His Angel (6 page)

Trying to take everything they said in, Angie took another deep breath. "Okay, I'm not completely naïve. I've read lots of fictional books on the subject and I've even browsed the internet when my curiosity was peaked a few times while reading those books. And I'll admit, if I'm being honest, some things did turn me on. But I never knew anyone in the lifestyle, so I just shoved the thoughts and questions I had to the back of my brain and left them there. I figured there weren't real places like that and everything I heard or read was part of a fantasy world."

The restroom door opened up, startling them, and four chatty women walked in and headed toward the toilet stalls. Roxy stood, placed her hand on Angie's shoulder and lowered her voice so she wouldn't be overheard. "You need to talk to Ian. Like I said, he's a good man. If you are interested in exploring, he's one of the men I would recommend you do it with. If not, he'll understand and no harm done."

"I agree," Kristen concurred, while nodding her head. "He's one of the nicest guys I know, and I'm not saying that because he's going to be my brother-in-law. Oh, and by the way, what Heather said about Ian being a pig...nothing I've seen or heard has ever given me the impression he's a total man-whore." She giggled. "I'm not saying he's a saint, but what man is?"

Angie grinned at Kristen and then at Roxy, feeling a little bit more at ease. "Okay, I'll talk to him, but not here."

"Good." The doctor took a few steps toward the door and glanced back over her shoulder. "Can you tell my beautiful wife I'll be back in a few minutes? I need to have a conversation with a colleague of mine."

As the other woman stormed out the door on a mission, Angie looked at Kristen to clarify the statement. "Heather's Mast...um, boyfriend...is a doctor on staff at the same hospital Roxy is. Look, I know this is a shoc
k–
it was for me too. But I've never regretted any part of my relationship with Devon, in fact, I can't imagine how I ever lived without the...um...things he does to me and with me. My ex-husband had me convinced I was a cold fish in bed. Turns out, he was the problem because my sex life now is incredibly hot and I wouldn't trade Devon for any other man in the world. He cherishes me like I'm the most important person in the universe." She leaned forward and dropped her voice into a dramatic whisper. "And showed me what it was like to have multiple orgasms." Kristen laughed at Angie's astonished expression and twined their arms together, tugging her new friend in the direction of the door. "Now, let's get back to our handsome dates before they send out a search party."

Ian got an uneasy feeling in his gut when he saw Angie and Kristen walk back toward Devon, Kayla and him. There must've been the usual long line in ladies' room because they were gone an awful long time. Although they were chatting with each other as they approached, there was a pensive air about them. "Everything okay?"

As Angie stopped by his side, Kristen sidled up to Devon and put her arm around his waist. He watched both women glance at each other before Angie seemed to find something interesting to stare at on the floor and his concern grew. What his brother's fiancée said next made his stomach drop and he felt the blood drain from his face. "We...um...had a run-in with Heather in the ladies' room, and I'm sorry Ian, but she sort of ran her mouth off and said some things she shouldn't have about you and the club." Her eyes flashed to Angie, who was now blushing, and back to him with an optimistic expression on her face. "I think it's okay though, but you two need to talk about a few things."

Shit!
Ian dragged his hand down his face in anger and frustration. Damn, Heather was a spiteful bitch. This was not the way he wanted this to happen. He'd planned on talking his way in to Angie's place tonight for a nightcap. After telling her being a Dominant was a major part of his life, he'd pray she was still interested in him and didn't kick him to the curb. Although his ears were buzzing, he heard Kristen report how Mistress Roxanne made a brief appearance and took care of things.

Upon hearing that, Kayla responded with a pout. "Damn. I hate when she goes into her Wonder Woman persona and I'm not there to see it. She knows how much it turns me on."

Ian ignored the women's giggles and took hold of Angie's elbow, leading her toward an unoccupied corner of the great room, behind a sculpture worth about seventy-five thousand dollars. When he was certain they were out of earshot of everyone, he looked at her with a pang of regret. "I'm sorry, Angel. It's not how I wanted you to learn about me and my lifestyle. I was waiting for the right opportunity to tell you."

"So, you were going to tell me?"

Okay, she wasn't running for the hills yet. Her face seemed to be filled with curiosity and something else he couldn't quite put his finger on. It didn't mean he was in the clear, but it did give him hope. "Yes, of course. I’m...it's a part of me I can't ignore or change. I'm not ashamed of who I am. I was going to tell you later tonight when we were alone, but now that it's out, I'll understand if you want me to take you home." And he would. It would kill him, but if she wanted nothing to do with him after this, he'd walk away and try to scrub the memory of their kiss from his brain.

She seemed to think things over for a moment before responding, "If you want to leave now, it's fine with me. But, I'm having a good time, so I'd prefer to stay a little while longer and finish looking at the exhibit. That is, if you don't mind. It'll give me time to recover from my initial shock and think for a bit. This way, when we talk later, I'll be better prepared to ask you some questions, and boy, do I have questions." He chuckled at her wry grin. "I'll admit, Ian, I’m curious, but this came from left field and it's something I've only read about before. That doesn't mean I'm willing to jump into things completely blindfolded...er, so to speak...but I am willing to talk later if you want."

Ian's heart soared and his cock twitched in his pants. He still had a shot with her, and from what she said, it might not even be a long shot. He stroked his fingers along her jawline, pleased when a flash of desire appeared in her eyes. "I'd like that very much, Angel."

"Just tell me one thing, though."

He took a deep breath. "Anything."

"Please tell me that nasty bitch, Heather, and you never..." She wasn't sure what words she wanted to use so she left the sentence hanging there hoping he would fill in the blanks.

"Oh, hell no!" Ian barked. "Please give me some credit. She was a member of the club with her master a while back but had a bad habit of harassing other submissives and her membership was revoked as a result. She's obviously still holding a grudge. You'll have to ask Kristen about the night she got the name Ninja-girl. My future sister-in-law knows how to kick some bitchy ass."

Leading her back toward their little group, Ian was thrilled to know he still had a chance with his beautiful angel.

* * *

Angie paced back and forth across her living room trying to gather her thoughts and Ian wasn't making it any easier for her. During the rest of the evening, he'd relaxed back into the person he'd been before Kristen told him what happened in the restroom. Now, he was sitting on her couch having shed his tuxedo jacket and tie. One ankle was propped up against the opposite knee and one arm was on the armrest of couch while the other was lying across the back of it. He was patient as he observed her walk, pivot, walk and pivot again, without interrupting her. She didn't know what to say. She had so many thoughts running through her head it was a jumbled mess. Before they left the museum, Kayla, Roxy and Kristen had all given her their cell numbers in case she had any questions Ian didn't answer or she was too embarrassed to ask him.

Angie wasn't ashamed to admit she was one of those women who loved sex. Most of her past boyfriends and a few temporary hook-ups, which she would qualify as being somewhere between one-night-stands and actual relationships, had been enjoyable in bed. Sex had rarely been the reason for breaking up with those men. In fact, a few of them had taken control in the bedroom–not to the point of what the BDSM stories she read described but enough she was aroused even more than usual. Her problem with those men had been outside the bedroom. Some became boring to her after a while, and others had only been interested in the sex and their dates revolved around it. The longest relationship she ever had was a little over six months and it should have been over way before then but the guy had been sweet and kept saying he loved her. And although she liked him, she hadn't wanted to hurt him because she didn't feel the same way as he did. But in the end she had to. Her main problem was she couldn't find a man who could hold her interest in and out of the bedroom and she refused to settle.

Coming to an abrupt halt in front of Ian, she tossed her arms out to the side in exasperation. "Okay, I'll admit I have no idea how to start this conversation, so can you do it, please?"

Smiling a devastatingly sexy smile, he held out his hand to her. "That's what the Dom in me was waiting for. Come here, Angel, and sit next to me."

She hesitated only a brief moment before placing her hand in his and taking a seat. He didn't release her hand and she found it comforting despite her unexpected nervousness. "Easy sweetheart, you're shaking." She didn't realize she was until he said it. "I'm not going to throw you down and ravage you like some pirate sailing the seven seas...well, unless you asked me to." She giggled and relaxed a little. "How about I tell you about how I started the lifestyle, why I like it and stuff like that, hmmm?" She nodded and he kissed the back of her hand before resting both their hands on his thigh. "Okay. I was introduced to BDSM when I was twenty-two, almost twenty-three by one of my chiefs in the Navy. He told me he watched me one night when a bunch of us were out at this bar with some Navy groupies. Said he saw something in me which made him believe I would be interested the lifestyle. Apparently I acted like a Dom before I even knew what one was.

"So one night, he and two other guys we knew took me to my first club and, shit...talk about a culture shock. Here I was, not a clue what I was doing there, and all these men and women from ages twenty to seventy were walking around in everything from normal clothing to leather, lingerie or their birthday suits. Sounds of spankings, whippings, moaning and groaning, sex and intense orgasms were coming from different scenes and I didn't know where to look first. Hell, I was embarrassed and intrigued at the same time.

"I didn't play my first night or during my next few visits either. Instead, I just walked around and observed. I talked to everyone who was willing to talk to me and explain what they got out of their individual kinks and what made them a Dom or a submissive. It didn't take long for me to learn a submissive has all the control in every D/s relationship."

Angie's eyes narrowed in confusion. "How's that possible? Don't they have to follow their Dom's orders?"

"Every true D/s relationship–and I'm not talking about people who claim to be in the lifestyle to justify hurting someone, like a domestic abuser, or people who dabble in a little slap and tickle in the bedroom. I'm talking about a true power exchange relationship between a Dominant and submissive. In every relationship or one-time encounter, it's the submissive who willingly allows his or her Dom to give them what they want and need. Submissives maintain all the control of a scene from their negotiations with a Dom, to their hard and soft limits and their safe-words. They can end a scene anytime they want if something doesn't feel right to them. In my club we use the universal color system so there's no confusion over a sub's safe-word. Green is good, yellow is to slow down or clarify something, and red means stop. And I mean everything stops and the scene is over. The Dom immediately starts aftercare, if needed, and they talk about what went wrong, why the sub felt it necessary to stop and how to avoid the situation in the future."

Ian paused and she took a moment to take all it in. She heard his breath catch when she stood, so she smiled to reassure him. Taking off her shoes, she went into the kitchen and retrieved two bottles of water from her refrigerator, then handed him one. They both opened their bottles and took a drink. She could feel the wheels spinning inside her head. "Okay, I think I understand what you're saying. Like I told you, I've read books based on BDSM before so it's not a completely foreign concept. But it's hard taking what I thought was a fantasy world and bringing it into the real world." When she sat back down next to him, he took her hand again and placed it back on his thigh with his own, as if needing the direct contact with her. "You said you'd tell me what you get out of being a Dom."

"My submissive's pleasure and trust, pure and simple." It wasn't the answer she expected, but then she didn't know what she expected. "Nothing gives me greater pleasure than knowing I've given her everything she needs to achieve her own pleasure and/or emotional release and she trusted me to give it to her."

"Emotional release?"

Leaning forward, he placed his water bottle on a coaster sitting on her cocktail table and sat back again. "Mm-hm. BDSM is not all about sex–far from it. Although that's usually an enjoyable end result of everything else. It's about getting one's individual needs met and sometimes it means pain is involved whether the final result is pleasure or something else. Let me give you an example. There was this female submissive I met when I first started apprenticing under a few skilled Doms. And before you ask, no, I never played with her since I was far too inexperienced for what she needed. Ava was a very nice but reserved woman, around thirty-five years old at the time, and her kink was to be whipped until she finally broke down crying. But there was never any sex involved with her scenes. One night I got the courage to approach her and I explained my confusion about the fact she wasn't getting pleasure from her scenes. She told me she was very young when her mother married her step-father, a verbally cruel man. Little things always seemed to set the guy off, and if Ava cried, he'd get angrier. He'd start throwing things and breaking her toys or throwing her clothes and possessions out. So to save things she loved, this little six-year-old girl managed to shove her emotions so far back into herself to the point she couldn't cry for any reason."

Angie gasped. "How awful. The poor girl."

"Exactly. That little girl who stopped crying turned in to an adult woman who couldn't cry unless a Dom broke through her subconscious barriers to the point she could find her emotional release and let her tears fall. That's why she was in the lifestyle. It was a cleansing therapy of sorts for her." He paused. "I've seem to have gotten sidetracked because I'm supposed to be telling you why I'm in the lifestyle."

"My fault, sorry."

Ian brought her hand to his mouth for a quick kiss. "Don't apologize for asking questions, Angel. It's what tonight is all about. Anyway, I prefer to be in charge in the bedroom and sometimes out of it too. When I scene or play with a sub, I like pushing her limits, teaching her things which can make her pleasure and inner-self better than they were before. I like being responsible for my sub's pleasure and emotional or physical health and giving her what she needs, which may not always coincide with what she wants. A sub's safety and well-being are important to me. As the Dom-in-Residence or head Dominant at the club, all the subs' safety and well-being ultimately fall under my protection. I know every sub and slave's name at The Covenant and I'm aware of their hard limits and what they're looking to get out of the lifestyle. If I see a sub not getting what they need or pushing themselves to where it could be detrimental to their physical or psychological well-being, then I step in and do what I can to get them back on track. We have several doctors and psychologists as members who are willing to talk to any other member, whether it's a sub or a Dom, who could benefit from their expertise. Dom's aren't perfect and anyone who claims to be is a fool. We make mistakes and learn from them and grow right along with our subs."

At some point Ian's thumb had begun rubbing over the back of her hand and the sensations it was evoking had a direct connection to Angie's clit. She was finding it difficult to think but one thing he said did confuse her. "You said sub or slave. Aren't they the same thing?"