Stronghold (Stronghold 1) (19 page)

Angel shifted
in her seat.  After Lexie, no one else had asked how her first scene had
gone.  Conversation had flowed easily enough while they'd been getting to
know each other, but that hadn't come up.  It wasn't until now that she
realized that was kind of strange.  Then again, she wouldn't have felt
comfortable telling them much because it was obvious from the things that
they'd said that they were good friends with Adam and she wouldn't have wanted
to say anything that could be construed as negative.  With Olivia she could
be more comfortable because the other woman had been there.

In fact she'd
scolded Adam, although Angel couldn't remember any of the specifics of what had
been said.  She'd been far too out of it. 

"I'm
okay," she said, fiddling with her drink.  "A little confused I
guess."  She eyed Olivia, but the other woman wasn't looking at her
with any kind of judgment.  Interest and a tinge of concern, but nothing
that said she thought Angel had done anything wrong.  And with Leigh away
on her romantic weekend with Michael and Angel's housemates unaware of her
evening activities, she desperately wanted someone to talk to that could maybe
shed some light on the situation.  "He was so angry at first... the
scene was amazing, but then he was so cold and uncaring afterwards until you
talked to him."

"Adam has
some... trust issues, we'll call them.  Finding out that you were a
submissive was a bit of a shock to him and he doesn't like surprises.
 He's not usually caught unawares."  To Angel's surprise, Olivia
grinned rather cheerfully.  "It's good for him."

"I don't
usually lie," said Angel, not wanting this woman to get the wrong
impression.  "I just... it's scary doing this on my own.  Coming
here... I didn't feel safe right away.  I wanted to know what I was
walking into before I came in as a submissive and put myself in someone else's
hands."

"I can
understand, although I also understand why Adam was so upset.  Honestly and
communication are incredibly important, especially here.  It’s really something
that can’t be stressed enough," Olivia said as the server returned with
her drink.  Taking it, she brought it to her lips for a short sip as she
studied Angel thoughtfully.  "We went to see your show, you know.
 You're a very good actress."

"We...
you... my show?"  Angel stuttered out.  Olivia's lightening
changes in conversation were not exactly easy to keep up with. 

"Adam and
I.  Last Saturday."

While she was
absorbing that, Angel suddenly remembered something Adam had said last night.
 Most of the conversation following the scene was pretty hazy, but his
voice came through clearly, telling Olivia that she was a liar - a good one.
 Because she was an actress.

"I have no
doubt you pulled off being a Domme very well," Olivia went on calmly.
 "Rick, Chris and Andrew had no idea and they're usually pretty
observant, although Adam and Patrick are definitely the best at reading body
language.  Which is why it threw Adam for a loop when he couldn't quite
figure you out and then you showed up here as something different than he'd first
seen you.  Things that are unexpected and out of his control really throw
him, so he'll probably need a couple days to get over that before he's back to
normal."

Well he wasn't
the only one.  Angel felt shell shocked by the knowledge that he and
Olivia had come to see her show.  Of course she remembered mentioning it
at Chained, but she would have never thought that he would remember, much less
look it up and then come.  She tried to decide if it was creepy, but
mostly she just felt kind of hopeful and flattered. 

"Oh,"
she finally said when she realized that Olivia seemed to be waiting for some
sort of response.  There was just too much to think about and too many
emotions to sort through.  She had no idea how she felt about all these
revelations, piling on top of each other. 

Olivia smiled
gently.  "Come on, sweetie.  I'll walk you out to the lobby.
 Are you coming back here tomorrow?"

"No,"
Angel shook her head as she got up.  "I can't, I have plans.
 I'll be back next weekend though."

"Boyfriend?"

"No, I promised
my housemates some hang out time."

Olivia smiled
again as she escorted Angel into the lobby.  "Then we'll see you next
week.  Lexie, get Angel's coat for her please."

The entire
operation was done so smoothly, with Olivia ushering Angel to the front door
after she'd said another goodbye to Lexie and given the girl the web address
for her Etsy store since she'd forgotten to the night before, that Angel was in
her car and driving before she realized that she hadn't done what she'd gone to
the club for.  The plan had been to do another scene, whether or not Mr.
Grouchy was there, because she wanted to learn. 

And just
because she was attracted to him and they'd shared an amazing scene, that
didn't mean that she couldn't scene with other people.  In fact, she
probably should scene with other people so that she didn't spend all her time
thinking about him when it was obvious that he wasn't interested in her.

Except, if he
wasn't interested in her, then why had he gone to her show?

As she drove
and bobbed her head to the music blasting out of her radio, she thought over
the evening and realized that his friends had not only welcomed her into their
circle, she'd been watched over the entire evening.  Lexie had passed her
off to the group, and then Justin had hung around until he could pass her off
to Olivia, and Olivia had skillfully given her just enough information to set
her head spinning before sending her off without ever giving her the
opportunity to even step into the lounge area where the available submissives
waited.

It hadn’t been her plan, but she couldn’t
quite bring herself to turn around and go back to the club.  She’d look awfully
silly walking back in at this point.

Sighing, Angel reluctantly resigned herself
to a week long wait before she might even begin to get answers to some of her
questions.  At least she’d have some time to think.  And Leigh would be home in
a couple days to talk to. 

In the meantime, she’d just have to distract
herself.

The Settlers of Catan was probably the house
favorite when it came to board games, unless they were feeling in a more
cooperative mood in which case they’d break out Arkham which would allow the
guys to harken back to their D&D days a little.  Angel enjoyed both because
game play wasn’t completely based on luck; a bit part of it was preparation,
strategy and flexibility.  Plus she loved the Arkham stuff because she’d gotten
a little obsessed with H.P. Lovecraft after Sam had introduced the game to the
house. 

And she loved game nights with her housemates,
especially ones that didn’t involve the television, because they got to talk a
little bit more while that was going on.  When she’d first moved into the house
it had been just Q and Mark; Angel had met Kris, their housemate that was
moving out, during a show and she’d been looking for a place to live.  They’d
been a little hesitant about having a girl move in, but Angel had always been
more comfortable around guys anyway and it hadn’t been long before her
“interview” with them had turned into a three hour long session of Halo.  A few
months later they’d finally rented out the last room to Sam.

Angel was the one who instituted game night,
once a month, because otherwise the guys could get really anti-social without
meaning to.  Of course, when she’d started the games it had been things like
Cranium and Apples to Apples.  The guys had started expanding her gaming
horizons almost immediately; they’d take turns choosing what game was being
played, and with four of them in the house there was almost always at least one
person who would need the rules explained the first time they played a game. 
Last month she’d demolished all three of them with Lord of the Rings Trivial
Pursuit, tonight was now payback because she sucked at Catan.  But at least she
enjoyed it, unlike Risk – which had been banned from the house after a
week-long game that had ended with no one speaking to each other.

“So where have you been?”  Q asked as Mark
took his turn.  “I feel like we haven’t seen you in days.”

“I’m surprised you noticed,” she teased. 
After all, the three of them could become incredibly wrapped up on their
computers, to the point where she’d gone away for a weekend with Leigh once and
they hadn’t realized she was gone until Sunday evening when there wasn’t any
fresh baking.

“And who’s the guy?” asked Sam.  Startled,
Angel looked up at him.  He shrugged.  “You were playing country music all
day.”

“Angry-girl-country music,” Marc specified. 

She rolled her eyes.  “I’ve been out with
some new friends.”  True.  “And there’s no guy.”  Not quite true. 

“New friends?  Girls?”  Mark perked up.  He’d
been single since his last girlfriend moved away and the long distance thing
hadn’t quite worked out.  That had been a little over half a year ago.  Angel
was glad to see him taking an interest again.

Unfortunately… “They’re all taken.”

“Then what good are you?”

“Good enough for… this!”  Angel grinned as
she took her turn.

“Pretty sure that’s not what he was talking
about.”

“Don’t care.” 

Smiling fondly at her housemates, Angel found
her thoughts drifting to Stronghold.  She might love game night, but part of
her really wished she’d been able to go to the club.  Although, if Master
Grouchy was there then maybe this was for the best.  Her feelings about him
still weren’t sorted through and she still wasn’t sure what she wanted from the
club.  So it was probably better to wait till next week anyway.  Game night
just enforced that.

Still, she had some trouble concentrating on
the game and not thinking about Master Adam at Stronghold.  Good thing she was
used to losing.

******

Something was up.

Every hair on the back of Adam’s
neck was tingling, as if they were doing more than standing up straight, it was
like they wanted to spring right off of his skin.  The feeling had grown,
from the moment he'd walked in and Lexie had given him a little smile that was
somehow different from her usual.  Then he'd walked into the club to see
his friends all gathered around the bar.  Granted, Andrew was standing
behind it so that might have been why, but considering that he'd come a little
later in the evening than usual he would have expected at least some of them to
be off scening.  Especially the couples.

Instead, every single one of them
was standing around chatting.  Jared, without Marissa on his arm, even
Patrick, which wasn't entirely unusual in and of itself, but combined with
everything else...

Yeah something was up. 

And he'd bet his favorite guitar
that it had something to do with Angel.  Pasting a neutral expression on
his face he walked over to his friends, who were all casually not looking at
him.  So casually that they might as well have screamed that one of them
had spotted him and told the others he was coming.

He figured it was better to
confront whatever this was head on.  Scanning his eyes over the group, he
ignored the pang of disappointment he felt when he realized that Angel wasn't
among them.  That had been his first guess, after all.  

"Hey Adam, want a
drink?" Andrew asked loudly as soon as he was within hearing distance.
 Which, of course, gave everyone the excuse they needed to eyeball him and
say hi.  Adam asked for a scotch, neat.  Normally he would have just
have had a beer but he had the feeling that tonight he was going to want
something stronger.  Patrick was downright smirking at him.  Bastard.
 

Of course Adam was pretty sure he
could wipe that smile off of Patrick's face by bringing Lexie into the club for
an evening, but he'd be risking life and limb to do that and not just from
Patrick.  Besides which, the idea made him far too uncomfortable to
consider as anything other than a way to irritate the big Dom.

"So I hear you had a scene
with your girl the other night," Liam said, sidling up to him, Hilary
tucked under his arm the way she often was.  

The conversation around them
paused, not even trying to hide that they were all waiting for Adam's reaction.

"Wasn't aware I have a
girl."

"Then why-" Liam's
hand clapped around Hilary's mouth before she could continue her question.
 The pretty blonde glared at him over his fingers but didn't try to
struggle or push his hand away.  Nice.  Adam sighed, a little
enviously. 

"You know we're talking
about Mistress Angela," Chris jumped in, leaning against the table he was
standing next to.  Like Liam he was smart enough to avail himself of a
submissive shield; he'd arranged his position so that Jessica was between him
and Adam.  Hard to smack your friend when an innocent woman was standing
in the way.  Especially when she was looking up at you with big, brown,
curious eyes.

"That's not her name,"
he snapped back, hating the reminder of her deception.  Chris just
grinned.  Idiot.

Jessica placed a hand on Adam's
arm, her features serious as she looked up at him.  "We thought Angel
was really nice."

"We?"  Something
inside of his stomach sank.  Angel had been here last night and at least
some of his friends that had missed out on Thursday's debacle had actually met
her.  He wasn't sure what made him more jumpy - the fact that she'd been
here without him and hooked up with who knows what Dom or the fact that she'd
met his friends without him.  Again, events had spiraled out of his
control and he didn't like it at all.  He'd thought she'd take a night
off, most submissives wanted a night to assimilate things after their first
scene.  How very like her to be so much less predictable and so much more
frustrating than that.

She nodded.  "She was
talking with Lexie when we got here, and then Lexie introduced us and Chris
recognized her... and then she ended up hanging out with us for a little
bit."

"Who's us?"

"Me, Liam, Jessica, Chris
and Justin," Hilary jumped in, now that Liam had finally removed his hand
from her mouth and whispered a few words in her ear.  Probably warning her
not to talk about whatever gossip was being said about Adam and Angel around
the group. 

Which was fine by Adam; he didn't
want to know.

"Great."  He
wasn't going to ask, he wasn't going to ask... "Do you know who she scened
with?"

"No one," Olivia said,
making him jump a bit.  That just went to show how distracted he was; he
hadn't even noticed her coming up beside him, he'd been so focused on
questioning Hilary and Jessica.  Their boyfriends were all amusing
themselves by playing the part of an audience, knowing that he'd be much nicer talking
to their submissives than he would be to them.  "Justin kept an eye
on her until I got here and then she and I chatted for a bit before I showed
her out of the club."

A knot of tension inside his
stomach relaxed; he hadn't even known it was there until the damn thing
unraveled.  Adam gritted his teeth.  Part of him wanted to take out
some of his ire on Olivia, but he really couldn't.  Not only had she
stopped him from being a complete ass on Thursday, but he had to inwardly
acknowledge that he was grateful she'd kept Angel from scening with someone
other than him.  Even though that gratitude just made him feel even more
temperamental since he was getting all possessive over a woman that he barely
knew and that had lied to him from the moment she met him.

"What did you two talk
about?" asked Hilary, with every evidence of surprise.  Adam mentally
blessed her impetuous nature, since he desperately wanted to know but just as
desperately didn't want to have to ask. 

Olivia just shrugged and looked
away.  "Oh, this and that."

Jessica and Hilary looked as
disappointed as Adam felt, obviously realizing that their friend wasn't going
to expound any further.  Both Chris and Andrew looked like they were about
to bust up laughing, even Patrick was smiling.  Only Justin and Jared were
managing to keep reasonably smooth faces, although in Jared's case that might
have also been because he was apparently rather distracted.  Every couple
of minutes his eyes would slip back to the door of the club.  Marissa was
probably supposed to be meeting him here; Adam could only be grateful that the
disruptive sub hadn't shown up yet, even if it was causing his friend some
angst.

"I'm sorry I missed
it," said Rick, giving Adam and sidelong look.  "She was a
gorgeous Domme, I bet she looked even better as a submissive.

Even knowing that Rick was trying
to get a rise out of him, Adam couldn't help but growl a little bit under his
breath.  He took a sip of scotch to hide his bristling. 

"I liked her," Hilary
announced. 

"Me too," Jessica said.
 Both of them looked expectantly at Adam.  He just met their gazes
blandly.  Jessica scowled at him and turned to Rick.  "She's
going to be back next weekend.  You're looking for a sub, right?
 Maybe you should try a scene with her."

"No."  Adam bit
out the word, an automatic reaction that had him cursing internally the moment
that he said it, leaving Jessica looking smug and some of his friends looking
at him with speculation in their eyes.  Apparently while they'd all been
on board for teasing them, not all of them had realized just how interested he
was in Angel.

Heck, he hadn't realized how
interested he was in Angel until this very moment when he thought about her
being with one of his friends.  Doing a scene with another Dom in the club
would be bad enough, but if she did a scene with Rick and Rick decided he
wanted her, then Adam would feel honor bound to keep his hands off.  The
idea made him feeling even more out of control, verging on panicky. 

Damn Jessica anyway.  He
glared at Justin, already knowing that Chris was going to be of no help when it
came to keeping their girlfriend in line, not on this subject.  Her other
boyfriend was barely holding in his laughter, exchanging knowing glances with
Andrew.  

"Come here, sweetheart, time
to stop teasing Master Adam," Justin murmured, reaching out and yanking
his girlfriend against his body.  Twisting her head around, she looked up
at him and then sighed, slumping against him.  The honorific had been
included specifically to remind her of where she was; in the club she could -
and would - be punished for bratty behavior.  Justin gave him a long look,
just the hint of a smile on his face.  "I think we're going to go
find a place to play."

And suddenly the group started to
break up.  Jared headed out to the lobby, probably to call Marissa and
find out where she was, Patrick headed back to his office, and those in
relationships disappeared downstairs.  That left Olivia, Rick and Adam to
keep Andrew company at the bar.  Not that he was able to focus his full
attention on them, it was late enough in the night that more people were
ordering drinks now, having already finished their scenes. 

"So you're definitely
interested in Angel?" Rick asked, drumming his fingers on the table.
 The muscular blonde's face had gone serious.  "Because if you're
not... I really wouldn't mind scening with her.  But not if I’m stepping
on your toes."

"I don't know... doesn't it
bother you that she lied about being a Domme?"  The fact that
everyone else seemed to accept her immediately was making him feel like he was
being unreasonable.