Watching the woman’s transformation from a loving wife to a devoted submissive who would crawl across broken glass to please her Dom touched Muriel on a cellular level. Her inner submissive cried out with need, and Muriel squeezed her eyelids shut to stop the tears stinging the backs of her eyes from making an escape.
An ache in her hand drew her attention away from the couple and down to where she’d latched onto Lucas’s forearm so tightly her knuckles were white. She snapped her gaze to his, not the least bit surprised to find him watching her intently, knowingly.
Music from the bar flooded the lobby as the couple opened the doors and disappeared inside, leaving Muriel alone with Lucas and his all-seeing gaze. She released his arm and squeezed her eyes shut again. She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t go in there…
She couldn’t leave without at least giving it a try.
“I’m sorry,” she said weakly as she brushed the wrinkles out of his sleeve. “I’m so confused. I know I need to get back into the game of life, but I don’t know how.”
He linked his fingers with hers and brought her hand to his lips. “You take baby steps and let us help you find your way. Being here is a good start.” He stepped behind her and removed her coat, then handed it over to Chrissie. Returning to Muriel, he wrapped his arm around her shoulders and squeezed. “Everyone here loves you, and no one will allow any harm—physical or emotional—to come to you. You know that, right?”
“I know. I could never go anywhere else and do this.”
“There’s no need to go anywhere else.” A wicked shimmer lit his eyes, causing a surge of panic to mix with excitement and create a massive dose of trepidation. But before she could put the brakes on her rubbery legs and stop the forward momentum, he opened the door, pulled her into the cavernous interior of Pandora’s Playground, and said, “Everything you need is right here.”
Mathew Galindo always figured he was on the fast track to hell, and tonight’s fun and games would certainly be an up-close and personal preview of the misery and suffering the fiery depths would bring. Nothing screamed WELCOME TO HELL louder than having everything he ever wanted laid in the palms of his hands. But rather than holding the precious gift close to his heart to keep and cherish forever, he would be forced to open his fingers and let the promise of salvation sift through like dry sand.
Jesus.
He scrubbed his hands over his face and huffed with seething frustration. How would he ever get through the night with the little bit of humanity he’d managed to retain over the years still intact?
The beam of light from the lobby slashing across the club’s hardwood floor as the door opened, along with the gasp of surprise and ripple of excitement rolling through the crowd, told him the guest of honor had arrived.
But he didn’t needed to see, hear, or feel any of those things to know his personal Kryptonite was nearby. The burning in his chest from his seized lungs and the beads of sweat rolling down the back of his neck were warning enough.
Anytime Muriel got within fifty feet, his molecular makeup shifted and instantly realigned to her frequency. His body honed in on her like a guided missile, and no matter where she was or how hard he tried to fight the pull, he stayed locked on her until she left the premises.
She hadn’t taken more than ten steps into the club before the members swarmed. Standing just inside the doors, the light from the EXIT sign cast an unholy red glow over her blond hair and pale dress—which was appropriate for how he viewed the evening, but the image was entirely wrong for her. She might be the tormentor of his soul and the reason his life was a living hell, but she was the closest thing to an angel he would ever see.
Her long, blond hair, brilliant blue eyes, and dazzling smile caught the attention of anyone within sight. But her wide-open heart and deeply compassionate nature gave her an ethereal glow that drew people in and kept them captivated.
From the stark contrast of their physical appearances—her blond hair to his dark, her blue eyes to his brown—to the cool, emotionless void of his inner being, she was his opposite in every way.
The first time he set eyes on her, her light pierced his cold, black heart and he’d instantly recognized her as his mate.
The problem was she’d been on his best friend’s arm, laughing at his witty charm and looking at him with adoring eyes, completely oblivious to Mathew’s presence. Before their dinner date, Ian brought Muriel with him when he stopped by to shower and change clothes at the apartment he and Mathew shared. He’d asked Mathew to keep her company in his absence, and he’d been thrilled to act as Ian’s stand-in.
Hell, he’d been tempted to shove Ian out the third-story bathroom window, tell Muriel the bastard bolted, and take her to dinner himself. But it was obvious by the way her eyes lit up at the mention of Ian’s name that she was as into his friend as Ian was her, so Mathew stood in the back corner of the kitchen and watched his best friend walk out the door with the girl of his dreams. Then he hit the corner bar for some serious malt therapy.
Thirteen years later, she still had the same effect on him. The only difference was, rather than being Ian’s date, she was his wife. Mathew squeezed his eyes shut and swallowed roughly. Correction… Ian’s widow.
And Mathew was still a son of a bitch for coveting her.
Lucas, however, was an even bigger SOB for making Mathew an accessory in tonight’s scheme.
“We need to get Muriel back in the game,” Lucas said late one night the previous week while at the club, working on their secret project.
Mathew froze, an awkward addition to the life-size replica of the Three Graces Statue he and Lucas had just settled in place. Intuition told him what Lucas insinuated, but there was no way in hell he could be an active participant in any kind of plan involving Muriel.
Needing to respond in some way so he didn’t look like an even bigger idiot, he forced his limbs to move and stiffly walked to the crate the statue had been packed in. Shoving the broken packing material and wooden support brackets into the shipping container, he said, “How do you propose we do that?”
“When we reveal the Roman tubs, we’ll use the evening as an opportunity to draw her out of the shell she’s crawled into. Who better to reintroduce her to the lifestyle than us? She’s more comfortable with us than anyone. We’ve played with her before, and she trusts us. We need to do this for her.”
No… no-no-no-no-no, Mathew silently screamed while panic clawed at his chest.
Throwing the pieces into the container with far more force than he intended, he ground out a correction. “She’s played with you, never with me.”
Lucas huffed. “Because you never showed up at their play parties.”
Damn right, Mathew thought as he ground his teeth and watched Muriel mingle with friends from his reasonably safe distance across the room.
“Playing with Muriel” was an oxymoron as far as he was concerned and was a line he’d resolved, years before, to never cross.
Where she was concerned, sex, especially when combined with Dominance and submission, wasn’t a game. She took it seriously, and if she were his submissive, so would he. He’d always known if he ever “played” with Muriel, he would play for keeps—her marriage to his best friend be damned.
Yeah… he was that big of a bastard.
So for that reason, he’d dodged invitations to Ian and Muriel’s play parties and usually found a reason to be out of town so he didn’t look like a complete ass for always declining. He’d gone out of his way to ensure he never found himself in this kind of hellish situation.
The first time Lucas broached the subject of easing Muriel back into the lifestyle, Mathew skirted around it. During subsequent conversations, he politely declined, claiming Muriel would be more comfortable with Lucas alone, especially since she’d never been with Mathew or, as far as he knew, two men at once.
But Lucas did what he always does—twisted things so even though Mathew knew he was being manipulated, he still capitulated and agreed
to the massively fucked-up plan.
Basically, Lucas asked Mathew to tie himself to the train track, then engineer the train that would leave him emotionally mutilated and scarred for life. Hell, it would be easier and less painful to turn himself over to an evil Domme for six hours of cock and ball torture.
His gaze slid to Mistress Sadie and her boy toy of the week. He winced as she grabbed his nuts and squeezed until the poor boy stood on tiptoes, gasping for breath, apologizing profusely for whatever offense had her so angry.
Okay, fuck that. Mathew wasn’t into pain—giving or receiving—and in the end, he’d only be switching out one kind of misery for another. He might as well keep rolling with the emotional ass-kicking he’d grown accustomed to over the years. That, at least, he knew how to handle.
At least he thought he did.
He’d convinced himself he could man up and get through the evening, for the most part, unscathed. As soon as his feet hit the floor this morning, he began reciting his new mantra—Keep your emotional distance—and kept repeating it throughout the day until it became an unconscious mental loop.
By the time he arrived at the club, he felt pretty good about his ability to pull off the impossible task of working with Lucas to remind Muriel of her place at the club. To convince her it was safe to come back to the home away from home she loved so much. It wasn’t the same without Ian around, but it was still a great place to be with friends.
But as he stood off to the side and watched the members of the club welcome her back, he realized he might’ve been overconfident in his abilities to see this through.
The persistent hollowness in his chest, along with his innate ability to be ruthless in the courtroom, convinced him years ago he no longer had a heart. But as he watched the lights of the bar glimmer off her golden hair, he was forced to face the truth.
The painful, erratic thumping in his chest was his cold, long-forgotten heart, and he was a damned liar. There was no way he could pull this off tonight without being completely eviscerated.
And then he truly would become nothing more than an empty shell.
Chapter 2
As soon as Lucas opened the doors and ushered Muriel inside, she became surrounded by longtime club members who were also some of her closet friends. She found herself completely overwhelmed—not with the emotional instability she’d expected, but by an avalanche of love and support that drove away her previous fears and left her with nothing but love and acceptance.
Always the protector, Lucas stepped in close and wrapped his arm around her waist, ready to sweep her away if the crowd became too much. But she didn’t want to go anywhere. These were her friends… Ian’s friends. And although their grief differed from hers, they’d been hurting too. And she’d been wrong to avoid them for so long.
The hugs and smiles lifted her spirits, and before she knew it, her concerns about being back at the club vanished. By the time the crowd started to thin, the heavy sadness that had been her constant companion for the past eleven months dissipated, and she found herself floating on a cloud of joy.
But as the last of the well-wishers moved away and she caught sight of Ian’s best friend and the third owner of Pandora’s Playground, Mathew Galindo, her exhilaration evaporated. The white cloud of love and adoration she’d been floating on turned dark and heavy, and she sank to the ground in a suffocating fog.
The way his dark-brown hair fell in a loose curl over his forehead reminded her of a mischievous little boy, always up to no good but too damned cute to ever get in serious trouble. His dark eyes, however, told a different story. They were often menacing, with the intensity and awareness of a wise old man who’d witnessed life’s uglier side and whose soul had barely survived to tell the tale.
Leaning against one of the balcony’s support beams, his ankles and arms loosely crossed, his face a neutral mask, he projected a calm, relaxed presence. However, under the still surface lay a tempestuous and dangerous rip current that could sweep away a woman before she even realized she was in trouble.
From their very first meeting, she’d been captivated by his ever-changing tides. Her heart had always belonged to Ian, but there was something strangely compelling about Mathew. She’d never understood his magnetic pull, but when he was nearby, her body hummed with excitement and her emotional state tilted off-kilter and wobbled like an out-of-balance tire.
He, however, wasn’t influenced by the same cosmic pull and seemed barely able to tolerate her presence.
He and Ian had been as close as brothers, but over the years, Mathew grew increasingly withdrawn and distant. They worked out together when their schedules allowed, and they saw each other at the club for business meetings, but Mathew rarely attended functions if Muriel was present. The only time he came to their home was on holidays to visit Ian’s family, and he’d been so uptight and uncomfortable no one was surprised when he ran out the door at the first opportunity.
She didn’t know why he disliked her so much, and she hated the wedge she’d inadvertently driven between them. In hopes of apologizing for whatever she’d said or done to offend Mathew, she asked Ian about it once.
He’d laughed at her question, kissed her forehead, and said, “Silly girl, don’t you know everyone loves you?”
Completely enamored with her, Ian wrongly assumed the rest of the world was as well. When he tried to reassure her the problem wasn’t with her, but with Mathew—He’s just doing what he does best, being the isle of Matt—she rolled her eyes and let the subject drop.
But in the immediate aftermath of Ian’s passing, she saw a side of Mathew she hadn’t known existed. Despite his own devastating grief, a great reservoir of love, compassion, and understanding rose to the surface. In the span of a breath—the deep breath he took on her doorstep right before he and Lucas delivered the heartbreaking news—they’d built a bridge over the chasm that had divided them for so long.
But after the funeral, when life returned to normal for everyone else, the bridge collapsed, and he, for the most part, disappeared from her life again. She saw him when they had legal issues to discuss, but other than that, he remained notably absent.
Ian would’ve hated the distance between them. He’d chosen Mathew as his best man because he believed Mathew would always be there for her. In fact, his exact words had been, If anything ever happens to me, I know Mathew will take care of you… in every way.
She dropped her gaze to the floor and shivered as she recalled the conversation and the gleam in Ian’s eyes. She hadn’t wanted to talk about such things—no one ever did—but she’d thought back to that night a hundred times over the past eleven months.
It was like he’d had a premonition his life would end early, and he’d been trying to share some great secret about Mathew with her. She hadn’t understood then, mostly because she’d shut down and refused to continue the conversation. And in the months since Ian’s passing, despite hours of contemplation, she hadn’t gotten any closer to figuring out his reasoning.
When she glanced at Mathew again, she had to fight the urge to flinch. The neutral expression he’d worn moments earlier was gone and a deep scowl marred his handsome face. She’d always thought Ian was brilliant and never wrong about anything. But he’d obviously been mistaken to believe Mathew would have any interest in taking care of her—especially sexually, which she sensed was his intention.
“Okay,” Lucas said to the few club members still standing around. “Mathew and I have something special to share with Muriel, so if you’ll excuse us.” When she turned wide, questioning eyes to him, he smiled and winked. “Did I forget to tell you about the new addition?”
Pandora’s was a kink club—not strictly for practitioners of the BDSM lifestyle—but he was a Dom and she was a sub. Those dynamics had always been a part of their relationship inside the club, so without thought, she automatically slipped into the role. “Yes, Sir. I think you did.”
Appearing smug and pleased with catching her off guard, his s
mile grew and his green eyes danced. “Huh. Well, I guess we should get to it, then.”
She tried to tell herself it was silly to be nervous and anxious around Mathew. Not only had he been Ian’s best friend—and Ian wouldn’t have been friends with him if he wasn’t a good guy—but in the immediate aftermath of Ian’s passing, she’d seen the soft, mushy center beneath the hardened shell he showed the world.
That knowledge, however, didn’t stop her stomach from twisting and knotting as Lucas pressed his hand to the small of her back and moved her across the lounge toward the hallway leading to the scene rooms… and Mathew.
As an architect and advocate for historical preservation, Lucas had been the brainchild behind converting the old theater into one of the Southeast’s most exclusive kink clubs. Ian and Mathew saw the vision as clearly as Lucas and agreed with maintaining as much of the building’s structural integrity as possible.
They removed the theater chairs, and the two center isles became hallways leading to scene rooms. All the rooms, with the exception of the Hall of Mirrors, had four walls but no ceiling. Since the building didn’t have a basement, the stage became a raised dungeon, and the balcony became a bar and observation deck, which allowed members to look down into the scene rooms. They also preserved the six private boxes that hung on the sidewalls, which could be reserved for private parties. The area between the scene rooms and lobby, where she’d been standing with Lucas, was a combination bar and lounge where members could mix and mingle and even dance, if so inclined. All in all, they’d done a spectacular job of maintaining the original ambiance of the old building, but they all agreed they’d never be invited to serve on the board of directors for the historical society.
As she and Lucas approached Mathew, a curvy brunette with a sweet smile and demure demeanor stepped up behind him and spoke. He obviously recognized her voice, because as he turned to greet her over his shoulder, a soft smile touched his mouth and the deep creases in his brow disappeared.
Coveted (Pandora's Playground #1) Page 2