Naughty Wishes Part II (10 page)

“If he lets me buy this time. Fair is fair.”

“He told me to tell you he’d take it out in trade.” Troy grinned. Madison pressed her lips against a smile, but from the spark in her eye, Sam thought she didn’t mind that trade at all.

“Tell him I have some discount thongs that might look very pretty on him. I’ll let him have two for the price of three.”

Sam bit back a chuckle and Troy glanced her way. “Hey there,” he said, recognizing her. Which was impressive, because she’d spent far less time in the hardware store last time than her two roommates had. “Good to see you again. If you’re into gardening, we’re having a sale on women’s gloves today. Some fancy lady designer name brand, so they’re usually overpriced.”

It was impossible not to respond to that charming grin and those sky-blue eyes. When Chris shifted to stand closer to her, Troy’s attention moved to him. “Oh, hey, man. We got that gravel in stock you were asking about.”

“Cool. I’ll come check it out.”

Though Chris’s tone was friendly, Sam noticed there was a subtle reserve to it she wasn’t used to hearing. The last time she’d noted it was when John Howard came to pick her up for that date Chris had forever replaced in her mind with a vision of his and Geoff’s drinking game. She hadn’t remembered the date all that well until they brought it up, but since then it had been coming back in more detail. They’d both been there when John picked her up. Chris’s reaction to Troy was a more toned-down version of how they’d acted toward John, which was good, since they’d made a not pleasantly memorable impression on John.

“Have you ever been involved with either of them? Or both?” John had asked, shooting a nervous look at the house as they pulled away, as if he expected those two sets of measuring eyes to still be pinned on him.

“No,” she’d said. “They’re just protective. Like big brothers.”

Wow, what a lie that had been, but at the time she’d been trying to accept that as the limits of their relationship. Now she wondered why she’d ever made an effort toward something so ridiculous. Poor John.

Troy spoke to Madison. “I’ll go get the sandwiches at the usual time.”

Madison returned to measuring Sam for the corset. Chris moved out of the way to let her do that, wandering off toward the Dungeon Room. He didn’t go into it, instead perusing a display of violet wand options, tucking his hands in his back
jeans pocket as he studied them, his size and presence making him seem like the center of the room. Or maybe that was just because he felt like the center of the room to Sam.

“Yep, definitely some progress made,” Madison whispered to her. “Another minute and I think he would have whipped it out to mark a circle around you.”

As Sam put her hand over her mouth to stifle a giggle, Madison shifted in front of her, flipping the tape around her waist. “You could tell them Troy has a Mistress and is very devoted to her,” she continued, “but what fun would that be?”

Sam’s eyes widened. She hadn’t realized Troy was part of a Dom/sub dynamic and, with his confidence and overt masculinity, she wouldn’t have guessed he was a submissive. But then she wondered why. She was a confident, independent woman who craved submission like the best kind of chocolate. Only the misguided media, who offered controversial images of Dominance and submission out of context, depicted a submissive as a pathetically cringing caricature. From the things Chris had said, she thought he’d struggled with that same issue in addressing her desire for submission, concerned about the lines between abuse and pleasure.

“Troy’s so handsome, he can’t help but stir up the right kind of trouble,” Madison continued. “I try to take a coffee break whenever the soil or seed trucks arrive so I can watch him unload them, get all sweaty and flexy.”

“Flexy?” Sam muffled another snort. “I don’t blame you a bit.”

“It covers both areas. Flexing and sexy. Okay, I think the best match for you will be the ‘Willow’ body type range in this size for height and build.” Madison indicated the right one, pulling it off the rack. “It should do the trick, but if you ever have the chance to have a professional corsetiere fit you for one, it’s well worth it.
These are nice enough for the price, though, and lots of fun to play with.”

Geoff emerged then, a book in hand. Sam glimpsed the title,
Build-It-Yourself Bondage
, before he drew Chris over so the two of them could study it. She didn’t realize she’d closed her hands in a knot under her breasts until Madison’s hand closed over them. “It’s a crazy feeling, isn’t it, when it’s all starting?” she murmured. “I’m still not sure quite how to get a grip on it myself.”

Sam looked at her, surprised, but as if the woman felt she’d revealed too much, she stepped back, the warm but professional shopkeeper’s smile back in place. “How about you? They’re picking out things they like, but anything you’d like to see them try? Cock-and-ball harness, maybe?”

Sam couldn’t quell her bark of startled laughter, and the two men glanced her way. She shook her head, waving them off. Madison linked arms with her and strolled past a wall full of chains and straps obviously intended to bind a man’s member in many creative ways. “I think they’d both turn as white as sheets and run,” Sam said. Then she sobered. “No, most of what I want right now . . . has to do with what they want. I mean, I’m fantasizing like crazy . . .”

“About?” Madison had somehow managed to maneuver her over toward the Dungeon Room, sliding past Chris and Geoff. As they passed, Sam heard a snippet of their conversation, something about garage space and power tools. She had a feeling she was going to get the chance to see those garden gloves next door.

This was her first time in the Dungeon Room section of Madison’s shop. The smell of coffee and baked goods, the pale yellow walls, made it a comfortable space, and Madison’s arrangement of the BDSM toys was tasteful and provocative, the same way she arranged all her inventory. When Sam slowed down in front
of a display of paddles and floggers, Madison slowed with her, though she stepped out of visual range. It allowed Sam to be in her own private world as she threaded her fingers through the silky ends of a soft black flogger.

She moved on to the impact toys, classified as “thumpers” by the sign above them, which included an amusing rendering of the Disney rabbit of the same name. Her practical mind said a kitchen spoon or spatula would work as well as a paddle at far less of a cost, but one held her attention. The polished cherrywood framed a padded crimson vinyl center. “I’ve been bad” was stitched on it in a heavily knotted, thick thread she suspected would add to the impact when used.

She wanted to be really bad for Geoff and Chris. She also wanted to be oh-so-very-good for them. As she traced the edge of the paddle, Madison nudged Sam’s shoulder with her own. “I’m going to leave you in here to look around. You’re being watched, just so you know.”

“I can feel them,” Sam murmured. Madison squeezed her arm and retreated. Growing ever more fascinated, Sam moved along the wall and floor displays. Wrist restraints came in everything from iron shackles to padded Velcro. Geoff would choose something padded, she knew that. In the heat of the moment, he’d implied he was interested in rougher things, but as much as he had enjoyed spanking her, turning her ass red, the only one she knew more protective of her well-being than him was Chris. But what would Geoff do if he realized she was curious enough to explore what “rougher” might mean? She didn’t know how much of that she’d enjoy in reality, but she’d really thought about some of it.

She was now in the sensory deprivation area, over which was a compelling erotic black-and-white print of a woman in a lace black teddy and a full head mask. The eyes and ears were sealed, depriving her of those senses. All that showed of
her face was her moist red lips, parted to take a chocolate from her Master’s hand as she knelt at his feet. As Sam’s gaze coursed down to the head masks on display, she landed on one crafted of overlapping gray feathers, tightly sewn against the mold so they looked smooth as a dove’s breast.

Several gag options were arranged around it that could cover the mouth opening and match the colors and style of the rest of the mask. One was a short phallic-shaped plug. Another was larger and thicker. She could imagine it filling her mouth, holding down her tongue so that her loudest cries would be muffled. Where the eyes would be, the mask’s designer had painted a pair of eyes in shades of gray and black, rounded and lit like a dove’s eyes.

Looking closer, Sam saw the black pupils were Velcro patches. When she pulled one away the eye hole was no bigger than a pencil eraser. A sub could be allowed to see, but only in a very limited way, and in the direction her Master desired. An additional accessory could be purchased with the mask—a silver collar designed to look like the band put around a bird’s leg to indicate where the bird belonged.

As she petted the smooth feathers covering the mask, Sam read the card that went along with it. The artist guaranteed the feathers were gathered from ripe-plucking, meaning she’d acquired the feathers after they’d been dropped naturally by chickens after molting. As Sam had been an ethical vegan since she’d done a project about Gandhi in middle school, that made the mask all the more tempting, but she saw the price. While she was certain the mask was worth it, it was way beyond her budget. Beyond that, it felt presumptuous of her to buy it, as if she was trying to tell Geoff or Chris what to do. Still, she couldn’t help imagining how that mask would look with the items her two men had picked out for her,
particularly that gray corset.

She made herself move onward, to the whip display. She learned that a dragon tail was a whip that looked like a triangle of velvet cloth attached to a wooden handle. The bull whip made her think of Indiana Jones. This one was made of kangaroo hide. She wouldn’t feel right about buying something like that, but she had no problem integrating an animal-free version into her fantasies. She wondered what it would be like to be tied up and feel one of those whips snap over her flesh. If it hurt a lot, she probably wouldn’t like it, but trusting Geoff to take her on that journey, help her learn how much she could take, was something she would like.

Truth, her fascination with it probably had more to do with its psychological impact. She thought of Indiana Jones snaking his whip around Winnie’s waist to jerk her back to him in an overwhelmingly dominant way in
Temple of Doom
. She thought of Geoff trailing the fall over her breasts, looping it around her throat, letting it caress her there, wrapping it over her arms to hold them to her sides . . .

She let out an unsteady breath. When she shifted back, her buttock pressed against a wall of flesh behind her. A glance showed her Geoff on her right, Chris on the left. “Finding anything you can’t live without?” Geoff asked.

She looked up into his hazel eyes, then shifted her attention to Chris’s brown ones. “Yeah,” she said in a throaty voice.

And the stuff on the walls is pretty nice, too.

*   *   *

She didn’t purchase anything for herself, but Chris bought the ring, which she
left on her finger. Geoff bought a handful of Velcro cuffs, the soft flogger she’d touched, and the
Build-It-Yourself Bondage
book. Just as she expected, he and Chris said they needed to go next door and pick up a few things. Madison gave her a smile, a scone and a to-go cup of coffee. “If you get tired of all the manly shopping, come back over and we can chat between customers.”

Sam nodded. Chris and Geoff had already gone on ahead of her, so she paused in the door. “How long do you think it takes to get your mind wrapped around it?” she ventured. Since Madison had changed the subject after making that personal comment, Sam wasn’t sure if she’d get an answer, but she had to ask.

A shadow crossed Madison’s expression. “Sometimes the hardest thing to do is get out of your own way,” Madison said slowly. Looking up, she gave Sam a reassuring smile. “But honestly, I think that’s more my problem. It seems to me you’ve already wrapped your mind around it. The unknown is the two of them. Your biggest challenge may be helping them do what Logan is helping me do. I mean, the guy I’m . . .”

She blew out a breath at Sam’s grin and shook her head. “He’s helping me get out of my own way, but I expect that’s an affliction a Dom can feel as much as a sub. Especially if the Dom or man in question is already insanely in love with you, as your two are.”

Sam flushed but Madison waved a hand. “It’s pretty obvious,” she said amiably, the shadows disappearing from her expression. “Watching the three of you could jump-start a corpse’s libido. In fact . . .” She considered Sam. “I’m considering starting an erotic performance theater. I have a friend up in New York who runs a community theater, but she’s been talking about making a change. I might coax her down here to help me get something like that going.”

“That would be amazing.”

“I’ve already been researching different forms of erotic performance and how I can integrate some of my artisan-quality pieces here as part of the sets. Like that dove mask, which would look gorgeous on you.” Madison gave her a knowing look. “Anyway, if it comes to life, I’ll send you an invitation. Then I’ll see if I can talk you three into getting up onstage.”

“Oh hell no.” The words were out before Sam could bite them back. Madison laughed.

“We’ll see,” the shopkeeper said. “Always keep your options open.”

Sam left her with a grin and a wave. When she moved down the sidewalk to the propped-open front door of the hardware store and stepped inside, she saw it was moderately busy. Midmornings were obviously a more active time for hardware shopping than lingerie. She saw the gloves Troy had mentioned and picked out a bright green pair with a pattern of ladybugs on them. She could hear Geoff’s voice a few aisles over and Chris responding. Knowing where they were contented her. Since the main reason she wanted to be here had to do with that and not so much with shopping, she wandered over to a patio set.

While a sign noted that it was a display, with stock available in the back, she expected it was also there to accommodate patient wives or girlfriends, due to the amusing selection of women’s magazines and secondhand paperback romances, as well as a dish of wrapped chocolates. Groupings of potted flowers, plants and lawn ornamentation likely to catch a female gardener’s eye were arranged around the same area, as well as a terra-cotta planter full of the brightly colored gloves. It looked like a fabric bouquet.