Bondage Wedding (7 page)

She stared up at him with tears welling in her eyes, and his heart started to melt. No doubt about it, her body was as affected by him as his was by her. Mustering all the self-control he could manage, he forced his voice to be calm and patient. Taking a slow, deep breath, he instructed her, “In.” Exhaling, he told her, “Out.”

“James?” Her voice was soft and sent a zing straight to his cock.

“Sshh, I’ve got you.” With his left hand, he locked her palms to his chest, he touched her silky, soft lips with the index finger of his right. “Just breathe.” He kept his voice tender, yet commanding.

He slid his finger along her full bottom lip. He loved kissing her and planned to do it often. “You can do this, Amanda. You can do anything you set your mind to. I’m sorry I upset you, it was thoughtless of me. My only excuse is temporary insanity.” He dropped his voice to a mere whisper. “Night after night, I’ve gone to the club just so I could spend a few minutes with you. And every night you blew me off. Lately, you’ve barely even said hello before you handed me a wristband and sent me on my way. Then last evening I spent a few hours in my own private hell reading about you seducing two different men. It bothered me—a lot.”

She shook her head no.

“I won’t hurt you, Amanda.”

“You will,” she whispered. “I’m not like those girls. I refuse to be.” She looked him in the eye and pleaded with him, “You’re going to ruin everything.”

“No, Amanda, you’re wrong. I won’t hurt you. Don’t worry about all that right now.” Some of the tension left her body. Her shoulders sagged as if she’d given up. He didn’t like it. “You have a skewed idea of what I want from my woman.”

The phrase ‘my woman’ seemed to strike fear in her again. It was like a dance, two steps forward for every one backward.

“You accused me of wanting a mindless bimbo and nothing could be further from the truth. I like your fire and your spirit. I don’t want a robot or a slave.”

When she didn’t respond, he continued, “I’m taking a major leap here, Amanda. Basically, I’m handing you my balls on a platter. I know you’re scared, and so am I.”

“James, I’m not who you think I am. I’m not…like that.”

“We will talk about this later.” He looked her in the eye, hoping she would really listen to him. “You’re safe with me.” James backed off and gave her a little space. Intimacy of any kind seemed to scare the hell out of her.

She might not believe him, but her body language had shifted subtly. She was starting to relax. As she got a handle on her arousal, her fear dropped away. Amanda was definitely running scared. She had posted on her blog that she’d never orgasmed from a man, only alone with a vibrator. Her body responding to his must have taken her by surprise.

James let go of her hands then took a knife and cut her sandwich in half. “Take a bite. If you’re going to fight me every step of the way, you’re going to need your strength.”

Amanda gave him a cautious smile then picked up the sandwich. “I’m gonna let you win this one, but don’t let it go to your head. You have no idea what you’re getting yourself in for.” After she had taken a bite and another sip of soda, she conceded, “This is good.”

Slowly, reluctantly, he slid his leg off her lap.

James laughed. “I will win them all, Amanda. Failure isn’t an option.”

“We’ll see about that.”

* * * *

As they pulled into the garage, Amanda got her first look at his home in broad daylight. Again, she was struck by how similar their tastes ran. “You have a great house, James. I’m jealous.”

“I like it. Someday I’ll show you the pictures of it right after I bought it. Let’s just say I’ve been busy.”

“I would love to buy mid-century moderns, fix ’em up and sell them. Of course, I’d have to get a lot better at carpentry to make that profitable.” She laughed, shocked she’d just shared a real piece of herself with someone.

“Really?”

He sounded surprised. James was watching her intently, not that that was any different than normal. He always seemed to see inside her to places she kept hidden from everyone else. “I’ve considered doing the same thing.”

He couldn’t say things like that. She’d never be able to resist him and she refused to end up like the other women in her family. Losing their self-respect and destroying their lives because they fell in love with the wrong man. Always the wrong man. Amanda practically ran from the car once he had it in park. She reached the garage entrance to the kitchen before he put a hand on her arm, stopping her escape.

“Don’t do that again! Someone wants to hurt you. He’s threatened to kill you. Never forget that.” He emphasized his point by touching her forehead.

“You’re right.” He was making her crazy—he was too perfect and she was falling for him big time. No parachute was going to save her if she took that plunge.

“Stay behind me,” he told her, as he opened the door to the house. Once he had cleared the west side, he sat her down on the couch then finished checking the rest of the rooms.

Amanda rested her head in her hands and tried to get control over her emotions. Normally, before James had entered her life, she’d always been very practical. Hearing a noise, she raised her head and he was there, looking sexier than any man had a right to.

James pulled one of his accent chairs in front of the couch where she was sitting. With their knees touching, he leaned in toward her, rested his elbows on his thighs and took her hands into his. “You scare me when you act before thinking. You need to talk to me and tell me why you keep running from me. I’m not the enemy. I’m trying my damnedest to keep you safe, but you have to meet me half way.”

His voice was soft and comforting. He almost always used that tone with her. It made her feel special and right now that would be her undoing. “Then stop being nice to me.” She wanted to tell him to stop touching her too, but the words just wouldn’t leave her mouth.

James chuckled. “I don’t think I’ve ever been accused of being too nice, but okay. I can work with that. Explain your blog to me. How much of it is true and how much is bullshit?”

“How could my blog have anything to do with the sicko sending those pictures?” She knew she had to tell him, but she didn’t know how to start.

“Maybe nothing, maybe everything. But, I’ll be honest, I want you to tell me because I want to know the real you. Don’t sugarcoat it. Don’t tell me what you think I want to hear. Just give me the truth. Why did you start the blog?”

Amanda looked into his eyes knowing once she told him, her worries would be over. No way would he want her as ‘his woman’ once he realized the extent to which she morally opposed BDSM. She’d be lucky if he’d agreed to continue protecting her. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “The ‘about me’ page pretty much says it all. The women in my family are loser magnets. We have a tendency to fall for the wrong type of men. I refuse to continue the tradition.”

He nodded. “From what I read, it sounded like your mom chose abusive guys. Did any of them hurt you?”

His tone was solemn. She hadn’t expected that. She figured he’d get arrogant and profess that women liked a strong man, blah, blah, blah.

“Not in the way you mean. Watching my mom get the crap beat out of her by men who professed to love her didn’t give me a warm fuzzy.”

“I’m sure it didn’t. Have any of your boyfriends or hookups abused you?”

This wasn’t going the way she’d thought it would. He belonged to a club that offered a wide variety of ‘impact toys’ to their members. Why would he pretend to care if a man used her for a punching bag when he did the same thing to women as often as possible?

James chuckled. “Why are you looking at me like I’ve grown two heads?”

He wanted to know the real her? Fine, she’d spell it out for him. “For starters, I don’t do hookups. And you—Mr ‘I go to the club every frickin’ night it’s open’—give me a break. Although I
never
go beyond the lobby, I do understand what goes on in there. Stop pretending. You wouldn’t go there if you didn’t get off on hitting women.”

James let go of her hands and sat back in his chair looking as if she’d kicked him in the balls. “What? You think I’m like those assholes who abused your mother.”

Amanda’s stomach was tied in knots. How could he appear so genuinely insulted when she’d only pointed out the truth? “James, stop. You can’t ask me to be open and honest with you then sit there feeding me crap.”

He pushed his chair back and started pacing. “That wasn’t just manufactured drama? You actually meant that crap you were spouting in the restaurant? You believe submissives are mindless bimbos and the Doms beat the shit out of them for fun?”

“I know what happens in the club. I’ve ordered more whips, floggers, tawses and canes than I can count. You can’t tell me they’re just for decoration and that no one ever uses them.”

“I’m sure André sells a lot of them. His stuff is top shelf. And of course they’re used, but they’re used for pleasure.” He shrugged then conceded, “And, when necessary, for discipline.”

“How can you say that with a straight face? It isn’t a prison facility. One adult doesn’t have the right to ‘discipline’ another. Have you heard about a historical document called the Declaration of Independence? It states that all men are created equal. And don’t even try to tell me that doesn’t apply to women, cuz if you start that crap I’m outta here!”

James sat back down and took her hands in his again. “You’re off base, Amanda, but you’ve filled in a few pieces of the puzzle for me. And for the record”—he raised his right hand and extended his index finger—“I don’t get off hitting women and—” raising his middle finger he continued, “that’s not what the club is about.” When she started to butt in, he stopped her with a wave of his hand. “That’s a discussion for another time. Now back to my original question, were you abused by your previous…partners?”

“No.” Because before she’d met James, she’d been smart enough to run in the opposite direction every time a bad boy looked twice at her.

“I read your grandmother was collared, was your mother in the lifestyle too?”

“No. My mom was a teen when her mother married Robert. There was a major family upheaval over their marriage. A few family members tried to fight for custody of my mom. It was a mess. Mom ran off with a boyfriend when she was sixteen… Their mother-daughter relationship hasn’t improved much over time.”

“Sounds like you had a rough childhood.” His tone was neutral, maybe conciliatory, but his body language screamed hurt. She hadn’t meant to hurt his feelings.

She shrugged. “It seemed normal to me, I have nothing to gauge it by. I’m close to my mom, but I think she’s nuts. I certainly never want to emulate her life.”

“Tell me about the guys you’ve been with.”

Cuz there’d been so many…not
. “You make it sound like I’m with a different guy every week.” Then it dawned on her, of course he thought that. She worked at a kink club so naturally he assumed she was spreading it around. “Look, I’m not like that. I’ve been with two guys. David was my only real boyfriend. He was a really sweet guy, but there wasn’t any chemistry so I dumped him.”

“In your blog you said you had it bad for his friend.”

She felt heat rising to cover her face. The tips of her ears were burning she was so embarrassed. “Yes,” she hissed, wishing she’d never started that danged blog. “I can’t help who I’m attracted to. But I didn’t act on it. He was David’s best friend—it wouldn’t have been right.”

“Why did you go after your professor, or was that a lie?”

She shrugged. “No, I had sex with him. And before you get the wrong impression—I had a ninety-eight percent in his class before I slept with him. Believe me, I didn’t get anything out of it.”

“So, what you wrote in your blog was mostly accurate? You seduced him because he was older and you thought he could give you satisfaction in bed?”

“When you say it like that, I sound like a cold and calculating bitch. I’m not like that. I just…” Tears were threatening to spill down her face and if she didn’t get a tissue soon she’d be a slobbery mess. She tipped her head back, hoping gravity would keep the tears from falling.

James jumped up and disappeared down the hallway. He came back with a box of tissues.

“Thank you.” With as much grace as was possible, she blew her nose and dabbed at the tears.

“Tell me why you slept with the professor.”

With a heavy sigh, she tried to defend her actions. “The semester was almost over. I could have flunked the final and still received an A in the class so I figured it was safe enough. He was suave and had obviously been around. Neither one of us had anything to lose.” She shrugged again. This was too personal and she didn’t do personal. She majored in aloof.

“Were you attracted to him?”

How could she admit that only the wrong kind of men appealed to her? Men like James. “He was all right.”

James frown and raise an eyebrow. It was pretty clear he wanted more details. She threw her hands in the air. “What do you want from me, James? Did he get my panties wet? No. No, he didn’t. My defective genes only get turned on when a guy goes all caveman.”

“Amanda”—James moved onto the couch and then pulled her onto his lap—“you don’t have defective genes.”

He shook his head then looked up at her with compassion etched on his handsome face. Her heart beat double time. She should walk away while she still could. Only a fool would sit here in his lap soaking up his masculine scent and falling further under his spell.

“You’re a submissive. You respond to dominance.” He held his hand up. “Let me finish. You’re right to be careful. There are guys out there, both in the lifestyle and out, who abuse women. I can understand, from the limited exposure you’ve had, how you would want to run fast and far away from anything that reminded you of the bullshit your mom went through. But, Amanda, to steal your phrase, I’m not like that. The Doms and Masters at DiscipliNation aren’t like that. If we found someone abusing our submissives, after we’d spent a few minutes alone with the asshole, we’d have ’em arrested.”

“I’m not submissive. Yes, I’ll admit I have my wires crossed. It does something to me when you get all bossy, but that doesn’t mean I’m submissive or, more to the point, that I ever plan to act on it.”