His focus used to make my head spin. It still did, a little, but I was older and wiser by this point in my life. “Pretty good. Finished my Masters, and I’m a computer programmer now.”
“Lost most of your accent, too.” Matt grinned. “I’m betting that Southern drawl still comes out to play every once in a while, though. If you go submissive enough.”
I scowled at him. “You think you can just walk back in here and try to pull that, after all this time? Things have changed.”
His attitude didn’t falter. “So I hear. But just because you’re playing hard to get with this guy, that doesn’t mean you can’t play a scene with me, just for old times’ sake, right?”
Memories flashed through my mind. Matt had always been good at taking me in hand, and I doubted that had changed after all this time. We’d had some pretty amazing times together back in the day. Part of me was tempted by his offer-but what about Josh? I couldn’t do that to him, not after all this time…
“I’m gonna got a drink,” I announced abruptly, getting up. “Anyone else wants?”
A few people took me up on the offer, and I headed over to the bar, grateful as hell that Matt didn’t follow me. Taking the short respite from the Lena-centric drama that was unfolding around me, l watched the bartender do his thing, lost in thought.
When a hand touched my arm, I stared up into Josh’s face, startled. “Josh, hey!”
“Hey.” He leaned against the bar, a small smile touching his lips. “Relax.”
“Doesn’t look like that’s gonna be an option tonight,” I muttered, and he laughed softly.
“He asked you to play with him.” It was a statement, but also a guess, from the expression on his face. I wouldn’t have gained anything by lying to him, so I nodded slowly.
Josh watched me intently, and I felt another ridiculous urge to sink to my knees in front of him. If only he’d asked me to do it, I’d given it to him without a second thought. But he wouldn’t-if I’d learned anything by now, it was that he wouldn’t be the one to act first. Damn him!
“Something stopping you?”
How could he even ask that? “Well, yeah…” “Me?”
I hadn’t expected him to be this direct. Staring down at my fingers, laced together on the bar, I nodded.
“Good.” The word was so casually pleased that I glanced up immediately, my instinct to submit to him intensifying at the smile on his face. God, he was so… There were no words for how attractive he was. All I could think about was what it would be like if he leaned over and kissed me. He’d be forceful, possessing me with his lips, and I’d just give in to him completely…
“You trust him?” His focus didn’t waver, but I saw more than a spark of concern for my well-being in his gaze.
“Yes.” That, I knew to be true. Matt had always been a careful, responsible top, even though our first sexual encounter had been a short, drunken vanilla interaction in a bathroom stall the night we’d first met. I probably would never have let my guard down enough to submit to him if we hadn’t already had a one-night stand.
“You love him?” Josh asked, his voice betraying no emotion.
I didn’t even have to stop to think, shaking my head emphatically. “No! We were never like that.”
Was it just me, or was he relieved? I’d have liked to hope so, but… As the bartender set down the last of the drinks I’d ordered, Josh
gave a one-shouldered shrug, smiling a little. “Then go play with him.”
I blinked up at him, trying to work out his angle. Hurt that he’d given up on me so easily. “Why?”
He leaned in close, his lips almost brushing my ear. “Because I want to watch.”
Oh. My skin tingled, my nipples hardened and I almost just turned my head and kissed him right then and there. “Josh-”
“Shhh.” He drew away, and my heart twinged with disappointment. “Your call, little tease.”
Before I could process the fact that he’d just called me that name again, he grabbed a couple of the drinks and headed back toward our group, leaving me hopelessly turned on and confused.
* * * *
Josh
Lena was quiet when she returned to the group, content to listen to other people’s conversations. Eventually, Matt pulled her off to one side, and I quelled my possessiveness with an effort.
You gave her permission to do this.
Part of me regretted it-wanted to slip the collar in my toy bag around her neck, clip a leash to it, and drag her into the dungeon with me. But she wasn’t mine. Not yet.
Her hesitance to play with her ex-top was a reassurance, at least.
And the voyeur in me wanted to watch her react to pain, to bear it, to ride it out, and to plead for more. I wanted to see her gasp and tremble and bite back cries of pain, to see what was almost too much for her, what she liked, what she couldn’t stand.
If it had to be when she was under someone else’s control, then so be it.
While I tried to pay attention to the people around me, I kept an eye
on Lena. She leaned against the wall, her hands moving in expressive gestures while she talked, then stilling as she listened, occasionally smiling faintly. Whatever she and Matt were talking about, she was conflicted, but at ease with him.
“Earth to Josh.” Alex waved a hand in front of my face, and I frowned at her, irritated. She leaned in to stage-whisper in my ear. “You were staring.”
“Wouldn’t you?” I asked, moving to the seat next to her to get a little distance from anyone who might have been listening to our conversation.
“Yeah. I’d be jealous as hell, and I know you are.” Alex studied me sympathetically. “Bad timing, huh?”
“Could be better,” I agreed, trying to resist the urge to turn and look at Lena again.
“Why did you give her permission to play with him? I mean, you haven’t even played together yet.” Her expression was curious.
“Been asking myself the same thing.” It was as much as I was willing to discuss the subject.
“Just tell me it isn’t some kind of misguided ‘if you love something, let it go, and if it comes back to you you’ll know it’s yours’ thing.”
I couldn’t help but smile bitterly. “Maybe a little.”
“Loser,” she said affectionately, punching my arm. “That’s your woman over there! Go claim her!”
“And here I thought women value men who are civilized rather than cavemen.” I sipped my drink, casting the barest glance over to where Lena had been standing.
She wasn’t there, and neither was Matt. My heart sank, but I’d made this bed. It was time to go and lie in it. “Feel like some voyeurism?”
“Why, Josh! I thought you’d never ask!” She bounced upright and offered me her arm, and we headed into the dungeon’s spectators’ area together.
Lena and her top for the night were nowhere to be seen, so we watched the scenes already being played out. Some of our friends were in there, and others were new faces, or familiar faces whose identities I’d never learned. There was a particularly skillful scene with poi floggers taking place in one corner, and I admired Tomme’s technique, temporarily forgetting my troubles.
When the scene I was watching reached a lull, I scanned the play area again for signs of Lena. Finding none, I glanced around for Alex, but she’d slipped away at some point.
Then an approaching figure caught my eye, as familiar to me as breathing and a hell of a lot sexier. Lena-and she was alone.
Unsure of what was going on, I waited for her to reach me and then raised an eyebrow. “Thought you’d be in there by now.”
She pulled me away from the throng of voyeurs, into a quiet spot where we could talk unheard. Once we were there, she sat opposite me hesitantly, as if she were unsure of her actions. “I’m not gonna play with Matt tonight.”
A stronger sense of relief than I’d been expecting swept through my body, and I tried not to let it show on my face. “Leaving it for next time?”
She shook her head. “He won’t be around. He’s only in town for a week.”
I couldn’t deny I was glad. I didn’t tell her that, though; it wasn’t my
place. “There’s a reason you’re telling me this, Lena?” “Yes.”
I kept quiet until she was ready to continue, and when her words came, they were worth the wait.
“Because of all these months of holding out on you. Of enduring the speculation and the bets and the stares and the objectification. Of needing to lay aside my dominance. Of wanting to be taken in hand.” She shook her head with a one-shouldered shrug. “That isn’t something I’d throw away for the sake of one nostalgic scene with a friend. Because when I submit, I want it to be completely.”
While I gazed at her, kept mute by a growing sense of anticipation, she got to her feet and stepped in closer to me.
“And I want it to be amazing.” The expression on her face took my breath away. It was intense and beautiful and serious and joyful all at once, and I ached to touch her, to kiss her, to collar her.
She sank to her knees beside my chair, her gaze never wavering from mine. “And I want it to be to you.”
She laced her fingers together behind her back, sitting on her heels, still looking up at me. “And this isn’t because I’m proving something to
Matt. Or to anyone else. The only one whose opinion I care about is yours.”
I reached out to cup her face with my hand, and she turned her cheek into my palm, her eyes fluttering closed as if she were relishing the touch. It was only for a moment, and then she forced them open again, taking a deep breath and continuing, “I didn’t want to give myself to anyone else, even casually…because I love you.”
I hadn’t been expecting her to say it, and the surge of emotion that swept through me in response was powerful and jubilant. Finally…
Dropping her gaze from mine, she lowered her head, her voice strong and unwavering, despite her submissive posture. “Sir.”
Everything I could have wanted in a woman was kneeling before me, honest and vulnerable and proud of her instincts and emotions. I responded in the way I’d wanted to for months, without thinking. There wasn’t anything left to think about.