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Wednesday, August 6th
“She’s coming tonight,” Mase said with satisfaction. He tapped his fist on the bar, and grinned at Dack, Trace and Xander, all standing or sitting at the bar in the as yet empty club. “And she is mine.”
“She has to agree to that, buddy,” Dack said patiently.
“All I’m saying, anyone touches her before me, we got a problem.”
Jake studied him and then nodded. “All right, you know we’ll back off. Can’t say the same for the other doms. And you know we’ll step in if she’s not 100 percent willing.”
“Of course,” Mase said instantly. That wasn’t gonna happen, so it wasn’t gonna be an issue.
Half an hour later, he realized he’d been dead wrong about that, for starters.
In the open area outside the club locker rooms, Mase stood facing Natalie. She was here in the club, and she looked gorgeous, smoking hot and totally fuckable, her eyes played up with heavy shadows, her full lips wet with gloss, her hair fluffed out in a sexy tumble.
She wore a tiny little black excuse for a dress that looked as if it had been made for a woman a size smaller. Not that he was complaining, the way her curves packed the stretchy, spangled fabric. On her feet were black pumps with high heels and some kind of flower climbing her filmy black stockings, delicate vines twining around her pretty legs.
She also wore a mutinous scowl on her face, and her hands were set on her hips as she faced him.
“I’m here,” she said. “But just so we’re clear, I’m not following you or stalking you. I’m here to meet guys,” she said. “Other guys.”
“You came to my club to meet other guys,” he repeated, giving her a level look that he hoped hid the tide of sheer possessiveness boiling up in him.
Her cheeks flushed a darker shade of rose, but she gave him back look for look. “Why not?” she asked. “You meet up with other women here. Lots of other women.”
If he hadn’t heard the little catch in her voice as she said this last, Mase would’ve let loose with some straight talk of his own. But he did hear it, and it hit him square in the chest. Hit like a sweet, stinging little arrow, drove deep inside him and spread a warmth that soothed his anger with its revelation.
She wasn’t here to meet other guys, she was here to give him a little hell before she got what she wanted. That little tremble, and the flame burning in her brown sugar eyes were tells.
She felt it too, the tensile heat zapping between them, the connection that bound them and shut everyone else out. But now that he was finally ready to admit that she filled his mind even when they weren’t together, she was fighting it, and fighting it every bit as hard as he had. How was that for fucking irony?
He had his work cut out, to make her understand that to him this was more than just another scene. Something so much more than just another hot encounter, of getting off and waving goodbye. Now he had to show her that, even as he struggled to believe that he could be the man she needed him to be.
And maybe, if he could do that, he could get her to give all of her to him the way she had their first night together, not just once in a while but exclusively. And he could be one of the Club 3 Doms walking with his special lady on his arm—or a pace behind him when the occasion called for it—instead of just watching from the outside.
“I explained that the other night, Nat,” he told her. “You’re not the kind of woman to casually fuck around, and we both know it.”
“But you’re that kind of man.”
His cheeks heated. Fuck, she had him blushing like a high school kid. “Nat. We can re-hash history later, if you want. I’ll answer all your questions. But right now, I’m here, I’m not lookin’ at other women. I want you—just you. I’m askin’ you to give me another chance to show you that, to make it right between us.”
“You had one chance, Mase,” she retorted, her hands knotted together at her waist. “You had two chances. Both times, you had sex with me and then left, without so much as a word. I’m in the market for a man who’ll at least respect me enough to stick around afterward.”
He opened his mouth, but she wasn’t through.
“I know what we had wasn’t moonlight and roses,” she said, “But I deserved more than you walking away without a word, you—you ass-hat.”
Ass-hat? Who said shit like that?
Mase’s eyes narrowed, his vision sharpening, crystallizing with no one and nothing but the smart-mouthed strawberry blonde in his sights. He prowled closer and watched her big eyes widen as he moved in, their vulnerability deepening. That was good, because he was getting in there, and he was staying.
“You’re dead right about the way I left,” he told her quietly. “So I’ll give you that, baby. I should’ve waked you up, should’ve thanked you for one of the hottest nights I’ve ever had. You gave me everything I asked, and it was sweet, trusting. I should’ve taken care with that. And the second time, too.”
“Now,” he went on, dropping his voice so she had to listen well to hear him, “This, here and now is different, Natalie. You came here, you walked into my club. You read the handbook, right?”
She nodded stiffly.
“Good,” he rasped. “Then you know at Club 3, you don’t speak to a Dom that way. Especially not to this one. I want an apology, Natalie, and I want it sweet and sincere.”
She looked him in the eye and he watched with leaping excitement and exultation as her pupils flared, her eyes darkening. He could smell her, sweet woman and perfume, could feel the excitement and arousal coming off of her in moist waves. Fuck, she loved it when he spoke to her this way as much as he did.
He was in there, and he’d go even deeper. Clear to her adventurous heart. If he could bring that out, he’d get what he wanted, a woman who’d show him everything she was. And maybe show him he could do the same, and be accepted for who he really was.
Then her eyes narrowed and her mouth twisted. “Make me, big shot.”
Everything in him surged, leaping to the challenge. Fuck, yeah.
“Make you? Oh, I intend to, baby. In every way.”
* * *
MASE REACHED INTO THE pocket of his leather vest, and pulled out a stretchy black loop with an old-fashioned key hanging from it. He held it up, dangling from one forefinger. Behind it, his eyes gleamed at her, his face hard, nostrils flared, hazel eyes lit with a fire that she felt deep inside her.
“My collar. Put it on, Natalie.”
Natalie stared from the key to Mase and back again. Then she sighed, something in her relaxing as she admitted that this was why she’d come here, really. Not to flaunt sex with other men in his face, the way he had her—even if unintentionally—but to provoke him into wanting her over all the other half-naked women strutting around this place, offering themselves to him.
She was playing with fire, she knew that. Once he’d told her he was a member of the River Ridge PD, Nat had finally researched Mase on the web. She’d read all about his heroic shootout with the robbers who’d tried to rob the River Ridge Savings & Loan, and how he’d saved not only the investors’ money but the innocent people in the bank that day. He’d then spent a month in the hospital, emerging the hero of River Ridge.
Mase was a tough, seasoned cop and judging by what she’d seen of him here, he was an experienced Dom. She already knew he had as much strength of will as she. If she accepted his key, she wasn’t going to get out of the club without giving him what he demanded—and probably more.
But maybe, just maybe, she could get what she needed at the same time: a man who was strong enough to catch her when she flung herself into his arms, and hold her while she let herself go.
And just because she submitted to him and got hopefully multiple orgasms didn’t mean she couldn’t go back out in the real world and live without him. Club 3 was a place apart from the real world. A place to play, free of strictures. That was all she needed him for.
“Natalie,” Mase said, his voice hard. “I’m done waitin’. You with me, or not?”
She realized with a shock that while she was making up her mind, she had indeed made him wait, here in front of his friends, his fellow club members. She tilted her head in a silent apology.
“Yes, Mase.”
Her hands trembling with fear and eagerness, she took the key from his hand and lifted the collar over her head. It settled into place around her throat, the key heavy and warm against her breastbone. She reached up to touch it with her fingertips.
Mase’s gaze followed every movement. Natalie had to lock her knees to keep from melting to the floor right at his booted feet. Oh, she was in for it now. And she couldn’t wait.
She pressed her thighs together to quell the pulse of need between them, and saw from the flare of his eyes that he’d seen the telltale action.
“What’s your safe word?” he growled. There was no other way to describe the masculine menace in his voice.
“Still purple.” Her heart was thumping so hard she felt lightheaded.
“Good. Now come with me. Protocol is, you walk behind me, you don’t take your eyes off of me, and you stay so close I can feel you breathe. Got that, baby?”
She nodded, trying to look as if she was fine with this, that she did stuff like this every day, that her world wasn’t rocking on its foundations right now.
He gave her a look that said he wasn’t fooled one bit, and then turned on his heel.
She half expected him to lead her a fast chase through the crowd, but instead the man strolled along at a leisurely pace. Giving everyone they met plenty of time to realize that she belonged to him, Natalie soon realized. That she was his possession, at least for tonight.
His friends, the other Doms, looked from Mase to her and back with dawning smiles. A few of the men even thumped him on the back as if he’d bagged a trophy deer.
Natalie discovered her safest course, if she wasn’t to be embarrassed out of her mind, was to keep her gaze, as instructed, on him.
Not that watching Mase was any kind of hardship. She traced the outline of his square head, muscular tanned neck and broad shoulders with her gaze, feeling something settle into place in her chest. When he turned his head and grinned at something one of the other Doms said, she admired the good-natured tilt of his head, the way his eyes crinkled at the corners. He might be a Dom, but Mase was a guy who loved life and enjoyed people and didn’t mind letting this show.
And she knew what that mouth felt like, on hers, on her breasts, on her pussy. She knew what that powerful body felt like moving over her, under her ... inside her. And she was about to get more.
Gazing at him, she barely managed to stop when Mase did, at the foot of the broad staircase. She caught a whiff of his woodsy cologne and had to lock her knees again. Something about the combination of it with his distinctive scent reached deep inside her and rock her world. Whoever made the stuff could use her testimonial to sell buckets of the stuff, she thought hazily.
He looked at her over his shoulder, a comprehensive, assessing look. “You with me, Nat?”
She nodded. “I’m with you, Mase.”
For now, she reminded herself. She sighed inwardly. She was no doubt gonna be sorry later, when she was alone again. But at least for tonight, she was going to live.