Submit and Surrender (13 page)

But now she was staring at Ford again.

And for the life of him, Ford could not look away. Why would he want to? Every second he took in her beautiful face, he thought of another thing he wanted to do to her. Wondered what that pale skin would look like properly bound, wondered how red her ass could get, wondered how many times he could make her come when he took his time. Wondered how big he could make those brown eyes.

She licked her lips, and Ford gripped the side of the table.

“Ford,” Roman said.

“What?” Ford asked. He was actually annoyed to have to look anywhere else but at Adra’s face.

“I asked if this Olivia woman knows yet,” Roman said, his voice lowered.

“That she’s a sub?” Ford said. “I don’t know, I didn’t spend the day with her.”

“She doesn’t, but she’s finding out,” Lola said with a broad smile. “I always love watching that process. It’s like my favorite thing.”

Adra smiled at Ford, her eyes shining, and he thought,
Yeah, that’s a pretty fun activity.

Too late, Ford realized that Lola was watching them. That woman had an eagle eye, and he and Adra hadn’t discussed whether their new arrangement should be public.

Damn
.

“So what’s up with you guys?” Lola asked, leaning her head on her hand. Looking devious.

“Working together is going well, I trust?” Roman added.

Adra started to blush.

“We’ve worked out a pretty good system,” Ford said.

“No news?”

“None,” Adra said quickly. “I mean, just that everything is good. The movie is challenging and everything, but Ford is really good at taking charge, so…everything is good. It’s good.”

“So it looks like everything is good,” Lola said with a smile.

“Great, even,” said Ford.

“Definitely great,” Adra said.

Her voice had dropped to this throaty, velvety pitch. Ford’s cock was ready to punch through steel. The tension between them was unbearable.

He’d show her great.

“Glad it’s working out,” Roman said, pouring himself—and Ford—another glass of wine. “Because Claudia and Jesse have applied for membership.”

“Roman!” Lola said.

“It has to come up some time,” Roman said, shrugging. “And it’s not like Ford objects.”

“Of course not,” Ford said. There wasn’t a bone left in his body that cared about what Claudia and Jesse chose to do. They were like strangers to him now. In fact, they’d proven themselves to be strangers to him.

Adra, on the other hand, seemed to care.

“Who?” she said.

Then it dawned on her.

“Oh, your ex-wife,” she said softly.

“I’m fine with it,” Ford said gently.

“They asked if we had a nursery at the club,” Roman said darkly. “A
nursery
.”

For the first time in years, Ford felt a pang of loss. A stabbing, icy pain piercing his chest, reminding him of what it had felt like when Claudia first told him the truth. He had not counted on the kid being around. He had not counted on having to face that particular loss all over again. Already he could feel that hardened cynicism begin to takeover, to calcify over his heart, to…

Fuck
.

He didn’t want to be that guy. He wanted to be able to trust people. He wanted to believe that people were worthy of trust.

“Well, if
I
can’t get a nursery in this place, Ford’s cheating ex-wife and former best friend aren’t getting a goddamn nursery for their kid,” Lola said, stabbing at the last piece of her chicken.

For a second, Lola seemed just genuinely annoyed at the idea of Claudia’s presumption. Then she realized what she’d said.

“Oh God, I’m so sorry,” she said.

But Ford wasn’t looking at her. He was looking at Adra. Adra, who’s face had fallen, who’d looked more hurt than he had at that particular revelation. Adra, whose heart was just too big to fit into the world on most days of the week.

“Ford, I have no idea what I was thinking,” Lola was saying. “Hormones make me a crazy person half the time. I am so, so sorry.”

Roman was smiling, knowing Ford didn’t give a crap. “You can’t blame everything on pregnancy, sweetheart.”

“Yes I can. Shut up,” Lola whispered.

“It’s ancient history,” Ford said. “Don’t worry about it, Lola.” Then he looked directly at Adra, who still looked like she might be about to cry sympathy tears. “I don’t talk much about it because it’s not relevant to my life anymore. That’s all. That’s why I’m not blackballing their membership. It’s just not important.”

Slowly, Adra smiled at him, a soft smile. Gentle. Then she turned to look at Roman, her face just as sweet as ever, and said in a voice like steel, “Can I blackball them if Ford is too good to do it?”

Ford stared at her.

Then he burst out laughing. He wasn’t used to a woman getting protective over him, but he had to admit, it had its perks.

He’d show her those perks soon.

Sooner, rather than later.

Actually, as soon as possible.

“Well, no one is getting a nursery,” Roman said. “The licensing issues alone are ridiculous.” He looked at his wife. “I’ll buy one down the street.”

“See, Adra?” Lola said. “You can—”

“Sorry,” Adra said, getting up quickly, her eyes locked on Ford’s. “I’m just… I’ll be back.”

They all fell silent while Adra walked away, Roman and Lola clearly having no idea what was going on. Ford wasn’t sure he knew what was going on either, other than that Adra was upset.

Whatever it was, he would find out.

“Excuse me,” he said, getting up to follow Adra. He ignored the quizzical looks of Roman and Lola; he wasn’t interested, and he certainly wasn’t interested in helping them play nice with the movie people. Besides, they could handle themselves just fine.

It was Adra he was worried about.

He found her in the hallway off the main corridor leading from the Volare dining room to the main room. She was leaning against the wall, her back arched a bit, her hands clasped behind her, her head tilted back. Jesus. She looked almost like she had when he’d bound her wrists with his belt. Was that unconscious?

It was fucking beautiful.

Down, boy
.

She was upset. He could tell from her expression; she looked almost pained. Her eyes were closed. She thought she was alone.

“Adra,” he said.

She didn’t seem surprised. Just smiled, laughed softly. “Hi, Ford,” she said.

“What’s going on?” he asked, joining her in her wall leaning. It reminded him of high school, leaning against rows of lockers, talking to a girl. He smiled.

“Nothin’,” she said, smirking up at him. “What’s going on with you?”

“Adra,” he said, laughing. “Come on.”

She bit her lip and looked down at her feet.

“I’m not sure,” she said. “I’m just… God, that was so overwhelming.”

“Dinner?”

“Dinner with you,” she said. “And the rest of them. I mean, we’re keeping it secret right? Not that I’m ashamed or anything. Oh God, I didn’t mean…shit.”

Ford tried not to smile too hard.

“It might be better if we kept it to ourselves until we were more sure of its shape,” he said carefully. “If that’s important to you, I have no problem with it.”

“I didn’t mean…”

“I know you didn’t, Adra,” he said, pushing off the wall and turning to face her. He planted his hands on either side of her body and looked her over. The charge between them was immediate.

“I’m just… I mean, I keep learning all these things, and my family, and…oh God, you don’t even really know about Charlie,
or
my Dad,” she said, her eyes getting bigger, the words tumbling out in a rush. “And I don’t know anything about your ex-
wife
! I have
no
idea what’s going through your head, except that I think I do, and that makes no sense at all. And isn’t that already more complicated than this is supposed to be? Like, by hour three? I mean, are we doing this wrong? And the whole time, the whole time, all I can think about, all I can even…breathe…is—”

Adra stopped talking when Ford kissed her.

He took her mouth in his again, the way he had back in his office, the way he’d been wanting to all damn night. He kissed her until her body started to go slack and then pressed into his, until her hands came out and around his neck, on his chest, his back. Until he was sure she’d forgotten she was freaking out.

“You’re thinking too much,” he said as he pulled away. She reached for him, and he pushed her back against the wall, just hard enough to make her squirm.

She was breathing hard.

“I’ll tell you whatever it is you need to know,” he said, and realized, as he said it, that it was completely true. He wouldn’t hide anything from her. There wasn’t anything worth protecting more than her.

He held her face in his hand.

“No secrets,” he said.

He slipped his hand down her neck.

“No games,” he said.

His slid his hand over her breast and savored the noise she made.

“No pressure,” he said.

His hand crossed her abdomen, leaving fluttering waves of contractions in its wake.

“And I can tell you right now,” he said, slipping his hand beneath her second skirt of the day, between her legs, and under the fabric of her underwear where he could feel her wetness. “We’re not doing this wrong.”

She moaned.

Ford watched her face, watched the change in her. She’d gone from overwhelmed and vaguely panicked to the kind of calm that only a submissive seemed to achieve, and he knew that he’d been right: she needed order imposed on the chaos. So did he. This was something he could do for her.

He removed his hand, and licked her juices from his fingers. Then he leaned forward, and whispered into her ear.

“Right now you’re going to go home,” he said. “Immediately. You’re not saying goodbye, you’re not bothering with anyone else. You’re getting away. You’re going to run yourself a bath, and you are going to soak until you start to relax. And then you are going to touch yourself. And you’re not going to come until I call and tell you to. Understood?”

Adra let out a long, soft sigh, her hands digging into his shoulders.

“Yes, sir,” she said. She looked relieved. Happy.

She looked perfect.

“Don’t forget your phone,” he told her.

Adra drove home in a kind of daze. In fact, she’d been doing everything in a kind of daze since it had happened.

Holy mother of God, they had really done it, hadn’t they?

It was like she had moments of lucidity when she was sure that, the rest of the time—the rest of the unbelievable, blissful time—she must be hallucinating. Or drunk. Or some combination of the two.

Ford was her Dom now.

And he was perfect. He was better than perfect. She hadn’t even let herself imagine him like this; she was one of those people that had to fantasize realistically, for some annoying reason, with flaws and plausible situations and the whole thing. And she’d always given Ford plenty of flaws, because maybe it felt safer to think about him that way.

She’d been wrong.

Well, so far she’d been wrong. Fingers crossed that there was something wrong with him, because otherwise…

Adra shook her head again, trying not to feel dizzy remembering how he’d “checked” her in the hallway. She was driving at the moment. Not a good time to be overcome by…

Whatever this was.

And whatever it was, it had worked. She’d been mildly freaking out, just overwhelmed by all of these things happening all at once. Now? No more freaking out. Now she was just horny as hell and wanting to get home so she could obey Ford’s orders.

She grinned into the pale blue light coming off the streetlights as she sped down Santa Monica Boulevard. Maybe there were some benefits to being dominated by your best friend after all. Ford couldn’t possibly know all the different things Adra had to freak out about—like, for a very stress-inducing example, that she was terrified of falling in love with him—but he had known that she was stressed. And he’d done something about it.

He was still doing something about it, in fact. Adra could barely wait to get home and take that bath. And get his phone call.

Which is why she was more than a little thrown off when she turned the corner onto her street and was confronted with a throng of photographers.

Not just photographers. Photographers who were waiting for her. Photographers who already knew her car. Photographers who swarmed around as she slowed down to enter her building’s garage, blocking her view, forcing her to stop, blinding her with flashes.

It was like a zombie movie, only the zombies were armed with digital cameras.

“Are these people serious?” she said to herself, not really believing it. Then someone jumped across the hood of her car and a flash went off in her eyes. Instinctively Adra slammed on the brake and put her hands up over her face. “What are you doing?” she yelled.