And that shirt was a cargo shirt, sturdy, hard-wearing, this to go with his khaki cargo pants with all their pockets.
Boots on his feet.
Skin tanned.
The long body underneath was obviously lean and fit. Covered completely with loose-fitting clothing, she still sensed the power he packed and knew he likely kept it cut, but not because he liked to maintain a pleasing physique. Because it was part of whatever made him make her sign that ironclad NDA.
She especially liked his broad shoulders.
And his beefy thighs.
Not to mention hands she wanted to order him right then to use to do a variety of exceptionally delicious things.
But his face.
As unimaginative as the word was, it still worked: chiseled. His features were chiseled to the point they were downright harsh.
He’d lived. He’d seen a lot in his life. Things she didn’t want to know, which was good, because they weren’t hers to have.
Lord, but Evangeline could look at that face for hours, watch it flush with need, that strong, dark-stubbled jaw turn hard at the effort it took not to come or to bite back the pain, the utter blank he was treating her to right then as he stared back at her growing intense through an orgasm and then lax through the aftershocks.
However, the bottom line was the eyes.
Those eyes were what it was all about for her.
Everything.
What she needed through blood and bones and soul right down to her pussy.
Surrounded by long, curling lashes, they were a glacial blue that took aloof to the highest of heights.
He wasn’t remote.
He wasn’t icy.
He was marble.
Aryas was right.
This man was unbreakable.
She might be able to give him an orgasm, but that was simply biology. Enough stimulation, it was going to happen.
She’d never break behind those eyes.
She’d never get inside.
And Evangeline felt the wet gather between her legs at the hunger now clawing inside her just to get one … single … shot at attempting to do just that.
Breaking this magnificent specimen of a man.
“Undress,” she demanded.
It was risky, making the demand. No cue from her, and definitely not him, had been given that they were moving on.
But he needed a firm hand.
She knew it to her soul.
And Evangeline had one.
She’d been taught by the best.
Still, she had to hide the fact that she was holding her breath the five seconds (she counted) it took him to lift his hands to the buttons of his shirt even as he shifted his feet to flip off his boots.
Relief and want both sluiced through her, drenching her panties, making her nipples tighten.
Heck, she actually felt her palms start to itch.
Even so, in acquiescing to her command, he gave her nothing. Not a flash of desire. Not a hint of humor. Not a nuance of need.
Nothing.
His expression didn’t change at all.
But within minutes, it happened.
He was standing naked before her and she’d been right. He was cut. Sinewy, solid muscle that was in no way bulky, but also it was not in question the power behind it.
And his cock.
God, his cock.
A good length, but a fabulous thickness, formed so well, it was only semi-hard in that moment, but it was a thing of beauty.
And the high, tight ball sac behind it?
Sublime.
However, she’d had training and practice. The naked human form in its many varieties she’d seen hundreds of times and she’d come into intimate contact with a number of them.
So she knew what she was seeing.
And what she saw didn’t come from the life. Subs could go to great lengths to get what they needed. Marking was not unusual, even commonplace in the temporary reddening of a paddle or striping of a whip, strap, switch or other.
But it could go deeper.
Fire. Branding. Tattooing. Cutting.
Blood play happened even at the Honey (and incidentally, Damian was a master at that too).
But Evangeline knew, without saying a single word, the man called Branch was now sharing with her the things she didn’t want to know about the life he’d led.
Two scars, both nasty and looking like they hadn’t healed quite right, both at his left shoulder, about three inches apart. She had no idea what they were but if she had to guess, she felt she’d win a bet for accuracy they were bullet wounds.
A scar slashing across his abdominals from right to left, long and nasty, clearly stitched together in a way that, if the doctor who did it was an actual doctor, and a Western one, this man called Branch should be living in a mansion due to winning the malpractice suit.
It was healed but it still looked a mess.
Five scars riddling his thighs, both front and sides, three on the left, two on the right, in various shapes and lengths. She didn’t know what made them but the wounds had clearly been deep and also not tended well.
All of this seemed to highlight the now-healed tears, cuts and slashes all over his arms, ribs and legs that were far more minor but so abundant, it felt like each and every one of them were opening on her skin, wide and gaping, causing her pain, making her bleed.
“Jesus, fuckin’ Aryas,” his deep, grating voice sounded in the room, yanking Evangeline out of the frozen stupor she’d fallen into and hadn’t even noticed while examining him, “he can pick ’em.”
He was moving, turning, dressing again and Evangeline saw his back.
She sucked in an audible breath.
Now those, those could be from the life.
Crisscrossing his back and some on his upper thighs (but oddly, none over his ass) were profuse signs he’d been whipped.
Repeatedly.
Over a length of time.
And severely.
When he yanked his cargo pants over his ass, she came back to the room.
And herself.
“Did I say you could dress?” she asked.
He turned to her, shrugging his shirt on. “I wanted a bleeding heart to kiss my scars, I’d pay a whore.”
She stared in shock at his words.
This guy was a sub?
“What did you just say to me?” she demanded incredulously.
“You heard me,” he grunted. Shirt on but unbuttoned, he bent to pull on his socks and boots.
“Stop moving and hear me,” she snapped.
He straightened and stalked her way.
She felt a curl of fear sicken her stomach even if his gait wasn’t aggressive.
He was getting close.
And he was a man in a playroom at the Honey.
With her.
And no cameras.
“You’re in the way,” he bit out, coming to a halt in front of her.
Quickly, Evangeline sorted herself out.
“We’re not done here,” she told him.
“We’re totally done here.”
“I like what I see and I’m in the mood to play,” she pushed.
“Sorry, don’t give a fuck,” he returned.
“Step back, Branch,” she said softly, holding his eyes, “and take your damned clothes off.”
“I’m thinkin’ you don’t get this so I’ll spell it out for you,” he stated.
And it was then she noticed he wasn’t angry. He wasn’t impatient.
He wasn’t anything.
He was just looking down at her and speaking.
“I don’t need your brand of lame-ass shit,” he finished.
Ouch.
She suffered that without a wince but marked the fact that an insult hurt worse when it was delivered by an amazing-looking man who looked like he not only didn’t care that he hurt your feelings, he didn’t care you existed at all.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t done.
“What gets
me off, you don’t got in you to give me.”
“You won’t know that unless you,” she leaned toward him, “step back and take your fucking clothes off.”
“I’d laugh, but you playin’ Mistress isn’t that funny.”
Her head moved like she’d been slapped.
“Now, woman, stop wasting my time and get outta my way.”
She stared in his eyes.
They were void.
She stared some more, doing it harder.
And at what Evangeline saw (or more to the point, didn’t see), she made a decision.
A decision she knew might change her life.
But staring in his eyes, even with all that had befallen her with Kevin, in that moment, she did not care one … single … bit.
She stepped out of his way.
He sauntered out like he was leaving a fast-food restaurant once he’d been given his burger and fries.
She stared at the door he’d casually tossed closed behind him.
“You’re terrified,” she said to the door and stood there, breathing deeply. “Utterly paralyzed by it,” she whispered.
She stopped speaking and drew in an annoyed breath.
Aryas.
Damn the man.
Damn him.
“I have exactly what you need and it scares the pants off you,” she told the absent Branch whatever-his-last-name-was (if Branch was even his real first name).
She continued staring at the door, knowing she’d been played.
Played by Aryas Weathers, her friend and the man who wanted to see her be exactly who she was meant to be.
And find her way to happy.
But she didn’t care.
No way it was going to be fun and done with Branch whatever-his-last-name-was.
No way he was going to walk out of that playroom without looking back and vanish from her life.
No way.
She was going to hunt that big boy down and she was going to tear him open and then she was going to shatter him.
He liked to be pushed to the edge?
She was going to take him there.
Shove him right over.
And go over with him.
And when they landed, they both were going to explode.
All over the place.
And love every bit of it.
four
The Pound
EVANGELINE
Evangeline got out of her car and threw her door shut.
She stood in the graveled lot in the dark of night in the pit of nowhere that was whatever the area of Arizona was called beyond Buckeye.
And she stared across the vast space filled with cars at the large, dilapidated warehouse, the only building within miles, and decided if Branch whatever-his-name-was wasn’t in there, when she eventually found him (and she would find him), she’d do something she vowed she’d never do.
She’d strip her own scars into his back.
(But of course, she’d make him come while doing it.)
With that thought, she stomped in the gravel in her platform heels toward the building.
* * *
To say the last month had been frustrating was an understatement.
It started with an idea.
A good one.
No.
A delicious one.
One she carried out immediately after book club the night after her failed meeting with Branch.
A book club, incidentally, that had been precisely what Amélie had said it would be.
Taking up where they left off.
One big happy family.
No one said a word or cast a glance.
Sure, the hugs Evangeline got when she arrived were longer than they’d normally be. And perhaps Mira’s eyes had teared up a little.
But after that, it was just …
Family.
Book discussion had ended, wine consumption and life discussion had ensued, with Romy yanking out her laptop and sharing a new online store they all had to know about immediately.
She was not wrong.
It was tremendous. Nirvana in the form of a discreet, online adult store.
The wares were pricey, but they were fabulous, and in some cases, works of art.
One case in particular, Evangeline had to have it.
She had to.
And she had to have it to make things clear to her submissive (who didn’t yet know he desperately wanted to be her sub, but she was going to show him the way if it killed her) just how things were.
And so, when she got home, she didn’t hesitate to go right to her office, fire up her computer and then take forty-five minutes adding and deleting from her basket two different styles of the same toy.
One had an ice-blue jewel at the end of it, much like the color of Branch’s eyes.
One had a sapphire-blue jewel at the end of it, much like the color of Evangeline’s.
In the end, the heavy, sleek, gleaming aluminum plug she’d bought had the sapphire-blue jewel because, she decided, it was going to be her she’d slide inside him. It would be her that filled him. It would be her he’d hold deep.
It cost a mint, and when it arrived, she found it was hefty and slightly larger than she expected, but Evangeline decided that was perfect too.
He wouldn’t forget she was there.
Right there.
Buried deep.
And as she took her nights to search for him, she kept it in its custom-made velvet bag in her glove compartment.
Ready to stake her claim.
* * *
The problem with this plan was that Branch wasn’t at any of the clubs.
Night after night, she trolled them—the sex ones and the vanilla ones besides—and he was not to be found.
Which at first was annoying.
Then it was frustrating.
Through this all, it was tiring (she was a girl who liked her sleep and dropping into bed at three in the morning was not her idea of living the high life, especially when she did that not having anything to show for it).
Eventually, she realized this failure was unsurprising.
Branch was not the club kind of guy, in any of a club’s varieties.
She couldn’t ask around for him because she’d signed that damned document and he wouldn’t have asked her to sign the damned thing if he frequented places like the Bolt.
No, but she knew he was a man and men found what they needed. So Evangeline also knew he got what he needed (if not what he needed) somewhere and if it had to be on the deep, down low so no one would know, he’d have to get creative.
Thus she scoured the ads trying to decipher if he’d put one in and finagled herself (through her friend Josh, who was only a loose friend, mostly because he could often be a douche, but he was a friend because he could sometimes be a decent guy, and he was also a part owner of the Bolt) an invitation (and paid the fee) to the only private party that had happened in the ensuing weeks.
Unfortunately, after striking out at the party, and during it having to scrape off a variety of subs who made it plain they liked the look of her, she wasn’t beneath hitting the last known place she thought Branch might hit to get his kink.
And, if she was honest about it, she knew it was the first place she should have looked.
This being going to a Pound.
Evangeline would guess everyone in the life in Phoenix had heard about the Pound.
She’d also guess that anyone with membership to the Honey would go nowhere near it (and, perhaps, speak those words with a sneer to their lips even though they all practiced nonjudgment not only because it was right, but because they eschewed judgment due to their way of life—that was how bad a Pound was).
And lastly she would guess that Josh was a frequent attendee.
The Pound, as local lore had it, was a traveling BDSM scene.
Not a club, it didn’t have its own structure.
A scene.
No one knew when the next opening would be. Or where. A
ll they knew was, when it happened, the text would go out and be forwarded to those who desired it, the cover charge would be hefty, the security would be extreme (but only to keep the police from catching them) and anything went.
A total free-for-all.
Orgies.
Booze.
Drugs.
Cum, sweat, puke and blood everywhere with no cleanup crews.
The lot.
One didn’t pass out at a Pound or they’d wake up on a dirty mattress (the last if you were lucky), seeping from every orifice without any memory of what had occurred.
It sounded dismal.
Heinous.
It was also an edge Evangeline knew to her bones Branch would seek out to skid right along, thinking he was proving something to himself.
And maybe not aware he was failing miserably.
So when she struck out yet again in the vain (she knew) hope that Branch would check out the talent at the Bolt, she charmed the knowledge out of the front desk kitty-baby that Josh was up in the office with one of his partners.
And she made her way there.
Once she’d arrived she found the office at the Bolt couldn’t be less like Aryas’s office at the Honey.
A large desk that had once been grand but now had copious deep grooves and chips at the edges that Evangeline couldn’t fathom how they’d been made.
And the room was painted oppressively in a very dark blue (something she didn’t like even though that was one of her favorite colors). It was also filled with slouchy, ludicrous, legless furniture that made bile race up her throat, thinking what might have happened all over it (and she was a Dominatrix, so that extreme of nausea at the very thought said something).
The partner she didn’t know and Josh didn’t introduce her to (so she introduced herself) was named Barclay.
“But friends call me Clay,” he’d said on a sweet smile and a firm handshake that made her think he was more like the decent side of Josh and didn’t have the douche part in him.
“Nice to meet you,” she’d replied on a squeeze of his hand and they let go, no lingering, just a friendly introduction (indicating more decent from Barclay). She’d then looked to Josh but said to them both, “I don’t want to take a lot of your time, but I wanted to know if you knew when the next Pound would happen.”
Josh, with his mess of sandy-blond hair (that was not attractively overlong, like Branch’s, it was just a mess) and blue eyes that made it clear he’d taken something, lit up.