Roses and Chains (3 page)

spurting straight down her throat, which was already open to take whatever he gave.

And she had never, ever been so turned-on in her entire life.

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Roses and Chains

Chapter Three

The car ride was a surreal cross-town odyssey. Delia had asked to change her jeans,

and Daniel hadn’t let her. Now, though, he could smell all kinds of sex from across the car. Her arousal, his own smell on her face, mixing into an aromatherapy aphrodisiac. It was distracting enough that he had to force himself to concentrate on the road.

To act as is he wasn’t affected, as if he was in control and knew the plan.

Delia liked it when he had a plan. And he liked it when Delia completely lost her

shit with lust. So if his having a plan made that happen…

“Small price to pay,” he muttered, slapping the turn signal a little too hard. He felt as if cartoon steam might be coming out his ears. His married friends had all suggested that after a few years of togetherness, the new-bride smell would wear off and he’d

cease to be this hot to jump his wife’s bones all the time.

His friends were obviously idiots.

“Hmm?”

“Nothing. We’re almost there.”

He had gone for broke tonight. He’d had to do something, change things up. She

had been starting to lose confidence in him, he could tell. After seeing her hit that spacey, dreamy plateau a few times, he knew when she wasn’t hitting it anymore. And

damn, but he liked being the one to make her look like that. Feel like that.

So he’d done something he rarely did, and thrown caution to the wind. He’d filched

some books off Delia’s computer and spent precious minutes at lunchtime and after

work for the past few weeks, sneaking in some reading. Even looked at her browser

history—no good, she’d cleared it—then gone out on an internet quest of his own to

find kinky porn.

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Delphine Dryden

It had turned out the internet was really quite a good place to find a lot of kinky

porn. Too much, if anything. The difficulty was in finding the quality stuff. Filtering through it all took some time. But Daniel had manfully soldiered through until he

found a site that seemed to be a nice balance of production values, dirtiness and

authenticity.

It was really the authenticity that had sold him. Or that had been sold
to
him, to be more accurate.

Now he had a subscription. It was a savings, really, in the long run.

“Master? Are we going to the club?”

“Nope. Stop asking, you’ll know when we get there. It’s a surprise.”

Was he supposed to tease like that? Or punish her for asking? Sometimes he lost

track. But he was learning fast.

He liked being called “Master”. He hadn’t expected to like it quite so much.

Hearing her say it just solidified his resolve to make this work. To be the Master she wanted. And the Master he apparently wanted to be.

His resolve wasn’t the only thing solidifying. Damn, he couldn’t remember the last

time he’d been this eager to fuck again so soon after coming. Daniel considered pulling off into Dimfield park, finding a convenient bush for cover and—

No
. He was pretty sure a real Master would have the control to wait until he got his sub back home from the adult toy store.

“
Delights
! I love this place!”

Delia smiled and clapped, bouncing in her seat like a kid about to rush into a candy shop. Not that kids were allowed in this particular candy shop.

“Delia,” he said, trying to sound stern as he put the car in park and turned it off. He reached for the ring on her collar and looped a finger through it. “Behave yourself.”

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Roses and Chains

The look on her face, the way her big blue eyes got even bigger, was priceless. She

even blushed a little. Little dimples kept appearing then disappearing at the corners of her mouth. Everything always showed on Delia’s face.

“Yes, Master.”

He held the door for her, but let her set her own pace inside the store. She opted to follow a few steps behind him, and Daniel suspected she was toying with the role,

trying out different ways to act like a sub in public. Figuring out what felt right.

He walked straight to the back counter, because he knew what he wanted, then

turned to her as he gestured to the clerk.

“I’ll be here for a few minutes. Go pick a lube. Flavored is fine, but no piña colada.”

“All right, Master.”

She blushed again, because the clerk was there listening. Absolutely freaking

adorable.

Daniel felt about ten feet tall, knowing the dude behind the counter had overheard.

And could see his collar—
his collar
—on that stone fox’s neck.

Mine.

Ten feet tall with a dick made of pure steel.

In your face, kinky toy store dude
.

The kinky toy store dude was checking out his wife’s ass. But he decided that was

okay, because his ownership was so very evident and all the dude could ever do was

look and wish he had one of his own.

“Nice,” the dude said with a casual nod Delia’s way. Then he looked at Daniel

every bit as appreciatively, his mouth curving in a blatantly sensual way. “So what can I help you find this evening, sir?”

Daniel felt only about eight feet tall by the time he’d finished making his selections.

He was pretty open-minded, but he was also very straight. He wasn’t so much

uncomfortable with guys flirting with him as he was baffled.

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Delphine Dryden

On the other hand, when he looked over his shoulder for Delia and realized she

was staring dreamily at a rack of lesbian porn videos, he almost forgot about iron

control.

“Honey?”

She looked up with a guilty flinch and scurried over, handing him the lube bottle

with both hands as though presenting the king with an important message. He took it

without a word and the clerk added it to the bag and rang it all up.

Daniel remembered he was trying new things tonight. Blowing out all the stops. He

put on the stern Dom face he’d practiced in the mirror for an hour yesterday afternoon, and turned to look at his wife. Then he raised an eyebrow, because he knew she found the Spock thing kind of sexy.

“Delia, did you see something else you liked?”

It was a challenge. She blinked then nodded hesitantly. He cleared his throat, and

after a second the little light bulb popped on over her head.

“Yes, Master.”

“Show me.”

As if he did this sort of thing all the time, he sauntered after her to the video rack, where she pointed as briefly as possible at the girlie videos before her nerve failed her and she wrapped her arms behind her back. Stared at the floor, blushing up a storm.

He took a deep breath and tried to pretend he was observing the covers like a

connoisseur. But he couldn’t get the image out of his mind of watching Delia watching any of these videos. On the television in their bedroom. Naked. Wearing just the collar.

And doing any number of obscene things to him.

“Any one of those,” he said, stabbing his finger at three random covers. He’d hit it lucky; one of them had obviously already caught her interest. She didn’t even blink, just snatched it and handed it to him.

“Thank you, Master.”

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Roses and Chains

“Go wait for me by the door.”

Because he needed the distance. Or he would throw her on the floor and ravish her

in the middle of the kinky toy store, and he was pretty sure that would tip the clerk off that he wasn’t exactly the suave, jaded Dom he seemed to be.

But the clerk already knew. Oh, he knew. He smiled a little too broadly when

Daniel returned to the register to buy the video. But it wasn’t an unsympathetic smile.

“You’re doing great,” he said softly. “She’s hooked.”

“She was already hooked, she’s my wife,” Daniel muttered, willing his heart to stop

racing.

“Yeah, I saw the matching rings. Cute. Was she in the lifestyle before?”

“She’d dabbled a little,” Daniel confessed. “I’m just doing my best to keep up.”

The clerk tilted his head, not quite flirting, and cocked his eyebrow at Daniel just as Daniel had done earlier. “I wouldn’t normally say this, but I think you’ll get there.

You’ve got the instinct for it. And it turns you on, right?”

“So fucking much.”

They chuckled together, and Daniel relaxed his face enough to smile. He hadn’t

realized he was so tense.

“You’re worried she likes chicks more than she likes you. I don’t think you need to

worry too much.”

“How did you—”

“I talk to horny people all day, man, it’s my super power. Look, take this. I think

you might find it helpful. Your sub too.”

Daniel flipped the card in his fingers, looking for more than the single phone

number printed on one side. It was blank other than that.

“It’s a club? Something local?”

“Not exactly. Just call and talk to the guy. It’s kind of hard to explain. But I know these folks helped me out when I had some questions.”

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Delphine Dryden

“Okay, maybe I’ll check it out. Thanks.” Daniel tucked the card into his pocket and

slid the video into the plastic bag with the rest of his purchases.

By the time he had Delia back out to the car, he’d forgotten all about the card.

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Roses and Chains

Chapter Four

Amie had called Mara to check up on her as promised. And she’d taken her to task

for not calling the number on the business card she’d given her.

“How do you know I haven’t called?”

“Because you just haven’t, that’s how I know. You hate taking help, which is just so pointless for a sub. I mean, there’s masochism and then there’s masochism, you know?”

Outside the club, Amie’s mannerisms often translated as just a little too blunt, to the point of being unkind. She always, always thought she knew best. And she was right

just often enough to make it really annoying. Which was one of the reasons she and

Mara had split up.

“I’ll call when I hang up on you, how about that?”

“If you don’t, I’ll know. Have you had at least two big glasses of water today? You

were sweating really hard last night.”

“Yes.”

“Liar. You’ve had a cup of tea and maybe a Coke.”

“And you’ve already been to the gym, showered, and done your hair and makeup.”

Amie laughed. “Of course I have. It’s nine in the morning. Just because it’s

Saturday—”

“That’s no excuse to stay in bed all day,” Mara finished for her. “Yeah, I’m in like, sweats and a wifebeater that I dug out of the laundry hamper. But I’ve been playing this awesome new computer game public beta, and I’ve leveled my dwarf cleric to five

already this morning. So, you know, I got that going for me.”

After a long, pointed moment of silence and a very telling sigh, Amie asked, “Are

you at least eating the baked kind of chips?”

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Delphine Dryden

“Oh God, no. I ran out of cheese puffballs so now I’ve moved on to snack cakes.”

“Okay, I have to go now. Mara, just call that number. And at least…go outside in

the sunshine for a little while or something, okay?”

“I will. Call the number, I mean. You know if I go in the sun my skin will

spontaneously combust.”

“Goodbye, Mara.”

“Bye, Amie!”

She turned the phone off and put it down on the desk, freeing up her hands to

slaughter a few more dozen wildebeest to finish up her current quest in the game. But she’d no sooner turned the quest in and leveled up when she noticed a hint of white

near her hand.

Something was sticking out from under the keyboard. She picked up the hardware,

brushed a fine layer of yellow cheeseball dust from the edge of the little white card she’d found underneath and turned it over.

“Oh, fuck me.”

1-800-DOM-help
.

As if she needed more help from a Dominant. Hadn’t Amie just given her an earful

of unasked-for advice? And how had the card ended up there anyway, when she was

sure she’d thrown it away before she even left the club last night?

Mara reached for the phone before she even realized what she was doing. She put it

down again and tapped the card on the desk thoughtfully, trying to figure out what

was going on. She finished the cream-filled cupcake she’d been working on before

Amie called, but it held no answers for her.

She thought about Jeremy, who was probably also already awake, playing a

different computer game. The game she no longer liked to play, because it had been

something they had in common. But it hadn’t been nearly enough.

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Roses and Chains

Freak
, he’d called her. The first few times it had been a joke. He hadn’t minded trying a little slap and tickle. He’d liked it a little rough, like a lot of guys. But it had awakened his inner asshole. And when she’d tried to latch onto that, to coax it into something else…

Freak.

No, he hadn’t wanted to try bondage. He certainly had
not
. Not when it was clear she wasn’t just asking out of curiosity, but very real desperation. That she wasn’t just a girl who liked to mix it up in the sack on occasion, but was in fact the kind of girl who owned several whips and paddles, a lot of things like handcuffs that weren’t remotely fluffy or pink, and a bunch of other exotic devices Jeremy didn’t even have names for.

His fault for opening the toy chest while she wasn’t looking.

Her
fault for forgetting to lock it when she knew he was coming over.

The look on his face when he’d held up the anal beads was certainly something