So, you’re wearing a non-player bracelet. Are you considering the Dom or sub side, or possibly playing as a switch?
They’d listen carefully, looking for cues in his answers that spoke to their own interests, while revealing more about him.
They would assume he was mostly or all hetero, because gay men typically preferred their own exclusive club venue, though a few played here. Her guess was that Lawrence was going to be uncompromisingly straight. Having a sub play with another man was a visual treat, but Lawrence could provide equal stimulation to her without that ingredient in the mix, if it turned out to be a hard limit.
When he saw her, he ended the conversation. Though he did it politely, he looked relieved to see her. Lawrence might be ready to let his alpha sub side out of the closet, but she expected he’d prefer it to happen initially in private. Ideally, in a bedroom. The room closest to that closet.
He’d have to settle for a private club room, because she wasn’t in the habit of inviting men into her home. Yet surprisingly, when she visualized him in her bedroom, it spiked her blood and imagination.
The Mistresses looked her way. They tossed her different versions of Lady Z’s knowing smile and wandered on. Lawrence came to her side, putting a hand under her elbow again as they started up the stairs. Not a direct touch, just the awareness that his support was there, available.
“Are you married, Lawrence?”
He shot her a startled look. “No, ma’am. I’d be kind of an asshole if I was. Right?”
She shrugged. “We have married people here who can’t fulfill this need at home. Some come with the consent of the spouse. Others don’t feel they can tell them.”
“So you’ve had relationships with married men?”
She tsked. “A lot of judgment in that wording and tone.”
“Intended, ma’am.”
She stopped at the top of the stairs and faced him. “That sounds personal. Has someone cheated on you?”
That muscle flexed in his jaw. “Yes and no. There were extenuating circumstances.”
“Hmm.” She resumed walking toward the exit. “I don’t engage in sessions with married submissives whose spouses aren’t in the loop. Their reasons are their own, and may have validity for their own circumstances, but it’s my personal preference. I demand total honesty from a sub. If I’m dealing with someone who doesn’t view ‘love, honor and cherish’ as a mandate to be truthful with their significant other, then I know we don’t share the same life philosophy.”
His expression relaxed. As he pushed open the door for her from the locker area to the foyer, his hand grazed her lower back. She nodded to the submissive at the front desk, a woman dressed mannishly in Victorian butler wear, her hair slicked back tight to her head.
As Ros stepped outside the club, she glanced down, a personal grounding ritual she did when entering or exiting Progeny. The decorative steppingstones embedded in the concrete walkway formed an arrow that started wide at the parking lot and narrowed to a point in front of the entryway. On each of the stones was a saying or instruction relevant to what happened here. One of her favorites was the one she stood upon now.
Regard. Respect. Care.
He’d followed her glance. “When the owners of the club re-poured this walkway,” she said, “they decided to put in the stones, let contributors pay for them and choose the content. As people move between the parking lot and the building, the words plant ideas to keep in mind when we’re engaging with one another.”
“SEAL training has something like that.” His eyes tracked the different quotes. “Laying down the principles as they’re breaking you down, so that you know what ropes will hold you when you’re hanging over the abyss.” He nodded to the one before him. “‘Love covers a multitude of sins.’ That’s a good one. Unexpected, considering it’s from the Bible.”
“Why? Because there are some Christian sects that treat sex as a sin? Particularly alternate expressions of sexuality?
“Yeah, pretty much.”
“Do the SEALs operate on any biblical premises?”
Lawrence’s eyes turned to hers, steady, unblinking. “Yeah. Plenty. John 15:13. ‘Greater love than this no one hath, that one should lay down his life for his friends.’”
That odd gut punch of reaction again. She didn’t like imagining him in harm’s way. She had her hand on his forearm. “I’m glad you haven’t had to prove your greater love in that way.”
“Me too. I would have missed tonight.” He nodded toward the parking lot as they moved in that direction. “Which one are you?”
“That one.” She gestured to the red 2017 Ford Mustang convertible.
“Muscle car. Figures.”
“How so?”
“Controlling all that power with the lightest of touches.”
She sent him a smile. “I like you, Lawrence.”
“Same goes, Rosalinda.”
“You’re not going to call me Ros, are you?”
“No ma’am.” He turned to face her as they reached the car door. “Some names give you the feel of something. You can’t call a willow ‘will,’ and see this graceful tree in your mind.” His gaze swept over her. “You’re a Rosalinda, head to toe.”
“Hmm.” He wouldn’t give up control easily, but he wanted to do so. She could feel the craving pushing against her. Not just for her, but for what he knew she was, what she wanted from a male. She knew the difference between a man who challenged the queen because he thought he could knock her off her throne, and the one who did it because he needed her to compel his bended knee in front of it.
She unlocked the door with a quick chirp of noise, and he opened it for her. But before she slid into the driver’s seat, she decided to move closer to him, lay a hand on the resilient curve of his upper arm.
“Stay still,” she murmured. “I want to taste you, but you don’t have permission to taste me back. Not yet. No biting, either.”
He gave her that slow, closed-lipped smile, before her own lips were on it, testing the firmness, the taste of him. Her cheek brushed the slight roughness of his five o’clock shadow above his beard line. She tasted butter mint, felt heat, a quiver under her palm as his hand lifted but then lowered, obeying her order. She moved in closer, thighs brushing his, and slid her touch along his lower back and up, following the valley of the spine.
She wished he wasn’t wearing a tucked-in shirt so she could have tested his reaction flesh to flesh, but this would do for now. That quiver of tension increased, particularly as she rubbed one thigh deliberately against his. Her breasts brushed his chest. Just the tips.
His lips parted under the pressure of hers, and she sampled the mint and heat directly. When she eased back, he leaned toward her before he realized what he was doing and stopped. His green eyes were filled with heat.
“A man is always ready to come to bed with a woman,” she noted. “But knowing he accepts that he has to wait, that’s a heady feeling. Particularly if he doesn’t give himself any relief at all, until she tells him he can. Or she takes that release for her own pleasure.”
The green eyes flared, and she pursed her lips. “It’s up to you, Lawrence. Imagination and reality are equally wonderful things. When I touch myself tonight, I’ll think of you taking yourself in hand, coming all over your fist, as you fantasize about all the things you want to do for me.”