Breathe (9 page)

Samantha bit back a retort, then swallowed past the hint of disappointment that came with it.

Shouldn’t she want to obey him? Shouldn’t it be making her feel good?

She turned her head to keep studying the club, but Angelo cleared his throat, drawing her attention back to him.

“Most Doms won’t appreciate a new sub looking at them, so it’s best to keep your eyes on me.”

Samantha felt her brows draw together. No, this was not going at all how she’d planned.

“I’d like you to finish filling out your forms. I’ll read them over as I show you around the club.” Samantha lifted the clipboard again.

She was going to see this evening out. She knew it was too soon to form an opinion about anything.

Still, she found that she was bitterly disappointed.

She thought of Elijah, and of how he made her feel sparks that she’d never felt before. From the very first meeting he’d woken parts of her that had lain dormant ever since her teen years, when all the bad things had happened.

Elijah had admitted that he was a Dom. So he would want a sub. What if that wasn’t what she was, not really?

It would be over before it even started.

Angelo was speaking again and Samantha forced herself to tune back in.

“Remember as you fill the form out that a Dom will take a soft limit as an invitation to explore further, to push you.” Samantha’s eyes went wide.

Her pen had been hovering over “auctioned off.” She hastily checked no.

Animal roles. Boot worship. Mouth bits.

She had no idea what any of those were, and drew question marks next to them. No way was she agreeing to something unless it had been explained in full.

Asphyxiation. Scat. Breath control.

Oh, hell to the no.

Just when she was wondering if there was anything on the list that she
was
interested in—and if she had maybe completely misjudged her own needs—she came across an item that caught her interest.

Bondage.

She furrowed her brow at the paper. So many of the dreams she’d had had involved just that: rope, chains, cuffs, all holding her down, stripping away her control.

The image stayed in her mind as she worked through the remainder of the checklist. By the time she was done, the idea of being naked and bound, of someone kissing her until she was breathless while her arms tugged at the chains, had slickened the space between her legs.

“Ready for your tour?” Angelo asked patiently. Samantha nodded, feeling a tug of guilt as Angelo took the clipboard from her hands.

He was a nice guy, taking the time to introduce her to this lifestyle.

And yet as she followed him farther into the club, he wasn’t the one she imagined caressing her bound body.

Bracing herself against the onslaught of images and sounds, Samantha found herself wondering what Elijah was doing right at that moment.

CHAPTER FIVE

T
he tires of his car crunched over the gravel as Elijah pulled up in front of Samantha’s small cottage. Several small rocks flicked up, bouncing off his windshield, something that would normally have him cursing.

Now, however, he was too intent on seeing Samantha to do more than cast an irritated glance at the pane of glass.

Crossing the small pad of gravel that was Samantha’s front yard, Elijah rapped on the brightly painted door.

Like the gnomes in her backyard, he appreciated the lighthearted touch.

There was no answer. Furrowing his brow, he took the chance that she’d be irritated and he peered through the front window.

The room was dim. Straining his ears, he searched for the sound of her glass furnace and came up with nothing.

She wasn’t home. Damn it.

He knew it wasn’t rational to be disappointed. He hadn’t called; they hadn’t had plans.

But he couldn’t help wondering where she was. Who she was with.

Jealousy was a new emotion for him, and he wasn’t quite sure what to do with it. It didn’t seem to suit him.

Turning, Elijah realized that he didn’t have much say in the matter. Samantha was an incredibly beautiful woman, and they had admitted a mutual attraction.

He hadn’t asked her if she was involved with anyone. His gut told him she wasn’t, that she wasn’t the kind of woman to start exploring the way she was if she had ties to someone.

That didn’t stop the little green monster from perching on his shoulder and egging him on.

Elijah had his hand on the handle of his car door when he spied a hint of white, bright in the fading sun. It lay on the gravel by the indentations that marked where Samantha typically parked her car.

Moving closer, he picked it up. It was a thick rectangular piece of paper. When he turned it over and saw the logo for Pecado, his eyebrows shot up and his jaw clenched.

Why would she be going to Pecado? Was she there with someone else?

Crumpling the card in his fist, Elijah lowered his rangy build into his Porsche and shoved the car into gear. Didn’t she know that she had to be careful about whom she gave control to?

BDSM clubs usually had a lot of safeguards in place. If she had been at Devorar, then he wouldn’t have been worried, knowing that all it would take was a word from him for Antonio, his manager, to keep a close eye on her.

But Pecado—he didn’t know much about that club, had been there only once. And he found that he didn’t much care for the idea of an opportunistic Dom taking advantage of Samantha’s inexperience with the lifestyle.

As he sped down the road that led back into town, barely noticing the buildings that were nothing more than a colored blur in his peripheral vision, Elijah thought of Samantha’s stubbornness and her smart mouth and winced.

Many Doms would take that as an invitation to discipline her. And she likely had no idea what discipline even entailed—hell, he’d been worried that she wasn’t into anything more than bedroom kink.

The woman had no idea what she was getting herself into.

Grimly, Elijah looked at the speedometer on the dashboard, then coaxed the pedal a little closer to the floor.

She may not like what he had to say, but he’d made up his mind. If Samantha wanted an introduction to the BDSM lifestyle, then she would get it from him and no one else.

•   •   •

“W
ould you like to try it?”

Angelo’s question came after Samantha had felt his eyes watching her for several long moments. He’d shown her the upstairs area of the club, where the private rooms were located, and around most of the downstairs space. They’d passed the bar, where she’d had a shot of tequila to ease her nerves.

Now they stood watching what Angelo had termed a “playful” scene. But as Samantha watched, she was feeling anything but.

In front of them, a man dressed in leathers similar to Angelo’s circled a naked woman. Her wrists were cuffed and attached to rings high up on two thick wooden posts. Her ankles were similarly bound, and while she had a small range of movement, she was for all intents and purposes at the mercy of the man.

The woman’s skin was flushed and sheened with sweat, and the hair that brushed her shoulders was damp.

The man who circled her wore a mitt lined with some kind of furry fabric on one hand. His other hand held something that looked like a small pizza cutter.

As Samantha watched, the man ran the small device in circles around the woman’s nipples. The woman jerked against her chains, crying out, and Samantha felt her own nipples pucker in response.

“That’s called a Wartenberg wheel.” Angelo had noticeably limited the amount that he’d touched her throughout their tour, but now he clasped her hips and pulled her back against him. Samantha stiffened in surprise when her ass nestled against the ridge of his solid erection.

“It doesn’t cut. It just brings the nerves to life.” Though he was obviously aroused, Angelo made no moves to touch Samantha anywhere else besides that light press of his fingers on her hips. As they’d walked around, she’d noticed that most Doms did this, touching the subs as they pleased, a hand on a thigh here, a delicate caress of a cheek there.

It seemed, somehow, to reinforce the notion that a sub didn’t have control here. Samantha felt, rationally, that she should object to this.

Instead, it made her relax. It was as if her control was in the hands of every Dom who took a moment to care.

She still wished that it was Elijah who held her.

Finished with the Wartenberg wheel, the Dom in front of them tossed it aside, then rubbed the furry mitt over the skin that he had just teased. With his free hand he slid his fingers between his sub’s legs, then inside her. Soon she bucked against his hand and cried out as she collapsed in what looked to be complete bliss.

As Samantha watched the other woman collapse in pleasure, only to be gently released from the chains, then taken in the arms of the Dom, she flushed and her skin suddenly felt too tight.

That was what she wanted. To be so lost in the other person that she couldn’t even think. To be cared for by someone she trusted so she didn’t have to do it for herself. Stress had been a monkey on her back for most of her life, especially during her teens, but it had eased a bit as Beth moved into adulthood.

But lately, with her sister losing her job, the stress had come back full force. With a growing unease that her life was spiraling out of control, Samantha had found it more and more difficult to escape the anxiety and fear that dogged her steps every waking moment . . . and sometimes haunted her dreams, too. If this . . .
lifestyle
could give her even a moment’s respite . . .

It was incredibly tempting.

“Would you like to try?” Angelo asked again as Samantha returned her attention to the scene playing out before them.

“Yes.” All of Samantha’s senses sizzled with anticipation. She knew that Angelo wasn’t the Dom for her, and yet she wanted to allow herself the experience.

Angelo held her in place for a moment as the Dom in front of them cleaned the equipment they’d just used. He had wrapped his sub in a warm blanket, seated her on the floor at his feet, and provided her with a bottle of water.

Tossing the cleaning cloth into a pail marked for that purpose, the Dom bent and picked up his sub, holding her close to his chest. The woman’s eyes were open but gazing far away, and she smiled beatifically, looking for all the world as though she was high.

“It’s all yours.” The Dom nodded to Angelo as he carried his sub away.

“Come with me.” Again that sound of dominance and possession in Angelo’s tone as he released Samantha’s hips and took her hand to guide her in between the posts. Samantha cocked her head, puzzled.

She responded to him a bit, reacting to the command in his voice. But he failed to waken her senses entirely, and she thought that there had to be more to it than this.

“Give me your wrists.” One at a time, Angelo raised Samantha’s arms and secured them into the upper cuffs. The metal was cool and solid against her hot skin, and she trembled as she realized that within seconds she would be incapable of movement.

“Glass,” she blurted out as the cuff clicked closed around her wrist. “My safe word is
glass
.”

Angelo cast her a disapproving stare. “I know that, Samantha. I read it in your paperwork.” He gestured to the sheaf of papers that he had tucked in the back pocket of his pants. “The club safe word is
tequila
, and you can also use the word
red
. No Dom worth his salt would restrain you without knowing your safe word.”

Samantha looked down, abashed.

Angelo tilted her head up, looked her in the eyes unwaveringly. “Trust is the basis of a D/s relationship, little one. You and I may not fit, but it’s a lesson you’d do well to learn.”

Samantha opened her mouth to apologize, but a voice sounded from behind Angelo, cutting her off.

“Get your hands off of her.”

•   •   •

E
lijah had never been more torn. Samantha was dressed in a little slip of a nightgown, a froth of pale brown more feminine and revealing than anything he would have imagined she’d own. It left her legs, her arms, the curve of her neck, the swells of her breasts open for his eyes to feast on.

Knowing what she looked like beneath that lace only increased his desire.

Her wrists were cuffed, chaining her to two tall wooden posts. Both times they had met she had taken his breath away with her beauty and the fierceness that radiated from deep within her.

To see her bound made him feel things he’d never felt so intensely before.

He wanted to touch her, clasp her by the hips, and seat himself inside her to the hilt.

He also wanted to ram his fist into the face of the man who currently had his hands around her waist. Elijah had never been the jealous type, but right in that moment he had to fight the urge to tear the man away from Samantha.

“Are you all right?” He looked to Samantha, saw that her face was flushed a deep red. He looked harder as she hesitated before nodding.

She wasn’t flushed with arousal, he realized, but with embarrassment.

“I’m fine.” Her words were tart, telling him she was annoyed.

But he didn’t miss the way she oriented her body in his direction just the slightest bit. If the man with her truly commanded her submission, she wouldn’t have even noticed Elijah.

“You can’t interrupt a scene, man.” The other man, a well-built Latino who looked to be in his early thirties, glowered at Elijah, his hands clenching into fists. “Are you new to this, or what?”

Elijah rose to his full height, looking down at the other man with every bit of arrogance that he possessed.

“I’m responsible for this sub’s safety this evening,” Angelo said. “She is my guest here.” Elijah saw the acknowledgment in the other man’s eyes, but Angelo didn’t back down. Elijah appreciated the way the other Dom moved in front of Samantha, protecting her from the perceived threat, even as it annoyed the hell out of him that his view was now blocked. “She chose this scene. You don’t have the right to interrupt.”