“A means to an end... And what end would that be?” I asked.
His expression darkened and he moved closer, raising his hand to touch my cheek. It should have been awkward, but he was so blindingly confident about the whole thing that I just felt mesmerized.
I let him touch his fingers to my face and devour me with his eyes.“Domination and submission. Control.” He watched his finger as he ran it in a slow, goose-bump inducing path across my cheek. “There are other ends, but those are the ones I find most interesting.”
He turned and looked back at the fish like he hadn’t just used some weird BDSM magic to make my whole body turn to jelly. I blinked a few times and tried to regain the ability to think straight. Except every time I started to form a thought, it brought me back to the image of his face just then and the curiosity about what it would be like to kiss a man like Landon.
“Okay,” I said. I needed to talk, I decided. Standing still and looking at him was just filling my head with bad ideas. Besides, I had to admit my curiosity about this whole BDSM thing was piqued, just slightly. “And what is so desirable about dominating somebody or controlling them? Like, I get why that could be exciting for the one doing the dominating. But who wants to be controlled?”
“I could try to explain it until I’m blue in the face, or I could show you.”
My skin prickled with heat. “What, like another one of those demonstrations in The Red Room at The Golden Pecker?”
“No. All you did was watch. You won’t understand unless you experience it.”
“With you?” I asked. “Is that what this is? Some convoluted scheme to get me to let you spank me on the ass with a ping pong paddle?”
“You said you wanted to proceed with the list, didn’t you?”
I studied the look in his eyes. There was a fire there. A need. I might still have trouble deciding how I felt about Landon, but there was no denying how my body did.
“I’d want to know exactly what you were planning to do before I officially agreed to anything.” My heart was pounding. It felt like jumping without knowing what lay below me.
He nodded. “We can sign a contract, if that makes you feel better.”
I laughed, but Landon didn’t even crack a smile. “You’re serious?”
“It’s not all that uncommon. The relationship between a dom and his submissive is a complicated one full of potential pitfalls. It’s critical to establish expectations ahead of time.”
“So, let me get this straight. The plan is to leave the aquarium and miss the awesome sounding dolphin encounter so you can have me sign a contract explaining what you can and cannot put in my butt?”
“Uh,” Landon said slowly. “No. The plan is we finish going through the aquarium because you haven’t even seen the great white shark jaws yet. Then we do the dolphin encounter because it’s amazing. Then we talk about what I can and can’t put up your butt.”
I stared back at him.
“That last part was a joke,” he said.
I let out a nervous laugh. “Sorry. Usually people smile when they tell jokes. You just kind of had this statue look going on.”
He flicked his eyebrows up and shrugged. “Humor has never been my specialty.”
“Yeah, no kidding.”
We sat across from each other in the aquarium’s cafeteria a little while later. A greasy red and white checkered tray of French fries stood between us. Gooey cheese coated the fries like a glorious, golden waterfall of calories. Would we like a side of liquid calories with our crunchy calorie sticks? Yes, yes, we would.
I picked one up and ate it, ignoring the way the hot cheese was practically melting my taste buds off.
Landon popped one in his mouth as well. He seemed to forget he was supposed to be a scary jerk for a moment, meeting my eyes and grinning as if to say, damn that tastes good. I supposed that wasn’t entirely fair. Landon had clearly been trying to be less of a scary jerk ever since he talked to me outside Rachel’s. Sure, he wasn’t exactly knocking that directive out of the park, but I could tell he was trying.
“How do I know you’re not just pretending to be normal?” I asked, narrowing my eyes. “I mean, how hard would it be to act like a normal guy for a few hours?”
“Not hard, I suppose.” He picked up another fry, letting some cheese drip off before popping it into his mouth. “But what would I have to gain from tricking you into thinking I’m a halfway decent guy?”
I sighed. “I don’t know. But I really don’t even know who you are. I mean, how did you even know my grandpa in the first place?”
Landon hadn’t taken another bite of the fry he was holding. In fact, his fingers were squishing it so hard now that the potato was seeping out of the crispy exterior. “We were business partners,” he said.
“And you got that opportunity because you had a great resume? Which you submitted online at The Golden Pecker’s publicly searchable website, right?”
He flashed the shadow of a smile. “No. I knew him prior to getting the job. Our personal connection probably helped me land the opportunity.”
“And what personal connection was that?”
“The kind that makes someone feel guilty enough to try to make amends.”
I felt like I was trying to pull wet, slippery teeth with my bare fingers. “And what would my grandpa have done to you that would make him feel so guilty?”
Landon focused on the fries again. He was apparently done answering my questions.
I almost pressed him for more details on my grandpa, but I sensed something there. There was an emotional wound in Landon, and it had my grandpa’s name written all over it. Asking more questions, no matter how much I thought I might deserve an answer, felt like it’d be the same as rubbing salt on that wound.
“What about that James guy? Who is he?”
“James is my brother. He runs one of the sister clubs of The Golden Pecker. The Diamond Pecker.”
“Seriously?” I asked.
He nodded.
“So, you and your brother both manage BDSM clubs for a living. What about your parents? Did they run clubs, too?”
Landon hesitated. “My mom never really made a career for herself. She tried after…” he paused again, eyes searching for something on the table. “She tried eventually, but by then she was getting too sick.”
Another wound. The more I spoke to Landon, the more I understood why he seemed like such a cranky grump all the time. The man’s past was riddled with enough scars to make my skin tingle. “And your father?”
Landon’s jaw flexed. “He moved on from our family.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means he fucked up with us and decided it’d be easier to start over with new people. Lucky for him, it seems like he did a much better job the second time around.”
I couldn’t imagine all the details that would lead to something like that, but I also felt once again compelled not to dig any deeper. Landon was clearly far outside his comfort zone in answering as many questions as he was. I decided to do the merciful thing and move the topic away from his family.
“So, why BDSM clubs? I mean, how do you even get into something like that to start with?”
“Personal reasons,” he said flatly.
I might have normally sighed with annoyance at the dodgy answer, but I instead found myself nodding. I may not have all the details, but I understood one thing about Landon Collins: he had a past that was just as full of tragedy as my own. Everyone had their own ways of coping with tragedy, and I knew that as well as anyone. Suddenly, it was harder to resent Landon for the way he’d acted toward me—not impossible, mind you, but harder.
“And how do you feel about all of this? I mean, I know I wasn’t thrilled to learn that my grandpa pretty much told me I had to get sexually involved with a stranger to claim my inheritance. But what about you?”
“Initially? I was irritated. I didn’t want to babysit you.”
“Initially,” I said slowly. �
��And what about now?”
“Now… I plan to make the best of the situation. You kind of remind me of this turtle. It was in the road, so I stopped to move it out of the way. But the moment I picked it up, it just let out the weirdest, whispery scream. It screamed until I put it down in the grass, and then the moment I turned to go back to my car, it bit my ankle.”
I burst out laughing. “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. Turtles don’t scream.”
Landon spread his palms. “This one did.”
“Also, I don’t bite.”
“That’s a shame,” Landon said.
I really never had been the blushing type, but I felt my face turn hot at his tone. I wasn’t the most perceptive girl on the block, but I was pretty sure he was flirting with me. Instead of doing the smooth thing and flirting back, I decided to turn things back to my original question. “Before you compared me to a biting turtle, you said you planned to make the best of this situation. What does that mean, exactly?”
“If you have to sleep in the woods, you might as well kick a few pinecones while you’re at it.”
I threw my hands up helplessly smiling. “Okay. I’m officially banning you from metaphors. I mean, am I supposed to be the pinecones or the sleeping in the woods?”
Landon actually seemed slightly offended. He took a deep breath and folded his fingers together. “Kicking pinecones is something enjoyable you can do in the woods. I was trying to say I plan to enjoy this arrangement.”
I leaned forward. “I just want to make sure I understand. You’re saying that Landon Collins, the mysterious BDSM club owner, likes to go into the woods sometimes and kick pinecones for fun? Haven’t you ever heard of like… Woodcarving? Or burning stuff in the campfire? I mean, kicking pinecones?”
“Enough,” he growled. “I get it. You don’t think it’s fun to kick pinecones. Can we move on?”
I grinned. “I’m just enjoying the image is all. You all dressed in your cute little suit. Maybe you’re so excited to get to the woods that you’re skipping through a meadow somewhere. Then you see your first pinecone and your face lights up. A big windup, and… kick!”
Landon was glaring at me now. “I take it back. The way I feel about this is more like I woke up in the morning to find a bear eating all my food.”
I wiggled my eyebrows and then tugged the tray of fries to my side of the table. “Rawr.”
10
Landon
I’d brought a pair of board shorts for myself but had to swing by the gift shop to pick up a swimsuit for Andi.
“You know,” Andi said. “I’m capable of picking out my own swimsuit.”
She was standing behind me with her arms crossed while I rooted through a rack of matching tops and bottoms. I pulled out a pink suit with white polka dots and put it beside her face. “Yeah. I think this is the one.”
She snatched it from me. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you are enjoying the idea of picking this out for me.”
“More like the idea of seeing it on you.”
Andi smiled, but something seemed to cross her mind that wiped it from her face.
“What?” I asked.
“I’m just trying to figure you out.”
I spent most of my life thinking I’d hate you, but I don’t. Now I’m too much of a coward to tell you who I really am because I don’t want to chase you away. I shrugged. “Is it so out of the ordinary for someone to enjoy your company, Wainwright?”
We walked together to the outdoor area where the dolphin encounter took place. A few other groups of people gathered to wait with us until we were let into locker rooms to get into our swimsuits.
I found Andi already waiting outside in the pink swimsuit. The body she’d been trying so hard to hide was spectacular. She was athletic, but still with curves in the right places. When she caught me looking, she crossed her hands in front of herself.
“Enjoying the view, perv?”
“Yes.” I nodded.
Andi paused, clearly not expecting my answer. “Uh, well, just don’t get all excited and mistake me for a pinecone. I’d rather not be kicked today.”
“It wasn’t kicking that I was thinking about.”
“Well, are we going to get to ride some dolphins, or what?” she asked in a slightly high-pitched voice.
We were standing on a patch of blue-painted concrete between three large tanks of water. Each tank had a shallow ledge where customers and trainers could stand in waist level water while the dolphins swam up from the deeper section of the tank.
“Whenever you’re ready,” I said.
“Back again, Landon?” one of the trainers asked. He was a college-aged kid with oversized teeth and messy hair.
I cleared my throat and tried to glare at him until he got the message. I’d probably been to this thing at least a dozen times in the past year, but I would prefer that bit of information to stay private. Andi already knew too much about me—especially after I was dumb enough to tell her about how much fun I apparently found it to kick pinecones. I wanted to groan at the memory. That had been a massive misunderstanding, but it would’ve been too awkward to try to clear it up, so now I’d forever be the pinecone kicker in her eyes.
Andi was looking at me funny while a young girl hopped up on a box and started explaining the rules to everyone who was gathered around.
“What?” I murmured.
“Just trying to figure out what your angle is. Back again,” Andi mused. “It’s almost like you’re here all the time. And he even remembered your name.”
“Back again could also mean I’ve been here once before. And some people are good with names.”
“Sure,” she said. “But you also stared at him like you were about to grab a dolphin by the tail and beat him to death with it if he didn’t look away.”
“Why does your mind jump straight past plausible to ridiculous every single time? Do you even know how much a dolphin weighs? I’d never be able to—” I cleared my throat.
Andi’s eyebrows were up. “No, professor. Maybe you could tell me? In fact, I think you could tell me exactly how much a dolphin weighs. You could probably even tell me more about their feeding patterns, couldn’t you?”
“What are you implying?” I asked.
“That you’re some kind of freaky dork dom hybrid. You waltz around your little club with its golden cock key in your pocket, but deep down, you’d rather be petting dolphins and counting colorful fishes. I saw the way you lit up when that lady offered to tell you more about the clown fish. You looked like a fly who just found an elephant with diarrhea.”
I cringed. “A fly who… Where do you come up with these things?”
“Because flies like to eat shit. I just mean you looked really excited.”
“Next time, why don’t you say that instead?”
“Or maybe I could say you look like you just stumbled on a bunch of pinecones in the forest.”
Those damn pinecones.
“You two,” the girl standing up on the box called. “Are you listening? What’s the number one rule?”
“Listen to our trainers,” I said mechanically, then I wished I hadn’t. I could feel Andi grinning like an idiot at my side.
“Okay, good,” she said. “Moving on!”
“Dork dom,” Andi whispered. “Wisten to our twainers,” she muttered through stifled laughter.
I briefly considered throwing her into a nearby pool of water. I wondered if she’d look as smug when she was cartwheeling through the air.
We stepped out of the dolphin tank almost an hour later. I managed to ask our trainer for an extra half hour when Andi wasn’t looking. The bonus time meant we got to stay with the dolphins while everyone else headed back to the locker rooms and eventually filtered out, leaving just us, the dolphins, and our trainer. Even Andi had forgotten to be a surly, sarcastic nuisance by the time we were done.
She unbuckled her life jacket with a huge smile on her face. “Okay. I think I’m ready
to let it slide that you’re weirdly fascinated with coming here. That was amazing.”
“Good,” I said. “I was really worried about your opinion of me.”
My dry tone seemed to bring back the usual Andi. She pursed her lips and crossed her arms, which coincidentally pushed her breasts up in her pink swimsuit. It took a little more effort this time to keep my eyes on hers. The damn woman was seriously starting to tempt me. She practically oozed defiance, and I was getting more and more curious to see how she’d handle a little taste of submission.
“Oh, shit,” the trainer said. She tugged on the men’s locker room door, which was locked. “I forgot to tell them not to close up, and I don’t have the keys for this one. Do you mind hanging out for a while? I’ve got to track down Kyle for the key to the men’s room, and God only knows where he ended up.”
“No problem,” I said.
“Okay, awesome. I’ll send him here as soon as I find him. See you later, right Landon?”
I tried to pretend I hadn’t heard that.
“See you later, will she? Do you tie her up at the Golden Pecker, or something?”
“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were jealous.”
Andi blew out an unimpressed breath. “You wish.”
It shouldn’t have mattered if Andi was going to think less of me—to assume I screwed around with any and every woman I met. But for some reason, it did. “She said that because I come here. Kind of often.”
The way Andi smiled told me she’d suspected as much. “How often, exactly?”
“At least once a month.”
“You are such a dork. I have to admit, though. The dorky side makes you a little easier to swallow. Like slathering a burnt, crusty old French fry in a few gallons of ketchup. The dolphin thing is the ketchup, and you’re the old, nasty French fry, by the way.”
“Yeah. I got that much. I also got that you’re planning on swallowing. It’s good to get this kind of information out in the open.” I was teasing her, but only because if I didn’t, I worried I’d open up—that I’d start blabbing about what this place meant to me and why I came so much. Or worse, that I’d talk about my parents—about how things were before the divorce and before my brother and I were replaced with Andi and her sisters.
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