Alison Tyler
The men in the room are all bent into interesting positions. A big blond stands on his hands, balanced and unmoving. Another dangles from rings. A third is leaning over a polished leather horse. Hadley McCarthy watches the men as she moves past them—imagining that they have been put there for her pleasure, fantasizing that they will never move. Hold still. Stay that way.
She hears the voice of the trainer, and her head turns quickly. Trainer. In another world, in her other world, the word means something else. There, he’d be Dom. Here, he is Coach.
When she sees him, she feels for a moment as if she can’t breathe. He is older than she is by maybe fifteen years, and he’s tall: at least six foot three. She’s good at approximating—being a journalist has honed her observational skills. The trainer has a thick, solid chest, muscular arms. There’s a faded tattoo high up on his biceps. Old-fashioned, Sailor Jerry style. But his physique is not what stops her: it’s the power that emanates from him. She’s never been so struck by a stranger before. He has a presence that draws out her basest, most animalistic instincts. She wants to fuck him.
He turns and looks her way, but he doesn’t seem to see her.
The room is in motion, suddenly—or maybe it was always in motion and she had frozen the players in position with the power of her mind. The men are beautiful—young and lithe. Yet she doesn’t see them as points of interest. She sees only the trainer, the way he stands and observes, barks, manipulates. He’s the oldest thing in the room, and she only has eyes for him.
Would he talk like that to her if she asked him?
Would he bark commands? Push her around?
Would he punish her?
Hadley remains still for a moment and takes a breath. Then she heads to the front desk to find someone who can help her.
Guy watches through the windows in the office. He runs his hands through his thick dark hair, as he always does when he’s nervous. A quick gesture, as if to make sure every carefully mussed piece of hair is still artfully out of place. He touches the buttons on the front of his shirt as if they’re talismans, shoots the cuffs of his sleeves. Hadley doesn’t notice him, but he follows her intently. She is different from the rest of the girls moving through the gym in their colorful bits of glittery spandex. She’s older and poised. The gymnasts are poised, too, but in a different way. Positioned is a better term. Always on display.
He walks down the corridor and moves quickly after the woman.
* * *
Reed Frost sits in the Parallel Bar—the gym’s ultra modern upstairs café—staring at this journalist. He sizes her up quickly, the way he sums up any new athlete walking into his gym: dark hair, deep brown eyes, high cheekbones. Delicate features you want to trace with the tip of your finger. V-neck sweater in charcoal and a matching pencil skirt. Lovely. He appraises her automatically, a mental exercise. As he would a new athlete, he puts her through an imaginary routine. She has balance; she’s graceful—he can tell that instantly. It’s a skill. He smiles to himself. She has absolutely zero interest in his services. This girl is here to do a piece for the local paper. She’s not here to ask about becoming a member. Besides, she’s two decades too old.
“Why are you smiling?”
Her voice surprises him. He stops smiling and looks at her, his blue eyes narrowing. His athletes don’t talk to him like that. But he reminds himself quickly that she’s not one of his athletes. “I’m not often the one being interviewed,” he says, voice even.
“Meaning?” She holds her pen above her notebook. He likes that she isn’t using a laptop. He notices that her pen is sleek, silver and expensive-looking, and her notebook isn’t one of those fancy, useless ones from a craft store. She’s writing in a Moleskine. He uses the smaller version to keep his own notes.
“For my standard intakes, I run the prospective athletes through a rigorous questioning session,” Frost explains.
“Define ’rigorous.’”
He looks hard at her again. It’s obvious to both of them that there’s a connection. Yet neither one seems willing to make the first move. “You’re the writer.” He’s mock deferential.
She thinks, Touché, but moves on. “How long have you been at the gym?”
“Seventeen years.”
“That’s a long time.”
“Depends on how long you’ve got,” he says matter-of-factly
“How long have you got?” she asks, and she wishes he could see inside her mind. Every time she looks at him, she visualizes what he’d be like in bed. If they were at a bar, she’d slide her leg against his under the table and let him wonder whether the brush of her skin against his was accidental or on purpose. Right when he decides the move was accidental, she’d do it again. If they were at her favorite club in the city, she’d set up a scenario that would make his cock hard in a second.
She hasn’t had a man in seven months.
That’s the longest she’s ever gone without.
She has no idea that Frost has been solo for seven years.
In another circumstance, Hadley would come clean with him. She’d lean in close and whisper that she doesn’t believe in love at first sight or instant karma or screwing on a first date. But if he would come to her apartment tonight, she’d let him tie her to her four-poster bed and whip her.
In her scenario, there are too many ifs.
“We need you in the gym,” Guy says, coming up from behind Frost. He speaks the words quietly, rather than bursting out screaming the way he wants to. He is having an inner tantrum that feels like a ball of fire in his throat, but what he says is simply: “I’ll take over.” He looks at Hadley, who sighs when she sees Guy. He’s a pretty boy who knows exactly how pretty he is. Chiseled cheekbones, dimpled chin, jaw you could use for a ruler. He might have stepped out of an Abercrombie & Fitch ad instead of stepping out of her past.
She wants to tell him that pretty doesn’t work for her. Not anymore. She knows exactly where she stands. She is thirty-three. She weighs 117 pounds. She never lies and says she’s thirty. She never fibs and says she’s 115. But she guesses that if someone asked this dark-haired Adonis his weight or his age, some part of the truth would be shaved off the top. He dyes his hair to achieve those chestnut highlights. She’s certain.
Frost leaves. The fact that he doesn’t turn around to say goodbye is one more point in his pro column. She’s hooked— and fucked—and she knows it.
“How can I help you, Hadley?” Guy asks her as he takes Frost’s seat.
“You can’t.”
Guy follows her eyes, sees she’s staring after Frost and sneers, “He’s not your type.”
“What do you know about my type?”
“More than you think I should. More than I’d like to.” This interaction is not going the way Guy hoped it would.
“You don’t know anything about me, Guy.” That’s not entirely true, so she adds resignedly, “Not anymore.”
“I know what your pussy tastes like.” He can’t help himself. Maybe if he pushes her buttons, she’ll give him what he needs. He’s got a rise out of her in the past. He knows how to make her react.
People turn to look at them. Hadley feels their eyes and wonders if they can sense the distaste she has for Guy.
“So do a lot of men.”
“You say that like you’re proud.”
She stands and looks down at him. “And you say you know what my pussy tastes like as if you know your way around a girl’s clit.”
* * *
She ought to have anticipated this. When her editor had assigned her to cover the gym, she should have asked who’d suggested the story in the first place. But her mind had been on finding a new apartment, reestablishing old work ties, digging into her storage facility for the nuts and bolts of her old life. She’d moved out of Northern California to get free of Guy. She’d never have expected him to be on the lookout for her return. Their relationship hadn’t simply evaporated—the dregs had curdled and soured. A year traveling the country had been for her mental health.
Apparently, Guy had been waiting for her to come back. Getting her to write an article about the place where he works is a creative way of finding her once more.
But fuck Guy. She can’t spend her whole life doing the things he wants her to do, being the person he thought she was. If she learned anything while traveling the country for the past twelve months, it’s that she has to be true to herself.
Guy slips into the private executive men’s room, locks the door, and pushes his strong back against the cool, tiled wall. He’s as well built as any of the athletes out there on the floor, but he isn’t on a team. His job here is head of the PR department. Right now, he doesn’t care about his responsibilities. His top priority is to make himself come. He has his hand on his cock before he can even consider what he’s doing.
How many times has he jacked off to images of Hadley over the past twelve months? Too many to count, that’s for fucking sure. He was certain the situation would unfold differently when he saw her again. No, he doesn’t think life is like a happy movie of the week, but he’d yearned for a happy ending. He thought she’d remember what they had, what they were like—how it felt to have his dick deep inside her.
When she’d let him, that is.
His hand pumps up and down his shaft. He was hard since before she arrived. Simply knowing she was coming to the gym today gave him an erection. Part of him—the guilty part—is certain she can guess what he’s doing right now. She had him down pat when they were together; she understood what made him tick.
So many times she forced him to wait for his pleasure. She’d make him go for a week, two, three, with no release, and he loved it. When she was in her cruelest moods, she’d keep a red pen by the calendar. Each day he survived without an orgasm, she’d draw an X in the little square. There would be a reward waiting for him if he was good, or sweet punishment if he was bad. He enjoyed both situations equally, if he were to be completely honest with himself.
He’d imagined that this year was simply the longest punishment she’d ever meted out. And he’d behaved. He’d been faithful—if “faithful” includes watching an almost endless stream of BDSM porn. He didn’t sink his dick into any other woman. That should count for something, right?
His hand works his cock as he imagines her tying him down to her bed, telling him what a naughty boy he’s been, punishing him with her favorite array of X-rated weapons. He hesitates only long enough to fill his palm with the synthetic rose-scented pink soap. He’s not thinking clearly. He only craves relief. The liquid soap feels like pure sin on his rod. He fucks his slippery palm while he recalls his past with Hadley. She liked to use a wooden paddle first, heating his ass cheeks until they were deep cherry-red. Then she’d stripe him with her crop, watching as he worked hard not to fuck the mattress in his desire for mercy. Sometimes being bad feels so fucking good. Guy knows all about that.
His favorite time with Hadley occurred right near the end. They were fighting a lot—that is, when they were talking. But one night she came home in a mood. He sensed the shift in the apartment as soon as she walked through the door. The molecules in the air seemed to change. She had him bound with cold steel cuffs, his wrists over his head. She brought out a strap-on that night, and a bottle of lube. She set them both on the bedside table, so he could stare at them and know what was coming.
There was discipline first—Hadley always took care of his needs, the wicked urges that made his dick hard. And then she whispered to him that she was going to use him for her own pleasure. She got his permission first.
“Let me,” she’d said, and he’d nodded.
She’d parted the cheeks of his ass and poured lube between, then worked her thumb into his tight virgin hole. For several moments he’d held his breath, afraid that if he made any sort of move, she might stop. How had she known that he’d always wanted someone to fuck his ass? He’d never confessed this desire, and she’d never broached the subject before.
Somehow, she’d simply known.
After prepping him with lube and that dreamy finger fucking, she’d dangled the strap-on in front of his eyes and made him suck the head. He’d started slowly, his lips stretching over the tip, getting used to the sensation before she fastened the toy to the harness that was in place around her slim hips. His lips around the tool had felt like coming home, and he hadn’t wanted her to pull back. But ultimately she moved behind him on the bed, parted his cheeks and stretched him wide.
He’d cried when she fucked him. Not because he didn’t like it, but because he did.
He’s all twisted. He knows that. She knew that, too, and she accepted him.
He makes himself climax in seconds from the memory, shooting in a jerking motion against the floor of the bathroom. But the release gives him no peace.
When she’s in bed that night, Hadley thinks about Reed Frost. She remembers the last time she connected with a lover—a man she met at a bar in Albuquerque. “Lover” is stretching what he was to her. She hadn’t expected to meet anyone that night either. She’d been working, writing by candlelight in a corner of the bar, and a drink had been delivered to her table.
Curious.
The glass of good Scotch had been followed by the man, who spent the evening doing things to her that nobody had done before.
Up until then, she’d been a domme.
The stranger searched out her sub.
Frost sits at home in his empty apartment. He thinks of the journalist, and he wonders what she’s doing. He can imagine that she has a full social schedule. A girl who looks like that must be asked out every night of the week.
He considers, for the briefest moment, going out himself. Finding a bar. Getting a drink. Idiot. He has been alone since his ex left. He decided years ago that some people simply wind up alone. Law of averages, and all that.
If he wants a drink, he doesn’t need to go anywhere. He walks barefoot to his kitchen and grabs a beer from the twelve-pack he has in the fridge. Why leave? There’s steak and mushrooms in the fridge waiting to be fried up. There’s football on TV. He’s got everything he needs right here.
Doesn’t he?
When Hadley meets Frost again—superficially for the interview—she knows exactly what she has to say. He appears disinterested from the moment he sits down. He’s not rude, but he’s not giving her anything to hold on to. She senses he’s built an invisible wall around himself since their first meeting. He’s mentally prepared; she can tell.
Hadley is grateful that she dressed professionally. She has on her favorite skirt suit over a crimson silk shirt, and she knows she looks urban and refined. She asks him all of the questions she needs the answers to in order to write her article. Even when she’s in lust, she doesn’t put aside her hardworking nature. That drive defines her. When she’s finished, he pushes his chair back, wood scraping floor. He’s ready to leave, but she has to stop him.
“I want you to train me,” she tells him. Her voice has changed from when she’d asked him the final question, moments before. There is a hush to her tone now. She is offering him the soft, tender skin of her underbelly. If he were a wolf, he’d grip her muzzle in his jaws in an alpha sign.
The statement works. He settles back into his chair. His silver eyebrows go up. A light in his blue eyes flickers, but she can tell that he thinks she’s joking. He actually smiles as he says the words, “You’re too old.”
She laughs as she lifts her coffee. He’s the first man ever to talk to her in this way. She’s right; she knows it. He’s the one. “No, not too old.”
“The ones I train have been putting their time in since kindergarten.”
Her chest tightens the same way it does right before she lets a whip land on a submissive’s hide. She puts her hand out on the table, imagining being able to slip her fingers under his. What if you could do what you craved, without the constraints of social mores? The world would be a completely different place. People might actually get what they want.
“I want you to train me,” she says again, louder this time. He doesn’t seem to understand.
All of the nervous gestures she’s worked for years to disassemble come back in force. Her head goes down. She looks up at him from under her glossy, dark bangs. She bites her bottom lip, hard, welcoming the immediate spark of pain as a way to clear her head. When she was a top, she was able to bury these glitches—what she has come to consider as the human side of herself—beneath an icy exterior. Somehow, that ability has disappeared. Frost does things to her.
“Don’t worry,” she says, almost more to herself than to him. She squeezes her thighs together under the table, feels her bare legs touch above the lacy tops of her stockings. She knows, in her mind, what this will be like, what she’s asking for. There are men who would snap her up in a heartbeat. She doesn’t want those men. Frost doesn’t see the treasure she’s offering. “Training me won’t be so difficult. I’m good. I simply need a little discipline.”
He looks at her directly. She feels that appraisal she sensed at their first meeting. “What do you want from me?” His voice is gruff. They’re talking for real now.
She can’t help herself. “How long do you have?”
He considers what he has to say. The heat between them is palpable, shimmering like hot liquid metal in the air. “I don’t think I can do this again.”
She’s confused, but she sees pain in his eyes, and she wishes she could help him. “We’ve never done anything before.”
“Not you,” he says. “This.” He acknowledges their connection with the slightest gesture of one finger. “It’s been too long for me. I’m accustomed to what I’ve got now.”
Everything in her wants him. She visualizes pushing away the table—hearing the coffee cups clattering—and crawling to him on the floor. She knows just what it would be like to undo his fly, suck his cock. If any of those behaviors were socially acceptable, she would be in motion. Or if this was a different type of establishment where the rules are skewered. There are so many places she could go, dark clubs. She knows the way down their shadowy alleys, knows they offer her salvation. She doesn’t want that. She wants him. None of this makes sense to her. Love at first sight is a fairy tale, and she no longer believes in fairy tales. But she feels something with this man. The fact that he hasn’t walked away gives her hope.
“What have you got now?” She has to ask the question, even though she doesn’t think she wants to know the answer. That’s the journalist in her, always digging in other people’s dirt.
He drains the rest of his coffee. The half-smile on his lips is bitter. “Nothing.”
“Good to see you back, Hadley,” the ginger-goateed bouncer says as she enters the building. Some habits are more difficult to break than others.
She nods curtly in response, feeling the rush of anticipation build inside her. This is what Hadley does when she’s in turmoil. She hits a club. The one she lands in is an old favorite. It’s dark inside—they’re all dark, but this one, with the rippling black satin on the ceilings and black painted walls, is like stepping into a midnight. Without stars. There are illuminated statements on the walls, artistic quotes bent into curved neon.
She wears all black this evening, as do most of the club’s clientele. Her hair is up, tight, shiny and neat, so that the back of her neck is exposed, not a strand loose. She feels cool and ready. The last time she visited, she was a different person. Guy tugged on the end of her leash, and she put him through the motions automatically, almost without thinking.
Now she’s different. She scans the room for someone who will play the way she wants to, someone who will exchange power with her for one night. Maybe she can put Mr. Reed Frost out of her head if the pain-and-pleasure mix is perfectly blended. A concoction of the most deliciously decadent sort is on her inner agenda.
As she looks over the rest of the players, a man comes up behind her and slides one hand on her waist. This is a greeting of equals, not a sub seeking her out, not a dom pushing her down so that her knees buckle and hit the floor. She turns and meets his eyes. The man’s name is Dean Murphy and he isn’t all about show, like Guy. He’s a gorgeous, leather-clad master who doesn’t give a fuck about the sex of his partners as long as they are willing to submit to his requirements. She’s seen him in action a handful of times, and she’s always had a colleague’s appreciation. Dean’s handsome and he’s hung, but she’s not going to fuck him. They will not be a long-term item: he cannot give her that elusive thing she’s looking for. But he can give her what she wants tonight.
And what she wants is discipline.
“You were missed, Hadley.”
She’s been a dominant for so long the craving for what she wants now feels exciting and new. There’s a crackle, like electricity, in her head.
“Dean,” she says, in greeting.
He has to press his lips to her ear so she can hear him over the throbbing techno beat. “Which lucky sub are you playing with tonight?” He motions to the figures around them, all those eyes watching hopefully.
“I want to play with you.”
He doesn’t pick up what she means. Why would a dom need a dom?
She takes his hand and places it on his silver belt buckle. He looks at her. Her heart pounds. She’s only been his peer in the past. What is she asking him for? She answers his unspoken query. “Do a scene with me?”
Now he understands. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
He hesitates only for a second before gripping her wrist. “Back room,” she says. He nods, accepting the fact that she’s letting him know what she wants. In the past she would have stalked forward, Guy following behind. Now Dean is the one who parts the crowd as he walks, and Hadley feels her cunt respond. She is going to be punished, and she will relish every stroke.
The fact that redemption is so close is flawless, golden foreplay to her. If she were to slide one hand down her skirt, she’d meet instant wetness. She’s grateful for Dean because she knows he will give her what she needs. The times she’s watched him on stage have told her so.
She’s seen him bind down both men and women. She’s seen him wield a crop, a quirt, a whip. She knows that he will respect her boundaries, but that he will take her right to the very edge. She wants to tell him that she’s ready. God, she is so fucking ready.
Dean is a man who knows his way around a rope. He ties Hadley into place with the artful gestures of a true bondage master. When he’s close to her face, he whispers, “Safe word?” and she says, “Angel,” naming her favorite rock tune.
Only when Hadley is bound does she finally feel the constant racing of her mind begin to slow. She has never fully understood why bondage works for her, but she accepts that this is her meditation. Her church. Her altar. She used to be the one doing the binding. Being forced to hold still takes her to a whole new level.
Dean lifts a crop. She shuts her eyes for a second, then opens them when he asks her a question: “You’re sure you want this?” he says. “You know what I can do.” He’s checking one last time.
Hadley knows better than to nod. She says, “Yes,” and she adds “sir,” even though the word feels alien on her lips.
The crop connects with her ass and she sucks in her breath.
Why does she like to play with pain? Why does giving in accentuate the pleasure for her? She used to ask Guy those sorts of questions, late at night, when she was putting him back together after taking him apart. Now she has to come to terms with them herself. But tonight she doesn’t ponder the whys—all she does is give in.
Dean whips her quickly, and neatly, lining up the blows. He punishes her through the black leather pants she’s wearing, and the fabric mutes the pain. She lasts longer than she thought she might, waiting until he gets in five blows with the crop before saying uncle.
With each stroke, she imagines Frost holding the handle of the weapon.
Guy watches the entire exchange while leaning against a wall and feeling as if he’s fallen down a rabbit hole into hell. He can’t believe what he’s seeing. People change. He knows that. But he doesn’t think this is really Hadley. It couldn’t be.
Christ. She’s back in town. His wish has come true. Who knew that getting what you dreamed of could feel so fucking wrong?
The article runs in the paper, and this gives Hadley the reason to return to the gym. She could mail the piece. But she wants to see Frost. Needs to see him. She stands outside the gym, wavers, returns to her car.
The local mom-and-pop bookstore doesn’t carry any porn. (Mom’s decision, she thinks snidely to herself. Pop would carry smut.) She can’t find the titles she desires. It’s a trip to San Francisco before she locates a bookstore that fulfills her requests. She buys him The Story of O. She buys him 9½ Weeks. She puts those along with the article into a brown paper mailer and sends them to his attention at the gym.
Personal and Confidential.
She hopes Guy doesn’t get to the mailer first.
That night it is another trip to the club. To take the edge off, she tells herself, like a junkie would. To fill the need. She’s always had those needs, the ones that wake her up in the night—or keep her from falling asleep in the first place. Top or bottom, there are urges, cravings. The ones that make her attempt to punish herself when nobody else is available. She’s not that capable. She pulls back. Spanking your own ass does nothing—you can’t feel the sting. Not the way you can when there’s a master on the other end of the whip.
She takes care of her needs in other ways. Dom or sub. No one else would be able to guess. She pushes herself when she works out. When she does anything. She always has to go one step past the finish line, has to cross the line before anyone else.
Guy calls her cell phone as she’s arriving at the club. “Come on, Hadley. Don’t shut me out.”
She won’t rehash their final fight. Now that she has distance, she can see that nobody was right and nobody was wrong. They simply don’t mesh.
“Frost won’t be able to give you what you need.”
“You have no idea what I need.”
“I used to.”
“That and my vibrator will get me off.”
She hangs up and shakes her head. Of course, her ex would be working at the same place as the man she desires. That’s the kind of luck she has.
Unfortunately, Guy knows her too well. That’s her fault. She had him trained to anticipate her desires. She’s in a corner of the club when he arrives. He’s wearing leather and black, and he moves with the elegance that drew her to him in the first place.
On the surface Guy is everything she ever desired. Scratch the surface and, as she discovered, there isn’t much there. Guy is all about his attire, his perfect body, his luxurious hair. He couldn’t get to the place she needed to be—couldn’t take her there, beyond the shiny exterior, into the slithery mess of her mind.
But that’s not entirely fair.
When they were together, she didn’t really know what she needed. Now she does.
He spies her, and he starts moving through the crowd. Fuck. Hadley heads quickly in the opposite direction. Her motion halts Guy. That sums up their relationship in the crack of a whip. He sees her approach Dean, and he grimaces.
“Twice in a week,” Dean says, and his hand grips the back of her neck. “I must have won the fucking lottery.”
Dean is less hesitant this time. He treats her the way he would any other sub. The respect of dom to dom has entirely disappeared. All Dean wants to do is be on top. Hadley is thankful for that. She needs to feel the heat of the pain in her soul. She wants to own every blow.
He uses a slapper this time—two pieces of leather attached together at the handle. The noise is more startling than the pain. She knows all about this particular tool. She’s had her own for years, and it was always one of her favorites. Every time the leather connects, her pussy contracts. She can feel that Dean is whipping her carefully, in order to make the scene last. Not too hard, but forcefully. He clearly doesn’t want it to be over before they start.
She knows that out there in the crowd, Guy is paying careful attention. She wonders how many times he will stroke his hair while he drinks in the scene.
Watching twists Guy up inside. He was with her. He was her sub. What they had together fit for him. He still doesn’t understand why she left. He doesn’t care about Dean. It’s the way Hadley looks at Frost that makes Guy crazy. Guy was the one who brought Hadley into the gym—so that she could see him, so that she could remember what they had together. His plans rarely backfire. He’s always been good at setting a web.
What is wrong with her?
Dean switches over to a flogger, and Guy imagines what the tiny tails must feel like to Hadley. He’s been on the receiving end of those sorts of weapons so many times before. He loved when Hadley would make him stay in place without any bindings, make him hold his hands over his head while she used a cat-o’-nine-tails on his naked back. That was the most difficult for him—that and when she pegged him with the strap-on.
Now Hadley is the one being punished, and Guy can’t comprehend the range of emotions that swell up inside him.
“Twenty,” Dean says. “Count them out for me.”
Oh, so the dom wants Hadley to keep track. That was one of Hadley’s own tricks. Guy would try his best to count for her, but he would always fuck up, and she would start again at one. How many times did she chide him for losing his place? How many nights did she make him stand in the corner, his dick so hard, refusing to give him release because he had been a naughty boy?
Guy mentally counts the blows along with her. At seven, he starts to formulate an idea. He will invite Frost out for a drink to expose Hadley for who she truly is.
But he watches, first. He stares at Dean, seeing the man expertly deliver the pain that finally makes Hadley cry out.
Good, he thinks. Cry.
That doesn’t stop him from coming to the image when he gets home. We’re all mercurial at some point, he thinks. Desires slip and change, shift and glide. Pain is pain and pleasure is pleasure. For him, and for Hadley, the two sensations are entwined. Does it matter that she needs to be on the receiving end?
Guy uses a bottle of hand lotion this time; the honey-vanilla scent was Hadley’s favorite. He likes to smell like her. But as he jacks off, he can’t stop himself from envisioning Dean. Dean tying him up. Dean flogging him. Guy stares at his reflection in the mirror. He tries to make himself fantasize about Hadley whipping him, tries to force that image into his head.
Instead, he sees only Dean.
Frost receives the package at the gym. He laughs to himself when he sees what she’s sent him. She’s like a child, he thinks, begging so many different ways for a treat. He doesn’t know how he should respond, so he does nothing. There’s no need to rush.
If she wants something bad enough, she’ll tell him in person.
It’s been a week. Guy can’t function. He’s in charge of PR at the gym, and he does his job as if in a dream. Every time he closes his eyes, he sees himself up on stage at the club. Bound in place. Forced to take what he desires, what he deserves.
It’s Dean making him count now. Dean instructing him to behave, to be a good boy.
He runs a comb through his thick black hair, a soothing gesture. He tells himself that he still wants Hadley. At the end of the day, as he dials Frost’s number, he realizes that he almost believes the lie.
“She’s bad news,” Guy says to Frost as soon as the older man sits down.
“I haven’t even ordered a beer yet.”
Guy feels himself talking too fast. His face is hot. He wishes he had asked for ice water instead of vodka while he was waiting for Reed, wishes he hadn’t downed the drink so fast. “You should stay clear from her if you don’t want to get hurt.”
Frost enjoys talking with Guy. The boy is so immature. He’s good at his job. Public Relations requires someone slick like Guy. But the kid can’t see two weeks in front of him, let alone the rest of his life. Frost is not offended by Guy’s words. He finds himself entertained by their interaction. Nothing like this has happened to him for years. So long, he actually forgot what this part of his brain was for. He trains his athletes’ core—he’d left his own to decay.
He has no idea what he’ll get from the evening. But maybe he’ll learn a little more about the girl.
“How could she hurt me?” Frost is genuinely curious. A young waitress in a velvet catsuit delivers his Heineken. He cradles the green bottle in one of his large hands.
“She’ll get you all wrapped up, all twisted, and then she’ll leave.”
“Like she did to you.”
“I know her. She’s into stuff you won’t like.” He motions to the bartender for another vodka. He senses he’s going to get drunk, but he can’t seem to stop himself.
Frost drinks his beer slowly. He wants Guy to try to tell him what he won’t like. If Frost chooses to drink more, he can do so at home. His feet up on his coffee table. His apartment, even stark and bare, is a comfort.
“You should look into the club she goes to. You’ll find out for yourself what she’s into.”
“That’s not a bad idea.”
So Frost is ready when Hadley calls him.
* * *
“I want to do another scene.”
“We work well together,” Dean says, pleased that a woman like Hadley continues to choose him.
“This time is different,” Hadley explains. “I want to put on a show for someone else.”
She is honest about the whole situation when she explains her desires. Dean is game. He’s always up for a performance with a beautiful sub. He’ll spank her and humiliate her and make her beg anytime she wants. But they don’t have a deeper bond. They go through the motions and everyone gets off, but there’s no desire to wrap her arms around him and stay sealed to his body. All she wants afterward is a shower.
What she wants with Reed Frost is forever.
She invites Frost to meet her. She tells him the time. She has no idea if he will do what she requests. There’s no worldly reason to believe that he will—except for the connection, except for the fact that when she pictures him, her breathing quickens. When she visualizes his face, her pussy clenches.
She thinks about all those chick flicks she’s managed to see over the years. The ones with the cute meets between hero and heroine. The scenes in which one of the players finally realizes he or she has true feelings for the other.
Have any similar meets occurred in a BDSM club? she wonders.
When she meets eyes with Frost this time, she expects him to be ill at ease. He doesn’t run this spot. He’s not Coach here and he’s not Dom. But he doesn’t leave.
Dean has her bent over the leather horse. She knows there’s a similar piece of furniture at the gym. That one is for vaulting. This is for spanking. Frost stands ten feet away and watches. He has on a scarlet T-shirt, so visible in a sea of black. Don’t leave, she thinks. Don’t leave. She’s begging him with her eyes.
He wouldn’t have come if he didn’t want to know more.
That gives her a small spark of power. One that lets her last longer than she might otherwise have. Dean stops before she has to give her safe word.
Frost is waiting for her in the parking lot.
He drives an old truck. A beater. What her dad would lovingly have referred to as a hooptie. Hadley grew up with men who drove trucks like this one. Then one day she woke up and found herself in a world of Guys, where men used product and spent more time primping in the bathroom than she did. Maybe she was born into the wrong era. Not only doesn’t she want a metrosexual; she doesn’t even want to date someone who uses the word.
Frost is leaning against his truck in a pose straight out of a ’50s cowboy flick. She knows somehow that he’ll use two wires to make the engine catch.
“Do you want to go somewhere and have a drink?” she asks.
“You think you can sit down after being punished like that?”
“I’m tough.”
“I’m starting to get that feeling.”
“Why did you come?”
“Why did you ask me?”
Oh, fuck, they’re so much alike. The only difference is that she’s making the moves. Otherwise, they might be lost forever—both wanting, but neither taking the step forward. Topping from below. That’s what she’s doing. She would smile at the thought that he wouldn’t understand what she was talking about—if this felt like a situation in which to smile.
“I asked you,” she says, “because you can give me what I need.” She wants to tell him more. That if he tried, he could cross her wires and start her engine. She knows this about him. She doesn’t know how she does, but she does. Like the man in Albuquerque who slid his wheelchair over by her chair and spoke to her in that low whiskey tone all night. Unraveling her fantasies until she was naked and exposed. He mindfucked her, and it was the best sex she’d had in years.
Reed Frost looks her up and down. She believes he could make her come by looking at her like that. In his eyes is ownership. She would wear his name tattooed on her skin. “Why would you think that?”
“I have a good sense for people.”
“Like Guy?”
“I was wrong about Guy.”
“Maybe you’re wrong about me.”
“Am I?”
He puts his hands on her arms and kisses her. The way his lips feel on hers resonates through her entire body. She is demolished by the kiss. He grips her in his arms, and she can feel that he’s hard through his Levi’s, and this delights her. He got hard watching another man whip her. If he’d been disgusted, he would already have torn out of the parking lot in a squeal of rubber. The throb of his cock through the denim is an unspoken promise. She loves the fact that he wore jeans and a scarlet T-shirt to a BDSM club, when every other player in the building wore black and leather. Through his truck window she can see the striped emerald athletic jacket he wears while coaching.
“Take me home,” she says.
He shakes his head. “I can’t wait that long.”
Oh, God, she thinks, it’s going to be good.
He gets her into the truck. They drive to a spot where they can see San Francisco—the whole twinkling fantasy of the city—spread out for them. But neither one has time for the view. Frost has a rough green army blanket in the back of his truck. He lays Hadley on the blanket in the truck bed, and he starts to touch her. His hands are so gentle. She’s surprised by the way he makes her feel.
She thinks of the man she met while on the road, the one who talked to her, his voice his instrument, telling her what she needed, getting her off with his words. That was the night she discovered who she really was. She wonders if she can help Frost discover the same thing about himself.
“Take off your clothes,” he says.
She unzips her shirt and peels off the shiny PVC. She undoes the three shiny chrome buckles of the skirt, and the fabric falls open. She now has on only a black satin bra and matching panties, thigh-high stockings, and her engineer boots. She’d be cold if not for the heat between the two of them.
“Roll over, baby. I want to see.”
Baby.
She does what he tells her, exposing the welts left by Dean’s crop on the backs of her thighs. Frost runs his hands over her skin. He pulls her bikinis down to see her ass. She moans as he traces each mark left by the crop. Her hips start to shimmy against the blanket.
“You like what he did to you?”
She looks over her shoulder at Frost and meets his eyes. She nods.
“Tell me why.”
“Tell me why you won’t be with anyone else.”
“I never said that.”
“You said you were happy with what you had. And what you had was nothing.” How odd to have this conversation while she can feel the rough blanket against her naked sex. He slides one hand under her, and he cups her pussy while they talk. The words flow over her, because she is focused on his fingers on her clit. He plays her magnificently, as if he’s always had one hand between her legs, as if he knows exactly how she touches herself when she’s all alone in bed.
“I never said I was happy.”
“You said you were—” she searches for the word in her mind as his finger strokes her “—accustomed.”
“Check your notes. I said I didn’t think I could do this again. You’ve filled in the rest.”
“What did you do before?”
His finger splits her nether lips and nestles between them. She feels as if she is balanced on his pointer, as if her whole body is suspended on his single digit. He rubs her clit. She knows she’s close.
“I got so tired of the games,” he says, and he bends and starts to kiss along her welts, his fingertip still spiraling over her clit. He adds another finger, and she sighs. He’s kissing the hot lines of her skin. She’s having a difficult time believing this is for real.
“I’m not in this for a game.”
“I’m satisfied with what I’ve got.” He licks along the crop marks, and she feels herself teetering right on the edge. He is going to make her come. She wants to ask what he’s doing to her, but she’s the one who started them on this ride. She’s the one who supposedly knows what she’s doing. Except she doesn’t. This is new to her. Being a sub is like wearing her insides on the outside. She knows only what she wants.
“You haven’t got anything.”
“This doesn’t feel like nothing.”
He’s right. This is something. Something big. If she could paint a picture of what they’re doing, she’d put fireworks in the sky. He knows how to take care of her. His fingers play her clit, while his mouth continues to kiss the marks of pain left by Dean. But suddenly she wants more. She wants him inside her. It’s bold and demanding, but she says, “Please fuck me.”
“Do I have to whip you first?” His fingers stop moving. There’s ice in his tone.
She wonders if it was a mistake to let him see another man touch her, see another man hurt her. She tries to be flippant. “Next time. Tonight, just fuck me.”
He rolls her over and he presses his mouth to her pussy. She starts to shake. He licks her slowly, using both hands to spread apart her pussy lips. The cool night air on her cunt makes her shiver. His tongue traces circles over and over, and she lifts her hips up and presses against him. She’s greedy and she knows it. She wants his cock, but she wants his tongue, and she can’t have both at the same time.
“You’re pure sweetness,” he says, and he sets her back and starts to undo his belt. She can see a time when she’ll beg him to use the leather on her. Right now, it’s only in the way of getting his pants off. She’s desperate to have him inside her. Luckily, he doesn’t make her wait any longer.
“I wanted to do this from the first time I saw you,” she says.
“I know.”
He teases her first, fucking her clit with the head of his cock. She feels as if her clitoris is swelling and expanding. Nobody has ever taunted her like this before. They wouldn’t dare withhold pleasure. Reed doesn’t seem afraid of her at all. She raises her hips in an attempt to get him to thrust inside her. He refuses to be rushed. Every move she makes, he counters. He simply fucks the wet, slippery length of his cock against her pussy, over and over until she feels the pleasure in every cell of her body. Only when she is on the brink does he thrust inside her. Only when she is begging does he actually start the ride.
“You’re so beautiful,” he says.
His cock is in her, and she groans at the way he feels. Filling her. Completing her.
“I never had that before. That connection at first sight.” She can’t believe she’s talking while he’s fucking her, but she wants to explain. She’s not a girl who will fuck anyone.
“I know,” he says again.
“How do you know?”
He makes sure to slide one hand between them, so he can continue plucking her clit while he fucks her. “I just do.”
She wraps her thighs around him. She is so glad they fit. His cock is hard and strong, hitting all the right places deep inside her. She can’t wait to suck him, to taste the way their juices mingle, can’t wait to try all the different positions she loves—doggy-style with him pulling on her hair, reverse cowgirl so he can grip her hips and work her just right. But right now, he’s on top, drilling her hard, and she knows she’s going to climax.
But then he says, “Why would you let that man whip you?”
There it is. The chilled tone once more. “I wanted to show you…” She’s not sure how to explain. “I wanted you to see.”
“But why him… and not me?”
What is he saying to her? The way he’s talking is like a stone-cold dom. She feels a shiver trace along the back of her neck.
“I didn’t think you’d understand.”
His eyes are cold. “I don’t ever want you to ask someone else to lay a hand on you when what you really want is me.”
The way he says the words makes her come.
Guy stays at the club. There’s no reason for him to leave. She’s with Frost, and he has no backup plan. He brought Hadley to the gym so they could have another shot. He told Frost to steer clear, so he could dance his way back into Hadley’s heart. He isn’t a psychopath. She doesn’t want him anymore. He has to accept the fact that she’s really gone.
That doesn’t make the pain easier to bear. And it’s not his first choice of pain.
Dean finds him on a leather bench.
“You were with her for a while?”
“Two years.”
Dean puts one hand on Guy’s thigh. “I used to watch the two of you do scenes together,” he says.
Guy looks at Dean. He leans in close. They share a kiss.
“That’s the last time you lead,” Dean says. Guy feels as if someone has wrapped a chain around his heart to keep the organ from breaking.
Frost asks, “Don’t you ever just want to get a cup of coffee?” They sit in the truck bed together, her legs over his. Their connection feels so natural, as if they’ve been a couple for years.
“What do you mean?” She’s trembling. He reaches through the window of the truck to grab his jacket, and he sets it over her shoulders. The gesture tugs at her. He’s a gentleman.
“Twenty-four-seven relationships—like the ones in the books you sent me. Do they make any sense to you?”
So he read the books. “Aren’t most relationships 24/7?”
“Smart-ass.”
His tone strikes a chord in her stomach. She sits up straighter.
“In the past, have you escaped on the weekends?” she asks him. “Taken a few personal days—got off early for good behavior?”
“I can see how it might feel nice to give you a good, hard spanking.”
She lets herself smirk. There’s still time. “Do you now?”
He leans back and looks at her. He’s told her straight out. He’s not someone who plays games. She likes this about him. “I can. I can see exactly what that would feel like, dragging you over my lap, lifting that poor excuse for a skirt up.” He nudges her PVC skirt with his foot. “Spanking you on your bare bottom.”
He says bottom. But she knows she can get him to say ass.
“In fact, I can imagine exactly how long I would spank you before you’d cry and beg me to stop. But I wouldn’t stop….”
She’s getting wet again.
“I’d keep punishing your pretty bottom until I was finished. And that might take me a while. I’ve got a very firm hand.”
She squirms on the blanket. She wishes he’d do exactly what he just described. Even after having been worked by Dean at the club, she’s ready for a spanking at Frost’s hand.
“But I don’t know about having someone waiting for me to tell them what to do.”
“That’s your fucking job. You tell people what to do all day long.”
When she says fucking, his eyes harden. “I don’t tell them to suck my cock.”
He’s getting closer. She can almost feel him crossing the line.
“It’s not like that.”
“Then you tell me what it’s like. Stop giving me books and hints and fucking taunts. Tell me exactly what you want from me.”
She stares into his eyes. She sees something there. What she saw when she first walked into the gym. “This.” She grips his hand. She means the connection.
“I don’t get it.”
“Take me home. I’ll show you.”
Frost’s apartment looks nothing like Hadley had expected. She’d thought there would be photographs. Medals. Trophies. The walls are white. The furniture is dark. There is nothing else.
He takes her to the bedroom. She sits on the edge of the mattress and looks at him. She’s wearing bra, panties and his shiny athletic jacket. “Your house is so empty.”
“She took everything.”
She.
Hadley doesn’t ask who she was. When Frost wants to, if Frost wants to, he’ll tell her. He comes close to her and undresses her. Hadley feels like a doll the way he moves her, carefully pulling off the jacket, undoing her bra, slipping her panties down her thighs.
Hadley opens her arms. Frost hesitates before embracing her, gripping her body to his. She’s entirely naked, and he has his jeans and shirt on. She likes that.
“You’ve lived like this for how long?
“Seven years.”
“Seven,” she echoes.
“It was easier than doing anything else.”
For a moment he simply holds her, his palms under her ass. She feels weightless in his arms. She runs her fingertips along his biceps. She shivers when she feels how strong he is. He sets her down only long enough to strip, himself. Then he carries her across the room and holds her against the wall, pinning her. He’d promised himself that he wouldn’t do this again. But he already broke that promise. She’s so warm. He feels as if he’s melting inside.
Dean hustles Guy into the bathroom. “You’re so pretty,” Dean says. “I’ve admired that mouth of yours for so goddamn long.”
Guy looks at his reflection in the mirror. His hair is tousled. For once he doesn’t move to fix it, even though he has a comb in his back pocket.
Dean traces his fingers over Guy’s full lips. “Your mouth was made to suck cock. You know that, don’t you?”
Guy thinks of the time with Hadley and the strap-on. He thinks of what made him cry that night, and he nods.
“On your knees, boy.”
Guy drops to his knees on the bathroom floor. Dean slides a thumb between Guy’s lips. “Suck it,” he says. “Show me what you can do.”
Guy’s cock is a rod in his leather pants. He sucks Dean’s thumb, and he stares up at the handsome dom, wanting so badly to suck something else, to drain Dean to the root.
* * *
Hadley’s thighs are around Frost’s waist, her body pressed to his. She knows they’re going to fuck again, soon, but she wants him to talk to her first. She needs to know.
“She left,” he says, “and I didn’t want to try again. I got used to having what I have.”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing is easy.” He laughs, but darkly. “I don’t mean it the way that sounds. It was easy growing accustomed to having nothing.”
“Sounds Zen.”
He shakes his head. “I’m not the type.”
“You don’t have to be like that anymore.”
He slides the head of his cock inside her. She can feel her pussy respond automatically. They are good together. They fit. She has no idea how well.
Frost fucks her against the wall, and Hadley feels the magic of being with someone who knows how to touch you. She has her eyes closed, her head back. Frost is so strong. He balances her easily in his big hands, maneuvers her exactly the way he wants. He has her positioned on his thighs for a moment, and she remembers the first glimpse she had of him as she entered the gym. The power that she felt.
He runs a hand over her clit, and she keens low and sweet under her breath. She feels so real in his hands. He understands suddenly that he has to come clean. He made her bare her soul to him. “I have to tell you something,” he says.
He’s fucking her as he talks. She can’t find the breath to respond.
“I’m not new…not to what you like. What you need.”
He has her clit between his thumb and forefinger, and he bears down, giving her too much pressure. No, not too much. So much. She feels as if she will explode with the sensation. She’s too overwhelmed to unravel what he’s telling her. “What do you mean?” She’s panting.
He pulls out and carries her to the bed. He spreads her facedown on his mattress and waits for her to turn her head and look at him. Frost has made the decision—he can be honest with her. He presses his mouth to her ear. “Hadley,” he says, “You don’t have to explain things to me.”
“Open wide,” Dean says, and Guy parts his lips. Dean has his cock out, and he sets the head on Guy’s bottom lip. Guy starts to suck. He doesn’t think he will last long. He’s sure he will come right in his pants. He wonders what will happen if he does. As if reading his thoughts, Dean says, “Don’t you dare get off from sucking my cock, boy.”
Guy gazes up at his new dom, hope vibrant in his dark brown eyes.
“If you do, I’ll have to take you home and punish that saucy ass of yours. I’ll use you in ways you’ve never even dreamed about.” Dean ruffles Guy’s hair, and he smiles at his new toy. “But then again, I’ll do that either way.”
Guy sighs with pleasure. This is a dream come true.
Frost can tell that she still doesn’t understand. She looks over her shoulder at him, watches as he pulls his belt free from the loops of his discarded jeans. He doubles the leather. Makes the belt snap. She sees the finesse in his movements. She can’t believe what he’s saying. “I don’t get it. Why would you let me go through all that? Why wouldn’t you just say…” She pushes herself up on her hands and knees.
He pushes her back down and shrugs as he looks at her. “I was done. Until I met you, that is. I was all finished.”
“Yeah, but you said, you told me…” She pushes up again.
“Get back into position, kid. Now.”
She glares at him and he lets the belt land against her naked ass cheeks, once, twice. She knows enough not to put a hand back to cover herself. Still, he puts one hand in the small of her back and forces her against the mattress. He licks her with the belt a third again. This time the leather stings. She bucks against the mattress, unable to stop herself. “You said you never had anyone in your power….”
He shakes his head. “You’ll have to listen to my words better in the future.”
“I’m a good listener.” But a bad sub, she thinks. He stripes her again.
“I wanted to hear you tell me what you needed. I wanted you to spell out every desire. I wanted to know why you want what you want. You say you want 24/7. I have to be sure.”
It wasn’t fair, he thinks. He played her. But she played him, too. There are games, every once in a while, where everyone wins.
“God, I knew,” she says. But how had she known? Seeing him like that across the gym had sparked something inside her. She’d sensed his power then; she sees it in action now. He whips her twice more, then opens the closet and shows her what’s there. The tools. The weapons. The whips and crops and paddles. Her heart throbs. She sees on the top of the closet is a row of books. From the spines she recognizes the ones she sent him—doubles, obviously, of the ones he already has. Plus other classic BDSM titles: The 120 Days of Sodom. Justine. Gritty. The Punishment of Sleeping Beauty.
“You want to be with me,” he says. It’s a statement, but she nods, then says, “Yes, Reed.” Has she ever called him by his name before? The name sounds right on her lips.
“You’re sure? Because I can’t go through this again unless I know.”
She looks at him. The connection is more than combustible. She doesn’t want to keep her hands off him. “Yes.”
“Tell me what you want. I need to hear you say the words.”
“You,” she says.
“But why?” He grabs a paddle and comes toward her. “You give me a reason, and if I like what you have to say, I’ll put you over my lap and spank your ass.”
She works to hide the grin. She knew ass was in his vocabulary somewhere.
Frost sits on the edge of the mattress and pulls her over his lap. He strokes her bare skin with his palm, and Hadley slides her pussy against his thigh. She thinks about what she wants to say, how she can explain to Frost her desires. Clearly, she doesn’t have to unravel the whole mystery of BDSM for him. She only has to come clean about herself.
“You know 9½ Weeks?”
“Of course,” he says. It’s like the Bible of their world.
“I’ve mentally rewritten the ending too many times to count,” she says. He lands one blistering blow on her bottom. Then another. She can imagine what her ass looks like. She’s been on the “doling out” side of so many punishment sessions. He’s not holding back, either. She continues. “Why couldn’t they have stayed together? Why did the character have to go crazy?”
He spanks her again, and she grinds her pussy into his leg, getting the contact she craves.
“I always thought that if they kept going, they’d work everything out.”
“Optimist,” he says.
“Realist. I want a BDSM story with a happy ending….”
He strikes again, catching her sweet spot. She moans, but she doesn’t stop talking.
“I want the tenth week. And the eleventh, and the twelfth. Until ultimately I want to lose count of the weeks.”
He paddles to the cadence of her words.
“I want to live in a world where everyone gets what they need, and nobody is punished for their desires.”
He spanks her again.
“Unless their desire is to be punished.”
Frost drops the paddle and pulls her upright. He parts her thighs, splits her pussy lips and sits her down on his cock. She feels how hard he is, how wet she is. They are perfectly joined.
“Baby,” Frost says as he kisses her. He’s made her work for this. Now comes her reward. “Welcome to the beginning…”
“The beginning?” Her eyes are wet. He kisses her cheeks.
“…the beginning of your happy ending.”
* * * * *