Writes of Submission (12 page)

“I have a suggestion.” Dante waited until he had both Nikki’s and Kane’s attention before he went on. “Why don’t you do a scene with Nikki and me both as bottoms?”

Nikki made a small, strangled noise.

Kane folded his arms. “How would that help?”

“It might help a lot,” Dante told them. “A one-on-one scene might be too intimate and you did say you wanted all of us to do this, right? So if we’re all there, it’ll take the emphasis off the twosome thing and might make Nikki feel safer. If one of us tries something, the other one will be there for protection, right? Safety in numbers, that kind of thing. Besides, I don’t know the first thing about all of this, but I want to learn. What better way than starting the same way as Nikki? Then I can try switching to the top later.”

Kane stared at him for a minute, then slowly turned to Nikki. “Oddly enough, that kind of makes sense. What do you think?”

She stared at her hands, which were clutched so tightly together that her knuckles were white. Neither of the guys said anything for a minute while she seemed to be on the brink of either passing out or running away.

Finally she looked up. “Okay, I’ll try it. But we’ll need to set some limits.”

“Of course.” Kane smiled. “That’s what the lifestyle is all about. Negotiations, respect, keeping your partners’ limitations in mind. That’s why we’re doing this—to show you that it’s not about the sex, necessarily. It can be much more than that.”

* * * *

There was a knock at Nikki’s door as she was getting ready for bed. She put down the hairbrush, pulled on her robe and went to answer it.

Dante stood there with a bottle of wine, two glasses, and a friendly smile. When she didn’t immediately say anything, his smile faltered a bit, but he held up the glasses. “I thought you might want to talk.”

“Talk? About what?” She stepped back, a little reluctantly, and he came in.

“About everything that’s been going on.” He poured the wine, handed her a glass, and settled himself cross-legged against her pillow.

Nikki didn’t really want to join him on the bed. That would seem too much like flirting.

Not that she didn’t want to flirt with him. He looked so cute sitting there with his long hair, boyish grin and wine glass. Cute, yes, but young. Much too young. She needed to control the lustful thoughts that were threatening to take over her brain. There had been nothing else since Kane’s suggestion earlier.

She sat down in the desk chair, trying to look as if she’d never had a lustful thought in her life. Business. This was business. Her new career. She could handle it in that context. She had no choice.

“So how do you feel about the idea of doing a scene with the two of us?” Dante leaned forward over his crossed legs. Nikki tried not to grimace at the thought of how painful that move would be if she tried it.

“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” she said, pasting a completely false smile on her face. “Fine” was definitely
not
her first reaction to the thought of taking off some or—God forbid—all of her clothes in front of these two guys. Even though they would no doubt see it as nothing more than helping a pathetic, love-starved older woman learn how to write better romance.

“I wanted to make sure you were comfortable with it. Because if not—” Dante stopped as if he was embarrassed and took a gulp of his wine. Nikki waited for him to go on, feeling apprehensive. He probably wanted to back out. He was about to make some excuse as to why he couldn’t go through with it. Why would he want to? He’d made the offer in the heat of the moment, when it probably sounded like a good idea. Later, thinking about it, he’d decided that it would be leading her on.

She decided to let him off the hook. If she told him that she would rather do the scene with just Kane, then he could back out gracefully. It was very plausible. She and Kane were supposed to be working together, so why wouldn’t he be the better choice to learn from? Dante had said he didn’t really know anything. He was no doubt regretting his offer to bottom with her.

“Look,” she said gently, toying with some papers on her desk. “Actually, I’m not really sure about it. Maybe we should keep it lower-key for now, you know?”

“What do you mean?”

She hesitated, feeling oddly guilty. No, don’t be stupid, she told herself.
You’re doing him a favor.
“I can just do the scene with Kane. You don’t have to be involved.”

“Oh.” Nikki didn’t look up, but from the corner of her eye she could see him sit back. She didn’t want him to see the emotion on her face. It had been a much harder thing for her to say than she’d anticipated. That was just silly, though. There were undoubtedly lots of attractive women in the community that he could play with.

There was an awkward silence for a minute. He must be trying to decide how to thank her, Nikki decided. But then he jumped up from the bed and went to the door.

“Okay, then.” His voice was cheerful, but he didn’t turn around. He simply opened the door and left.

Nikki stared at her glass of wine, suddenly miserable. She’d just turned down a chance to do a scene with one of the hottest guys she’d ever met. How stupid was she? Granted, she was still going to have to do a scene with Kane, and he was pretty cute, too. But Kane was—what was he?

Scarier. Yes, definitely scarier, but that whole Dominant thing he had going on was sexy, and his voice when he was doing it made her insides melt. She downed her half-glass of wine and reached for the bottle to pour another. Dante had left it. She might as well drink it. Maybe it would make her forget what an idiot she was.

* * * *

“What is today, anyway? Thursday?” Kane rubbed his eyes as he collapsed into his chair. Somehow he managed to only slop a little coffee onto the table.

“Friday,” came Nikki’s distracted, automatic answer from the far end of the table. She was taking out his writing from the previous night, but from her expression there should have been a black cloud hanging over her head.

Allie came out of the kitchen, slinging her purse over a shoulder. “Are you sure you don’t want a bigger breakfast, Kane?”

“Oh, no.” He squinted at his toast. Food never appealed to him at this time of day. “This is great, but I never eat breakfast. Ruins my appetite for the afternoon’s drinking.”

Nikki, sitting at the far end of the table, was silent. Not so much as a derisive snort. That wasn’t a good sign.

“Okay.” Allie sighed. “I’ve got to run into town. Help yourself to anything in the kitchen if you get hungry.”

Kane waited until she left, then looked at Nikki. “What’s chewing on you this morning?”

She shrugged, turning a page. “Nothing.”

“Well, you’re obviously not relishing my inspired scribblings in the manner they deserve,” Kane said, taking a long swig of coffee.

She pushed the stack of papers away from her. “It’s great. As always.”

“Wow. You’re not up to a single insult? Or a jab at my attire?” He leaned back, arms spread so that she had a good view of today’s offering. It was an obnoxious, bright lime green color with the inscription, “I’d rather be drinking.”

She glanced at it and shrugged again.

There was a sound from the doorway and Dante came in. He pushed open the swinging door and stuck his head in the kitchen.

“She went out,” Kane told him.

Dante nodded. “I need to talk to you, too.” He sat down.

Kane looked closely. “What’s going on? Both of you look like you’ve just been sentenced to a decade of hard labor in Siberia—and not the scenic part.”

Dante smiled, but it looked forced. “No, man. I’m good. In fact, I’ve got some great news for you. I’ve been doing little teaser posts on your Facebook page, like we talked about, and it’s really generating some interest. Lots of your fans want details about what’s going on here, what you’re doing, what the place is like. You really need to do a blog post today.”

“A blog post?” Kane rubbed a hand over his forehead. “I don’t have a blog.”

“You do now. I set it up this morning.” Dante’s face took on a little more animation as he leaned forward. “This is important. You’re a writer. Just give me four or five paragraphs every other day. Talk about how beautiful Clifftop is, how amazing the food is, what kinds of things you’re doing with your new coauthor.” He glanced down the table at Nikki and his face darkened for a second. “Don’t give details about who it is. I’ve already said you have a writing partner and you’re working on some really hot stuff but it’s going to be a secret who it is for now. People are going crazy speculating.”

“Are they now?” Kane considered it. If this guy could generate that kind of interest with a couple of Facebook status updates, then maybe he should consider the blog thing after all. It would take away from his writing time, sure, but it could be worth it if it helped sell more books.

“After our yoga this afternoon, we’ll take a look at the blog I set up for you. If you want to change the background or anything, that’ll be easy enough to do. But I want to get a post up today to introduce it, and then at least one more before you write about—your scene.” Dante scowled as he said the last words.

“What do you mean, ‘your scene’? Aren’t we all doing it?”

“No.” Dante stood up. “Nikki thought it’d be better with just the two of you.”

“She what?” Kane stared at Nikki, who seemed to be refusing to meet his eyes. Dante wasn’t looking at either of them. “Why did you say that, Nikki?”

If she shrugged again, he thought, he’d just go over there and spank her. He wasn’t really sure himself why a scene with all three of them had sounded like such a good idea, but it had, and the more he thought about it, the better it sounded.

She stood up and walked toward the door. “It just sounded less intimidating.”

It suddenly became very clear to Kane what was going on. He brought his palm down on the table, hard. It stung, quite a bit, but he ignored that. It had the desired effect, which was to get Nikki and Dante’s full attention. They were both staring at him now.

“Sit down, both of you,” Kane said, intentionally lowering his voice to Dom mode. He didn’t usually go into Dom mode to deal with guys, or even with women that he wasn’t actually involved with, but something was going on between Nikki and Dante that obviously needed to be dealt with, and dealt with now.

The two glanced at each other and slowly took chairs again. Nikki looked half grudging and half interested, and Dante simply looked resigned.

“All right, that’s better.” It felt silly, but Kane knew he needed to maintain the control he’d just established. “Nikki, tell me the real reason you asked Dante not to participate in our scene, when we’d set it up that way on purpose.”

Her eyes darted down to the table and her mouth took on a stubborn set. “He didn’t really want to do it,” she said after a few seconds.

Okay, now they were getting somewhere. “Dante, did you not want to do it?”

Dante looked outraged. “Of course I wanted to do it! I wouldn’t have offered otherwise.”

“You just did that to be nice,” Nikki insisted, staring belligerently at the wall opposite her.

Dante actually spluttered. “To be nice! You don’t offer to let someone tie you up and beat on you to be nice!”

Kane chuckled. “Not usually, no,” he agreed. “But since we’re here and talking about the scene, we might as well segue into an actual negotiation. Nikki, are you still willing to do the scene at all? Because if not, we can still go back and redo your goofy helicopter pilot and rich kid CEO. No problem.”

She mumbled something.

Kane leaned closer. “Excuse me?”

With a sigh, she repeated, “I said yes, I’m still willing to do the scene.”

“Good.” Satisfied, he turned to Dante. “Now then, are you still interested in doing the scene?”

Dante looked like a sullen schoolboy. “Not if I’m not wanted.”

Kane sighed. “Nikki, tell Dante that you want him to do the scene with us.”

She turned her eyes to the ceiling as if exasperated at his stupidity. “He doesn’t want to.”

“I will rephrase for the terminally stubborn. Dante, do you
want
to do a scene with us?”

“Of course I do! I said so, didn’t I?”

Kane’s lips twitched. “Apparently not clearly enough. Perhaps you should try again, only this time slower, louder and with smaller words.”

Dante’s face slowly broke into a grin. He turned toward Nikki and said in a loud, exaggerated voice, “Yes. I. Want. To. Play. With. You.”

Nikki scowled at them both.

Kane let his voice soften just a bit. “Nikki, was that clear enough? Dante and I would be honored if you would do a scene with us. It’s not a pity scene or anything silly like that.” His voice lowered back to the Dom tone. “So take that long-suffering look off your face.”

“Yes, Sir.” She had a sudden shocked look and Kane would have sworn the sudden grab of her coffee cup was an attempt to hide her aborted movement to cover her mouth with her hands. He guessed her answer had surprised her as much as it had him.