He nodded at my drink. “Enjoy, but you’re not going to find Dena here tonight. She already left.”
Before he could walk away, I opened my mouth to...do what? Reply? Assure him I wasn’t out to hurt anybody? I had no idea how I felt, and the words didn’t want to come anyway.
Gavin cocked his eyebrow, waiting. “Is this when you tell me that she’s a big girl and can take care of herself?”
I snorted. “I think you probably know that by now if you’re friends with her.”
We held each other's gazes for a few seconds longer, and then he turned to walk away.
I called out, “Hey, Gavin?”
He paused.
“She’s a big girl. She can take care of herself.”
His laugh was quick and sharp. “I think I could like you, Porter.” He half-turned. “Tell you what, let me offer you some advice. You don't need to be careful with her because of me, even though I will beat your ass if you hurt her. She could cut your balls off, and you wouldn’t even see the knife until you were on the floor. Dena...well, as you said. She’s complicated.”
I nodded at him, and he left without either of us saying another word. I didn’t bother finishing my drink. She wasn’t here, so there was no reason for me to be.
Next time, I told myself, I’d get her phone number.
Chapter 8
Dena
I picked up the book at the store two weeks ago, hoping I’d be able to read it soon. Now, it lay on the floor next to my chair while I stared up at the ceiling. I’d tried three times today to read it, and it hadn’t been able to hold my interest for anything. I didn’t think it was the book or the author, either.
My head wasn’t exactly here.
My thoughts bounced back and forth from Arik to the case, making me feel like one of those little silver balls inside a pinball machine.
Arik.
The case.
Arik.
The case.
Arik.
My bitch of a boss.
Arik.
The reports, missing or hidden.
Arik.
The witness I still hadn't been able to find.
Arik.
Some sort of connection to organized crime.
Arik.
Arik.
Arik.
Swearing, I jack-knifed up into a sitting position and stared at the exposed brick on the far wall. This place was my haven, my home. I loved every square inch of it, but right now, it felt like the walls were closing in around me.
I didn’t really want to go out, but if I didn’t leave here, I was going to go insane.
The idea of hitting Club Privé seemed off-putting, yet if I was going to have a decent chance of finding Arik anywhere, it would be there. I’d gone in for about an hour last night, but hadn’t had any success. A part of me couldn't help but wonder if he'd purposefully avoided the club so he didn't have to see me. I told myself that was silly, but I couldn't quite completely shut off that voice.
Rubbing my hands over my face, I tried once more to tell myself to just try to get into the book. Or maybe head up to Times Square, see what was playing in the theatre district. There were always shows. I could see a play. I hadn’t been to one in forever.
That idea wasn’t at all appealing.
I just continued to sit there, even though in the back of my mind, I knew what I would be doing soon.
I’d go to the club.
I’d go and try to find Arik.
It was, really, the only thing I could do. Unless I wanted to grab my vibrator and a bottle of wine and pretend. But I’d done that last night.
It hadn’t helped.
***
“I have to ask, just who are you looking for?”
Carrie’s insightful eyes cut into me and I winced, lowering my gin and tonic back to the table. “That obvious?”
“Well, gee. Let me think...” She leaned back in the booth, one arm draped along the back, her nails tapping against the cushions in time with the music coming from the dance floor. “You’re wearing your best come get me clothes. You’re wearing heels, and you hardly ever wear actual heels. It’s usually those platform boots, which frankly, terrify me. You can’t seem to look at me–”
“Oh, I’m looking at you, sweetie,” I said with a sardonic lift of my eyebrow. “And, by the way, those boots are a lot easier to walk in than heels. You should try them. Great for cutting down the difficulties that come with height differences.” I grinned at her.
Her eyes narrowed as she threw a chip at me.
“Don’t waste good food.” I wagged a finger at her.
“Why? You’re not eating it.” She countered as she gestured at the finger foods she ordered when I had arrived.
Normally I ate like a horse, but I'd barely eaten anything, a combination of distraction and anxiety taking away most of my appetite.
Carrie poked a finger toward me, pulling my attention from the spread of food in front of me. “And that was going to be my next point. You’re not eating.”
“Maybe I’m just not hungry,” I countered.
She lifted an eloquent eyebrow. “If you’re not eating, you’re either sick, dead or distracted. You don’t look sick, and I don’t think you’re dead. Ergo, you’re distracted.”
I rolled my eyes. Sometimes being friends with lawyers sucked. “Oh, bite me.”
“It’s not me you want biting you. You’ve got a man on the brain.” Carrie gave me a wicked grin. “What’s his name?”
“Are you talking about another man, darling?” Gavin slid into the booth next to her, but before she could answer, he kissed her.
The kiss was passion and heat and love, and everything that made my heart ache with jealousy. I didn’t have a thing for Gavin, but I did envy what they had. I wanted that. For myself.
I just hadn't realized how badly until now.
When he broke the kiss, she reached up and wiped at his mouth, sighing as she did so. “False advertisement strikes again. Is there really such a thing as smudge-proof lipstick?”
“Smudge-proof, yes,” I said, smirking at them. “Eat-me-alive-proof? They haven’t invented lipstick that can handle the way you two kiss each other.”
Gavin grinned at me without the slightest bit of embarrassment on his face. “Hello, Dena. You’re looking...delicious tonight.”
“Hey!” Carrie smacked him on the arm without any real rancor. “Your appetite belongs over here.”
“Oh, it is. I’m just stating a fact.” He brushed another kiss across her mouth. “Eat you alive, indeed.” His voice was low, intimate. Then he slanted a look back at me before things could get weird. “Were you meeting somebody?”
I didn’t even have a chance to sidestep that. Carrie beat me to it. “I’m trying to drag that out of her. You interrupted. I’m betting on yes. She’s dressed to kill, but I haven’t gotten his name yet.”
“I see.” Gavin quirked a smile at me and nodded to the dance floor. “You’d probably have more luck if you got up and looked around. If who you're looking for is looking for you, they might not know to look up here. You're usually down there dancing.”
“Trying to kick me out?” I sipped my drink even as I deliberated over what to do.
“Absolutely,” he said without compunction. “I’m going to grope my wife under the table, and she’ll be more willing to go along with it if you’re not here.”
“Gavin!” Carrie's face bloomed red.
“Enough said.” Laughing, I got up. I wasn't sure if he was serious or not, but I did know that very little was out of the realm of possibilities.
I moved to the railing, leaving Carrie giggling behind me. I hadn't been there more than thirty seconds when a tall, muscular form caught my eye.
My heart skipped a beat as our eyes met. Caught in a criss-cross of the lights down below, he seemed to be waiting.
He is.
That small voice in the back of my mind settled every jumping, nervous thing inside me. He is
waiting…for me.
I heard somebody say my name, but I didn’t look back. I had only one thing on my mind.
Him.
Sliding my hand along the rail, I started down the steps. He moved toward me at the same time. A few bodies passed between us, but they didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but getting to him.
I’m sure I blinked at some point between the top level and when he met me at the foot of the stairs, but I didn't remember it.
I didn't remember even walking down the stairs.
I just remembered seeing him.
And then I was kissing him.
Or he was kissing me.
His hand tangled in my hair, tugging my head back, even as his mouth came down over mine. His tongue slid across mine, learning the inside of my mouth all over again.
He didn’t touch me anywhere else, and it was all I could do not to lean into him. My body was desperate for him, but I'd given up enough control simply by looking for him, coming to him. I needed to keep something for myself.
When he lifted his head, our eyes met, and all the tension inside me shifted rather than faded. Shifted into something...safe.
“I was here last night–”
“I’d hoped you’d–”
We both spoke at once, then stopped, chuckling, easing the intensity of what was between us.
“You first,” Arik said as he took a couple steps to the side.
I followed automatically, moving with him into a more shadowed corner. “I came here hoping to see you last night,” I said. I curled my hands into fists to keep myself from touching him.
He sighed. “I know. Gavin told me. You left just before I got here.”
“Seriously? Why didn’t you call?” I stopped, shaking my head. Of course. “Stupid question.”
“I want your phone number.” He stroked his thumb across my lower lip, leaving fire burning across my skin. “I usually don’t do this, go with a sub enough times for it to matter. But I want your number.”
Shit. I knew what he meant, knew that exchanging numbers meant something more was going on between us. More than either of us had ever expected.
Catching his wrist, I squeezed lightly. “That might be doable. But you do need to understand something. I’m not a sub.” He had to get this if we were even going to attempt anything more than that one time, and I really wanted it. “I’m not expecting you to let me top you or anything, but I’m not always going to be in the mood to let you tie me up, spank me.” I thought carefully about how to word the next thing I needed to say. “Sometimes you’re going to just have to take me as I am or just...”
The words find another woman wouldn't come out. I couldn’t say them.
His eyes narrowed, desire radiating off of him as he stepped into me, his body less than an inch away. “Dena, please. I’m already two steps from fucking you up against that wall. If you tell me that sometimes I’ll just have to take you as you are, I just might look at it as a challenge.”
The air rushed out of my lungs. The idea embarrassed me, but under the embarrassment was a strange, wicked delight. Nobody else would have even tempted me. I didn’t do public sex.
At all.
Ever.
I wouldn’t do it with Arik.
At all.
Ever.
But he tempted me all the same.
Still, I wasn't going to do it. Other things, however...
Curling my arms around his neck, I brushed my lips against his neck. “You want to go find a room?”
Chapter 9
Arik
She was wearing silver chains.
Her entire fucking dress was made up of silver chains that ran from her shoulders down to just below her ass.
When she moved, it offered glimpses of the pale flesh beneath, glimpses that made every inch of me hard and ready. If she hadn't suggested that we get a room, I wasn't sure I would've been able to control myself much longer.
A dark alcove would work.
A closet would work.
Anything that would let me get my hands on her, and my dick inside her.
She got us into a room faster than I would have been able to. She just smiled at the attendant in the back and accepted a keycard. No ID requested or anything.
I remembered my talk with Gavin from the past night.
They were friends.
And apparently that came with some serious club privileges.
This room was a step up from the ones I’d been in before. None of those had been anything to sneeze about, but this one was...palatial.
“Nice room,” I said as I locked the door behind me. “We won’t be spending much time appreciating what it has to offer, though.”
Dena lifted an eyebrow, a puzzled expression on her face. “Oh?” She pushed her hair back, her tongue coming out to wet her lips. “Why is – mmm...”
The rest of her words were trapped under my lips. I caught her up against me and spun around, then she was trapped as well, her body under mine, pinned between me and the door. The need for her was almost overwhelming. I could feel my tenuous grasp on control slipping.
I rasped against her lips, “Fucking want you.”
Hands braced on the door behind her head, I caught her plump lower lip between my teeth and tugged. It made her shudder so I did it again, then sucked it into my mouth.
The rasp of a zipper being lowered came a moment before I felt a small hand wrap around my cock. I growled, my eyes practically rolling back in my head as she dragged her hand down, then up.
Shit. If she didn't stop, I was going to embarrass myself and lose face as a Dom. I needed to get that control back.
Tearing my mouth away, I stared down at her. “I didn’t say you could touch me.”
“You didn’t say I couldn’t.” She lifted her chin and stared back. “And I don’t think I want to play by your rules tonight.”
The way she threw it out there, like a challenge, had every dominant instinct I had rising to the fore, desperate to bring her to submission. But I remembered what she said.
She was only submissive sometimes.
She wasn't a sub.
Sometimes, she wouldn’t want to play my way.
And none of this was a surprise.
She was too dominant in her own right. I’d seen that in her from the first moment I’d seen her.
And I still wanted her.
“Trying to take control already?” I whispered against her ear. I bit the fleshy lobe with enough force to make her gasp, then whimper.
“No,” she said. “I’m just not going to let you have control tonight.” She grinned. “Not all of it at least.”
She dragged her hand up, then down, twisting her wrist as she neared the head of my cock, then stroking back down with excruciating slowness. Oh, fuck. I was driving into her hand without realizing it, ceding some of my control to seek relief from the burning in my balls.
I reached down and closed my hand over hers.
She stared at me, waiting to see what I was going to do, what I'd say.
I didn't really know how I felt about what was happening, about what she'd said, but I did know that I no way in hell was I walking away right now. I'd worry about the rest of it later.
Tightening my hand over hers, I began to pump into her fist.
“How do you get this dress off?” I wanted to come all over her.
She angled her chin to her shoulder without missing a stroke. “Hook and eye. There.”
I released her hand and reached up, dealing with the fastening as she continued to move her fingers over my skin, continued to drive me closer and closer.
She let me go so the dress could fall, the chains making a soft clinking sound as they hit the ground, leaving her wonderfully naked from the waist up. Her panties were a pale ivory that almost matched her skin, the sheer fabric doing little to hide what was beneath. Her nipples were tight and hard, her small breasts perfectly perky.
“No bra,” I muttered.
??
?No.” She licked her lips and then smiled a temptress’s smile. “I was hoping to find you. The chains on my skin, my nipples...I’ve been on edge all night.”
I swore, reaching for her panties. “Stop. I want you naked.”
She stopped long enough to rid herself of her underwear, then looked up at me.
“I want to come on you,” I said. I didn't make it a question, but it wasn't a command either.
Her breath hitched, and then she nodded. “On me. Not inside me. Not yet.”
She started to reach for my cock again, but I stopped her with a single shake of my head. One hand braced on the door by her head, I stared into her eyes as I fisted my cock, moving slowly at first, wanting to savor the moment.
Her eyes slid down to watch, and she licked her lips, almost making me moan.
“I want your mouth on me when I do this,” I said.
“Not without a condom. Not yet.” She didn’t look away.
“I know that.” Gritting the words out, I demanded, “Just tell me you want it, too. Tell me you want to feel my cock inside you. Bare. Nothing between us.”
Dena’s eyes flitted to mine, her pupils wide, leaving only the thinnest circle of pale around it. “I do. Soon. If we...work out.”
“No if,” I said. “We’re going...oh fuck.” The last two words came out in a half-growl.
She’d slid two fingers into her mouth and then reached down to circle her left nipple, leaving it wet and gleaming. I watched her do the other one and my cock twitched in my hand.
I just might have gone to my knees for her in that moment. Then she slid those fingers down her midsection and I began to understand just how easily some men could submit. Submitting to her...that almost seemed inevitable.
When she pushed those two fingers inside her pussy, my cock jerked. Heat raced down my spine, into my stomach. My balls drew up and pleasure coursed through me as I came. Semen splashed on her belly and the back of her hand, but she continued to stroke herself, staring at my hand as I fisted my cock, jerking out the rest of my climax.
When I was done, I all but tore off my shirt as I strode to the small bathroom, washing away the come before grabbing a washcloth to clean her up. When I stepped back into the bedroom, she was still leaning against the door, panting now, eyes glazed as she worked herself closer and closer to orgasm.