Tell Me a Desire (The Story Series Book 2) (5 page)

A
month later
, while I was unpacking a box of new books at my bookstore, Sarah glanced up from shelving.

“When are you going to talk about what’s going on with you and Caleb?” she asked.

“Nothing’s going on with me and Caleb. Everything’s good.” I shrugged. Truthfully, I was disappointed I’d gotten my period right after my birthday. My cycle had always been irregular.

“Right. You didn’t get a ring, and I’ve seen your pout grow by the day. You haven’t talked about writing in weeks. Have you written anything lately? You had been doing so well, sending your erotic short stories to publishers. Now, nothing, in months. Why are you letting this relationship take over the things you love? Have you told him what you want?”

I peered in the box, searching for a few invisible books. “You know, Sarah, I’ll miss you when you leave for the Orlando Public Library system next month. Laura and I need to talk about your graduation party. We were thinking of brunch.”

“Don’t change the subject.”

“Seriously. I’m proud of you, finishing your master’s degree and getting a top library job with the county.”

“Thank you.”

We worked in silence until I blurted, “I haven’t mentioned anything to Caleb. I don’t know why. I guess I don’t want to ask a question that I might not like the answer.”

Sarah rolled her eyes. “You’re not asking anything of him. You’re telling him what you want.”

“But I don’t know what I want. I think I want to be married. I think I want a baby. I want to make sure—”

The bells on the bookstore door jingled and I called out in my usual, cheerful voice.

“Welcome to Chapter One Books!”

“Ladies, it’s only me.” In walked Laura. She grinned at Sarah and kissed her on the cheek. “Am I interrupting?”

I shook my head.

“We were talking about Caleb and Emma and Emma’s deep, dark fears of the future.”

“Jesus, Sarah,” I replied crossly.

“What? About how lovesick he is for her?” Laura turned to the electric kettle nestled in a nook on the back wall.

Annoyed, I slapped my hand on the counter. Here I was, doing it again: talking to Sarah, and now Laura, about what I wanted. Practically everyone except Caleb. Why was I avoiding the conversation with him? Intellectually, I knew I was being immature.

“No. About why he won’t ask me to marry him. He obviously doesn’t love me enough. Or love me as much as Tara.”

I must have been louder than I anticipated because both Sarah and Laura appeared startled. Then Laura laughed.

I shot her a glare and she sighed. “I’m probably talking out of school here, but there was an interesting backstory between my brother and Tara. I guess you probably don’t know what happened, because if you did, you wouldn’t be reacting this way.”

“I know. He told me. They met in college.” I took a deep breath and tried to distract myself with making tea while the image of Caleb and Tara’s wedding photo popped into my mind. I was pouring water into a mug when Laura spoke.

“Yeah. And she was with Colin before Caleb.”

Nearly spilling boiling water everywhere, I stared at Laura. “What?”

Laura took the kettle from my hands. “You can’t be trusted with hot liquids for this story.”

“What happened with Colin?” I demanded. “And why haven’t you told me this before?”

“Yeah, why haven’t you told us this?” Sarah focused on her with a raised eyebrow.

“I don’t know. I kind of thought Caleb had told you. I’ve been trying to deal with my own shit. I can’t keep track of my brothers’ issues.”

Sarah and I nodded sympathetically. Laura had a serious panic disorder and had a bitch of a time trying to find the right combination of medicine to control it. I knew she’d struggled for years. I wondered how it would affect her when Sarah got pregnant and wanted to ask, but I didn’t. And now I was too curious about Tara.

“Well…” Laura pushed out a breath. “Here’s the deal. Caleb was a senior at UF. He’d met Tara, but they weren’t dating. They were just friends. Colin was a freshman at FSU and went to visit Caleb one weekend in Gainesville. He hooked up with Tara one night.”

Frowning, I dipped my tea bag into the steamy water. “And then what?”

“Well, for starters, Thanksgiving sucked that year.”

“But why would Caleb still want Tara if she…” My voice trailed off.

“Because once Caleb wants something, he won’t take no for an answer. He’s mellowed a bit since he was younger. Believe it or not, he was even more self-assured back then.”

I fought back a grin. That was difficult to believe.

“Colin and Tara never did anything after that one weekend, at least as far as I know. So Caleb kept pursuing her. It was like he wanted to prove to Colin he was the winner. It was messed up. So when Caleb graduated, he asked Tara to marry him. And she did.”

In my two years with Caleb, this was the least flattering thing I’d learned about him. I scowled in response.

“Yeah, it was truly messed up. I mean, Caleb loved her. And Tara did love Caleb. A lot. She’d been drunk when she hooked up with Colin and she later told me she thought Caleb wasn’t interested her in the beginning, which was why she chose Colin that night. College stupidity—you remember it, don’t you?”

I nodded softly, but couldn’t relate. Nothing so dramatic had happened to me in school. I’d fallen in love with words and immersed myself with writing bad short stories and pining over some guy with a shaved head and combat boots who worked at the university library. Funny, now I couldn’t even remember his name, and yet he’d seemed so important at the time.

“Truthfully, they were all too young to be making any relationship decisions. Caleb’s really matured since then. Collie, I’m not so sure about.” Laura often used
Collie
as the nickname for her younger brother. She was the only one who was allowed to call him by the name; I’d done so once and he’d shot me such a withering stare I’d never even used the word for the breed of dog around him since.

“Hmm.” I didn’t really know what to do with this information. “That’s…quite a story. Yeah, Colin doesn’t sound like he’s changed much when it comes to women.”

Laura groaned and waved her hand dismissively. “He’s been wary of women since his high school girlfriend dumped him for a guy on the football team.”

I chuckled. “Wait, Colin wasn’t on the football team? I’d always pegged him for a football-frat guy, for some reason.”

Laura shook her head. “He was the opposite of Caleb, who was always naturally athletic and smart and handsome. Colin was a debate team geek in high school. Went through a real awkward phase. You should’ve seen him. Glasses and ugly plaid shirts. But then he changed a lot when he was eighteen and, yeah, was in a frat in college.”

So I was half-right. “Kind of a long time to hold a grudge against women, isn’t it?”

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah. He denies it, and we’ve even gotten into arguments about how he seems incapable of settling down. He calls himself a loveable rake.”

Sarah made a gagging noise and I snorted.

Laura waved her hand at me. “He says I’m the only woman he truly loves.”

“Jesus. No pressure there.” My laughter spilled out because I was nervous and slightly mortified. Even with money, Caleb’s family had issues: Laura’s anxiety disorder, the death of Caleb’s wife, Colin’s inability to move on from a teenage broken heart. Tolstoy was right, I mused. E
ach unhappy family is unhappy in its own way
…

Laura interrupted my thoughts. “So
you’re
the most mature relationship Caleb’s ever had. Oh, I mean, he was a good husband to Tara. He didn’t have an affair, I don’t think.”

“You don’t think?” I choked out the words. I was finding this out now? Of all the men I’d met, Caleb appeared the most faithful. Now, after two years, what else didn’t I know about him? “Caleb wouldn’t cheat, would he?” I hated myself for second-guessing him, because he’d given me no reason to.

Laura scrunched her nose. “No, I don’t think so. And definitely not on you. But with Tara, it became obvious he had disengaged after they had been married a while. He seemed bored. We thought it was a seven-year-itch kind of thing, and then they separated. They were never truly compatible, I don’t think. But he went above and beyond when she was diagnosed with cancer. In the end, he gave her what she needed and more.”

I swallowed. Caleb had stood by Tara when she was dying. That couldn’t be denied.

“I think Tara’s death changed Caleb a lot. For the better.” Laura rubbed my back as I nodded. “He loves you. I’ve never seen him this happy. Ever. Not when he was a kid, not when he was an adult. Don’t worry so much.”

Sarah came and rubbed my back in tandem with Laura. “Emma’s always been a worrier.”

It was true. And so I didn’t reveal my other worry. I’d been thinking about The Baby for a month now, and it was entwined with the marriage question. Caleb and I had been really careless about using protection lately, but with my irregular cycle and my apparently advanced age, who knew if I could even conceive The Baby? I sipped my tea, drowning in thoughts.

It’s how I’d started referring to our hypothetical child. The Baby. Like he or she or it (what did one call babies that hadn’t been conceived, anyway?) already existed. The Baby. I was only a couple of days away from actually naming The Baby, I figured. And yet, I hadn’t said anything to Caleb about The Baby.

I was thirty-five years and one month old. Was I running out of time?

“
D
id
I ever tell you how sexy you look when you’re writing? You get this little furrow between your eyebrows.”

Caleb stepped off the elevator and into the penthouse, but I barely looked up.

It was a Friday, my day off from the bookstore, and I sat on Caleb’s sofa with my laptop. Higgins, my gray, uber-fluffy kitty, lazed nearby on the polished cement floor in a patch of sun and raised his head at Caleb’s entrance then flopped back into slumber.

“Hey, baby,” I murmured, deleting a sentence that annoyed me by tapping hard on the keyboard.

Shifting in my seat, I tugged at the hem of my shirt. It was one of Caleb’s old, white button-downs. The only other thing I had on was black lace panties. My hair was in a messy ponytail and my black glasses were perched on the tip of my nose. No makeup, no glamor. I’d intended to shower and change before Caleb got home but had gotten immersed in writing. I wondered if I smelled funky. Crap.

He leaned down to kiss me, and I let out a little hum of happiness. I hadn’t written in weeks, and after Sarah had mentioned I’d neglected it, I’d jumped back in as a way to ignore having a conversation with Caleb about our future. About The Baby.

I had no rational reason for going into denial mode. All I knew was the intense humidity of the Florida springtime, combined with the heady smell of midnight jasmine, made me feel like every moment was bigger than the previous moments and everything that would come after would alter the course of my life.

And so I wrote, to try to prevent change.

Mercifully this afternoon, I’d become totally absorbed in my story. I blinked rapidly at Caleb, who sank onto the sofa next to me, and I realized I hadn’t spoken aloud all day.

“God, is it six o’clock already? I’ve been sitting here for hours, working on this one scene.”

“Is this the new erotica? The one we talked about and plotted last weekend? You were off to an excellent start with your idea about a professor and a grad student.”

I smiled and nodded, appreciative he took my writing seriously. “I’m having a difficult time with it. I think the couple should visit a BDSM club, but I can’t get the color and details right.” I snapped my laptop shut. “I can’t visualize what such a place looks like. And if I can’t see it in my mind, I can’t write about it.”

Caleb took my laptop and put it on the coffee table, then kissed me again. He pressed my body down onto the sofa, and I wrapped my arms around him.

“Sorry, I smell awful. You smell good. I want to bite you.”

He grinned. “You always notice my smell. You’re like a bloodhound. Hey, are there any clubs in Orlando?”

“Any what? BDSM clubs?”

He nodded.

“Yeah. I was searching for videos and websites and found two in the area.”

“We should go.”

I tilted my head and smiled. “You’d do that for me? Aren’t you worried about being seen? Top developer-rich guy at BDSM club?”

“Emma, half of the state’s politicians will probably be there.”

I chuckled and undid his tie.

“And everyone who matters knows you’re my girlfriend and you write sex fiction. I’ll say it’s research. I don’t care what people think.”

I giggled. “It
is
research.”

“Maybe it doesn’t need to be only that.” His grin was wicked.

“What do you mean?” I asked, warming to whatever idea he was about to reveal.

“I guess I haven’t told you my latest fantasy.” Caleb stretched out next to me and slid a hand around my hip and caressed my ass. His fingers slid under my panties, and I raked my fingers through his black and silver hair.

“Tell me.”

He kissed me and laughed.

“Tell me,” I demanded.

“Well…I want to dominate you for a night. Or three.”

“You’re already pretty dominant,” I teased and kissed his nose. “You like to order me around in bed. Although I always get what I want, too. I mean, I have no complaints.”

“I don’t either. But I have these fantasies.”

His hand found its way under my shirt and cupped my breast, circling my nipple softly with his thumb. That familiar, straight line between my nipple and my stomach—and lower—buzzed and crackled. His touch made me weak with need, even after two years.

“Tell me. What’s your latest fantasy?”

“Lately, I’ve thought about punishing you. Being rougher than we usually are.”

“Ooh. Now this is interesting.”

“It turns me on to think about you submitting to me in various ways.”

“You mean, taming me more than you already have.”

He pinched my nipple gently and I yelped. Not because it hurt, but because it jolted me out of my writing fog. It made me feel alive. I often wrote about submissive women in my erotica, but I’d never fully yielded to Caleb. We’d certainly toyed with rough sex but had never taken it to its logical conclusion. Although he was on the dominant side in bed, I’d made my fair share of demands as well. So the idea was definitely intriguing. And it
would
all be fodder for my novel.

He undid a couple of buttons on my shirt. “I don’t think I’ve tamed you even the slightest.”

I mused silently about why he hadn’t performed the typical act of taming a woman: marriage. But I decided to let it slide. For now.

“Hmm.” My hand went between his legs and pressed against his erection. “Any particular reason why you want to tame me? Or punish me?”

“You mean, do I have any deep, dark secret buried in my past that makes me want to dominate you?”

I nodded, cupping the outline of his hard length.

“Nope, I’ve told you plenty of times. No hidden damage in my past. No childhood abuse, no former lover who introduced me to whips and chains, no deep scars. I was intrigued by the whole concept after we talked about the plot of your story the other day. And you’re a bit of a wildcat, Emma. The idea of domesticating you is appealing to a man like me. I always get what I want, and people always say yes to me. Except you. You challenge me.”

Laughing, I unbuttoned the rest of my shirt and showed him my breasts. He caressed one with his big hand, then again pinched my nipple. Harder.

“I like the idea of turning you on so much that you fall apart. Then I can put you back together. Wouldn’t it be interesting to see what happens then? For research?”

Little did he know I was already falling apart, for different reasons. I didn’t disclose any of that, though. “So you think you’d get ideas—or
we’d
get ideas—at a BDSM club?”

“Maybe. Probably.”

“We’d have to have a safe word.”

He cocked a brow and removed his hand from my breast, resting his hand on my face. “Explain.”

“A safe word. For the submissive. For me. So all activity stops if I’m uncomfortable.”

“A good idea.” He paused. “What’s our safe word?”

“Hmm.” Again, I pressed my hand into his erection. “How about…trust?”

He smiled. “Trust?”

I nodded and laughed.

“Okay, Emma doll. Trust, it is.”

W
e were
a few blocks away from the club when my stomach began to quiver. Why was I so nervous? I wrote about sex. I had plenty of sex with Caleb. I loved sex. What was this apprehension about? As I researched the club’s website on my phone, I realized lately everything made me feel ambivalent. My relationship, my desire to have a child, and now my eagerness to experience something new sexually.

Normally I was excited to do everything, try everything, go everywhere. Now I second-guessed it all.

“It says here Playville is open for pansexual action until 3 a.m.,” I read aloud from my phone, then glanced up and saw a sign for a medical supply place. “Are we in an industrial park?”

“Mmhmm. Offices and warehouses,” Caleb murmured mildly, then turned his Mercedes down a quiet street filled with unmarked, flat buildings with gray facades. His hand drifted to my knee, then up my bare thigh, pushing the hem of my dress toward my hips. I shivered from his touch.

“I think it’s right…here.” I squinted at my phone, then at the parking lot, where there were several dozen cars. Caleb maneuvered the car into a space and killed the ignition.

“You sure you want to do this?” he asked.

I nodded. “Yes. It’s research. You?”

“Yeah. I do.”

“Okay, but…” I paused and rubbed my lips together, feeling the slick of red lipstick coat my mouth. “I want to make one thing clear right now. I don’t want to have a threesome. If that’s what people even do in there. I don’t think they do, but I want to set the ground rules.”

“Oh, Emma,” Caleb sighed, then smoothed my hair back with both hands and gently combed my curls with his fingers. “That’s not what I want either. I’m here to share this with you, for your research and maybe for us. I can’t guarantee I won’t get turned on by watching, though. But I love you and I want only you. Remember that, okay?”

I nodded. Maybe this was a bad idea, going to a club like this under the guise of research when I was feeling so unsure of my relationship with him. Or maybe, I thought as the heels of my four-inch black Louboutins struck the pavement, acting out dominant and submissive roles would bring us closer together. Make us trust each other more. And it was his fantasy, which I was happy to indulge. I wanted to never stop showing him how much he meant to me.

“Hey. Come here.” He took me in his arms, right there on the sidewalk near a night jasmine bush blooming with a sultry scent. The night was humid and still, and frogs from a nearby retention pond screeched at a loud pitch.

Caleb kissed up my neck, then paused at my ear. “I love you.”

Not wanting to get my red lipstick all over his skin, I stroked the back of his head, his short hair silky under my fingers. “And I love you. Let’s go have an adventure.”

Grinning, Caleb splayed his hand on the small of my back as we reached an unmarked door. I was about to ask if we were in the right place when a couple emerged. They were older than us, maybe in their fifties, and dressed in Florida-formal: the woman had on a thin, black dress and black heels, and the man wore a black shirt and jeans. They smiled and greeted us. Maybe I was reading too much into the tone, but the way the man said “good evening” was infused with knowing.

We must be in the right place.

It was instantly cool, quiet, and darker than the outdoors when we stepped inside, which was why a woman’s voice sent my heart rate into overdrive.

“Welcome to Playville.” I spotted a striking woman with short, dark hair in her twenties sitting at an illuminated window, like any other club. As if we were going to pay a cover and dance to a DJ. Caleb propelled me to the window, and I listened as they made small talk. He paid the entrance fee, and then she handed us a list of rules.

No alcohol, no sex, no touching unless given permission. Watching was okay; interrupting others’ play wasn’t. I nodded thoughtfully as I read while Caleb kept his left hand firmly on my back.

“I’m going to have Doug show you around, give you the official tour.” The woman’s voice was perkier than I would have anticipated for a BDSM club.

Then, a man appeared. He was around Caleb’s age with a bald head, glasses, and a goatee. He wasn’t handsome, wasn’t ugly, wasn’t anything in particular. Just a regular guy, which put me at ease. He had an easy smile, though, and his warm, professional tone also soothed my nerves.

He shook Caleb’s hand, then mine. “So I’ll take you around the club and answer any questions you might have, and then feel free to wander and explore. You did read the rules, correct?”

We answered yes, almost in tandem, and I noticed Caleb’s posture, normally excellent but on the casual side, was military-straight. We followed Doug into what he called the main room, awash in dark purple walls. Inhaling deep, I detected a scent I couldn’t quite place. Perfume? Air freshener? A few more deep breaths and I realized what it was: clean sheets. Huh. Odd.

I immediately recognized the various pieces of furniture from my research: a St. Andrew’s Cross, a chair with arm restraints, a spanking bench. Doug patiently explained what each piece was for, and after a few pieces, we stopped at a respectful distance to watch a woman strapped to a bed by her ankles and wrists. She wore a tiny black dress, not unlike mine, and her smile was blissful, her eyes gently closed.

Caleb’s arm was around my waist now, and my gaze flickered to his face. He’d tilted his head, and by slight raise in his eyebrows, I knew he was aroused. I mean, I was, too; the woman was curvily sexy and I imagined it was me, strapped to the bed. What would Caleb do to me if I was in her position? A ripple of desire went through my body as I imagined his mouth between my legs, consuming me as I was restrained. This was definitely an intriguing scene, although I didn’t think I’d want anyone else watching me and Caleb play.

Or would I? I wriggled out of Caleb’s arm so I could hold his hand.

We moved away, following Doug down a corridor, and I wished I could take notes for my book. Probably wouldn’t be the best idea, though, if I whipped out my phone and started typing. One of the rules was no photos, and I knew using my phone wouldn’t be respectful of others. I was hyper-aware, trying to record everything to memory.

We came to another window, similar to the reception one. “Here is where you can borrow our paddles and floggers,” Doug said, and Caleb grinned. Interesting, what he reacted to.

Following Doug a few more steps, he pointed out several more play rooms, each with an open door. The array of different scenes soon became dizzying; a woman suspended by straps and pulleys, wrapped in cellophane; a school room with a desk and a blackboard; a dungeon-themed room with chains on the walls and a woman on the cement floor, bound with black straps around her chest and her legs.

“What’s that restraint called?” I whispered loudly.

“Frog tie,” Doug replied.

We came to another, a medical examination room with stirrups, and I visibly shuddered.

Doug pointed down the hall. “Let’s move on. Clearly that struck a nerve and not a good one. You need to remember three words together: safe, sane, and consensual.”