She simply stared in his eyes.
“Nod, baby, so I know you got me,” he ordered.
Weakly, she nodded.
She also noted Aryas didn’t like the “weakly” part of that and didn’t hide it, but he accepted it.
“You got guilt because you got a thing for Damian?” he asked quietly.
She did and she didn’t.
The man gave great head and he was beautiful to look at.
But she was a Domme and he was a Dom, pure and true. His work hit extremes but more often than not it was a thing of beauty.
Those two didn’t go together even if she wanted them to, which she didn’t.
She needed to crack the whip.
But now, doing that only in her mind with her vibrator held to her clit.
“He’s gorgeous and he’s very good at what he does, but no.” She lifted her shoulders slightly. “It was just the scene. I was just caught up in Damian and the scene.”
“He’s got that way,” Aryas muttered.
“The Honey’s subs all over the city will have spontaneous orgasms, knowing he’s back in town,” she muttered back.
Arya’s face cracked in a grin and it didn’t leave, so it was a surprise attack when he went back to his earlier topic.
“I want you to look over my guy.”
She sat back in her chair and shook her head. “Ary, leave this alone.”
“No club, unless you reserve a playroom in the off hours, you both enter at different times and there will be no cameras.”
She stared at him.
No cameras?
A year ago, the cameras in Aryas’s playrooms that, as policy, he always had monitored might have saved her life.
He kept talking.
“He’s not that, Leenie, and no way, and you know this to your soul, no fuckin’ way I’d set you up for that again. This guy is solid. Unshakable. No other man I’d choose for you.”
She again said nothing, but if he believed that about this man, it was true and she knew that to her soul.
Aryas didn’t say nothing.
“You do him at yours. You sign an NDA. You don’t talk to anyone about him, using his name or in any way. He’s adamant about his boundaries. No one watching. No one in attendance. No one but the two of you participating. I arrange a meet, here, when no one’s around. You look him over. He looks you over. You want a trial session, we make this meet at a time where you got some of it to spend on him. Blackout blinds down on the room. You two take it from there. And from there, I’m out.”
“He requires a nondisclosure agreement?” she asked, more than a little stunned at this prerequisite.
“Even if you’ll meet him here, this is not club play, Evangeline, and he needs to know he can trust you in all ways, but especially with that. It’s not my place to get into why he needs that and I’ll just warn you, he’s not gonna get into anything personal with you. That’s not yours to have. He just needs it and that’s all you need to know. And you need to take care of that for him, keep him safe with that. If you don’t, you talk, he won’t sue you. But, baby, mark these words, you sign that NDA, you take him on, you keep what happens and everything to do with the two of you under wraps because I don’t know what his consequences will be if you don’t. He’d never hurt a woman, physically, I said it before but right now, of that I swear.”
He crossed his heart and lifted his hand, two fingers up like he was a Boy Scout doing a salute.
He dropped his hand and finished on a whisper, “But he’ll destroy you.”
“Who is this guy?” she whispered back.
“You won’t know that until you,” he leaned forward, tagged a piece of paper on his desk and sat back, offering it to her, “sign this.”
It was then she understood his game.
Hell, sheer number of Dommes he goes through, you might only get one crack at him before he vanishes from your life.
He’s open to anything you wanna do to pull that off.
He’s not gonna get into anything personal with you.
If you don’t, you talk, he won’t sue you … But he’ll destroy you.
Aryas knew her.
He knew what she liked.
He knew how she played.
He knew exactly what would make her squirm in her seat.
And he knew precisely how long it had been since she’d had her kink.
“You’re throwing down the gauntlet,” she accused quietly.
“You feel like picking up the glove?” he shot back, shaking the piece of paper at her.
She stared into Aryas’s eyes.
No strings.
Anything she wanted to do to get him off.
When he was done with her, he’d vanish from her life.
Her gaze dropped to the paper.
“Bet you, and we’ll make it interesting, lay five grand on that fucker, he’ll give you one go and then he’ll move on,” Aryas pushed, but it was a dare.
She looked back at him.
A dare.
Yes, he knew her.
“No reflection on you and your skills, which are sublime, my beautiful baby.” He grinned a wicked grin. “Just that this guy is unbreakable. There’s no edge for him any Domme can get anywhere near to push him off and that’s what he’s looking for. Being taken to the farthest edge and shoved right the fuck over.”
Taken to the farthest edge.
Evangeline was not into that. She wasn’t into extreme. Not like many who were into that in the life.
No, the edges she coasted were exactly what Aryas wasn’t quite saying, but she read this guy couldn’t handle.
Unless he had the right Mistress to lead the way.
Damn it all, she was getting wet.
“Five grand?” she snapped.
Aryas pressed his lips together and she was too peeved to get more peeved that he did it to suppress his amusement.
He unpressed them to confirm, “Five grand. But Leenie, babe, just to get it straight, he walks away from you at first meet, we’re even. It’s only if you get a crack at him the bet is on.”
She lifted her nose at the same time she snatched the paper from his hand, declaring, “He won’t walk away.”
“He might,” Aryas said gently, and his sudden loss of humor and careful tone made her focus on him again. “Beware of that. He’s done it before. In some ways, he doesn’t give a shit about anything. In some ways, he can be frustratingly choosy.”
“If I want him, he walks away, I’ll still get him,” she announced.
Aryas stared at her, a light in the backs of his eyes gleaming.
“You and Sixx and our Leigh. You beauties love your challenges,” he finally muttered.
She leaned forward, slapped the paper down on the desk and grabbed a pen lying close. She set her drink on a coaster, and not reading a word of it, she signed the paper, snatched it up, as well as her coffee, sat back and crossed her legs like she was spending all day in his office.
She turned back to Aryas, offering the agreement to him.
“I want a copy of that,” she demanded.
“I’ll get on that right away,” he replied, his words shaking with humor, his generous lips surrounded by his thick, black beard tipped up.
Aryas took the paper, got up and walked out of the office, likely to find a copy machine, because it was doubtful the man had ever done his own copying.
When he was gone, Evangeline hauled in a deep breath before she took another long sip of her coffee and wondered what the heck she’d just done.
three
Fun and Done
EVANGELINE
“Okay, just as long as you don’t mind I’m only on chapter three of the book,” Evangeline said in her car, hesitantly.
“My darling, if you’re back at our book club, you can set fire to the book, we girls won’t care,” Amélie replied.
Evangeline felt warmth fill her chest.
Even so.
“Leigh, I—”
; “Don’t, chérie,” Leigh interrupted her, hearing the tone of her voice, and as a talented Dominatrix, but mostly as a friend, Leigh read it even over a speakerphone in a car. “We take up where we left off. You must know all of us understand.”
“Thank you,” Evangeline replied quietly.
“Please, don’t say that. There’s enough gratitude everywhere. It doesn’t need to be verbalized. You’re feeling it, and we are too, now that you’re back. Just show up at Romy’s and again we’re a big happy family.”
Emotion overwhelmed her, which probably wasn’t good, considering she was on her way to the Honey to meet Branch, Aryas’s “guy” (she’d been let in on his name, only the first one, after Aryas had given her a copy of the NDA, something she’d eventually read, which she knew from all the legalese she had to go over with her work was exhaustive and ironclad).
However, Amélie had phoned her on the way there to follow up on the text Evangeline had sent sharing she was coming to the book club meeting the next evening, even though she probably wouldn’t finish the book.
Evangeline had missed enough calls from her friend (“missing” meaning she’d avoided them by not answering). That was done. She’d taken the coward’s way out, texting in the first place.
It was time to be a big girl.
In a number of ways.
She pulled herself together and said, “Okay. Agreed. One big happy family. I’ll call Romy to see if she wants me to bring anything and I’ll see you tomorrow night at seven.”
“Can’t wait, darling.”
“Me either, honey.”
“Until then,” Leigh bid as farewell.
“Yes, until then. ’Bye, Leigh.”
“Goodbye, Leenie.”
She drew in breath, heard the disconnect and focused on what was to come.
She had a clear slate, no meetings, no showings, no work, not for the next three hours.
If this guy struck her fancy, she had a small bag of goodies sitting next to her on the seat that would be used for the first time in nearly a year.
And the dratted part of it was, she was looking forward to it.
She didn’t want to be. She wanted to be able to tell herself by showing herself that she could move on from this. She could live this part of herself in her mind with a toy in her hand and be good with that.
She’d taken that risk, thinking she’d had it all with Kevin, a sub who could also be the man in her life. Take out the garbage (which he did, though with some coaxing). Set up appointments to have her tires rotated (which he did, with no coaxing). And get in her face about keeping it because apparently tire rotation and anything to do with a car was the end-all, be-all of living an ordered life.
They’d been talking about moving in together.
Now, okay, in thinking on it (almost nonstop) the last couple of days, maybe it was extreme and perhaps even ridiculous to say she’d never have another man in her life.
And in the last couple of days Evangeline had given in to those thoughts and she’d found she was okay with moving on with that in her head, and maybe in her life.
But more, she’d come to understand that Kevin was screwed up. That was abundantly clear. And to allow whatever was twisted in his head to twist her life so she didn’t find some kind of happiness with a man in it was weak and just plain wrong.
But the man she might find might be into a little bit of kinky. A little bit of fun. A little bit of different.
And she hoped he was.
But she wouldn’t count on it and she wouldn’t look for it.
If he wasn’t, she’d settle for vanilla.
And find a waterproof vibrator so she could have her fantasy life in the shower.
Yes, with all the thinking she’d done the last couple of days, she decided she may have a go again at finding someone, but she was firm that someone wasn’t going to be in the life.
Maybe that was extreme too.
But when your man slams you into a wall, cracking your head against it so stars explode in your eyes as pain sears through your skull, and then smashes his fist in your face repeatedly, and his (thankfully bare) foot in your stomach (and face), Evangeline felt it was okay if she shied away from opening herself up to that kind of relationship again.
She knew she wasn’t screwed up. She’d been intrigued by the life since she was fifteen, when she found her mother’s copy of Goodbye, Janette, read it on the sly and she just knew. Who she was. How she was. What she wanted.
Seeing as her mom had that book and read it openly in the house, it never occurred to Evangeline that what was in it and what it made her feel might not be “right” or “normal.” It was just what it made her feel, and from the time she could, she sought out more of it.
That didn’t mean everyone in the life was like her, like Amélie, Aryas, Damian.
Sure, it could be said that men out in the mundane world could have triggers to trip where they’d lose their minds.
But it wouldn’t be her tripping those triggers. It wouldn’t be her holding that guilt she’d led someone she loved to a dark place.
Amélie had told her that it had taken less than five minutes for Aryas’s men to break into that playroom.
And in that time, Kevin had broken her nose, cracked four of her ribs, and both of her eyes had been swollen shut for over twenty-four hours (she hadn’t been able to see out of the left one for three days because it took that long for the swelling to go down). She’d also had a fractured cheekbone and a mild concussion.
All this damage in five minutes because she’d flipped a switch that she should have seen, not as a girlfriend, but as a Mistress, she shouldn’t have flipped.
Meeting Aryas’s “guy” and having a little fun with a man that she knew would be nothing but fun, as well as her type, because Aryas wouldn’t offer up anything else for her …
Well then …
Wonderful.
No strings.
Fun and done.
Anything beyond that.
No go.
Still, she wished she wasn’t so excited. She wished the hunger she used to so enjoy hadn’t set upon her. But there it was gnawing pleasantly at her insides in anticipation of goodness to come, starting the instant she walked out of Aryas’s office with that NDA folded and tucked in her purse.
She wished she could take it or leave it.
It stunk that she couldn’t.
But the fact was, she couldn’t.
And now she was where she was.
So onward.
She drove into the Honey, seeing the parking lot empty except for Aryas’s black Cayenne and a black GMC SUV, feeling that hunger grow.
Right.
Fine.
Fun and done.
All good.
She grabbed the handles of her small bag before she opened the door and threw her leg out.
As instructed (by Aryas), she parked close to and approached the back door to the club.
As expected, it was open.
She moved through the halls, keeping centered and focused so as not to have any kind of freakout that the last time she was there, she’d been carried out by Aryas, beaten to hell and not giving a damn.
Because she might have been beaten to hell.
But the worst of it was, her heart had been broken.
She walked directly to Aryas’s playroom, known as the red room since it was decorated in reds, and the opaque shades that could be drawn down over the wall of windows to black out what was inside were the only shades in any of the rooms that weren’t black, they were red.
As she approached, she saw the red shades were drawn down.
She kept her gait steady.
It had been a year and the last scene she’d had was a bad one. She’d been assaulted at the same time she’d had a relationship end very, very badly with a man she’d thought she’d loved and was considering spending the rest of her life with.
That happened.
A year ago.
Thi
s was now.
It was just a look-over anyway. It might be she wouldn’t like what she saw. Or he wouldn’t. And then giving any headspace to worrying what came after that was just a waste.
She was a Domme.
She’d trained under Mistress Sixx and Mistress Amélie, the two finest Dommes Evangeline had ever had the honor to see at play.
And before Kevin, even if she’d only been in her late twenties, she was one of the most sought-after Dommes at the Honey.
Now she was just thirty years old and she made good money. She took care of herself. She was successful. Educated. She wasn’t hard to look at. She had her own style in looks, clothes (and play) that she was honing to perfection.
She could do this.
She totally could do this.
She opened the door, stepped in and saw him.
Oh my.
She was so totally going to do this.
She closed the door behind her, dropped her bag and stood right where she was.
Aryas’s red room, known as his because this was mostly where he took his slaves, looked more like an opulent boudoir. Plush. Sumptuous. Heavy, carved furniture. Big, posted bed dressed in red and topped at headboard and ceiling with mirrors. Candelabrums everywhere.
No candles had been lit right then. The scene was not set, only red-shaded table lamps here and there were illuminating the space.
It still gave it a feel.
And that feel was good.
But more, the man before her was amazing.
Tall, not insanely so, still, she could be wearing six-inch platforms and she’d be able to force him to bend to her.
Black hair, a thick shock of it. It was groomed, but still somewhat long. It was clear he did not pay for expensive haircuts and he got them only when such a menial chore eventually caught his attention. Something that should have happened perhaps a month ago but didn’t so it was brushing the collar of his untucked, long-sleeved, burgundy shirt.