Unrestrained (22 page)

He was still kissing her, his fingers making slow, soothing strokes over her pussy. By now she knew what her Master liked when it came to this. Despite the sensitivity of her tissues, she made herself stay still and kept her legs open to him. He shifted to hold her nape, pull her back. From the fierce male satisfaction in his face, she was sure she had a glazed, overwhelmed expression. His reaction gave her a different kind of heat, one no less welcome.

—

H
e helped her dress. She had a bathroom attached to her office so she could touch up her makeup, her hair, and while she did that, he sat on the commode lid, watching her silently. When she was done, she thought she’d pass inspection, though to herself she looked like a woman who’d been thoroughly pleasured and thrown off her axis, a little wild-eyed and sated at once.

He rose, tucked a piece of hair behind her ear, leaned in and brushed his lips over hers. “I’ll be going. I’ll pick up my beignet on the way out.”

“Ellen hasn’t . . .”

“She returned right when you climaxed. I heard the door unlock. You were a little preoccupied.”

“But she didn’t knock. She . . .” Athena turned scarlet. “Oh my God, if she . . .”

“She didn’t. I muffled the sound with my mouth, remember?” He smiled. “She was making enough noise out there to let you know she was back. Closed the file cabinets twice, made a phone call. She was smart enough to realize we’d open the door when we wanted the beignets.”

“You heard all that?”

He shrugged. “It’s my job to pay attention. She’s a good assistant.”

“I don’t know if I should be mortified or impressed. With both of you.” She’d tensed up, thinking of Ellen’s reaction, but he put both hands on her shoulders, drawing her attention back to him.

“I expect she was respecting your privacy. She obviously cares for and admires you. I don’t think you’ve done a thing to tarnish your tiara.”

She caught the slight edge to his tone. “Dale, I wasn’t implying that I was embarrassed to be here with you. Just . . . doing something like that in my office. The board members are all male. They’re good men, most of them, but even so, I have to maintain certain expectations with them.”

“I get it. I do.” He touched her face. “But I’m going to go now.”

He slid past her, leaving her unsure if she’d offended him or not. “Master?” He turned at that, the look in his gaze intensifying at the address. “Can we . . . I’d like to see you again, sooner rather than later. May I?”

His jaw eased, making her feel better about speaking her feelings. The man encouraged an appalling level of honesty from her. “Yeah. You can. You like movies?”

She nodded.

“What’s your favorite movie of all time?”

“
Ben-Hur
. With Charlton Heston.”

His brow lifted. “A little before your time.”

“My mother took me to see it when I was little. I watch it every year at Easter.”

“Hmm.” He cocked his head. “Favorite scene?”

“I have a lot of them. But my most favorite is when he and Esther meet in the upstairs room, both before and after everything that happens.” She recalled the quote with a poignant smile. “‘If you were not a bride, I would kiss you good-bye.’ And she replies . . . ‘If I were not a bride, there would be no good-byes to be said.’”

“And he takes her slave ring, and promises to wear it until he meets the woman he’ll marry.”

She raised a brow. “You’ve seen it.”

“The gorgeous Israeli woman playing a slave caught my attention.”

She chuckled, she couldn’t help it. He closed the step between them, brushed her jaw with a fingertip. “We’ll plan on a movie or something like that, something a little less intense. Let me get some crap off my schedule and we’ll figure it out. Until then, I’ll call you every day. All right?”

She gave a half smile. “You don’t have to do that. I’m not that needy.” But she certainly didn’t object to the idea.

“I am. I want to hear your voice.” He gave her jaw a little squeeze. “Thanks for the money for the shelter, Mrs. Summers. The dogs appreciate it.”

“You’re going to take it?”

He blinked at her. “Of course I am. I never intended not to take the money—that’s for them, and I know you want to help. It was how you did it that caused the problem.”

She pursed her lips. “So I just
paid
for my punishment?”

Those attractive lines around his eyes creased. “A win-win, don’t you think?”

She swatted at his broad chest, and was caught to him for another thorough kiss for her trouble. She melted into it, reveling in the way his fingertips slid into her hair, the male noise he made against her mouth, how his scent surrounded her, the strength of his body.

When he released her, she knew she was ridiculously starry-eyed, but he looked pretty caught up as well. Confirming it, he gave her a reproving smack on her ass that made her wince. “Wanton. You should probably use a pillow for that board meeting.”

She’d do no such thing and he knew it. Thank goodness the chairs were cushioned. Regardless, she thought she’d be getting up and doing a lot of moving around during agenda points. He was headed for her office door, allowing her to thoroughly enjoy the view. Coming or going, he was a feast for female eyes.

“Leave me a beignet,” she said.

“Not a chance. You’re hard work, woman. I built up an appetite.”

Even so, when she headed out to her meeting later, she found he’d not only left her one of the pastries, he’d given Ellen one as well.

The man really was quite something.

A
couple days later, the phone rang midmorning. Surprised to recognize Club Release’s number, she picked up, even more surprised by the identity of the caller.

“Jimmy? Good morning.”

“Hey, Lady Mistress. I’m sorry to call you at home—”

“Not at all. It’s a nice surprise. How are you?”

“I’m good. Management’s just having me do some call arounds, the quarterly thing to make sure the membership’s happy with how things are going. I’ve never done it with you because, well, you were dealing with Roy’s passing, and before that, you guys visited pretty regular, but . . . Oh hell, why am I bullshitting like this? Hank, the guy doing security the night you were here, told me about the trouble at the gas station. He said MC took care of it and waved him off when he came out to see if you needed any help.”

She didn’t remember that but, in those first few moments after the attack, a marching band could have gone by and she wouldn’t have noticed.

“Anyhow, he said you seemed okay, but it’s been a couple weeks and since you hadn’t been back to the club since . . . I know you’ve only been coming about once a month, but . . . I’m sorry. If you think this is inappropriate, I apologize, but I consider you a friend and I was worried. That’s all.”

Genuine warmth, tinged with regret, touched her. Jimmy’s awkwardness was likely due to her silence, the fact she was simply listening instead of taking control of the conversation. Remarkably, she’d stopped thinking of herself as a Mistress, almost from her first interaction with Dale.

“Oh, Jimmy, that’s very kind of you. Yes, I’m fine. It was my own fault for not thinking about how dangerous it was to stop for gas so late at night.”

“Don’t ever apologize for other people being assholes, Mistress,” Jimmy said staunchly. “I told MC that if he’d caved in their skulls and dumped their bodies behind the club we would have taken them out with the rest of the trash and not said a word about it.”

“He’s been there since?”

“A couple times. If you’ve been checking your club email account, we had a Japanese rope-tying demonstration last night and he was one of the presenters. It was pretty awesome. They’re doing another one tonight. You should come.” He paused. “Do you think you’ll be back anytime soon?”

“I’m sure I will,” she said automatically. “I’m sorry, Jimmy—I’m getting ready for a luncheon at my house, so I have to go, but I’ll look forward to seeing you again soon. It really is so nice of you to check in on me. It means a great deal to me.”

“Hey, you’re welcome. See you then. I’ll have your virgin Diet Coke waiting,” he added, teasing her. Then he hung up.

Athena held on to the phone, pressing it to her chin. She was sitting in her reading room, an opened book on her lap. On the days she worked at home, it was a relaxing morning ritual, reading and watching the garden unfold its daily routine with bees, birds and butterflies, as well as the incursions of other wildlife like squirrels and deer. Having her cell phone with her was a new addition to the ritual. She’d kept it with her in case Dale called. Though if he’d gone to the club last night, he’d probably had a late night, hadn’t he?
A couple times . . .

Whom had he tied up for the demonstration? What did he do with her afterward? What had he done during the time he was there?

Stop it.
No matter what was implied during the heat of their moments together, it had never been clearly stated their arrangement was going to be exclusive. The man himself had told her the challenge of working with submissives with unique needs was what helped him deal with the vacuum retiring from the SEALs had left in his life.

She understood that. Yet she felt stabbed in the heart, was even now kneading her palm over it in reflex. She could go to the club, pick out a sub, prove that if he was going to treat their arrangement as nonexclusive, she could do the same. Mature, reasonable adults.

No, she couldn’t do that. Being with Dale had removed any doubts about it. She had no interest in being a Domme again. Further, she couldn’t present herself there as a submissive. She cringed from the visual, anticipating judgment, reactions. But it was deeper than that, wasn’t it? It felt like a betrayal of Roy, though she couldn’t understand why she felt like that about the club environment, when she didn’t feel like that when Dale had mastered her in the very home she’d shared with her husband.

She hadn’t allowed him into her bedroom, though, had she? So she was holding him at arm’s length as well.
Oh, Athena, for heaven’s sake.
They’d only had three . . . whatevers together. Date, meeting, session. She didn’t even know what to call them. Even so, she thought of him at the club with another woman and she didn’t like it. Intensely. Didn’t they make movies about women like that, women who boiled rabbits?

All right, fine. Maybe she was being unreasonable about this right now, but what if they were together three months from now? What if she at last invited him into her bedroom and every corner of herself—he was already further into that territory than she would have expected—and he still didn’t see any problem with going to the club?

She rubbed her forehead, feeling a stress headache starting. To hell with it. She threw off the blanket. She’d go tonight. If nothing else, she could enjoy talking to Jimmy. She’d watch and appreciate Dale’s skill and technique, the way she’d done the first night she’d seen him. Then she’d imagine picking up Jimmy’s ice pick and stabbing “Master Craftsman” right between those broad shoulders, to inflict the same sharp pain on him that Jimmy’s few words had given her.

Before she headed upstairs, however, she made a detour to the kitchen. Lynn lifted her head from the list she was making. “Good morning, Mrs. Summers. I’ll be hitting the market this afternoon. Anything in particular you want me to pick up?”

Athena shook her head. “When the landscaping crew arrives today, would you mind talking to Hector about what he’d charge to have his crew switch out the bed in the master bedroom with the one in the yellow guest bedroom?”

Lynn lifted a brow, but she proved she was worth the money Athena paid her by not asking any questions about a topic she had no desire to discuss. “As often as you’ve given them bonuses—and my cooking—they’ll be happy to do such a quick job for nothing. Do you want me to change out the linens, put the master set on the other?”

“No. Just leave it as is. The colors of the guest spread will work fine with the master bedroom. You can go ahead and wash the master set and store them, though. If we don’t have anything suitable to replace it, draw on the household account and get something that will work.”

“You don’t want to do it yourself?” Lynn’s surprised expression reminded Athena it was unusual for her to have staff pick out specifics like that.

“No.” She didn’t want to be involved with it in any way. She didn’t want to see it happen. Bidding Lynn a good morning, she headed for her bedroom and a shower. As she moved up the steps, she laid out a list of to-dos to fill up the day, a track the train of her mind could follow without focusing on the destination. A train arrived regardless, because there was no jumping the track, was there? A train couldn’t move without its track.

Tonight, she would wear a demure outfit as she’d done in the past, to ensure she wasn’t sending out signals she was interested in playing. According to the club’s strict rules on harassment, stating it was enough, but she knew how men could be. That thought dragged her mind unwillingly to Willow. Fifteen years younger than Athena, the woman had a lithe, perky body and fresh, unmapped face.

Moving to the back of her bedroom closet, she pulled out a sleeveless black sheath with a skirt that stopped at midthigh. It had a zipper from the low scoop back to the hem, following the seam of the ass. As Dale had so kindly pointed out, she had a very hot body, thanks to her daily running and swimming regimen. She’d never worn this dress. She’d bought it for New Year’s Eve, intending to wear it for Roy. No matter how sick he was at that point, she wanted to dress up, show him that being attractive for him was still important to her. He’d died before then and she’d stayed in New Year’s Eve, the dress forgotten in the back of her closet.

She closed her fingers on it, thinking how stupid she was being. Maybe she wouldn’t go after all.

No, she had to go. Dale had said she could trust him to take care of her. That might be true during their intense . . . get-togethers, but Jimmy’s phone call reminded her she couldn’t abdicate her responsibility to take care of herself at other times, particularly if Dale’s version of being her Master couldn’t cover everything she might hope for it to be. She knew the difference between dreams and reality, and though she wasn’t a cynic, and she did have dreams, she also understood only an idiot let them obscure reality to the point she’d let herself be blindsided by a moving car.

Whatever their relationship was, she needed to see it not just as a besotted submissive exploring her cravings, but as a woman who had to protect her own heart.

—

A
pparently, his demonstrations were quite popular, because there were about thirty cars in the parking lot. Club Release only had around a hundred members, so a normal weeknight might host twenty guests, maybe thirty or forty on weekend nights. Having up to sixty in the club at once, as there appeared to be when she came in, was a very good turnout.

As she came to the top of the short set of steps that led from the hostess area to the club floor, she saw him over the heads of the crowd gathered in the main playroom. He was by the large suspension frame. Built by member volunteers out of heavy oak, the wood beams were polished to a gleam. It always reminded her of the inner workings of a tall ship.

If the participants gave permission, instructional workshops like this were filmed and put on the members-only section of the website for viewing. Accordingly, both Dale and the sub serving as his model wore concealing eyemasks, in the event the demos were ever hacked. Even so, she was familiar enough with Sally, a twentysomething blonde, that she recognized her right away. As for Dale . . . he was unmistakable, wasn’t he?

He’d already started, was explaining the different ties and loops as he did them. Sally’s hands were above her head, tied to an eyebolt in one of the vertical beams, a nonsuspension position where her feet remained on the floor, though her body was stretched upward in a nice display. All she wore was a black thong.

Sally’s visible facial features reflected that rapt internal focus Athena now understood from a much more personal viewpoint. That expression merely intensified with each knot. He was making a diamond pattern down her front, similar to what he’d knotted across Athena’s back when he had her bound to the griffin.

As he cinched a braided length of rope against Sally’s pale pink clit, splitting her labia with the pressure, she swayed. Despite her secure position, he steadied her with a firm hand on her hip. He murmured to her. Making certain she was okay, Athena was sure.

“Hey, there you are.” Jimmy’s low greeting dragged her attention to the bar. He had her drink already prepared, and she wished she’d brought a shot of something stronger for it. Putting a small straw into the glass, he slid it into her usual spot and gestured to her to join them. There were several other people at the bar, watching the demo on the flatscreen on the wall. Dale had a mic clipped to the neck of his T-shirt, so the audio came through clearly, the deep voice rumbling out of the flatscreen speakers, vibrating through every cell of Athena’s body.

As she forced herself into movement, descending the steps, Jimmy’s gaze swept over her. He gave a quiet whistle. “Wow. You’re dressed to the nines, Mistress.”

“I have to attend another party,” she lied. “But I thought I’d stop in to see the demonstration first.”

“Oh.” Jimmy didn’t cover his disappointment quickly enough. She expected he, like some of the other subs who glanced her way, had hoped she might be here to play when the demo was over. It had been a mistake to come. She couldn’t handle their expectations, their disappointment. Not combined with her own. She’d spend a few moments here, sip her drink, then head back home.

The rope-tying part of the demonstration was now done, but usually, to increase the pleasure of the crowd, the teacher would engage in a session to show how the sub reacted to additional stimulation. Dale had picked up a switch, was testing it. He would apply it to Sally’s toned thighs. Perhaps have her spread her legs and give her a few taps there. She would writhe and cry out from the pain, as Athena had done from the ruler. The braided rope he’d positioned snug between her labia would get even more soaked with her fluids when she came. Her nipples were already hard, her eyes behind the mask following Dale’s every movement. He had that effect on a sub, didn’t he? He was like a sorcerer, bespelling any woman he chose.

She couldn’t watch this. She couldn’t. She took a swallow of her soda, the carbonation burning, and put it down with a five. “Thanks, Jimmy. I have to go.”

“You just got here.”

“Sorry, my schedule was already tight. I didn’t realize . . . I just have to go.” She turned away from his puzzled expression and fled the play area. As soon as she was out of Jimmy’s sight, she increased her pace, practically trotting down the hallway toward the hostess station. She couldn’t bear to hear that first strike fall, Sally’s ecstatic cry of pain.

It was never going to be like it was with Roy. Falling in love so young, growing up together, becoming everything to one another. Ellen was right. So many people never had that dream even once; what right did she have to expect it twice? This was karma slapping her in the face for her greed. She was a submissive, yes. Dale had been right about that. But she wasn’t like a Sally or Willow, enjoying play with different Masters as part of their club membership, then returning home to their lives the rest of the week. She wanted one man, one Master, and wanted to be his sub. Committed and faithful to one another, a closed partnership. Intimate in a way that was pure fantasy, because it couldn’t happen overnight.