Heat Up the Night (6 page)

Uncomfortable in the situation now that she’d come back to her senses, she hunched in on herself and waited for the other shoe to drop. After a couple minutes, Master Keilor sighed and sat up from the bed. She flinched.

“What’s wrong, Tovia?” He sounded…hurt.

By degrees she opened her eyes. He was propped up on one arm. His other hand combed through the short stubble on his scalp as he stared at her like she’d grown a second head.

Great. Crying all over him was bad enough—yeah, there was a big wet patch on his T-shirt from her tears—but now she’d held up a neon BAGGAGE HERE sign, like some demented Lloyd Dobler.

Maybe he could read her discomfort, or maybe he’d had enough. Keilor scooted off the bed and sat in the chair he’d occupied earlier.

She rose, intent on dressing and getting the hell out. Keilor’s hand shot out to splay across her stomach. “No.” Her heart sank. It would be easier to just leave.

Weary, she tried to move his hand from her body, but he shook his head. “You only have two options here, Tovia. Safeword and leave, or stay and talk. You agreed to honesty between us. It’s the foundation of any BDSM relationship, no matter how brief.”

Library
was on the tip of her tongue, but she couldn’t say it. Keilor leaned forward, one elbow on his knee and a tight dark gray T-shirt stretched across his chest. She searched his face for any sign of anger. Saw nothing but concern and a hint of hurt. Even now, she wanted to reach out and soothe him, brush a kiss across his mouth and wrap herself around him until the worry eased from his face.

Damnit, she wasn’t ready to leave him behind yet, which left just one option. In all likelihood, he’d show her the door himself once she explained.

Not willing to watch his reaction, she closed her eyes and fisted the comforter to ground herself. “Crying is not something I’m…comfortable with.”

The chair creaked and then Keilor’s warm body was behind hers, making her feel warm and safe. She’d expected that single statement would have been enough of a red flag to him and she’d need to say nothing further.

Like he could read her doubts in the lines of her body, Keilor nestled her under his chin. “Let it out, love. There’s nothing you can say that will drive me away.”

She soaked in his silent support and stared out the big picture window at the Las Vegas lights. They seemed so distant from her, and so did everything they reminded her of—family, work, the path she walked in choosing to stay at home with her mother.

She was so damn tired of it all. Twenty-seven years putting the happiness of everyone else first, and the first time she chose to do something just for her, she couldn’t even enjoy it.

Though she did find it ironic that the most selfish thing she did after years of serving her family was serving a man like Keilor. Only…that brought her such joy, where the rest of her duties brought only weariness.

Behind her, Keilor didn’t move. His warm breaths blew across her bare shoulder, calm and patient. She listened to him, matching her racing heart to the cadence of his inhale-pause-exhale-pause.

Then, warm and safe and a little calmer, she continued. “Tears were not allowed in my house, growing up.” Still no reaction from him. While she wanted to believe words and history wouldn’t drive him away, she wasn’t quite there. In fact, his calm demeanor was starting to piss her off a bit. “We couldn’t, not in front of my father. My mom would come into my room and cry, which didn’t make much sense until he got less cautious about when and where he hit her. Once he stopped hiding it behind closed doors, it all made sense. There, are you happy? Now you know.” The memories had her all worked up until Keilor’s arms were more suffocating than comforting.

She pushed at him, but he didn’t release her. Tears burned at her eyes.

“You can always cry on me, firebird.”

The sentence echoed through the room, resonating in her head in time to her heartbeat until she could make sense of what he actually said and feel the sincerity of his words resonating through her body.

Anger fled and she sank against his warm torso. Keilor turned her in his arms, tucking her against his chest once more. Still, he said nothing.

His simple words looped through her brain until they’d seared a path in her psyche. He hadn’t run. No, instead of leaving her holding all her baggage, he’d helped her carry it down the road, just like he’d been doing since their first night together—seeing a need in her and doing everything in his power to fulfill it.

She tightened her arms around his neck, absorbing his strength.

Keilor started in a broken glass voice, then swallowed and cleared his throat. “I would never, ever, strike you in anger. I would die before betraying your trust.”

Hope filled all the empty, bitter places she’d cordoned off in her heart. In the quiet of night, the planes of his face lit only by the far-off city lights, she turned a blind eye as Keilor lay gentle siege to her well-worn defenses.

“You’re seeing a man, aren’t you?” Amelia Douglas put her decades of guilt-invoking practice into those six little words.

Tovia winced, then straightened. She was not ashamed of her budding relationship with Keilor, and she knew—given how much time they’d been spending together in the past two weeks— she’d need to have this out with her mother sooner rather than later.

“Yes.” No guilt, no excuses, just the truth. Since that night at the club, she’d seen Keilor as much as their schedules allowed, falling asleep with him every night and waking in his bed every morning. For once, she was glad she worked the mid-shift at the casino, even if the late night crowd tipped more generously.

They’d only made it back to Apogee twice, but he’d used much of their time together outside the club to teach her about power exchange, how the sub really holds all the cards, how a good Dom would be able to read her like a book—like Master Keilor was already starting to. She’d feared following her mother’s footsteps and letting a man eclipse her, but her budding relationship was the exact opposite. He gave her power, confidence…respect.

He’d introduced her to incredible pleasure, a measure of pain, and damned if she took a breath without thinking of him. She hadn’t expected a Dominant—any man, really—to be so tender or attuned to her needs.

Her heart warmed and a little smile worked free of the stoic front she’d wanted to present to her mother.

“You…you’re in love with him! Tovia, have I taught you nothing?”

Tovia looked at her mother. Really looked. Amelia Douglas had retained her youthful beauty, could have had her pick of men after Tovia’s father left. She skimmed their house with fresh eyes, noting everything in its place, her mother’s collection of meticulously arranged exotic butterflies behind glass, the knitting basket next to the couch. Her mother’s routine neatness had always brought her a measure of comfort.

But after her wonderful nights with Keilor, her childhood home only reflected emptiness, echoing around the antiseptic order her mother demanded. How lonely.

Two futures unfurled in front of her. The still monochrome of her mother’s preferred path lured her with its quiet predictability. The other beckoned with light and sound, gaudy as the Vegas Strip and as full of risk as a poker game. She saw happy years and terrible arguments and children with Keilor’s laughing hazel eyes, cooking with him on Sunday mornings. The path diverged in places, avenues leading to heartbreak, but the sheer number of happy outcomes stole her breath.

How could she choose anything else?

“Yes, Mother, I do love him. God help me, but I do.” She ached to find Keilor in the kitchen of Parthenon and shout her love through the kitchen chaos. But she would play her cards close to her chest for now. Honesty had a time and a place. As much as Keilor valued the truth, Tovia didn’t think she could deal with his rejection, no matter how kindly he would let her down.

“But darling, you know how men are!” Her mother’s voice jumped an octave and she started wringing her hands. “He will use you and take and take and—”

“Amelia! Stop it.” She’d had decades of her mother’s assertions about men. While Keilor surely had flaws, even if she hadn’t seen them yet, he’d ripped off her blinders. “Dad was an asshole.” Her mother flinched, and Tovia almost stopped, but the words had been building up for so long she couldn’t stem the flow at this point. “And just because he was an awful excuse for a human being doesn’t mean everything with a penis should be blamed for his failings.”

Her mother’s eyes reddened but no tears fell. Tovia knew they probably wouldn’t. She softened her voice. “I wish every day you hadn’t gone through that kind of marriage. But I’m not going to use that as an excuse any longer. I want to live my own life. Make my own mistakes. And yes, I might get hurt, but do you remember what you told me when you were teaching me to ride my bike?”

It had been their first summer without her father around. Her mom had been pregnant with Rachel, as big as a house. But she still waddled alongside Tovia’s bike as she pedaled down the hot pavement outside their little apartment complex.

Amelia sank onto the old, soft couch they’d had since that very apartment. Its colors had faded. Her mother looked right at home on it.

“I didn’t want you riding your bike without the training wheels.” She fiddled with her hands, twisting the wedding band she’d never removed. “I told you if you fell, you’d get scraped up.”

Tovia couldn’t stand the distance between them. She sat next to her mother on the couch where her bright yellow sweater looked so out of place. “And I told you I just wouldn’t fall.” She laughed, remembering everything about that day. The grass outside their apartment had crinkled and browned in the summer drought. She’d reveled in every smile her mother gave her even as she felt guilty for not missing her father one bit. And she talked nonstop about the baby sister she was soon going to have. Every day, she’d promised her mother she would take care of them both, and she had.

Problem was, at some point she’d stopped living her own life. Enough was enough. “The first time I fell, you said ‘I told you so,’ kissed my scrape, and made me go ride again.”

Her mother didn’t respond. She sat, shoulders shaking, until Tovia sighed and rose. She kissed her mom on the forehead as Amelia stared into the distance, then grabbed her purse and headed for the door. She had another couple hours before Keilor would be off work. She’d head to the library and wait for him—anywhere but here.

She locked the door behind her, wondering when her mother would forgive her.

When Keilor finally got out of the kitchen and checked his phone, he had one text.
Can you meet me at the library?

He sped up, winding through the slot machines and poker tables and tipsy tourists, then jogging over to the employee parking lot. Once in his car, he pushed the speed limit, cursing at every red light and each driver cutting across lanes to catch a turn and counting down the miles separating him from his woman.

Last week, he and Tovia had taken a meandering late night drive through the city. They’d listened to music and talked about everything and nothing. She opened up in the dark, revealing more about herself than she seemed willing to do in the daytime.

They’d driven by “her library,” and she’d explained how it had always been her escape after school or when her parents’ fighting had been too much to handle. His heart fractured at the vision of a young Tovia trudging between home and the library in the evenings, finding solace only in the quiet escape of her books.

He screeched to a halt outside the doors and headed inside. She sat in one of the plush chairs in the back corner, flipping through a magazine. As he neared, she looked up, a smile breaking across her face. A deep sigh of relief fled his chest. Without words, he pulled her into his arms and held her tight, trying to show her how much he cared for her.

Loved her, even.

He rolled the idea around in his mind, trying it out. It settled in, a perfect fit, like he wasn’t complete without it. Keilor squeezed her tighter. “What do you need, baby?”

She looked up at him, her eyes damp at the edges. “I need to forget, Sir,” she whispered.

Oh yes, he could oblige. And whatever had gone wrong in her day, she’d tell him later. Just like he’d wait for a better moment to tell her how he really felt. Right now, he needed to focus all his attention on her. “Did you drive over?”

Bending down to grab her purse, she shook her head. “Walked. Needed to clear my head.”

Tucking her under his arm, he guided her out of the library then got her settled in the passenger seat of his Jeep, giving her a long, hungry kiss before closing her door.

The tight lines of her jaw relaxed once he started the engine. Good. She’d blossomed over the past two weeks, becoming less reserved, at least around him. Every smile was like a jolt to his heart, and he’d been getting plenty of those lately. They’d played and talked so much he almost couldn’t remember not having her in his life. He never wanted to go back to that point.

He tore away from the building, making a beeline for Apogee. It wouldn’t be staffed during the week, but he had a key. Being an elite member had its perks.

He pulled into the empty parking lot, bathed in the dim moonlight. Though they hadn’t spoken, anticipation had built in the car.

“Do you trust me?”

She reached for his hand. “Yes, Sir.”

The touch warmed him to his soul. “Good. I will push your limits tonight. You need it.”

She nodded in agreement.

“For this, I’m going to give you a special safeword. If you say
casino
I will slow down and we’ll talk about what I’m doing, but it won’t end the evening.”

Her fingers clenched around his hand. “Oh…okay, Sir. Casino.” She swallowed and he watched her throat bob up and down, remembered how she’d knelt before him the night before and taken him into her mouth, sucking and licking him until he came all over her tongue.

Fuck. He went hard, and his chef’s pants hid nothing. Not that he wanted to conceal his arousal from her, but he’d give anything for the added pressure of a constraining zipper.
Control, Keilor
. It had been his hardest—yet most rewarding—lesson as a Dominant. “Until I tell you otherwise, you may not speak unless to say ‘yes, Sir’ or ‘no, Sir’ or ‘thank, you Sir’ or ‘casino’. Do you understand me?”