Breathe (7 page)

Samantha shifted on the countertop, searching for a cool spot to move her cheek to.

Elijah Masterson wore dominance the way he wore a suit: as if he’d been born for it. And Samantha suspected that he was the kind of man who took care of what was his.

Her knee-jerk reaction to refuse his offer to help her explore her sexuality came from her mother’s “career” as a mistress—she knew that. She would have felt the same whether she’d already succumbed to her desire for him or not. But she was so damn tired of being in charge all the time.

Rising slowly, Samantha inhaled deeply, then stretched as she looked out the window. The sun was rising, a tangerine ball in a brilliant blue sky. She’d always loved Mexico—had felt more at peace here than she had anywhere else. It was the first place that had come to mind when she realized she needed to put some distance between herself and her mother to focus on her art . . . and her sanity. Pouring herself another cup of coffee, she sipped slowly, savoring the taste. She’d thought about submission long enough to know that it was more than a passing fancy for her. And she knew—deep down she knew—that she would work hard for the money that Elijah had offered her, which made it a different situation from Gemma’s entirely.

But that didn’t mean she had to accept easily. She had a term that she wanted to add to Elijah’s offer, one she’d come up with in the early hours of the morning. One she suspected he would be both suspicious of and eager to accept.

She’d convince him. And she was very much looking forward to seeing the look on his face when she asked. She just had one thing to do first.

•   •   •

“P
reciosa!”
Samantha couldn’t hold back the grin as she entered Dos Hermanos, the small café that sat on the edge of San José del Cabo closest to her cottage.

The man who rounded the counter with his arms open for a hug was only an inch or so taller than she was, but he was thick with muscle. He was handsome in a Latin-lover kind of way and flirted with every woman under the sun, from girls who were newly legal to elderly women with blue hair.

“Morning, Jorge.” She let herself be enfolded in his hug, inhaling the comforting aroma of peppers and spice. “Got room for one for breakfast?”

He gestured around the largely empty café, then tilted his head toward the counter. The grill he cooked on was behind it, and those who sat at the counter could watch their food being prepared.

“Come, sit and talk to me.” He took Samantha’s hand in his as he led her toward the back of the café.

Samantha sat contentedly on one of the high stools. Jorge was the closest thing she had to a friend in Cabo, and she smiled at him as he placed a steaming cup of coffee and a glass of some sort of juice in front of her.

“You’ll eat what I make you, yes?” Samantha’s grin at his words melted into a sigh of pleasure as she took a sip of what turned out to be freshly made mango juice.

She’d never understood why the café wasn’t busier. The thought was only reinforced when Jorge placed a plateful of eggs scrambled ranchero style, with jalapeños and tomato, homemade tortillas, and green sauce in front of her. She dug in eagerly.

“Still haven’t learned to cook, ah?” Jorge chuckled as he leaned his elbows on the counter and watched Samantha devour her meal. She’d lost track of time since seeing Elijah yesterday . . . In fact, she was pretty sure she hadn’t eaten since before he’d showed up at her house. She cringed. She would have given Beth hell for doing the same thing, so she really didn’t have a leg to stand on.

Jorge was quiet as Samantha ate, which suited her just fine. She’d always been quiet, a bit of a loner. One of the reasons she preferred him to his brother Angelo, who co-owned the café, was because Jorge just let her be.

But Angelo was the reason that Samantha was there that morning. She had a very, very big favor to ask of him.

“Jorge—” She waited until he’d cleared her plate away and refilled her coffee cup. She felt slightly nauseous, but wasn’t sure if that was a result of stuffing her face after unwittingly fasting for twenty-four hours, or if it was because of what she was about to ask. “I have a . . . question to ask about Angelo.”

“About Angelo?” Jorge wiped the counter in front of Samantha with a white rag, and she caught the scent of lemon cleaner as he moved. “
Sí
, what is it?”

“Ah, well . . .” Samantha trained her eyes on the wall behind him as she gathered her courage. She hated that she felt embarrassed to ask about something she truly wanted, but she knew she was about to shock her friend to the core.

“
Preciosa
, you can tell me anything. You know that.” Jorge caught one of Samantha’s hands in his and looked into her eyes. She was startled when she found a flicker of something more than friendship reflected in the depths.

It threw her off guard enough that she blurted out what was circling her mind.

“Angelo is into BDSM, right?” She cringed when she caught Jorge’s expression. Apart from one drunken night with the two brothers in which Angelo had mentioned that he was a part of the BDSM lifestyle, it wasn’t something they’d talked about. She’d known that she would shock Jorge, but she wasn’t prepared for the heat that crossed his face as well.

“Sí.”
Jorge looked her up and down and Samantha squirmed under the stare. “He is—how do you say?—Dominant. He makes no secret of it. Why are you asking this, Samantha?”

Samantha picked up her coffee cup and took a long swallow to hide her discomfiture. This next question—this was the hard part.

“I want to go to Devorar, and I was wondering if he would go with me.” She set her cup down on the counter with a sharp clack, felt the jolt reverberate through her wrist as Jorge studied her face.

“You are interested in such things?” The sexy Latin man pinned her with that intense stare, and Samantha felt like a fly pinned to a wall. “You have never gone to a club?”

“I . . . yes.” Samantha wouldn’t soften her true desires just to make them sound less shocking. “Yes, I am very interested. There are things I . . . that I think I might find there. And, no, I’ve never been to a club. That’s why I don’t want to go alone.”

Jorge cocked his head, still studying her.

“I do not think you are submissive,” he said finally. Samantha’s pensive expression melted sharply into a scowl.

Just because she could be outspoken, just because she knew nothing else besides taking charge, didn’t mean she didn’t want to have that control taken away from her.

“How would you know?” she snapped, irritated enough that she didn’t try to soften her voice. “It’s not your thing, is it? That’s why I asked about Angelo, not you.”

Jorge nodded, his expression thoughtful. “This is true.” He steepled his fingers beneath his chin. “I did not find what I was looking for in the dynamics of such a relationship. That does not mean I am ignorant of the lifestyle, however. My brother has practiced it for over ten years, and I dabbled in it when I was younger.”

“You?” Samantha eyed the man incredulously, then cursed herself for making assumptions about him just as he had about her. Still, he hadn’t mentioned it the one time they’d spoken of it, nearly a year earlier, so it caught her by surprise.

Jorge could be a bit domineering, but he’d never made it a secret that he liked bossy women who took charge—women like her, she realized with a sinking sensation in her stomach.

Oh, she was so blind.

The hand in which Jorge clenched her fingers tightened. She bit her lower lip nervously and looked up to find that spark of desire out in full force.

“For you, I would try it again. If that is truly what you want.”

Samantha sucked in a mouthful of air. How had she not seen this coming?

When she’d first moved to Mexico she’d felt . . . free. But she’d also felt a bit lonely, homebody though she was.

Jorge had helped to fill that gap. She’d never thought of him as anything but a friend.

If she wanted to keep that friendship, she knew she needed to be brutally honest.

“Jorge, I appreciate the offer. I do.” Gently she tugged her hand from his, placing it in her lap and out of reach.

His eyes followed the movement and resignation spread over his face.

“I . . . I think I’ve met someone.” Elijah’s image flashed through her mind—she could never forget the power and intensity in his blue eyes when they looked at her. In the space of moments he’d been able to make her feel like the only woman in the world.

“And this person you’ve met, he is dominant?” Jorge nodded as if in understanding, but Samantha knew her friend well enough to see that he was filing away his own emotions behind those expressive dark eyes of his.

“He is.” Samantha shivered as she thought about it.

“You will not pretend to be someone you aren’t for a man.” Jorge was looking at her again, this time with an inscrutable expression. His words were a statement, not a question, because
he
knew
her
well enough to know that Samantha didn’t pull her punches.

“This is something I want.” Samantha’s voice was soft. “I mean . . . I think I want it. That’s why I’d like to go to Devorar first, to get a taste before I . . . before I dive in headfirst.”

Jorge nodded, pulled his cell phone from the pocket of the apron tied around his hips, and tapped out a text message. A moment later the phone vibrated, indicating a reply had come through.

“He will go with you.” Jorge slid his phone back into his pocket. “Though he would prefer to go to Pecado
here in town. He prefers it there.”

“Thank you.” It felt as if a weight had been lifted off Samantha’s chest. It was replaced by a heady sense of jittery excitement.

Finally, she would see if these needs she felt were real. For all she knew, she’d get one look at what happened inside the club and would run screaming into the night.

Somehow, though, she suspected the opposite would be true.

A thought occurred to her, and she looked up at Jorge with alarm.

“I don’t have to have sex with Angelo if I go to the club with him, do I?” Angelo Aguirre was every bit as good-looking as his brother, but Samantha wasn’t the type to jump into sex with just anyone.

Before Elijah, she could count the number of partners she’d had on two fingers.

Instead of laughing at her, or answering in the affirmative, Jorge again took Samantha’s hand in his. His fingers rested lightly on the paper-thin skin of her wrist where her pulse pounded.

“If that was the case, I would absolutely be the one going with you.” His voice was completely serious, and Samantha’s mouth went dry. “But I never had a chance, did I?”

Samantha looked down at where her friend’s tanned skin touched her own. Biting her lip, she shook her head slowly. “I’m sorry.”

And she genuinely was. Life would be easier if she could fall for Jorge. Jorge, who never pressed her about her past, who would never demand more than she wanted to give.

Elijah, she knew, would not be easy.

The thought was exciting and arousing.

“Angelo will stop by your house later to talk to you about tonight.” Jorge waved the money away when Samantha produced a handful of pesos from her pocket to pay for her meal. Heaviness weighed on top of her anticipation as she slowly rose from the stool, knowing that, somehow, this conversation had changed her friendship with Jorge irrevocably.

She accepted his hug before she turned to go. She could feel his eyes on her back as she walked away, and it made her self-conscious—something she rarely was.

She pushed the thought away. She wasn’t a cruel woman, and she knew that she’d never led Jorge on.

He would figure out soon enough that they would never have worked. In the meantime she would give him some space.

And she would get a taste of a BDSM club before she dove headfirst and offered to Elijah what she was considering offering to him.

The thought made her belly quiver.

She couldn’t wait for the evening to come.

CHAPTER FOUR

“I
’m going to be down here for longer than I’d anticipated.” Elijah reclined in the leather chair at his desk as he spoke on the phone, looking down at the orange sports sandals he’d bought on a whim earlier that day.

Anywhere but in Mexico, he dressed in a suit and tie. One of the reasons he so loved working from his Mexican resorts was that he could shed the business wardrobe and relax a bit, even at work.

“Everything going all right?” Alex Fraser was one of Elijah’s best friends. He and Luca Santangelo had once been just business acquaintances, but a shared interest in extraordinary wine and the BDSM lifestyle had led the three extremely wealthy men to a joint venture.

In Vino Veritas was an upscale wine bar combined with a BDSM club, and the three shared ownership. They’d wanted a place where they could explore their interests in a manner that suited them.

“It’s fine.” Elijah knew his reluctance to visit Devorar that evening was about more than missing the club back home . . . and it had everything to do with one smart-mouthed redhead. “But I would like your opinion on something, if you have time.”

“I’ve got a few minutes. Then I need to see Maddy before she goes to work.”

Unbidden, Elijah felt a flash of jealousy. He didn’t begrudge his friend the love he’d found with his fiancée, nor was he particularly jealous of the woman, though if he’d met her first, he would have pursued her relentlessly.

No, the jealousy came from the fact that Alex had found someone who both loved him and balanced him. In terms of dominance and submission, Alex and Maddy complemented each other perfectly.

That
was what Elijah longed for. He’d thought he’d found it with his ex-wife.

He’d been wrong.

“We’ve both been in the lifestyle for a long time,” Elijah began, shifting restlessly in his chair.

“Over ten years,” Alex agreed. The men were the same age and had both discovered their interest in alternative lifestyles during college.

“How often do you read someone wrong? Have you ever been convinced that someone isn’t submissive but it turns out that they are?”