by Anthology
Rick gave up the lifestyle when he fell in love with a vanilla woman. Maggie may be playing the role of a submissive, but he is not pretending to be a Dom.
Will their visit to Club Hades reawaken a need he thought he'd buried? Can Maggie change from being a make-believe submissive to the real deal?
1
Margaret Elizabeth Conroy, better known as Maggie—one day to be Maggie Conroy Curtis when she and Rick get around to tying the knot—took one last look around the restaurant for her usual pre-opening check. Everything was right on schedule for opening. They’d been serving breakfast and lunch on weekdays for the past three months, and today would be their first time serving weekend brunch.
She sighed with contentment. Life was good. Really good.
For a long time, she’d almost given up on the idea that she’d ever truly be happy. She’d been working at a job she was good at but hated. Her love life well and truly sucked. And she was lonely, living far away from her family, and having few friends thanks to the architect of her crappy love life, her ex Philip.
Today, she had almost everything she'd ever dreamed of. She and her sister Cat had their own business, this wonderful restaurant they shared, and Maggie had a circle of wonderful friends.
She also had Rick Curtis. He was her boyfriend, or rather, for the last three months, her fiancé and the love of her life. He was sweet and kind and gentle and smart and showed her every day just how much he loved her. She couldn’t ask for anything more. Not in her life or in her man. Their life together would be good. He would never be domineering or abusive or try to control her and cut her off from her friends and family like a certain someone had done. Rick wasn’t that kind of man. He’d even let her set the tone and pace of their relationship. He let her initiate their first kiss, their first love making, and their first declarations of love.
He was everything she had ever wanted in a man. The fact that he was also smoking hot didn’t hurt, either. She sighed. There were times when she thought he was too good to be true, but then she watched how he was with her sister and friends and staff, and she knew that he was one of the good ones—a genuinely nice guy.
She glanced at where he was leaning over the railing to speak with one of the staff that was downstairs. The position caused his pants stretch across his perfect ass cheeks, highlighting their full, round shape. He was a runner and in fantastic shape. She hid a grin as she had a sudden urge to take a bite out of one perfect ass cheek. Maybe she would one day.
She watched him fixing a tablecloth and centerpiece so they were just right, and she felt a surge of love. And lust. She looked around. There was nothing left to get ready out in the dining room. The chef was in the kitchen, overseeing the food preparations. The doors wouldn’t open for another hour, so she could relax. They could relax.
She moved quickly over to Rick, standing behind him and wrapping her arms around him. It wasn’t just his ass that was perfect. He was tall with broad shoulders and a six-pack, and he didn’t seem to mind that she hated exercise with a passion. His eyes were a clear blue-grey, and she loved to ruffle his short blond hair.
Maggie ran her hands over his abs before moving lower and lightly skimming his package, his very impressive package. Her man was very well endowed and knew how to use it. She really was a lucky woman.
He turned so that he was sitting on the table, his muscular thighs spread as his arms went around her waist, and he pulled her close.
He kissed her gently on the lips. It was good, but not enough. Maggie deepened their kiss until she felt his body react. He made her feel so sexy. She barely had to touch him, and his cock would be straining against the fabric of his pants. When they’d first met, she thought he was always horny. She’d watched him carefully. He’d been hit on by extremely attractive women, some wearing very little, but he showed no sign of arousal around them. In fact, he seemed downright uncomfortable with their advances and always looked to Maggie for help detaching them.
* * *
Rick looked down at Maggie and into her big blue eyes and thought about how lucky he was. He’d fallen hard for her from the first time they met. It had been at a party thrown by a mutual friend. The first thing he noticed was her ass. It was round and womanly and perfect. Then she turned around, and he’d seen her smiling lips and wary eyes.
He wanted to hold her tight and protect her from whatever it was or whoever it was that had hurt her. Then he wanted to ravish her. In fact, the two feelings warred inside him as he watched her mingle reluctantly while he tried to figure out how to approach her in a way that wouldn’t scare her off.
He’d watched her shoot down two guys. One was a narcissistic jerk, so he wasn’t surprised when that one crashed and burned, but the other was a pretty nice guy. He didn’t get any farther with her than the jerk had. Rick had wanted to take his time so as not to spook her, but based on the way she kept glancing at her watch, she wasn’t planning on sticking around much longer.
In the end, he had a drunken fellow guest to thank for their meeting. He’d been working his way over to where she was standing, and was just closing in when she looked down at her watch just as a drunk guest telling some kind of unintelligible story involving broad gestures staggered into her. She jerked forward and ended up dumping her drink down the front of Rick’s shirt.
She’d been so sweet and apologetic. He’d repeatedly assured her that there was no permanent damage and had somehow wrangled a coffee date from her by the time they parted.
He hadn’t been sure she would show. He arrived more than half an hour early and then had to wait—the clock moved excruciatingly slowly—for her to arrive. When she arrived fifteen minutes early, he felt the tension leave his body. She was as eager as he was for this date.
Or maybe she’d just mistimed her travel time and hadn’t meant to arrive early.
He’d started stressing again. But the look on her face when she spotted him helped him relax again. For a split second, he’d seen something akin to eagerness before it was replaced by caution, which was probably her normal expression.
That was okay. He’d moved slowly. Glacially, actually. At first, they just met for coffee, then lunch, and after almost a month of casually seeing each other, he took her to dinner and a movie. She was smart and funny and skittish. He was patient, not pushing her faster than she was prepared to go or asking for more than she was willing to give.
In the end, he was rewarded first by her trust and then her love. When she looked at him with that emotion in her eyes, he felt like the luckiest guy in the world. When she looked at him the way she was looking at him now, he was the horniest guy in the world. One of these days, she was going to give him the look, and his dick would actually burst his zipper.
“Office, now!” she commanded, then turned and strode off without waiting to see if he would follow. By now, she trusted that he would. He enjoyed the view for a moment. She really had an amazing ass. Then he hurried after her.
She went into her office, leaving the door open behind her. He stepped over the threshold, felt the movement of the air, and then heard the sound of the slamming door behind him. He turned and grinned as she reached up, grabbed the collar of his shirt, and pulled his head down to her level so she could kiss him.
When they’d first met, it had taken a month before she relaxed enough to really kiss him. Now he exulted in the fact that she felt free enough with him to demand what she needed.
He let her control the kiss for a few moments and then took over. He lifted her up into his arms, and she wrapped her legs around his waist as he walked toward her desk and set her gently on it and lowered his mouth to hers.
When he pulled back, they were both breathing heavily.
A wicked gleam came into her eye. “Make me scream!”
* * *
Maggie tilted her head back as Rick kissed his way down her neck. He tugged the tank top to one side and licked her collarbone. She shuddered. She had no idea why it was so arousing, but it was
and he knew it.
She reached down, grasped the hem of her tank, and tugged it upwards. Rick reached down and pulled it all the way off and reached behind her and unfastened her bra. Using his torso, he leaned down so that her back was against the desk, and the rough fabric of his shirt rasped against her nipples.
She moaned. He grinned and started kissing her again, moving down to take one of her nipples into his mouth. She arched her back to press her breast up against his mouth, encouraging him to suckle harder.
He just laughed and started moving lower, pausing only to drop a kiss over her navel before unfastening her shorts and tugging them and her panties off. She’d long since lost her flip flops, so there was nothing to get in the way of getting her naked.
She expected him to unfasten his own pants, but he surprised her by dropping to his knees and placing her thighs over his shoulders. He turned his head and kissed her right inner thigh, then bit it lightly before turning his attention to her molten core. She was on fire, and the evidence of her arousal was dripping down onto the desk.
He pushed her thighs farther apart and used his thumbs to spread her lower lips. She heard him moan appreciatively and stopped thinking as he, with no warm-up, latched onto her clit and sucked hard at the same time he slid two thick fingers inside her, curving them so they rasped against her g-spot as he pumped them inside her.
Maggie screamed as a climax slammed through her with almost no warning.
Rick didn’t stop. He was now pumping his fingers inside her as he continued to work her clit with his mouth and tongue until another climax slammed through her. Then he rose to his feet, his hands going to the fastening of his khaki pants when a sound penetrated her orgasm-fogged brain.
“Maggie? Are you there? We’ve got a problem in the kitchen.”
She looked up at Rick. She could see the arousal and need on his face, but his hands dropped to his sides as he stepped back.
“She’ll be down in two minutes, Jody.”
He scrambled around to find her clothes and hand them to her. While she dressed, he retrieved the container of wet-wipes and cleaned off the desk. She smiled as she slipped her feet back into her flip flops and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek.
“I’ll make this up to you later,” she whispered before she hurried out of the office.
2
After dealing with what turned out to be a minor squabble in the kitchen, Maggie walked back into the restaurant and looked around and grinned. She was just so damned happy as she looked around to make sure things were ready for their first ever Saturday brunch.
It was the next step in a lifelong dream she’d shared with her twin sister Catherine Conroy, generally known as Cat. It was a dream she never thought she’d realize; then she met Rick, and everything in her life just seemed to come together.
Night and Day, the restaurant she and Cat owned, was located in downtown Chicago just off Michigan Avenue. They’d been open for almost six months now. Their concept was unique, and she owed it all to Rick. It had been his idea for her and her sister to share space, and it was a brilliant one.
Cat ran Night. It was open for dinner, drinks, and dancing late into the night. The food was modern and sophisticated.
Maggie ran Day. It was open for breakfast and lunch during the workweek. The food was homey classics done right. She finished up by three in the afternoon.
Then her staff, before going off shift, helped Cat’s staff change the tables and make the other small décor changes that, along with modification of the lighting and the window treatments, gave Night a totally different atmosphere than Day.
It was a nice size place that seated one hundred and fifty in the main dining room and could fit another thirty in a private room on the second floor.
The setup was really ideal. She and Cat got to have their own specialty restaurant, but by sharing physical space, they saved a lot on expenses. The restaurant was open day and night, and they shared the job of running it, so they could both have a life. Maggie was responsible during the day, Cat during the night. When necessary, she could fill in for Cat and Cat for her, but most of the time, they each concentrated on their own specialty.
Starting today, Day would be open for weekend brunch. She could not wait. She even had a group booked into the private room upstairs, a book club that met every Saturday. Her friend Amanda was a member of the club. Maggie had originally met Amanda through Rick but now she counted Amanda as a friend. Amanda and Rick were both CPAs and had gone to college together.
Amanda now worked as the accountant for a local BDSM club called Club Hades. She was also a member. When Maggie had tentatively asked for more information, she’d explained she was a submissive, but currently had no Dom of her own.
Maggie wondered what it would be like to visit a BDSM club. The idea caused butterflies in her stomach. Sure, she’d read hot romance books that included spankings and bondage, and her ex had been adventurous and demanding in the bedroom, but the idea of an actual formal BDSM relationship both turned her on and scared her.
Then there was Rick. He was sweet and kind, loved dogs and kids, and treated her as an equal. She couldn’t imagine him doing some—most—of the things she read about in those books. He wasn’t exactly a beta male or a submissive, but he certainly wasn’t a Dom or even assertive in the bedroom. He rarely wanted sex in anything other than the missionary position. He never pressured her and rarely initiated it. He was as calm and steady in bed as he was out of it. And that’s the way she wanted things, too.
It was.
She’d almost been able to put Amanda’s extra-curricular activities out of her mind when she’d run into her a couple of weeks ago. It was Saturday. Day wasn’t open, and she was hungry. Rick had to work, so she had gone to Tempo alone for brunch. Amanda had been there with a bunch of friends for their weekly book club meeting and invited her to join them.
She hadn’t wanted to be an interloper, but Amanda’s friends were welcoming, and she couldn’t resist when she realized that the book they were discussing was Arresting Love, which she had just finished. Not only that, but the author, whose real name was Jane Smith, was there. In person. Maggie had been thrilled to meet her, almost star struck.
She sat with them. They’d eaten and talked and laughed. Maggie liked Amanda’s friends a lot. They were fun and funny and, she quickly realized, all members of Club Hades. She was pretty sure most were subs, but she was certain one or two were Dommes.
But the restaurant was busy and they’d had to break up their meeting earlier than they’d planned.
They told her this was an issue they encountered often, and they were having trouble finding restaurant space to accommodate them as the group grew. There were fifteen people there besides her and Amanda at that particular brunch. Amanda explained that sometimes their numbers swelled to twenty or even twenty-five.
“Sometimes the books we discuss are rather risqué. It would be best if we were someplace more private.”
Maggie had already been working on her plans for implementing a weekend brunch and couldn’t help mentioning, “I own a restaurant. We’ve got a private room that we rarely use during the day. I could serve a brunch up there, and you could have it all to yourself. No time pressure.”
There was a lot of excited discussion. Amanda and two of the others came over to check out the room. They loved it and immediately booked it for Saturday mornings, starting on her first official day of offering Saturday brunch.
Maggie smiled, remembering how excited she’d been when she told Rick. “This is all due to you. Thank you, thank you for introducing us!”
“I knew you’d hit it off,” he’d stated in his quiet, confident way. Some people had wondered about her fiancé having such an attractive female friend, but Maggie wasn’t worried. He’d told her they never dated, and she believed him completely. He had never lied to her. Never flirted with other woman. Never gave her any reason to doubt him.
In other words, Rick gave her exactl
y what she needed. He was loving and emotionally supportive, not afraid to let everyone know how extremely proud he was of all of her accomplishments. She was an equal partner in all aspects of their relationship.
Her college sweetheart was Rick’s complete opposite. She’d moved to Chicago for college. Cat had gone to The Cordon Bleu in Paris and then taken a job in a restaurant in Seattle. For the first time in her life, she was all alone, standing on her own two feet without her parents or her sister.
Cat was the outgoing one, Maggie the shy one. Going to college on her own in Chicago was supposed to be a way to help her learn to be independent, but she’d been lonely and homesick. Then she met Philip. He was twenty-four to her eighteen and the most exciting man she’d ever met. He rode a motorcycle. He had tattoos. He was a bad boy in and out of bed, urging—no, demanding—that she try things she’d never done before. She’d done whatever he asked; she’d been so anxious for his approval.
He was also brilliant, a philosophy major working on his PhD when she was doing her undergrad. She had believed in his genius. She had been an idiot.
They both graduated, and she got a job as an intern with a brokerage firm in Chicago. It had been Philip’s idea. You’re so good at that sort of thing, baby, and it pays so well. Starting your own business would be a huge risk, one we can’t afford now. Once I sell my novel, things will be different. She did as he suggested, and when the firm offered her a full-time position, she’d accepted.
They were a team. She’d made this sacrifice for both of them. She was good at financial matters, and the pay was more than she’d ever dreamed. She hated every day she worked there, but she loved and believed in Philip, so she buckled down to make a success of it.