Wanting Wilder (14 page)

“Who matches the clients?”

Isla smiled. “Macy. Once she makes a match, the case is assigned to a team. The team works through the particulars, basically negotiating between the two parties, and then we set up the meet.”

“That sounds simple enough.” Lydia frowned. There had to be more to it.

“It’s not.” Wilder stood in the doorway, his thumb linked through his belt loop in a casual stance. He held two mugs in his other hand. “Security has to vet each possible client. Sometimes we have to look for the other half of the pairing based on scant clues in the application. The teams have to wade through the massive application to make sense of it all and to figure out what the real wish entails.”

While it hadn’t seemed as simple as Isla made it, the process also didn’t seem as complicated as Wilder painted it. Lydia frowned as Wilder handed the mugs to Isla and her. “Aren’t client applications matched based on similarities? And what do you mean by ‘real wish’?”

Wilder held her gaze with his steady expression. “People rarely ask for what they really want. And we’re not an escort service. We don’t do flings or one-night stands. That’s why we’re so selective.”

After that enigmatic statement, Wilder scowled, turned, and left her office. Lydia looked to Isla for an answer.

Isla gave her a sad smile. “Oasis specializes in bringing together people who were meant to be together. Rarely do our fantasies end after the allotted time. Most of what you’ll be doing is trying to figure out what the wisher really wants. They ask for a weekend with their boss, but they really want a lifetime. They ask for a fling with a look-alike because they don’t think the real person wants them. They want to be kidnapped by a handsome Dom because they’re in an unhappy marriage.”

The wishes whirred through Lydia’s head. She felt bad for some of those people.

But Isla merely smiled. “So we give them a fantasy that leads to having that lifetime. We match up the real people when they’re not expecting it. We have the woman’s husband kidnap her so they can move their relationship to solid ground.”

Lydia frowned. “I don’t understand. Both parties made wishes? What are the odds of that?”

“Not good,” Isla agreed. “Plus, there are no guarantees. We give relationships a jump start. After they leave the parameters of the fantasy, it’s up to them to continue to evolve together. That’s why we have to be creative. We issue a gift certificate, or contact the husband with some free Dom lessons, or investigate the target the best we can. We take calculated risks.”

For some reason, Lydia had believed she’d be bringing together strangers. “Is there ever a case where the clients don’t know one another?”

Isla shook her head. “People always know their soul mates. Sometimes they don’t recognize them. That’s where we come in.”

It seemed awfully presumptuous on their part. “But that means we have to be getting it wrong a lot. We’re breaking people’s hearts.”

“No. Macy makes all the pairings. She’s never wrong. She has a sixth sense about these things. When Macy tells one of us to be in a certain place or to do a certain thing, we do it. She’s been right about everyone. Every time.”

It occurred to her that Macy had to have ordered Wilder to take on Lydia. She stuttered and sputtered forever before she finally stammered the question. “She doesn’t honestly think that Wilder and I— If every new hire has to have a fantasy fulfilled, then why aren’t they all married?”

Isla pressed her lips together. “I’m not sure I should answer that.”

“Isla, I deserve to know the truth.”

“You do.” The little blonde woman stared at the floor. “Eventually.”

Lydia rose to her feet. She refused to be a pawn in anyone’s game. “I demand to know if this wish thing is de rigueur or if I’m being singled out.”

Moving with catlike grace, Isla stood. For a woman who was about four inches shorter, she was a much more imposing presence. Lydia realized she was dealing with a Domme.

Isla parked her hands on her hips. “You’re sort of being singled out. If it’s worth knowing, Wilder is too. I think Macy is tired of having to drag him out of his basement all the time just to get him to interact with other people. I can’t say she had a vision about you two because this was Micah’s idea. It has her blessing, but it didn’t come from her.”

The entire office knew about it. Lydia had to wonder if they were being so friendly because they wanted to find things to gossip about or if they genuinely were this welcoming. “Wilder knows?”

Isla answered as if she’d anticipated the question. “My guess is a big, fat no. Micah spun him a tale about a perfect wish coordinator he’d found who had never been a submissive in a meaningful way. I don’t have all the details, but I do know how persuasive Micah can be. And he’s one of Wild’s closest friends. There’s history and loyalty between them.”

She and Wilder had history between them, but no loyalty. Did Micah know about that spring break fling all those years ago? Lydia stopped breathing for a moment, and then she shook herself mentally. It didn’t matter what Micah knew or didn’t know. It had happened years ago. She and Wilder had washed that water under the bridge the first day. And Wilder had only agreed to dominate her because she hadn’t wanted a physical or emotional entanglement.

He’d offered friendship.

Lydia stared at the floor. “Thank you for telling me. I’m not sure I want to stay here.” She’d given up everything to take a gamble on this dream, but she couldn’t come to a place day after day, knowing that everyone was smirking behind her back.

Isla put her hand on Lydia’s arm. “Don’t be hasty. We rarely take on new hires. When we do, we’re sure they belong here. Nobody is expecting you to end up with Wilder. But you’re both a little gun-shy—I think that’s an apt description—and we’re hoping maybe you’ll both discover a little bit of inner peace.”

For eight years, Lydia had been hiding a vital part of herself. The only person she’d been able to rely on was Master V, and even that was a sham of a relationship. Still, thanks to him, she put herself out there for a few dates, learned about herself, and applied for this job. It hadn’t brought her peace, but it had put her on the right path.

Later, after Isla had left her with the tablet and helped her read through one of the case files, Wilder returned to help her finish setting up her office. Once again, they fell into that quiet companionship as they worked alongside each other.

“What was it like to grow up with parents who openly practice BDSM?” The question slipped into a silent moment. Lydia hadn’t meant to ask, but having spent the past eight years convinced she would forever be in the BDSM closet, she was fascinated by the idea of living openly and honestly.

Wilder shrugged. “I can’t see that it was very different from what most of my friends experienced. Micah and Jude’s parents let them do more stuff when we were teens, like see R-rated movies and fly alone on airplanes. My parents were pretty conservative. Ever and I used to go to the O’Connor house to see movies we wanted to see that our parents wouldn’t let us watch.”

Lydia rolled her eyes and straightened a plaque she’d hung on the wall across the room from her desk. “I meant, did you grow up thinking it was normal for a wife to call her husband ‘Master’? And for your mom to be physically punished for breaking rules?” By most of society’s definitions, that kind of thing would have been called abusive. Except it wasn’t, not when safety precautions had been taken and everything was consensual.

The stack of moving boxes had dwindled to one. Wilder opened the lid and eyed the contents. “You’re under the impression my dad wore the pants in the family.” He chuckled. “If Mom wasn’t happy, nobody was happy. That was also true in most of my friends’ houses. Women own men’s souls. Anybody who says differently is in denial.”

Thinking back on her parents’ relationship, she couldn’t disagree. She crossed the room and joined him next to the box. It was filled with candles. “Oh. That was supposed to go to the apartment.”

He looked up, a strange light glimmering in his pale eyes. “You like candles?”

Catching the drift of his thoughts, she gave him an apologetic smile. “Not like that. I just like the way they smell and the ambience they lend to a room.”

Wilder’s mouth curved in a small smile. “Me too. I’m not into hot wax play. I tried it once, but I was terrified the whole time I’d mess up and leave a burn or a scar. I used so much ice the sub said it was more like ice play and less like heat play.”

She squeezed his shoulder and fought the urge to keep feeling the hard muscles there. “You’re gifted with a flogger. That’s definitely a strength. And the ropes.” She took a deep breath, enjoying the heady scent of him. “You haven’t answered my question. You don’t have to if you don’t want to. I don’t know if it’s too personal.”

He shook his head. “It’s not. The truth is that I never noticed. Mom called Dad ‘honey,’ and he generally called her cute names that my siblings and I found embarrassing. They were very close, and they almost never argued. I never saw my dad punish my mom. Looking back, I know it had to have happened, but it never took place in front of us. My dad once said that those things were between a Dom and his sub and nobody else.”

His eyes had taken on a somber, faraway look as he talked about his past, but now they returned, focusing on her with laser intensity. Tension, the kind that made her want to rub her crotch against his leg, crackled in the air. A door slammed down the hall, jolting them from the moment. Wilder cleared his throat and looked away.

“Once, right after we turned eighteen, Ever and I decided to test our parents’ midnight curfew rule. We stayed out until two. The house was quiet when we got home. The porch light was on, but that wasn’t unusual. We generally left it on all night anyway. As we crept to our rooms, we heard the crack of a whip coming from my parents’ room. We knew, strictly in a theoretical way, about their relationship. They always answered any questions we had as honestly as they could.” His mouth twitched. “But kids don’t want to know that much about what their parents do in the bedroom, you know?”

She nodded. “Did you hurry past and hope they didn’t catch you?”

The twitch turned into a full-out smile that stole Lydia’s breath. “They heard us. Dad came to the door, opened it a crack, but it was enough to see that he was wearing black leather pants. He was a suit-and-tie kind of man. On the weekends, he wore comfortable jeans. I’d never seen him in anything like that before.”

At least he can laugh about it now
. Lydia’s horror had faded. The grin he struggled to contain hinted at a humorous outcome to what must have been a traumatic experience.

“I think we both stared at him. He asked us if we had a good reason for coming home late and not calling. Ever stammered something, but Dad cut him off. He said we’d caused my mom enough grief for one weekend, and we should go to bed. He said we’d need the rest in order to clean out the basement in the morning.”

Wilder secured the lid back on the box and set it next to the door. Since her office was now completely unpacked and the furniture arranged exactly how she wanted, she had nothing to do but wait for him to continue. When he took his time, she gestured for him to speak. “Well?”

He shrugged. “Well, nothing. We got up early and cleaned out the basement. By the time my sister called us for breakfast, we had been working for a couple of hours. Mom came downstairs wearing the fluffy bathrobe she always wore. She had a dreamy, contented look in her eyes that we’d seen frequently over the years. She and Dad smiled at each other a lot. Ever and I never stayed out past curfew again.”

The story confused Lydia somewhat. She’d expected the experience to be more traumatic. “Because you had to clean out the basement?”

“No.” He held her jacket out, indicating it was time to leave. “Because we realized she had been so worried about us that she had needed a scene to calm down. Dad had to have been equally as worried, and he had to take care of Mom in that state. It wasn’t fair to either of them. Plus, there was nothing to do that late at night. Almost everything closes at midnight, and everybody knew we had a curfew, so we couldn’t hang out anywhere we’d be seen.”

She went to take her jacket from him, but he opened it up and motioned for her to turn around. He held the light fleece dress jacket while she slid her arms into it, and then he smoothed his hands down the arms. Lydia wondered at the tender care he took, but given the way he talked about the deep level of nurturing and respect in his parents’ relationship, she figured he couldn’t be anything but gentlemanly. She wanted to ask about his father’s death, but now wasn’t the time to bring up painful and—she was guessing—recent memories.

Though she’d decided it wasn’t personal, she still felt herself blossoming under his careful attention. Exiting the building took more time than she thought it might. Oasis staff proved to be very friendly. Some people called greetings, and others stopped them to chat for a few seconds. By the time she fastened the seat belt on the passenger side of Wilder’s Jeep, her head was reeling with good wishes.

“I think I know who most of them are now. Thanks for your help today.”

Wilder pulled out of the lot and onto the street. “You’re welcome. I can’t imagine what it’s like to move to another state and work where you know absolutely nobody but the person who hired you.”

Lydia shrugged, only just beginning to realize the freedom she’d gained with this move. “I couldn’t be myself where I was. My family and friends thought I needed therapy. I couldn’t seem to connect with anyone who could meet my needs.” And it wasn’t just the sex. She craved a full-time Dom who could give her the freedom and the opportunities to truly be herself. And now she could admit it.

“What about your local BDSM community? Did you try going to munches and things like that?” Wilder glanced at her from the corner of his eye, a quick movement she caught only because oncoming traffic provided the necessary light.

“I tried a couple different events. I’m not naturally outgoing. Both times, it seemed like I was a fifth wheel intruding on an established group of friends and lovers.” She left out the part about feeling like fresh meat. “And I really wanted to try it without the complications sex brings.”