Undone Rebel (Undone Lovers, Book One) (3 page)
“This is a first, actually.”
“I feel so special. It’s going to be even more special when I bash your head in.”
“With a sparkly skull? There’s some irony in there.”
Addie narrowed her eyes. “You’re making it hard to hate you.”
“I was socially inept until college, so thank you, it’s good to know the years of hard work learning to talk to women have paid off.”
“I’m still going to hit you. I’ll try to avoid your pretty-boy face.”
“The fact that I’m holding a conversation with a woman whose robe has come undone is even more amazing.”
Shit.
Addie looked down and Lane jumped across the room, snatching the skull from her. Her robe was still in place, though it had slipped to one side, exposing her left breast in its leopard-and-cream lace bra. She pulled it in place and sighed. Lane was tossing the skull in the air and grinning.
“You’re in. I’m unarmed. What do you want?”
“Just to talk, and to show you this.” He held up the book.
“Fine, we’ll talk. Put down my skull.”
He set the jeweled piece on a table behind him. He looked around her living room, having the raised brow reaction most people did when they saw she had more sewing supplies than furniture.
“Have a seat,” Addie said. She curled into her armchair, tucking her robe securely under her legs so it wouldn’t slip, and motioned to the matching ottoman.
Lane sat then jumped up. “Fuck!” He picked up the beaded top she’d been working on. The needle was sticking up out of the fabric and had, predictably, found its way into his ass.
Addie’s lips twitched. “Pain in your ass?”
“Funny.” He set the sewing aside and swept his hand across the ottoman before sitting. “Maybe we should start over.” He held out his hand. “I’m Lane Therres.”
“Addie Sanchez.” His handshake was firm and very warm.
“It’s very nice to meet you, Addie. I’m looking forward to working with you.”
“You mean fucking me, and it’s not going to happen. I’m not going to be part of your little porn.”
“I wouldn’t do porn either. I’m a normal guy. Well, sort of. The project Helen wants you for isn’t porn.”
“Then what is it?” Addie asked, exasperated.
“It’s probably easier to show you.” He held out the book. “This is the last project C&C did. It’s an informational book of sorts. It’s got stories, explanations and most importantly, photos.”
Addie flipped open the book.
Foot Fetish—The Sole of Devotion.
“This is a book about foot fetishes?”
“Yes. Don’t freak out, just turn the page.”
She raised a brow. “Do I look like the kind of woman who freaks out?”
“Fair point.”
Addie flipped the glossy page and skimmed the first few lines of text. It talked about the history of foot fetishism, the beauty of the fetish, the variations that were possible. “This makes it sound like the only way to show someone you love them is to,” she skimmed the page, “lick their shoes.”
“That’s how some people feel.”
She skipped the next pages of text, stopping when she got to the first photo. It was a full-page black-and-white image of a woman’s calf and foot. A glossy, black high heel dangled from her toes.
The next image was the same woman’s foot, but now a man was kissing it. In the next photo he licked the side of the shoe. Another flip and the man was licking the sole of her bare foot.
The images were beautiful, well lit and composed, yet clearly sexual.
It wasn’t porn.
“This is all it is, pictures of men licking chicks’ feet?”
“Well, no, it gets more explicit than that.”
Lane reached over to flip the pages, his fingers brushing hers as he did. They both looked up, gazes holding for a moment. His eyes were blue, and more intense than his laid-back manner would have suggested.
Addie looked away first.
Sliding his thumb between the thick pages, he opened it near the back. The toe of a woman’s glossy purple boot was balanced on the tensed swell of a man’s ass. The spiked heel of the boot pressed into his balls.
“Oh.”
“Exactly.”
“Men like this?” Addie knew a little about foot fetish from pop culture, but this was something entirely different.
“Some do.”
“Do you?”
“No, not my thing.”
“And BDSM is?” She couldn’t imagine this easygoing guy as some sort of sexual dominant.
“Yes.”
“Sadism? Is this sadism?” She pointed to the about-to-be-impaled balls.
“Some would say it was. In this case it’s all part of the foot fetish.”
Addie slapped the book closed, shoved it into Lane’s lap and stood. “That’s fine and I hope he’s happy living with one
cojone
, but I don’t know anything about this freaky sex stuff.”
“Nothing?” Lane raised one eyebrow and half smiled. “No one knows nothing about it.”
“Letting a boyfriend tie me up isn’t the same as that. And I’m not into sadism.”
“You just admitted you don’t even know what it means.”
“Exactly. You all saw those pictures and thought I was some little thing who liked getting told what to do.” Addie put her hand on her hip and met Lane’s gaze. This time she refused to look away. “I’m no submissive.”
Lane set the book down in the chair she’d vacated. “Can we back up a second? First, will you agree that this isn’t porn?”
“Fine. It’s not porn. The photographs are beautiful.”
“Good. Would you like to know why Helen called you, when she knew—she did check—that you weren’t active in the BDSM scene?”
“Yes, I would.”
Lane stretched out one leg, propped an elbow on the other. “The BDSM project is going to follow one woman, beautiful and sexy of course, as she’s introduced to BDSM and all its variations and ways to play.
“Helen called you
because
you aren’t a professional and
because
you don’t know much about it. The photographer will capture your reactions as you’re introduced to each new experience.”
What he was describing sounded strangely beautiful. It was a trap.
“But those photos would be of me having sex with a bunch of guys, I’m not—”
“No.” He raised his hand. “There would be no sex. No kissing. Physical contact, definitely, and you would have to be naked and be touched sexually by the men, by me.”
He held her gaze, letting that sink in. Addie looked at his hands. There were nice hands, with neatly trimmed nails. She couldn’t believe she was actually considering this…but she was.
“Physical contact…leaves you a lot of options. In my world, men respect and treasure women, they don’t beat them up.”
“You wouldn’t be beat up here either. Spanked?” Lane looked her up and down…slowly. The teasing, playful man who’d barged in was disappearing with each breath. He was shedding the sheep’s clothing to reveal the wolf. “Possibly.”
“But that would hurt. Why would I agree to it?”
“You don’t seem like the kind of woman who’s afraid of a little pain, or who doesn’t know how to see the beauty and pleasure in things other people find strange.”
He was right. She didn’t have to admit it though. “You know me now?”
“No.” Lane was off the ottoman and stalking toward her so fast Addie didn’t have time to think about her reaction. She backed up, fight-or-flight responses engaged. Her back hit the wall a split second before he was on her, looming over her.
He pinched the fabric of her robe between index finger and thumb and pulled it off one shoulder. The silk slithered down, catching on the tie around her waist. Addie gasped, the inhale causing her breasts to brush his chest. Addie, who prided herself on always being in control of herself, had no control as Lane caged her with his body, his presence.
Tracing the back of his hand down her bare arm, over the pool of fabric at her elbow, he circled her wrist in his hand.
Inch by inch he lifted her arm, drawing it above her head and pressing the back of her wrist against the wall. He studied her for a moment, eyes darkening.
“I don’t know you, Addie Sanchez.” He dipped his head, lips millimeters from the corner of her mouth. “But I’d like to.”
And then he was gone.
Addie was ready for the kiss, waiting for it. When Lane backed away she could only stare at him, stupefied. He wasn’t going to kiss her?
“The contract is in the back of the book. Goodbye, for now.”
With that, he let himself out of her apartment and was gone.
Chapter Two
For the hundredth time that hour, Addie considered turning back. The point of no return had actually passed several days ago when she finished negotiating and then signed the contract, but she’d told herself that she could walk out at any time.
Lulu had, surprisingly, thought this was a great idea. Addie had taken in the foot fetish book and the contract and told her friend everything. After a moment of silence, Lulu had said that if Addie wasn’t completely comfortable with it she shouldn’t do it, but that Lulu didn’t think it was porn, and that it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. She’d called it a visitor’s pass to kinky-sex-land.
Hearing Lulu’s relaxed acceptance calmed Addie’s nerves. If the only question was did Addie
want
to do this, then the answer was yes—it was frightening, edgy, different, sexy.
All things Addie liked to think she herself was.
Her biggest concern had been what other people would think. The contract said they could keep her real name out of it. The likelihood that anyone she knew would ever pick up the book and recognize her was slim, so she wasn’t worried there.
It was Pissarro who had identified one of the other issues Addie hadn’t thought about since she brought it up to Lane.
“You, as a submissive? If you were a lezzie you’d be the top, Adelita.”
“Probably,” Addie admitted, sitting on a bench in Pissarro’s store.
“So is it going to be fake, like NASCAR?”
“NASCAR is real, wrestling’s fake. And this will be real too.”
“I can’t keep track of straight-people things, you know that. But back to the important point—they’re going to teach you to be a bottom?”
“A submissive, yes.”
“Oh, this is not going to work. Didn’t they meet you?”
“They did.” Addie didn’t tell Pissarro about the way she’d frozen under Lane’s hands as he towered over her.
That was over a week ago. Now the contracts were signed, plans laid out, and today was her first day on set.
Everything was happening on a sound stage in North Hollywood, not far from the office building where she’d met with Helen. Addie pulled her restored and tricked-out chrome-and-purple 1979 El Camino into the narrow parking lot at the back of the building and parked it between a 7-Series BMW and an M-Class Mercedes.
“Maybe it pays to be kinky.” Addie tipped the rearview mirror to check her bangs, making sure they were perfectly in place. “Or, you have to be rich to play.”
Sliding out of the car, she tip-tapped across the parking lot in her T-strap heels. One of the things she’d negotiated for was to be in charge of her own wardrobe. They’d cite Lulu’s store in the book. Hopefully that would drive traffic to the store and more people would buy the clothes Addie designed and sewed. It increased the possibility Addie would get recognized, but after seeing the foot fetish book and realizing how focused the photos were, it seemed unlikely.
A plain metal door in the back wall had a piece of paper with “C&C” taped to it. Addie rang the bell beside the door and waited.
Lane sat forward as the bell in the makeshift office rang. Emory, seated to his left, finished tapping out an email on his phone before slipping it into the laptop bag on the floor beside his chair. The thirty-something Dom wore a dove-gray business suit that set off his light-brown skin. Alton was standing in the corner near the panel that controlled the lighting, staring out the window that overlooked the floor of the soundstage. He was roped in muscle, not an ounce of fat on his arms, which were displayed by the sleeveless black leather vest he wore.
“I’ll get her.” SJ stood, the chair she’d been sitting in barely shifting under her slight weight.
SJ Kim was their photographer. At barely five-foot, the Asian-American woman was slight but not fragile. In the fetish and BDSM communities, she was considered a world-class artist, known for both photography and painting. Lane planned to have at least one of the photos taken during the project signed and framed.
“Are you looking forward to this?” Emory asked him. He’d steepled his fingers, resting his chin against his thumbs.
Lane snorted. “Who wouldn’t be? Addie’s gorgeous.”
“Breaking a new slave can be a chore,” Alton said from the corner.
Lane hid his fist under the table. “She’s not a slave, she may not even be a true submissive. She’s just here to be introduced to the lifestyle.”