“There isn’t one. I just, I don’t know...”
“You’re punch drunk from sex. That’s your problem.”
Meg snorted. “Oh yeah, I’m sure.” She moved away from the wall and started fiddling with the various products on Sam’s dressing table. Selecting a rather nice plum lip gloss, she ducked behind him so she could look in his mirror as she applied it to her lips.
“That color suits you.”
“You think?” she asked doubtfully. It was dark and brazen, sexy and vixen-like. Words that were rarely associated with the local wedding planner known for her sedate appearance and ever-present Bluetooth headset and tablet.
“Yeah. It does. Take it with you and wear it on your next date with Gabe. It will shock the hell out of him.”
“I’m not sure if that’s what I want to do.”
Sam rolled his eyes. “Sounds to me like you have no idea what you want to do.”
Meg sighed. “You got that right.”
“Why do you have to want to do anything? Can’t you just roll with the punches?”
“I am rolling with them, and far better than I thought I’d be able to.” She leaned down and nudged her head against his. In the underscarf that kept his hair back, which was the predecessor to his huge wig, along with his exaggerated if expertly applied make-up, he wasn’t the Sam she was used to seeing, but she loved him regardless. “Thank you for being patient with me,” she told him, rubbing her nose along his cheek so as not to coat him with lip gloss.
“You’re welcome. You’re not always this big a pain in the ass.”
“Good to know,” she chortled, unoffended. Sam’s snarky wit was the keystone to their friendship—it kept them both real. “How are things with Liam?” she asked, referring to Sam’s latest screw.
Sam wrinkled his nose. “Honey, I dumped him last week.”
She whacked him on the arm. “And you never told me? Now I’m the one who's offended.”
“You’re in la-la land. I expect nothing but hearts and cupid’s arrows out of you.”
“Now you're definitely taking friendship too far,” she teased. “But seriously. You should have told me.”
“There wasn’t much to tell.” Sam got up from his seat and continued, “I’m gonna put my glad rags on, sugar. Be back in a sec.”
Despite his words to the contrary, Meg was certain there was something to tell, but Sam would reveal all when he was ready. There was no pushing him when he didn’t want to be moved.
Ever since his family had cast him out like trash, he’d changed, and who could blame him? She tried to be all the family he needed, heck, even her folks welcomed him to the fold like a son of their own...but it wasn’t the same, was it?
Problem was, Sam was a proud man. He came from similar stock. While he was quite happy to hold her to one set of standards, where she had to have no secrets, he lived to his own ever since he’d been cut off.
Sighing at the memory of those bad, bad days, she was jerked from her unhappy thoughts by her cell. Spying Gabe’s name on the Caller ID, she bit her lip, and half-hesitated over answering the call.
What the hell was wrong with her, she didn’t know. Or did she?
Was she feeling antsy? Was that it?
Yesterday had been so good. The way he’d made her feel had been...
Shit.
Indescribable, if truth be told.
She’d had three lovers. Gabe, Terry, and the guy who’d taken her virginity if not her heart at prom. With Terry, she’d actually had an orgasm, but in comparison to what Gabe had made her feel on a regular basis, and even yesterday, it was like a tiny splash in the ocean. Gabe gave her tidal waves. She drowned in the ecstasy he gave her.
Shuddering at those far more pleasant memories, she waited too long to pick up and the call rang off. A few seconds later, there was a text:
You busy with Sam still? I figured he’d be on stage by now. Or are you ready?
Ready? Ready for what?
Almost like he’d heard her, he continued:
When he’s gone, I want you to send me a picture of yourself.
She frowned, and took the bait. Texting back: Doing what?
Fingering your pussy. I want to see it nice and wet. Don’t come.
Though she blinked, a thrill coursed through her veins. Rather than text back, she called him and when he answered, blurted out, “Are you being serious?”
His chuckle was rough but amused, and enough to make her close her eyes at the delicious sound. “Deadly.”
“I can’t. This is Sam’s dressing room.”
“No such word as can’t. Remember?”
She swallowed down a mixture of nervousness and excitement. The low rumble of his voice took her back to Friday nights—God, how she'd missed this. This desperate edginess, this endless buzz at the back of her brain. Her brain belied her body, however. “I-I don’t know if I’m ready for this.”
“You might not be, but your body is.”
His confident words had her scowling at herself in the dressing room mirror. “How do you know? You haven’t seen me since this morning.”
“You’re my sub, Meg. I know you.”
That had her blinking again because while it was frightening, truer words had never been spoken. He knew things about her body that no one else, not even she knew. On top of that, she’d been His to command for two years before she’d learned who He really was.
She’d learned to come at His order. Been teased and tormented into giving in to the glories of climaxing by the one utterance of His command: gush for me.
He’d denied her and controlled her, made her touch herself and then denied her from touching herself. But... all of it had happened on Friday night.
That had been the cut-off point. It had never leaked into the week. Never had His lessons drifted away from that one night together. It was probably why she’d taken so long to learn what He wanted from her. That devastating night when she’d learned Gabe was her Dom, and not Terry, it had been a handful of weeks since she’d managed to obey his every demand. That art had been newly learned. Then, everything, her whole submissive world, had started to unravel.
“Silence will be taken as obeisance,” He murmured, His voice like silk.
“Do I have a choice?” she griped, but it was a mental irritation. Not a physical one. She raised a hand and rubbed at her temple.
“Of course you do. You can choose to give yourself to me, or not. Like before, the power is in your hands, Meg. It always was.”
With her free hand, she plucked at her skirt. “When can I...?”
He chuckled. “When can you come? When I say you can, of course. Yesterday wasn’t an aberration. I’ll take you when I want to, and you’ll take me when you want to. That’s one part of our relationship we’ll have to grow, but this side...it’s already flourished.
“And you need me to get you back on track. I can feel it all the way across town.”
She licked suddenly dry lips. “I-I do feel weird,” she admitted.
“You’re uncertain. Your body is too. It’s used to me, and it’s used to my forcing reactions from it. Your senses are confused, and I’m getting them in order. Don't argue with me and don't fight your body. Both it and I know exactly what you need even if you don't.”
Meg didn’t know if that was bullshit or not, but every part of her with nerve endings seemed to agree with Him. She hadn’t been able to put her finger on what was wrong with her, hadn’t been able to discern why, after an epic bout of sex with a man who belonged in most women’s fantasies, she’d been so on edge.
“Sam will be on stage in ten minutes,” she told Him by way of a reply, peering up at the clock that hung above the door.
“I want the picture in fifteen. Edge twice before you send it to me.”
Her pussy quivered at that. “Twice?” she complained.
“Meg,” He crooned. “Don’t make me punish you when I come to your place tonight. Stop questioning my orders.”
“Good girl.”
When He cut the call, she eyed the clock once more, and almost on cue, Sam strutted out dressed like Liza Minnelli in Chicago.
She’d never been a fan of that musical and disliked that part of his act, even though his voice was damned good and made the songs bearable.
Wrinkling her nose, she grumbled, “Not Chicago.”
He grinned. “You don’t have to watch. Stay in here. It’s only the one act tonight.”
Well, that was fortuitous. “Do you mind?” she asked.
“Wouldn’t have suggested it if I minded.” He bent down and reached for one of his wigs, and she watched him put it on. Then came the top hat to go with his feminized short tuxedo.
“I wish I had your legs,” she complained, eying the strong muscles that were only accentuated by his heels.
“Come running with me and you will,” he retorted, applying a final layer of red lipstick before dabbing the excess with a tissue.
She wrinkled her nose, immediately nixing that idea. “Go on, see to your adoring fans.”
“I’ll take that as a no,” he retorted, smirking at her. Before she could grumble further, he ducked his head and kissed her cheek, leaving behind a perfect set of red lips.
“Break a leg.”
“After your compliment, I’m not entirely sure if you mean that or not.”
She snorted but waved him off, and he winked at her as he ducked out of the small dressing room, which belonged to him as the star act of the club. It was smaller than a sardine can, but he loved it because he no longer had to share with the other queens.
Meg looked up at the clock, saw five minutes had passed and immediately got up and locked the door. She peered around the room, because even knowing it was empty, what she was about to do was so far out of her comfort zone, she was in Arizona in high summer.
Sucking in a breath as she took a seat, she quickly shucked up her skirt, pushed her panties to the side and slipped her fingers between her pussy lips.
God, she was wet. So wet. Already.
She arched her back, settling deeper into Sam’s director chair, needing to get comfortable if she was to have the right amount of focus to edge and not to come.
It was annoyingly easy to get back into the mindset. All these months, sex had been the last thing on her to do list. She hadn't come once since that disastrous final night. But now, with Gabe's low command filling her head, all of a sudden her pussy was clamoring where there'd been nothing but deadly silence before. As she touched herself, her digits grew slippery with her juices and she dragged them up to her clit, sliding the liquid around and around the nub.
It took an embarrassingly short time to get to the pinnacle of pleasure. Her breasts had started to heave and her skin was flushed with the heat that came before an orgasm, but as He’d taught her, she immediately moved her fingers away and sought to calm her breathing. It was the only way, and as she’d always done, she thought back to the stairs, using the visualization to help her obey her Dom.
Because at that moment, Gabe was her Dom.
She didn’t know if deep down she’d ever forget what he'd done, but she could trust Him enough to do this, to gift Him with her submission because she needed that side of Him. Needed to feel His dominance to feel alive.
A shudder wracked her at the thought, because this was living. She could recognize that now she'd had to do without it and Him. Meg looked at herself in the mirror as she sought to climb down from the heights of a pleasure she wasn’t allowed to broach, and smiled at the image she saw. Some hair had escaped her bun to fall about her ears. Her skin was flushed with heat and need, and her eyes were dazed with the lost sensations she was forcing her body not to experience.
She looked vivacious. Vibrant. Glowing. All because she was in the role she'd been born to play.
Licking her lips and knowing she’d completed her first ‘edge’, she slid her still-slick fingers back to her pussy and began the torment again. With her right hand, she spread the outer lips apart and used her index finger to rub her clit. With her left, she reached for her phone and took a shot. One of her in the mirror, simply because she knew she looked sexy as hell. And for the other, she pointed it between her legs and took a video of her touching herself so He knew she’d obeyed.
The sounds that escaped her were filled with need. As she approached the peak, they grew more anguished. The noises growing higher and higher until, seconds away from release, she stopped her fingers from moving at all.
It was amazing how quickly His commands had become law again... Amazing, because it told her how vital that train of thought was to her.
But stopping, though torturous, especially when He’d made her so damned wet just from talking to her, was what she needed.
It made no sense to need to be denied, but knowing she couldn’t control this, that someone else owned her pleasure, it liberated her in ways she couldn’t describe.
With Gabe, those needs didn’t require a description. With Terry, they had until he’d come up with his radical solution—Friday nights. With his freakin’ brother.
She stopped rolling the film and then took a shot of her wet cunt. When she perused the pictures, she flushed, shocked at how wanton she looked, and at how her pussy was so red and slick with her desire. For Him.
It made her long for His cock, made her need Him to be between her legs, right that minute, to fuck her like she needed to be fucked.
Yesterday might never have happened, and that was how this worked.
Now, she’d have to think about life, the world, conversation, while her focus was truly between her legs and on her Sir.
Shuddering at the thought, she reluctantly let her panties fall back into place, pushed her skirt down, and got up to unlock the door. With a minute to spare in his fifteen-minute deadline, she sent off the two pictures and video, then retreated to the small sink Sam used to wash up after his shows.
As she soaped her hands, she smiled when her phone buzzed. Peering over at it, that smile widened at his:
Good girl. Now, be home by seven. I have a treat for you.
Whatever that treat was, it would be sexual, and her body was oh, so ready for it. Hell, she’d missed this, and the notion that it was overspilling into her daily life didn’t disturb her at all.
It was sudden, sure. Out of the blue, definitely. But for two years, she’d been that man’s toy, and she’d missed it. Missed him.
Closing her eyes at the thought, she recognized that past mistakes had to remain exactly there, as ancient history, because her future needs were more important to her.
It was a risky decision. She was throwing all her eggs into one basket, but no one had made her feel like Gabe had.
And she doubted anyone ever would.
Chapter Nine
He’d never have admitted it to anyone, but Gabe was nervous.
When Sam had texted him, telling him Meg was antsy and on edge, he’d had an inkling as to why. Then, going on instinct, he’d sent her his orders.
Now, with the video of her touching herself and his requested photos, he realized how wise he’d been to follow that instinct.
A natural sub, Meg needed him to be in charge. He’d been hesitant to show that side of himself, especially when she was still getting to know him as a regular guy.
She’d shocked him yesterday. He hadn’t expected her to be ready to consummate anything, but then again, it shouldn’t have come as a surprise.
As he’d told her, her body was used to reacting to him. That couldn’t change, not after the way he’d trained her, no matter how much he’d hurt her emotionally.
The nerves overcame him once more at the reminder, and he sent Sam a text:
Thanks, man. I appreciate your help. I won’t let her down. I swear.
Knowing Sam was still on stage, he didn’t expect a reply, but he’d had to thank him regardles
s. He’d probably just put Gabe and Meg’s relationship back on track.
After the disaster with Terry, Gabe had done everything he could to see Meg, to apologize and to beg her forgiveness. When she’d refused to see him at every quarter, he’d turned to her best friend.
It had been the hardest conversation of his life, and Sam's solution that he offer himself as a sacrifice, tell Meg she could punish him, had been hard to accept. Harder even than accepting the bloodied nose and black eyes Sam had given him when he’d confessed to Meg’s friend, because hell, it had been cathartic.
That pain had been a release. While he was no masochist, he’d needed something. Some singular moment of agony to liberate the emotional burdens weighing him down.
When Sam had made him promise not to tell Meg he was aware of what had happened, Gabe had known he’d receive the other man’s help.
To this day, he had no idea why her best friend had decided he was good enough for Meg, especially after what he’d done, he was just relieved as hell to have an ally.
Thirty minutes until seven.
Christ, what was he going to do with all that time?
He’d set up her bedroom simply. After that teasing, she might think she was ready to be thrown in at the deep end, her pussy might even be clamoring for it, but because she was a toy, he wanted to start slowly. Reintroduce her carefully.
Now she was his, and not his brother’s, he intended for their play to extend into real life. It was one aspect of their scenes that had always gutted him.
Training her one night a week had required an infinite amount of patience, and now, he was about to reap the rewards he probably didn’t deserve.
Sighing at the nagging guilt that never left him, he headed into her kitchen, grateful she’d given him a key last week, because it meant he had access to the freezer. The freezer where she stored her homemade triple chocolate chip ice cream.
That was the only way he could imagine spending the half-hour before seven. As he grabbed the tureen from the cold drawers, then sought out a spoon, he was about to turn on the TV when his phone buzzed.
“Gabe? Gabe? Is that you?”
Sam’s voice was shrill, and considering the man was a singer, that meant he could pierce eardrums when he was anxious.
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