Chains and Canes (30 page)

Only, when they’d performed their emotional duet, “Forfeit”, Remy hadn’t stayed tangled with her on the floor, holding her as if she’d become part of his body and soul. Using their original choreography, he’d stood up and walked away.

She hadn’t needed to fake the punch of grief as she’d doubled over on the matte flooring, unable to bear watching him go.

The evening took a dark turn. The bright chrome and glass bar was too noisy. Daniel’s body was too warm. Naya’s skin was shrinking by the second as she realized the timing of the confession he’d shared. They’d needed to admit their love for Remy, out loud to one another, because he was pulling back. The wall of his arrogance was as high and impenetrable as when they’d first come together as a threesome.

“We killed something,” he said, lifting his glass.

Daniel turned away, muttering what sounded like, “Artists.” He ordered a club soda for Naya and a bottle of Stella for himself.

Naya wanted to reach out to Remy as easily, as casually, as she could touch Daniel. But in a public place, that wasn’t allowed. She and Daniel could love him with as much devotion as they loved one another, but they’d never be able to declare that adoration to the world. They were engaged. Remy was the outsider. The naked pain in his eyes wasn’t going anywhere, and maybe it never would—not unless they could find some way of including him in private, meaningful ways.

Ways he couldn’t ignore.

She pressed deeply into his personal space and took the glass from his hand. Without looking, she passed it back to Daniel. Her gaze was for Remy alone, until she lowered her lashes. She bowed her head. She took his hands and brought them up to her mouth—kissed his knuckles.

Remy jerked back as if she’d burned him with a brand. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?
Here?
”

“Awaiting your orders, Sir.”

“Knock it off, Naya.”

She grabbed his arm and tugged him toward the bar, where his body wedged between hers and Daniel’s. Beneath the chrome and out of sight, she reached down and undid two buttons on his shirt. Other than stage costumes, this was the only time she’d ever seen him wear anything so formal—probably more reason for his nerves. She slipped her hand inside. His skin was burning, his abdomen taut, his respiration rough and erratic. As if unable to hold back, he clasped his hand over hers, with the warm fabric separating skin from skin.

“You’re such a wound-up mess that you can hardly breathe,” she said quietly. “With you brooding and me clinging on to Daniel—we’re not doing a very good job of schmoozing about Transit.”

“We danced. They can take it or leave it.” His voice was glass. Sharp. Deadly.

“And let down everyone who’s depending on us?”

“I never wanted anyone to depend on me.” His hand tightened around hers. “That’s a road from nowhere to nothing.”

She pulled free of his hand, his shirt, and grabbed his chin. “You need to man up, Sir.”

“Excuse me?”

“We’re
all
tense. The three of us need something, even among these people. You know what I’m talking about.”

She dropped her palms to the chrome bar, laid them flat, side by side, and lowered her head once again. He’d be able to see her nape, where the French twist left her skin exposed. Her submission couldn’t be clearer. In her mind she was begging. Pleading. But he was exactly as Daniel had described: stubborn, with a thick skull.

He also seemed beyond subtlety. So she spoke her wishes aloud.

“Please, Sir,” she said to her warped, mirrored reflection. “Tell me what to do. You need me to obey, and you need Daniel to obey. It’s what we need too.”

Daniel leaned across Remy’s front, using the pretext of handing Naya her drink. But there, so close to the man they loved, he quietly echoed her plea. “Please, Sir.”

Remy shuddered. Full body. Head to toe, and with the force of a man shot in the chest. “You’re both fools. Fucking ridiculous fools.”

Naya didn’t respond, and neither did Daniel. She waited, her pose unchanged.

“Fine. You wanna play more games? Spoiled rich folk getting their groove on? Whatever.” His words were drenched with fury but kept to an intimate volume. “Boy, you’re going to take our slut to the men’s room. You’re going to serve her, on your knees, with those perfect trousers grinding into the floor. She’s going to come. You’re not. I want her panties in my pocket, her scent on your face and your hard-on obvious enough to see. You have ten minutes.” He snagged the tumbler from where Daniel had placed it on the bar, then downed the shot of liquor. “Now if you’ll excuse me,
mes chéris
, I have to go sell myself.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Remy loved parties.

He hated brothels that masqueraded as parties. He and the rest of Transit were being appraised for their attractiveness, charm and savvy. There was no denying how he felt like he was at an auction with him as the final item up for bid.

On stage they’d been appreciated and critiqued for their movement, and Remy had always known he was the shit when it came to dance. The problem came once he stepped off stage. This swank scene bore an uncomfortably close resemblance to his first few months in New York, when he’d been desperate. Only the décor had changed. He’d never wanted to return to feeling like a piece of meat.

He hadn’t adjusted the bottom of his shirt, where Naya had claimed a few inches of skin with the tender fingers. Part of him wanted to believe he straddled the line between casual and artistic, considering he
had
managed to produce a clean shirt and tie for this farce. Of course, he’d paired them with near-black jeans and suspenders that draped low around his hips. No matter the clothing, he always edged more toward scruffy than professional.

He was certainly scruffy when compared to Daniel. And when compared to the financier who currently assessed him from behind a glass of white wine, Remy trailed way behind. The man’s suit would probably pay for rent on Remy’s little apartment for six months.

“That was a remarkable show,” Ilan Mascovitz said with a smile that appeared genuine. He was a short man with a potbelly, but he didn’t seem to think anything amiss when pretty young dancers cooed all over him.

“
Oui
.
Très bon.
” Remy took a tiny sip of the drink in his hand. No more liquor. Just tonic water and lime because he’d been playing with his toys all night.
Damn them.
Naya and Daniel kept obeying every single command. “We put a lot of work into it, but it comes down to the talent of our dancers.”

“You have accumulated quite the crew.” Ilan’s eyes crinkled at the corners when he smiled. Remy was surprised the man hadn’t seen a plastic surgeon. That was the vibe he gave off, polite but superficial and way too rich. “Which brings up my next question. If Daniel is the money, and Naya is the rising star, what do you bring to the table?”

Heat flashed across Remy’s nape and down his shoulders. He locked his fingers around the cool glass tumbler. “Excuse me?”

“Tell me why you’re a vital part of Transit.”

Sell yourself to me, kid.

The man didn’t seem to mean it cruelly. It was an honest question from a man with money to invest. Yet he’d dug a finger directly into Remy’s most tender, vulnerable places. Those wounds had never healed. He’d wondered why Daniel and Naya needed him. They had each other’s love and could pay to get Naya smacked. Fooling around with the boy who stole and cheated and ran wasn’t what quality folk did for long.

Remy pasted on a smile. “You could say I’m management. I keep the bad little dancers in line.”

“He’s not giving himself nearly enough credit,” said Daniel as he approached. “Remy is a brilliant choreographer. He adds flash and marketability to the depths of emotion that Naya plumbs. Without both, Transit wouldn’t be nearly as amazing as it was tonight.”

How strange, that both gratitude and resentment could roil in Remy’s stomach. He didn’t want to be rescued, but he was incredibly grateful that Daniel had stepped in. He let Daniel guide the rest of the conversation. Within ten minutes, he’d secured Ilan’s verbal agreement to sign over close to fifteen grand.

Soon Daniel and Remy stood alone in the middle of a crowd. Naya was at the far end of the bar, perched on a table as she talked to a man sitting in a booth. Her legs were crossed. She wore a super-short dress that left little of her thighs to the imagination. Good thing, because her legs were the only physical assets she could display so blatantly. Her cleavage and her back were off-limits. Those paths of lovely skin were still marked with Remy’s lashes and Daniel’s bites across her breasts.

“Was that true?” Remy didn’t want to ask, but he couldn’t help it. “What you said?”

“Absolutely.” Daniel was unshakable. Pure and strong.

So Remy would shake him up. He’d been doing it all night. Dares that sounded like orders and were obeyed as such. Telling Daniel to grope Naya’s ass in front of the money, or to wank in the restroom for exactly five minutes and no more. He’d found nipple clamps in Naya’s purse. She wore them now.

“Take Naya to the bathroom. She’s to hold up her dress while you come on her stomach and pussy. Then she drops the dress. No cleanup for either of you. You’ll walk back out here smelling like sex.”

Daniel’s eyes burned with pale fire. “And then we’ll leave.”

“Shit, boy, I’d leave this second if I could get away with it.” He showed his teeth. “Get to it.”

Daniel crossed the small bar and wound his fingers through Naya’s. She lifted her head to Daniel’s bent one. Remy saw the second when his orders had been passed along. Her eyes widened and darted toward Remy. He nodded. She licked her lips.

Then they were off—gone hand in hand to the bathroom, like a good little boy and a good little girl. Fuck that.
Happy
boy and girl.

Remy wanted to be that happy. This moment ought to be everything, but for the feeling that it would be yanked away at any second—likely the moment when he irrevocably fell in love with them both.

Then they’d push him away.

Tracey had left to start her new family. Three fast years on scholarship had ended with Remy back out on his own. Hell, if he wanted to be brutally honest, he’d lost his mother long before taking his first step toward Baton Rouge. Her choices had taken her away from him, leaving him only one—get out.

Naya emerged from the bathroom and approached Remy. Her dark blue dress swung around her hips. It was almost the same color as the costume she’d worn for their emotional duet. She’d chosen it on purpose for the financial investors, Remy knew, but it was doing a number on him. Every time he looked at her, he envisioned her curled on the dance floor in a sad knot of loss.

Except now her eyes were shining and her perfectly painted mouth wore a smile. “Mission accomplished, Sir. Daniel is waiting for his knees to steady.” She lifted one finger, where dampness shone under the lights. “And I brought proof.”

“That’s not proof.” He lounged back against the chrome bar. “I don’t need it. You do exactly what I say when I give you an order. That,” he said with a nod, “is a trophy.”

“You know me so well.”

He had no idea if that was true. It couldn’t be. He didn’t get to play with new, shiny toys. Christmas came wrapped in dollar store plastic bags, not in the smile of a magnificent woman. “What do you intend to do with your trophy?”

“That’s up to you, Sir.”

Daniel appeared next. He hardly appeared mussed. Despite how Remy had kept him wanting all night, only to let Daniel come on his beautiful fiancée in a bathroom, even the man’s hair was neat. The flush climbing his cheeks was the only hint of Remy’s mastery.

He locked his gaze with Daniel as he ringed Naya’s wrist with his fingers. Challenge and counterpoint. None of them breathed. Maybe people watched them. Maybe they didn’t. He pulled Naya’s finger to his mouth and engulfed it. She hadn’t brought much of Daniel’s come from the bathroom, but the tangy flavor washed across Remy’s tongue.

Daniel’s chest lifted on a surge. His eyes narrowed. “It’s time to go.”

Remy knocked back the rest of his drink. “Big man says go, so we go. Aye-aye.”

“Remy.” Naya’s voice was confused. Soft.

“Just do it, darlin’,” he replied.

The town car was waiting for them outside. Of course it was. No parking worries for this duo. That was entirely too mundane. Daniel slid in first, then Naya, then Remy. Peas in a fucking pod. Daniel had mentioned the driver’s name, but to Remy, at that moment, the man was an anonymous distraction who shut the door behind them.

Barely waiting for the car to pull away, Remy pushed Naya down. She knelt in the wide foot well. He yanked her dress up to her tits, where she was decorated with three crooked lines of sticky fluid.

“There we are,” he purred. “Your come, Daniel.”

“As ordered, Sir.”

Remy pressed Naya’s face against the leather seat between his hips and Daniel’s. She eased over with perfect grace. Her ass was bare, of course, since her panties were in Daniel’s pocket.

Remy smacked her. Barehanded. A hot red print sprang up on her dusky skin. She cried out but buried it in the upholstery, perhaps so that the driver didn’t hear.
Let him.
Remy wanted to take and claim while he still could.

He kept smacking her. Kept hurting her. The nipple clamps were jacked up to high and had been for the past forty-five minutes. She had to be burning.

Good. Fucking
good
. Let her burn like he had, let them both feel how he was feeling.

Even the rhythmic blows across her flesh weren’t enough. “I need a paddle.”

“Don’t have any in here, Sir,” Daniel said, his expression folding into a frown.

Strands of Naya’s hair clung to her cheeks, damp with sweat. “Hairbrush. My purse.”

Daniel fished it out and handed it over. The thing was bright pink and purple, utterly girly. Remy brought it down on a swoop of air. The blow he landed across the fleshiest curve of her ass was vicious. Exactly what Remy had needed.

He took her up fast—faster than he ever had, hitting her harder. He needed more because he needed them.