Pleasure's Edge (5 page)

three

Dylan sat on her sofa, a pile of books spread out before her on the coffee table, her notepad in her lap. She’d been researching bondage, pain play, power exchange, the reasons
why
these things turned people on. The things she’d read about had turned her on, no doubt about it. And she’d imagined herself in the various scenarios: being tied up, spanked, even flogged. She could blame the low throbbing between her thighs on that. If she wanted to lie to herself.

The truth was, it wasn’t some faceless partner doing these things to her. Alec had been in every single scenario with her, his hands on her, commanding her.

She sighed, picked up her tea and sipped. She’d sweetened it again. The hot, fragrant liquid soothed her throat, but the rest of her body was as taut as a wire.

It had been three days since she’d spoken with him, and she hadn’t heard from him yet. She had to wonder if this was part of him showing her that he was in control, or if he was simply busy.

Either way, she didn’t like it. Didn’t like that she was feeding into the dominant behavior.

She knew she was spending too much time dissecting it. But she couldn’t help it. She wasn’t some passive submissive girl who was going to melt at his feet and do anything he asked of her. Who would sit by the phone like a good little puppy, waiting for his cal .

Then why was she doing exactly that?

She’d dated plenty, and she’d never been one of those girls.

She didn’t have to wait around for anyone. Sex was plentiful for a woman who was open-minded about it, and she always had been.

She let a man know that about her as soon as she was interested.

They didn’t seem to feel any need to play those games with her they played with other women. She kept herself at enough of a distance that they never felt they real y
had
her. And in fact, none of them ever did. She didn’t play that game, either.

But Alec had a strange grasp on her she didn’t understand . . .

Setting her tea mug down, she picked up one of the books and paged through, trying to refocus on her task. She was looking for a deeper explanation of the psychology and chemistry of subspace: that trancelike state many submissives reached during BDSM

play. She understood the chemical process, how endorphins were released in the body in response to pain or sexual stimulation, but she wasn’t as clear on the mental and emotional part of the process.

Why did people respond to certain things and not others? She’d read a number of times that some submissives could begin their descent into subspace simply by being bound, by being commanded. Even by nothing more than hearing a dominant voice.

The soft, rich tone of Alec’s voice drifted through her mind, humming over her skin like a faint electric current. As though she could
feel
the subtle vibration from the sound. She squeezed her thighs together at the sudden ache there.

Okay. Maybe she could get that part.

She flipped through the book again, her gaze landing on a photograph of a woman bound in ropes, a complicated harness.

But it wasn’t the ropes that caught her attention, or the woman’s smooth flesh as she knelt, naked but for the rope. It was the hand of a man standing somewhere off camera, the way it—he—

caressed her face. The gesture seemed tender, somehow. She loved the contrast, the implication that this man’s hand belonged to whoever had bound her, and now had complete control over her.

Her body surged with desire.

Some smal part of her wanted to be that woman. If the man were Alec Walker.

She slammed the book shut and jumped up from the sofa.

Ridiculous! She was a strong woman. Independent. Even if she did have some desire to bottom for Alec, it was only about being at the receiving end of stimulation. Being made to just sit there and let him
do
things to her.

She moaned. That train of thought wasn’t helping.

The telephone rang and she grabbed it, relieved to have some reason to redirect her thoughts.

“Hel o?”

“Hey, it’s Mischa.”

“Mischa, hi.”

Mischa Kennon, a tattoo artist who also wrote short erotic fiction, was one of her best friends. They’d met several years earlier when Dylan had gone to San Francisco for a writers’

conference. When Dylan returned to San Francisco several months later to have Mischa tattoo her, they’d spent some time together and had become fast friends. Now, despite the miles between them, they talked every week and saw each other whenever they could.

“What are you up to, Dylan?”

“Oh, brooding, mostly.”

Mischa laughed. “Why?”

Dylan moved to the wal of windows overlooking the water-front.

The late-morning sky was obscured by clouds, a heavy gray curtain promising rain.

“I wish I could figure that out.”

“Do you need to brainstorm a book?”

“I’m actual y stil in the research stage for my next novel. It’s an erotic story with a BDSM theme. Which brings me to why I’m brooding. Sort of.”

“Okay . . . are you going to actual y tel me what you’re talking about, or what?”

“Sorry, I don’t mean to be so vague.” She stopped, pul ed in a breath, blew it out. “I met this man.”

“That sounds promising.”

“Maybe. No. God, Mischa, I don’t know . . . this man, Alec, he’s .

. . different than anyone I’ve ever met.”

“In what way?”

“In every way.” She stopped once more, placed the flat of her hand against the window, feeling the cold on her skin. “Alec is part of my research. Wel , at this point he’s al of it. I was referred to him by this submissive woman, Jennifer, to talk about the whole BDSM

thing. I just didn’t feel I knew enough to write that sort of intense power play accurately.”

“I don’t see why not. You’ve written about almost everything else.

And it’s not like you’re some prude. You’re the one the rest of us look to for answers to almost everything about sex. You’re our queen, Dylan,” Mischa teased.

“Hah—I’m hardly the queen of erotica. Having some experience with sex isn’t the same thing. This is pretty specific stuff. And this time I understand I am out of my league. But the more I found out about the dynamics involved, the more I realized I needed real information. That I had to base it on something more than reading a few books.”

“So you decided to talk to someone involved in these things?”

“Yes.”

“And? Because I can tel from your voice and the way you’re beating around the bush that there’s an ‘and.’” Dylan lifted her palm from the glass, trailed her fingertips down, pul ed away.

“The ‘and’ is pretty big, Mischa.”

“Hey, it’s me. I’m hardly shockable. Neither are you. Which is why I’m so curious to know how any man has managed to unsettle you like this.”

“Alec is a sexual dominant.”

“So I assumed.”

“And he’s asked me to—he’s chal enged me—to submit to him.

I can’t believe I did it, but I agreed. I’m sure it won’t even work. The idea is ludicrous. He’s just so . . . charismatic. No, it’s more than that. Incredibly good looking, but he’d be powerful even without that.” She saw his face in her mind. His wicked black goatee, that dazzling smile. His eyes, piercing her with blue fire . . .

“Dylan?”

“What? Sorry. I was just thinking . . . of him. I can’t seem to stop.

I don’t know the last time something like this happened to me.

When I felt so out of control.”

“Maybe that’s the whole point here.”

“So you think it’s just some sort of mind fuck he uses on the women he interacts with?”

“No. Wel , maybe he does. But I meant maybe that’s the point for
you
. On some universal level. Maybe this is what you need, Dylan.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re always so in control. And there’s nothing wrong with wanting to be in control of your life, especial y after what you went through growing up with your mom. But it could be good for you to hand that over to someone else for once, even if it’s only for a little while.”

“I doubt the universe put Alec Walker in my path so he could tie me up.”

“I think that may be it exactly.”

“Mischa!”

“Dylan, you know I love you, and I love you enough to tel you that you could use a little loosening up.”

“I’ve been with plenty of men, done plenty of experimenting when it comes to sex.”

“Yes. But that’s not the same thing, is it? You just said so yourself. If what I think I know about this BDSM stuff is correct, it’s about the roles each person takes. The play of power. Right?”

“Yes, that’s the basics, anyway, as far as I understand it.”

“So, it seems to me that you have to let that power go for once.”

“That’s the part I don’t like.”

“Which is probably why you need to try it.”

“I don’t know. Maybe.” She twisted a ringlet around her finger, pul ing tight. “You’re probably right. And I guess some part of me knows that, which is why I agreed to it. Wel , some of why I agreed to it, anyway.”

“You’l have to report the rest back to me when you’re done. You are going to do it, aren’t you? See him, be with him?” Was she?

Had she ever actual y thought for one moment that she’d back out?

She sighed. “Yes. But it’s going to be hard for me.”

“Sometimes the hard stuff is how we learn about ourselves.”

“I know you’re right. I’m just . . . fighting it.”

“Just do it, Dylan. Take that leap. As long as this man is safe, but you did mention someone you knew referred you to him. I real y think you should do this.”

“I do, too.” And the fact that Alec’s blue eyes, his voice, the scent of him, made her melt al over, would make it a little easier. It was making it—making him—irresistible. “I don’t know what wil happen, exactly, and I’m not entirely comfortable with that. Hel , I’m not comfortable with that at al . But to be honest, there’s just as much excitement there, this . . . exquisite sense of anticipation, maybe simply because I don’t know.”

“Wow. I’ve never heard you like this, Dylan. Unsure.”

“That’s because this is not the usual me. But this man . . . ” Her mind whirled with the possibilities. What would Alec do to her, demand of her?

Her stomach knotted up, and a melting heat began between her thighs. She was about to find out. The one thing she was certain of, though, was that Alec Walker was going to change her.

Irrevocably.

It was several hours later when the phone rang again. Dylan put her book and her notepad down and glanced at the cal er ID.

Alec.

Her heart raced, a jangling rattle in her chest.

“He’s just a man,” she said to the empty room, then shook her head. She knew already he was going to be a lot more than that.

“Hel o.”

“Hel o, Dylan.”

God, his voice was like an electric current running hot in her veins, pooling between her thighs.

“Alec, hi.”

“How are you this evening?”

“I’m fine. Fine.”

Had he cal ed to make smal talk? She didn’t think she could take it. Pul ing an embroidered throw pil ow into her lap, she gripped the rol ed edge between her fingers.

“Don’t you want to know how I am?” he asked, humor in his voice.

“Yes, of course. I’m sorry. I was . . . very involved in doing research when you cal ed. My mind was wandering.”

“I’l have to work harder to gain your ful attention.”

“Oh, I don’t think—”

“Don’t worry. I know just how to go about it.” She paused, stuttering, but he went on.

“That’s why I’m cal ing. We should begin to prepare for our first time together.”

“Oh ...”

When had she ever been rendered speechless by a man? But al she could think of was his big hands on her, tying her down.

Touching her. She couldn’t even think beyond that, although she knew there would be more. And she was fighting her response to him every inch of the way.

Pull yourself together.

“I thought you said you’d e-mail me.”

“So I did.”

She waited, but he didn’t seem inclined to explain himself, which unsettled her even more.

“Wh . . . what do I need to know?” she asked him.

“We both need to know what our limits are. Our desires. A lot of people use written questionnaires, but I prefer to talk. I can gauge more if I hear your response to my questions.”

“So you’re a psychologist now?”

She heard his sigh. “Dylan, if we are going to do this, being sarcastic with me is only going to get in the way.”

“You’re right. I’m sorry. This just isn’t natural for me.” She settled back into the sofa cushions, taking the smal pil ow with her.

“We’re just talking now, okay?” His tone had changed; it was more soothing than commanding now, as though he could read her mood, her needs, through the phone.

“Yes. Okay.”

She would do this. But her heart was a smal hammer in her chest.

“First I need to know that you have some understanding of what BDSM means. I know you’ve been doing a lot of reading, gathering information. But tel me your definition. What it’s al amounted to in your mind.”

She thought for a moment about al she’d read on the subject, her brief discussions with Jennifer, the research she’d done online. “Wel , I know that BDSM stands for bondage and discipline, domination and submission, sadism and masochism.”

“Now tel me your interpretation of it, not what you’ve found in books or on the Internet.”

“I think . . . the definition seems to cover a broad range of sexual and sensual behaviors. Desires. Fetishes. Everyone seems to have a different personal definition of what it’s about for them. And not everyone practices everything. Some people may be into the milder aspects, like spanking or simple bondage. But it’s stil BDSM, even if they don’t choose to cal it that themselves. And at the root is the exchange of energy between the participants.”