Taming the Tease

by Golden Angel

  This morning she'd woken up, ready to go to the pool and meet up with Rick as usual. But once she'd gotten to the stairs and been able to look across the parking lot to where the pool was, and seen his powerful body plowing through the water, she'd been assailed by doubts. What would they say to each other? Would he take her presence as a declaration that she was interested in what he'd shown her last night?

  And had she really stopped being upset with him?

  His apology at her door last night had been completely sincere, she had no doubt of that. The hangdog look, the guilt, had been all over his face and in his body language, so that she'd almost wanted to reach out and give him a hug and reassure him that everything was all right. But it wasn't, entirely, was it?

  Chewing on her lower lip, Maria shifted her bag to her other shoulder. Even though it only had her towel, sunscreen and pool stuff in it, it got heavy after a while of just standing there.

  She liked Rick. She really did. A lot. Spending time with him at the pool was fun; talking to him had become an integral part of her day. She liked hearing about his friends, telling him about her family, and just talking about the small stupid stuff while they flirted and tried to make each other laugh. She believed that he liked her and wanted more from her than just a one night stand. So that was something. But last night she'd put a lot of trust in him, going to a completely unknown place with a guy that she'd really only known for a little less than a month, and she felt like he'd broken that trust. Not because he'd taken her to Stronghold. Heck, some parts of the night she'd really liked. Meeting his friends, seeing the private upstairs rooms... but she was still having trouble wrapping her head around that scene in the Dungeon.

  More than that, she was still kind of mad that he hadn't explained more about Stronghold to her once they'd gotten there. A million other questions had been raised off of that.

  Could she trust him in the future?

  Did she want to get kinky with him? Or even at all?

  Was she actually going to date a guy who wanted to take her to a club where she might have to strip down in front of a bunch of other people? Maria made a face. No one had mentioned whether or not Rick was an exhibitionist, and Maria had forgotten to ask.

  Being the eldest of three other sisters, she knew very well that every single woman, no matter her shape or size, had something they didn't like about their body. Every woman had crushes on guys that weren't attracted to them, dated guys that turned out to be jerks, and had to put up with snide and nasty comments from other girls. Heck, Lara, who was drop-dead gorgeous, once had a boyfriend who tried to get her to lose weight that she didn't even have to lose! So Maria knew, first hand, that being slim and stunning did not mean a reprieve from body issues. She’d found her own confidence in that knowledge; because there would always be things she wanted to change about herself, so she might as well just love herself the way she was.

  But that didn't mean she necessarily wanted to get nekkid in a room full of people that she didn't know, while they watched her get it on. She'd never had exhibitionist tendencies. Although, Rick hadn't actually said that he did either and he had pointed out the curtains at the private rooms.

  For that matter, none of his friends had used the rooms or been down in the Dungeon. They'd all just hung out at the bar. Maybe Stronghold was just their hangout place? Except that Olivia had talked about all of them doing scenes there before they’d met their current girlfriends.

  Yeah, there was a lot of information that Rick had left out. She scowled at the swimming figure in the distance, her lips tightening.

  Of course, she doubted it would have been easy to bring up. Just look at the fact that she hadn't told a single one of her sisters about Rick's kink; even Jackie who obviously would have been the most understanding. Hell, she doubted she'd be able to tell any of them about Stronghold.

  Bah.

  She didn't even know what she would say if she went over to the pool. Be mad? Ha, like they could talk about why with all those other people around. Act like everything was normal? Yeah... she didn't think she could do that either. They'd crossed some kind of threshold last night, some boundary line that, once crossed, couldn't be put back in place. It was like when friends had sex, except they hadn't even got to do that.

  Turning on her heel, Maria started back up the stairs. Today was not the day to face Rick. She still had a lot of thinking to do, obviously. Just anticipating it had made her realize that when she did face him, she needed to have more of an answer for him than 'I'm still thinking things over' and then try to act like nothing had changed between them. They could go forward or not, but they definitely couldn't go back.

  Plus, she could get on her computer and do some research. Educate herself. And then eradicate her search history.

  ******

  Coming up out of the water, Rick looked around and felt a familiar pang of disappointment when he saw that Maria still wasn't there. Not that he was really expecting her. Just hoping. Idiot that he was. Why the hell would she want to come out and see him today?

  Gritting his teeth, he dove back under the surface of the pool, letting the muted noise and cool water envelope him, taking him into another world. With every stroke he thought about Maria. He'd spent the last forty-five minutes castigating himself with every mistake he'd made last night. Flaying himself with the memory of every sign she’d shown of being submissive, that he’d brushed off, every time she'd leaned into his hand for support, every stuttered breath when he'd pressed himself against her.

  Then he'd tried to move past the useless merry-go-round of missed opportunities, knowing that it was pointless to rehash what he'd already done wrong and thinking about what he should have done instead. Too late for that. What he needed to do now was figure out if he should try to fix it.

  He wanted to. Not just because he wanted Maria, but because he hated thinking that things might be so uncomfortable when they ran into each other from now on. Even if she didn't want him anymore, he didn't like the idea that their future interactions would be so far removed from the flirtatious friendship they'd been forming. That he'd killed any chance of anything with her. But he didn't know what the best move to make was.

  Even though part of him wanted to just show up at her door and force her to talk to him - hell she'd done it to him often enough - he knew that wasn't the best tactic to take. Not with something like this. But when was it time to stop giving her space and start pushing? He was a Dom, and right now he was a Dom out of control of the situation. It was his own fault, but he sure as hell didn't like it.

  When he finally got out of the pool, his muscles felt achy, which was not the best way to start his day. At least it was a Sunday and he didn't have anything going on other than meeting up with Jared and Chris. Marissa was out of town doing something, Rick didn't really care what she was doing, he was just glad she was away from Jared. Even though he knew that her constant absences were a large part of Jared’s initial issues with their relationship, Jared always seemed happier when she was away. It meant he could spend more time with his friends without her souring it, so it wasn’t surprising that the big man had wanted some company.

  Something Rick was happy to give. Plus, maybe Jared and Chris could give him some advice. Both of them were in complicated relationships, after all, and one of them was miserable and the other completely happy. He could get pointers from both sides.

  ******

  It didn't take too long to realize that maybe everything in Chris' life wasn't great either. For one, he barely ribbed Rick about Maria, and that was because (for two) he was definitely completely distracted. Staring off into space, eyes wandering around the room, but not actually looking at anything.

  They were all sprawled out on Jared's furniture; Jared took up most of the space on his small couch while Rick and Chris were both comfortably ensconced in his leather recliners. The television was on, but no one was watching, and Jared had put out some chips and salsa, but no one was eating. Another sig
n that there was something wrong with Chris. Jared wasn't a big snacker, but Chris sure as hell was. Rick could go either way, but despite his extended workout that morning, he didn't really feel like eating.

  His stomach was too full of unaccustomed anxiety.

  Looking over at Chris, it was almost like looking at Justin. Except that Justin would never sit draped over both the chair and the armrests like Chris was, but at least then the serious, almost brooding expression wouldn't be an anomaly. Chris was the one who was usually smiling.

  Picking up the throw pillow that he'd removed from the recliner when he'd first sat down, Rick had it live up to its name and he lobbed it across the room at Chris' head.

  "Hey!" Chris barely batted it away in time to keep the pillow from catching him directly in the face.

  "Hey!" Jared repeated, frowning at Rick over the top of his beer bottle, his brow knitting together in offended dignity. "Stop throwing my cushions around."

  "It's a throw pillow."

  "Whatever. They're decorations, not artillery."

  "You have issues," Rick said, feeling slightly lighter as the absurdity of the conversation lifted his spirits a bit. That was more like it. None of this sitting around sullenly. Chris had picked the pillow back up and looked like he was contemplating whether or not it was worth Jared's possible ire to try and return fire. "I know why I'm down, and I know why Jared's down-"

  "I'm not down," Jared said, lifting his beer and smiling, as if to show how not-miserable he was. "I'm drunk."

  "-but why are you so down?" Rick finished, ignoring Jared. The big man was looking a bit under the hatches, to use one of Hilary's phrases, but he figured that Jared deserved it. After all, he couldn't get drunk Friday or Saturday nights since he was usually working; being a bouncer, he tended to have off Sunday and Monday evenings. So it made sense that he'd choose today to get drunk, especially since he finally had an empty apartment to do it in.

  Chris sighed, dropping the pillow back onto the floor, earning a dark look from Jared that he ignored. "Liam's going to propose to Hilary soon."

  "So I've heard."

  "Probably within the month."

  "Still not understanding what this has to do with you..."

  "It's girl-pressure," Jared said solemnly, looking like a sage old wise-man. He nodded his head at both of them. "She's Jessica's best friend, and Jessica started dating Justin and Chris before Hilary and Liam got together. So now the pressure is on Justin and Chris, because once Hilary gets engaged, Jessica's going to be wondering when her ring is coming."

  "How are you in such a crappy relationship when you know so much?" Chris asked, looking a bit disgruntled at the rather cavalier breakdown of his relationship problems. Jared shrugged.

  "Does it really matter, if you guys aren't at the same place that Hilary and Liam are?" asked Rick. "I mean... your relationship is entirely different. A lot more complicated."

  Rubbing his hand over his face, in a tired kind of motion, Chris groaned and leaned back in the chair, letting his upper body hang off the edge of it before coming back upright. Kind of like a kid facing questions from his parents that he didn't want to answer. "It just brings up all sorts of questions that we don't have the answer to. Like... should we have some kind of commitment ceremony? If we do, should one of us actually marry her? If so, who does? Will that change things? What about kids, parental rights and how they'll feel about having three parents? What do we do if one of us marries her and, God forbid, there's some kind of accident and the two that are married are in the hospital and the third one doesn't have any kind of visitation rights?"

  Rick whistled, while Jared let out a kind of grunting 'huh.'

  Truth be told, once Chris had brought up Hilary and Liam, Rick had suspected that it might be something along the marriage issue lines, but honestly, he hadn't thought it out as well as Chris and Justin obviously were. To him it had seemed a simple problem of deciding to have some kind of ceremony and, if they wanted to have one of them legally married to Jessica, to play rock, paper, scissors to figure out who got to do the deed. But there were definitely considerations beyond a wedding, which he hadn't considered, but which were serious and substantial.

  Actually, out of the three of them in the room, his own issues were looking a heck of a lot better. At least that was something.

  "Have you talked to Jessica about it, yet?" he asked, knowing that Justin and Chris had been trying to work everything out between themselves, but if there was really that much to consider then he doubted that Jessica would take being left out of the conversation very well.

  "Where do you think half of these questions came from?" Chris asked grumpily. "She got downright morbid when it came to accidents and deaths. I don't think she actually wants to marry either of us."

  Aha. No wonder Chris was in a bad mood. He was feeling rejected. Rick could empathize with that.

  "I wish I had that problem," Jared said from the couch.

  Both Rick and Chris sat bolt upright.

  "Marissa wants to marry you?"

  "I don't know." Twirling the empty beer bottle in his hand, Jared scowled at it. "She bought a wedding magazine. It's underneath my bed. I wish she'd taken it with her. I think she's hinting."

  Since he wasn't look at them, it was easy for Rick and Chris to exchange looks. Holy shit. Rick knew that Jared felt responsible for Marissa, and that he had loved her at one point at least... but he couldn't possibly be thinking about actually marrying her and living in this misery for the rest of his life... could he? Surely emotional blackmail could only go so far.

  "Are you going to?" Chris asked tentatively.

  It wasn't often that Jared opened up about the issues in his relationship, because he knew exactly how his friends felt about Marissa and sharing tended to only make things worse. Especially since he kept getting back with her even when they did break up for short periods of time.

  "Fuck no," Jared said, his scowl getting even darker. But he still hadn't taken his eyes off the beer bottle, rather than looking at either of them. "I'd rather swallow a bottle of pills myself."

  From the bewildered look on Chris' face, Jared hadn't shared that particular story with him. Rick grimaced, searching for something to say that would deflect attention from what, to Chris, probably sounded like a weird declaration. Fortunately Chris unintentionally did it for him.

  "Sooo... why are you still with her?" Chris asked slowly, looking between Jared and Rick, as if searching for clues. His dark eyes were concerned, although at least he wasn't looking quite so melancholy about his own issues now.

  "I think it's just habit," Jared said, shrugging. He slumped back against the couch, his eyes looking slightly reddened and very tired. "Habit... and she won't let me go. But I don't fight it that hard either."

  "In vino veritas," Rick murmured. Chris gave him a sharp glance, but Jared didn't appear to hear him.

  The giant man looked surprisingly small, hunched in on himself in the center of the couch. He looked lost. Drunk, small and lost. It was almost humbling, because Rick had never seen Jared like this.

  Shit... is this were a mismatched BDSM relationship led? Maybe he should just leave Maria the fuck alone. Lifting his own beer to his lips, Rick took a long swallow.

  ******

  Monday morning hangovers were the worst. Justin had picked up Chris at some point, but Rick had stayed the night. Commiserating. Supporting. Jared had gotten drunk off of his ass and then they'd gone out to the parking lot and burned the wedding magazine that Marissa had left. He didn't know how sober-Jared would feel about that, but drunken-Jared had been downright gleeful.

  It blew Rick's mind that Jared could stay in a relationship where he was so twisted around and unhappy, but that was the danger of someone like Marissa. Who was willing to use all the intimate things she'd learned about Jared to hold onto him. Sometimes Rick thought that Jared was her safety net, her anchor in a world where she was constantly taking risks for her future; but it was a shitty fu
cking situation for Jared. Marissa was a downright bitch for putting him in that position and using emotional blackmail to keep him there.

  He and Jared had gone to a diner down the street and had an extremely greasy breakfast and about a gallon of coffee before Rick finally felt up to heading back home. Jared seemed surprisingly even-keeled considering his misery the night before and the fact that his head must be pounding even more than Rick's. When Rick left, Jared was laid out on his couch, one arm flung over his head and his eyes closed, resting.

  Rick couldn't wait to get home and do the same.

  Fortunately, it was only about a ten minute drive. His hangover was bad enough that he really shouldn't be on the road for even that long, but he forced himself to stay as alert as possible until he finally managed to pull into a parking space in front of his building. Blissfully close to the stairs.

  The day was just starting to heat up and he groaned as he shut the door of his car, leaning against it for support for a moment. Just a moment, before he could drag himself up to his apartment and collapse again. He hadn't gotten nearly enough sleep the night before.

  "Rick?"

  The soft feminine voice was tinged with shock. Great. Just what he needed right now. And yet he couldn't stop the stupid grin from spreading across his face as he looked up at his sweet little tease. The woman who'd driven him to this state.

  "Good morning, beautiful."

  ******

  He looked awful. And gorgeous. At the same time. That just wasn't fair.

  This morning she'd come out to the pool, forcing herself not to look to see if he was there until she'd gotten onto the pool deck. Leaving it up to fate, since she'd come down later than she had been when she'd been getting up to meet him. He hadn't been there. She'd been both disappointed and relieved. She still didn't know what she wanted from him, she just hadn't been able to stay away. Right now she just wanted to talk, see where things led now that she had a better idea of what he expected from a romantic relationship. Maybe test if that knowledge changed the way she interacted with him.