Stronghold (Stronghold 1) (20 page)

Rick shrugged.  "Not
really.  I mean, it did at first, but we were talking about it a bit before you
got here.  Chris thinks of it as a huge practical joke, but Jessica and
Hilary both pointed out that we don't exactly understand how scary it was for
them.  Putting yourself out there as a submissive, especially when you
don't have anyone around to show you the ropes - so to speak - or answer
questions and soothe doubts... we were all pretty lucky.  We're all
naturally take-charge kind of people and we all knew each other.  But
Jessica went to the school, rather than the club, to explore, where she knew
other people would be there expressly for the purpose of trying new things, and
she wouldn't have even done that Olivia hadn't pushed her.  And Hilary
would have never gone anywhere near BDSM without Jessica."

"She naturally defers to
others," Olivia put in.  "Even though she obviously thought she
was being a burden to Justin before I showed up, and on me once he passed her
off, she couldn't bring herself to remove that 'burden' once we told her no.
 I think she's the type that if you give her an inch, she'll take a mile,
but the whole way she'll be wishing that you'd pull on the reins."

"I liked her at
Chained," Rick said.  "I can see that she probably had her
reasons for wanting to explore the scene and see what a club was like before
going into one and entrusting someone else.  Especially since she had no
one to watch her back or to introduce her.  But you seem more possessive of her
than you seem angry about the fact that she misled us, so if you want
her..."

"I-" Adam cleared his
throat.  He could feel his friends' eyes on him like heavy weights.
 "I thought you didn't want to do a long distance thing."
 Why was it still so hard to say that he was interested in her?
 Maybe because, in some ways, he didn't want to be.  He didn't like
the way she upset his equilibrium, but the chemistry between them had been so
strong that he didn't like to give that up without exploring it either.

"I've started submitting my
application to some of the school systems up here," Rick said easily.
 "If things go the way I want them to I'll be moving over the
summer."

Great.  He glanced at
Olivia, who, for once, was sitting rather quietly.  The way she was
looking at him was as if she was encouraging him to go ahead and speak up.
 He nearly groaned.

"Yeah," he finally
muttered.  "I'm interested in getting to know her better.  I
don't know if it's going to go anywhere though."

Rick nodded and Olivia just smiled.
 A knowing, smug kind of smile.  "Good," she said.
 "So that's settled.  I'm going to find someone to go play with.
 Rick?"

He watched his friends walk off.
 Sure, he could go find an available submissive.  Do a scene.
 Keep his hands off but still get some kind of satisfaction out of the
evening by giving a submissive some satisfaction. 

Instead he said goodnight to
Andrew and headed out, passing Jared and Marissa on his way as they came into
the club.  The big, genial Dom had a frown on his face and his sub was
somehow managing to pout and look gleeful at the same time.  Great.
 Trouble was brewing again in that area, but there was nothing he could do
about that for the moment. 

He needed to go home and think
about his own trouble.

******

By the time Wednesday rolled around, Adam was
more than a little amped up.  Fortunately Wednesday was his usual day for going
into Liam’s studio for more than classes.  He tried to make it to class at
least a couple of times a week, although he ran through his forms every evening
at home as well, but Wednesdays were special.  Wednesdays were for individual
attention and, quite often, sparring.

Any of their friends were invited to join in,
but Adam was the only one who made it nearly every week.  Justin and Patrick
came some of the time, and the rest of their friends attended rarely.

Adam liked the mental and physical discipline
that was involved.  He liked the flow of his body and the way it felt when he
was completely in tune with himself.  Which was necessary when you were in a
physical altercation with people that you cared about, as was the case when he
sparred with his friends.  Sometimes he wondered if he wasn’t secretly just a
little bit masochistic, but he thought it was likely that it had more to do
with the adrenaline rush.

There just wasn’t a substitute for a good,
physical fight with an evenly matched opponent.  A bit primitive, but he always
felt better after Wednesday night. 

Heck, he felt like he’d been waiting for this
Wednesday ever since last Thursday.  

Liam knew it too.

The redheaded Dom took one look at him when
he walked in and pointed at the mat.  “Stretch and then we’ll get to it.”

By which Adam knew he meant spar, not the
regular forms and exercises that they normally did before sparring.  As he began
to loosen his muscles, he felt his tension uncoiling, like wire coming undone
from around a spring, just from the anticipation of a good fight.  Liam was
already loosened up from teaching classes, so he just went through some of his
forms while Adam stretched.

“Okay, I’m ready.”

Which got him a look, because he hadn’t
really warmed himself up, just loosened his muscles, but Liam didn’t argue. 
Obviously he had some idea of how much inner turmoil Adam had to work off this
evening. 

“Weapons or hand?”

“Hand.”  Weapons required more concentration
but right now he wanted the feel of actual physical contact, the meaty
satisfaction that came when a hit landed and the flash of pain when he received
one in turn.

Smiling ruefully, looking more boyish than
ever as he bounced slightly on the balls of his feet, Liam raised an eyebrow at
him.  “You know Hilary’s going to be upset if you send me home with bruises.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t mar your pretty face,”
Adam retorted. 

Since there was no one to referee they would
need to be slightly more careful anyway.  Truthfully that was what Adam craved;
a reaffirmation of his self-control and a reassertion of his mental peace. 
Sparring with a referee could sometimes become more uninhibited than sparring
without, just because there was always a third person there to slow the fight
if it needed.  With just the two of them, they would have to watch themselves.

And Adam prided himself on always being in
control.

Grinning, Liam bounced toward him, his lower
body tensing as if he was going for a kick when suddenly his weight and
movement changed and a fist went flashing towards Adam’s chest.  It caught a
glancing blow as Adam barely managed to pull himself out of the way, thrown
off-balance enough that he wasn’t able to return the hit before Liam followed
up with the kick that he’d already been expecting.

Pain exploded as Liam’s heel hit squarely on
the meaty part of his thigh, focusing his concentration as adrenaline and
endorphins rushed through him.  Ignoring the throbbing in his leg, Adam swung
around, his foot snaking out in a move designed to take Liam down.  As always,
with the dojo owner, such a move didn’t work but it did force him back, giving
Adam just enough time to recover and renew his stance.  They circled for a moment
before Liam came at him in a flash of movement aimed at his shoulder.

Catching Liam’s arm, Adam used the other
man’s momentum to pull him forward, jutting out his hip and throwing Liam over
it.  The move was one of his favorites, something he could do in his sleep, and
he’d practiced it enough that he actually managed to use it against Liam about
fifty percent of the time.  Against his other friends the percentage was much
higher.

He went down on one knee, twisting around to
follow up on his advantage, but Liam was already breaking his hold and grabbing
his wrist.  Momentum diverted, Adam found himself flying head over heels to
land with a soft thunk on the mat.  Growling, he kipped up to his feet and spun
to face Liam again.

Fifteen minutes later they both sat, panting,
and nursing their wounds.  Adam had managed to keep from marring Liam’s pretty
face, as he’d promised, but he’d given the other man a bruise on his arm that
was already darkening, as well as a wrenched shoulder that now had an ice pack
pressed against it.  He’d received a black eye for his troubles, along with a
bruise on his thigh from the initial kick that Liam had given him and his
fingers on his right hand were slightly swollen after Liam had bent them back.

But he felt great.

“So.  Angel said she’d be back this weekend.”

Adam eyed his friend.  He’d already heard
that opening line to a conversation several times over the course of the past
week.

“I’ve heard.”

“Are you going to scene with her?”

It was stupid to be reluctant to answering,
considering that everyone would be able to see anyway.  But it made him feel
strangely vulnerable, not exactly something he enjoyed.  “I’m going to ask her
if she wants to.”

“She’ll say yes.”

For a moment Adam hesitated, and then he
asked the question that he hadn’t quite dared to ask anyone else.  Not even
Justin.  But here, in the dojo, where they were all alone, he knew Liam
wouldn’t tease him.  Not his style.  “Did she talk about me at all?”

“No,” Liam replied with a sympathetic smile. 
His grey eyes glinted.  “I just can’t see you accepting any other answer now
that you’ve got a woman you’re actually interested in.”

******

“Angel!”  Mark’s voice was
strangely strangled and high-pitched.  Kind of panicky really.

Sighing, Angel gave over her
perusal of her corsets and short skirts.  She’d been trying to decide
whether or not to go to Stronghold for another Thursday night.  Impatience
had been spurring her on, although she was more interested in seeing the club
on the actual weekend.  And she thought it was more likely that Master
Grouchy would be there on the weekend than on a Thursday, unless he was doing
another Introduction Scene.

The sick feeling in her stomach
told her that she didn’t particularly relish the idea of witnessing that.

Abandoning her closet, she
trotted out to the top of the stairs.  “What?”

“COME HERE!”

Yep, definitely panicked.

Rolling her eyes, Angel started
down the stairs, frowning when the soft sound of crying reached her. 
Picking up her pace she peered around the corner of the stairwell as she came
down.

“Leigh!”

It sounded like thunder as she
pounded down the rest of the stairs and Leigh turned, her face streaked with
tears and pulled away from Mark's arms to throw herself into Angel's.
 Relief and concern warred on Mark's face as he hesitated, obviously
wanting to run away from the crying woman but also unable to ignore the
instinct to try and fix whatever was making her cry.  Mark was a
sweetheart.  Angel jerked her head at him, indicating permission to flee.
 While Leigh knew all of her roommates, she wasn't particularly close to
them, and whatever had made her this upset called for girl time.  

"Come on sweetheart,"
she said, pulling her around to the front of the couch in the main room.
 When the guys weren't connecting all their computers, the front room was
empty except for couches and chairs.  

Tugging her stumbling friend over
to one of the couches, Angel pulled her down and just held on tightly.
 Mark flitted into the room with a box of Kleenex in his hand and Angel
mouthed 'Thank you' to him before he fled again.  Pushing a tissue into
Leigh's hand, she wrapped both of her arms back around the shaking woman as she
let her cry it out.

Impatient as she was to know what
had upset her friend, she was sure it had something to do with Michael.
 Anger and upset surged through her as she imagined the various scenarios
which could have reduced Leigh to this.  

"I'm going to kill
him," she muttered as she hugged Leigh closer to her.

"No, no it's my fault."

"How can you say that?!"
 Angel would have thrown her hands up in the air in exasperation if she
hadn't been hugging Leigh.  

"Because it is.  I
broke up with him."

And she broke into fresh sobs.
 

It took another ten minutes of
cuddling, crying, and nonsensical soothing words before Leigh started gulping
and hiccupping, her shaking shoulders finally slowing from the almost violent
shuddering they'd been doing.  She forced herself to sit up, although
Angel's arm remained around her shoulders, blowing her nose and wiping her eyes
until there was a small pile of Kleenex on her lap.  

"So what happened?"
Angel asked, examining her friend.  Leigh was not a pretty crier; her eyes
and nose were swollen and pink, even her lips looked kind of swollen, and her
cheeks were puffy and patchy red.  "I thought last weekend went
really well."

"It did but... I mean... he
didn't propose."  Leigh had already told her that, so Angel just
nodded.  "It started bothering me and I kept thinking about what you
said, about how I should talk to him about what I want instead of just waiting
around for him.  So I mentioned over dinner that before we went away this
weekend that I'd thought he might propose."  She sniffed and Angel
cuddled her closer again.  "He got kinda irritated and told me that
he's not going to propose yet, because he's not ready."