Taken in Hand (10 page)

you now, you wouldn’t be fully clothed. If you can’t accept

that, you’d only fail again.”

Chad’s face felt like it was on fire. He shot an accusing

glare at Adam. “You shouldn’t have taken me to that fucking

club so soon.”

Adam released a slow breath. He still used a soft tone,

but firmness crept in. “I knew it was a risk, but we’d already

been seen at the church. After I received the invitation, it

would have seemed odd if I hadn’t gone or if I had and not

taken you. Not to go would have been—”

“I know all that shit!”

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“Enough, Chad. I won’t be yelled at in my own home.”

“Or what? You going to spank me again?”

“Is that what you want?” he asked softly.

“Fuck no!” He paused and snarled, “Sir!”

“Don’t call me that unless you mean it. We’re not in a

scene, and using the term signals your willingness to submit

to me. We both know you’re a long way from that. If you wish

for this to continue, watch your tone. I won’t stand for your

disrespect. What
do
you want, Chad? Or do you even know?”

“I want this case solved and that murdering bastard

locked up!” What he wanted to do at that moment was hit

something—maybe even someone. His temper had been on

edge for weeks, his ass ached, and he was damned good and

well aware Adam knew he was standing there with a hard-on

even before he spoke.

“You need to release some of that tension, Chad, or

you’re going to explode.” He laid aside his papers. “Men in

your profession need a release valve to keep from—”

“Don’t start telling me something you don’t know

anything about,” Chad told him coldly.

“I know a gay man when I see him,” he said, looking

Chad up and down slowly. “One way is to watch his eyes.

There’s a certain look a gay man gives another man, a kind

of focused attention. Most straight men don’t catch another

man’s gaze and hold it in that way.”

“You’re saying I’m gay?”

The professor shrugged, and Chad swallowed down the

angry words he wanted to yell at him. Did he
do
what Adam

just described? Had he done it when he first met Adam? As

usual, Chad’s mind skittered away from facing the idea he

might be gay. He changed the subject. “I fucked up last

night. If it ever gets out, I’ll never be able to live it down.”

“It will never leave the club. All the members have an

unspoken mutual agreement to keep what happens there

private, and yes, you did, as you say, fuck up.”

“We’ve got a week for me to learn about all this before

we go back to the club. I’d like to practice with this meeting

of yours. I want to learn how to do it right. Can we do that?”

“Practice, you mean? Sure.” The teasing smile was

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back on his face. “Come over here and sit down.”

“I’m not doing real well with sitting today, thank you.”

“Your discomfort will remind you what happens when

you disobey,” Adam said, a slight, teasing smile on his lips.

Chad didn’t move.

“Or we can call this entire thing off right now. I have

never been a patient man, and if you rebel against everything

I tell you to do, you’re wasting my time.”

Grumbling under his breath, Chad crossed the room

and stood, glaring down at him. “What you would do with

your sub in the privacy of your home is not what I need to

learn.”

Adam blew out an exasperated breath. “Of course it is.

You have to learn the process. What you need to learn is to

obey me without argument, without question. Damn it, this

has to become familiar enough to you that it’s second

nature. Anyone with any knowledge of the lifestyle could

spend five minutes in a room with us and know this is a

sham. If you want this killer to notice us—and believe we’re

a couple—you have to learn more. I need to train you enough

that you can carry this off believably by acting the way you

should without even having to think about it.”

Chad settled on the firm leather sofa across from him,

squirming to keep as much weight off his tender ass as

possible. He looked up and caught Adam’s gaze. “Look, I was

thinking of a possible way to—”

“Not now. Now we need to have a serious discussion

about your training. You’ll need a safe word, a word you

wouldn’t normally use in conversation. Then if we’re in the

middle of a session and it becomes too intense for you, all

you have to do is use that word and everything stops.”

“It does?”

“Of course. We might come back to what we were

doing at a later time, but safe words stop all play. I actually

like to use two words, one to stop and one just to slow down.

For example, ‘red’ and ‘yellow,’ like the stop and the caution

lights. If you say ‘yellow’ then everything slows down or

pauses while we discuss what’s happening. Then we could

either move on or decide you’ve had enough. It’s all a

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negotiation, you see, a complete power exchange.”

“I’m not following the power exchange thing. Seems to

me the Dom has all the power.”

Adam shook his head. “Not at all. Some people say the

sub has all the power, but I think power is somewhat

shared. A Dom directs what happens, but the sub directs

what’s
allowed
to happen.
Everything
a Dom does to a sub is

consensual and negotiated ahead of time. It’s a Dom’s job to

push the sub to his limits though. That’s why subs have

both hard and soft limits, but a sub can always stop

everything immediately with just one word.”

“Then what’s the point?”

“The point is mutual pleasure, of course.”

Shaking his head, Chad asked, “What do you mean by

hard and soft limits?”

“A hard limit is something a sub or a Dom would never

do, under any circumstances. Edge play, for example, or

water sports. Soft limits are things that sound scary or

distasteful to the either of the partners, but they might be

willing to try them.”

“I don’t even know what the fuck those things are, but

okay, I get what you mean.”

Adam sighed. “Do you remember what I told you the

first day we met in the restaurant?”

Chad nodded. His mind went back to those words that

still echoed in his head. “Yes. Allowing another person to

take away all of your control relieves you from making even

the most basic decision. In return, that person give you more

pleasure than you thought possible and lets you know you’ve

been taken in hand, taken care of completely with no worries

except how to please him and give him everything he wants.

Everything he needs. Things only you can give him. In

return, he’d take you to places you never even dreamed

about.”

A breathless silence in the room made Chad aware of

his surroundings again. For just a few seconds, as Chad

recited the things Adam told him that first day almost

verbatim, Chad had gotten a little lost in his thoughts. He

snapped his gaze back to Adam whose mouth was parted in

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surprise. “Uh, is that right?”

Adam nodded, his eyes dark and his voice low and

silky. “Yes, that’s right. Thank you for paying such close

attention. I’d like to teach you about that if you’ll let me. I

think you should truly submit to me and feel what it’s like.

All you have to do is relax and leave everything to me.”

As tense and wound up as he was, Chad said

truthfully, “I don’t think relaxing is possible.”

“It is, if you’ll put yourself in my hands.”

Chad dropped his eyes. “I guess I could do that. No

one will see me or anything, right? No one has to know about

this?”

“If that’s what you want. I think this is something you

need for the case. Do you trust me, Chad?”

Chad looked up directly into Adam’s eyes. “Yeah, I

think I do. You helped me out last night, even if what

happened embarrasses the hell out of me. I..ah…I’m glad if

somebody had to do that—the spanking thing—I’m glad it

was you.”

“Why is that, Chad?”

“I-I don’t know, really. I think I know you don’t want to

seriously hurt me.”

Adam nodded. “I have no desire at all to hurt you.

That’s not really what I like, anyway. For me, it’s more about

control and domination, although I’m perfectly willing to

indulge my sub in a bit of pain if he needs it.”

“If he needs it? Why would anybody
need
pain?” Chad

shook his head. “See this is the thing I’m not getting about

BDSM. Why do some people seem to enjoy and want pain?

And why do others seem to enjoy and want to inflict it?”

“Again, it’s a complicated issue. I’m not a psychologist,

and I don’t pretend to be, but pain is all relative. It’s really

more about how rough you like it. Sadists, at least the ones I

know, only want to give their
willing
partners what they

need, what gets them excited. They’d have no interest in

playing with someone who didn’t want what they were giving

them.”

“What about the other guy? The masochist?”

“Again, there are as many different answers to that

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question as there are people. The easy answer is that it’s

something they give to their partner. They’re giving them

their pain and their submission to it willingly. It gets them

both off to do that. It’s exciting and edgy, and it

demonstrates total submission to the other’s needs.”

“I still don’t get it.”

“Maybe because you’re not a masochist, and that’s

okay. Different strokes, as they say. I would like to point out

that last night when I had you across my lap, though, you

had quite an erection. Do you know why?”

“I was clearly out of my head with the drug,” Chad

said, a little belligerence creeping back in his tone.

“You were drugged, yes, but I think you also enjoyed

it. Maybe not the pain, but the humiliation and the control I

had over you. The submission. If you were really my sub,

we’d find out.” Chad’s gaze flicker up to his face. “I can see it

embarrasses you, but as you said, it’s just the two of us

here. Nobody will ever know about our conversations, I can

assure you. Nor will they ever know about anything we

decide to do.” He paused for effect before adding, “For

practice.”

Chad nodded, dropping his gaze.

“If you really were my sub, instead of just this role-

play we’re doing,” Adam continued, his voice soft and almost

hypnotizing in the quiet room, “I’d explore that with you

more. It would be my job as your partner in this to help
you

explore it. I’d push your boundaries a little, to see how much

you wanted. How much you needed it. Then if it was

something we wanted to explore together, we could do some

mild pain training.”

“Pain training?” Chad could hear how thin and high

his voice was getting, and he cleared his throat.

“A not-so-great term meaning how rough you wanted

it. You might only want spankings. Spanking can be for fun

sometimes too, as well as for punishments. It’s about the

intensity. You might also find you enjoy a flogger, which can

cause more heat than pain, depending on how it’s used. That

kind of thing. Does any of that interest you?”

“Interest
me
? N-No, of course not. We’re just talking,

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right?”

Adam smiled reassuringly. “We’re just talking.” He

crossed his legs and regarded Chad solemnly for a long

moment. “Can I ask you a question and not have you

shouting back at me?”

Shrugging, he nodded. “Sure, I guess so.”

“Have you ever been…curious about your sexuality?”

“No.” He answered a bit too quickly, looked up, met

Adam’s eyes and saw nothing but kindness and interest. No

censure or blame. He started to shake his head again, but

found that he was nodding a little. “Okay, that’s a lie. Maybe

I have a little. I’ve never done anything about it, though, and

never would.”

“Why?”

“
Why
?” he echoed incredulously. “I’m a cop, that’s

why. God, if anybody I worked with even thought I was…my

parents and my family would…they’d never…” He broke off,

feeling his cheeks burning. “Just, no way.”

Adam nodded. “You’ve told me what everybody else