“Olly, I told you to go to the foyer.”
He dipped close. “And Leigh-Leigh, I’m an alpha-sub and the operative part of that in every sense … and I’ll say that’s even when you’re jacking my ass, as I proved tonight … is alpha. No way I’m gonna leave any woman, much less one who means something to me, alone with a visibly ticked-off dude.” He shook his head when she opened her mouth. “It’s just not gonna happen.” He grinned again. “Now I get you can take care of yourself, at least verbally, though I know for certain you’d swing a mean bat. But I don’t give a fuck. I understand where you were and where you needed me to be in these halls when dealing with that fucker. But that’s the way it is.”
He gathered her closer and summed it up succinctly.
“Paddle my balls on Friday, but that’s the way it is.”
She stared into his eyes, standing in his arms, holding on to bulging biceps, still tingling from the orgasm he’d given her, hell, tingling from everything he’d given her, hearing all the words he’d said after he’d heard all the words she’d said to Stellan.
And she knew this time it was she who was gone.
All evidence was suggesting Olivier was the one even if it turned out he didn’t agree.
And the last part terrified the life out of her.
ten
Clawing Right Under His Skin
OLIVIER
“Olly should go, just so he can get his ass laid.”
“I’d go if it meant getting laid and I don’t give a shit she turns out to be a psycho. Phonin’ my ass, pantin’ for my dick. How you let that one go, Olly, don’t know. Bitch pants for my dick, I give it to her. Even if I gotta close my eyes ’cause she’s butt-ugly. Not that your stalker was ugly, dude. I’ve seen her at Chad and Annie’s, which makes me wonder at you more. She’s just a stalker and any man should get past the stalker part, seein’ as she’s doin’ it ’cause she wants his dick.”
“Nope. I’m with Gary. Leave the stalker in your rearview and take this new bitch out. Then feel her out. She may dig kink. Then you can take her for some fun at Clay’s place. Or maybe Clay can set you up, Olly, find a girl who likes to be spanked.”
“Shut your fuckin’ mouth,” Olly growled and the way he did made his friend Todd’s head jerk.
“Olly,” Barclay said pacifyingly.
“Fuck that,” Olly bit out in response to Barclay but did it not looking away from the guys. “What’s all you assholes’ problem?” he asked Todd, Emilio, and Gary, the guys he was out with at a bar for beer and Thursday Night Football, along with Chad and Clay.
The conversation had started with Chad digging into him again about meeting Annie’s friend.
It had not gone well from there.
“Jesus, bro, lighten up,” Emilio muttered.
“You got three sisters, Lo, and they’re all really fuckin’ pretty. You good with knowin’ a bunch of assholes like you assholes sit around over beer callin’ them bitches and talkin’ about spankin’ their asses? Because I can guarantee you, bro, there’s so many assholes like you assholes out there, that shit happens.”
Emilio shifted aggressively on his stool but the man knew he could never take Olly so he answered Olly’s question through his, “Fuck you.”
“I’ll take that as a no,” Olly shot back accurately and looked through them all. “Fuck, heard this kinda shit in junior high, high school, we’re all way outta that and you’re still spewin’ it. When you gonna grow the fuck up?”
“We’re just fuckin’ with you, Olly. Grow some balls,” Gary bit back.
“Wait, not sure, don’t check, you tellin’ me bein’ a fuckwad and takin’ a fuckwad’s bullshit means your balls grow bigger? Shit,” he leaned back, “no wonder you practice it so often. But seein’ as you do, can’t see how you’re sittin’ that stool.”
“Calm down, Olly,” Chad murmured low, and Olly turned to him.
“Annie’s tight with Mandy. How do you think your wife would feel, knowin’ you sat here listenin’ to Emilio spout that shit about her?”
“Annie gets how it is with the boys,” Chad returned.
Olly nodded. “You know? You’re right. Most times, she does. That’s true. Though, gotta say, known your wife a long time and not sure I’m convinced she’d be cool with that at all but especially not when it’s about her friend. But whatever. You got a daughter, Chad, your baby girl isn’t gonna be a baby girl forever.” He flicked an irate hand to indicate the table. “You down with this shit for her?”
Chad’s mouth tightened but he said, “It’s just what guys do. Fuckin’ with each other. Talkin’ smack.”
“So you are down with it?” Olly asked disbelievingly.
“Of course not. Don’t be an ass,” Chad spat.
“Think you need to walk this off, man,” Barclay advised.
He did. Olly needed to walk a lot of things off.
In order to do that, he slid off his stool, pulling out his wallet, but he did this keeping his eyes on Chad.
“Said it enough times, won’t say it again. I do not want a fixup. I dig you and Annie give a shit about my future happiness, but how ’bout you leave that to me?”
“You want that, you got it, bro,” Chad bit off.
Olly threw some bills on the table to cover his beer and wings and shoved his wallet in his jeans, nodding curtly to Chad.
“We gotta walk on eggshells at the house, this newfound sensitivity you got, Olly?” Todd asked sarcastically.
“You know, I’d rather talk about the game, or the rig, or the budget cuts we’re facing, or when we’re gonna get together again and go up to the lake. Take a little shit about a new haircut. Give a little ribbing ’cause someone’s into the new woman they’re seein’. But this bent you guys got to cut as deep as you can and talk crap about women…” He shook his head. “You wanna call it sensitivity because you’re right now feelin’ like a schmuck because I pointed it out you should and you don’t got a big enough dick to handle that, that’s cool with me. But the right word for it is maturity. Look it up. They usually define big words in little ones you can understand.”
He didn’t give any of them a chance to say shit. He moved out of the bar and right to his truck.
He was at the door, hand to the handle, when he heard Barclay call, “Olly!”
He stopped and looked to his friend, then beyond him to make sure none of the other assholes had followed, and when he saw they hadn’t, he gave his attention back to Clay.
“Jesus, brother, those long-ass legs of yours. You walk in a way that to me is running,” Barclay said wheezily.
“What do you want, Clay?” Olly clipped.
Barclay studied him closely. “Things good with you?”
“Yup,” Olly answered.
“I mean with, you know, things,” he clarified.
“I know what you mean and I called you the day after we worked shit out to tell you it was all good with Leigh.”
Barclay’s brows shot up. “Leigh?”
“Amélie.”
“Think I could figure out the nickname,” Barclay muttered, getting closer.
“Well, it’s all still cool.”
And it was.
Absolutely.
Better than cool.
Brilliant.
And it also absolutely wasn’t.
“Got a shorter fuse than normal with those guys, and before you get wound up again, Olly,” Barclay said the last quickly, lifting up his hand, “they were just being guys. They weren’t worse than usual.” He dropped his hand and did a one-shoulder shrug. “Not better, but not worse.”
“You dig that kind of ragging?” Olly asked.
“No, but they’re good guys once they quit trying to communicate who they think has the biggest dick. It’s just the male-bonding ritual, man. You know that.”
“I know it. I also don’t like it. And since I stopped doing it in the locker room when I was twenty-one, never did.”
“One reason why I lik
e you,” Barclay replied. “And think you made your point back there. If it’ll change them, I don’t know. It doesn’t and it gets on your nerves that bad, get out of their sphere. Don’t crawl down their throats when it’s obvious something else is fucking with you.”
It was hard to get out of their sphere, seeing as, except for Todd, he worked with them.
Olly looked to the bar then blew out a breath, turning and practically collapsing a shoulder into his truck.
He looked beyond Barclay to the bar and admitted, “I like her.”
Barclay totally knew what he meant.
“I hope so.”
The humor in Barclay’s reply got him Olly’s attention.
“You don’t get me, brother.” He shook his head, weirdly unsure what to do with his hands, his body. “It’s like … she slips out of the scene and suddenly, we’re connecting. Not of the flesh, in another way. During sometimes, but especially when it’s over. It isn’t at all like we’re where we are, doin’ what we’re doin’. It’s like after vanilla fucking, when you like a woman, she likes you, and you shared something fuckin’ great that got you off, you’ve got that and build on it in other ways that are also great.”
“You seem surprised by this,” Barclay noted.
“We’re in a playroom at a BDSM club, Clay,” Olly returned.
“It’s still a club, Olly,” Barclay replied. “It’s a sex club, yeah. That’s the only nuance of difference. All the people there are there for their own reasons. Some just want to hook up and get off. But some are looking for other things.”
This was one of the things that had occurred to him last night that Olly was worried about. That something that was absolutely brilliant and absolutely not.
Christ, he didn’t need to have his head jacked up with something else.
“Explain what your issue is, Olly,” Barclay demanded and his ticked tone made Olly focus more fully on him. “So, she’s giving you signs she might want something deeper and you’re good with her jacking your shit but not good with going there. Is that what you’re saying?”
“What I’m—” Olly started, but that’s all Barclay let him get out.
“You’re in that space and your head is that far enough up your ass you don’t think you’re gonna be able to get out of it, when she slips you outta the scene, Olly, you share that shit with her. Because she might be your Mistress but I keep reminding you she’s still a woman. She wants something you don’t, you gotta give her a heads-up so you don’t crush her.”
Guy like that will chew you up and spit you out.
The jackhole at the club’s words came to Olly and he felt his throat start to scratch.
“Think I made it clear, man, I’m here for you with this shit if you need me. When I entered the scene, I didn’t have someone like me to take my back and I could’ve used it. But that’s on you, got nothin’ to do with me, and you jack her shit in a different way, I don’t want anything to do with it,” Barclay declared, turning like he was going to walk away.
“Brother, something happened last night,” Olly said and Barclay turned back.
Quickly, because his friend was pissed, Olly needed to let it out and Barclay had done a fuckload for him, he owed him the honesty; he gave him a rundown of what had happened after he and Amélie left their room the night before.
You’re falling for him, Leigh … This is more and you know that.
Indeed I do.
The words said between her and that Stellan guy ran through Olly’s mind after he told the story, a story that sent a lot of expressions racing across Barclay’s face.
“My take from that is she’s into me more than being into me,” Olly finished.
“My guess is, you’d be right,” Barclay replied.
“And that’s where I’m at, because I honest to fuck didn’t think it’d go that way, brother.” He reached out, curled a hand around Barclay’s shoulder, and gave it a squeeze before dropping it. “No offense. Not saying I thought everyone in the scene was out for nothin’ but a way to get their kink. Just sayin’ that I had so much fuckin’ with my head, I didn’t get that far to think about where it would go if you actually connected with somebody.”
“And where are you willing to go if you keep connecting with Amélie?” Barclay asked.
“There’s the rub.”
The anger again entered Barclay’s voice. “Because she’s a Dominatrix and somehow with your place in that mix, you’re too good for her?”
“Because she’s a Dominatrix and not sure how I’d be, introducing her to my dad. And because she’s a rich-as-fuck Dominatrix who obviously has more money than me, makes more money than me, and for both, always will.”
“You bring a vanilla girl to your dad and share how you fuck her?” Barclay asked.
“Fuck no,” Olly grunted.
“So that doesn’t factor. It’s none of his or anyone’s business no matter what you do with a woman you got in your life. He doesn’t even want that to be his business. And the other, man,” Barclay took in a deep breath, “that’s not something I can help you with. You either got it in you to get past that or you don’t. I hear you on that. A woman I chose made more money than me, it’d give me pause. A load more money, that pause would last longer.”
“Fuck,” Olly muttered.
Barclay got closer. “I know this, Olly. I found a switch woman who gave it to me in all the ways I liked it that I connected with great who was loaded, can’t say for sure, haven’t found that woman, but not thinking that pause would last long enough for her to slip through my fingers.”
Olly pulled breath in through his nostrils.
Then he nodded.
Barclay kept talking.
“What I will say is you gotta decide and let her in on that. Don’t know how this Domme plays. That could be how she plays. Though I will say, bro, that usually when a Domme plays it that way, she’s opening herself up to other things.”
The words sounded tight when Olly shared, “That asshole who got up in her and my faces said she was affectionate with all her toys and she confirmed that.”
“That asshole also has a thing for her, straight up, Olly, something I figure I don’t gotta tell you if you’re into this woman to keep your eye on. You’ve tripped his trigger. So she might be an affectionate Domme, but what she’s got with you is different.”
Olly liked that a fuckuva lot.
And it freaked him the same amount.
Not to mention, it did not escape him that that Stellan asshole was carrying a torch for Amélie and that pissed him right the fuck off.
Which tweaked him all the more.
“I belong to her,” Olly shared.
“That happens in the scene, man,” Barclay said quietly.
“And she belongs to me. Claimed her. Said that shit straight. Not sure in the scene those go hand in hand, her owning me, me demanding that back, but she jumped right on that, brother.”
Barclay studied him for a few very uncomfortable beats before he replied, “You need to get your head straight about her, Olly.”
Yeah, he fucking did.
“Thanks for listening, Clay. Owe you a beer or seven,” Olly muttered.
The intensity slid out of his friend and Barclay grinned at him. “Hold you to that. Go home. Cool down. Get your head straight. And I’ll see you later.”
“Right, later.”
Barclay loped off.
Olly got into his truck and drove home, thinking what Barclay had said about Amélie meeting his dad was true. What they had was what they had and it was nobody’s business.
He still didn’t know how he’d handle that, but that was more about him still not being in the right place in his head about the shit he liked. The only person who got him to that place was Amélie in a playroom. If that translated to the real world, he didn’t know.
And what he was struggling with now was if he wanted to find out.
No, that wasn’t it.
If he let his mind wande
r and didn’t think on it, he knew he did want to find out. It was just when the other shit pushed in, things became less clear.
What he also knew he would see if he brought Amélie to meet his dad was his dad having the same concerns Olly did.
His father was a man’s man and a man provides. Amélie clearly being stupid rich, pure class, and not belonging in their world, his father wouldn’t miss it. He’d worry about his son. He’d share that verbally and/or nonverbally.
If Olly’s mother was alive, she’d probably worry too. She knew her kids. She knew her husband. She’d worked as a seamstress for a tailor since Olly could remember (this being the only reason he had nice suits, suits no way he could afford if his mother didn’t get a discount). She’d brought in some money to help lighten the load but his dad made the bulk of what they lived on working foreman at a quarry. They were comfortable in that and never fought about money or shit like that. They fought about stupid things that didn’t mean anything so they could get it out, get it over with, and move on without any baggage.
Amélie had his balls in a harness a lot of the time because he let that shit happen.
If the brilliance they had got better and both their minds went there, he was not a man who wanted his balls, figuratively, in a harness.
He drove to his house, went in, turned on the game, and got himself a beer.
But he sat on his couch with his feet to the edge of the coffee table, phone in his hand, tilting it around, knowing her number was in it.
He could be just a toy she petted and kissed like any other, maybe more because there truly wasn’t a whole lot of challenge in that club for the likes of her and she got off with him.
But that fucking guy, Stellan, had lost his mind about them making out like it was something she didn’t do (and he hoped like fuck it wasn’t because she was a fantastic kisser, her mouth tasted almost as good as her pussy, and he liked the idea of that being for them).
You’re falling for him, Leigh … This is more and you know that.
Indeed I do.
She was falling in deep. She’d nearly straight out admitted it.
And in play, she looked out for him.
Out of it, no matter what they were to each other or what they became, it was absolutely his job to look out for her.