The Exhibitionist (The Submissive #6) (24 page)

“Of course,” she said. “Hello, Abby.”

Before I could reply, Nathaniel held up his hand. “You do not have permission to speak to my submissive.”

“My apologies.” She looked me up and down before heading out the door with the two men.

My body shook as the threesome walked away.
What. The. Fuck?
Charlene was a submissive? And Nathaniel knew?

It doesn’t mean anything.

I snorted at my brain’s attempt to reason with my emotions. It sure as hell meant something. If it meant nothing, Nathaniel would have told me last night what he’d seen.

He’s around submissive women all the time.

Yes, but he doesn’t work with them and have weekend meetings with them and they don’t fall all over him.

You told him you trusted him.

That was before I found out Charlene was also a submissive. Besides, the fact that I trusted him didn’t change the fact that I didn’t trust her.

Wonder how long he’s known.

That
was a good question. Did he know when he hired her? Or did he find out later?

Does it matter?

It did. For some odd reason, I needed to know how long he’d known she was a submissive.

“Fucking hell,” I said as understanding hit me. “You knew. You knew she was a submissive.”

“Let’s go upstairs,” Nathaniel said.

I didn’t want to go upstairs. I wanted to go somewhere and be by myself so I could process this new information. But I was in a relatively strange place and I didn’t know it well enough to determine where I might find a quiet spot.

I did know that we should get out of the lobby, so I gave Nathaniel a curt nod and breezed past him to the elevator bank. I might be going upstairs, but I wasn’t going to touch him.

When we got to our room, I suddenly felt exhausted and I plopped down on the couch and crossed my arms.

“How long have you known?” I asked.

“I found out the weekend we moved that she was a submissive.”

Not too long ago, then. “So you didn’t hire her because you knew she was a sub?”

“I don’t make it a general practice to hire someone based on their sexuality. Opens you up to lawsuits.”

“But the fact is, you knew and you didn’t tell me.”

“To be honest, there never seemed to be a good time to say, ‘Hey, by the way, Charlene’s a submissive.’”

“So you decided not to tell me anything. Because
that’s
so much better.”

“Frankly, my employees’ sexuality is none of your business.”

I opened my mouth to argue, but stopped. There was more to it than me wanting to know about his employees’ sexuality and he knew it. The fact was, there would always be animosity between me and Charlene. It didn’t have to be right and it didn’t have to make sense. It just was. And no matter how often Nathaniel and I argued about her, discussed her, or whatever you wanted to call it, I would never like her.

The best thing for me to do was to shut up and deal with it. “You’re right. It’s none of my business. I won’t mention her again, much less talk about her.”

Those were the words I spoke, but inside, I was chanting:

Charlene’s a submissive and Nathaniel knew.

Charlene’s a submissive and Nathaniel knew.

Charlene’s a submissive and Nathaniel knew.

Then I asked myself if I was going to let her ruin my entire weekend.

No. No, I wasn’t.

“What’s first on our schedule tomorrow?” I asked Nathaniel.

“Don’t you want to talk about this?”

“You just, very eloquently I might add, correctly informed me that your employees’ sexuality was none of my business. You know Charlene’s a submissive. She knows you’re a Dominant and that’s how we’re going to leave it. That’s all there is to it.”

He looked at me with a raised eyebrow. He didn’t believe me. He knew as well as I did that that wasn’t all there was to it. Maybe I’d bring it up later. When I wasn’t feeling as emotional about it. The last time I’d gotten into a heated discussion about Charlene, I ended up on the receiving end of a discipline flogging.

Technically, what earned me the flogging was calling Nathaniel a liar while I wore his collar. But I blamed that on Charlene, too.

“In that case,” Nathaniel said, “there’s a session on electrical play I wanted to attend starting in fifteen minutes.”

T
hat night the dance party was even louder and more crowded than the night before. I was glad. I didn’t want to run into Charlene at all, and the more people between us, the better. The afternoon had been awkward with Nathaniel. The joviality we’d had earlier in the weekend was gone.

But I had said Charlene was a done and finished deal, so I couldn’t very well keep bringing her up. Maybe, I thought, if I refused to mention her name, and tried not to think about her, she wouldn’t bother me as much.

It hadn’t worked so far.

Julie and Daniel had been unsuccessful in lightening our mood. They’d tried during an early dinner, finally giving up when it became obvious neither Nathaniel nor I wanted to have the mood lightened. Currently, they were dancing together. Daniel must have decided he didn’t want to spend another night watching his woman dance with another man.

Julie looked just fine with that. Though she’d danced with the stranger the night before, she was definitely less inhibited with Daniel. Her dance was hypnotic to watch and there were more eyes than just Daniel’s following her every move. My feet itched to join in.

Nathaniel wouldn’t be dancing with me. Not only did he look completely uninterested, but I’d recently spied Charlene step onto the dance floor with her two men. After the run-in this morning in the lobby, there was no way in hell Nathaniel was going to set foot on it with her there.

I closed my eyes and let the music sink into my skin. I wanted to dance. It was so easy to remember the feelings I’d had the previous night. The freedom, the power, the pleasure. I wanted to feel them again.

“May I go dance, Master?” I asked. Obviously, he wasn’t going to voluntarily tell me to go dance.

“Yes.”

I waited for him to say more. To tell me who I could dance with or how long I could dance. Something. But there was nothing. Just that one word.

With a shrug, I made my way to join in with the dancers.

Something almost magic hit me as soon as my foot touched the dance floor. Probably it was only that the music was louder and I was feeling the excitement and joy from all those bodies. I swung my arms over my head and started swaying in time to the music.

“You dancing?” a middle-aged Dom asked me.

I couldn’t talk to Doms in a club without Nathaniel’s permission, so instead of verbalizing my response, I answered with my body and moved closer to him. He kept his distance, aware because of the collar I wore that I belonged to someone else. Still he danced with me, and several of our moves received a few catcalls.

Not long after we started our dance, another Dom joined our twosome and I laughed to myself when I realized I matched Charlene for the number of men I was dancing with. I looked across the dance floor to see if she was still there, but I couldn’t find her.

“She yours?” the new Dom asked the one I’d been dancing with.

“No,” he replied. “I thinks she belongs to the tall guy in the back with a scowl on his face.”

That certainly sounded like Nathaniel.

A faster song started and our little group grew by another guy.
Three.
I’d never danced with three men at one time before. The new guy was young and he could move. I inched closer to him to match what he was doing.

“That’s it,” he said. “Move those hips.”

I didn’t reply, but moved them slow and sultry, exaggerating my movements in a suggestion of more intimate activities. I ran my hands down my body and across my chest, rubbing my nipples.

This was what I needed. This time to let go and dance and be free. To be watched and to feel sexy and wanted. To let the music sweep me away.

“That’s enough, Abigail.”

I opened my eyes and found Nathaniel in front of me. Although the music still played, the three Doms had left.

Damn him for stopping my fun.

“Is something wrong, Master?”

“Do you plan to dance with every male in the place?”

Was he serious?
He
was pulling the jealous card? After Charlene?

The nerve.

“Only the Dominant ones, Master.”

“Are you purposely trying to irritate me?”

I put my hands on my hips. There was no way I was going to stand there and listen while he acted all jealous. I’d only been dancing. “You said I could dance, Master. You didn’t give me any restrictions or instructions. With all due respect, if you didn’t want me doing something, maybe you should have told me.”

He lowered his voice. “With all due respect, my ass. I shouldn’t have to tell you I don’t want you dancing with half a dozen men at one time.”

“Three is hardly half a dozen, Master.”

He stared at me for a long minute, his lips pressed into a thin line. “Go kneel next to the willow tree in the far left corner,” he finally said.

I huffed, but followed his command. Our confrontation had garnered some attention.
And not the good kind
. I walked quickly, but with enough attitude so he’d know I was pissed.

He wasn’t far behind me and he stood over me almost as soon as I went down on my knees.

“People are watching,” he said. “Not exactly the type of attention you like, is it?”

“No, Master.”

“Maybe you should have thought about what kind of attention you wanted before you got up and decided to dance with half the men at the party.”

I really didn’t see what his problem was. He didn’t seem to have minded the night before when Julie was with me and we danced. But I had his collar on, I’d already been bratty, and it didn’t feel like the right time to point out how inconsistent he was being.

I saw a pair of shoes walk up in my peripheral vision and stop nearby.
Great, more onlookers
. I enjoyed sexy times with people watching, but I didn’t enjoy sharing with them when I got in trouble.

“You want to see what it’s like to be with another Dom?” Nathaniel asked. “Is that what this new fascination with playing in public is leading to?”

“No, Master.” Where had that come from? How did he jump from playing in public to me being with another man? Surely he hadn’t got all that from my dancing.

“I don’t know if I believe you.”

“I don’t know how to prove it, Master.”

“You there,” Nathaniel said, and I realized he was talking to the man who stood nearby. “Want to help out?”

Oh my God, what is he doing?

The stranger grunted and from the sound alone, I couldn’t tell if it was an affirmative reply or a negative one. His shoes came closer to me, which I took to mean he’d agreed to be part of the scene.

“This is one of the men you were dancing with, Abigail.”

I’d have to take his word for it. I hadn’t exactly been looking at the guys’ shoes when I was dancing.

“I think he wanted to make sure you were okay. You have permission to speak to him.”

I kept my gaze focused on the floor. “I’m very much okay, Sir. Thank you for checking.”

“Is that your idea of thanks?” Nathaniel asked.

What the hell did he want me to do? Kiss the guy’s feet in thanks? “How should I thank him, Master?”

“Properly,” a gruff voice I recognized from the dance floor said.

My heart pounded and the blood rushing through my body buzzed in my ears. Everything seemed to fog over.

Did he mean what I thought he meant? And Nathaniel was going to allow it?

Somewhere in front of me a zipper was being lowered.

Though the fog that was still clearing in my brain, I suddenly became very aware of what and who was in front of me. It was a stranger and he was unbuttoning his pants. I didn’t want to look up and see him. I could do this, but I didn’t want to see his face. For whatever reason, that seemed important.

Slowly, he took his jeans down and I focused on his cock. It was sizable, and very erect. And pierced.

“You’re pierced.” I felt my cheeks flush as soon as the words left my mouth because of course he was. And of course he knew it.

“The submissives at the club seem to like it,” he said in a matter-of-fact way. But he might as well have poured ice-cold water over me because that simple sentence brought the image of one specific submissive kneeling at a club.

Charlene.

And it wasn’t a stranger she knelt before in my mind. It was Nathaniel.

Time stopped as I pictured him taking his pants down and her licking her lips, desperate for him. He stroked his cock. “Ready for a taste?”

But when she opened her mouth to engulf his cock, it wasn’t Charlene. It was me. I was Charlene.

The vision disappeared and the only thing in front of me was a cock that wasn’t Nathaniel’s.

Oh my God. I was Charlene.

“Stop. No! Red.”

“What the hell, man?” the stranger asked, and I realized I hadn’t been the one to safe-word. Nathaniel had done it.

“We’re leaving,” Nathaniel said, and his voice was shaky.

So he was upset. Good. I would hate to be alone in my pissed-off state.

“Whatever,” the stranger said. I kept my eyes on the floor as he zipped his pants back up and left.

“Are you okay?” Nathaniel held out a hand to me, but I jerked away from him.

“Don’t touch me,” I said. “You were trying to turn me into her.”

“What? Who?” Nathaniel asked. “What are you talking about?”

“Charlene,” I said, putting as much disdain as possible in that one word.

“What?” he asked again.

“How long have you really known she was submissive? You’ve known all along, haven’t you? And I bet you thought that if you could convince me to do a threesome, I wouldn’t be able to say anything if you wanted to play with her.”

“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

“Look at it from my perspective. If you allow me to play with other men and you even go so far as to introduce a third, is it so far out there that you would come to me and say, ‘I’m bringing another woman into the playroom. You shouldn’t have a problem with it, since I brought another man in it for you’?”