Strung Out (Needles and Pins #1) (51 page)

“Very well, then.” Selina took his hand. Scarla felt her eyes grow wide. She wanted to leap out of her chair and stand between Gage and this leather clad dominatrix-looking being. But Selina had admitted to knowing something about Ivy. Why wouldn’t she just spit it out?

“I wanted to watch Ivy.” Even though Gage had asked her to let him do the talking, she rushed the words out in a panic. “Where is Ivy exactly?”

“She doesn’t work here. Like I said. Or anywhere like this as far as I know.” Selina tugged Gage toward a chair Scarla hadn’t seen before. The seat was split, and she saw Gage’s Adam’s apple convulse. “You want to get more comfortable? There’s a changing area.” With a sweep of her arm, she indicated a screen in the corner. “There are robes and other clothing if you didn’t bring your own.”

“No, I’m fine.” Gage’s voice seemed strangled.

“Well, at least allow me to take your shirt.”

Gage hesitated then pulled the fabric over his head, shouldering around Selina’s outstretched hand to drop his black tee shirt onto Scarla’s lap.

“Now get comfortable. Any music you prefer?” Selina asked as Gage took a seat. His face had taken on an ashen cast, noticeable even in the dim room.

“No music.”

“Sure? Okay” She knelt beside him and with a twist of her wrist, the back of the chair reclined. Gage popped up into a seated position, defying the back now angled like a recliner. “Now, now. I may need to tie you down…” Selina ran her fingers over a rope and some zip ties before turning with arched brows and then quickly flinched at the darkness in Gage’s gaze.

“There will be no restraints.” His voice transitioned from the nervous almost-squeak it had been before, to a king-like dictator tone.

“I know this is your first time, but I think in time, you’ll find you’re a Dom,” Selina told him and turned her head enough to wink at Scarla.

Her ponytails swished as she walked over to the side and spent a few seconds at a countertop preparing something. There was a clink of glass. The smell of matches. And then she turned back to Scarla. “Now about you. You want to watch from the cage?”

Scar’s gaze darted toward the specified area, finding both a metal cage tall enough to stand in, and one that could only be suited for someone on all fours.

“She doesn’t,” Gage interjected. “She’s into voyeurism. Nothing else.”

Ivy. Just get back to Ivy. What the hell?

Scarla determined to gain control of the situation quickly raging out of control. What she wasn’t certain of was why Gage wasn’t insisting on answers now. Why was he going through this charade? Did he want to? “Could I ask you—”

“No. No questions unless it is about the scene here. Later, afterward, we can talk. Did you get a copy of the rules?”

“The rules?”

“That’s what I thought. Bad. Very bad. Into the cage you go.”

“No! I—”

“She’s not going in the cage. I told you. This isn’t her thing. She’s here to watch.”

Selina indicated the dressing area screen, which had shuttered slats. “Behind there.” The woman had semi-transformed from a sweet hostess into dominatrix mode.

Scarla hesitated and then with a wary look at the cage, hustled behind the screen.

Stationing herself behind Gage, Selina poured oil into her gloved hands and massaged it down Gage’s chest. Scar saw one of his hands clenched to the side of the chair, and it never relaxed despite being treated to what looked like a sensuous massage.

Next, Selina chose a candle, and with a purse of her lips, blew out the flame. “Close your eyes?” But Scarla saw Gage’s eyelids remained guardedly open. The candle tipped over his chest, and he flinched as the wax hit. Since he wasn’t reclined all the way, it began to drip down. From her viewpoint, she couldn’t tell if it stopped before the waistband of his jeans.

Selina chose another candle, blew it out, and repeated the process. This time Gage’s flinch was less noticeable. After she set that candle aside, she continued to stand between his legs. “Would you want to undo your zipper?”

“No. I’m fine.”

The sulfur smell of another snuffed out candle wafted through the screen, and this time after tipping it, Selina used a brush to smear the wax. Gage’s fingers tightened so much his knuckles were white in the remaining candlelight. And suddenly, Scarla had enough.

“Forget it.” She rounded the screen and thrust Gage’s shirt at him, unwilling to have him go through this for her. “Forget Ivy. This may be another dead end. This isn’t her scene. I’m not sure who told you she worked here or why.”

Gage sat up and seemed happy to have his clothing back. He pulled it on over the wax.

Selina dropped the character charade and ground her bottom lip between her teeth. “Is Ivy your friend then?”

“I lost touch with her when she came to L.A. and I’m worried. She disappeared after meeting…” Scarla threw Gage a glance. “Some sketchy people. This is her.” Scarla thrust the picture at the other woman.

Selina looked away and seemed to consider. “Yeah. I know that girl. She didn’t work here though, you’re right. But she did go by Ivy. And she arrived sometimes with a gentleman. She was a watcher like you. But sometimes she’d hang out in the common room and talk while he had his session.”

Finally!
Scarla’s heart pounded. Gage stood and bolted closer. He seemed as excited as she was.

“Any idea where we can find her?”

“No.” Selina had removed supplies from a cabinet, and she wiped down the chair.

“Who was the man?”

“I can’t tell you that.” She turned her back and boxed up the candles. “But your friend seemed fine.”

“I’ve come all the way from—a long way. I really want to see her. To know everything is okay with her.”

“I can see you out now.”

“She’s like a sister to me. We’ve known each other since middle school.”

Selina’s shoulders sagged in defeat, and she spoke without turning around. “Leave me your number and I’ll give it to her if she comes back. That’s all I can do. And please don’t say anything to anyone about this.”

L
ess than a quarter of an hour later, Gage pulled his car into a narrow dirt trail and cut the engine in a clearing.

“Shit. It’s like being on the top of the world.” Scarlette exited the passenger side when he did and they met in front of the hood. Her chest rose as she inhaled the night air, seeming as glad as he was to be away from the odd atmosphere inside the car after they’d practically run out of the house on Outpost.

The city lay below, illuminated in majestic glory.

“Yeah. I looked at this lot. Almost built on it. But ended up buying the place I have instead.” The plastic in his hand glinted in the pale moonlight. Five clicks away from a calming breath. He was prepared to ignore any of the censorious looks she normally cast him. He almost dropped it in surprise when she reached for it. Mesmerized as she held the button down and put it to her lips, he said, “I couldn’t go home just yet. I need to wind down. That was… That was… It was…”

“I have no words either.” She spoke in a fog and then passed it back to him. “Wax?”

“It seemed like it might be tame compared to the other stuff I chose from when I made a reservation. I was hoping to get what we needed without all that, but I had to make a safe choice in case… In case it went the way it did.”

“You shouldn’t have gone that far. We should have walked out.”

“She knew something. I felt like we were so close. But she wasn’t going to just begin gossiping. The place is discreet. I’m sure her job is at risk if she talks. I knew she’d get comfortable enough with us if we played along.”

“You weren’t comfortable with it though. And I didn’t want you to go through that. I couldn’t watch any more. I couldn’t know you were doing that for me.”

I’d do anything for you Scar
. In that second, he knew it was true. Felt a surge of protectiveness he hadn’t felt since they were young. He considered voicing the inner musing, but she let out a broken sigh with her next exhale.

“I thought it would be easier than this to find her. I thought I could track her down in a week, max.”

“You can stay as long as you want. We’ll find her.”

“I know. Thanks. And I hope we do, but I’ve got to get registered and retake some of my classes in the summer semester.” Here she frowned and rushed, “I mean, a few of the courses I need are only offered in fall and have prerequisites. So if I’m going to stay on track to graduate in a year, I need the summer.”

“You’re graduating already?” he asked, and when she nodded, he skimmed through their conversation at the Rainbow. “Naturalistic medicine?”

Nodding, she explained more about the field and requirements even after graduation. When she dwindled, he zeroed in on the word she had let slip earlier.

“What do you mean ‘retake?’”

Again, he saw the nervous dart of her eyes, but he blamed it on her uncharacteristic high state.

“There was an issue this semester. A financial mix up. Around the same time, this shit with Ivy happened, so I didn’t try too hard to fix it. I left. But it’s no biggie. I’ll make it up, and  then I’m only a couple of semesters and a thesis away from my masters.”

When he asked, she explained a thesis was a research paper required for a master’s degree. Impressed, he took a moment to study the way the moonlight lit and shadowed her features. “I bet your mom’s proud of you.”

“No. She’s really not.” Her expression turned to stone.

He didn’t argue with her. After all, he’d lived several years with the self-absorbed woman and had existed through his dad’s very public divorce from her.

“Well, your dad would be.”

Her look shot to his face, and he wanted to bite his tongue. He knew she had been too young when her father died to remember him. But surely, she’d done searches on the internet and had seen the same things he had. A man adored by his fans, and a man who adored his baby daughter. There were a few interviews with her father’s band in which her father was holding her in his lap. There were documentaries since his death that included candid video shots where the man’s face for the brief period of time after her birth was alight and untroubled.

Perhaps he should have stayed off the subject of her dad though. Simply because it was what it was. The death of a musician who had become a junkie.

“Well,
I’m
proud of you.”

She smiled up at him and leaned her forehead on his shoulder. “I’m kind of proud of me too. I mean, if there’s anyone I didn’t want to become, it was my parents. And maybe it was wrong, but that was my drive.”

“You succeeded.”

“In some ways, I guess. For now. But you can’t fight your genes, you know?” With that innuendo, she waggled the pen at him for emphasis, and he suddenly felt guilty for letting her partake.

“A couple of hits doesn’t make you an addict. Fuck, Scar. It’s been a weird night. We’re unwinding. Just give it back.” He snatched the device from her, inadvertently sending it flinging over his shoulder in the process.

Both gazed into the black void where it had flown, and she took a step, bending. “You got a flashlight? Or turn on the car lights…”

“Leave it. It’s probably in the middle of Malibu Canyon Road.”

Watching the headlights far below, she giggled at his joke, and his annoyance vanished. He chuckled along with her.

She returned, leaning against the car beside him. The chirping of nightlife was a musical backdrop to the silence, before she spoke. “I wasn’t as turned off by tonight as you were. That’s what I was really talking about. And it makes me think that no matter how hard I’ve tried to justify my interest in porn, that I have more of my mom’s genes than I want.”

He was quiet, taking that in, wanting to not fuck up his reply, but she continued.

“Some of the stuff creeped me out. The paddles. The cages. But the wax was kind of hot. Seeing how freaked you were, though… Well that killed it for me fast.”

“It was the stranger pouring it on me that killed it for me. I could totally get into that in a different setting.”
Shit. A flash image of Scarlette pouring the scalding wax on his chest sent the blood racing straight to his cock
. “You liking that kind of stuff and watching it, that doesn’t make you a slut. That makes you hot blooded. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“Or maybe I’m a slut.”

“Are you?” he countered.
Why did it bother him suddenly that she may have slept with dozens of partners, as he had?

“There’s a guy I have classes with. We hook up. But I don’t feel anything for him—and he doesn’t for me. It’s easy. You know? No strings.”

“That doesn’t sound slutty,” he reassured, trying hard to banish the images of her and some other guy.

“Before him, I tried the relationship thing, but it didn’t work. I cheated on the only serious boyfriend I had.”

This stopped his wayward thoughts. She’d hit a trigger. “Why?”

“I told him it was because he was gaming all the time and ‘what did he think would happen?’ I told him it was his fault.”

“And? Why did it really happen?”

She seemed to consider. “I think because he’d been flirting with this girl in one of his games. And he found out she lived in driving distance. I was afraid he was going to cheat on me first.”