“How many times have I heard this conversation?” Kori asked to no one in particular.
“Oh, I haven’t had time to get a collar,” Maddie said. “I just got in last night. We had to send someone out to get these… Do we call them underwear? I’m not actually wearing them under anything. Also, they’re not very comfortable.”
“You’re going to be wearing them under my hand, baby,” he promised. “When I spank you. Come on. We’re going to watch some scenes, and I promise she’ll have a collar on tomorrow.”
The guy wasn’t at all upset at the cockblock. He simply moved on to the next target. He looked MaeBe’s way. “How about you, sweetheart? You need a play partner?”
“Do you need to sleep at night? Because I promise you touch her arm again and you won’t because you’ll sit up all night worried that I’m going to sneak in and cut off your fingers and stuff them in all your holes,” Kyle promised.
MaeBe simply smiled the guy’s way as she eased off her barstool. “He’s joking, but we are actually supposed to work a bit tonight. We’re all MT employees and we have to save the world and stuff. But thanks for asking. I’m here most Fridays.”
“Not for a while.” Kyle moved in close. He might be a kinder, gentler Kyle when it came to talking about his past, but he was still a raging ball of murder when it came to MaeBe Vaughn. “We won’t be back for at least a couple of weeks, so you should find someone else to play with.”
The guy put his hands up in obvious defeat. “I will do just that. Have a good night, folks.”
“You know you’re all the same, right?” Kori simply shook her head. “I will give you the same advice I’ve been handing out for years. Put a collar on your sub. Something pretty they won’t want to take off. And I hope you do it before you get to The Reef because those boys do not play, and you don’t happen to be related to or working for the owner. Good luck with that.”
Maddie frowned up at him. “What was that about? He was only asking if I wanted to watch some scene with him. Aren’t I supposed to do that? When you think about it, I don’t really have to watch them with you, right? And I have thoughts about a collar. There’s no hard and fast rule about collars. Isn’t the lifestyle kind of about making your own rules?”
Kyle snorted and Kori flat out laughed.
“I’m calling my friend, Sarah. She’s going to love you so much.” Kori had pulled her cell out of her corset and had it against her ear in a heartbeat. “Hey, girl. Wait until you see who’s coming your way.”
“Kai should spank her more often,” Kyle said with a huff.
“She would like that very much.” Kori was a bit of a pain slut. But then Kori had been in the lifestyle for a very long time. She knew what she liked. She’d explored pretty much every aspect of her sexuality.
Madeline hadn’t. He would bet a turn on the hamster wheel that her sex life had been fairly tame. When they’d been together, he’d been the one to gently push her boundaries. She was submissive when it came to that aspect of her life, and nothing he’d heard made him believe she’d sought out a natural dominant partner. He’d spent the whole day worried about how to reach her without truly grasping the one tool he had.
He could show her how good the lifestyle could be for her.
“I think it’s time to start discussing some of those rules,” Deke said. “We’re going to watch some scenes and then we’ll talk. But you should understand the number one rule is that you are with me and there won’t be any other Dom who touches you. Is that understood?”
“He was only being nice.”
“He was trying to get into your thong, baby,” he pointed out.
“Well, it wouldn’t be hard,” she shot back. “There’s not much of it in the first place. It’s not exactly a chastity belt.”
He moved in, sinking a hand into her hair. He remembered how little of a punishment this would be. He twisted lightly, bringing her up on her toes and lowering his head down so she would have to look right into his eyes. “I don’t expect you to be chaste. I expect you to behave like a woman who knows exactly how good it is to be available for her Dom at all times, and I don’t mean available to make him a sandwich. By the time I’m finished, you’ll appreciate the thong because it means you don’t have to do much in order to be ready to take my cock. Am I clear?”
She stared up at him, and he could see the way her gaze softened as he twisted her hair. “Yes.”
It was said in a breathless hush that let him know he’d caught her off guard. “Excellent. Then we should begin. The academic part of your day is over. It’s time to go into the lab and get some hands-on learning done.”
He could speak her language, and he could teach her his.
She grimaced and backed down, a frown on her face. “This is the weirdest lab I’ve ever been in.”
It might be a really long lesson.
* * * *
Three hours later, Madeline had a pit in her stomach as she stood in the living room of Deke’s condo. She could feel the frustration coming off of him in waves, but all he would tell her was that he was fine.
Wasn’t that the word she was supposed to use in a passive-aggressive fashion? Fine seemed to be an all-gender word now.
She sat the bag down on the bar and wondered if she should try to talk to him again.
She’d spent hours watching scenes with him, talking to him about how the scenes made her feel. Well, explaining to him why most of them wouldn’t work. They’d watched the main stage where a Dom had walked his pretty submissive through a series of tests that she inevitably failed and was punished for. Normally it would be offensive to watch some poor woman get set up to fail, but the punishment didn’t seem to bother the blonde. When she’d dropped the drink she was supposed to gracefully carry on her head, she’d practically hopped onto the spanking bench.
She wasn’t sure she understood, and that seemed to bother Deke.
“Do you want anything to drink?” Deke hadn’t had a thing to drink while they were at Sanctum. He’d made sure she had a glass of wine, but he’d had water. Now he pulled a beer from his fridge. “I’m going to sit on the balcony for a while. You should feel free to go to bed or watch TV or whatever you do to relax. There’s some Pinot on the counter.”
The words were all polite, but there was a sheen of ice to them.
She’d done everything he’d asked her to do. She’d sat on his lap despite the fact that it had been awkward and weird. She’d worn the stupid thong even though she’d been heinously self-conscious. When he’d asked her questions, she’d answered them. She’d asked a few of her own.
Maddie had no idea why Deke was so pissed off at her.
“The wine glasses are in the cabinet over the microwave. Good night.” He strode away, and she heard the door to his balcony open and close.
She stood there feeling way more vulnerable than she had before.
The night had been so tense. Hell, the whole day had. From the minute they stepped into the club, she’d felt awkward, and she wasn’t sure why. She’d studied all the things she’d seen today. None of it was a shock. What had been a shock was how ungainly she’d felt. She was confident. She had a freaking undergraduate degree from Yale and had gotten her master’s in aerospace engineering from Cal Tech while she’d been working for a startup she’d made a ton of money from when it had sold.