Cowboy Casanova (2 page)

The incident reinforced Ben’s decision to keep the two halves of himself separate: Bennett, the sexual dominant, and Ben, the laid-back rancher. The women who appealed to Bennett would never find a permanent place in Ben’s life. Inside the club he never spoke of his life outside the club.

One thing the incident hadn’t changed? The fact Ben liked sexual variety. He liked devoting a few nights to a woman, figuring out what she needed, giving it to her and heightening the sexual experience for both of them. He knew that’s why he excelled at domination games: he didn’t get complacent. Or attached.

“Earth to Bennett. You still with me, man?”

Ben glanced up from his beer. “Yeah. Just thinking. Wondering what’s in store for me tonight.”

“I’m so glad you asked,” Cody said behind him.

He faced his buddy who owned the Rawhide Bar. “Already planned something for me? I’m hoping it involves a hot blonde and a pair of handcuffs.”

Cody snorted. “There’s a door upstairs that’s sticking, floor trim that’s come loose, and a couple other things that are beyond my handyman abilities.”

“You been saving shit jobs for me so I’ll feel useful when I show up?”

“Fuck no. We all know you’re useless.” He and Sully laughed when Ben flipped them off. “Seriously, I could use your carpentry skills.”

Ben drained his beer. “Let’s get it done before the club opens, so floor trim ain’t the only thing I’m nailing tonight.”

Chapter Two

“What does one wear to a sex club?”

“Speaking as a submissive, I wear whatever I’m told to wear. Or more to the point, what I’m told
not
to wear.”

Depressed by her dull clothing choices, Ainsley focused on her friend Layla. “But I’m not a submissive, so am I supposed to adorn myself like a badass dominatrix?”

“Well, Miz Hamilton, did you bring a selection of latex and leather?”

“What do you think?”

“I’d be shocked if a bank executive openly admitted owning fetish wear.” Layla smiled impishly. “Besides, the Rawhide Club is a private club, like the Elks Club or the Moose Lodge.”

Before Ainsley could retort, Layla bounced off the bed and inspected the clothes hanging in the tiny hotel room closet. “Don’t you have a corset?”

She doubted a girdle counted. “No.”

Layla rummaged inside her mini-suitcase and tossed out pieces of lingerie. “I have exactly what you need to get appropriately dolled up.” She draped a red and black polka-dotted push up bra over her shoulder, then a matching g-string, followed by a lacy black peignoir and a red satin kimono.

“Isn’t it a little obvious I’m on the prowl for sex if I waltz in wearing my underwear?”

“Girlfriend, what part of looking sexy to get you hot sex is confusing? That’s why this club is in existence.”

“So it
is
a sex club.”

“Yep.”

Ainsley groaned and flopped on the bed. Maybe this was a mistake. Maybe she should’ve stayed home and organized her spice cupboard.

No. You need to add spice to your life—specifically your sex life—not keep it bottled up in your kitchen.

Layla bounced on the bed beside her. “What’s really going on?”

“What if I can’t? I mean, what if Dean was right?”
Beg any decent man to tie you up and spank you during sex and he’ll be out the door.

“First of all, your ex-husband was a tool. He blamed you for his…ah…shortcomings.”

Ainsley snickered.

“Look, sweetie, we’ve been friends for a long time. You settled for Dean. You were over thirty, panicked about being unmarried and alone, and picked the first guy who wasn’t a total troll. Your sex life with him was as predictable as every other part of your life with him. It wasn’t a good match, no matter how hard you tried to convince yourself otherwise.”

“True. Thanks for the pep talk.”

“The club may not be your thing. But you won’t know unless you try it.”

“Murphy is okay with me just observing?” The other club she’d visited had strict policies about guest expectations. She hoped she didn’t stand out like some wide-eyed wannabe tonight, although technically, she was.

Layla smirked. “I handled Murphy. You are my old friend, Angel, from my banking days.” Her phone buzzed and she said, “Give me a minute.”

Ainsley’s thoughts drifted to her failed marriage as she stared at the hotel room ceiling. During the first year of wedded bliss, both she and Dean were so smug about how theirs was a true partnership. Neither had more control financially, emotionally or physically over the other. They were equals. They both held upper level management jobs in the banking industry. They shared the household chores. They took turns cooking and doing laundry.

The only change during their second year of marriage was their sex life became more perfunctory. But they’d talked about it, Dean assuring her that desire fades. Reminding her that friendship, companionship, open communication, common interests and mutual career goals were far more important than sex.

During their third year of marriage, what Ainsley thought she’d loved about Dean began to drive her crazy. His insistence on everything being a joint decision. From where they ate dinner, to the type of wine they drank, to which place changed the oil in their cars. When he asked for her help in choosing a spring vacation destination, she’d suggested that he surprise her. He argued surprises weren’t fun. She argued meticulous planning wasn’t fun. That’s when they started to argue about a lot of other things.

Ainsley realized while she appreciated some aspects of a well-ordered life, there was something missing in hers. Passion. Excitement. Spontaneity.

One night, in year four, she’d decided to rev up their sex life. She stripped in the living room in front of the TV, dropped to all fours and asked Dean to fuck her from behind.

Flustered by her crude demand, Dean refused.

She tried again a few weeks later, on the way home from a cocktail party. Tipsy and feeling naughty, she tried to give Dean a blowjob in their Volvo.

Flustered once again, Dean refused.

The following month her attempt to entice him into light bedroom bondage using his Brooks Brothers’ ties netted the same result: a big fat
no
. As did her suggestion that he punish her wanton, wicked ways with a spanking.

At that point Dean suggested she needed counseling.

At that point Ainsley suggested he needed Viagra.

And that’s when their supposedly perfect marriage fell apart. Not only because Ainsley craved variety in the bedroom, but the way she’d voiced her concerns to her husband—he wasn’t seeing to her needs—had put Dean on the defensive. He became cruel. Cutting. Condescending. What she saw as an attempt to improve the intimacy in their marriage Dean saw as her attempt to force him into becoming a type of man he wasn’t. A type of man he’d never be.

So for all her bold talk, in the last year and a half since her divorce, Ainsley hadn’t done a single thing to take charge of her sexuality except increase her collection of vibrators.

One night after an extra glass of liquid courage, she’d asked Layla for advice on how to kink up her sex life. Because Layla’s relationship with her longtime squeeze, Murphy, was kinky indeed—Layla was a fulltime submissive and Murphy was her dominant.

It’d been difficult wrapping her head around the concept; Layla willingly ceded control to Murphy in all aspects of her life—not just sexually. When Layla had lived in Denver, Ainsley had known Murphy worked in a club, but not what kind of club. But she’d never imagined a sex club, because she had no flipping clue places like that even existed outside fictional novels.

She planned to get a real education about it tonight.

She scooped up Layla’s risqué lingerie and slunk into the bathroom. She stripped and added a piece at a time, ignoring the pooch in her belly. Next week she really had to start working out again. The kimono hit mid thigh and adequately covered her jiggly ass. Five minutes after her thirty-seventh birthday her body had started to sag like an ugly old couch. Not that she’d ever in her life been a toned size two.

Now is not the time to revisit your body issues. Think sexy, act sexy, be sexy.

Once she’d tugged on her outfit, she pinned up her hair, securing it with a hairnet. She unzipped the bag and slipped the wig from the Styrofoam dummy’s head, settling it onto her own.

After jabbing a million bobby pins into her scalp, Ainsley angled closer to the mirror, smoothing flyaway strands with her fingers. The sleek wig was shoulder length, coal black with jagged ends dyed blood red. It was funky, hip and fun. No one would mistake it for her real hair, but wasn’t that the point of tonight? To be daring and eccentric? She was fully incognito in this get-up. She doubted her cats would recognize her.

Two raps on the door were her only warning before Layla burst in. “Are you… My God, what the
fuck
is that thing on your head?”

Not exactly the reaction she’d hoped for. “I’m embracing my inner Sydney Bristow.”

Layla grabbed her upper arms and circled her slowly before stopping in front of her.

“So? Do I look ridiculous?”

“No. It just shocked me. But I’ve gotta say, the wig is perfect with the clothes I brought. Wow, A, you look fantastic.”

“Really?”

“Scouts honor. You always look nauseatingly well put together. I like seeing this other side of you.”

“What other side? Nuttier? Sluttier?”

“Younger. More playful. Now don’t glare at me. I know you’re a professional woman and all, but, girlfriend, there’s no reason not to show a little skin after that bank vault closes. You’re sporting one of those curvy hourglass bodies that men go wild for.”

Wasn’t that “hourglass figure” phrase a euphemism for…fat?

“Don’t hide it. Flaunt it.”

Ainsley wasn’t the
flaunt it
type.

Or maybe you are. Age and size ain’t nothin’ but numbers.

“Let’s hit the road. The club is about to open and Murphy is getting all snappy and threatening because I’m not there.”

Here was the opening she’d waited for. “Layla, can I ask you something?”

“Yes, I have time to do your make-up before we go.” She pointed to the toilet seat. “Sit.”

Ainsley closed her eyes when Layla hovered over her with brushes, powders and eyeliner. “Thanks, but that wasn’t the question I meant. I want to know about your relationship with Murphy. He seems awfully controlling.”

“That’s the definition of a dominant.”

She struggled to find the wording that wouldn’t piss off her friend but would also give her the information she’d always been too shy to ask about. “He doesn’t like, hurt you or anything if he doesn’t get his way, does he?”

“Are you asking if he beats me if I’ve done something to piss him off?”

“Yes.”

Layla swept a long, wet line of make-up across Ainsley’s eyelids near her lash line. “Don’t open your eyes for a minute.”

“Okay.”

“Murphy has never raised his hand to me in anger. It would destroy him to hurt me. But you have to understand that his use of whips, floggers and other instruments are part of our life. I ask him to restrain me and leave welts and marks on my skin.”

“Why?”

“The pain takes me to a place where I can truly let go of the control I’ve tried to maintain in all areas of my life since I was a little girl.”

Could a little pain really do that? Make Ainsley forget everything? Allow her to exist solely in the moment? Not worry about anything except when the next smack or lash would land? Why did that appeal to her so much? And why was she so embarrassed to admit that to anyone? She’d even led Layla to believe she wanted to explore her dominant tendencies, when submission interested her far more.

Isn’t the whole point of this to learn who you really are? If you’re capable of letting go? How can you be honest with anyone else when you’re still lying to yourself?

“I’ve had some bad things in my past,” Layla said softly.

“Oh, Layla. I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”

“No one knew because I excelled at keeping stuff hidden. But it was crippling me. I didn’t talk about it at all. My way to deal with it was with physical punishment. Making myself hurt as bad on the outside as I did on the inside. That’s how I ended up hanging out at hardcore bondage clubs and letting any man or woman use me as their whipping post. But I’d reached the point where I didn’t feel pain. One night I hooked up with a Dom who started to beat me severely and I didn’t do anything to stop him. But Murphy stepped in. He became my savior in so many ways.

“After he cleaned me up, he took me to his place. This big bear of a man was a total stranger to me and I felt safer with him than I’d felt with anyone. I slept for twenty-four hours straight. When I woke up, he wouldn’t allow me to put up my usual defenses. He talked to me. He made me talk to him.” Soft bristles swept over Ainsley’s cheekbone. “There was something about his voice that encouraged me, soothed me, made me want to please him, made me trust him. Anyway, I told him things I’d never shared with anybody. Things even I’d forgotten. And after I went through a whole box of tissues after sobbing for hours, and my throat was raw from talking for hours, he scooped me into his arms and just held me. For hours.”