Disciplined by the Dom (2 page)

Be ruthless!

It wasn’t that she didn’t
want
to learn submission at the hands of a Dom. She actually dreamed about exactly that. She’d just never found the right partner. Brian had looked terrified whenever she’d brought it up, so eventually she’d just stopped. Picking a trainer at Club Volare should have been like picking a birthday present. But as it turned out, there was only really one Dom she wanted. Jake.

Jake, the mystery man. The sexy professor type, except there was something else about him, something remote and refined. The man was tall, brooding, and severe, with a streak of early silver on one side of his head, a narrow waist, a broad chest, thick arms, and absolutely no interest in her. As much as she tried to avoid noticing him, it was impossible not to notice that he studiously avoided her, too, even when he tended bar while she hung out in the lounge.

And because she wanted him so much, she couldn’t trust herself. Catie was a good actress, but she had no illusions. She’d never win an Oscar, and she was terrified of being exposed. Because while she was here under false pretenses, with the intention to betray all of these people, Club Volare was still the closest she’d come in a long time to feeling like she had a family. And she spent so much energy keeping up this front and trying to make notes about all the stuff that she saw and basically lying, all the time, to everybody, that she wasn’t at all certain that she’d be able to maintain her facade while in the throes of…whatever it was Jake might do to her.

She shivered. Just the thought of him…

“Ow!”

She’d waited too long, and now she was holding a burning ember between her fingers. She shook her hand, dropping the charred remains of the folder to the floor, and sucked her finger. Catie looked down, and was dismayed to see ash everywhere.

Well, what did you expect? Who daydreams about a guy while holding something that is actually on fire?

“Shit,” she said aloud.

She stamped out the little bits that still glowed with the toe of her high heel, feeling the draft from the window on her bare legs. January was not the ideal time to leave a window open in New York, especially not when you were wearing your favorite white flowy dress. It was out of season, but there was space to hide her little memo pad, and her boobs looked killer in it. And, well, maybe she did want to attract Jake, even if she wouldn’t know what to do if it happened.

Catie dropped to her knees and started desperately collecting the bits of paper that hadn’t burned all the way while trying to brush the rest of the ash into the carpet. She couldn’t imagine what she’d say if someone came in right now. She didn’t think there was any way this situation could get more vulnerable.

Until she felt a huge gust of air and her dress flew up and over her back, revealing her little white thong to whoever was behind her. Because someone was behind her—they’d opened the door, pulling in that gust of wind. Catie bit her lip and looked over her shoulder.

Jake, the mystery Dom, stood over her, his dark eyes burning and his face unreadable. He didn’t speak, but she could feel his eyes raking across her body. His broad chest rose slowly with one deep breath, and his jaw clenched. Just the sight of him stunned her into silence. She was never at a loss for words—
never
—but somehow, the words wouldn’t form. Her limbs wouldn’t move. She was paralyzed, frozen in an in between state; she didn’t know if she were humiliated, afraid, or turned on.

When her brain started working again, she thought:
Why hasn’t he said anything?

But Jake had come into the room, and was already closing the door behind him.

chapter
2

Jake Jayson worked very hard not to have an inappropriate reaction to the scene that greeted him when he opened Lola’s door. What he wanted to do first was laugh out loud. The last thing he’d expected to see when he came into Lola’s office was Catie Roberts on her hands and knees with her skirt flying up around her head like some crazy combination of Marilyn Monroe and Lucille Ball.

What he wanted to do after that would have made Catie blush if she’d known about it. In more than one place.

But none of that was material. He had to be on his guard around Catie, given his attraction to her. ‘Attraction’ seemed like such an inadequate word. The time she spent in the lounge while he indulged his hobby—fine, call it nostalgia—of tending bar these past few months had been, in its own way, torturous. He was forever, constantly aware of where she was. She pulled at him in a way he could never quite define, like she carried a powerful charge opposite his own. Under different circumstances, he would have delved into that attraction; he would have delved into
her
, relishing each and every last bit of discovery. But as it was, she was a novice. She had no real experience, at least none that he was aware of, and she had not been trained. And novices often had a tendency to become attached to their trainers. It was one reason he didn’t train. It would be manifestly unfair to the girl to give in to his desires, knowing he could never offer her more than domination and sex.

And, perhaps more importantly, there was always something else about her, something he would catch in stray moments when she thought no one was watching. Something he couldn’t identify, couldn’t name, but that made her seem vulnerable underneath her often glib exterior. Something that made him sure he would only hurt her more if he had her the way he wanted, and then, as always, proved himself incapable of a normal human relationship.

So he had done his best to stay away. Not that that did him any good now, with her ass in the air in front of him.

Even so, he was grateful to her for making him feel good, as she so often did without knowing it. Especially now that he’d just come from another board meeting at Stephan’s House. Now was a very good time for something to come along and help him feel good.

Which was why he was so dismayed when he took in the rest of the scene and pieced together what she’d been doing. Or at least the bare outlines of it. Why she’d want to burn a manila folder in the middle of Lola’s office was still a mystery.

“What were you doing?” he said quietly.

Catie leaned back on her calves, her fingers leaving dull streaks of ash on her pretty white dress, and looked up at him with huge blue eyes. She looked sad, defeated. Disappointed. In herself? And yet relieved.

That she stayed on her knees in his presence only tormented him. The image of Catie looking at up at him with those red lips wrapped around his cock flashed unbidden in his mind.

“I asked you a question,” he said.

“Oh God,” she said, wringing her hands. “Please don’t tell.”

She wiped her face with the back of her hand, and Jake realized she’d started to cry. He felt a surge of something, something unfamiliar: he wanted to protect her.

From what? She has obviously done something.

“Tell me,” he said, striding toward her, half wishing she would get up so he could stop thinking about her natural submissiveness. “Now.”

“I was…” She looked about, at all the evidence strewn around the ground, at the still recognizable chunk of manila folder where she’d dropped it. It was clear she was casting about for a story.

“Don’t lie to me, Catie,” he said.

“If I tell you the truth, I lose everything,” she said, so softly he wasn’t sure he was supposed to hear it.

She looked up at him with those sad eyes again, and he clenched his fists to keep from touching her. In another moment, he might have. Except for the sound of footsteps in the hall.

Catie hissed as she sucked in her breath, and Jake’s own shoulders stiffened. This was not the kind of moment that benefitted from interruption. His mind was already going through everything he knew, objectively, about Catie Roberts, everything he could call upon that had nothing to do with his physical reaction to her: she had not chosen a trainer, even after several months. She made Lola nervous. No one knew much about her, except presumably Roman, who had approved her application. This was someone who had something to hide, or believed she did, and was obviously living in fear.

She might never tell anyone if no one stood up for her.

“If anyone comes in, I will tell them that this is part of a scene,” he said. “You do not have to be afraid.”

Most of the fear left her eyes, to be slowly replaced with…something else. She flushed.

He realized,
I called it a scene. I made her think…

“Catie, you must tell me,” he said, aware now of the full danger of this interaction. It wasn’t just his attraction he had to guard against. It was hers.

She bit her lip, as though coming to a decision, and put her hand down on the carpet to steady herself as she got up from the floor. That was a relief to him, at least. Perhaps he could think straight if she weren’t kneeling in front of him.

But as she bent over, a small memo pad fell from the little hollow between her breasts, a natural pocket created by the cut of the dress. Jake watched it almost in slow motion, as though some part of his brain knew immediately what it must be for. There was a pause during which neither of them moved or spoke. They both just stared at the memo pad. Maybe he was imagining it. Nothing about this felt ordinary any longer.

“Give it to me,” he finally said.

Refusing to look at him, she picked up the memo pad and rose, handing it to him. Then she simply stood there, frozen in place.

He flipped through the pages. They were notes in some sort of personalized shorthand, but he recognized enough to confirm what he feared. There was “ML”—Mistress Lola. And “MR,” for Master Roman.

And there, on so many pages, was “Jake.”

“Catie,” he said, his voice dangerously calm, “explain.”

~  ~  ~

Catie could barely think, there were so many different feelings shooting around inside her. She was afraid, of course. She was terrified. Jake was holding her book. He was
looking
at her book. Even if he couldn’t decipher her notes, he’d know she was a liar.

She should be dealing with that. She should be dealing with that awful calamity, that utter catastrophe that was about to ruin everything. But her body was so buzzed by his presence, by the tone of his voice, by the way he’d ordered her around…

Oh God, think, Catie, think!

She could smell him. He smelled like sweat and spice. Her whole body tingled when he spoke.

“Catie, please do not make me ask you again.”

She forced herself to look up at him. His eyes had darkened, and his expression had become grim. This was bad. His anger was frightening in a way, like a slow, cold cloud rolling in over the flat sky. Not in a violent way, but in a way that felt terrible to her: he’d think less of her. It only made her want him more.

What is wrong with me?

“Ok,” she said, taking a breath. She could do this. She was an actress, for Pete’s sake. “It’s for my thesis. School.”

She’d always had a fantasy of being a respected classicist somewhere, flying around giving lectures on the stuff she used to read about when she was little. She’d found the books in her dad’s office and read, at first because she thought her dad was interested in Marcus Aurelius and the ancient Greeks and the rest. By the time she figured out the books were just for show, she really was into all of it. She used to pretend she was a great scholar. The memory was a happy one, until she remembered that Jake actually was supposed to be an academic. An adjunct professor? Guest lecturer? Something at one of the big New York schools. In what? Crap, that was important…

“Your thesis,” he said. His eyes bore into her, pinning her in place.

“I know, it’s not…ok, it’s not as bad as it looks, I promise,” she said, warming to her subject. “Chivalry and BDSM and gender roles. I know that doesn’t sound all that impressive to you—”

“Tell me where you are enrolled.”

He really didn’t ask questions so much as state the prerequisite to whatever he wanted you to say next.

“It’s a working title,” she trailed off. Jake’s expression was unyielding. Didn’t he believe her? It was a lie, but it was a good one. If he was at one of the famous schools, she’d better name one of the others. “City community college. Part time.”

He looked down at the notepad again, flipping through some more pages. Every new page seemed to enflame him further, every new page another example of her deceit. She felt worse with every flip.

“Is this why you’ve never chosen a trainer?” he asked. “Why you’ve never ventured into any classes—never participated in a scene? I’ve noticed you, Catie, hanging back and watching. Observing.”

She didn’t answer immediately. How could she? He took another step toward her, and she flinched. His expression softened.

“I don’t hurt people, Catie,” he said. “Not unless they ask me to.”

He stood so close to her that she could feel his breath on her cheek, could see the gentle rise of his chest underneath his Oxford shirt. He was in street clothes, a sort of professor-casual look, with a well-tailored grey blazer over his white button-down shirt and dark slacks. Where had he come from?

You’re getting hysterical, Catie. Concentrate.

Yes, she had to concentrate. Had to think her way out of this predicament. And yet, all she could focus on was the hollow at the base of his neck, the little dip in his collarbone, with a few curls of hair peeking up from his unbuttoned collar.

She reached out to touch it.

Lightning quick, he grabbed her wrist. His fingers burned into her. She nearly wilted from that touch, and looked up only when she heard him grunt.

For a long moment, they stood there like that, neither of them moving.

When Jake spoke, his voice was rough. “Quickly, Catie, tell me: are you only here to observe all the freaks? Is that your only reason for being at Club Volare?”

“No.” She was surprised to find she meant it.