by Brynn Ford
“You’ve done plenty to help me. Things could have turned out so much worse. It could’ve been years. I’m lucky I got the sentence they handed me.”
“You are. But it doesn’t mean it was fair for you to have been given a sentence at all.”
Vaughn shrugged, “Listen, you’re fighting the good fight for people like me. That’s enough, just knowing people like you are there and fighting. I respect you for that. And I appreciate you for taking care of my girl.”
I put my hand on my heart, “Are we having a moment? You and me, Vaughn?”
“Absolutely. Call it a moment if that helps you sleep at night,” he gave a wink.
“I think Law helps her sleep at night just fine,” Desi said, flashing me a sly half-grin.
And…it just went there.
“Come on, talk to us,” Vaughn started, “Is there something more going on with you and Law?”
“Is that really how you want to spend your visitation time with Desi?” I deflected.
“She dragged you along with her, so I’m willing to assume she’s okay with us talking about you for a bit.”
“I am,” Desi nodded fervently.
I pursed my lips at her in warning, but she didn’t yield.
I’ll punish her for that later.
“It’s funny that I’m the one who moved in with Law,” she said, “But you seem to be there nearly as much as I am. Though most of the time, you’re hidden away in his bedroom. Which, didn’t you tell me he always kept off-limits to his subs before?”
I sighed, “Okay. A. I am certainly not there that often, two nights a week, tops. And B. He always let me in his bedroom, even when I was his sub years ago, so that’s hardly new for us.”
“So you’re saying he’s always had a weak spot for you,” Vaughn added with a smirk.
“I wouldn’t say that, no.”
“What would you say then?” he asked.
I swallowed, “I would say that Law is a very confused man who hides it well behind a mask of control and dominance.”
“Wow,” Desi said, “That seems accurate.”
I shrugged, “I know him pretty well.”
“But what is he confused about?” Vaughn asked.
“Everything? I don’t know.”
“You said you know him well,” Vaughn replied, “So make a guess.”
“You’re asking me to speculate on the motivations of a man who rebranded himself as Law when he purchased a BDSM sex club.”
We all laughed at that.
“He’s confused about his emotions,” I finally told Vaughn, “Just like the rest of us.”
“I don’t think he’s confused at all,” Vaughn replied.
“Coming from the man who hardly knows him.”
“I know him a little. I know him enough. I don’t think he’s a confused guy. I think he knows exactly what he wants, but the thing he wants is too terrifying for him to go after.”
“No. That man isn’t afraid of anything.”
“There are some things that scare every man.”
I was intrigued by this train of thought, “Oh?”
“Falling in love with a friend is terrifying.”
I shook my head in frustration, “Falling in love with someone you can’t have is worse.”
“So you understand the feeling then?”
“Law can’t fall in love. He’s said it himself, he won’t do it, not since his first.”
“Audrey,” Desi said to Vaughn, and he nodded, affirming that she must have already shared that story with him.
“Again, I’ll say it,” Vaughn continued, “Falling in love with a friend is terrifying. Especially if you’ve fallen in love before only to lose it in the most tragic way possible. It’s that much harder when you know the pain that could be waiting right around the corner if shit hits the fan. It happened to Law with Audrey. It happened to me and Des when we lost Lucy. It happened to you with Asher turning out to be a waking nightmare. But don’t write Law off as being incapable. That’d be like saying you’ll never fall in love again after what Asher did to you. I just don’t believe that’s true.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. I wanted to be defensive to that statement, but he was right. I wasn’t incapable of falling in love again just because Asher had taken my heart and tossed it in a blender. I was just guarded, for good reason.
But I didn’t want to be.
I wanted to fall in love.
And I knew who I wanted to fall in love with.
Chapter 18
Ris
“Why is it still February? I’m so ready for spring,” I stamped my snow-dusted boots on the faded carpet at the entrance of Law’s newest business venture.
“What do they say, out like a lion, in like a lamb?” Law smiled reaching out to brush fresh white powder from my shoulders.
He slipped his hands beneath my ivory, wool peacoat, coaxing it off my arms. He hung it on a cheap hook on the wall beside us and dragged me against him.
“Come here, you must be freezing.”
I welcomed his hug and his warmth in equal measure, cozying into his embrace. He texted me just before I left work, telling me he’d closed on his latest purchase. The former Club O, soon to be rebranded as XO with Desi’s stunning logo and marketing work, was currently a piece of shit space of real estate nestled between a decent bar and a well-known restaurant in the city. Law wanted me to come see the place, tell me of his grand design plans, and celebrate his latest purchase.
After I warmed up a bit, I stepped back and looked up at him, “Where’s Desi?”
“She’s not here. She’s got a yoga class.”
“Oh,” my eyebrows lifted, “I thought you’d have invited her to celebrate with us.”
“She’s already seen the place and I was impatient. So it’s just you and me, Angel.”
The deep breath I took in lifted a smile across my cheeks, “Well, show me around then, honey.”
He opened an interior glass door and held it for me as I walked past, nearly tripping over the peeled-back edging of old carpeting. He caught me by the elbow to balance me.
“I take it the carpet is on its way out?”
“Most definitely. This place is a little disgusting right now, but it’s got a lot of potential.”
A few more steps led us into a wide-open club space. On my left was the bar, which was covered in peeling, faded blue wainscoting wrapped all the way around it. To my right were old, round tables with wooden chairs, lined up to create an L-shape all the way across and all the way to the back of the building. The L-shape they formed in their cluster outlined a sunken dance floor.
The dance floor was huge, a large open square whose four corners were marked by circular, raised platforms with stripper poles running right from the middle of the tiny round stages up to the ceiling, which was decently high given the space. Two walls were covered by tacky, cheap mirrors, lined up and stuck to the walls in rows, most of which were dingy with chipped glass.
I turned around to face him, grinned, and took a few backward steps as I moved deeper into the space, “This place is a shit hole.”
“I know, it’s great, right?” he gave me a wink.
“No. That’s definitely not what I said,” I laughed.
I came to the end of the extended bar and walked around behind it, checking out the shelves of half empty liquor bottles as I strolled.
“I have a plan,” he said, “You know I always have a plan.”
Not always.
“I’m sure that whatever your plan is, it’ll be great. I’ve doubted your business ventures before and you always seem to come out ahead,” I gestured to the wall of liquor behind me, “So what are the chances that all of these have been roofied? The stripper poles and mirrored walls tell me the odds are not in my favor.”
Law laughed, nodding his head toward the end of the bar where a single bottle of his favorite red wine sat next to a corkscrew, “That’s mine. Care for a drink?”
�
��Oh, so this is a bring your own wine kind of establishment,” I nodded with a playful smile as I sauntered down to retrieve it, “Classy.”
“You haven’t seen anything yet.”
I found some decently clean looking wine glasses from behind the bar and opened the bottle to pour us a drink as Law jogged off to the sunken dance floor. He bent down in the far corner and before he stood back up again, the overhead lights in the room lowered and disco lights came on.
Fucking disco lights?
He held his hands out at his sides, standing proudly in the center of the linoleum covered dance floor he now owned. I nearly died laughing. I slipped off my snow boots and grabbed the two glasses of wine I had poured and walked off to join him in the center of the dance floor, doing a little spin as I looked up at the gaudy lights.
“Wow, you have really outdone yourself this time,” I handed him a glass, sipping from my own, “I’m kind of excited for the after.”
“The after?”
“This is the before. And it’s a fucking disaster. The after is going to be phenomenal.”
“That’s the spirit, sweetheart. Cheers.”
Our glasses clinked and we drank.
“Oh, hang on,” he said and trotted back toward the bar.
He bent down behind it and moments later some really trashy song I remember from my middle school dance days in the late nineties came on.
Damn, there were a lot of songs about riding and grinding back then.
He set down his wine glass and shrugged off his jacket before making his way back over to me.
“They’ve got a CD player back here with a whole stack of homemade playlists.”
“What decade is this?” I laughed.
“First on the to-do list, upgrade the fuck out of the sound system.”
I pointed toward the ceiling, “And the lights.”
“And the lights,” he smirked.
I was in such a good mood being there with Law at the end of a long work day. I swigged back my wine a little quicker than I normally would have. By all accounts, my mood should have been total shit given the hell that was coming right around the corner. Asher’s trial was starting in just two days.
Two days.
But being with Law just made me feel lighter. He had that effect on me.
I couldn’t help it when my hips swayed just a little in time to the raunchy song playing overhead. The rhythm of the music was steady, a consistent pulse that slowly invaded my body with each vibration across my skin. With each beat, I sunk a little deeper into its hold, submitting to the feel of it as it told me to let go.
Before long, I was dancing on my own in the middle of the lonely dance floor of Law’s newest nightclub. His eyes were on me and I could feel them, but it didn’t bother me. I didn’t have inhibition with him. He already knew everything about the way I looked, the way I moved, the way I behaved. If the nostalgic music was going to take control of me, then I would let it.
If he wanted to do the same, I would let him.
Eventually he held out his hand, “Come here, Angel.”
I sashayed the few steps across the way to him and took his hand, quickly finishing off the last of my glass of wine before reaching over to set it on the nearest table.
I hadn’t stopped swaying and I certainly wasn’t going to as he took both of my hands in his and pulled me toward him. Watching my hips move between us, he moved with me, matching my rhythm and sinking into dance with me.
We got pulled into a time loop, dancing there together in that outdated building with its tacky lights and nineties grinding music on a CD player in the back. The same feelings of being a young girl, hopelessly romantic, discovering the feel of a boy holding her hand and asking her to dance for the first time, all rushed to the surface. It tugged at my heart strings, tightened in my belly, pulled at my cheeks, brightening me into hope and happiness and a forever kind of desire.
As Law drew me closer, dropping his hands to my hips without missing a beat, I felt light again. It made things clearer for me than ever before.
Innocent swaying turned into sensual rocking. Our hands were all over each other, eyes locked, bodies melding together and moving in a singular rhythm though I felt I couldn’t even hear the music anymore.
I wanted so much from him just then.
I wanted everything from him just then.
And I couldn’t even think logically enough in the moment to remember why I couldn’t have it all from him.
His nose dragged along my neck, his breath hot on my skin. My fingers raced from his hips to his stomach to his chest. My hands glided up the sides of his neck, to the back of his head, lacing into the soft, dark strands of wavy hair at his nape and holding him to me.
His lips were languid and leisurely, grazing just beneath my jawline, coming forward toward my chin, down to the hollow of my throat, and back up the other side. Then they were on my cheek, drawing closer, closer, closer, to the corner of my mouth.
My heart exploded in my ribcage, hammering out the incessant rhythm of three words I thought I would never want to say again. Three words I wouldn’t have dared to say out loud. Three words my heart insisted that I feel when my head wanted nothing to do with them.
I love you.
I love you.
I love you.
I turned my head a fraction of an inch without intention, just a movement, lost to the sensuality of the moment with this overwhelming force of a man.
It was no one’s fault that our lips brushed.
It was no one’s fault that our lips touched.
But it was his fault for getting too lost to protect me.
His lips pressed onto mine and his mouth parted. His tongue swept out along my bottom lip so tenderly, that it took beats for my brain to register what was happening.
My body was lost with his, and in that, I had forgotten my one and only hard limit. What was worse, he had forgotten it, too.
His tongue slipped past my defenses, pushing inside my mouth with swiftness. It brushed mine and I faltered.
My hands hit his chest, pushing back. I pulled my head away. I tried to step back, but is hands gripped me strongly at the waist. His brow slanted inward as he worked to free himself from the time loop we were trapped in. He watched me but didn’t let go.
“Angel?” was all he said.
A question.
As if he didn’t know.
That nearly shattered me.
Those three words that beat just moments ago turned to broken glass inside me. I was glad I hadn’t said them because it reminded me that I couldn’t love him. I couldn’t let myself love him.
He wanted control. All of it, all the time. I had trusted him with that control. I thought I could trust him to protect me from myself. He’d promised me he wouldn’t take advantage of me. He’d promised me he would stay in control and that he would honor my limits.
No kissing.
It was a hard limit.
It was in the contract.
We’d been tempting fate, and though I had no real reason to be upset, I somehow felt betrayed. Perhaps all of my past trauma with Asher had spun my emotions wildly out of control.
I looked up at Law and softly whispered, “You knew that was a hard limit. It was in the contract.”
It took him moments to hear me, really hear me. I watched the realization creep in across his face as his expression shone comprehension, then shock, then regret. He let me go, spun away, his hands coming up to run through his hair.
“Fuck, I’m sorry. I didn’t even think. I wasn’t thinking. I’m so sorry, Angel.”
He came back around to me as his hands slowly dropped from his hair in frustration to land at his sides in confusion, his brow gradually creasing.
“You turned your head,” he said, “You turned your head, Ris, I thought –”
“You thought I wanted you to?” I finished for him, letting out an exasperated sigh, “I’ve always wanted you to, always. That’s not the point. I
told you no from the beginning. I never communicated anything differently.”
“Fuck,” he sounded surprised, “What’s wrong with me? Everything felt so different with you just now. I wasn’t even thinking about the contract or limits. I thought it was just you and me here.”
Don’t let him in.
Do not let him in.
I breathed and waited, watching as his expression morphed from quiet confusion to frustrated indignation.
“No,” he said, slowly shaking his head, “No. Fuck that. You turned your head. You gave me an opening and I took it.”
I put my hands on my hips, “Excuse me?”
“I can’t keep up with the bullshit, Christine. I can make you come, but I can’t kiss you?” he groaned, “What is with the women in my life and their stupid fucking rules?”
My eyes were wide at the sudden shift in his demeanor, “You have lost it. First, those rules are called boundaries. And yes, mine may be a little fucked up, but I have my reasons. And it shouldn’t matter anyway. Limits are limits. Wasn’t it you who taught me that?”
He started pacing the floor in front of me, some strange sense of agitation settling over him.
I went on, “I trusted you to be in control of this. You promised me I could trust you to follow the contract. You’re such an asshole about being the forever dominant, about always having control, the final say.”
“Do you have any idea how much goddamn pressure that puts on me when you insist on completely illogical limits?”
“Don’t you dare judge my limits. They’re mine. Maybe it wouldn’t be so much pressure if you’d learn a little give-and-take in that arena.”
“You knew what you were getting into. You put an impossible limit in place. How do you expect me to fuck you, touch you, care for you, and never let me kiss you? I’m human. I was bound to slip up at some point, don’t you think? It’s bizarre that you won’t let me kiss you,” Law rushed forward, grabbing me at the waist, “I just want to fucking kiss you.”
Maybe it was the forthcoming trial looming over my head, all the awful memories of things that had happened with Asher, but Law’s raw insistence did something strange to me. Not good strange, like it normally did. Bad strange. The kind of strange that made my body go rigid and my stomach turn.