustration. “How could I not already know that about myself?”
Ari sets down her drink and smiles. “Because sometimes this stuff sneaks up on us and bites us in the ass.”
The pressure inside me lets out with a whoosh. That’s exactly what it was. A total sneak attack. I’m not oblivious—I just got ambushed by my own insides. “Everyone seems to think I’d rather be the person doing the biting.”
She shrugs and grins. “Some of us are born to be one thing. Some of us aren’t. You don’t need me to tell you that nobody else gets to decide this for you.”
I nod, feeling my way a little deeper into the ball of hard and sad that’s attached to this whether I want it there or not. “Eli is one thing. He’s a Dom, all the way through.”
Ari hums under her breath. “Yes and no.”
That’s not the answer I was expecting.
“It’s a spectrum. Some people are all the way to the sub end, some all the way to the Dom end, and some of us stand with one foot on each side of the teeter-totter. But there are lots of other flavors.” She hums again and glances at her phone. “Which I could tell you about, but it would be way better for you to see for yourse
lf. Ready for another tour?”
I raise an eyebrow. She’s herding again, and I don’t know where.
She stands up and pulls me to my feet. “Sam’s making tacos tonight.”
That much I know. “Eli sent me a text.”
Her lips quirk. “Did he now? Pushy Dom.”
Says the person who was already planning on shoving me in that particular direction. I grin at her. “Pushy switch.”
“Totally.” She smirks and drops our drinks on the bar. “Their place is just a few blocks away. It will be the perfect chance for you to see kinky relationships in the wild.”
I scramble to keep up. “And that’s the thing I need to do right now because…?”
She’s already halfway out the door. “Because Soleil is the cutest baby in the history of the universe. And because you need to see how people balance their needs for control and surrender outside the club.”
She spins around to face me. “Last night gave you one kind of data. Before you decide what to do about that cliff you’re standing on, take one more afternoon.”
I stare at her. I haven’t said a word about the cliff.
Her sincerity is a living thing. “I stood there once too. I remember.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
Eli
The gang is literally all here. I make my way into the throngs in Sam’s and Leo’s back yard, letting the swell of voices and laughter and the smells of whatever’s on Sam’s grill wash over me. Playing the cello alone has always been one of my best forms of medicine. Tribe is the other.
I catch a bullet with arms and legs right before it crashes into my leg. Daniel skids to a stop right behind her, laughing as I hand him the streaking girl. “Evie, doll, you’re going to break someone if you don’t look where you’re going.”