Southern Submission (Southern Submission (A Southern BDSM erotic romance)) (2 page)

Sure enough, it was
Tad.  He was leaning against the front door, wearing a dove-grey shirt and
a sport coat over jeans.  He flashed a very predatory grin when he saw
me.  “Hey, Alex.”

“Hey, Tad.  What
brings you out this way?” Inwardly, I cursed.  Obviously, the man wasn’t
dropping by to pick up a pie.  It’s a wonder I ever hooked up, as bad as I
am at small talk.

“Boring dinner party at
Le Chardonnay.  Work stuff.  I ducked out and I was hoping I’d catch
you here.”

Ok, Alex, turn on
the flirt.
 
“Well, I guess you caught me,” I said.

“Oh, not yet, but I’m
hoping to.”  He ignored my immediate blush.  “What are you doing
tomorrow night?”

“Working til ten. 
All the boring restaurants will be closed by then.”  The rush of heat was
moving from my face down between my legs.  Getting caught by this guy
seemed like a better and better idea.

“I’ll be here at nine
fifty.  I’ll take you somewhere that’s not boring.”  His green eyes
were boring into me.

I laughed.  “Oh
will you?  You may be the bossiest thing I’ve ever met, Tad Marshall.”

“But you’ll go,” he
said.  Confidently, not questioningly.  Definitely cocky.  Time
to bail before I screwed it all up!

“We’ll find out
tomorrow, won’t we?” I shot back, then turned and walked back behind the
counter.  John was glaring at Tad, and I briefly wondered if John had a
crush on me.

***

I called Lisa as soon
as I woke up the next day. 

“Hey, babe!” she
chirped.

“Tad. 
Beans.  Spill!” I demanded.

She squealed. 
“Ooh, did he call you?”

“Nope.  He showed
up in person last night and asked me out.  Now tell me, is he just another
boring rich boy?”

“Oh lord no,
Alex.  I know what you like, and this is definitely the kind of guy you
should be dating.  I am soooo sick of seeing you with trashy drunks!” 

Lisa and I have been
friends for ten years.  She went to my high school for a year, while her
parents were getting divorced, then transferred to a private school after the
custody battle settled.  We were unlikely besties, but we’d stuck together
through thick and thin.

“Lisa,” I sighed. 
“You know I don’t go for the preppy types.  I like bad boys!”

“
Trust
me, Alexa
Arnott.  I know what you like better than you do.  I don’t have any
first-hand knowledge, but I have heard that this boy likes it rough.  And
he’s actually got enough money to buy dinner, instead of mooching free
pizzas.  Are you getting any tinglies from him?”

I laughed.  “Well,
yeah…”

“Then trust me. 
Give him a shot, ok?”

***

At a quarter til ten
the next night, I gratefully handed the reins over to Caroline.  She was
another Smokin’ Hams competitor, and she squealed with delight when I told her
I had a date with Tad after work.  We got a flurry of orders as I was
clocking out, but when I hesitated, Caroline shooed me out.  “We’ve got
this!  You go, have a normal date for once!  And tell me all about it
tomorrow!” 

“Okay, okay!”  I
laughed and headed to the office to change. 

I couldn’t do much
about the smell of oregano and tomato sauce that clung to me, but I had stashed
a change of clothes in the office.  I slipped into a flippy floral skirt
and a sparkly white tank top with a pair of sandals, shook my hair out and
redid my ponytail, and escaped the building before any pizza sauce leapt out of
the shadows to get me. 

Tad was parked in the
fire lane in front of the building, leaning against his black sports car. 
He smiled as he straightened himself, and I smiled back.  He was wearing
slacks and a dress shirt again, and I was glad I’d changed into something a
little fancier.  He took my hand as I approached, and the touch of his
thumb grazing my knuckles brought a little flutter to my stomach.  This
guy was way too sophisticated and sexy for the likes of me!

We exchanged greetings
as he opened my door and helped me into his car.  It was one of those
two-seater BMWs, with grey leather seats and gadgets everywhere.  I
settled back into the bucket seat with a blissful sigh.

“So where are you
taking me?” I asked as Tad whipped an illegal U-turn and roared off toward
downtown. 

“Have you eaten? 
I thought we could grab some food, maybe take a carriage tour of downtown?” he
asked.

“I ate before work, but
I could do with a bite,” I replied.

“Gus’s Fried Chicken
sound good?” he asked.

“There’s never a time
in my life when I don’t want Gus’s!” I exclaimed.  The tiny chicken shack
on the edge of downtown is one of Memphis’s best-kept secrets, with the world’s
juiciest, most flavorful chicken and cold 40s of malt liquor.  If you want
side dishes or chicken tenders or microbrews, you have to look elsewhere. 
Gus’s, like a good barbecue restaurant, knows what it does best and sticks to
it. 

We worked through the
getting-to-know-you chat on the drive over.  Tad grew up in the suburbs
east of Memphis, went to a private high school, and worked for his dad.  I
grew up in the city, went to a good city school, and worked food service, but
we had several friends in common.  Memphis might have nearly a million
citizens, but it’s a surprisingly small town nonetheless. 

***

After a deliciously
greasy feast, Tad drove us back to downtown proper and dropped the car at a
hotel’s valet parking.  He led me around the building to where a row of
horse-drawn carriages waited. 

“Aren’t these… tourist
things?”  I waved off Tad’s hand and climbed into the horse-drawn carriage
by myself.  I’m all in favor of men holding doors for me, but I could
easily get myself up the teeny little fold-down step. 

Tad climbed in beside
me on the overstuffed red velvet seat.  “They don’t check for out-of-state
IDs.” 

He asked the driver for
the usual tour and then draped his arm on the seat behind me.  I settled
back as the carriage rolled off with a lurch.  I could feel the heat
coming off of Tad’s lean body, and I wondered if he felt the same from
me.  I turned my head to look up at him.

Tad reached up with his
left hand and tucked an errant curl behind my ear, then ran his hand down to my
chin.  I had just enough time to wonder if he was going to kiss me, then
he gently but firmly tilted my head up and leaned in.  His lips burned
like fire and they sent tendrils of flame down my body.  I groaned as
Tad’s tongue pressed relentlessly into my mouth. 

He smelled amazing,
like musk and cedar and sex.  I wrapped an arm around his back and ran my
other hand up into his hair, pulling him closer to me.  Tad cradled my
head in his hands, holding me exactly like he wanted as he nibbled my lips and
sucked at my tongue.  When I tried to pull back, he groaned and held on
for one more kiss, then slowly released his hands from my hair. 

I grinned mischievously
at Tad and pushed him back to his side of the carriage.  “Aren’t you going
to look at beautiful, historic downtown Memphis?” 

“Nah,” he rasped,
locking eyes with me.  “I’m looking at something beautiful right
now.” 

My breath caught in my
throat and I blushed.  I’m cute enough, but I’ve rarely been called
beautiful, and I’d never believed it, not even now.  My brain fumbled for
conversational banter.

Tad grabbed my right
hand and kissed the back of it.  Before I could even giggle about the
silliness of his gesture, his kisses moved to the crease between my first two
fingers.  His warm lips reignited the fire in my belly, and when he
started kissing the knuckles between my fingers I groaned.  His fiery
tongue flickered out into the folds between my fingers, and all I could think
about was what that tongue would do between my other folds.  I reached out
to grab his hair with my free hand, but he caught my wrist in his hand. 

“No, Alex,” Tad said.

I concentrated on the
muscles in my face and managed to put together something that resembled a
scowl.  I grumbled, “I thought you liked it rough!” 

Tad’s eyes
sparkled.  “Oh you thought that, did you?”  He reached up and tucked
my hair behind my ear again – my curly hair is a curse in our summer
humidity – then let his thumb roam across my cheekbone.  “What made
you think that, Alex?”  His thumb made a right-angle turn and started down
my cheek, then rubbed across my lips. 

It was hard to breathe
again.  My lips fell apart slightly as I tried to drag some thick,
overheated air into my lungs.  His thumb found the opening and exploited
it as he kept talking.  “I think somebody told you that.” 

His thumb was like an
invading force, irresistible, inexorable.  I felt like I’d never been
touched like this before, like I would explode if I moved at all.  Somehow
I didn’t explode, though, as I slowly wrapped my lips around his thumb. 
It was rough, salty, and felt enormous in my mouth.  “Answer me, Alex.  Has
someone been telling tales about me?”

Nobody bosses me
around.  I’ve spent too many years in hot kitchens, standing up for myself
against uppity men, holding my ground in the never-ending turf wars. 
There was no way I’d just rat Lisa out!  I ran the tip of my tongue around
his thumb, delicately, just a taste, then pulled away from him entirely. 
“I won’t tell.”

His green eyes
flashed.  “Whoever you’re talking to doesn’t know anything about me,
Alex.”

I’d hit a nerve! 
“Tad, it’s not like that.”  I reached out for his arm, my body hungering
to get back to the kissing. 

He snatched his arm out
of my grasp and yanked his wallet out.  Without looking at me, Tad pulled
a hundred out of his wallet and handed it up to the carriage driver, who’d been
studiously ignoring us.  “Thanks, ma’am, you can take her wherever she
wants to go, but I’m gonna walk.” 

Before the carriage
driver even had time to stop the horse, Tad had jumped out of the slowly
rolling carriage.  We were in a tiny park on the bluff above the river,
and I watched him stalking off with my mouth agape. 

I turned to the
carriage driver, who’d coaxed her big, amiable beast to a stop.  “Did that
just happen?  What an ass.” 

The driver shrugged noncommittally. 
She was a young woman, about my age, but sporting multicolored hair and
multicolored tattoos.  “Uh, I guess so.  Do you want the rest of the
tour?”

I looked from the
driver’s face to Tad’s retreating back and made a split second decision I hoped
I didn’t regret.  “No.  Uh, thanks though.  I want to finish my
conversation with him.”

I climbed out of the
carriage as the driver peered down at me.  “Be careful!” she called as I
walked briskly after Tad. 

Be careful?  This
was the opposite of careful.  What on earth was I thinking, charging off
into the night after a guy who’d just freaked out at me for no reason? 
Well, at least Lisa and Caroline knew where I was and whom I’d gone out
with.  And my dad had insisted that I take self-defense classes when I
started to get serious about being in the restaurant business – I kept up
on my judo practice pretty regularly.  But most importantly, I’d be damned
if I let some jerk get the last word in something that shouldn’t even have been
an argument! 

I broke into a jog as
Tad approached the bluff edge of the park.  He paused, silhouetted against
the moonlit river, when I called out to him.  “Hey.  Wait up.” 

His shoulders were
tense and he wouldn’t look at me when I reached his side. “What?” he said, in a
flat tone that was more of a statement than a question. 

“You totally freaked
out on me back there.  I thought we were having a good time flirting, then
all of a sudden you’re leaping out of the carriage to run away like I’ve got
cooties or something.”

We were standing at the
head of a set of concrete stairs cut into the bluff.  Tad still wouldn’t
look at me, but the mostly-full moon rising in the west gave me a perfect view
of him.  He stared over the river, to the black floodplains of Arkansas,
with a profoundly unhappy look on his face.  What had we even been talking
about?  Whether he liked it rough? 

He sighed and started
walking, more slowly this time, down the stairs.  “I don’t think you have
cooties.  I just don’t know if we’re going to be compatible, Alex.”

I started down the
stairs after him.  I was speechless for the first flight but then finally
got my mouth back in gear.  “I have never been kissed then dumped this
quickly.  I don’t know what kind of incompatibility you’re talking about,
but I sure thought you were enjoying yourself too.”  I stopped at the next
landing and leaned on the metal pipe railing, looking up the river toward the
big bridge.

He stopped too, partway
down the next set of steps.  When he spoke, his voice was so quiet I could
barely hear him.  “It’s just… you don’t know me.”

I sighed.  I
refused to look at him; refused to let myself be drawn in by whatever
tragically sad look he had on his face.  The situation was just too weird,
but I felt like maybe I’d freaked him out somehow and I should try to make
amends.  “Tad.  Look,” I sighed.  “I was talking to a friend of
mine about you, and I said I wasn’t sure if I wanted to date somebody –”
deep breath! “– as preppy as you are.  And she said that she’d heard
you aren’t as preppy as you look, and that you like it rough.  And that’s
when I agreed to this date.”  I could feel my face heating up.  I’d
just accused my date of being preppy – true or not, them’s fightin’ words
among the people I usually run with – and I’d promptly followed that up
with a roundabout admission that I liked rough sex.  I was mortified.