her body, followed by a cry . . . Yeah. Fuck yeah. He’d always supposed that a spanking could be erotic, but he’d never guessed how much. This was flipping his switch in a way he’d never experienced. Arousal burned so hot, it actually stung his veins. All he could think about was doing it again and again and again until she screamed, until her head quieted, until she begged him to fuck her.
That was it. The urge to work inside her pussy was strong, but he knew immediately that just getting her under him once or twice wasn’t going to cut it. He had to claim this territory as his own. His to kiss, to punish, to fondle, to arouse . . . to take. Jesus, the urge was killing him.
He swallowed and raised his hand again, already looking for another place to land his palm and turn her skin red. In the back of his head, he knew she’d questioned him. From his observation earlier, he’d figured out that neither submission nor endorphins happened in the blink of an eye, so if it took more than a few of his spankings for this to register properly with her, that was more than fine by him.
By the time that logic had wended through his brain, he found the perfect spot to land his next strike—high on her left cheek, a bit farther from her hip. He eyed that spot like a target, aiming for a bull’s-eye. With a whoosh, he lowered his arm. The blow hit exactly where he wanted. Instantly, the sound of his skin on hers filled his ears. More of the amazing, arousing sensations filled him. Shit, being with her made him feel eight feet tall. A brighter shade of red bloomed across her ass, and he rubbed it again, fascinated.
“No!” she gasped. “Stop it! You can’t do this.”
Her little voice tugged at him, sounding so confused and scared, deflated all the arousal and confidence he’d been building. Like a pin into a balloon, it popped, burst.
“Please . . .” she cried out.
Joaquin flinched.
“Shit. Oh hell.” He tried to hold her against him, soothe her. Guilt gouged out a mountain of regret inside him. “I’m sorry.”
She shoved away from him, looking at him with accusing eyes as she yanked her clothes back into place. “Don’t touch me.”
He shook his head. What the fuck kind of monster was he, to smack her ass and enjoy it so much? Maybe he hadn’t done it right. Or he’d misunderstood what he’d seen earlier. It was entirely possible that he’d liked the idea of spanking her so much he’d projected his desires on Bailey. Whatever. She obviously didn’t want this.
As her whole body twitched with the sound of her sobs, he ached to reach for her again and offer shelter. But she wanted nothing to do with him.
He backed away, then turned for the door. “I really am sorry.”
With a curse, he forced himself to walk away from her. As he shut the door behind him and locked it again, breathing hard, his gut soured more. Every footfall seemed to weigh a hundred pounds more than the last. Something in his chest actually hurt.
As he slammed into his little cubicle of a room, he marched to the bed, sat down, and thrust his head in his hands. Jesus, had undercover missions and years of cloak-and-dagger shit, coupled with so much fucking death, finally warped him?
Chapter Eight
THE following morning, Joaquin was pacing outside Thorpe’s office, just waiting. Over a mostly sleepless night, he’d made some decisions. He didn’t relish them, but last night’s spanking debacle more than suggested that he’d come unhinged somewhere along the way and needed to get his shit straight before he messed up Bailey’s life any more.
Finally, Thorpe sauntered down the hall, heading for his office. He and Sean walked side by side, heads turned in conversation. Suddenly, they stopped. Callie, trailing behind and digging through her purse, smiled up at them both. They each took a turn bestowing a kiss on her red, glossy lips before she headed deeper into the club with a jaunty wave. She stopped short when she spied him. Joaquin winced. He probably looked like shit. It was how he felt.
“Is Bailey still in her room? Can I see her?”
“Yeah,” he choked out. “I managed to scramble together a bagel and some fruit for her. Would you mind taking it to her?”
Callie cocked her head. “Sure. You don’t want to?”
“It’s better if I don’t.”
She raised her brows in question, but didn’t comment. “All right.”
As she doubled back to the little kitchen area, Thorpe glowered. “What’s wrong?”
“Did something happen with Bailey’s would-be killers?” Sean asked.
No, they’d been quiet for hours now, and he didn’t like it. But at this point, he’d just add that to his shit list and move on.
“Nothing. This is . . . personal. Can we go in and shut the door?” Joaquin gestured to Thorpe’s office. He knew he’d better fess up to last night’s fiasco. Maybe damage control now would save his ass later.
“Sure.”
Dominion’s owner looked relaxed enough, but Joaquin sensed his sudden tension. As he made his way to a chair in the office that oozed with sleek sophistication, Sean closed the door. The echo resounded in the otherwise silent room. Joaquin heard the mental tick-tock in his head as the seconds slipped away. Their expectant looks weren’t getting any less tense. Might as well cough the truth up before Bailey told Thorpe a tearful tale and the man threw him out or otherwise intervened.
“When Bailey and I arrived, you told me that everything at Dominion was consensual, that she had to be here of her own free will within forty-eight hours. I fucked up last night and I wanted to tell you that I’ll make it right.”
Sitting now, Thorpe drilled him with a glare. “How exactly did you fuck up? Explain.”
The man’s disapproving tone made Joaquin tense. “I was alone with Bailey last night and I lost my head. I—”
“You didn’t force the lass, did you?” Sean asked sharply.
“Are you asking if I raped her? No,” he barely managed not to shout, then searched for calm and a delicate way to explain. But he’d always been short on diplomacy and long on brute force. “I . . . I understand that you two are Callie’s Doms. I know your members here practice BDSM. I get it in principle.”
“But . . .” Thorpe prodded.
“I misread Bailey’s signals.” He shook his head, that crappy shame sludge slogging through his veins. “I was angry and I spanked her.”
The club owner rose to his feet, his brows drawn down in a glower. “You punished her while you didn’t have control of yourself and your temper?”
That voice more than suggested his answer better be no.
“I had control of myself,” Joaquin insisted. “I was pissed off, but I wasn’t a raving lunatic. The second she said no, I stopped.”
Sean sent Thorpe a stare, and the man sat again. “You didn’t have a safe word in place?”
Joaquin didn’t know exactly what that meant, but he could guess in context that it would be some word Bailey could say that would stop what he’d been doing. “I wasn’t aware that I should have one. None of this was exactly planned.”
“Next time, agree on a safe word, something she can easily say but normally wouldn’t during play or sex. If nothing else, go with a traffic light. Red for stop, green for—”
“There won’t be any ‘go’ between us. I’m pretty sure I shit in that mess kit.” He sighed. The thought of scaring her bugged him every bit as much as the idea of never touching her again.
“Why would you say that?” Sean asked. “You should never hit a sub in anger, that’s true, but I’m sure if you talked—”
“I . . .” Joaquin shrugged. “I don’t have any experience with this stuff. I thought she might be submissive, but when she pleaded with me to stop, I realized she must not be. While I was really digging it, she obviously didn’t feel the same.”
The guys exchanged a look before Thorpe frowned at him. “Not submissive?”
“She begged me to let her go like I was . . . torturing her. What else was I supposed to think?”
“S
he’s submissive,” Sean supplied.
“Absolutely.” Thorpe nodded.
Great. So it was him Bailey objected to. Well, they had met because he’d drugged and abducted her. Gee, wonder why she doesn’t want you to beat her ass, too?
“Well, either way, if she wants to submit to someone, it won’t be me.” He stood and rubbed his palms down his jeans. “I’ll talk to her this morning, promise not to touch her again, and get her to consent to remain here for her own safety until we can sort out these killers from LOSS.”
“What exactly did she say when you spanked her?” Thorpe wanted to dissect the situation. Why the hell wouldn’t he just leave it be? He’d explained and apologized. Revisiting this humiliation wasn’t exactly at the top of his bucket list.
“She said, ‘No. Stop. You can’t do this.’ The usual kind of stuff that means ‘get your fucking hands off me.’ I’m sorry. I got lost in my own head. Seeing the red my hand had left on her ass did something to me. I—”
“Felt somewhere between a hundred feet tall and invincible?” Sean supplied with a grin.
Joaquin hadn’t expected either of them to just get it. “Yeah.”
“Dom space,” they said together.
“You were into that place in your head where the act of topping your sub made you feel powerful and needed and like you had found not just a niche, but something you require. Does that sound about right?” Thorpe crossed his arms over his chest.
“Exactly.” Joaquin couldn’t believe it. The guy had pretty much reached into his mind and read it word for word.
“You definitely roll dominant.”
That didn’t do him a lot of good if Bailey wasn’t willing to submit to him. And he really couldn’t blame her.
Sean leaned forward in his seat, elbows on knees, and spoke softly. “She needs time, man. You didn’t meet under the best of circumstances. She’s in danger. She doesn’t know you. But there’s no way she isn’t interested in what you could give her.”
Thorpe nodded. “Bailey may not realize yet that she’s submissive. Your biggest issue, though, is trust. It may take a bit more time for you to get inside her walls so that she can let go with you. There’s a good chance the spanking shocked more than repelled her. Did you see if she was wet?”
“I wasn’t going to shove my fingers up her cunt when she was already crying at me to leave her alone,” Joaquin pointed out. He wished they’d stop with the third degree already.
“I understand,” Sean assured. “Consider that maybe her logic was telling her that she shouldn’t like ‘abuse’ from her captor. In the right circumstances, with enough trust between you, I can almost guarantee that girl likes a spanking.”
Joaquin studied the pair of them, their words turning and tumbling in his head. Was there any chance they were right? Sure, he’d found his Dom space, and that had been awesome. Addicting. Life altering. But what had Bailey been feeling? She’d liked their kisses. Even when they’d been rough and he’d pressed her up against the wall, she hadn’t objected one whit. In fact, she hadn’t seemed anything but turned on when they’d been arguing just before he’d taken her across his lap. Maybe . . . she just wasn’t ready to trust him, and who could blame her?
Oh, hell. What did it matter? He’d brought her here to protect her, not start a relationship or explore his Dominant side with her. This chapter of their lives was probably better put behind them. In a few days, he hoped to have these freaks from LOSS pinned, driven back, or roped up—something. He and Bailey would go their separate ways. End of story.
Except something inside him didn’t like that ending.
Joaquin frowned. This wanting more than a romp from a female was a first; he absolutely didn’t know what to do. Normally, he was decisive. He delved into a situation, fixed it, then stole back out. No harm, no foul, no worrying about how anyone felt. But the idea of doing that again made his gut tighten in objection. That fucking wasn’t happening. He wasn’t really sure why it mattered. It just did.
Who did he have in his life? He sat back in his chair. His best friend had been gone a couple of weeks. He’d barely had time to bury Nate or be astounded by the fact that, when they’d finally tracked down his next of kin, they discovered that he hadn’t spoken to any of them in almost a decade. They hadn’t seemed shocked at the news of his death, and barely saddened. Is that how Joaquin wanted his mother or sisters to react when some asshole’s bullet found him?
It shouldn’t matter. It never had before . . . but somehow it did now. And he wanted it to matter to Bailey, too.
Wait! How did spanking the woman and her liking it, or not, have anything to do with his connection to his family? Jesus, he was losing it.
“Thanks for the pep talk, but it’s a moot point. I doubt I’ll be spanking her again. She’s made herself clear, and I need her consent to stay here way more than I need her okay to paddle her. I just wanted to be aboveboard and tell you what happened.”
“Was she breathing hard?” Thorpe ignored his speech and asked.
“Yeah. She was scared.”
“Maybe . . .” The club owner shrugged. “Maybe not.”
“Were her cheeks flushed? Her nipples hard? See any of the usual arousal signs?” Sean asked.
Honestly, he hadn’t thought to look as soon as she’d begged him to stop touching her. “Just drop it. It’s done.”
“If that’s what you want, sure.” Thorpe sent him a cavalier glance that said if he didn’t pursue this, he was an idiot. “The truth is, I think you need this in your life. I suspect she needs this even more. She feels scared and everything is beyond her control. The opportunity to be with someone who can make her feel protected and will assume the responsibility for her onto his shoulders is something she craves, I’ll bet. But you can’t know for sure unless you two communicate.”
Yeah, communicating wasn’t exactly his bag. Joaquin often forgot that something went down better if he sugarcoated it. He winced as he imagined himself suggesting to Bailey that she’d obviously liked him beating her ass and that he didn’t appreciate her making him feel like a douche about it. Hell, that would make him sound like some sort of creepy misogynist rape-happy prick. No thanks.
“Point taken. Now I need to check in on her.” Because that sounded like as much fun as gouging his eyes out with a screwdriver.
Joaquin headed for the door, but Thorpe’s voice stopped him short. “Talk to her. Or I will.”
He whipped around and leveled the Dungeon Master with a pissed-off glare. Being under this roof kept Bailey safe, but it was starting to come at a steep price.
“Don’t meddle in my life,” he warned. “I did you the courtesy of informing you. I didn’t ask for your advice.”
“It wasn’t advice. It wasn’t a suggestion, either. You have until lunch to talk to her or I will take her aside and ask her some very personal questions until I get to the bottom of this.”
“Why the fuck would you do that? I said I wouldn’t touch her again.”
Thorpe sat back, raised a brow. “Don’t make that promise. Based on the way you look at her, I don’t think you can keep it. Besides, I won’t have her upset about anything more than the assholes hunting her down. I especially won’t have her worried enough to call the police.”
“Use your head.” Sean’s voice might be a bit softer, but the message wasn’t. “What happens if these thugs track you down? What happens if you have to flee with Bailey suddenly . . . only she doesn’t trust you enough to take your outstretched hand? Could that hesitation cost both of you your lives? Do you want to take that chance?”
* * *
BAILEY was sitting on the bed, towel drying her hair, when she heard a knock. She tensed, but rose to answer the door. Then remembered that Joaquin had locked it last night after he’d spanked her and run. Son of a bitch.
Cautiously, she approached the door. If he’d come back to berate her or rev her up and flee again, he would find that she did
n’t have much to say. Making sure the borrowed robe covered the essentials, she leaned against the solid portal. “Who is it?”
“Callie. I’ve got your breakfast.”
So Joaquin wouldn’t even feed her now? Because he was worried? Embarrassed? Ashamed? It shouldn’t matter, but Bailey still wished she knew the answer.
“Come in,” she told the other woman.
A moment later, Callie unlocked the door, holding a plate in one hand, with a paper shopping bag dangling from the other.
After she shoved the keys in yet another designer bag, the woman looked up with a smile. “A bagel and some fruit?”