He looked to her. “Then you tell me that, Amélie. You don’t have to go into detail if you don’t wanna give that to me but you can still give what you gotta give so I know you’re lookin’ after me. I know I’m your toy but still, I’m not that. I’m a man who consents to be your fuckin’ toy. And in this room, I gotta trust you’ll never forget that.”
With that, he pulled open the door with such strength, it was a miracle it didn’t fly off its hinges, and prowled out.
Amélie stood frozen, her mind scrambling, easily falling upon where she’d made her mistakes.
In order not to get lost in him, having him here, the only place she had him, needing to turn her mind to other things, she’d overcompensated.
She had dismissed him.
Her beast who’d groaned during their first session simply because she took her presence away.
He craved attention. No, he craved her attention. He followed her with his eyes not simply because he’d been ordered to do so or he liked the look of her, but because she was his anchor in their world, a world he grappled with his place in, and he needed to look at her. He needed her. He could sit bound for her for thirty minutes, but he did it knowing she’d be there eventually to take care of him.
She was entirely focused on him when she’d played with him that night, and please, to the fates, she hoped he’d felt that.
But then she lost focus and that was not acceptable in this room.
She only had to hope that he would return so she could find some way to talk this through with him.
She had a valid excuse, concern for her friend. If he consented to listening, she felt certain he’d understand that.
And allow them to move on.
If he did not understand, then that said a good deal about him and it would then be Amélie who would have what she needed to know if they should move on. Especially in the way she was wanting more and more with each interaction with her beast.
She swallowed, throwing the wet wipe she still held but had completely forgotten into the bin. She then exited the room with quick, irate strides, furious with herself, furious with Olivier for not taking a breath and allowing a conversation to be had, and unfairly furious at Mirabelle for taking her attention.
She’d managed to calm down slightly by the time she hit the hunting ground. She saw eyes on her and had no doubt that Olivier stalked out looking as pissed as he just was.
A sub doing that would cause a sensation.
Her sub doing this would cause a stir.
She didn’t care about this.
She was more concerned about the fact she had to expend large amounts of energy not to lose her fucking mind at what she saw.
A sub whose name Amélie did not know as she was a female and Amélie didn’t pay much attention to the females was standing close to Mirabelle. She’d been selected, it was clear to see. They were just waiting for Amélie to return so Mirabelle could take her back to play.
It was a fact that Mirabelle didn’t often select females, though if she was in a certain mood, she could swing that way.
Thus Amélie saw Mira’s play immediately.
Picking another sub, Mirabelle was hoping, would raise jealousy in Trey.
However, if he held feelings for her, expected things of their relationship as it had already progressed, selecting another male could cause the connection they were building irreparable harm.
Choosing a female might not have that same consequence.
Amélie knew this to be true, and seeing what she was now seeing, she knew Mira did as well, although it made little sense to her.
Intimacy was intimacy and it was all cherished, regardless of the sex of your partner.
Many men’s minds, Amélie knew, especially when it came to same-sex play with women, did not work the same way.
“My God, Leigh, your stallion thundered out of—” Mira started when Amélie made it to the table.
“If you would, please,” she snapped. “Ask your toy to remove herself for a moment.”
Clearly thinking Amélie wished to discuss what happened with Olivier, Mirabelle did this immediately.
After the woman left, instead of sliding into the opposite side of the booth, she shoved in right next to Mirabelle.
“Fuck, Leigh, what happened?” Mirabelle asked, the sides of their legs and hips pressed together, they were so close.
“Do not, Mira, my beautiful friend, sabotage your own happiness.”
Mirabelle blinked before her face went soft and warm but then almost instantly turned cold.
“Don’t you—” she began.
“Yes, I have more experience than you, but not in that. Not in hoping for something, going for it, and losing it because you are what you are. Something you can’t change. Something that’s not only integral to you, but something you love about yourself. I have had two close calls with men I grew to care about, as you know, but neither broke my heart. Because I didn’t have the strength of will to go for it. I want what you want, and you know that too. The beauty of you is that your strength is so powerful, you still allow yourself to hope. To even consider going for it.”
“Leigh—”
Amélie put her hand on Mirabelle’s on the table.
“Please let me finish, darling.”
Mirabelle closed her mouth.
“If Trey could be something more to you, he’s an alpha-sub, you know it, and you declaring ownership of him and then enjoying play with another, his pride will take a hit that he might not be able to recover from. This would be you causing that damage.”
“This is our world, Leigh.”
“We’re not talking about our world, Mira. We’re talking about your life.”
She again shut her mouth.
“He did not like it when you said Bryan was a waste,” she shared and Mirabelle’s eyes widened. “His reaction was more than irritation. It smacked of jealousy. He didn’t know you have no interest in Bryan. Trust me, female, but definitely male sub, no matter, you take one that’s not him at this juncture, you could possibly sabotage your own happiness. And I hope like hell I can stop you from doing that.”
“You saw him react to that about Bryan?” Mirabelle asked.
“Yes,” Amélie answered.
Her friend began to look angry. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I was being cautious, too cautious, perhaps, but you have to let me have that because I’m your friend and it’s my job. And because I was hoping if he showed that so easily, he’d show more and you would find your time to go for it.”
Mira cast her eyes to the table and muttered, “Perhaps Trey and I should have a talk.”
“I think that’s wise, and if you’ll allow one last piece of advice, make it one without a plug up his ass,” Amélie tried to joke.
Mirabelle looked to her, the hope back, and also concern.
“What happened with your stud, Amélie? I get you’re intense for me but it’s obviously something else.”
“It’s no matter,” she lied.
Mirabelle paused before she burst out laughing, controlling it enough to say through it, “You just shoved the big sister act right in my face and a sub, a chosen toy of the Grande Domme Mistress Amélie, storms through the hunting ground looking like he wants to murder somebody and you say ‘It’s no matter.’”
“If you don’t mind, chérie, it just occurred and I’d actually like time to give it some thought to assess what actually did just occur. And then,” she smiled softly, “as you’re so good at doing, we’ll get together and I’ll share it with you and then you can do the big sister act.”
Mirabelle leaned closer. “Oh, lovely, did you fuck up? Push him too hard?”
“He’s so attuned to me, so connected to me, I’m honestly not certain I could push him too hard.” She shook her head against the beauty of that thought, and the alarm she felt at what she’d done that night that might have broken them. “It’s humbling, Mira. And it’s fragile. And I do believe that perhaps the f
act that I wasn’t as attuned to him tonight genuinely hurt his feelings. I’m quite sure it’s made the rounds he’s significantly endowed, so it isn’t a surprise, hung like he is with that equipment, that his reaction would take reacting like a man to reacting like a man.”
Mira looked instantly repentant. “You were worried about me.”
“You know that it isn’t your fault. It’s my slip and I’ll fix it.”
“I hope so, Amélie, because you’re right. It’s made the rounds and everyone is saying that your play with him is like a work of art.”
They were not wrong.
“I hope you can fix it, Leigh,” Mira’s eyes lightened, “because I haven’t been able to watch.”
Amélie gave her a smile. “And I hope you gather your courage, because I’d like to see you happy.”
Their hands on the table shifted so they were clasped. Amélie gave her a squeeze, felt its return, and they let go.
“I think I might go home now, unless you want to sit with me for a drink? Or we can go somewhere and have twelve of them, Uber it home,” Mirabelle suggested.
“That last sounds like a plan,” Amélie agreed but leaned in a bit. “You need to release your toy. I’ll meet you in the foyer and we can decide where to go.”
“Right. It’ll be about five minutes and I’ll see you in the foyer.”
Amélie nodded and slid out. She moved to the foyer. She waited for Mirabelle. And they went out to do the best thing a woman could do when she’d had a tough night.
Spend time with her girl.
* * *
Two evenings later, Friday, Amélie was at the club.
To her despair, the strength of which she tried to quell, Olivier did not show.
six
Miracle of Miracles
OLIVIER
On Saturday night, Olly walked into the Bolt, Barclay’s club, and was assaulted by the loud music and flash of disco lights coming from the main club that were hitting the dim space of the front area.
He saw the girl at the glass counter that served as the membership check-in desk. Through the glass, the desk offered an array of condoms and tubes of lube, bottles of oil, and other sexual staples, most of these edible.
That was just what was available at the counter. There was a shop with a much larger selection inside the club.
The girl had on an outfit he could see all of, as she was perched on a high stool that cleared the top of the counter. It was made of that plastic-looking material, a black strapless dress with a short but wide skirt lifted up by a load of black netting, fishnets held up by garters. She had cat’s whiskers drawn around her nostrils, her nose had a black dot at the tip, her eyes were lined with a thick, black sweeping slash, and she wore a thin black collar with rhinestones around her neck and a band with cat’s ears on her head.
She was cute.
But not something you’d see at the Honey.
“Hey, gorgeous,” she greeted then said, “Clay’s waiting for you up in the office.”
He stopped at the counter and asked, “Do I know you?”
He’d been there a number of times and she was cute enough, he’d remember her.
“Nope,” she replied, grinning. “He just said if a big guy comes in who looks like he can rip my head off with his bare hands, send him up.”
Barclay. He was a wise-ass too.
Olly shook his head before he jerked his chin up and moved to the narrow doorway that led to narrow stairs that would take him to the club’s office.
Before he hit the doorway, she called, “Like my head where it is, but, sugar, you wanna rip something else off me, you just shout.”
“Raincheck,” he muttered and moved in the doorway, taking the first step.
“C’est la vie,” he heard her mumbled reply.
He knew it was a saying but he wished she hadn’t picked French.
His shoulders actually brushed the walls as he made his way up to an equally narrow landing at the top. A landing that had one door.
He knocked.
“Yo!” he heard Barclay shout from inside.
Olly moved in.
He shut the door behind him and the music from outside could still be heard but not nearly as loud.
Olly turned to his bud in the dimly lit room filled with a large cluttered desk and a lot of furniture in plush fabrics that you could easily lounge on, and fuck on, which he suspected was done. That meant any time he was in there, shooting the shit and sharing a beer with Barclay, he’d never actually sat down.
Barclay, a decent-looking guy, as far as Olly could tell, dark hair, kinda slight build (but it was evident he took care of himself), average height, was behind the desk, brown eyes on Olly.
“Oh fuck,” he muttered.
“I fucked up,” Olly announced.
“Okay, first, that look on your face, not to make this about me but gotta fuckin’ make it about me. Man, please tell me you did not get made at the Honey and right now I gotta gather all the cash I got on hand and get the fuck outta Phoenix ’cause Aryas Weathers is gonna hunt down my ass.”
Olly moved into the room, telling him, “I didn’t get made.”
“No offense, Olly, but I’m as surprised as I am impressed and that’s sayin’ a lot, brother.”
Feeling some guilt about the worry he’d caused his friend, not to mention feeling a lot of other things, nevertheless, since he had a dick, Olly turned to the smoky window that looked down at the club’s dance floor and muttered, “Fuck you.”
He heard a fridge open and looked Barclay’s way just in time to see he’d twisted back from a short, square refrigerator behind the desk and a bottle of beer was sailing through the air his way.
He caught it as Barclay invited, “Just use the edge of the desk to wedge the top off. We lost our bottle opener and none of us lazy fucks have bothered to get a new one. Desk cost us a fuckin’ shitload but my asshole partners have no class so now it’s ruined with that shit. Since I got absolutely no desire to fuck ’em, might as well join ’em.”
He then stood and used the heel of his palm against the cap set against the edge of the desk to open his own beer.
Olly followed suit and Barclay moved around the desk.
“Park your ass, man, and give whatever shit you’re carrying to me.”
“No offense back at you,” Olly started, eyeing furniture that looked like massive sculpted pillows, no legs, flush to the floor, slouchy and misshapen. “But maybe I should see a cleaning bill before I park my ass on any a’ that.”
He heard Barclay chuckle as he collapsed into a chair that could fit two (or three), falling into it, which was the only way to get into it. Another concern of Olly’s since he had farther to fall … and more bulk to pull up.
“I know it looks like the lounge area of a low-rent porno company but we all agreed to no fucking up here. None of us wanna sit in someone else’s dried cum so I can promise, even with my partners, there’s been no fucking up here,” he assured.
Olly could believe that so he moved to a couch and found his way into it. It was comfortable, but his feet to the floor, his knees were nearly in line with his shoulders.
“Christ, Clay, serious should think of maybe getting a real couch.”
“I’ll take it under advisement.” There was humor on his face when he said that but suddenly, Olly saw him wipe it clean away before he invited, “Lay it on me, Olly.”
Olly took a pull of his beer. Then another.
After that and a deep breath, he laid it on Barclay. No detail, the basics, some of it uncomfortable, making him feel vulnerable, a feeling he did not like (unless Amélie was there), laying it out just because Barclay needed to know it so he could help him out.
Except his totally losing his cool with Amélie and stomping out. That last, he gave detail.
When he was done, he said, “And that’s it,” and took another pull of beer.
“Right, that isn’t it ’cause, see, you gave me all that and I don’t kn
ow what it is, I can only assume. And I’ll just go on here and say what I assume is that you came here to share all of that so I could give you a clue as to how to get back in there with your girl.”
His girl.
Shit.
Yes.
That was why he was there.
Because he’d spent days trying to convince himself that it was good that was done. It was an excuse it all could be done. He got what he got from her and she proved the way she handled him last that it was fucked up, so now he could put that part of his life behind him. Now Olly could finally close the channels to that shit that fucked with his head and finally move on with his life.
And this all came on the heels of him spending more days kicking his own ass for being weak. For making the decision he was not going back for a second time and then going. His mind screaming at him to back down, not get in his truck, not put his foot on the gas, not drive to the Honey, his body not listening to a fucking word it said.
And she took him there again, better than before, both times she’d made him come.
But she also gave him more that second time and then it became all about how she was, the second session, with him.
It was the play, fuck yeah, absolutely. Mind-blowing. The world expanding like he wasn’t on the same planet but in a different universe, even as it physically contracted, being only that room they were in. Even less, just the space the two of them occupied.
And it was more.
She was that miracle of miracles, sexy-as-fuck, gorgeous-as-hell, and still cute. She had a sense of humor. She had a beautiful laugh. She could be affectionate and sweet. Fuck, spread out on top of a vault with his dick and balls on show for the people at the windows, when they bantered, it was like they were on a date.
He wanted more. Of all of it. He couldn’t fight it and was beginning to wonder why he did.
Then he began to wonder if he had to. If he could just be who he was, fight that fight, but allow himself to go to her so she could take care of him. Take him where he needed to be. Make it all clear for him. Make it all right. Make it so he was safe to be in that room, which meant safe in his head for unbe-fucking-leivably amazing moments of respite, but only when he was with her.