Despite her fury, she realized Master Nathaniel had reached a place inside her no one else ever had. She was hyperaware of the lingering pain from his well-wielded belt.
She focused on the pain for a moment. It had been a long time, months or more, since she’d had that kind of intensity during a scene.
Well, maybe she’d never experienced anything quite like that.
Over the years, they’d spent little time alone. He couldn’t possibly know her as well as he seemed to. It was as if he read her thoughts, needs, desires, and knew exactly how to treat her.
She hated it; she liked it.
What the hell was wrong with her?
She could walk out. She was capable of collecting her coat and walking to the car.
She didn’t have to wait here on his whim.
Yet she stayed where she was…where he’d left her.
Part of her wanted him to be pleased with her.
Alani called on everything she’d learned about being a sub to wait patiently. If she had a limits list, being left alone would be on it.
Her hips ached from the unnatural position, and the room was uncomfortably cold.
She dragged in a couple of breaths, trying to get her heart rate under control and wondering why he hadn’t fucked her.
When he’d commanded her to her knees, she could tell he was aroused. He wanted her. She would have happily given him a blowjob. And yet he’d walked away.
Master Nathaniel reentered the office and closed the door behind him.
“You may get up,” he told her.
Her trench coat was draped over his forearm, and he held her purse in one hand. Obviously he’d had Willow use the master key for the lockers. Somehow the oversize leather bag didn’t take away from his masculinity.
Since she’d been in that uncomfortable kneeling position for so long, it took her a moment to stand. There was nothing beautiful or elegant about her motions, and she hated that.
“Get dressed.”
His voice was flat and disinterested, as if ten minutes ago he hadn’t had his mouth on her pussy as he sucked her clit hard enough to make her scream out her orgasm.
He watched her every motion. She scooped up her thong. Her hands shook as she stepped into the material, and the lace snagged on one of her heels.
He continued to look at her. He may have sounded distant when he spoke to her, but the expression on his face wasn’t. His eyelids were narrow over his icy green eyes, and he regarded her intently.
She was suddenly self-conscious in a way she hadn’t been when stretched across the top of the desk.
Being displayed for a dom’s punishment was more familiar than having that man study her every movement.
She snatched up her blouse and shrugged into it. She only fastened the top couple of buttons. Master Nathaniel regarded her, not hurrying her at all.
“You told me you can find your car on your own, Alani. No doubt that’s true. But again, this is about what I want. It’s why I don’t believe you for a moment when you tell me part of being submissive is realizing you need to please your dom rather than yourself. It pleases me to make sure you make it to your vehicle safely. It pleases me to care for you. Your constant arguments prove you’re saying one thing but believing another.”
She reached for her skirt and pulled it on. She fumbled with the zipper. The harder she tried, the worse she failed.
“Stop,” he said softly.
He placed her coat and purse on a chair and moved toward her.
“Drop your hands to your sides and turn around.”
Compelled by the no-nonsense tone in his voice, she obeyed.
He drew up the zipper. “Quit fighting yourself,” he said. “Quit fighting me. What we just experienced was powerful.”
“We? I’m the one being beaten.” She took a breath, and added a belated, “Sir.”
“I was there too, Alani,” he said against her ear.
A shiver—maybe of anticipation?—traced up her spine.
“I was as affected by it as you were,” he said. He placed his hands on her shoulders and turned her back to face him. He captured her chin between his thumb and forefinger, but in a different way than when he intruded on her scene with Master Richard.
He threaded the fingers of his left hand into her hair.
Controlling her physically, he forced her to look up at him.
“Think about what you want, Alani, what you really want. There’s nothing wrong with you deciding this job isn’t for you. People quit jobs every day. But if you’re going to be here, we expect you to be fully into what you’re doing. Your doms deserve it; you deserve it.”
He continued to hold her for almost a minute. She noticed his jaw was clenched. A tiny pulse ticked near his temple. She waited for him to say something, but he remained silent.
Tension stretched. Abruptly he let her go and reached for her coat.
As if she were his date rather than his punished employee, he held it while she slipped into it.
She knotted the belt tightly at her waist.
He handed her the purse, and she slung it over her shoulder.
“Jaron!” he shouted.
The head of security, in his tailored suit, immediately entered. The man was black and lean with a shaved head. More than one sub fantasized about him. Even though he didn’t play, at least at the club, he’d had plenty of offers, from doms and subs alike.
Jaron had been at Zones since it opened, and he’d always been unfailingly polite and professional. He guarded the club as if it were his own, making sure the employees and guests alike were kept safe. He was quiet and unobtrusive, and so were the state-of-the-art security measures he had put into place.
“Please see Ms. Dane to her car.”
“Certainly, Sir.”
Master Nathaniel stepped to one side, arms folded, looking every bit like the powerful dom he was.
She didn’t look at him as she preceded Jaron from the suite of offices and into the reception area.
Master Marcus nodded toward her. Willow lifted her hand in greeting and flashed a quick smile of solidarity.
Alani felt as if she were walking a gauntlet. Everyone knew about her failure with Master Richard, and they likely knew Master Nathaniel had opted to make her stay home tomorrow. She had never felt more off balance in her life than she did right now.
“I took the liberty of having your car brought round,” Jaron said.
All the employees kept an extra key at the front desk. When it snowed, the security team scraped the windows and made sure the car was started at the end of the shift. Just another way the owners made sure it was a good place to work. “Thank you.”
He held open the door, and she slipped inside. The seat’s nubby material abraded the welts behind her knees.
Despite the fact it was springtime in the Rockies, the early evening was unseasonably cool, and Jaron had turned on the heat, making the driver’s compartment warm.
“See you soon,” Jaron said.
She wondered.
He tipped an imaginary cap and closed the door after she was settled.
In the rearview mirror, she watched Zones fade away. She couldn’t feel worse if she’d been fired.
* * * *
“Thank you,” Nathaniel told Jaron when the man joined him outside the club’s entrance.
“Yes, sir. Anything else?”
Nathaniel shook his head. When he, AJ, and Marcus had decided to open a club, AJ had insisted on state-of-the-art security to protect the patrons and their privacy. Jaron had come highly recommended by an army officer Nathaniel worked with. The tall black man had been an excellent choice.
Jaron went back inside the club.
Nathaniel continued to stand where he was, despite the fact her taillights had already blended in with the heavy Lower Downtown traffic. Since it was after six on a Friday, everyone was heading home after a long workweek. People from the suburbs hadn’t started arriving at Zones yet, and it would be another couple of hours before the club was really happening.
He told himself he was enjoying the sight of the Rocky Mountains in the distance and that he wasn’t thinking about Alani. But that was a lie.
Nathaniel Stratton, a skilled combatant who’d braved some of the harshest conditions on the planet, was unsettled.
He’d survived sandstorms and a hail of bullets without losing his focus, and yet a young woman, so petite the top of her head barely reached the middle of his chest, left him second-guessing himself. It was a new feeling and a goddamn uncomfortable one at that.
“Buy you a drink?” Marcus offered, joining him outside.
“You’ll never go on vacation if I handle all the club problems like this.”
“Managing people is the most difficult part of running Zones,” Marcus said.
Jaron came back outside to set up the velvet rope line. Nathaniel had checked the reservation list and knew they were expecting a big turnout for the evening. It wasn’t the best time for him to have given Alani the night off. “Do you ever wonder if you’ve made the right decision?” Nathaniel asked Marcus.
“Rarely. By the time a situation reaches me, I need to do something about it. I don’t terminate employment without cause, and I’m slow to hire, fast to fire if I see reason for concern. With longtime employees, it’s not unusual to work with the situation, clarify expectations. Sometimes a long talk helps.”
He didn’t know whether the words were reassuring or not.
They moved inside to the all but empty bar. They pulled up two stools at the far end, hopefully where no one would bother them.
Marcus went for a light beer. “Watching my physique,” he explained.
More likely it was because he was working tonight, and the man was all about restraint.
Nathaniel ordered a whiskey, straight.
It was a fine bourbon, but he didn’t sip; he swallowed in a single gulp.
“Tell me what happened,” Marcus said.
Nathaniel didn’t know where to begin. He’d been intent on doing what was best for the club, offering to retrain her. But when he’d seen her responsiveness, the hunger in her wide, brown eyes, he’d wanted to please her, wanted to give her what she craved but couldn’t get anywhere else. How big of a fool was he?
Alani was an employee, not his submissive. He’d never wanted a full-time sub, and he sure as hell didn’t even need to play with someone like Alani. But damn, his cock was still fucking hard. “She’s complicated.”
“I suspected as much.”
Nathaniel rolled the empty glass between his palms. “She’s a masochist.”
Marcus raised his brows, then took a second drink from his glass.
“Punishing her physically won’t change her behavior,” Nathaniel said. “The worst thing for Alani is not being here.”
“It’s also the worst thing for the club on a Friday night.”
He winced. “Sorry about that.”
“She was thinking of asking for a leave of absence anyway,” Marcus said. “Maybe this way we’ll get her back on staff faster.”
Marcus was a pragmatist. AJ tended toward optimism. As for Nathaniel, he’d been born a pessimist. He rarely thought anything would work out well, whether in war or in his personal life. Over the years, the three men had annoyed the hell out of one another. It was amazing their friendship had survived since college. “If it helps, I did have her sign the verbal warning before she left.”
“Great job.”
He considered ordering another whiskey. But that wasn’t how he dealt with problems. “I’m not sure what to do about her retraining,” Nathaniel admitted.
“You beat her?”
“I made it clear between us that she was off the clock,” Nathaniel said, recalling the sight of the red-striped X on her exposed buttocks. “But yeah. I did.”
“That really wasn’t what I was hoping would happen.”
“There’s a reason you run the club, not me.”
“Despite the fact Zones is a BDSM club, we generally don’t beat our employees to improve morale.”
There was no doubt he’d colored outside the lines. And it had been a first for him. “I shouldn’t have interfered.”
AJ joined them at the bar. “Willow said you sent Alani home.”
“We were just discussing that,” Marcus said. He looked pointedly at Nathaniel. “And he made sure she won’t be sitting comfortably for a while.”
AJ whistled. “Sounds serious.”
Nathaniel and Marcus moved to accommodate the stool he dragged over.
The bartender slid a soda water with a lime attached to the rim down the length of the polished wood…without spilling a drop.
“I thought you didn’t play our subbies,” AJ said. He squirted the lime into the glass.
“I don’t. And I’m not sure it was a good idea this time,” Nathaniel admitted.
“He’s feeling guilty,” Marcus said. “But he shouldn’t. Alani told me she wanted more. There’s no policy against employees and owners being involved. Karyn sometimes serves as a monitor on theme nights, and she’ll fill in if someone is sick. It can work. I just want to be sure it’s consensual.”
AJ shrugged. “If she’s playing with you, she obviously has terrible taste in men.”
There was nothing like being among friends.
Marcus took another drink of his beer. A few more people drifted toward the bar. Friday night was picking up.
“You sticking around?” Marcus asked.
“Haven’t I caused enough damage?”
Willow headed in their direction. “There are a couple of people who want a club membership,” she said. “But they have a few questions.”
“Duty calls,” Marcus said. He pushed away his half-finished beer.
“Don’t send home any more of our employees,” AJ said, grabbing his glass. “And give me a chance to beat them first.” He wandered over to another table to say hello.
Marcus clapped Nathaniel on the shoulder. “You did okay.”
Fortunately the rest of the evening went well. The club’s other professional submissives were able to handle Alani’s clients, and no money had to be refunded.
The next day, he lifted some weights, then went for a five-mile run. He debated whether to call her but decided to spend a couple of hours at the outdoor shooting range first. He told himself he needed to keep his skills sharp.
Truthfully, he needed the time as waking meditation. His thoughts bothered him, and he had no idea what to do with Alani.
Women didn’t perplex him. Or they hadn’t, until last night.