“The word’s
fate
. Now, where’s the nearest closed door?”
Chapter Two
Seth held out his hand. When she took it, he casually turned it over and brushed his lips along her knuckles. His teeth grazed a high point and she shivered, tightening her hold on him at the same time she sucked in a breath. The little minx might think she was a bedroom badass, but if a tiny public nip set her heart stuttering, actual play was likely going to make her stroke out. If he were a better man, he’d swat her ass and send her on her way. Too bad he wasn’t and he wouldn’t. She’d come out to play on his jungle gym, so play they would. It would teach her a valuable lesson about knowing a lover’s bents before tossing down the proverbial gauntlet.
Letting go of her hand, he curled a finger under her chin. “Nearest closed door is through there,” he murmured, jerking his chin toward the employee-only rooms at the back. “Meet me at the end of the bar.”
“I thought we’d go—”
“End of the bar, Red, or we end this now.” He drew in the scent of her arousal. “You need to learn a few lessons about how to serve as a proper submissive before we take this any further.”
“Submissive? I never said I was a submissive.”
“No? You clearly know who I am, and I’d be willing to bet you came out tonight looking for me. You readily offered a safe word when I asked for one. Doms don’t need safe words, sweetheart. We collect them.” Her silence said he’d landed square in the middle of the truth. If he were going to bet on which scenario was accurate? His money would be on a third possibility he hadn’t named—that she wanted to know if there were more to sex than the vanilla variety to which she’d been exclusively exposed. “How old are you?”
She withdrew her hand but didn’t move back. “Care to wager a guess?”
Slowly opening his eyes, he was glad to find his vision recovering. Even better, the woman in front of him—“Red” based on her aura—was stunning. “You’ll learn to answer me before the night’s out. That or you won’t be able to sit down come morning.”
Grey eyes stared up at him. Her mouth, a touch on the narrow side yet perfect in her pixie face, thinned until it was little more than a slash. “Stop trying to scare me.”
“Oh, I’m not trying to scare you, Red.” He let his gaze rove over her with lazy insolence. “I’m warning you what to expect when you meet me at the end of the bar as directed. Push me into making it an order?” Wrapping his hand around the back of her neck, he pulled her halfway over the bar and claimed her mouth in a breath-stealing kiss. She opened to him, her tongue thrusting against his with considerable skill. A deep growl rumbled from his chest. His fingers tightened at the thought of someone else experiencing her uninhibited passion. The thought, and his reaction to it, pissed him off. Breaking the kiss, he stared into eyes that were just the color she’d called them. Stormy. “Push me into making it an order, and every minute you make me wait will translate to ten in which I torment you and refuse you release. Understand?”
A single dip of the chin was her answer.
Letting her go, Seth stepped back and spun on his heel, intent on meeting her at the end of the bar. He plowed into Dominic first.
The giant fallen angel grinned down at him and arched a brow. “First time I’ve seen you take on a noob, Flash.”
Only a couple of inches separated them in height, but Dom had a solid fifty pounds of muscle making him the one guy in the club Seth wouldn’t screw with. Still, he couldn’t help but give the guy’s shoulder a hard shot. “Move before I rearrange your junk and turn it into the start of a Copacabana headdress. I’m sure Rhyan would be willing to finish off the look with the lemons, limes and cherries from the bar setup.”
Dominic’s hands covered his groin. “Never threaten a man’s kiwis or his banana, motherfucker. Never.” Looking back at the now-laughing Rhyan, he grinned. “Think that’s funny, woman?”
She tried to stifle her laughter but failed. “I was imagining you in a slutty white dress and platform stilettos with fruit in your hair. You’d make the ugliest drag queen ever.”
Dominic lunged for her and she whooped, sprinting away from him.
That left Griff and Bailey. With a single touch from her man, Bailey moved down the bar, casually taking orders and shooting the breeze with customers.
Griff watched her go, his eyes never leaving her when he addressed Seth. “You really think it’s wise to just up and disappear with a woman you don’t know after your element went weird? Because I think it’s pretty damned irresponsible to hightail it out of here with a stranger. What if she’s the witch?”
Pinching the bridge of his nose, Seth fought the urge to lash out. He counted in on five and out on seven before looking at Griff. “It’s not her.”
“You’re sure.”
“I asked. She denied.”
“And magic practitioners, the mercenary lot of them, are all about the honesty,” Griff drawled.
“The witch had a distinct smell that Red’s lacking, both that and the power behind the punch. No one can subdue that much power.”
The subjectively smaller man crossed his arms over his chest and looked Seth over through narrowed eyes. “Are you staying here or leaving?”
“Don’t know for sure.”
“Keep your cell handy.”
“Fuck off.” Seth took a couple of steps before pausing and, without looking back, added, “And Griff?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it.”
With a sharp nod, Seth moved down the bar to meet Red where she waited—at the pass-thru, just as directed. He slid his hand under her long auburn hair and steered her toward the dark door marked Private without a word.
She went, her steps admirably steady, her gait fluid and self-assured.
Didn’t change the fact he knew she was a novice at this. She hadn’t been through a scene, though. As a Dom, it was his job to know. As a sub, it was her job to help set the boundaries of safe, sane and consensual play. He doubted she’d know enough to help set those parameters. It was one of the reasons—the many, many reasons—he never played with an untried sub. They had the highest expectations. They were typically the most emotional. They also tended to safe-word out more often than not, thus preventing him from achieving his own end. What had prompted him to take her on? He wasn’t sure. But it was done. He’d do his best to take her proverbial virginity gently.
Probably.
At the moment? All he could think of was how beautifully that ass would pink up when corrected.
And correct it he would.
* * *
Eden risked a glance at the lithe, predatory man directing her through the crowd. A dark smile played at the corners of his full mouth. Goddess preserve her. The things she wanted to do to him were painted through her mind in vibrant colors.
His assertion she was a submissive, would be
his
submissive, still had her rattled. Oh, she hadn’t let on. Not really. She’d expected something like this when she’d swallowed her fear and sought him out. But she hadn’t ever been a sub before. Hell, she didn’t even know how to serve as a sub. The whole alternative-lifestyle thing fascinated her, but short of reading a handful of erotic novels and a little internet research, she had no idea what to do with herself. More than anything, she wanted to know what it felt like to have someone drive her to new heights, make her experience the fascinating convergence of pleasure and pain.
They pushed through an unobtrusive door. Beyond that lay a long hallway. Industrial beige tiles made up the floor. Walls were the color of bland oatmeal. At the end of the hall stood an elevator. She’d barely taken in everything when he keyed in a code to a heavy wooden door and steered her inside.
The room was dark, lit only by the muted red glow of the exit sign. When the door shut with a muffled
whump
, Eden’s heart lodged at the top of her throat. Her tongue turned to dust. Air moved behind her seconds before firm hands traced down her arms. Mouth settling next to her ear, his breathing was steady. Hers? Hers was so
not
.
“Nervous?”
She opened her mouth, intent on denying the allegation thinly veiled as a question. The hand that wound through her hair and hauled her head back shocked her into absolute silence.
“I’ll tolerate a bit of stubbornness because you don’t know better, but you won’t lie to me, Red. Not without consequence.”
“That’s not my name,” she whispered, sliding her gaze his way.
A Cheshire-cat grin split the darkness. “Tonight it is.”
Air became a precious commodity she couldn’t buy enough of, no matter what mental card she swiped. Looking up into eyes as tempting as original sin, Eden heard herself whisper, “Yes, sir.”
Total silence ruled the moment. He molded his body to her curves and lowered his face. “Good place to start. I want to establish the parameters of play before we take it any further.”
“Parameters?” The question sounded slow, even to herself.
“Yes, Red. Parameters.” Pulling her even tighter, he kicked her feet apart. “Uncomfortable?”
“Uncomfortable?” she repeated.
He turned her toward him. Cupping her face, in one hand, he reached over her shoulder.
She flinched before blinking into blinding light.
“I don’t hit women, Red.” He stroked her chin. “If that’s why you sought me out, you picked the wrong guy.”
Wrapping one hand around his wrist, she fisted his shirt with the other. “I got who I came for, but not what. Not yet.”
He stilled, distrust coiling through him and prickling against her skin. “Care to explain?”
Squeezing the words out was nearly impossible. “I needed to find out what it was like.”
“What what’s like?”
Lips numb, she wanted to rub life and feeling into them, was afraid to accidentally touch him. “The experience.” Somehow she knew he heard what she didn’t say, that she was wildly curious about
herself
and what really flipped her switch.
“What makes you think I’m your answer?”
Her only excuse was hormonally fueled determination. Otherwise? She never would have pulled his shirt out of his pants and scraped his ribs with her fingernails. His sharp intake of breath was followed by a slow hiss. Things low in her belly rolled over, begging to be stroked. A short jerk of his hips made her lips part on an exhale, her hands scrabbling to unbutton his silk shirt. He gripped her wrists, stopping her desperate scramble to divest him of clothes and get down to business. Confused, she looked up.
“Not yet, Red. Parameters. Where do you draw the hard lines I don’t cross?”
“Lines?”
He closed his eyes and sighed. “My first directive was that you meet me at the end of the bar. You complied. Second directive is that you stop repeating every question I ask. Be a good girl and I’ll see you’re rewarded.”
Eden nodded so hard her earrings clinked. “Yes, sir,” she repeated, knowing it had pleased him moments ago. Swallowing a little pride could pay off handsomely.
“Let’s discuss boundaries. Where I’m concerned, no touching unless invited. You haven’t earned intimacy yet.”
And you won’t.
“That’s about it. What about you?”
Heat blazed across her cheeks. “I’m…not sure?”
“Okay. Let’s try this. Tell me one of your fantasies.”
Oh, dear goddess.
“Fantasies?” Realizing her mistake, she slapped a hand over her mouth and mumbled, “Sorry.”
“Too late, sweetheart. Skirt up over your ass and grab the edge of the desk,” he said, even as he moved her into position.
“But I apologized.” The nearly shouted objection brought him to a standstill.
“Yes, but you still violated my directive. One swat for the minor infraction.” Smooth fingers traced up the back of her thighs as he lifted her short skirt. “A thong. I approve.”
Eden watched him pull a pair of scissors from the desk drawer. Before she could form an objection, he dragged the cold metal along her ass and snipped the lace, tugging the scrap of material free. The trace of soft material over her skin, the hard scrape of nails down her thighs and the brush of lace hitting her ankles when it fell made her sway. Lips followed the same path upward. Smooth kisses, a tactile tongue, little nips—they made her knees weak. The sharp crack of his palm on her ass elicited a surprised yelp. Masculine fingers traced the sting, and she moaned. At the sound, his fingers briefly dug into her ass and made her push into his hand.
What. The. Hell.
Never had someone turned her on so quickly, so effortlessly. She wanted what he offered. Didn’t understand the compulsion to satisfy him. “Why?” she asked, the single word forming an unsteady question that hung between them long enough that she was sure he’d ignore her. Then he answered.
“You have a gift, Red. You started the descent into subspace when I grabbed you by the neck in the club. Most submissives have to be taught to find that place inside themselves. You’re a natural.”
“You think I haven’t done this before?”
“No.”
She relaxed.
“I know you haven’t.” Stepping in behind her, his unfurling zipper made the most erotic noise she’d ever heard. The broad head of his cock brushed over the crevice of her ass.
Eden flinched. “Maybe not…that.”
“That?” The amusement in his tone was clear. “And what is ‘that,’ precisely?”
Burying her face in her forearms seemed prudent. “Anal.”
“Ah. Anal. One of my favorite things. Shame you aren’t interested.”
That was something she wasn’t willing to share. Not the physical act, but the fact she was interested.
Very, very interested.
Chapter Three
Seth managed to coax out rudimentary boundaries from his new partner. He intended to oblige her in ways she couldn’t begin to contemplate. She was all about sex. So was he. Achieving orgasm was her first course of business. He favored delivering multiples. Lucky girl.
She knew nothing about aftercare, had looked at him blankly when he’d asked her about it. This was why he didn’t play with untried subs. They tended to end up emotional, clingy. He didn’t do clingy. Hell, he went out of his way to intentionally avoid all things emotional. Physical gratification was the payoff he wanted, the payoff straight vanilla didn’t deliver. This was the equivalent of Scharffen Berger dark chocolate. The gods knew he was here to eat and leave, not ruin said chocolate by trying to bake cupcakes and discuss feelings over coffee at sunrise. And now he was thinking in baking metaphors. Taking a new submissive through the exploration process was clearly making him insane.