Rapturous (29 page)

“So who else is counting
the days until we leave for Mexico?” Kristian asks.

A chorus of “me” follows his question.
 

“I am so ready for a fucking break,” Kristian says. “We can’t keep up this pace.”

“You wimping out on us, old man?” Flynn asks.
 

“Hardly,” Kristian drawls, “but you’ve got to admit the last couple of years have been rather punishing.”

“I can see how all that Oscar gold would be a major drag,” Addie
says, drawing laughs from everyone.

Kristian raises his glass to her. “Touché.”

“I agree with Kris,” Marlowe says. “I’m ready for a vacation. The Mexico trip couldn’t come at a better time.”

“Glad you agree,” Flynn says. “Addie gets all the credit for throwing it together.”

“That’s
shocking
,” Jasper says in a teasing tone. “And here I thought
you
were doing this for us.”

“Har-har,” Flynn
says. “
As if
.”

We all have a good laugh at Flynn’s expense, which is one of our favorite things to do. He says we keep him humble, and we say someone has to. The truth is, his fame has never gone to his head. In many ways, he’s exactly the same guy he was before his career took off.

I give the party another hour before I’m ready to ask Addie to give me one more chance. I intend to make this
chance count, except I can’t find her. She’s not in the house or out by the pool. “Where’s Addie?” I ask Flynn when I’ve done a thorough search and come up empty.

“Oh, she left a while ago.”

I can’t believe she actually
left
without having said a single word directly to me while we were there. Has it really come to that? “Where’d she go?”

“She didn’t say, just that she had an appointment.”

“Who has appointments at ten at night? What’ve you got her doing?”

“It’s not for me. I have no idea where she went.”

Marlowe and Natalie come into the kitchen, bearing plates and glasses from the pool deck.

“Do you guys know where Addie went?” I ask them.

They exchange glances.

Marlowe is the first to look at me. “Um, well, I know, but she asked me not to tell you.”

“She specifically said,
‘Don’t tell Hayden’?”

Marlowe looks at Natalie, who nods.
 

“That’s what she said,” Natalie confirms.

“Then you definitely ought to tell me.” I can feel my blood pressure rising by the second.
 

Marlowe considers that. “Hmm, well, I suppose we could—”

“No, Marlowe,” Natalie says. “She told us not to.”

“I don’t
care
what she said!
Fucking tell me! Right now!
”

“Watch how you’re talking to my
wife, man,” Flynn says.
 

“Sorry,” I mutter and force myself to chill the fuck out so I can get them to tell me what I need to know. “Please, I need to find her. I have to tell her… I…
Please
.” I can’t believe I’m about to break down in front of them, but that’s what’s going to happen if someone doesn’t tell me what I need to know. Right. Fucking. Now.

“You know Devon Black?” Marlowe asks.

All the oxygen leaves my body in a big whoosh that has my head spinning and my heart racing. I fucking know Devon Black. “What about him?”

“She’s gone to Black Vice for—”

I have no idea how that sentence ends, because I’m out of there the second I hear the words Black Vice. I swear to God, if Devon Black lays one finger on her, I’m going to rip his fucking head off and shove it up his motherfucking
ass.
 

Flynn comes after me, calling my name, but I ignore him and tear out of his driveway as if the hounds of hell are chasing me. The only thing I can process at the moment is the all-consuming need to get to Addie before it’s too late. If she lets Black or anyone else touch her, I won’t be responsible for what I do.

I know exactly where Black’s place is because I’ve been a guest there. He’s
a friend, or at least I thought he was. If he’s training Addie—

Christ, I’m going to be sick, but I don’t have time for that, not when she’s got at least a half-hour head start on me. When I think about what can happen in thirty minutes at a BDSM club, my entire body is gripped with agonizing pain. This is my fault. It’s my own fucking fault that she’s gone somewhere else for what I wouldn’t
give her.

I take the hairpin curves on the road that leads back to town going much faster than I should, but I can’t bring myself to slow down. Not when Addie might be doing something foolish and risky.

Black’s a good guy, I tell myself. He won’t let anything happen to her. But he might touch her or let someone else touch her, and
that
would count as something happening to her—something that
shouldn’t happen with anyone but me. I push on the accelerator, endangering myself and anyone who has the misfortune of sharing the road with me. I’ll take the time to feel badly about that later, after she’s safely back in my arms where she belongs.

Thank God Black’s place isn’t far from Flynn’s. I pull up the long driveway twelve minutes after I leave Flynn’s, my tires screeching when I come
to an abrupt stop. “Leave it right there,” I say to the valet. “I’m not staying.” I push past him through the main door.

A woman runs after me. “Sir, excuse me! You can’t go in there!”

Devon Black comes through the doors that lead into the club.

“It’s fine, Melanie. Mr. Roth is my guest.”

“Where is she?”

“Who’re you looking for, Hayden?”

“Addison York. I know she’s here.” I head toward the
doors that lead into the club, but he stops me with a hand to my chest. “Don’t fuck with me, Black. That’s my woman in there, and anyone who touches her is a dead man.”

“My club, my rules. Now unless you’d like to be physically removed from the premises, I suggest you calm the fuck down.”

“I’m not calming down until I see her.”

“Come with me.” He takes me by the arm and jerks me toward a doorway
to the right of the main doors. We enter a dark corridor, and I’m afraid of where it will lead. We stop at a large window that looks down upon a room where Addie is seated at a table across from a man. She’s wearing a black silk robe, and her hair is tied back in a ponytail as she pores over paperwork.

“Take me to her.”

“Not yet.”

“I swear to God, I’m going to rip your fucking throat out.”

“Try it. The entire place is monitored. You’ll be dead before you can get a hand on me or anyone else in my club.”

Rage throbs through my veins like an extra heartbeat. As always where Addie is concerned, I’ve lost control. Am I going to be forced to stand here and watch while another man indoctrinates her into the BDSM lifestyle? My chest is tight, and I’m having trouble getting air to my lungs.
It’s quite possible that I could be having a heart attack.

Sweat rolls down my back as I watch the woman I love talk and laugh with another man. He’s shirtless, tattooed and has muscles on top of his muscles. Is that what she prefers? Is that who she really wants?

No, she wants you, and you pushed her away. You let her think she wasn’t good enough for you or strong enough to be what you need.
You did this to yourself
.
 

I flatten my hands on the window as if that’ll somehow bring me closer to her, allow me to touch her instead of the guy who’s making her laugh. Then Black hits a button on the wall, and I can hear her. I can hear her going over the checklist of possibilities with another man. It should be me asking her how she feels about clamps and plugs and restraints and rope.
 

This is all wrong. It’s so very, very
wrong
.

I start to scream and bang on the window, my palms flat against the glass, but she can’t hear me. No, she can only hear
him
as he talks to her about safe words and the traffic-light system and the importance of articulating her needs to her partner.
 

I’m
her partner.
Me
. No one else. I realize tears are running down my face, and I don’t care that I’m
crying for the first time in my adult life in front of someone I barely know. My heart breaks at the thought of her doing those things with anyone but me.

“Please, Devon,” I say in a soft whisper because that’s what’s left of my ravaged voice. “Don’t let this happen. Get her out of there.”

He presses a button on the wall. “Andre, please bring Addison to my office. She has a visitor.”

“Yes,
sir, Mr. Black.”

“Come with me.” He leads me through another series of corridors until we reach his office, where he offers me a drink that I decline.

I use the hem of my shirt to wipe the tears from my face, lest she see the wreck of a man I’ve become because of her.
 

Black and I coexist in uncomfortable silence for five full minutes that feel like hours before a knock sounds at the door.

“Enter,” he says.

Addie comes in first, and I go right to her, wrapping my arms around her sweet body and burying my face in her thick blond hair. As her familiar scent fills my senses, the tears begin to flow again.
 

I’m aware of Black leaving the room and taking the man named Andre with him. Good riddance.

Her arms come around me, holding me as if she still loves me. “Hayden? What’re you doing
here?”

I lift my head from her shoulder to look into her eyes. “What am
I
doing here? What’re
you
doing here?”

“Devon is the friend of a friend. He offered to help me learn about the lifestyle.”

“What friend of yours is a friend of Devon Black’s?”

“Now, Hayden, you know I can’t tell you that. I signed a confidentiality agreement.”

“Whatever you signed here is null and void. You’re coming
home with me, and I’ll train you. I’ll teach you everything I know, everything you want to know. We’ll leave no stone unturned, no kink unexplored.”

“Is that what you want? Or are you saying that so I won’t do those things with Andre?”

“You could really let another man touch you after what we’ve shared? I thought you loved me.”

“I
do
love you. The only one I want is you. But you wouldn’t teach
me, so I found someone else who would.”

Hearing she still loves me is the sweetest relief I’ve ever experienced. “I’ll teach you, and I’ll do it because it’s what I want more than anything. It’s what I’ve always wanted, but I was afraid…”

She brushes the dampness from my face. “Of what?”

“That I’d scare you so badly you wouldn’t love me anymore.”

“I’ll always love you. That’ll never change.”

“Do you promise?”

“Yeah,” she says, kissing my face and then my lips. “I promise.”

“Will you come home with me, Addison?”

“Yes. Take me home, Hayden.”

Chapter 16

Our plan worked exactly as we hoped it would, but I’m unprepared for how undone Hayden is when I encounter him in Devon’s office. I feel sick that something I did reduced my strong, confident man to tears. When I agree to go home with him, he picks me up and carries me out of Black Vice, cradling me to his
chest as if I’m the most precious thing in his world.