She's All Tied Up: Club 3, Book 2 (21 page)

Then the hurt penetrated, striking deep in her chest, an icy fist that grabbed her post-orgasm warmth and squeezed it to smithereens. Leaving her naked, cold and ashamed. She snatched her hand away and pressed her arm across her bare breasts.

“It’s okay,” he said, frowning as he watched her process. “Don’t take it personally, right? It’s just not something I like.”

Carlie forced her mouth to work. In a rusty whisper, she got out one word. “
Red
.”

Jake blinked, his head jerking back, gaze searching hers as he processed. And no wonder—she’d already let him tie her up, put his hands and mouth everywhere and use her to service him—everything he’d wanted. “What?”

“Red,” she repeated. Still hiding behind the inadequate shelter of her arm, she planted her free hand on his shoulders, broad and bare, his skin hot and smooth over hard muscle, and shoved. “Isn’t that what
subs
say when they want to stop? Huh, Jake?”

She shoved harder, her heart pounding in sudden panic. She had to get away from him before she dissolved in the storm of tears she could feel coming. “Get
off
of me.”

His gaze shot down to her arm, her nipples covered but her breasts pale and full above and below. His heavy brows shot together, his jaw tightened. He levered himself up onto his knees and rolled aside in one powerful move. “Carlie, what the hell? Talk to me.”

She scrambled off the other side of the bed in a near panic, grace the last thing on her mind as she strode over to the wardrobe and flung it open, yanking her dress off the hanger. She shrugged it on and turned on him as she tied the wrap belt with quick, jerky movements. At the sight of his ferocious scowl, blessed anger roared up through her, giving her strength.

“I’ll talk to you,” she spat. “I had my mouth on
your cock
. I
swallowed
p-part of you. I did the most—most intimate thing a woman can do for a man, and now you won’t even
kiss me
? You know how that makes me feel, Jake? Like a-a thing, just someone you used to get off. A walking sex toy, that’s what.”

He faced her, standing at the end of the bed, big and dangerous, a man in charge of his environment and radiating anger. She thought she’d seen Jake angry, but now she realized this was the real thing. His face was like granite, his eyes flashing gray ice. Good thing she was pissed as hell, or she’d be quailing before him. Well, she was, but she wasn’t giving in.

“Isn’t that why you came here?” he demanded. “To get off? To have kinky sex? You knew what the club was when you walked in here, Carlie, you knew who I was, so don’t give me this shit.”

“Don’t give you this?” she mumbled, blinking back scalding tears. “Okay, Jake. I won’t give you
this
. You’re a guy. You don’t want any messy emotions, fine.” Shaking her head, she turned away, heading for the door.

“You walk out of here without talking this out, we’re done.” His voice was harsh, implacable.

She froze, her hand on the door handle.

Chapter Fifteen

Jake waited, a ray of hope arrowing through his fury. Then his gorgeous sub, whom he’d just driven wild, just enjoyed two of her orgasms with his mouth on her pussy, his hands covered in her honey, and she’d just sucked him off in a way so sweet and wild he’d reeled with pleasure, answered.

“We were already done, Jake,” she said, her voice hard in a way he didn’t know Carlie even had in her, and walked out of the room.

He stood there for a second, her words echoing in his ears. She’d left her pretty underwear in the wardrobe, he noted absently. She’d be pissed when she realized that.

Fuck. What had just happened? Just because he didn’t like kissing, never had, she had a shit fit and walked out on him, ruining the incredibly hot thing they’d begun? He scrubbed his hands over his face, letting out a growl of sheer frustration.

He opened his eyes a long moment later to find Dack standing in the doorway, arms crossed, leaning against one side of the doorframe, a quizzical look on his face. “Everything okay, buddy? Carlie just stormed out of here, crying, looked like she forgot her undies from the way everything was jiggling. Not that it wasn’t a fine sight, but…”

Jake moved his hands to the back of his neck, laced them and bowed his head. “Fuck me, I’ll never understand women,” he muttered. “Need a drink.”

Dack jerked his chin in agreement, already stepping back into the hallway. “C’mon down to the office. Got a bottle in the cupboard.”

Jake followed his friend and fellow dom down the hallway. “Jack Daniels?”

Dack snorted. “Never again, man. Never wanna smell that shit again, much less drink it.”

Jake was sure that was true. During a huge fight with Daisy, Dack had gotten shitfaced, holing up here in the empty club with a bottle. He’d been sick as a dog for a couple of days afterward. Now Jake had an inkling of why Dack had gone on that bender.

They walked through the club, and since Jake was not given to being all smiley even when he was in a good mood, no one but Trace, who was chatting up a new D/s couple at the bar, gave him a second look. But then Trace knew him better than anyone except Dack. Trace said something to the couple that made them smile, and slid off his barstool. Jake sighed. Great, two on one.

In the office, the three of them sank into the comfortable leather chairs, and Jake accepted a highball glass with golden liquid in the bottom. “From a local micro-distillery,” Dack said. “Real smooth. Aged in Oregon oak.”

Trace didn’t take a glass, as he was on duty. He also sat where he could see the monitors.

Jake took a drink. The whiskey was smooth, sliding over his tongue but with a wicked kick in his throat. Kind of like Carlie. He couldn’t have been more shocked if she’d slapped his face.

“So,” Dack said. “Thought things were goin’ okay with you and Carlie.” He dropped something in Jake’s lap—his key. “Guess not so much.”

“So did I,” Jake said. He took another drink and swallowed. “She wants…I don’t know. Romantic shit.”

Trace moved, standing and crossing his arms. “Like what?”

Jake shifted in his chair. How the hell had he gotten to a place where he was being quizzed by his partners and fellow doms like a schoolboy? “Kissing.” There, it was out.

Dack and Trace were silent for a moment, then Dack’s eyes twinkled like mad, although he had the wisdom to bite back his grin, because Jake was coiled to come out of his chair and knock the fool right on his ass. Work off some of his sexual frustration, anyway. He hadn’t been done with her, not by a long shot.

“Right. Romantic shit. Ah, you don’t kiss your subs?”

Jake took a drink. “Look, I know you like mouth-to-mouth. Watched you do it often enough. I don’t.” Never liked swapping spit with a woman, getting lipstick or gloss all over his mouth, her makeup on his face, etc.

When a woman lifted her face to his, he saw another face in their place.

Drunk, sloppy, lipstick and eye makeup smeared over her face. Pretty once, until she’d let alcohol and cigarettes take the place of food and sleep. She wandered into the trailer, sun at her back, her scanty clothing askew, skinny legs bare, hair in a rat’s nest. Swaying in the doorway, she looked around as if wondering how she got there.

Then her gaze landed on him, curled up in the ancient recliner, reading a book from the school library. Probably a nonfiction on one of the armed forces, because he’d already begun dreaming and planning how to get out of the squalor of his life by joining up. A drunken smile stretching her face, she tottered across the room to him.

“Hey, Jakey. How ya doin’, baby boy?”

“Okay,” he grunted, sliding lower in his chair, his muscles tense. She leaned over his chair, and he grimaced. She stank of stale booze, smoke and sweat, not all of it hers.

“C’mere,” she crooned. “Give your mama a big kiss.”

His face tight with revulsion, he let her tip his face up and plant a sloppy kiss on his face. Her breath was sour, her mouth wet. As soon as she let go, he lifted his arm and swiped his face on the sleeve of his tight, faded T-shirt.

Then he flinched as a hard slap rocked his head. He ducked from the next blow, bolting out of the chair and across the tiny room, facing her, anger and disgust roiling inside him. “What was that for?” His voice cracked, going from deep to childish and back.

His mother sneered at him, one hand on her hip. “Think you’re too good for me? That it? Stupid little shit. Never gonna amount to nothin’, just gonna be a big hunk of muscle, like your old man. Ray Stone’s son, big fuckin’ deal.”

She swatted the air, dismissing him, and turned away to wander down the narrow hallway of the trailer, mumbling to herself. Leaving him swallowing a hot ball in his throat. He’d waited till she was safely in the master bedroom before returning to his chair and burying himself in his book. Dreaming about the day he could join up and live a life of discipline, honor and control, away from the chaos that was home.

Jake drained his glass, and forced his attention back to the office. His friends were watching him.

“Women place a lot of importance on kissing,” Trace put in, his tone carefully neutral.

Jake remembered the look on Carlie’s face, the way her luscious mouth had gone slack, then trembled as her eyes filled with hurt. Yeah, she wanted to kiss him. Or she had.

So why had he shied away from her kiss, even after she’d taken his cock bare, something he hadn’t allowed himself with a woman in years?

Somehow, from his mother’s fake smooches, kissing had come to symbolize all the lies he wanted to avoid in a relationship. Sex at the club was about enjoying each other, sharing their particular kink, but with no entanglement.

Kissing took it to another level, a far more personal one. Kissing meant letting her in.

The way she’d let him in, literally and emotionally.

Shit, he felt like something she ought to scrape off her pretty shoes. For a sub to let herself go, she had to trust the man dominating her, had to let him into her fantasies and her emotions. As Carlie had him. Her mouth had felt like heaven on his bare cock, and her kneeling at his feet as she took him had raised it to the Nth level of satisfaction.

Fucking hell. He drained his glass. “Think I fucked up.”

“Yup, sure sounds that way.” Dack sounded cheerful as all hell. Of course, he had things all settled with a hot, willing sub. Daisy thought he hung the fuckin’ moon, and showed it. “Better fix it, bro.”

Jake then remembered his own voice saying,
“You walk out, we’re done.”
Pretty fucking final. At the time he’d meant it too.

Now, he wasn’t so sure. Besides, Carlie didn’t wear a lot of gloppy lipstick. She’d had lip gloss on, but he was pretty sure it was now all over his cock. Man, she really did have the sexiest mouth he’d seen in…maybe ever. And if kissing made her happy, she’d be ready to try some new things he couldn’t wait to do with her.

He groaned. “I’m so screwed.”

His two best friends, being the loyal brothers they were, started to laugh.

Jake considered kicking both their asses, decided it would only wreck their expensive office furniture and wasn’t worth the effort besides, so he leaned his head back on soft leather and wondered what the fuck he was gonna do to fix this.

Daisy and Sara were sympathetic over a bottle of white wine on Carlie’s back deck.

“He wouldn’t kiss you?” Daisy repeated, her expression indignant in a loyal-girlfriend way. “Wow, that’s cold. I thought Jake was really into you.”

Carlie snorted. “He sure liked my mouth elsewhere.” She took another slug of wine, drained her glass and reached for the bottle. Maybe enough wine would drown the shame of how enthusiastic she’d been, how proud and happy when he stroked her hair afterward. Yeah, ’cause she was a good little sub. One of many for the big dom.

Sara leaned forward. “You, um, went down on him?”

Carlie nodded dolefully. “And I liked it. The bastard.” Her friends nodded emphatically. A guy should be appreciative of that, truly appreciative. As in kiss a woman’s feet if she wanted, much less her mouth.

“Cool that you enjoyed it,” Daisy said as an aside. “Guys prize that.”

“And you must be good at it, if he liked it. So use your, um, skill to get another dom,” Sara suggested.

Carlie and Daisy stared at her, and she shrugged. “What? The club is to meet guys, right? Things don’t work out with one, it’s a target-rich environment. Lots more doms where he came from.”

“There’s nobody else where Jake came from,” Carlie muttered. “Carved him out of solid rock and wore out the tools.” Not to mention that the thought of putting her mouth on any other guy’s cock made her stomach churn in disgust. She was still in shock that she’d enjoyed doing that to him. She’d
swallowed his come
.

Daisy and Sara exchanged a look but said nothing more on that.

By her third glass of wine, Carlie was deciding which dom to go after next.

“Mase,” she decided, waving her wineglass. “He’s cute, he’s hot, and I know he likes kissing, ’cause I’ve seen him do it.”

“Seen him do a lot of things,” Sara said. “A
lot
.
You sure you’re up for public display?”