Bound to be Tempted: Emergence, Book 4 (2 page)

Carlton stared at the ornate, carved depiction of Christ hanging at the front of the church. He took a deep breath and pushed himself to standing as though his body weighed a ton. He made his way to the left wall, staring at the dozen or so candles burning already. Other people had come throughout the day and lit a candle for another loved one. He would join them as he always did, adding his flame to the rows of flickering orange light in hopes that he would feel one-tenth of the peace Karen had always professed.

Chapter Three

The next Friday night, Margaret entered Emergence wearing her favorite outfit, a short black leather skirt that barely covered her ass and a red bustier that laced up in the back, leaving plenty of pale skin visible. It was her favorite because it made her feel sexy. The compliments she received when she wore it, and the sideways glances from both men and women, never hurt either.

The clothes gave her confidence that warred with her emotions. She had thought about last Friday repeatedly during the week, both the scene with Steve and her reaction to Carlton. The doorman had undoubtedly just been looking out for her safety, like he’d said, but what if it was more?

It was late when she arrived. The club was full. She barely nodded at Carlton as she passed him in the entrance. He was busy helping a couple of women fill out release forms. Did his gaze land on her longer than usual? She shivered. Surely she was imagining things.

She wove through the throng of people and made her way to the bar, where she grabbed a bottle of water and turned around to survey the landscape. This section of the club near the bar was the only section where the noise level was so high. In the rooms lining the hall, people were respectfully quiet as scenes played out.

A tap on her shoulder had her spinning to the left.

A man she’d seen a few times in the past let his gaze roam up and down her body before coming to rest on her face. “Are you topping or bottoming tonight?”

She smiled. “Neither.” She knew she appeared neutral in tonight’s outfit. She could go either way. But this man didn’t know her well enough to realize she was never a top.

“Care to dance?” He either misunderstood her answer or chose to ignore it.

“No. Thanks. I’m just going to mill around for a while.” She pasted a fake smile on.

The man nodded and wandered away. Margaret exhaled, unaware she’d been holding her breath.
What did you expect to happen? Just because a man asks you to dance doesn’t mean he won’t take no for an answer. Geez
.

Margaret gripped the water bottle with both hands. The condensation on the outside dripped onto her fingers, and she lifted first one hand and then the other to wipe her neck, cooling her heated skin marginally.

Even though she’d gotten brave last weekend and allowed a man to top her, it didn’t mean she was ready to bottom for just any guy who approached. She knew she wanted to give another man a chance. Steve’s touch had been titillating, awakening a longing inside her. And then Carlton’s brooding looks had made her shiver.

Was it just her, or was the noise level unusually high?

In her candy-apple red stilettos, she lifted on tiptoe to see over the taller members of the crowd. She glanced around the room, searching for Jason Garwood, the owner. Any time she’d ever gotten freaked out at Emergence, she’d been able to count on him to bail her out, even if all she needed was a trip to the employee area behind the scenes to take a break.

She didn’t see him. In fact, she didn’t see Carlton anywhere either, and that man was impossible to miss. He was taller than most men she knew and broad enough to fill a doorframe.

Margaret worked her way through the crowd, hoping the area surrounding the dance floor was less busy. When she reached the edge, she found she was out of luck. Her spirits dampened. She felt an irritation creep up her neck.

Week after week she came to Emergence. It was a habit she’d developed as Lori’s sub. They came here every Friday. It seemed lately Lori tended to come more often on Saturdays, but Margaret kept her schedule. Why? Before last Friday, she hadn’t participated in any scenes in months. The few she’d enacted after breaking up with Lori had been purely cathartic. They kept her from losing herself entirely. And they’d been with women.

Margaret turned to head back to the front, but she ran into someone. “Sorry,” she blurted, grabbing the man by the biceps to keep from toppling. It was the guy from earlier. At least it wasn’t a total stranger.

“Change your mind?” He lifted one brow, but held on to her biceps with both hands also, not releasing her even though she was no longer in danger of falling on her ass.

“About what?” she asked.

“The dance? You seem to be looking for someone. I hope it’s me.” He smiled too wide and led her toward the floor as though he’d gotten the consent he needed.

“I…” She wanted to say she wasn’t in the mood, that she hadn’t been looking for him. But it seemed easier to just dance with him. She could give this man one dance and then beg off.

The second they hit the dance floor, she regretted the decision. Somehow she’d missed the fact that he was drunk when they’d spoken before. Alcohol wasn’t permitted at Emergence, which meant he’d either drunk his fill before coming inside, or carried it in his pocket against policy. His breath reeked.

He leaned too close to her, wrapping his arms around her middle and hauling her against him until she couldn’t avoid the cock pressed into her belly. When he spoke next, his breath gagged her. Bourbon? Undoubtedly straight. “You smell fantastic.” He pressed his nose to her neck and inhaled, reminding her of a wolf.

Ironic he would choose those words when she’d been thinking the opposite about him. He smelled like stale cigarettes and foul body odor from too much sweating.

One dance. Hold your breath
. Margaret tried to separate her body from the octopus who suddenly had more arms than the two God gave him.

When his hands landed on her ass and squeezed, she’d had enough. “Stop.” She pressed against his chest to get him to release her. “You’re drunk.”

He held her tighter, his fingers kneading her ass, his tongue landing on her neck.

“I said,
stop
,” she shouted louder this time. Maybe he couldn’t hear her over the noise and the music. “
Red
.” At least if this asshole wouldn’t listen, someone standing around would hear her use the universal safe word.

He ignored her. His body swayed, but he was off beat, and she feared he would fall over, taking her down with him.

“Dammit. Let go of me.” Margaret pushed harder. When he didn’t release her, she slapped him. That was it.

Two large hands reached around the bastard’s shoulders and pulled him backward one second after the impact of her palm against his cheek. “I believe the lady asked you to release her.” Carlton. Of course. Even though she hadn’t been able to find him in the crowd, he was there. Nothing got by him. Thank God.

It took a moment for Carlton to sufficiently extricate Margaret from the drunk’s clutches.

“Ah, man. What’d you go and do that for? I was dancing with the lady.”

“The lady said no.”

“She did?” He had trouble standing without swaying now. How had she not noticed his level of intoxication before? “I didn’t hear her. She asked me to dance with her.”

Margaret’s mouth fell open. “I did no such thing.”

Carlton turned the man away from her, keeping a tight grip on the asshole’s shoulders and leading him toward the entrance. “Let’s go, buddy. Alcohol isn’t allowed inside Emergence, and you know it.”

“I don’t have any alcohol,” the man protested.

“Yeah, well, drunks aren’t permitted either. Next time come sober or don’t come at all. I’ll be watching you like a hawk.” Carlton reached back with one hand and grasped Margaret’s, possessively tugging her along behind.

She followed. He hadn’t given her another option. With one strong grip on the drunk guy’s shoulder and one tight clench of her small palm with his larger one, he maneuvered the three of them to the front.

When he reached his desk, he turned toward Margaret. “Wait here, Maggie.”

She nodded, shivering at the way his nickname for her sounded as it slipped off his tongue. He’d called her Maggie from the first time she’d met him. No one else called her that. Not even her parents. But from Carlton, it just fit.

She watched as he led the drunk guy from the club. It took a few minutes to get him out the door. The man continued to protest his expulsion, arguing belligerently with Carlton as though he might possibly be able to win the larger man over with his slurred speech.

Margaret trembled again. She wasn’t sure if it was from relief over her rescue from the clutches of the drunk guy or from watching Carlton in action. The man was solid as a rock, and when he spoke, people did as he said. He didn’t take no for an answer. He wasn’t one to be pushed over. Reasoning with him was a lost cause. Only a drunk would attempt it.

Margaret wondered how he would use that power behind closed doors. She bit her lip thinking about the intensity in his gaze as he leaned over a woman. She’d seen him in action in the club as a Dom more times than she could count. When he wasn’t working and he did a scene with a sub, everyone in the vicinity stopped to watch. He could make any woman’s panties wet just standing near him. Even hers.

Finally, Carlton said a few words to the man guarding the door on the outside and turned back to Margaret. He took her hand again. She glanced down at the way he threaded two of his fingers with hers, almost intimate, or perhaps a coincidence. Either way, her heart pounded. He’d never held her hand before. Now twice in one night.

Carlton leaned in to speak discreetly to another employee as he led her away from the front. The other man nodded, stood taller and took up a stance manning the entrance.

Without saying another word, Carlton led Margaret through the crowd until he reached the employees-only door that led to the private areas of the club. He tugged the door open with his free hand and ushered Margaret through in front of him with a nod of his head.

Margaret ducked under Carlton’s arm where he held the door.

Still not releasing her hand, Carlton led her to the first office on the left, opened another door, and repeated the gentlemanly gesture until she was safely ensconced in his personal area.

She’d been in his office before, but never alone with him and never holding his hand, and never with her heart pounding so loud she thought he could surely hear it.

“Sit,” he commanded in a voice gruffer than usual. He angled her toward a guest chair opposite his desk and didn’t let go of her hand until her arm was stretched awkwardly away from her body as she settled in the seat. At that moment, he let go as though she’d burned him, muttering, “Sorry.”

Margaret licked her lips. How had she so quickly managed to land herself in his office, the vulgar noises of the club that had grated on her nerves all evening cut off, leaving her with a faint ringing sound?

Carlton leaned his ass on the edge of his desk and crossed his ankles. She was so close to him that he grazed her ankle with his shoe on the way by. He narrowed his gaze as though assessing her for injury. “You okay?”

“Yes.” She nodded.

“Why were you with that guy in the first place?”

Margaret gasped. “What? I wasn’t with him. He manhandled me onto the dance floor.”

Carlton stared hard at her for a second and then ducked his face and rubbed his temples with one hand. “Of course. I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to snap at you. And I’m sorry I didn’t see him quicker. It’s too crowded out there tonight. We really need a limit.” His brow remained furrowed when he lifted his head.

“I was fine. You were fast. I’m not sure how you saw me so quickly, actually.”

He nodded, his gaze wandering from her face down to her chest, and then lower. Was he looking for bruises? It hadn’t been that bad.

“You need a Dom,” he stated as though it were the simplest solution to an imaginary problem.

“What?”

Carlton’s gaze darted back to hers. So fierce. If she didn’t know better, she’d think he was angry with her. “You’ve been hanging around here for months alone. You’re an open target for predators. You’re too sexy for your own good. You need a Dom,” he emphasized again.

“What?” she repeated. She had no idea what he was getting at.

He rolled his eyes then, the furrow loosening slightly. “Maggie, you’re fucking gorgeous.” He waved his hand through the air toward her corset and then her skirt. “I know you tend to wear more than most unattached women in the club these days, but, baby, I can almost see your pussy under that skirt. And your breasts…” his hand paused midair in the vicinity of her chest, inches separating his fingers from her nipples, “…God, woman.”

Margaret giggled. She couldn’t stop herself. Carlton in his overbearing protective mode was almost comical.

“What are you laughing at? This is serious.” He narrowed his gaze.

“What’s serious, Carlton? The fact that I’m sexy or the fact that you can’t control your tongue?”

His gaze snapped to meet hers again. He closed his mouth.

Margaret stood slowly. She stepped closer to him until she could feel his breath on her cheeks. Even leaning against the desk, he towered over her. She watched as his Adam’s apple bobbed with his swallow. She had him tongue-tied. Now what was she going to do? “Did you want to volunteer?”

Carlton swallowed again. “Volunteer for what?” His voice was hoarser than usual, deep, so fucking sexy she wanted him to keep talking.

“To be my Dom. You said I needed a Dom. Are you volunteering?” She lifted an eyebrow, proud of her ability to hold her ground. Inside, she was shaking fiercely. Her pussy was soaking wet from his proximity. She was aroused by everything about him—the way he gripped the edge of the desk on both sides of his body, the way his jaw ticked at her challenge, the way his eyes widened and his mouth opened to utter no response.

How had she never noticed her incredible attraction to him? Or maybe she had simply ignored it or written it off as a coincidence caused by his enormous size and his domineering mannerisms. In any case, she suddenly wanted him to be the first man to really dominate her. She needed the experience in a safe, sane, consensual environment. Carlton was all that and more. She knew him well enough to be sure he would handle her appropriately as she explored this hidden side of her she’d kept barricaded for her entire life.

Seconds ticked by. Margaret could hear his heart beating, or maybe it was hers. Perhaps both in sync. It seemed the temperature in the room rose with each passing moment. Her skin heated as a flush spread across her chest and up her cheeks.