by Gina Watson
“So you’re a fireman.” She squeezed his biceps with soft fingers. “That’s my favorite profession.”
It was the same thing every time. The women loved doctors, cops, firemen, and men in power jobs—lawyers and politicians. Or at least they said they did. The girl clinging to him was attractive enough with her bottle-blond hair and tight strapless dress, and he wondered what her story was. Everybody there had a story. Him included.
“I haven’t seen you in here before.”
“Alexis and I drove in from Arkansas.”
“Welcome.” He offered a slight smile. “You know what I do, but I don’t know what you do.”
She scoffed. “Are you feigning interest in me? Because you really don’t have to do that. Say the word, and you can do whatever you want. Augie said you’ve been doing this for years.”
“I have and trust me, I’ll have you trussed up like a blushing maiden at a renaissance fair in a matter of minutes. But tonight I also feel like a leisurely drink and maybe a little conversation.”
Her tongue darted out, wetting her bottom lip as she eyed him intensely. Then she pulled a narrow vial from her too perfect cleavage and opened it. A little white pill popped into her hand.
“What the hell is that?”
“Relax, big guy.” She slung it into her mouth and then had a swig from her wine glass. “It’s prescription Xanax.” She held the vial up. “Would you like one? Might help you relax.”
His shoulders tightened. “No.”
“Well, you definitely could use some pharmaceutical intervention.”
Okay, he officially did not like this chick.
She leaned into him and whispered, “I’m a rep. I’ve got you taken care of.”
He pulled away and pushed his palm out. “No, you don’t. I’m good.”
She shrugged. “Whatever.”
Clay looked at Augie, who was immersed in his full-on game of cocky, flirtatious big city sheriff. He had his gun out and was teaching the dark-haired Alexis how to aim. Every once in a while he’d lean in and whisper something that had her emitting a high-pitched squeal that Clay swore could shatter bulletproof glass.
As he took a swig from his beer, he hoped Augie set this up according to his parameters. Tonight of all nights he didn’t want surprises. The club had strict rules. If the girls were in, that meant they’d submitted to and passed a physical and medical examination, but had this girl checked out his dossier?
“So you read my profile?”
She nodded and sat up straighter in a pose he imagined she used in professional settings. “You’re not fond of talking, which is why this is so odd. I had in mind someone who would just sweep me off my feet and get down to business.”
Clay choked on a swallow of beer. Sweep her off her feet? He certainly hoped she didn’t imagine a little sex would lead to a happily ever after with a guy she met at the club. Especially not with him.
Brianna took his beer and set it on the table at their knees, smiling.
Damn, usually getting down to business was exactly what he did, what he wanted, but tonight when he’d walked in, he’d felt a little indifferent. As if he knew what he wanted wouldn’t be found at the Hoodoo Pot tonight.
Brianna patted his back, her blows too soft to be effective if he’d really needed her help. “You okay?” she asked.
He nodded.
“Let’s see… you don’t like talking”—she ticked the items off on her fingers—“no screaming, no postcoital care, no virgins, you like it hard and rough, and most important, you like to bind your partner.” She looked him in the eye. “That about cover it?”
He nodded. No one had quite put it like that to him before but yeah, that covered it. Usually when he took women in the club, they would let him do what he wanted, their bodies disconnected from their minds, eyes glazed, empty vessels wanting to be filled.
Had he wanted a real connection tonight? He’d never wanted that before, so he didn’t think that was it. Still the thought of looking into soulless eyes while he pounded one out was not as appealing to him as it usually was.
He took a good look at Brianna. Pretty, long blond hair, strong jaw, athletic figure. He wondered again why she would consent to his demands. “Can I ask you why you want sex like that?”
She smiled and lowered her eyes. “I think I like the idea of being bound, helpless, because during the day I have a pretty aggressive job. I don’t want to have to be the aggressor during sex.”
“That makes sense.” He took her wine glass, placed it on the table, and pulled her toward him on the bench. His gaze was intense, unblinking, but he needed her to know he was serious. “I expect you to abide by my profile rules.” He took a keycard from his pants pocket. “Room 4. Go get yourself ready for me.”
When she stood to walk away, Augie caught his eye and nodded. Whenever he met Augie at the club, things were less intense. He assumed that Augie, whom he trusted explicitly, settled his nerves. Augie was easygoing and undemanding. Right now his index finger pointed up into the air while he held Alexis’s attention, probably regaling her with some made-up bullshit about the stars and astrology. Predictably, she giggled. Clay shook his head and stood.
***
By the time Clay got to the room he’d reserved for the evening, Brianna had done everything he’d laid out in his file. She was naked except for her heels. She didn’t speak when he entered, and he was immediately aware that the spark in her personality, present earlier, was gone. She stood, head down, next to the table that held the eight-piece restraint he intended to use on her.
Since the dawn of his membership at the club, he hadn’t wanted sex to be any other way. At thirty-five, he was convinced he‘d found the answer to his discontent. He worked hard as a fireman and wanted to fuck even harder. For him, a woman who could keep up was a key component of his philosophy. His needs were specific and anything but traditional. And not easily met just anywhere.
He’d been an active member of the Hoodoo Pot for over five years.
Clay had visited some hardcore clubs in Vegas—the local club was mild in comparison. And that was fine with him. His desires, once fulfilled, allowed him to conduct his daily life within the boundaries of acceptable society.
He bound the women in a variety of positions using the equipment available at the club. What he did amounted to binding and restraining, a hard fucking, and light slapping, if they wanted that. Most did.
He’d not had any luck finding a woman in the community who enjoyed taking it hard and rough while being restrained. To please him they would say they wanted to try being bound, to try rough sex without strings and affection, but afterward they’d cry and want to snuggle and, heaven forbid, maybe even want to talk about why he only wanted sex in that fashion. And then there was the issue of his girth. Most women were scared of his size, and so he revealed that in his profile just so there would be no surprises.
In the past, his worst breakups had the women spouting about his brand of loving all over town. It wouldn’t do if rumors ever got back to his family, so he’d had to devise an alternate way of getting his needs met. The club offered a perfect solution and hooked him up with women who wanted to be fucked in the manner he wanted to give it to them. And he didn’t have to worry about disease or pregnancy, because all members were subjected to monthly testing.
Clay looked to the narrow table that he’d be using. He motioned for Brianna to set her ass on it. He preferred Japanese bondage because of its aesthetic appeal, but at the club it just wasn’t practical—too time consuming and pretty intense for the woman. He didn’t want to deal with any aftercare, so he used a simple cable system.
He picked up a fur-lined cuff and slid it across her silky thigh. She slowly closed her eyes. He put one hand on her bare chest and the other on her back to brace her as he guided her down. The table was short, so she had to bend her knees to position her feet for leverage. Her head hung slightly off the end. It didn’t ever seem comfortable, but he’d le
arned the women who came to the club weren’t looking to be comfortable in quite that way.
He fastened the restraint cuffs to her wrists and ankles. Using straps attached to each ankle cuff, he tugged them behind her head, effectively pulling her legs wide and her knees up to her ribs. Her wide gaze darted from him to the cables. She seemed a little frantic, but he guessed it was because she was flat on her back, fully exposed, as a large and basically unfamiliar man loomed over her. He next fastened the wrist and ankle straps to D-ring hooks in the floor. With her ass hanging at the table edge and her legs spread, she was at his mercy, forced to sit and wait for whatever pleasure or pain he chose to bestow on her.
He would make her take him in her mouth first. He walked to the side of the table nearest her head, where he unfastened his pants and pulled out his cock, fisting it in his hand. Brianna tested her restraints as he arched her head until it hung off the table. He placed his hand around her throat and brought his cock to her mouth. He swirled the tip across her lips, and her tongue darted out to swipe at him. When she opened wide, he pushed through her lips. He pulsed in and out of her mouth with shallow thrusts while she moaned around him.
Truth be told, Clay had grown extremely bored. He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, forcing his head back into the game. The woman with his dick in her mouth was pretty— beautiful even. When she increased the suction, he pushed his full length into her mouth. She was taking him in her throat—he could feel himself using the hand he had on her neck. Her eyes filled with liquid, and it wasn’t long before tears spilled over and ran into her hair. She gagged. He pulled out half his length, but the tears steadily streamed down. While some men might get off on that, whenever a woman became upset, Clay released her immediately. He pulled his cock free and then unfastened the restraints.
She sat up and wiped her eyes while he stuffed himself back into his jeans.
He crossed his arms and forced himself to stay calm. “Did I hurt you?”
She shook her head and inhaled on a gasp. “N-n-no.” Her voice was high pitched and squeaky.
He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “Then what’s the problem?”
“I don’t know.” Her face contorted in a grimace, and she began to cry huge salty bullets.
He sat down next to her, not knowing what to say. “Have you actually done this before?”
A shaky hand covered her mouth as she coughed “No. I lied when I filled out the paperwork.” She stood. “I’m sorry.”
He closed his eyes and shook his head. “Hey, don’t sweat it. Are you going to be okay?”
She leaned in and kissed his cheek. “Yes. You’re a really sweet guy.”
Her whispered words bounced around in his head as her retreating heels clicked on the hardwood floor.
The women were supposed to be screened and prepared and ultimately ready for his needs. Hell, he’d been made to undergo training before he could become a member, and he knew the women did too. Still, had Brianna told him this was her first club experience, he wouldn’t have restrained her. He guessed that was why she didn’t mention it. He wasn’t a Dom—he didn’t know that lifestyle. He just liked sex to be a certain way and didn’t want to answer questions about why he enjoyed what was still widely considered taboo. While he wasn’t opposed to traditional vanilla sex, he’d come to learn he couldn’t have both bondage and traditional sex with the same woman. And he could survive without the vanilla, but not the mint chocolate chip.
He didn’t want to have to think about maintaining his composure during sex. From experience, he knew he couldn’t sustain what was considered a nice, respectable rhythm. He couldn’t maintain interest in common sex acts. He wanted to burn and he needed to feel. He wanted to be able to lose control without consequences. Before he discovered the club, he’d been forced to coddle his way through sex with women in his hometown or risk the entire town thinking he had serious issues and needed psychiatric intervention. He would never be placed in that position again because he knew if he were, he couldn’t conform.
He waited until he heard Brianna leave before he went into the shared bathroom, where he showered and dressed. When he was about to leave, he caught his reflection in the mirror.
He looked normal—the same height as his father, the same thick brown hair and blue eyes that most of his siblings had. Yes, he was overly muscled from weight training needed for the job, and his skin was overly bronzed from long days working out in the sun, and since he was the oldest of seven, he had more lines on his face than they had. But most differences were inside. He wasn’t like the others. And being different wasn’t good or bad, it was just a fact.
As he studied the lines around his eyes and recognized he wasn’t getting any younger, a heaviness settled over him. Were firefighting and sex with strangers all there was to his life?
Were they all he’d ever have?
For some reason, visions of the blond girl from the deli filled his brain and caused him to smile. He didn’t even know who she was, but thoughts of her pure and honest demeanor had saved him from self-deprecating and for that he sent up a prayer on her behalf. Whoever she was, wherever she was, he knew her spirit followed, bestowing joy on all those that came into her path.
***
3
A week later, trackers had been following a storm that had developed off the coast of Africa. They’d tracked it across the Atlantic, and now all models forecasted it to enter the Gulf. Clay was at a meeting for emergency responders and city officials to discuss evacuation preparedness. From now until the storm passed, the emergency responders were all on call. That included him and his crew at the downtown station.
By midweek the storm had moved across the Gulf and weather models now predicted it would make landfall somewhere between Texas and Alabama, which placed Baton Rouge smack dab in the middle of the growing storm, already a category four with winds in excess of one hundred fifty miles per hour. Evacuation orders were to be issued within the hour.
If the storm were to make landfall as a category four or five storm, then Whiskey Cove would experience one hundred mile per hour winds. Clay needed to warn his family. He smiled when he thought about the hodgepodge crew. His five brothers all had significant others, and some of the women had brought extra members to the family. There were currently two very pregnant women, a five-year-old child, an autistic teenager, one greyhound, one Airedale terrier, a lab, and a Missouri fox trotter to contend with, not to mention Dad’s horses and Cory’s boarded pets. Clay had worked plenty of storms and knew he needed to give his family time to make preparations. He wanted them all to evacuate.
When the focus of the meeting shifted, Clay stepped out of the room. He pulled his smartphone from his pocket and dialed his father. He sighed when he put the phone to his ear.
“Dad, it’s Clay. I’ve got—”
“Hello? Can you hear me? Hello?”
“Who is it, Cliff?” Clay heard his mother ask.
“Hello. Newfangled piece of shit doesn’t work.”
The line went dead.
Clay tried twice more, his father growing ever shorter-tempered, before giving up. He’d have to call one of his brothers.
A hand clapped over his shoulder. “Been missing my wingman at the club the past few nights.”
“Yeah, I’ve been taking a break.”
Augie exhaled long and deep. His brow rose. “Everything okay?”
Clay shrugged. “I just got bored.”
“Well, get ready to rock and roll now. You ready for this?” He angled his chin toward the door leading outside.
Lives had been lost in the larger cities during the last hurricane due to an evacuation fiasco. Baton Rouge had fared relatively well considering the overall devastation.
Clay nodded. “I’m going to get moving on local preparations today.”
“What are you thinking?”
Clay rubbed his chin as he spoke his thoughts. “I’ll check on Davis High School, take inventory, see what’s ne
eded.”
Clay’s phone rang. He looked down at the screen and saw it was his father calling back. “Shit, it’s my father. I called him earlier.”
“He still believe technology is a tool of the devil?”
Clay laughed as he held the phone to his ear. “Dad, hang on for a second.”
Augie held up his hand in a wave. “Let me know if you need my help.”
Clay nodded. “I’ll call you.”
***
After the meeting, Clay picked up Jackson from the station and headed to the high school that served as the town shelter.
“Dammit.” Jack tossed his phone onto the dash
Clay raised a brow at him. “Problem?”
He rubbed his index finger across his upper lip. “I can’t reach…”
Clay looked over at Jack and looked again after he passed through an intersection. Jack was acting strange lately, long before the hurricane’s arrival.
Jack reached for the phone he’d just tossed and scrolled through screens. “Did you call the family?” he asked.
“I talked to Dad.” As he steered the truck, he watched Jack closely. Worry lines on his forehead had been added to the darkness under his eyes, but Clay would have bet the underlying cause wasn’t physical. The man was torn about something.
Jack stared out the window, sighing. “What about Clara?” He turned to Clay, his eyes searching.
Clay pulled into the school lot and parked the fire department’s mammoth SUV near the gymnasium. His sister was the only one Clay hadn’t been able to speak to. “I left her a message to call me asap.”
“I can’t reach her either.” Jack’s hand went to his hair and rubbed.
Clay shot Jack a curious glance.
“What?” Jack lifted his hands in the air, further revealing his exasperation. “You know how New Orleans gets once evacuation orders go out. There will be a run on gas and Clara never has any gas in her car as it is. I was just thinking about Katrina, and she’s down there. I mean, what if I can’t get to her and she can’t get out?”