by Ann Jacobs
Folks apparently weren’t supposed to talk about what went on at the club, but Deidre knew that Bye and Karen had only been trying to persuade her Jack would have been too much for her to handle even if they hadn’t been blood relations.
Deidre was coming to agree that she and Jack would never have made a good match, partly because she realized that she now liked Les a lot. She wanted strength, and he was strong, a leader she thought could stand up to her often overbearing father and brother. Besides, Les was the only guy she’d ever fucked who shaved his pubes, though she’d seen subs and Doms who did when she’d observed at Club Rio Brava.
She figured that could be a sign he wasn’t so vanilla after all. Maybe…
He came back quickly, carrying a large cardboard box that he placed on the backseat. Then he shook snow out of his jet-black hair, slid behind the wheel and turned the SUV back toward the Bar C.
“Les, have you ever heard of the Neon Lasso?” she blurted before she could think better of it.
For just a moment he looked away from the road, straight at her. “Why are you asking me, chéri?”
He shifted his gaze back to the icy road before she could decide whether her question had shocked or amused him. For a moment she considered how to reply.
Oh well, I’m already in for a penny. May as well go for a pound.
“Because I’ve always wanted to go there and see if it’s anything like Club Rio Brava, down near San Antonio. It’s a private BDSM club I visited once while I was there. Bye won’t let me hitch a ride with him and Karen when they go there to play. He treats me as though I’m still in grade school.”
“I don’t blame him. If you were my sister I’d try to protect you too. I’m glad you aren’t. Would you like for me to take you there? I got a membership at the Neon Lasso right after I got settled in with Doc Baines.”
Les didn’t sound shocked or horrified. He didn’t pull off the road and look at her as though he thought she had lost her mind. As a matter of fact he sounded downright pleased, and the look he shot her way practically scorched her flesh through her heavy winter jacket.
“Yes, I would.” She wished he didn’t have to get the supplies in that box back to Jorge right now because she wanted to show Les just how submissive she could be. “I liked you a lot before you admitted that you’re into BDSM play. Now I can hardly wait to show you that a Dom is what I need. I’m already wet…and ready to serve my master.”
“You’re driving me crazy, but you know that, don’t you?” He slowed down, took one hand off the wheel and caught hers, molding her fingers around his jeans-clad cock. He was already half-hard and pulsing against her palm, obviously aroused. “How did you figure out I’m into BDSM play? I was being so damn careful to come off as the vanilla lover I’d thought until now was what you wanted.”
“From other members who’ve watched you play, maybe?”
“I doubt that, chéri. I always wear a hood at the club. It wouldn’t do my medical practice a lot of good in some circles if it got around that I like my women smokin’ hot and my sex a little kinky. Tell me how you knew.”
“I didn’t know. I hoped. I’ve seen you’re a take-charge sort of guy about everything you do. You tackle your work, having sex, even flying through a storm, not only with competence but also with the same sort of confidence I’ve observed Doms displaying in clubs.”
She paused and lowered her voice to a husky whisper she hoped would drive him insane. “When we fucked last night you assumed complete control over my pleasure as well as your own, though I didn’t think of you as being a Dom at the time.” She curled her fingers around his heat and hardness, rubbing her thumb over the tip of his cock head. “I think I’ll see how well you can concentrate on driving while I’m sucking this.”
He groaned. “Stop teasing or I’ll make you pay.”
“Your cock likes it,” she said, pouting but moving the offending thumb.
“The rest of me likes it too, but now is not the time for you to take my mind off getting us back to the Bar C instead of stuck in a snowbank. The snow is coming down so hard that I can barely see the road. Where I grew up snow was a rare phenomenon.”
She glanced outside, alarmed at the rate the road was disappearing in a cold, wet haze. “I can’t remember the last time we had a winter as bad as this one is shaping up to be. I’m glad it’s you driving instead of me and that we’re almost home.”
“So am I.” He chuckled. “If I didn’t have to get these supplies to Jorge and if the roads weren’t so damn treacherous, I’d take you to the Neon Lasso right now and give you all the kink you can handle.”
“Promises, promises.”
“Well, if you think you can handle it, I’ll promise to take you over there to play just as soon as this weather lets up and I don’t have an unstable patient who needs more help than I know how to give him.”
“Okay. I guess we’d better get this stuff back to Jorge. He needs you even more than I do right now—and I need you a lot.” She stroked his cock once more, then moved her hand back on her own lap. For the next few minutes she stared out the window at snowflakes whirling in the cold wind, melting on the windshield as soon as they came into contact with it.
They reminded her of the way Les made her doubts melt away with just his steadying presence…and the heat of sexual tension he had a way of stoking between them even at times like this, when they didn’t dare to ease it.
Once they got back to the Bar C, Les had to devote his full attention to keeping Jorge alive. The storm raged outside, gale-force winds whipping snow into random drifts that made Deidre think of the white-sand beaches on Padre Island where she’d spent many lazy days last summer. As night fell she heard the ranch’s big generator kick on and realized that somewhere between the Bar C and the electric company’s transfer station a line had come down. Mindful of the need to conserve electricity until the utility company got service restored, she turned off most of the downstairs lights and made her way to her room, switching off the lamp by her bed as soon as she got into her pajamas.
She hated the dark. Always had. Trembling more from fear than from the frigid bursts of air that no amount of heat could fully dispel, she crawled into bed and hunkered down under the covers. Her teeth chattered but she willed herself not to shiver.
God, but she wished Les would come up here and join her. He’d keep her safe from the storm. He’d promised to take care of her and she had no doubt that he could make her forget everything but the feel of his strong body on her, in her, his arms around her shielding her from all the pain that seemed to become more intense during the storm.
Now, though, he had a greater responsibility for Jorge’s well-being than for satisfying her sexual urges or easing her irrational fear of being alone in the dark.
It wasn’t as though she was totally helpless. She wasn’t. She could do things on the ranch alongside men that would make some other women quake, but she’d always had this fear of the dark, particularly during storms, probably because of stories about people being lost in them. Her mother had soothed her with stories, sitting and stroking her hair until she slept. She thought about Les coming up here now, making her forget everything but being safe in his arms. She didn’t know if she was strong enough to accept playing second fiddle to his highly demanding career. Though logic told her she couldn’t expect to come first all the time, that was what she wanted—almost as much as she wanted to become his adoring sex slave.
With determination she hadn’t been sure she possessed, Deidre made herself stop shaking. Les had a greater responsibility for Jorge’s well-being than for satisfying her sexual urges or easing her irrational fear of the dark. After his revelation in the car, she found herself having an odd desire to prove her worth, as if part of her submission was proving how strong she could be. Odd. She’d never had that desire before with a lover.
Still, when the wee hours of the morning came and Les slipped into the bed with her, muttering something about taking a fift
een-minute catnap in her arms and asking her to wake him before her brother or Four found him there and shot him, she found herself smiling and holding him close…and thinking she’d do anything he’d ask.
He had come to her. Everything else would be okay.
Chapter Five
He’d never needed this so much, never anticipated sex with a particular woman as much as he did tonight. Les tried to tell himself his eagerness had resulted from twelve days’ forced celibacy but he knew that was a lie.
You had plenty of time to jerk off while you were staying at the Bar C to make sure Jorge had no more crises. If you hadn’t been so concerned about Four or Bye catching you, you could have gone upstairs and worked off your pent-up sexual frustration—Deidre’s too. The past four days when you were on call at the office, you could have used the sounds to get off.
Truthfully he hadn’t just wanted sexual release, he’d wanted to have Deidre under his command the way he’d been visualizing in his head since she’d revealed that was what she wanted too.
He had no doubt that he could top her. He’d learned his lessons well as an observer of other Doms and as the recipient of a Domme’s intense exertions of control. The wild card in his mind was whether he wanted to exert that kind of mastery over a woman he cared about…and how far she was ready for him to go.
Les admitted he’d never before felt the emotional connection he felt with Deidre—the need to protect and cherish her that could easily overwhelm his compulsion to dominate her sexually.
He knew Deidre was inexperienced when it came to BDSM, that she wanted it without truly understanding what the lifestyle could entail. Nagging doubts stuck in his mind about whether she was really as submissive as she’d claimed. How could she know, since her only prior visit in a BDSM club had been an observer, not a participant?
Concentrating on the approach to the Bar C’s landing strip, Les put down Doc Baines’ Piper Cub and taxied to the hangar, where he spotted Deidre waving at him as she stood by her sleek Mercedes sports coupe. Her blonde hair blew in the wind, a pale cloud that reminded him of a halo.
Angelic? She looked it—all innocent and eager for a new experience—until he scanned the body that could easily be a Playboy centerfold in that dark-blue turtleneck, skintight jeans and a pair of hand-tooled cowboy boots that matched the oversize shoulder bag she hefted off the concrete.
When she walked toward him he opened the door above the wing and motioned for her to climb aboard. “You’ll have to dodge the medical supplies. Come up here and sit beside me.” He leaned over and gave her a quick kiss before securing the door and revving up the single engine.
Deidre dropped her bag on the floor and settled onto the cracked leather passenger seat. “You know, Doc, I could have come get you in the Cessna.”
He doubted that even the Bar C’s aged Piper Cub, which Deidre had mentioned having been taken out of retirement to drop feed to cattle during the big December blizzard, looked as decrepit on the inside as this plane. Doc Baines was fanatical about maintaining his work plane in top condition, but he cared nothing about how the inside looked. “Maybe I should have let you. This old girl is in better shape than she looks, though. She’ll get us there and back just fine.” Revving the engine again, he picked up speed until they lifted off the landing strip and achieved the proper altitude.
“I know. Want to know something, Doc? I didn’t believe you were actually gonna come and take me to the Neon Lasso until I saw you land a few minutes ago. I doubted you’d risk what Four and Bye would do to you if they found out you took me out to play.”
“We only live once, sweetheart. You want to play rough, so that’s what we’ll do.” He’d never play that rough with Deidre—the idea of hurting her tore him up inside, not to mention that he knew firsthand what getting too deep into the lifestyle could do not only to the participants but also to their loved ones. “I’ll never do anything you don’t want me to, though. If anything should get too heavy, just say ‘stop’. That’s a safe word you won’t be able to forget.”
“Bye and Karen won’t be there tonight. They went to Lubbock to see her father. All we’ll have to worry about is Four, and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t go to the Neon Lasso—not that he’s above having some down-and-dirty sex, it’s just that I don’t think he’d want to do his fucking around right out in public.”
Les wouldn’t even have considered the probability of Four Caden being in the Neon Lasso. From what he’d observed it was a club that catered to members under forty. “What do you mean?” From the tone of Deidre’s voice Les guessed she must harbor some sort of resentment toward her father.
“Just that I’m pretty sure Daddy likes to keep his affairs secret. For more than thirty years he managed to keep everybody from finding out he had a mistress stashed away in Lubbock.”
Les tried to hold a neutral expression but he was sure the shock registered on his face as he descended and began to line up with the miniscule landing strip at the Neon Lasso. “You’re sure? Thirty years is a long time for a guy to keep a woman under wraps.”
“Yes, it is. Long enough for Four to have raised Bye and me…and long enough for our old man to have fathered another son who’s a few years older than Bye. The woman decided she’d spring the news on Bye and me the day of our mother’s funeral.”
Fuck. It seemed that every family had its black sheep—only in his family he was the one with the wooly coat. Obviously her father’s betrayal had affected Deidre deeply. “You want to talk about it, chéri?” he asked as he set the plane down and brought it to a stop on the edge of the blacktop before shutting down the engine.
She shook her head. “Not now, Doc. If you want to listen, I’ll talk about it someday. Right now I want to go in there and let you show me how you want me to submit.”
“You’ve just made me an offer I can’t refuse. Come on—we’ll play now, but we’re going to have that talk later on.” He helped her up and preceded her out the narrow door, jumping down and catching her in his arms when she came down. “Welcome to the local world of BDSM play. My wish is your command.”
As always, when he opened the door the driving sounds of what Les considered stripper music blared from the jukebox and rotating strobe lights cast brilliant colors around the public dungeon. He kept a possessive hand at Deidre’s back when the club owner approached them.
“Hey, Buck. My friend wants to get some club wear before we play.”
“We’ll get y’all fixed right up, sweetheart.” Buck motioned for Candy, one of the club subs. She flounced up to them and soon led Deidre to the store that offered a modest selection of fetish wear as well as floggers, dildos and butt plugs. If members wanted a wider selection they had to go to Lubbock or Dallas, because the Neon Lasso’s store was very basic.
“Doc?”
He met Buck’s gaze, saw concern in the man’s expression. “What is it?”
“I’m guessing you know that’s Deidre Caden. I probably ought to mention that Jack and Liz are performing onstage tonight.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Les didn’t see why that should make a difference. Duval was a skilled Dom and his bride an enthusiastic sex slave. They always put on quite a show, as imaginative as any Les had ever seen performed in Houston. After all, Deidre had observed scenes, so nothing that might happen tonight would be likely to upset her.
“Seeing those two together might set Deidre off. She spent last winter chasing after Duval until… Hey, I don’t want to say something I shouldn’t. Maybe you should ask her what happened between them.”
Les intended to do just that. “It’s a good thing I planned on using one of the private dungeons, then.” Having lost his sense of modesty years ago, he’d always opted for the public playroom, and the only time he’d been upstairs before had been when he’d toured the club before joining it. As he recalled, each of the two rooms up there was well enough equipped for the play he had in mind. “I’m hoping there’s one available?”
“Yeah. The smaller room is free. It’s plenty big for two, but if you’re planning a ménage—”
“I’m not. That room will be fine.” If Deidre had some hang-up about the lawyer, he didn’t want to risk her melting down in front of whoever else was playing here tonight. “I’ll take it.”
Deidre emerged from the store, an endearing blush on her face and a large shopping bag in her hand. She looked questioningly at Les.
“Go put on whatever it is you’ve got in that bag, chéri. Candy will show you the dressing rooms and bring you to our dungeon when you’re ready. I want to find you on your knees when I come in the room.”
When the women had left, Buck cleared his throat, then looked at Les. “Bye’s wife Karen is my cousin and she’ll give me hell if Deidre goes ballistic. I’m counting on you to keep her under control.”
“I will.” As he stripped and got ready for Deidre, Les tried to imagine her with Jack but couldn’t. Duval was too hardcore for a novice sub, and from the scenes Les had observed he seemed to swing both ways. He also appeared to keep his wife under his control 24/7. Les doubted that Deidre would like that, or that she’d take to playing with more than one Dom at a time. Les had no trouble picturing Deidre enjoying D/s play—the idea of it obviously had her enthralled—but he couldn’t see her ever allowing anyone to command her obedience anywhere except in bed. After all, she’d figured out he was a Dom without ever observing him at play—and if he was, it was in the mildest sense.
She wanted to experience the club scene, but he doubted she would go for the action Jack meted out to his wife on a regular basis. He’d explain what she might see in the scene tonight and let her decide whether she wanted to watch it on the video screen in their private playroom.
Les worked his package through the steel cock ring and buckled the leather torso harness before glancing at himself in the dressing room mirror. He liked the minimalist look of the harness, which exposed him completely yet gave the illusion of him having chosen a costume for play best done naked. Tonight he’d shaved off all his body hair, something he hadn’t done since he’d been Jessica’s slave.