REVEAL - Scorpio & Harlan (Fettered Book 2) (10 page)

I
t’s getting too damn
cold to be walking around late at night. I keep Scorpio’s hand in mine and watch her for shivering. Hell, I watch her for everything.

She stuffs her other hand in her pocket and grins at me. “Stop fretting. I grew up in Minnesota. This is practically like summer.”

I realize just how much I know about her—and how little. “How’d you end up here?”

“School. Band. Boy.”

I don’t know if that’s multiple choice or just the short version of a long story, but it’s clearly not what she wants to talk about right now. I look over at her again, making sure she’s as solid as she sounds.

She rolls her eyes at me. “Tonight was awesome and you can stop worrying about me.”

I can’t, but I can at least try to pretend. “That was a pretty big scene, even if it doesn’t feel like it. Public stuff can bring up a lot of issues.”

She shrugs and squeezes my hand. “You warned me we’d be playing that way. A collection of my friends and old-hand club members is a pretty friendly public.”

I stop and turn her toward me, because I need to see her eyes. “Even when they got off on your very noisy pleasure?”

She’s looking embarrassed now, but she meets my gaze. “People used to get off on my singing too. Not quite like that, but close enough. I like sharing. I like knowing other people caught a piece of the good thing I was riding tonight.”

She’s so damn beautiful. “Your boss was looking pretty happy.”

The sound that comes out of my gorgeous sub is almost a giggle. “So was yours.”

“Damon’s found something different since Emily showed up.” Something that maybe the rest of us are suddenly looking for, and that’s shaking me. I thought I had the life I wanted. “He daydreams in his office when he thinks we aren’t watching.”

Scorpio’s grin is big enough to light up half the night. “Emily put her ribbon samples in the fridge yesterday. And one morning last week her shoes didn’t match.”

I look down at her hand in mine. I’m beginning to have an idea of just how brains get scrambled like that.

Scorpio cuddles into my side as we start walking again. “Who’s Ari’s new guy?”

“He’s visiting from a club in L.A. He’s basically her counterpart down there. He came up here to learn from the best.” And apparently she decided to play with him. “He was doing a really good job with her, and that’s not all that easy.”

Scorpio’s forehead wrinkles. “Ari’s got mad skills.”

“Yeah. She can be a good sub for almost anyone, but most guys run into trouble trying to be a Dom for her. They work too hard or they get insecure or they decide they need to prove something or they treat her like a damn trophy.”

My wise sub snorts. “I bet she doesn’t let them get away with that shit.”

Too much sometimes, because she has a soft heart and she wants them to learn. “She’s a good trainer, but that can ruin her fun.”

I feel the sudden tensing under my arm as we turn into the small apartment building where she lives. “Is it ruining yours? Teaching me how to do this?”

Shit—I walked right into that one. “No.” I stop and turn her to face me again. “Tonight was the most fun I’ve had at the club in a really long time, beautiful.” Or out of it.

Her eyes are solemn in the dim of the night. “I want to be what you need.”

“Start with being what you need, okay? That’s the first step here.” That’s the Dom answer, and it somehow hurts to say it out loud. Because the man has a different one. The man could be totally happy with what he has right now. The man doesn’t want to push.

The Dom wants a chance to see what lives out the other side. Wants to give her that chance. Which is tossing the man in way over his head.

I reach for her, because it’s the Dom who’s made her promises. “Come sit with me for a minute. I’ve got something to ask you.”

H
e tugs
me over to a planter box and pulls me into his lap. My landlady will have fits—I’m pretty sure he’s sitting on her prize petunias. I don’t say anything, because his energy has totally shifted, and he’s making me nervous.

He reaches into his pocket, pulls out a folded-up envelope, and hands it to me. “Which one is it?”

I slowly flip through what he’s handed me. It’s three of the pictures from Ari’s collection. The restraints one I’ve already given him, and two more. I recognize them both. I look up at him, knowing I’m starting to shake and hating it. “I don’t understand.” All I know is that he’s ruining my high, my really good night, my calm.

Shoving me back on a sharp edge, and I don’t want to be there.

His hand is stroking my back before I finish cursing him in my head. Soothing. Demanding. “Which is the one that makes you want something you haven’t told me about?”

I’m turning clammy and I’m not even sure why. “I gave you the one I liked the best.”

A low, hard growl. “Don’t fuck with me, Scorpio.”

I look at the other two pictures, frustrated and pissy and ready to kick him in the knees because I’m not hiding anything and he’s making me feel like a liar and all they are is two fucking pictures—and then I know. I know exactly what he’s seen, and there’s no freaking way I can say it out loud.

I glare a hole at the image that’s trying to make me weak. “Hard limit.”

He stands me up, facing him, and his eyes are full of cold, dark compassion. “That’s not what limits are for, beautiful. You don’t get to use them to push away something you want. Not when I can see it all over your face.”

I want to throw every word of his fucking contract in his face. “This
isn’t
what I want.” I’m shaking with something hot and mean. “Why are you pushing on me? Tonight was amazing and now I feel like you’re throwing dirt on it and telling me I wasn’t good enough.”

Fire, to fight what I’m really afraid of.

He cups my face in his big, fierce, gentle hands. “You took your place in my world tonight and you were absolutely gorgeous and nobody can take that away from you.” He takes a ragged breath, and for the first time in this whole deal, I smell his doubt. “That’s not what I’m trying to do here, I promise you.”

It’s the doubt that does me in. I want so much to cuddle into his chest, but I can’t make myself move. “I don’t need all the edges. I lived that life once. I won’t do it again. I’m fine with just a few of them.”

Not this one. Please, not this one.

I can hear his breath, moving in and out. Steadying. His confidence reforming, the gut-deep sense that what he’s doing is right. When he finally reaches a hand to my face, his words are gentle, but absolutely solid. “Take the photos with you. Think about them. If this is still a hard limit for you in the morning and you tell me you’re doing it for the right reasons, I’ll respect that.”

He gives me one of those looks that says he sees right into the chambers of my heart. Then he turns and walks away, and not once, down the entire block that I watch him, does he turn and look back.

D
amn
him to all fourteen levels of hell and back.

I pour myself a bowl of granola, the good kind with chocolate and coconut and little bits of pineapple that I used to eat by the pound to keep sane on the road. It’s my ultimate comfort food, but I’m pretty sure granola isn’t going to do a darn thing for the storm Harlan has set off inside me.

I stare at the photo that’s been propped on my kitchen table for the last hour. I’ve considered burning it, but that would probably just get me a visit from some nice firefighters who don’t want to hear why I’m using a photograph of a chick in a sexy negligée as tinder.

I trace her face with my finger. I know why she sets me off. It’s the look in her eyes. The thing I don’t want to want. I can tell Harlan—but I know what will happen if I do, and I’m not sure I can stand it.

There are some pieces of me I’m not looking to break.

The knock on my fire-escape door has me jerking so hard I almost dump my granola. I grumble and yank the door open, and blink in surprise when it’s Ari on the other side.

She holds up a bakery bag. “Chocolate éclairs. Don’t shoot.”

I scowl. “Did Harlan send you?”

Her eyebrows fly up. “No. Did he need to?” She walks in and takes the other seat at my table. She’s watching me the whole time, just like he does.

“Fuck.” I push my granola out of the way and lay my head down on my arms. “You all have the same eyes, and I’m sick and tired of people studying me like I might crack at any moment.”

“Oh, boy.” A container of orange juice clunks down by my head. “Drink. Now.”

I shoot her an evil look. “What, do you all get lessons in the gravel voice thing?”

She taps my nose with her finger and grins. “I give those lessons, girlfriend.” She opens the orange juice for me. “I don’t know if you’re crashing or just cranky, but this should help either way. Bottoms up.”

I drink, partly because my insides are suddenly screaming for sweet and tangy, and partly because I can see the warm compassion in her eyes that disappeared from Harlan’s last night.

She waits until I finish every drop. Then she opens the bakery bag and pulls out an éclair as big as my head and sets it on the table in front of me.

I manage a smirk. “What, you don’t believe in plates?”

She rolls her eyes and pulls out a second éclair. “Sometimes reactions to a scene can kick in hours or days later, and the crash can be physical as well as emotional. Eat.”

I snort. “I hope your new boy toy kept you up late last night.”

She laughs and takes a huge bite of her éclair. “He did, and I’m starving. I’m also not here to gossip about my night or my Dom’s excellent talents with anal play. Talk, girlfriend.”

I kick her under the table. “Tease.”

She just looks at me.

Bloody hell. “There’s a thing. From one of your porn pictures. Something I’m reacting to but I don’t want. Harlan’s seeing my reaction and he’s pushing on me.”

“Ah.” Her eyes flick to the image that somehow ended up on the floor. “That one?”

So much for anything resembling a private life. “I told him it was a hard limit. He told me I was using that the wrong way.”

Ari picks the image up off the floor and looks at it for a long moment. “With most Doms I’d tell you to stick to your guns. You don’t need a reason for a hard limit. They’re sacred for a reason, just like safewords.”

I didn’t miss the first part of what she said. “But not with Harlan.”

She shrugs, and her eyes are full of steely empathy that makes me flail helplessly. “He’s one of the best men I know, and he gets people, way down deep where they sometimes hide the things they most want.”

I shudder, because that’s the most attractive thing about him—and the most dangerous.

She hands me the photo. “Consider whether maybe your Dom sees something important and he wants to give you a chance to meet it.”

Her words are a fist to my gut. “I don’t want this.”

She reaches for my hands—and she never looks away from my eyes. “I’m going to stick my nose in way deep where it doesn’t belong, and Harlan’s probably going to kick my ass for it.”

I manage a wobbly grin. “I’d like to see him try.”

She laughs, and then she leans her forehead into mine. “If this really is a hard line for you, he’ll be the first one to respect it, and if he doesn’t, there will be people lined up for a mile to beat him up.”

“I’m not going to like the rest of this sentence, am I?”

I feel her smile. “You’re a smart cookie.” She pauses, assembling her words carefully. “There are a lot of Doms who will let you get away with conditional surrender—heck, lots of them won’t even notice you’re doing it.”

I tip my head, remembering what Harlan said about her last night. “That happens to you a lot, doesn’t it? That’s why you were having so much fun last night. The guy from L.A. is a good catcher.”

Her eyebrows shoot up in surprise. “Yeah. He is.” She pauses and bites her lower lip. “It’s a really big gift when someone can do that.” She taps the photo without looking away from me. “I think maybe Harlan’s asking for the chance to do that for you.”

I close my eyes. I don’t know if I can say yes.

D
amon pushes away
his laptop as I walk into his office. “Whoa, what crawled up your ass?”

I want to scowl at him, but my face is already there. “Nothing.”

He snorts. “Scorpio did great last night. What happened between then and now?”

I fling myself into the most disreputable chair in his office. “What makes you think I’m having sub problems?”

“You’re here early, you’re wearing your meanest leathers, and you’re sulking in my office.” He looks amused. “Do I need any more reasons, or are you going to stop the middle-school crap and tell me what the hell’s going on?”

The guy’s known me since forever. That’s not always an upside. “I don’t know yet.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Does it have anything to do with Ari texting me that she’s going to be late because she dropped by Scorpio’s place for breakfast?”

Fuck. “Does she have to stick her nose in every damn thing?”

“Yes. It’s what we pay her to do, and she’d be doing it even if we weren’t paying her, so don’t be an idiot.”

The side of me that’s been a professional Dom for fifteen years knows that’s a very good thing. The rest of me is pissed off and cranky and out of sorts. “I’ll find shit that needs repairing today. I probably shouldn’t inflict myself on actual people.”

“Good to know where I rank,” says Damon dryly.

I reach for the stapler to throw at his head, but he beats me to it. He leans back in his chair and raises the eyebrow that says I’d better talk or I’m going to seriously regret it.

I growl at him. “I taught you that look.”

“Yes, you did.”

Fuck. “I pushed on her last night after we left. Probably too hard. Total joykill on a great night.”

He shrugs. “You must have had your reasons.”

That’s the problem, right there. “I did. I’m just not sure I’m right.”

His face is more serious now—but it’s the eyes of my friend, not my boss. Waiting with patience and compassion, because in our world, talking is everything, even for two tough guys who run the place.

“Two things. First is that I kind of dragged her into this, because I wanted to play and she’s curious enough to have given it a shot. But she was really clear that she doesn’t want to live on the edges all the time. She did that with her band. Too much blood.” I don’t need to say any more than that. We’ve seen plenty of bleeding in our world.

“So you pulled her into the warm and fuzzy world of kink.”

This office needs more staplers. “For her it kind of is. She totally fit in last night, and there’s plenty of warm and fuzzy in what we’ve built here.”

It’s his turn to scowl. “I blame that part on Ari.”

We both know that’s bullshit, so I don’t bother saying so. It comes straight from the top—she’s just the cheerful, cute face we put on it these days so that people don’t try to hug us all the time. “Hell, even Emily totally fits in here, and she’s way more mainstream than Scorpio.”

Damon gets the goopy look in his eyes that happens whenever Emily’s name comes up. “Yeah.”

I snort. “Focus. You’re supposed to be quizzing me on my problems.”

He eyes the stapler meaningfully. “I am. So you think Scorpio wants the soft version of our lifestyle, whatever the heck that is.”

I don’t have to take this shit from my best friend. “Isn’t that pretty much what you’re giving Emily?”

“It might look that way.” He shrugs. “It feels plenty intense.”

That’s exactly the problem. “I used Ari’s porn thing with Scorpio, and I saw something. You know that look subs get when they want something but it’s scaring them away?”

He’s nodding. “You have to push.”

It’s one of the basic laws of gravity for what we do. “I did. She pushed back. Called it a hard limit.”

He winces. “Fuck. Tread carefully.”

I scowl at him. “Why the hell do you think I’m in your office? I’ve got a sub who wants a few edges with lots of safe landings in between, and I pushed her at an edge too fast and she’s telling me to back the hell off. Except her words and her body are saying different things.”

Damon’s watching me with that revved-up stillness he has. “You have the best instincts in the business. If you think she needs this, then you made a commitment to take her there.”

I jam my head in my hands. “I know. So why am I feeling so damn cranky about it?”

The words from the other side of the desk are quiet—and unrelenting. “What do you want to do?”

Crap. I look up, because telling the truth has been the first rule between us since before this office existed. “I want to hold her and tell her she’s safe and let that be enough.”

He looks at me, and then he smiles, and I can see that all the cards have just hit the table. “Those are the words of a Dom who’s falling for his sub.”

Those are the words of a man who’s falling for a woman. “I blame you. What the fuck door of hell did you open around here?”

He grins. “Don’t let Emily hear you say that.”

She’s not the woman I’m worried about. “I can’t think that way about Scorpio. It will mess with all my Dom instincts. It already is.”

Damon’s grin is just getting bigger. “Sing it, brother.”

I want to make his nose bleed, but I’m pretty sure his sub would hurt me. “I manage a sex club. I like my life that way.”

He starts humming something under his breath that even I know is a wedding song.

This time the stapler doesn’t miss.