GrandSlam (6 page)

“No, but more than you think. And some people like
administering pain.” He turned to me, cocked his head slightly and moved into
the space I’d left between us.

I looked into his eyes. Swallowed and tasted his cologne as
it traveled into my nostrils and then laced my tongue. “Would you consider them
to be good people, Travis? These individuals that like to hurt others.”

“I’ve known a few people who like to give and receive higher
sensations, and most of them I consider to be good friends as well as good
people.”

I hesitated, felt his body heat radiating toward me,
wrapping around me as I pondered his words. We were close, very close, and his
consuming presence made logical thinking much harder than normal. “I’m not
quite sure what you’re telling me.”

“You talk about pain like it’s a bad thing, Marie.”

“It is.”

He smiled but it wasn’t a sweet smile, more like one of a
hunter who’d spotted prey.

“Pain is unpleasant for a reason,” I said. “Because it’s
bad.”

“I disagree.” He raised his eyebrows and widened his eyes.
It was a challenging, cocky gesture.

A tingle snaked its way up my spine and threatened to wreak
havoc in my body by turning into a tremble. But I beat it down. I wouldn’t let
a patient get to me this way. I was the one who was supposed to be holding the
reins here.

“Maybe, Marie, you should open your mind to new ideas with a
little more grace.”

“I fail to see how I haven’t been graceful in discussing
your theory that pain is good.”

“Can we keep it that way?”

“I hope so.”

“In that case,” he flicked his attention from my eyes and
looked at my hair, “would you like me to demonstrate?”

Damn, the guy made me feel tiny. Even though I was wearing
heels, his broad chest and wide shoulders were looming over me. “Okay.”

He twitched the right side of his mouth into a half-smile.
Now he looked like a hunter who’d captured his prey. A trickle of fight or
flight seeped into my system. Which would be my best option?

“Now that’s the first rule.” He reached up and undid the
clasp holding my hair on the top of my head. It tumbled around my shoulders as
the clasp fell to the floor. “Consent.”

“Doesn’t consent require knowing what you’re agreeing to?”
Fuck, with him this close and stroking my hair, spreading it out, I’d pretty
much agree to anything. Who was I kidding? Fight or flight was
not
an
option, the only thing that shot through my mind was giving myself over to him.
Allowing him to do whatever he wanted, control my body, feed it what it needed.

Damn, it had been too long since I’d been with a man. It was
making me desperate.

He slotted his other hand over the left side of my head, the
sound of him sliding his fingers over the shell of my ear noisy. My breath
hitched and I locked my knees to stabilize my stance. I stared up at him,
noting the small shafts of black hair sneaking out of his skin on his chin and
the way his bottom lip was a little plumper than the top.

“You see, some pain,” he said, gathering my hair up at my
crown and tugging to create tension on the roots, “can heighten the awareness
of everything else going on in the body.”

He pulled harder, forcing my head to tip back.

I gasped as discomfort shot across my scalp.

He increased the pressure a little more.

I reached out and clutched at his shirt, felt his hard chest
beneath. “Travis, I—”

“Shh, I’m just showing you.” He slipped his arm around my
waist, dragged me close and yanked my hair, really hard.

“Ow, I—” A barrage of sensations blasted through my system.
The feel of him pressing up against me, hot, hard, male, all wide pecs and
solid thighs. The pain from having my hair tugged with force and the awareness
that my belly was shoved right up against his groin. A groin that held a wedge
of thick flesh.

“Just feel,” he whispered, hovering his lips over mine.
“Endorphins are rushing into your bloodstream, giving you a natural high as
pain alerts your nerve endings that something exciting is happening.” He slid
his free hand up my back, tracing the outline of my spine through my blouse.

I breathed in the air he was breathing out, warm and sweet.
The scream of hurt in my scalp made me want to wriggle but being held so firmly
and confidently kept me still. The heat of the discomfort slipped down my nape
and neck and over my shoulders, then combined with the lovely sensation of him
stroking my back.

“Can you feel it?” he whispered. “Pain mixing with pleasure,
the lines between the two blurring.”

I could feel it with every fiber of my being. My skin was
alive with awareness, my breasts were heavy and desperate for stimulation, and
between my legs I was buzzing for action. Good, hard man action, preferably of
the naked, sweaty variety. “Yes,” I gasped.

He adjusted his hold on my ponytail of hair, stepping the
pull up another level.

“Ouch.” I fisted my hands against his chest. “Travis,
please, let me go.”

“If you promise me one thing.”

“Ow, yes, come on.” I squirmed against him. That really did
bloody hurt now. “What?”

He shut his eyes, sucked in a breath. Pushed harder into my
body as he squeezed me closer.

Even with the distraction of having my hair yanked I could
make out his now completely solid erection. “Travis!”

“Just remember what it is your body is crying out for at
this moment in time.”

More.

That was the word that jumped into my brain, flooding my
thoughts and blinding me with shock that I could want more pain, more
hair-pulling, more heat blasting through my body.

Suddenly he released me and stepped back. I staggered as he
turned and left me staring at his shoulders.

I let my hands fall to my sides, pulled in a deep breath and
watched as he walked to the window, spread out his palms on the glass and
leaned forward.

“I’m sorry,” he said, looking at his feet.

I straightened my glasses and ran a hand over my disheveled
hair, the sting in my scalp receding rapidly. I took a step backward and rested
my bum against the desk. My knees were weak and my stomach was still
somersaulting. I cleared my throat. “What for?”

“For overstepping the line between client and psychologist.”

“I guess you did.” Hell, yeah.

“But you consented.”

“Like I said, I wasn’t really sure what I was agreeing to.”
I struggled to keep the shake from my voice and calm my breathing.

He shook his head, remained focused on his feet.

“Travis, would you like to sit down again?”

“Not really.”

“Okay, well, can you turn around so we can talk?”

“Not for a minute or two, no.”

Fuck, so it hadn’t been my imagination. He really had got
hard while tugging my hair. What a revelation about my client. He was into
hair-pulling and not only that, it seemed administering pain turned him on.

We were silent for an entire minute. I watched the clock,
let the seconds tick past and wondered if he’d fill them.

He did, eventually.

“So can you remember?” he asked, finally turning around.

I folded my arms and used every ounce of willpower I
possessed not to look at his groin. “Remember what?”

“How it made you feel to be in pain and turned-on at the
same time.”

The bloody cheek of him. “I wasn’t turned-on, it just hurt.”

“Don’t lie.” He shook his head.

“I’m not.”

“Your breaths were coming in short, sharp gasps, Marie.” He
walked over to me, looked at my breasts. “I could feel your nipples hard and
tight, pressing into my chest. Your pupils were so wide they were like black
holes.” He lowered his voice. “And I would bet several thousand pounds that a
nice wetness was building up between your legs.”

A red rage descended on me. How bloody dare he? My palm
actually itched to slap him.

“Now you’ve overstepped a different line,” I said, an angry
quaver vibrating through from my voice. “And that is the line of politeness and
common decency.”

“Again, I’m sorry.” He twitched the side of his mouth.
“Perhaps I should leave.”

“Yes, I think you should.” Because I really was going to
whack him in a minute. Really hard. I could almost see the shining red
handprint I’d leave on his cheek. I couldn’t care less that he was a client or
a world-class athlete, right now he was just a rude man and he was really
pissing me off.

He strode to the door, yanked it open then slammed it behind
himself.

Fuck it.

I looked at the clock. He’d done barely fifteen minutes of
his hour.

Had it been his intention all along to wind me up so much
that I’d throw him out of my office?

If it was, then I was dealing with someone who’d require
very different tactics. I’d have to seriously up my game. Call on other
strategies and pull out a fresh set of techniques.

Spotting my hair clip on the floor, I stooped and reached
it. Set about curling my hair back into a twist and securing it on the top of
my head.

Hair-pulling, seriously. What was he, a schoolboy?

I couldn’t help myself; I slammed the door. I knew it was
childish, pathetic, but she’d bloody well driven me to it. That
woman
.God, she really knew how to push my buttons. How the fuck had she managed
to get me to all but confess I liked inflicting pain on people—sexual pain,
that is. I’m not into domestic violence or bullying. One minute we were talking
about my ribs, the next I had a handful of her thick, shiny hair—which smelled
delicious too—and was pulling it. Her reaction had made my cock hard in seconds.
So hard it threatened to burst out of my old jeans.

That was what it had been about, of course. Her reaction.
Once I’d hinted at my sexual preferences, it didn’t take much for me to spill
the beans completely. And now she knew. Knew what I was, what I liked. Once I’d
started speaking, I couldn’t stop. But now, standing at the elevator,
incessantly pressing the button, I felt as though a heavy stone was sitting in
the bottom of my stomach. I’d fucked it up, really fucked it up. Right now she
was probably on the phone to security, or to Austin, telling them what had
happened. What I’d said, done. My dirty secret was out and it was nobody’s
fault but my own. I could blame Marie, of course, for probing into my mind, my
innermost thoughts, but I had been the one to act on my impulses, engage in
some seriously inappropriate behavior, risking everything.

After what felt like forever, the elevator arrived. It
pinged
open and mercifully it didn’t contain a bunch of huge security guards or the
police. There was just the kid who delivered mail to the various rooms and
offices in the building. I nodded politely as he exited the steel box and I
stepped in. I pressed the button to take me down to the level that held the
pool. A few laps would help me work out the anger—mainly at myself—that was
thrumming through my body. It would also let me think. Think of what the hell I
was going to say to the person or people who were sent to confront me about
what I’d done to Marie.

I shouldn’t have done it, I knew that, but it was too late
to take it back now. And whatever happened next, I’d always have the memory of
her reaction to the pain. The gasps that made her gorgeous lips part, her
delectable breasts rise and fall rapidly, her nipples, hard, digging into my
chest, and her eyes. God, her eyes. The pupils had grown so large that I could
barely tell them from her irises. Nobody—barring a brain surgeon or a
hypnotist—could take that away from me. And providing I wasn’t booted out of
the academy, I was going to use it to my advantage. To persuade Marie to
explore her submissive—or at the very least, masochistic—side. To show her that
it wasn’t wrong to want pain, to enjoy it, to embrace it.

If I could achieve all that, then maybe I could convince her
of what a good fit we could be, for a while at least.

Providing she didn’t get my name and proclivities splashed
all over the papers and the internet, that was. If she did that, I might be
forced to get my own back. My lawyer, Jenson Jones, was good, some hotshot from
the city my agent had employed. Everyone had a weakness that could be exploited
or a skeleton in the closet that could be outed, and without a doubt Jenson
could find Marie’s if he had to. I just hoped to bloody God it wouldn’t come to
that.

I dove into the water, feeling immediately better as the
chill took some of the fierce heat out of my mood. Shifting into a front crawl,
the water sluicing around my body, I cleared my brain of all its superfluous
crap and concentrated on my main problem. The trouble was, my main problem was
pretty complex in itself. If you boiled it down to the finest, most pressing
conundrum, then that was what had just happened with Marie. But even that
quickly unfurled into whys and hows. Those whys and hows were many, manyfold,
and that was just on my part. I had no idea what was going on in Marie’s head,
but I had every intention of finding out.

By the time I heaved myself out of the pool, I was
incredibly glad that I didn’t have a formal training session booked with Peter
that day. One, because I’d swum so hard and for so long that my limbs felt like
jelly and my head and torso like lead weights. Second, because I didn’t know
what the hell I was going to say to him about the previous night at Lobster
Lagoon. Where I’d inadvertently crashed his date. A date that had obviously
gone on so late that Marie was knackered the next day and had been forced to
wear her glasses instead of contact lenses to give her tired eyes a break. A
sudden flare of anger coursed through me and I wanted to punch the wall. I
didn’t, of course, because I didn’t want to add a broken hand to the list of
things my bloody psychologist would ask me about. I’d had enough of Miss Nosy
Pants poking around in my head. And look what it had resulted in—me
overstepping the mark and getting all dominant on her, followed by a bit of a
meltdown.

For someone who was meant to be helping me work out my
so-called issues so I could play world-class tennis with no distractions, she
was doing an absolutely horrendous job. If anything, she was filling my head
with more crap and reawakening the side of me that I’d locked away when I’d
boarded that plane at Heathrow and jetted off to my new life. Some fucking
psychologist she was.

* * * * *

By the time I got back to my flat, my mood had darkened
further, purely because the more I thought about the Marie situation, the
crazier I got. I needed to talk to someone, someone who would understand.
Wouldn’t judge. God, things had to be bad if I was voluntarily considering this
kind of conversation with someone. Most of the time I’d rather have red-hot
needles poked into my eyes. But Kevin was different. We were best friends for a
reason.

I picked up the handset for the landline phone, then glanced
at my watch. Did some mental calculations. It would be 10:00 p.m. in the UK.
He’d still be up. Probably with Elle. I squeezed my eyes closed, berating
myself.
One problem at a time, Travis. Concentrate on the issue that isn’t
eight time zones and nearly five and a half thousand miles away.

I opened my eyes. Pressed the reset button on the phone,
dialed the number, remembering to add the country code before punching in the
familiar digits. I waited.

Then, “Hello?”

“Hey, mate, it’s me.”

“Me?” A pause, then, “Travis?”

“Yep.”

“Hey, how are you? It’s good to hear from you.”

“I’m…okay. How are you?” Why the hell had I said that? I was
far from okay, which is why I was phoning him in the first place!

“I’m fine, thanks, Travis. But I can tell by the tone of
your voice that you’re not. What’s up? Homesick?”

“Not exactly. How’s Elle doing?”

“She’s fine. But don’t change the damn subject. Is it a
woman that’s got you all riled up?”

“Got it in two.” I laughed but it was a hollow sound.

“Okay, so what’s the problem then?”

I told him everything. About how there’d been
something
about
Marie from the very moment I met her. How I hadn’t been able to put a finger on
my feelings until she went out with Peter. The accidental date gate-crashing
incident. And last, but certainly not least, the hair-pulling thing.

“Fuck,” Kevin said when I’d finished speaking. There was
silence for a few seconds, then, “You’ve really fucked up there, haven’t you?”

“I really have, Kev. I’m expecting the police to barge my
door down any minute now.”

“No, I don’t think that will happen. I don’t think she’ll
have told anybody.”

“You don’t?”

“Nope. She’ll be reeling from the whole thing, for sure, but
she’ll be even more confused about the fact she enjoyed it. That’s the element
that will keep her quiet. She’ll be so preoccupied with thinking about pain and
why she liked it that it won’t even occur to her to tell anyone else, let alone
get you into trouble.”

I paused, letting his words sink in. It made sense. Kevin
pretty much always made sense. I nodded, forgetting he couldn’t see me. I’d
have to get Skype set up on my laptop soon so we could do a video chat. Then it
might be easier to forget that my best mate, the only person who really knew
me, was so far away.

“I think you could be right. Surely someone would have found
me by now. And if not, they’d have been ringing my mobile to find out where I
was. So what do I do now?”

“What do you mean what do you do now? Celebrate the fact
that you’ve been a colossal twat and gotten away with it, obviously.”

I laughed. “Yes, obviously. But I didn’t mean that. I meant
what do I do about
her
?About Marie.”

“Sorry, Travis, got the wrong end of the stick there. Well,
what do you want to do? Do you like her? Think she could be, um, shall we
say…complementary to your tastes?”

“Based on what happened earlier, I think there’s more to her
than even
she
knows. If I can dig a little deeper, then yes, I think she
could definitely be complementary to my tastes, as you put it.”

Kevin tsked. “And to think she comes from a country known
for its obsession with spanking. She must have led a very sheltered life. And
had some very dull and unadventurous lovers. Poor woman. You need to show her
what is possible, the true heights of pleasure that can be achieved.”

“I’d love to. But you have to remember that not everyone is
as liberal as you and I, Kevin. We’ve experienced some of the finest pleasures
known to man. We’re very lucky.”

Kevin chuckled. “I couldn’t agree more. But I have to ask,
mate, are you still experiencing those pleasures?”

Fuck. I should have known he’d ask. “W-what do you mean?”

“You know damn well what I mean. Are you getting any over
there?”

“Er, not exactly.”

There was a pregnant pause and I could just imagine Kevin
raising his eyebrows at me down the phone, then twisting his face into an
expectant expression as he waited for my reply.

“No, Kevin, I’m not. I’m not getting any at all, never mind
the more…particular kind of sexual satisfaction you and I are partial to.”

“What! You’re not even getting any vanilla sex?”

I rolled my eyes. “No.”

“My God, what the hell is wrong with you? You’re the world’s
best tennis player. You’re a fucking celebrity, Travis. You should have women
throwing themselves at you, fighting over you. Queuing at your damn door!”

“Well, I haven’t.” I was feeling quite pissed off by then.
“And that’s the way I want it. Or at least it was, until I started liking
Marie.”

“I don’t follow. Are you trying to say you’ve taken a vow of
chastity or something?”

“Not exactly. I haven’t taken a formal vow or anything. I
just told myself that when I left London for a new life over here, I’d put all
the kinky stuff behind me. It scares too many women off, Kev, and I don’t want
to suddenly shack up with the wrong woman who then blurts all the ins and outs
of my private life to the media. It could cost me my career. At least over there,
I always had the security of Satiate being so focused on its members’ privacy,
so any woman I met in the club, I knew that we had the same sort of sexual
interests and that she wouldn’t go blabbing. Over here, I haven’t got a fucking
clue what’s going on or who to trust.”

There was silence for a few seconds and I knew Kevin was
thinking about what he could say to help me. The amount of time it took him to
reply told me that the answer wasn’t going to be straightforward.

“I’m sorry you’re having trouble, mate, but I can’t help but
think you’ve done the wrong thing. You can’t just ignore the kinks that really
get you off—as you’ve already demonstrated with the whole Marie incident. I’m
not saying you should walk along Santa Monica Pier swinging a set of handcuffs
and a whip, but people all over the world like BDSM. You’ll find someone to
scratch your itch and you must. If not, you’ll never be satisfied. Never be
truly happy. You’re in L.A., for God’s sake. There are bound to be clubs over
there. Decent clubs that are as privacy and security conscious as Satiate, that
also make their members sign confidentiality contracts. Celebrities—besides
you, I mean—live there and some of them must be into kink. But you don’t see
that splashed all over the news, do you?”

“No, I guess not.”

“Cheer up, Trav, it’s not the end of the world. I’ll get in
touch with some of my contacts, try and find out where the kinky people in L.A.
go to have fun. Okay?”

“Okay,” I replied, my tone heavy with reluctance. I knew
Kevin was only trying to help, which was why I’d phoned him in the first place.
But if I was honest with myself, he was telling me stuff I didn’t want to hear.
About not being able to ignore my dark side. He was right, of course, which was
why I wasn’t happy about it. I’d really hoped I could shove all that crap into
a big box in the corner of my psyche, wrap thick chains around it and secure it
with a huge padlock so it would never escape. Then maybe I could have met a
nice girl and had a normal relationship. But I knew now it had been wishful
thinking.

Kevin interrupted my melancholy thoughts. “Hey. While I’m
finding out about L.A.’s BDSM hotspots, why don’t you do yourself a favor?”

“What?”

“Follow your heart—and your cock—with that woman. Marie. If
you’re right about her, all your problems could be solved. You’ll both get what
you want, and it sounds as though she knows how to be discreet. It’s part of
her job, after all. Even if it doesn’t work out long-term, at least you know
she’ll keep quiet about it.”

“Hmm.”

“Don’t you ‘hmm’ me, Trav. You know I’m right. And you
clearly want her. So just go and get what you want, see how it goes. What’s the
worst that can happen?”

I didn’t even want to contemplate the answer to that
question.

“Thanks, Kev. Thanks for talking to me, helping me out.
You’re a good friend.”