by Poppy Flynn
Charlotte cleared her throat, and Luanna had asked if there was anything else.
"Not really; she said she didn't think she could handle work until Desi got back if things continued the way things were, and she fell to pieces, cried her heart out. It was clear she's got deep feelings for whoever it was she was talking about and that he'd upset her. Not just upset her, that's too mild for what went down last night. She was destroyed, talked about how he could take everything away from her; from her job to her standing within the club, but she never once gave me a name."
Charlotte was quiet for a while, and Luanna didn't really know what to say, either, her mind whirling, trying to work out the implications of what Desi's friend had disclosed and what she had experienced herself this morning and what, if anything, she should do about it.
"I don't want to point the finger, since she never gave any confirmation of who she was talking about, but putting two and two together, I did come up with Connor, myself. As for what the heck we do about it, I have no idea. If Desi was here, I'd probably talk to her about it, but she's not."
And wasn't that the truth.
Luanna toyed with the idea of reporting this morning's incident to the HR department, along with her concerns. The trouble was most of it was just speculation. Connor had been way out of line in the way he had spoken to her, this morning, but he had apologised, several times, and whatever her unease, that had been sincere. She had no proof that he had thought he was talking to Laurel or that he had been treating Desi's PA that same way for the past week or more, and Laurel wasn't there to either confirm or refute any allegation Luanna made.
She wondered if she should voice her disquiet to Logan, but really, the same applied there, too. Plus, Logan and Connor were close friends.
Sighing and doing her best to shove aside her misgivings so she could concentrate on her work, Luanna came to the conclusion that she really needed to talk to Laurel, first, before she stuck her nose into other people's business and ended up making matters worse. For all she knew, Laurel may have already contacted HR about the situation. If there was a situation.
The following day, it all became irrelevant. Laurel was the hot topic running the gossip mill, and the entire building was abuzz with how Desi Blackwood's PA had quit her job and wasn't going to be coming back as she had elected to take her holiday entitlement in lieu of notice.
Luanna still worried. She hadn't been here very long, didn't know Laurel all that well, but she'd always thought Laurel and Desi were tight. Tight enough that Laurel wouldn't go running off to find another job while her friend was on her honeymoon. She didn't know where Laurel lived. HR wouldn't give out confidential information like that, and she wasn't quite comfortable pumping Charlotte for the information. The best she could do was to have a quiet word with Laurel if she saw her at the club again.
Luanna sighed; she guessed that meant the entire situation was out of her hands, whether she liked it or not.
Across town, that same evening, Connor Griffin sat in the hotel suite directly opposite the one currently occupied by Logan Thornton—not that it was occupied very often, because everyone knew he spent most nights with the Blackwood Universal Finance Manager—and held his bowed head in his hands.
His sandy hair was on end from the many times he'd dragged his fingers through it, and his massive shoulders slumped in an uncharacteristic expression of defeat.
He'd messed up. Big time! He knew that, and he'd suffer through the humiliation of Jake Blackwood coming from the head office to troubleshoot his balls up and the undoubted castration he would receive of said balls, when Desi got home and handed them to him on a platter for running off her PA.
He deserved everything that was thrown at him and probably more. As a respected director at Blackwood Universal with more than a decade in practice, whatever actions were reported would not earn him any more than a slap on the wrist. As co-owner of Club Risqué, they would be even less, since he hadn't overstepped any boundaries there. He'd pushed them a little bit more than a Dom in his position should have, certainly. But he'd broken no promises, promised no assurances and assured no repercussions. Not in the sense of the lifestyle, anyway.
There were repercussions all right, but none that he had expected.
Lord knew, he really hadn't meant to hurt her. He hadn't, in all honesty, thought she was so attached and so defenceless that she could be hurt by anything he said or did. She was always so bouncy and irritatingly bubbly. She never appeared to take anything that seriously. It hadn't for one moment occurred to him that she was involved on an emotional level.
He'd assumed that everything was a party to Laurel, and he'd seen his role as being the party pooper. She'd been like some irritating little puppy, one that was always jumping and barking at your heels. One that, no matter how many times you told it to calm down or batted it away, it always came back, just as yappy and irritating as before.
All he'd wanted was for Laurel to back off a bit, to give him some breathing space, some time to get his head together. But she was never gone; she was always there, at work, at the club. He could neither work nor relax without her being around. And that put him on edge.
Okay, so maybe it wasn't fair to blame her for that. Of course, they had to work together, so that was inevitable. And she was just as entitled to exercise her club membership as he was, even if he was co-owner. Not that she—or many other people—knew that, of course.
It just seemed like she was always there, every time he turned around, every place he went. He had enjoyed her more than any other submissive he could ever remember. It was true that they had become a bit of an item. Unofficially, of course. He'd purposely never taken any steps to enter into any kind of contract or an official D/s relationship with her. She was an experienced sub. She knew the score. She knew there had never been any promises, nothing even close.
But still, he'd enjoyed her far too much. They didn't keep in touch when he wasn't on the east coast, but when he had to be here for work, things almost seemed to have become 'expected'. That was what he hadn't liked, hadn't wanted.
Laurel? Well, he liked her all too well—too much. And that had scared the crap out of him. He had no plans to settle down, not even within the lifestyle, and if he ever did sometimes think about the kind of woman who would grace his future, then she was about as polar opposite to Laurel as you could get. He'd always imagined his perfect companion would be tall and sleek, socially graceful. She would be calm and level headed and elegant, probably upper class, certainly classy, a woman who knew her place and was confident in it, both as a submissive and as a socialite. And the God's honest truth was that Laurel was none of those things.
Laurel was loud and curvy, effervescent and wild, disdainful of arrogance and superiority and a brat who topped from the bottom when she subbed. She was light hearted and frivolous and never seemed to take anything seriously. He'd been constantly nagging at her to calm down or chill out or to behave herself, but it was like water off a duck's back, like nothing he ever said ever seemed important enough for her to act on.
On top of that, his feelings for her were complicated. He craved her, even missed her when he was gone. She was like a drug that he'd become addicted to, one that wasn't good for him. One he didn't understand, because it didn't make any sense, and that scared him. It terrified him, in fact.
So, he'd done what men like him did best when faced with something they didn't understand and wouldn't go away, and one they were too damn scared to ponder, in case they didn't like the answer, and stamped all over it before it could bite him in the ass.
He'd just been trying to get her to back off. Subtlety hadn't worked. He wasn't surprised by that. He'd always believed Laurel wouldn't recognise subtlety even if it smacked her right between the eyes. It just wasn't something that was in her vocabulary.
So, he had gone for something rather more brazen and vulgar and tried to make himself as unappealing, as infuriating, and as obnoxious as he possibly could.
He purposely provoked her and annoyed her and insulted her, in the hope she would find him too objectionable to bother with and withdraw from their involvement.
He'd taken it too far, of course. He could see that now. Hindsight was always 20/20. It was the emotions, you see. Emotions that he'd truly believed were only his own. It never once occurred to him that Laurel's might also be involved. She'd always seemed to be such a good-time girl. Only in it for the laughs.
So, unfortunately, he hadn't realised in his reflexive trampling, he'd been stomping all over Laurel's feelings.
And now, it was too late; the damage was already done.
Logan managed to surprise her thoroughly with his choice of clothing for the suspension photo shoot he wanted to do at the club. The garment he brought for her fit like a second skin and even matched her own skin tone, colour for colour. It was so comfortable that she almost felt as if she really was naked, and she instinctively knew that without very close viewing, the photographs would appear the same, despite the fact that the one-piece body stocking covered her from neck to wrist to ankle. It was, undoubtedly, a very clever option and one that she found she approved. She had expected something entirely closer to a rather skimpy leotard, at best, maybe a two-piece bikini type affair or, in her worst-case scenario, a thong and a pair of pasties to cover her nipples as being Logan's compromise to her being covered.
Instead, she was pleasantly surprised and also a little guilt ridden at thinking so poorly of him. But he was a man, after all! A man who indulged in a lifestyle where, when the subs decided to get dressed up, it sometimes meant wearing no more than a collar and a pair of stilettoes.
In deference to her feelings on the matter, he had booked the suspension room at Club Risqué for a Saturday afternoon, before the club was open to the public. Luanna hadn't even realised that could be an option, but she supposed there were advantages to being friends with the owners and being on call for any legal issues they might need resolved. And who knew, she might feel differently about it all, after today's session and the opportunity to become more familiar with the suspension room, itself, and how it all worked and felt? Next time, maybe she'd be able to do this during opening hours, despite the crowd outside the doors.
Several hours later, Luanna was thanking God, and anyone else she could think of, for her own suppleness and her Yoga Instructor, in particular, for keeping her focused on the discipline of practicing on a daily basis. Without that particular skill, Luanna was confident that Logan would have had to scrape her up off of the shiny steel floor after the first couple of Shibari techniques he had applied.
"Have you ever actually been on the receiving end of this kind of session?" she groaned as he unknotted the third Shibari technique of the afternoon. She flopped down onto the chaise lounge and did her best to stretch out her muscles and ease the underlying tension in her joints.
"I have certainly experienced Shibari, myself, if that's what you're asking," he replied, rubbing and massaging her limbs to help with the circulation. "And, also, suspension, as it's good practice for every Dom to be subjected to all of the various applications and procedures he plans to perform. That way, he has first-hand knowledge and understands exactly how something feels and how a sub might react to it."
"Hmm, good to know," she considered, closing her eyes, laying herself horizontal and importing a Yoga visualisation technique to deliberately relax each individual part of her body. She took a cleansing breath and, in her mind, started from the bottom—feet, calves, knees, thighs, pelvis.
"What I actually meant, though, was have you gone through this process of binding and suspending and waiting while the photos are shot and re-shot and the angles changed and then moving on to a second, then a third etcetera, etcetera?"
…Abdomen, spine, chest, shoulders, neck…
Logan frowned, perched himself on the edge of the chaise, and pressed a quick, sweet kiss to her lips. "Are you feeling the strain. Do you need a break?" he asked sincerely.
"I take it that's a no, then?" She grinned but didn't open her eyes, just kept up the silent litany.
…Fingers, hands, wrists, forearms, elbows…
"I've thought about it carefully, taken into account the time and the sequences, so that each technique concentrates on a different stress area," he admitted, continuing to stroke his fingers along her upper arm.
"I concluded that it wouldn't take any longer than the average scene and that, by unknotting rather than cutting off the ropes, along with the time it takes to tie the next pattern, would provide adequate respite."
She could hear the concern in his voice, and this time, she did open her eyes. She lifted a hand to cup his cheek and stroked absently.
"It's different, I think," she mused. "The dynamic is just not the same. This, it's just more clinical, somehow. You take away the eroticism of a true scene, the fervour, the flow of endorphins and, inevitably, the reactions are different. Desire and euphoria mask a lot of little things that suddenly make themselves known when that craving is stripped away."
Logan studied her carefully. "I hadn't considered it that way. Do you need to stop? Is it too much?"
Luanna finished off the visualisation and arched her back. "No, I'm good for a couple more, as long as they're not too intricate," she decided, holding her hand out so he could help her up. And then, they were back to it.
When the man said 'art', Luanna pondered a little while later, what he actually seemed to apply to his roping technique, for the most part, was 'dance'. She had been bound and posed and suspended in the air so she felt like a ballerina jumping to perform a jete´ or an arabesque. She felt unexpectedly graceful and poised, a far cry from the embarrassment and ungainliness she expected to suffer. She could really have almost been flying. In another, she knew how a spider's prey might feel, bound in a web of rope which twined and fanned away from every point of her body and suspended her between ceiling and floor, in which he had even tied her hair into. Sometimes, he draped her in wispy falls of crystal organza in rich, vibrant hues that shimmered under the glare of the lights. Other times, the ropes were the only colour he added to the palette.
Logan had immersed himself in the scene, if it could be called that. He'd stripped down to just a pair of old and comfortable blue jeans, which were so threadbare the knees had worn through. His hair was loose, and he prowled around the studio like the big cat he continually reminded her of, his muscles sleek and rippling with the swift and skilled loops and knots he tied and wove, his movements graceful and limber. And his eyes—his eyes glinted and glowed a mesmerising, lion-like amber that captivated her. And the look in them, the intensity and the enthusiasm, the exhilaration, that, alone, was enough for her to be certain that she had made the right choice. Knowing how delighted he was, well, that was its own reward.
Chapter 11
They did several more sessions over the next few weeks. He hadn't let her see any of the pictures yet, had not even allowed her to peek. There were hundreds by now, in dozens of different poses, suspensions and Shibari techniques. He had to sort through them, he had said, get rid of the chaff and edit the best shots before having them professionally printed. Then, she could see them, he promised. Luanna found herself excited by the prospect.
And it had gotten easier. The club, the routine, the people. She almost felt like she belonged now, that she was one of them, a true submissive.
She'd come to terms with that, too, with the label versus the reality, with the incongruity.
She was still the same person. She still held the same beliefs, the same authority. None of herself was diminished because she chose to act as and be identified as Logan's—Master Baku's—submissive. In fact, there was a certain pride in it, a sense of a job well done. She had come to learn, and learn well, that perception was a long way from fact.
She was even considering signing up for the submissive course and becoming a member in her own right. Not that she would ever pursue the lifestyle without Logan, but it made thing
s easier, logistically. And she felt an obligation, somehow. No, not an obligation, a need to, hmm, show willing, maybe. It was hard to explain. Just a kind of wish to give something back to him, to let him know they were in this together. It was an affirmation that they were not just a couple, but a whole and that they were finally focused on the same goal, and it wasn't just a case of him towing her along for the ride.
She hadn't told him she loved him yet. The opportunity had never seemed to arise, and she wasn't one to just casually drop that sort of thing into the conversation. Not the first time, at least. But that didn't mean she didn't feel it, that it didn't sway her. It just didn't rule her. She would never be a Laurel, allowing a man to tie her into so many knots that she gave up her job, her lifestyle, her peace of mind. She'd skirted close to that kind of mentality when she'd been a young and impressionable teenager. She'd been left with a permanent reminder, a son, Danny, her blessing, her salvation. She'd come out the other side all the stronger for it—maybe a little cynical, but that beat naiveté any day of the week.
Of course, that didn't mean she was above getting hurt; it just meant she'd built up the backbone to deal with it. And it didn't mean she wanted to imagine a life without Logan. He'd come to mean so very much to her in such a very short space of time. He was everything she thought she'd never have—everything she thought had passed her by because she was busy being a responsible parent and trying to make up for her lost education at that time when the other kids her age were going out and having fun, experimenting with relationships and learning to spread their wings from the safety of the nest.