From Sanctum With Love (Masters and Mercenaries Book 10) (11 page)

“What did Jared do?” Sarah had gotten to know Kai.

Kori hid a smile. It was good to know her boss was well thought of. “Apparently he slept with Kai’s fiancée.”

“Bastard.” Sarah leaned against the locker. “Damn it. Now I can’t like him and that sucks because I was totally planning on sleeping with him.”

Kori had to give it to her friend. She was an optimist.

“Are we talking about Jared Johns?” Mia Danvers came around the block of lockers, a sparkle in her blue eyes. “Because I’ve heard they’ve put a salmon ladder and a whole bunch of free weights in a new scene space so he can work out before he films.”

Kori had taken to the blonde. Despite her penchant for smiling way too much, Mia was kind of awesome. She seemed to tackle even the most mundane tasks with an enthusiasm most people reserved for going to Disney World. Mia always seemed to have a smile on her face, a helpful attitude. In the couple of weeks she’d been training at Sanctum, she’d become an integral part of the club.

Sarah sighed. “I will watch that but now I’m going to watch it under protest. His abs didn’t cheat, did they? I’m choosing to believe his abs are pure of heart. And those notchy hip things that make women lose their minds. They’re definitely innocent.”

“You go for it.” Kori stepped out and glanced at herself in the mirror. She’d accepted long ago that she wasn’t the sleek and graceful type. Still, she looked pretty good in her corset and leather boy shorts.

“Charlotte Taggart is supposedly coming in here to give us a lecture on how to behave around the Hollywood types,” Mia said, joining her at the mirror. “Do you think he’s one of those actors who doesn’t want people to look him in the eye or talk to him?”

Sarah smoothed her dark hair down. She was looking lovely in a red corset and a mini. “Who looks at his eyes? I can’t get past that man’s chest.”

“He’s cool.” She seriously doubted he would walk in and make crazy demands. “If anyone tells you how to behave around him, it’s probably coming from his creepy assistant chick. Apparently he’s got an entourage, and one of them weighs five pounds and looks like she craps sadness. You won’t be able to miss her. Well, unless she turns to the side and then you might be able to. But Jared himself seems cool.”

“I can’t believe that he’s brothers with Kai,” Mia said, leaning against the counter.

All around them the other ladies were getting ready for an evening at Sanctum. Dommes and subs chatted while they primped. There were a couple of distinct groups. There was the McKay-Taggart cluster. Those were the female employees or the wives of the male operatives. They tended to stick together, but they were always friendly, if a bit mysterious. There was the hardcore Sanctum group that consisted of the Paxon sisters, who had helped run the club for a few years. Jill’s husband had been the Dom in residence before his company had taken off. They were joined by what seemed like a never-ending stream of Will Daley’s sisters. They all were fun and sweet and came with L names that Kori got confused. And then there was her little group. She and Sarah and Vince and now Mia.

Sometimes Kai joined them afterward. After they’d all finished playing, they would go out to an open-all-night diner and get waffles and try to come down from subspace. Except Kai, who had to come down from his superhot sadistic topspace. She’d had a fantasy about him taking her to the bathroom and twisting her nipples until her eyes teared up. He would dominate her fully. When they went to join the others, only the two of them would know that she could still feel the ache he’d given her.

Why was she fucking everything up? Kai wasn’t into her and it wasn’t going to happen, so why had it felt so damn good to hold his hand? Why had she sat outside his office door like a fucking golden retriever waiting for her Master?

“Can I hang with you guys tonight?” Mia asked. “My training Dom won’t be here until midnight which means if I want to be out in the club, I have to be with a member who won’t let me do stupid shit. Seriously, it’s written into the contract.”

“But doing stupid shit is so much fun,” Sarah complained.

“Yes. Everyone knows I don’t do stupid shit. You can hang with me.” Sometimes Kori had to step up and be the mom of the group. Like the time Vince thought it would be fun to let the new Domme put a nail through his ball sac. Yeah, she’d gotten in trouble over that one, but that particular Domme also got kicked out since she was using rusty nails. A masochist had to be sensible.

Kai would be careful. He would always take care of his sub, always ensure that whatever pain he gave her was safe and completely consensual. A masochist could let go with a man like Kai.

And lose herself all over again to a man who didn’t really want her.

“I’ll go grab us some seats for the talk,” Mia promised with a wink.

“Hey, are you all right?” Sarah asked, her voice going low.

“I’m fine. Why?”

“Because your shoulders aren’t usually located around your ear lobes. So either that corset is way too tight or you are stressed out. Is it Kai?”

Sarah saw way too much. “We had a moment today. That’s all.”

“You two have a lot of moments. You’re practically an old married couple, complete with never having sex. You’re both too stubborn to see it.”

Just because they knew each other’s habits didn’t make them an old married couple. “We work together. We can’t play together.”

Sarah’s dark eyes rolled. “Why?”

“Because we’re professionals.”

“No one is more professional than nurses and doctors and we fuck like bunnies when we think no one is watching because life is way too short. Well, I don’t fuck like a bunny because none of the doctors do it for me, but everyone else is doing it like they’re on
Grey’s Anatomy
. The girl who created that show must have worked in a hospital because she knows what’s going on.”

“Kai and I are different.” Mostly because she was way too scared to jump into the deep end of the pool again and Kai wasn’t attracted to her. But they were also way more professional. Kai would never fuck like a bunny. He would be in control. Always.

Had he fucked his fiancée like a bunny? Had he loved her so much he couldn’t wait to have her?

“How are you different? With the exception of the fact that you’re both lonely. You both come into this club week after week and neither one of you has connected with anyone.”

That was patently untrue. “I play all the time.”

“And you’ve had sex with how many of the Doms you play with?” Sarah asked.

“One and it was awful and I’m not interested.” She’d had a brief involvement with a lawyer and the whole time she’d thought about Kai, so now everyone she played with knew they wouldn’t be getting any at the end of the night from her. She’d been surprised at how many of the Doms seemed relieved that she was so upfront. Some of them simply wanted to play, too.

“Everyone is interested in sex. We’re biologically wired that way, so I think if you’re not having fun and playing the field it’s because you’re hung up on a guy. Since you spend all your time with Kai and Vince, and Vince is a lovely nut job, I have to think it’s Kai.” Sarah’s eyes narrowed. “Unless you really like nut jobs.”

Vince was a sweetie, but she could never be with another sub. That boy needed a firm hand in and out of the bedroom. “I don’t and you know it. Look, things got all messy today, and you know how I hate messy. Let’s go out and play and forget about all this crap. We can watch Jared from afar. I’m sure he’ll have twelve subs on him the minute he walks onto the dungeon floor.”

They would be all over Kai, too, because she was certain Jared would try to hang with his brother. Groupies. They would be everywhere and Kai would likely have his pick. They would put their hands all over him and rub up against him.

“That’s your murder face.” Sarah nodded at her in the mirror.

“I do not have a murder face.” Although she did look fairly unhappy. When had she gotten that crease between her brows? She tried to rub it away. Relax. She needed to relax.

“You totally have a murder face and that’s it, but I’m letting it go for now. I reserve the right to come back to this topic of conversation later. I will do as you ask because I don’t want that murder face to be the last thing some innocent person sees before they die. I’ll be waiting with Mia.” Sarah turned and flounced away. “By the way, orgasms make people less violent.”

Kori stared in the mirror. She didn’t look all murdery. Maybe a little unhappy, but not psycho killer. And it wasn’t like she hadn’t had an orgasm. She had a very nice battery operated boyfriend who required nothing from her but the occasional new double As. They certainly didn’t require her submission and her trust and her flipping soul the way a good Dom would. Not that she’d known a good Dom. She knew them, of course. Sanctum was full of them, but she didn’t
know
them in a biblical sense. Of course the only one she wanted in a biblical sense was Kai, and she didn’t really want him that way. She was programmed to want him. They fit. Sadist meet Masochist. He was chocolate and she was peanut butter. They could be perfectly fine on their own but together they made something magical.

And produced unnecessary calories and cavities.

That was what she would remember when she looked across the crowded dungeon and caught a glimpse of him with his superhot brother and whatever gorgeous things they attracted. She would remember that she was peanut butter and didn’t require chocolate to be awesome.

“Hey, Charlotte’s got me rounding everyone up. She’s giving them all the ‘don’t drool on the Hollywood star because it makes the other Doms feel bad’ lecture.” Serena Dean-Miles was not dressed for play. She was in a pair of yoga pants and a T-shirt, her brownish blonde hair swept back in a ponytail. “I wanted to catch you first. How is Kai? You have to know I didn’t have any idea they were related. I also didn’t have a lot to do with the casting.”

She needed Serena to understand something. “The absolute smartest thing you can do is to take whatever money they’re offering you and run. Don’t look back. Films tend to wreck books for the most part. The smart author giggles all the way to the bank and leaves the agony for the screenwriter.”

Serena went pale. “I am the screenwriter.”

Oh, that poor girl. Kori nodded. “Then forget everything I said and know that you are the best person for this job and it’s going to be so much fun. No one knows your characters better than you do.” Or was as close to them and reluctant to cut out the parts that needed to be cut because no film could do a four hundred and forty-nine page book in an hour and a half. “You’re going to be great.”

Tears shone in Serena’s eyes. “It’s horrible. It’s so awful. I thought I would come down here and maybe sitting in the locker room would bring on some inspiration, but I have no idea what I’m doing. We’re supposed to start filming in a couple of weeks and I’ve got a bloated script and the director hates it, and if I don’t fix it he’s going to bring in a screenwriter whose last project was something about cars turning into aliens that eat the planet.”

Yeah, that sounded like a lot of Hollywood types. For some producers, screenwriters were easily replaceable. They wouldn’t think past their bottom line on a production. Oh, there were some great producers out there who understood the need to find the right screenwriter for every story, but many had their pet writers and didn’t care that the man was likely some twenty-something who knew nothing about the lifestyle and cared very little about the nuances of romance. It was why Kori preferred her romances in novel form. The impulse to help Serena nearly overwhelmed her. She’d always wanted to try a romance. She’d mostly written horror and supernatural thrillers with strong female leads, but she loved Serena’s books. She could do them justice on the screen. She could find that delicate balance between the story and the characters that was required for a film.

“I could read it for you.” She couldn’t come out and tell Serena the truth. Too many questions. She could help though.

Serena took a long breath. “I would love that. I’ll e-mail you a copy. You’ve been in the lifestyle for a long time. I would love your opinion. I think I’m trying to explain the lifestyle too much.”

And that was a mistake. “The lifestyle is in the story. Worry about that and not making sure the viewer understands every bit of protocol. I’ll let you know what I think, but I’m sure it’s fabulous. And Kai is all right. Well, he’s grumpy but it’s kind of cute on him.”

“Hopefully it’s not too much of an imposition.” Serena put a smile on her face, but it was easy to see she was frustrated. “Watch out for him. I know sometimes family can be difficult, to say the least. I’m glad Adam and his brother are in a good place. I wish I could say the same for Jake. I don’t think he’ll ever be close to his biological family again. I think in the end we make our own families.”

And Kai was like her brother. Yeah. Her non-blood between them, really wished he would slap her ass hard brother. There wasn’t anything weird about that. She gave Serena a big hug. That was one of the gifts Sarah had given her. She’d never been a hugger. When she’d come to Sanctum, there had been a bitch of a sub who loved to screw with everyone. Sarah had joined and Maia had told her Kori loved to be hugged.

She hadn’t been quite able to shove the girl away, and over the years she’d not only gotten used to random acts of affection from her friends, she’d come to crave them.

Another gift from Sanctum.

“It’s going to be awesome, Serena. You’re going to be awesome.”

Serena squeezed her tight. “Thank you. I needed that.”

And that was a gift from Kai. She’d watched him help people for years and one of the things she’d learned was sometimes people needed to hear that they could do a thing before they believed it themselves. It was all good and great to be able to look in the mirror and be confident without outside voices, but sometimes it was also good to hear that people were behind you.

Withholding that affection had been the norm where she’d come from. It felt so good to let it flow now.

Like that moment when she’d wrapped her fingers around Kai’s hand and she’d felt him sigh in relief. He’d needed her and that had been a revelation.