Safeword: Arabesque (Safewords Book 9) (23 page)

Not wanting to bring their lunch conversation down even farther, she asked how school was going, which led into a conversation about rehearsals for an upcoming performance.

* * * *

In the coming weeks Cassie took to going to the club Isaac had taken her to just about every Saturday night.

She kept hoping she’d see Isaac, but he was never there.

However, as he’d said, plenty of the men were happy to flog and whip her into subspace even though they knew up front she wasn’t interested in having sex.

It wasn’t the same as belonging to someone, but she hoped she’d eventually find someone else. She wanted Frisco to use her as Isaac had. Or for Isaac to take her back. Or, in her dreams, Frisco and Isaac together. It did no good to wish and dream, though. None of it was going to happen.

Well, maybe Isaac in another four and a half months.

God, was she really counting down the fucking time?

* * * *

Her phone rang a little before midnight one Friday evening, and it took her a minute to hear Cam through his tears. When she finally understood he wanted to come to her house, she said, “Of course you can come over. How far away are you?”

She waited for him outside, worried. He’d been crying uncontrollably and she couldn’t imagine what had happened.

She brought him inside, held him until he stopped crying so hard, and gradually got the story out of him.

Apparently, Frisco had decided it was time to start placing Cam with prospective future Masters, but Cam hadn’t liked any of them.

He’d wanted Frisco.

“My contract says I can’t fall in love with him,” he said through his tears. “Like you can just
decide
not to fall in love!”

Cassie held him as he wept, heartbroken.

“I planned it for so long,” he said, “made sure I was respectful and the timing was right, and I went to my knees and told him I was head over heels in love with him and wanted to…to…to…” Cam’s voice broke up as he was overtaken by tears again, “spend the rest of my life at his feet, serving him.”

He cried some more, and Cassie could only hold him through it, her own heart hurting at her friend’s pain.

When he could talk again he told her Frisco had told him to get off the floor, had grabbed Cam’s bicep and walked him to his car. He’d told him to leave immediately, and said he’d have Cam’s things in the apartment boxed up and sent to whatever address Cam emailed him. Frisco’s last words had been, “You violated the contract and we’re done. No more correspondence except to let me know where to send your things.”

Part of Cassie couldn’t believe Frisco had kicked him out when Cam had professed his love, but the rest of her could easily see Frisco doing exactly that.

“Come on. Let’s go to bed and snuggle. You can stay here as long as you need.”

Jake had quickly moved from alarm over Cam’s crying, to leaning against him and also trying to soothe and comfort. Instead of snuggling with Cassie in bed, the large dog positioned himself so Cam was in the middle. Rather than being jealous and suspicious of Cam, as Jake tended to be towards men she brought home, he accepted him right off the bat.

The next morning they cleaned out the closet in her office to make room for his things, and she emailed Frisco to let him know he should send Cam’s things to her house.

She didn’t hear back from him, but his new housekeeping service called several hours later to arrange a time for drop-off.

* * * *

Over the following months Cassie and Cam grew even closer.

She loved the classical music he played as he studied, and took to curling up on the sofa to read a book as he sat at the small desk they’d set up in the living room.

Cassie went to his shows to watch him perform, they cooked together, they went out to eat, cuddled on the sofa and watched movies together, and they spooned naked in bed at night.

They tried to kiss and make-out a few times, but neither could get aroused enough to make it work. They had the intimacy and relationship of a couple, but without the sex.

She took him to the BDSM club one Saturday night in the hopes they could find a Dom to Top them both, but it didn’t work out as they’d hoped. They’d had fantastic sex and almost magical intimacy with Frisco topping them, but it seemed fake and icky with anyone else.

She tried to ignore Frisco at the dojo, but her heart hurt every time she looked at him. And, as Sam and Ethan began to train with official coaches for their upcoming professional bouts, the class seemed empty without them.

She refused to quit, though. The heartless bastard wasn’t going to run her out of class.

She and Cam stayed home together to watch Sam and Ethan fight live in London, and — much to Jake’s alarm — yelled and screamed and jumped for joy when they each won their fight.

Several months later, she talked to Cam about whether to go to Vegas to see Sam and Ethan fight.

“I can’t go,” he said. “I have performances that weekend.”

She nodded. “Yeah, I know, and I hate I’ll miss them.”

“You’ll be with Viv and Kirsten most of the time though, right? You probably won’t be with Frisco too much?”

“I don’t know how it’ll work out.” She shrugged. “I’m assuming the women will shop and do our own thing during the day, but we’ll probably all do things together in the evening.”

* * * *

Cassie flew in with Viv and Kirsten a few days before the fight. Viv’s husband, Tyler, was part of Sam’s security team and was already there. Cassie had no idea if Frisco was already there or would come later.

All of the women decided to go to dinner for a girls’ night out — Cassie, Viv, Kirsten, Tara, and Sam.

Tyler was in the shadows watching, as he was apparently Sam’s personal security person, but he stayed far enough back they could mostly forget about him.

Well, maybe Viv couldn’t, but Cassie could.

They were eating and drinking and having a blast when a muscled man came to their table, leaned on it with a sneer, and said, “Well, if it isn’t a table full of fucking cunts.”

Cassie was speechless, but Sam retorted, “If you haven’t figured it out by now, name calling doesn’t seem to bother me the way you expect it to. Please say whatever it is you came to tell us and then leave.”

“Are you afraid little girl, without all of your men around to protect you?”

Cassie suddenly realized this was Jose Clemente — the man Sam had beat in an exhibition fight several months earlier. He had a title fight this weekend, the same night Sam and Ethan would be fighting.

Feeling brave and pissy, Cassie looked at him and said, “She handled you just fine in a cage with no men to protect her.”

Tara was on the other side of the table, and she piped up with, “I’m staying out of this, but I’d like to see ya’ll bitches wipe the floor with this annoying fucktard.”

Kirsten looked at Sam and said, “You can’t get into it with him without getting in trouble with the league, but if I stand up and kick his ass…” She looked at Clemente a few seconds, glanced at Cassie, and then looked back to Sam to finish with, “Would there be blowback on you?”

Sam thought about it a few seconds. “I don’t think so. Especially if I tell you not to engage. Which I’m doing now.” She smiled and raised her voice to say, “Kirsten, just ignore him. Don’t engage.”

Cassie noted a bunch of people around them had their cellphones out, but Clemente was making her nervous so she stayed focused on him. He was clearly not getting the reaction he expected, and she worried he’d do something stupid.

He snarled his face at Kirsten and said, “If you think you can take me, hop your happy ass on up and do it, you little cunt.”

Kirsten looked at Sam. “He sure does like the ‘C’ word, doesn’t he?”

“Doesn’t seem to have much respect for the real thing, but yeah, he’s a fan of the word.”

Clemente slapped Kirsten, and Cassie leaned back as Kirsten stood, swept his legs, and followed him to the ground to punch him in the face multiple times before he knew what was happening.

More cellphones came out as Clemente punched Kirsten in the jaw and she fell to the side momentarily, but jumped to her feet as Clemente came to his.

Cassie jumped into the action after the punch, determined to help Kirsten however she could. She managed to land a dozen or so solid punches on the jerk, and she and Kirsten had him back on the ground in a matter of seconds.

When security pulled everyone apart, Clemente’s face was bleeding and he was in rough shape as security tried to sort through what had happened. Thank goodness Sam knew what to say, because for a few minutes it looked like Cassie and Kirsten were going to be detained along with Clemente.

Once Sam had mostly got the security guys to back off, she looked at Clemente and asked, “Do you want to press charges against the two girls who beat you up? The ones
not
involved in professional fighting in any way, shape, or form?”

He slowly shook his head as he realized how bad it would look to admit two women beat him up.

Kirsten surprised Cassie by saying, “I, on the other hand, would like to press charges.”

* * * *

Word of the scuffle had reached their friends by the time they got back to their floor, and Frisco was waiting in the hall with Ethan.

Ethan went to Sam to check on her, and Frisco came to Cassie, saying, “Are you okay? They said you were in a fight with Clemente!”

He reached towards her, but she sidestepped him and walked around him, saying, “I’m fine, but we need to get some ice on Kirsten’s eye.”

When she talked to Cam about it later, he thought it a good sign Frisco had been worried about her, but she didn’t agree, and asked, “Why pretend he cares about me when he doesn’t want me in his life? He’s an ass, Cam.”

Cassie managed to mostly avoid Frisco until the night of the fights, when she ended up sitting right fucking beside him.

Luckily, everyone played musical chairs when she and Kirsten went to the bathroom, so she ended up between Kirsten and Viv when they returned. She breathed a sigh of relief, happy to no longer have to keep her arm in her lap to keep from touching him.

Her heart hurt just being near him. Touching him was excruciating.

Chapter Twenty

Cassie had been in contact with several people in the Vegas BDSM group before she arrived, and had learned of a private club just outside the city limits.

She had plans to attend after the group of friends went to a show together, but she had a few hours on her own in the middle of the day and decided to do some shopping and then catch a cab to make sure she could find the place. Also, she wanted to see what the section of town was like before deciding for sure whether to go at night.

She went into a little boutique and found an adorable corset with a matching g-string, and then took a cab to the address.

The sun was shining, and when the cabbie told her they’d reached her destination, there was a park across the street. She’d been cooped up in the hotel for days, and her only time outside had been the walks down the sidewalk to get something to eat. The idea of running through the park made her happy.

Sunshine, a running trail, and time to run. Did life get any better? 

“Can you arrange for another cab to come back here and pick me up in thirty minutes?” she asked the driver.

He radioed it in and left. Cassie wore sport sandals but was fine running in them, and she ran for ten minutes before turning around and running back.

The cab wasn’t there yet and she decided to walk across the street for a closer look at the house. She didn’t stop in front of it, but two men she hadn’t seen on the front porch came down the steps as she walked by.

By the time Cassie realized one of the men was Jose Clemente, both men had her by an arm and were dragging her into the house.

Cassie screamed and fought and tried to escape, but Clemente punched her a few times once he had her in the house and said, “Shut the fuck up you filthy cunt, or I’ll break your damned jaw so you can’t say
anything
.”

Deciding to bide her time since apparently there was no one around to hear anyway, she went quiet and waited for an opportunity to get loose.

Clemente looked at the other man and asked, “How long until people arrive?”

“Maybe an hour,” he uncrossed his arms, looked at his watch, twisted his hands together, and crossed his arms again, “but someone might come earlier.”

Jose punched Cassie again, grabbed her chin, and said, “You’ll do as we say or we’ll hurt you bad. Understand?”

The taste of blood in her mouth shot terror through her veins, and she nodded, afraid to speak.

Clemente lifted her over his shoulder and carried her up a fancy staircase. He walked her into a room, dumped her on the floor, and said, “The walls in here are soundproof. No one’s going to come rescue you. I’m tired of the screaming. Don’t do it again.”