by Lilia Moon
Which isn’t what I need to be thinking about right now, because there are two people in this room who know even less than I do about what’s going on. I look over at where Meghan and Gabby are sitting. Neither of them looks panicky. Yet.
Gabby considers a moment and then smiles. “I’m a grandmother.”
A very sexy, forty-three-year-old one. “I don’t think the club has an age limit.” Not an upper one, anyhow.
She shakes her head, still smiling. “It means I don’t judge anyone, and I assume that’s why they want us to take the tour, right?”
Leo blows out quiet breath of relief. Of all of us, he’s spent the least time with our new receptionist.
Scorpio slides her chair over and slings an arm around Gabby’s shoulders. “The tour is no big deal. I’ll pull up some pictures online, give you some idea of what you’re likely to see.”
That’s wise and kind and several other things I don’t have the wits to be this morning.
“I’ve got pictures,” says Leo quietly. “I photograph some of the club events.”
Gabby gives him an appreciative look. “I’d like to see them, thank you. And if you could tell me a few things so that I don’t offend anyone, I’d be really grateful for that too.”
Leo’s face melts into a gentle smile. “Just be you, sweetie. Everyone will know you’re new, and they’ll be really happy to explain anything you want.”
“We’ll hook her up with Doxy.” Scorpio’s doing her usual job now, taking care of backroom logistics.
I let her. I’m busy watching the eyes of my best friend since third grade. Meghan has that very neutral look on her face that she only pulls out when she has no idea what to think and she doesn’t want a client to know. I try to imagine her standing on the wall in the dungeon where I was two nights ago and I simply can’t.
Then again, I couldn’t have imagined me there either.
Meghan’s issues will be different, though. She’s always been more open-minded than I am, but she likes to be on familiar ground. Fettered is going to toss her adrift into a sea she doesn’t know, and she’s not the team’s best swimmer by a long shot. I need to help her find comfortable footing here somehow so that she can do what she does best and help everyone else find theirs.
I find myself glancing at Scorpio, hoping she has something to pull out of her bag. It’s a big role reversal, but today she feels like the one who has the compass.
She nods her head a little and picks up her phone. “I can set something up with Ari and Doxy this afternoon, does that work for you guys?”
It’s a move of casual brilliance. My business partner excels at saying yes, and Ari’s bright, gregarious self-confidence will be exactly what Meghan needs. One life of the party helping another to find her feet—so that she can hold things together while I get swept off mine.
Chapter Seventeen
Damon
This place is a mess. I look around the playroom in my condo and wonder what Emily will think of my home. I bought it because of the excellent soundproofing. I keep it because of the light.
There are private dungeons at the club if I want dark and dangerous. Here, I play with daylight streaming through the windows and a view of the city below. The windows are coated so no one can see in, but I try to forget that part. Let them look. I’ve never been embarrassed about who I am.
It isn’t a playroom for the faint of heart—that’s not usually who I bring here. I’ve got one of Milo’s custom-designed chairs in the corner, all classy leather and even classier restraints. I’d love to see Emily spread open for me, but I don’t want her to panic. Not yet. I push the buttons on the chair that start up the motors and watch as the chair reforms itself into something that looks like it might belong in a very comfortable study. Milo’s a freaking genius, but he’s a discreet one.
I walk over to the big banquette that does double duty as a window seat and toy storage and pull open a drawer at random. Thinking. Wondering if I might send Emily in here to discover some things for herself.
Or to pick what I get to do to her next. It’s one of my favorite games with subs. I like it when they surprise me.
I’m pretty sure Emily’s not going to pick the anal plug as big as her fist.
The drawers have trays, so I pull out the top one and start reorganizing. Newbie toys on top, the rest I’ll tuck underneath.
Okay, maybe I’ll leave in a few things that will probably scare the heck out of my overly contained schoolteacher, but that’s pretty much the whole point of this upcoming encounter.
If she shows up.
The wait is hammering me. One more day.
I finger the set of anal beads and imagine sliding them in between her hot ass cheeks, one at a time. And then I imagine pulling them out, and it makes me hard enough I have to shift the tray off my lap. I grin and dump the beads in the top tray. They’re purple—maybe she’ll think they’re cute.
I pick up a tube of lube and roll my eyes. The marketing on this stuff is not aimed at schoolteachers, contained or otherwise. I choose a couple of bottles that look fairly harmless and drop them in beside the anal beads, a couple of my smaller plugs, and a vibrator that looks like a mutant goldfish and carries more power in its head than the average drill.
Not that I think I’m going to need it, especially if I’m denying poor Emily an orgasm for as long as I intend to. The goldfish would be playing dirty on that one. I slide it into a lower tray and close up the drawer of anal play gear. I engage the locks on a couple of the other drawers, dismissing them as possibilities entirely. The locks are there so that I don’t freak out the nice lady who cleans for me a couple of times a month, but I don’t want Emily sucked into them either.
It occurs to me that it might not be her I’m protecting.
I try to see the contents of my drawers through newbie eyes. I’m not at all sure they look like the playthings of a decent guy. I’m astonished that I care.
The restraints drawer is easy. Soft stuff only. Ribbons, silk, the softest of my soft leather bindings and cuffs. This time it’s definitely her I’m protecting. I know what’s going to happen when I start adding fuel to the fire I saw burning under her skin, and I don’t want her to leave marks on herself from her thrashing. An experienced sub knows to relax into the restraints, how to work with them. Emily doesn’t know a damn thing.
I pull out a couple of options to add to what’s already in my bedroom.
The last drawer on the right makes me hesitate. Nipple clamps and vibrators. The clamps aren’t anything I’d usually consider for a beginner, but I’ve seen Emily’s eyes, seen what she watches, seen what she looks like when she’s aroused. If nipples aren’t one of her key erogenous zones I’ll eat my Fettered membership card—and at some point, she isn’t going to want me to be gentle.
I reach for a couple of the mildest pairs of clamps I own. It’s good to be prepared.
The vibrators I consider and then leave in the bottom trays. If Emily gets herself off like she says she does, I’ll bet that’s what she uses, and I don’t want any of this to feel comfortable or familiar. She’ll find my hands a whole lot harder to compartmentalize or ignore.
Whatever else happens while she’s here, she won’t be ignoring me. Or herself.
I get up from the drawers and gather the basics of aftercare within easy reach of the chair. Blankets, water, a cozy robe. The plan is to play on my bed, but if things need shaking up, then Milo’s chair just might get some action—in stealth mode. I’ll unveil its hidden secrets if Emily comes back.
I already know I want her to. And I know how dangerous that is.
I don’t even know if she’s going to show up.
I step back and look around. A weirdly empty corner where the spanking bench usually lives, but one of the club ones broke and Quint’s running Paddling 101 this weekend. It’s fine—I don’t need a bench.
The thought of Emily squirming on my lap as I introduce her to the wonders of my hand meeting her ass is
making me hard again. I’d better get used to it. Monday might well be harder on me than it is on her.
If she shows up.
I can’t think about that now. I take one last look around the room. Love seat, mood lighting, music system, two rows of bookshelves in warm wood that join with the sunlight to make this my happy place.
It looks more or less like a library now—a really sunny, sexy one. I contemplate the shelves of books and wonder if I need to hide anything there. It’s mostly classy stuff—vintage European porn, erotic memoirs, my Isaac Asimov collection. Some BDSM technique manuals, but I don’t imagine my schoolteacher will find those nearly as enticing or as alarming as the photographs of the sexy and very risqué French ladies who know what they want and aren’t afraid to ask for it.
I pull out one of my favorite books and flip it open randomly to a page with a woman on the brink of orgasm, sprawled on the bed with her hands on her nipples and her lover’s head between her legs.
She looks way too much like Emily.
And I’m not supposed to let her come. Well, officially she’s supposed to stop herself, but it’s my job to help her find her way with that, which means that most of the forms of torture I’d like to apply to that sweet skin between her legs are going to have to be off limits. I’m a fair Dom, even if it might torment me worse than it does her.
No orgasms. For an entire day and night. I close my eyes and lean against the bookcase.
I’m beginning to think this is a really dumb plan.
Chapter Eighteen
Emily
I turn down the street Damon lives on and try to empty my head.
The last three days have been a blur. Three weddings, non-stop prep with Doxy and Scorpio, handing everything else off to Gabby so that I can disappear for twenty-four hours without the world crumbling.
I never take this much time off in the middle of our busiest season, especially incommunicado—and not one person has asked a single question about where I’m going or what I’m doing or why I’m abandoning them in their time of need. Which means that word has traveled, because my team is never this united in their silence. Ever.
Sending Meghan and Gabby to hang out with Doxy and Ari was probably a bad idea. They chatted over tea and chocolate croissants and now they’re all fast friends, if the speed at which Doxy’s wedding is coming together is any indication. Obviously they didn’t visit the same dungeon I did.
I’ve spent five days wondering why Damon Black walked me through those particular doors.
And five days wondering why I didn’t walk right back out of them.
I smooth down the yellow sundress I picked out of my closet this morning. I have no idea what to wear to the condo of Seattle’s sexiest Dom. I’ve Googled him. The Internet tells me he’s mysterious, charismatic, and fond of wooing reporters and bloggers with his talk of sex and ethics and desire.
I could have told them that much.
I barely slept last night. I kept waking up from fitful dreams of his hands on my skin.
I take a deep breath—none of this is going to help me walk in his front door. My feet are very sure they’re going in. The rest of me isn’t nearly so convinced. I know if I spend twenty-four hours with Damon Black, I’m going to come out a different woman, and not just because I’ve had an orgasm.
Or, if he has his way, if I don’t.
I laugh at myself. I’m already contemplating what the consequences might be if I come when he hasn’t given me permission. I completely expect him to blow away the detritus of the last fifteen years.
I’ve never come with a partner. I’ve had fun, but that’s different than shattering into a million pieces. I’ve also spent fifteen years thinking that’s not really a big deal. I’m hardly alone. In the polls I’ve seen, chocolate beats sex every time.
I’m pretty sure none of the women in Fettered’s dungeon would pick chocolate, and that, maybe more than anything else, is why I know I’m going to let my feet walk me into Damon’s hands.
I want to know what I’m missing.
Chapter Nineteen
Damon
I see her standing in my doorway and I want to ravish her. That’s my first thought. My cock jumps in next with very specific ideas of where and how and when.
I tell it to shut up.
She came. She’s here, and I’m going to keep the promises I made to her, even though she doesn’t really understand them yet. I’m going to help her meet the Emily Madigan who can be exactly the woman she wants to be with someone else. With me.
Starting right now.
I know how to train a sub, even if it’s just for twenty-four hours. We did the talk, we have the terms, we made our deal. Now it’s my job to walk her through it, and it needs to start with her trusting the hell out of me to do that for her. Which means I need to kick any other sense of safety she has right now totally to the curb.
I meet her eyes, and it’s her Dom looking at her now.
She trembles. I see her chin float down an inch and then she yanks it back up.
Good. She remembers. I put my hand on her shoulder, run it around to the back of her neck. Contact. Anchoring. I’m about to become everything in her world. “No talking unless I ask you a question.”
I can feel her skin under my hand, flushing with heat. It’s totally gorgeous, and I want to see more of it. I survey the simple yellow sundress that’s about as far away from kink attire as you can get. Emily’s version of armor.
She probably thought she’d get to wear it. “Do you remember your safewords?”
She nods.
“Talk to me, Emily.”
“Yes.” She gulps. “Sir. Yellow for slow, red for stop.”
Good enough. I wave my hand at her dress. “Take it off.”
Her eyes fly to my face, and then she cranes her neck to see out the open door behind her.
There are no neighbors on this floor, but she doesn’t need to know that. What she needs to do is listen. “Emily.” I put the whip crack of serious Dom in my voice. “Strip. Now.”
Her hands fly up before her brain realizes it objects.
I keep my palm wrapped around her sexy, lithe neck. I don’t want her comfortable.
She’s quivering as she lowers a strap off her shoulder. Her teeth bite down on her lower lip, trying to hold back the words of protest.
She’s trying, and that matters—but she’s turning this into the kind of drawn-out battle I refuse to let her have. I lean forward and whisper in her ear. I already know that with her, it’s not going to be about volume. “The slower you get naked, the longer your spanking is going to last.”
Her breath hisses out like someone just stabbed a hole in the side of one of those bouncy castles at the county fair. I reach around behind her with the hand that isn’t on her neck and undo her zipper. I don’t speak again—I meant every word I said about that spanking.
Except the part where anything she can do might make it shorter. I plan to take my long, sweet time with her ass.
She reaches up for her straps, hands shaking again. And then I feel her straighten a little under my hands. I don’t move. In the end, every sub needs to choose. She knows how to stop this.
I already know she doesn’t want to. She might be shaking like hell, but the signs of arousal are everywhere.
She pushes the straps off her shoulders and stands absolutely still as the dress flutters to the floor, stroking her like sunlight on the way down.
I’m jealous. Of some stupid yellow fabric. But stroking her isn’t what she needs right now. Not yet. First she needs to believe that my hands can break her—and that they can put her back together again.
It’s time to shatter the container that’s trying to keep Emily safe.
I run my finger under the strap of the blue silk bra she’s wearing. She probably thought she’d get to wear that for a while too. “This. Off.” I reach down for the matching panties and slide my fingers under the waistband.
Her breath hitches, a
nd the sound that comes out of her is as sexy as it gets.
I let my fingers travel further down. Slowly. This all happens on my time. To my beat.
She’s soaking wet. I can smell her, practically taste her.
The moment when I finally let this woman come in my hands is going to be one of the highlights of my fucking life.
For now I’m just going to treat myself to the first taste. I slide one finger between her folds, my other hand steadying the back of her neck. I’m all that’s holding her up now, and I want her to feel it. Know it. I let my finger travel into her wet heat, just far enough to take a slow circle around her clit and back out again. She moans as I slide in. Whimpers as I leave.
Making her beg is going to be easy.
Saying no is going to suck.
I trail my wet finger slowly up her belly and then lift it to my mouth and suck.
Her eyes are mesmerized.
I’m not wrong about how amazing she tastes. “You’re not naked yet, Emily.” I reach down and squeeze one beautiful ass cheek. “I’m going to enjoy making you pay for that.” I’m careful with my language, like she asked me to be. There are ways to bring the dynamics of punishment into play without using the words.
Judging from the blush working its way up her face and down her neck, she’s not going to be arguing linguistics anytime soon.
I step back far enough that she can easily see my face. She doesn’t dodge my gaze. Slowly, she reaches behind herself, unhooks her bra, and lets it fall.
Her breasts are gorgeous, her nipples already so tight and erect that they’re just begging for my clamps. I let my eyes travel down. I want her to see how much I love what she’s giving to me. Some Doms aren’t very appreciative, but they’re idiots. All of this is a gift, every last inch of it.
Her fingers are already pushing down on her soaking wet panties. I watch them slide to the ground, hear her take her first decent breath since the door opened.