by Lily Harlem
Had it been his intention all along to wind me up so much that I’d throw him out of my office?
If it was, then I was dealing with someone who’d require very different tactics. I’d have to seriously up my game. Call on other strategies and pull out a fresh set of techniques.
Spotting my hair clip on the floor, I stooped and reached it. Set about curling my hair back into a twist and securing it on the top of my head.
Hair-pulling, seriously. What was he, a schoolboy?
Chapter Six
I couldn’t help myself; I slammed the door. I knew it was childish, pathetic, but she’d bloody well driven me to it. That woman.God, she really knew how to push my buttons. How the fuck had she managed to get me to all but confess I liked inflicting pain on people—sexual pain, that is. I’m not into domestic violence or bullying. One minute we were talking about my ribs, the next I had a handful of her thick, shiny hair—which smelled delicious too—and was pulling it. Her reaction had made my cock hard in seconds. So hard it threatened to burst out of my old jeans.
That was what it had been about, of course. Her reaction. Once I’d hinted at my sexual preferences, it didn’t take much for me to spill the beans completely. And now she knew. Knew what I was, what I liked. Once I’d started speaking, I couldn’t stop. But now, standing at the elevator, incessantly pressing the button, I felt as though a heavy stone was sitting in the bottom of my stomach. I’d fucked it up, really fucked it up. Right now she was probably on the phone to security, or to Austin, telling them what had happened. What I’d said, done. My dirty secret was out and it was nobody’s fault but my own. I could blame Marie, of course, for probing into my mind, my innermost thoughts, but I had been the one to act on my impulses, engage in some seriously inappropriate behavior, risking everything.
After what felt like forever, the elevator arrived. It pinged open and mercifully it didn’t contain a bunch of huge security guards or the police. There was just the kid who delivered mail to the various rooms and offices in the building. I nodded politely as he exited the steel box and I stepped in. I pressed the button to take me down to the level that held the pool. A few laps would help me work out the anger—mainly at myself—that was thrumming through my body. It would also let me think. Think of what the hell I was going to say to the person or people who were sent to confront me about what I’d done to Marie.
I shouldn’t have done it, I knew that, but it was too late to take it back now. And whatever happened next, I’d always have the memory of her reaction to the pain. The gasps that made her gorgeous lips part, her delectable breasts rise and fall rapidly, her nipples, hard, digging into my chest, and her eyes. God, her eyes. The pupils had grown so large that I could barely tell them from her irises. Nobody—barring a brain surgeon or a hypnotist—could take that away from me. And providing I wasn’t booted out of the academy, I was going to use it to my advantage. To persuade Marie to explore her submissive—or at the very least, masochistic—side. To show her that it wasn’t wrong to want pain, to enjoy it, to embrace it.
If I could achieve all that, then maybe I could convince her of what a good fit we could be, for a while at least.
Providing she didn’t get my name and proclivities splashed all over the papers and the internet, that was. If she did that, I might be forced to get my own back. My lawyer, Jenson Jones, was good, some hotshot from the city my agent had employed. Everyone had a weakness that could be exploited or a skeleton in the closet that could be outed, and without a doubt Jenson could find Marie’s if he had to. I just hoped to bloody God it wouldn’t come to that.
I dove into the water, feeling immediately better as the chill took some of the fierce heat out of my mood. Shifting into a front crawl, the water sluicing around my body, I cleared my brain of all its superfluous crap and concentrated on my main problem. The trouble was, my main problem was pretty complex in itself. If you boiled it down to the finest, most pressing conundrum, then that was what had just happened with Marie. But even that quickly unfurled into whys and hows. Those whys and hows were many, manyfold, and that was just on my part. I had no idea what was going on in Marie’s head, but I had every intention of finding out.
By the time I heaved myself out of the pool, I was incredibly glad that I didn’t have a formal training session booked with Peter that day. One, because I’d swum so hard and for so long that my limbs felt like jelly and my head and torso like lead weights. Second, because I didn’t know what the hell I was going to say to him about the previous night at Lobster Lagoon. Where I’d inadvertently crashed his date. A date that had obviously gone on so late that Marie was knackered the next day and had been forced to wear her glasses instead of contact lenses to give her tired eyes a break. A sudden flare of anger coursed through me and I wanted to punch the wall. I didn’t, of course, because I didn’t want to add a broken hand to the list of things my bloody psychologist would ask me about. I’d had enough of Miss Nosy Pants poking around in my head. And look what it had resulted in—me overstepping the mark and getting all dominant on her, followed by a bit of a meltdown.
For someone who was meant to be helping me work out my so-called issues so I could play world-class tennis with no distractions, she was doing an absolutely horrendous job. If anything, she was filling my head with more crap and reawakening the side of me that I’d locked away when I’d boarded that plane at Heathrow and jetted off to my new life. Some fucking psychologist she was.
*
By the time I got back to my flat, my mood had darkened further, purely because the more I thought about the Marie situation, the crazier I got. I needed to talk to someone, someone who would understand. Wouldn’t judge. God, things had to be bad if I was voluntarily considering this kind of conversation with someone. Most of the time I’d rather have red-hot needles poked into my eyes. But Kevin was different. We were best friends for a reason.
I picked up the handset for the landline phone, then glanced at my watch. Did some mental calculations. It would be 10:00 p.m. in the UK. He’d still be up. Probably with Elle. I squeezed my eyes closed, berating myself. One problem at a time, Travis. Concentrate on the issue that isn’t eight time zones and nearly five and a half thousand miles away.
I opened my eyes. Pressed the reset button on the phone, dialed the number, remembering to add the country code before punching in the familiar digits. I waited.
Then, “Hello?”
“Hey, mate, it’s me.”
“Me?” A pause, then, “Travis?”
“Yep.”
“Hey, how are you? It’s good to hear from you.”
“I’m…okay. How are you?” Why the hell had I said that? I was far from okay, which is why I was phoning him in the first place!
“I’m fine, thanks, Travis. But I can tell by the tone of your voice that you’re not. What’s up? Homesick?”
“Not exactly. How’s Elle doing?”
“She’s fine. But don’t change the damn subject. Is it a woman that’s got you all riled up?”
“Got it in two.” I laughed but it was a hollow sound.
“Okay, so what’s the problem then?”
I told him everything. About how there’d been something about Marie from the very moment I met her. How I hadn’t been able to put a finger on my feelings until she went out with Peter. The accidental date gate-crashing incident. And last, but certainly not least, the hair-pulling thing.
“Fuck,” Kevin said when I’d finished speaking. There was silence for a few seconds, then, “You’ve really fucked up there, haven’t you?”
“I really have, Kev. I’m expecting the police to barge my door down any minute now.”
“No, I don’t think that will happen. I don’t think she’ll have told anybody.”
“You don’t?”
“Nope. She’ll be reeling from the whole thing, for sure, but she’ll be even more confused about the fact she enjoyed it. That’s the element that will keep her quiet. She’ll be so preoccupied with th
inking about pain and why she liked it that it won’t even occur to her to tell anyone else, let alone get you into trouble.”
I paused, letting his words sink in. It made sense. Kevin pretty much always made sense. I nodded, forgetting he couldn’t see me. I’d have to get Skype set up on my laptop soon so we could do a video chat. Then it might be easier to forget that my best mate, the only person who really knew me, was so far away.
“I think you could be right. Surely someone would have found me by now. And if not, they’d have been ringing my mobile to find out where I was. So what do I do now?”
“What do you mean what do you do now? Celebrate the fact that you’ve been a colossal twat and gotten away with it, obviously.”
I laughed. “Yes, obviously. But I didn’t mean that. I meant what do I do about her?About Marie.”
“Sorry, Travis, got the wrong end of the stick there. Well, what do you want to do? Do you like her? Think she could be, um, shall we say…complementary to your tastes?”
“Based on what happened earlier, I think there’s more to her than even she knows. If I can dig a little deeper, then yes, I think she could definitely be complementary to my tastes, as you put it.”
Kevin tsked. “And to think she comes from a country known for its obsession with spanking. She must have led a very sheltered life. And had some very dull and unadventurous lovers. Poor woman. You need to show her what is possible, the true heights of pleasure that can be achieved.”
“I’d love to. But you have to remember that not everyone is as liberal as you and I, Kevin. We’ve experienced some of the finest pleasures known to man. We’re very lucky.”
Kevin chuckled. “I couldn’t agree more. But I have to ask, mate, are you still experiencing those pleasures?”
Fuck. I should have known he’d ask. “W-what do you mean?”
“You know damn well what I mean. Are you getting any over there?”
“Er, not exactly.”
There was a pregnant pause and I could just imagine Kevin raising his eyebrows at me down the phone, then twisting his face into an expectant expression as he waited for my reply.
“No, Kevin, I’m not. I’m not getting any at all, never mind the more…particular kind of sexual satisfaction you and I are partial to.”
“What! You’re not even getting any vanilla sex?”
I rolled my eyes. “No.”
“My God, what the hell is wrong with you? You’re the world’s best tennis player. You’re a fucking celebrity, Travis. You should have women throwing themselves at you, fighting over you. Queuing at your damn door!”
“Well, I haven’t.” I was feeling quite pissed off by then. “And that’s the way I want it. Or at least it was, until I started liking Marie.”
“I don’t follow. Are you trying to say you’ve taken a vow of chastity or something?”
“Not exactly. I haven’t taken a formal vow or anything. I just told myself that when I left London for a new life over here, I’d put all the kinky stuff behind me. It scares too many women off, Kev, and I don’t want to suddenly shack up with the wrong woman who then blurts all the ins and outs of my private life to the media. It could cost me my career. At least over there, I always had the security of Satiate being so focused on its members’ privacy, so any woman I met in the club, I knew that we had the same sort of sexual interests and that she wouldn’t go blabbing. Over here, I haven’t got a fucking clue what’s going on or who to trust.”
There was silence for a few seconds and I knew Kevin was thinking about what he could say to help me. The amount of time it took him to reply told me that the answer wasn’t going to be straightforward.
“I’m sorry you’re having trouble, mate, but I can’t help but think you’ve done the wrong thing. You can’t just ignore the kinks that really get you off—as you’ve already demonstrated with the whole Marie incident. I’m not saying you should walk along Santa Monica Pier swinging a set of handcuffs and a whip, but people all over the world like BDSM. You’ll find someone to scratch your itch and you must. If not, you’ll never be satisfied. Never be truly happy. You’re in L.A., for God’s sake. There are bound to be clubs over there. Decent clubs that are as privacy and security conscious as Satiate, that also make their members sign confidentiality contracts. Celebrities—besides you, I mean—live there and some of them must be into kink. But you don’t see that splashed all over the news, do you?”
“No, I guess not.”
“Cheer up, Trav, it’s not the end of the world. I’ll get in touch with some of my contacts, try and find out where the kinky people in L.A. go to have fun. Okay?”
“Okay,” I replied, my tone heavy with reluctance. I knew Kevin was only trying to help, which was why I’d phoned him in the first place. But if I was honest with myself, he was telling me stuff I didn’t want to hear. About not being able to ignore my dark side. He was right, of course, which was why I wasn’t happy about it. I’d really hoped I could shove all that crap into a big box in the corner of my psyche, wrap thick chains around it and secure it with a huge padlock so it would never escape. Then maybe I could have met a nice girl and had a normal relationship. But I knew now it had been wishful thinking.
Kevin interrupted my melancholy thoughts. “Hey. While I’m finding out about L.A.’s BDSM hotspots, why don’t you do yourself a favor?”
“What?”
“Follow your heart—and your cock—with that woman. Marie. If you’re right about her, all your problems could be solved. You’ll both get what you want, and it sounds as though she knows how to be discreet. It’s part of her job, after all. Even if it doesn’t work out long-term, at least you know she’ll keep quiet about it.”
“Hmm.”
“Don’t you ‘hmm’ me, Trav. You know I’m right. And you clearly want her. So just go and get what you want, see how it goes. What’s the worst that can happen?”
I didn’t even want to contemplate the answer to that question.
“Thanks, Kev. Thanks for talking to me, helping me out. You’re a good friend.”
“I know. Just remember what I said, all right?”
I didn’t ask which part he meant. I knew he was talking about Marie. Going after her. It was all well and good him giving me a verbal nudge in that direction, but it was easier said than done. At that moment in time she probably wanted to rip my head off and stuff it up my arse, not talk to me about what had happened and why.
Then there was the small matter of her dating my fucking coach.
*
Knowing Marie’s habits of wandering into the men’s changing rooms at the Academy, I hadn’t showered there after my swim. I didn’t want her to find me. Instead I’d gotten dressed and gone home still damp. Now though, I stripped off and threw my clothes into the wash basket. I needed a shower, obviously, but I was also hoping it would do what the swim hadn’t managed to do—clear my mind and help me figure out a way to clean up the mess I was in.
Once the spray had reached temperature, I stepped into the cubicle and pulled the door shut behind me. Closing my eyes, I turned my face to the jets of water and stood there a while, then turned and soaked my whole body before reaching for the shampoo. I scrubbed my hair and rinsed, then grabbed the shower gel and did the same with the rest of me. I was on autopilot, which left me plenty of brain power to try to work out how I was going to rectify my predicament.
Should I take Kevin’s advice and try to talk to her—outside of the academy and our professional personas? Or should I just pretend the whole thing had never happened? Somehow those options tied in with whether my inner Dominant should re`emerge or not. If I went after Marie, I was being led by my kinky sexual desires—and every other iota of me, mental, emotional and physical that wanted her. And if I didn’t, then I would be hiding. Hiding a huge part of my personality and denying myself the things that I wanted the most, aside from success in my career.
When the thought popped into my head, a sudden feeling of dread crept across my
skin. Shit, what if the two things were linked? When London had been my home, I’d felt able to live my sex life exactly the way I wanted to. Yes, I’d been away a lot, traveling the world for matches and so on, but I’d always had Satiate—and Elle—to come back to. If Elle hadn’t been around, there had been plenty of other girls available to, well, satiate my needs.
At that time in my life I had been at the top of my game. It wasn’t ego speaking, it was facts and statistics, simple as that.
Then there’d been the accident and my life had been turned upside down. Before I knew it, I’d made the decision to pull up sticks and move to the other side of the planet to ensure I had every chance possible to get back to the top of my game—literally. In doing that, I’d left behind a very important part of me. Now I was wondering if I’d made the right decision.
What if denying myself what I really wanted sexually was preventing me from getting back to peak fitness? What if my subconscious cravings were holding me down because not giving in to them was taking up the mental strength that I needed to get my career back on track?
Call me cold, call me single-minded, selfish, whatever. But it was that thought that helped me make my decision.
Whether it was with or without Marie, I was going to allow my Dominant side out to play again. And soon.
Chapter Seven
A repetitive thwack, thwack, thwack echoed around the corridor that led to the academy’s main outdoor court. I hesitated but only briefly, because all yesterday evening and this morning I’d been telling myself this had to be done.
Travis couldn’t get away with ducking out of forty-five minutes of session. No matter what had happened, he needed to get his sexy arse back into my office so we could finish off what we’d started.
No, not what we’d started. What I’d started. Going through his history, that was. Nothing else. Honest.
I checked the zipper on my smart black trousers, a nervous habit of old, tugged down the hem of my cream silky t-shirt and stepped from the cool of the shade into the heat of midday.