Masked Page 4

  His tawny brows settled harder over his piercing blues. “Where the hell did you just go?”

  She managed another shrug. “Doesn’t matter.” It couldn’t matter. Not where he was concerned.

  “Unless you were strolling through the mental weapons room, contemplating which one to use on me.”

  A laugh spurted. “Shut up. I’m over it.”

  “And I’m sorry.”

  “What?” Her confusion was genuine. She was used to chip-on-the-shoulder Dan, not this new, different gentleman Dan. It was weird—and seriously messed with her dungeon fantasies of him. Swiftly, she demanded, “Why?”

  “For lumping you into the wannabe subbie box.”

  “Pssshh.” She took another bite to smooth the moment. Apologies from him were like straight talk from back-channel radio chatter: weird and unnatural. “You explained that reasoning. Made sense. Water under the bridge. Can we move on?”

  “Right after I tell you that you’re going to make some Dom the luckiest guy on the planet.”

  So much for smoothing things out. Hell. He’d never spoken words that affected her so deeply. They warmed her in depths she never imagined him reaching—but brought an arctic freeze in their wake.

  I don’t want some Dom.

  I want you.

  And he was going to know that…how? The question made a ton of sense—and brought a truckload of hope. Every book she’d devoured about BDSM stressed the importance of communicating one’s needs, even if it wasn’t comfortable. Doms weren’t gods, psychics, or mind readers. They were simply men who did their best with what their subbies gave them. With being entrusted with the truth.

  Maybe it was time for her to heed that advice.

  Suck it up, Lesange. You’ve tracked terrorists and human traffickers and drug kingpins. So just apply the laser to your own damn insecurities.

  “Well…” Shit. This felt like the first step off the high dive board. Now she was committed to the plummet. “I just heard one of the hottest Doms in town is newly available.”

  Dan’s fork fell out of his hand. Clattered to his plate.

  Salsa and cheese spattered, dripping down the salt and pepper shakers like blood and guts.

  Tess set down her fork and gulped again—this time hoping the heat across her face didn’t look as mortifying as it felt. “Well. Who’s sorry now?”

  “Tess—”

  “Don’t.” She yanked her hand free from his. “Just…don’t, okay?” The last thing she needed was some excuse about how this “had nothing to do with her” and how he just “wasn’t ready” to go there with anyone right now—when they both knew he’d been damn ready for at least the last six months.

  Silence stretched. The most uncomfortable minute of her life.

  “Tess. Listen.”

  “No.”

  “Yes.” He pulled her hand back in. She yanked back. He held fast. “You are so goddamn beautiful. And stunning. And smart. Everything a Dom could ever dream of—”

  “Except a Dom like you.”

  Deliberate pause. Determined stare. “Yeah. We might as well drill that one in. Except a Dom like me.”

  “Because you like it rough?”

  He blew out a tight huff. “Darlin’, ‘rough’ is just the tip of my whip, okay?”

  “Oooooh. And that’s supposed to make me scared?”

  “Damn it, Tess. Look—”

  “‘Listen.’ ‘Look.’ ‘Drill that in.’ Awfully bossy words from a guy who doesn’t want to be my Dom.”

  He reared back. Narrowed the corners of both eyes. If he was still going for scary, it wasn’t working. Even the guy’s ticked-off look stopped her heart on every track it possessed. “Is that what you think?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Oh, here it comes.”

  “Here what comes?”

  “The big lecture.”

  Tighter eyes. Blue steel irises. Anger and power that turned her panties from moist to soaked. Damn him. “What ‘big lecture’ would that be?”

  “The one when I play too hard for your virginal ass isn’t working. The one about how you’re too fucked up right now to even think about training a submissive—and about how I’d be better off with a guy who better knows where his life is at, what the hell he’s doing, and how to treat a gift like me. Hmmm. I’m sure I’m leaving something out. Give me a second…”

  As she tapped at her jaw, his tightened to the texture of canyon cliffs. Right before he yanked out his wallet, tossed some twenties on the table, and swept a hand out to jerk her to her feet. Okay, so the commander was back—but Tess wasn’t sure she dug the pissy upgrades. At all.

  “Dan! Sheez!”

  “Grab your phone and purse,” he ordered from locked teeth.

  “What the—”

  He didn’t wait any longer. Instead, he snatched up her phone and dropped it into her purse before wrapping the pocketbook’s straps in a fist. Hell. She’d have to pull everything out to find the device again. But there wasn’t time for fuming. There wasn’t time for anything except fighting to keep up with Dan’s long strides out of the restaurant.

  The midday sun hit them at full blast. It wasn’t blistering hot, but that didn’t make a difference at this end of town, with no skyscraper hotels to block the rays. If anything, the effect was intensified by the Cleveland Center across the street, its “collapsed” aluminum heights throwing back the light at crazy angles.

  Before Tess could shield her eyes, Dan yanked her back into the shade. Inside seconds, he had her pressed to the concrete wall, where he loomed with a stance as furious as his grip. Though she knew he’d let her up if she so much as whispered such a demand, her nervous system didn’t know the difference. He was huge and overpowering, even a little daunting. Maybe a lot daunting.

  Note to self: you really like daunting.

  For a moment, just one, she imagined they were in the shadows of a dungeon together instead. Maybe she’d just mouthed off at him and he stared down, contemplating what discipline she deserved for it. Would he spank her bare ass? Flog her nude body? Oh God, would he whip her trembling thighs? How much would she take from him? How much could she take?

  Damn it, how she burned to know those answers.

  Damn it, how she wished he’d read her mind right now.

  Damn it, how it looked like he did.

  Her breath ached as their gazes locked. As he inhaled, his face hardened into new angles. He was beautiful. Even his scars were stunning, betraying rolling tides of intense emotions.

  But what emotions were they? Why had he hauled her out here?

  “New lecture,” he finally grated. “And this time, you will listen.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  She smiled, letting him know how freely she gave the words.

  Dan’s eyes slid shut. His lips flattened.

  Was that good? Bad?

  “I value you,” he muttered at last. “I value…this. Us. I’ve never been able to have this with a woman, besides Devyn, in my entire life. I’m pretty sure she’s disqualified by default. So maybe…you came along to show me I could.” His breath left him in a significant rush. “I only know it’s too important to fuck up. If gaining you as a submissive meant losing you as a friend…” He shook his head just before Tess dipped hers. “I don’t know what I’d do, okay?”

  She jerked out a nod. And didn’t mean a damn moment of it. Not when her vision was consumed by the proximity of his legs to hers, braced and long and commanding. She wanted to slide her ankles up those legs—on her way to wrapping them around his waist. Begging him to fill her body with his…

  “Tess?”

  “Yeah,” she blurted. “Okay, okay.” But it wasn’t. He’d not only mushed her back into the friend zone like so much Play-Doh in a can but slammed the lid shut by notching her next to his sister on the priority list.

  His sister.

  Crap. Just crap.

  You really need to peel back the cloud, damn it. The silver lining here is pretty damn go
od. You’re practically on the same pedestal as Devyn.

  Comforting enough for her head. Shallow solace for her heart. Her body. Her soul. Which, she now realized, had been suspended in her version of a limbo…waiting for this day. Hoping Dan would be free to return to kink one day—and that she’d be by his side for that journey.

  Now, one look back up told her all she needed to know. The little smile on Dan’s face, tender and respectful, was a beacon of confirmation.

  She’d waited for nothing.

  The finality of it settled over her like mourning shrouds.

  They burned away the very next second. The flare of new realization could do that sometimes—thank God.

  She didn’t have to wait anymore.

  If Dan refused to take her down this path…she was now free to find someone who would.

  The epiphany twitched a grin across her own lips now. Dan peered at it with curiosity but clearly misinterpreted the end result. “So, we’re okay, then?”

  Tess pulled him into a tight hug. And this time, meant it. “Never been better, my friend. Never been better.”

  Chapter Three

  Dan contemplated the pads of his fingertips through the dark amber liquid in his glass. The Scotch glimmered, reflecting the ambient lighting that made the huge bar he sat at appear a little more intimate.

  When a BDSM club was named Catacomb, it needed all the cozy touches it could get. Not that the name didn’t fit. The subterranean space, located half a mile off the highway between Vegas and Lake Mead, was originally hollowed out as a nuclear fallout shelter for a paranoid mob boss plus his wife, mistress, six kids, and four grandchildren. Half the rooms never made it to the steel reinforcement phase, leaving many of the rooms as rock-walled tributes to something between a Moroccan palace and a desert prison.

  Only a year ago, Max Brickham had scooped up the space for a song when visiting down here after the “mission from hell.” Dan remembered the day Brick practically danced into the burn center to tell all of them about his purchase, proclaiming he’d found the perfect place to open his second alternative-lifestyle club. His first, Bastille, was a glam fortress in Seattle’s warehouse district and was practically a second home for many of the guys on the team. Heading that list was John Franzen, the battalion’s CO, as equal a best buddy to Max as he was to Dan—which was why he led the group in calling Max a complete loon about the purchase.

  Funny thing about Brick. He had a lonnnng memory. Validation of that came from the man himself, folding his massive arms and surveying the bustling main room. The fucker was cockier than Starlord with a new mix tape. “So what was that you all were saying…about renaming me Sir Loon and all that shit?”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Franzen, seated next to Dan, muttered it into his own Scotch. “You want me to eat my hat or something? Because I’m sure as fuck not gonna kneel and kiss your feet.”

  “Hey.” The protest was as soft and sweet as the petite woman who nudged her ink-black hair against Max’s shoulder. “That’s my job, mister.”

  “Thank fuck,” Franz muttered.

  Max growled with pleasure, hooking a finger into the ring that dangled from the woman’s diamond-studded collar. “Wouldn’t have it any other way, tamago gata no kao.”

  The Japanese endearment was his way of honoring her heritage and submissiveness, as well as her official name as his collared submissive, declared during a formal ceremony at Bastille six months back. Dan had missed the occasion due to continued surgeries and healing, thank fuck. Even being around Max and Megan now was difficult. They were the epitome of the D/s dream, an ideal he’d once looked forward to finding for himself, as well.

  A fantasy he’d only be experiencing from the outside now.

  “You two want to get a room?” Franz barked it when the pair behind the bar kept making out like porn stars. “Like your private one at the end of the hall?”

  “Fuck off.” Max broke away from his girl long enough to laugh it out. Two seconds later, his mouth was jammed harder to hers, his hands sliding greedily beneath her leather skirt.

  “Shit,” Franz groused.

  “They just want us to start throwing twenties,” Dan quipped.

  “Like you’d notice.” Franz glowered. “You seeing Jesus in the depths of that drink, ass munch? You’re the one who wanted the Catacomb experience tonight, remember?”

  Dan hunched his shoulders. Yeah. He remembered. How could he forget? Same way he couldn’t forget much of anything about the last seven days. When the world hit midnight in an hour, it’d be the one-week anniversary of the moment he’d marched into a Mexican Riviera luxury suite and gotten his hands on Cameron Stock again. There, with Stock’s terrified face filling his vision, he’d been truly complete—

  For ten seconds.

  After that, everything had reverted right back to normal. His scars were still there. The fury was still there. Frustration still clawed him like a demon, leaving charred trails everywhere it went in his psyche. Not even driving the Bowie into Stock’s ball sack had relieved the agony.

  Only seeing Tess had done that.

  Until she’d brought a new torture of her own.

  Making that coy little statement about him dominating her…that had changed everything.

  For a few seconds, he’d actually thought she was kidding—until the glints in her eyes said she wasn’t. Fuck. How had he not seen it before then? How had he not realized that the little torch she’d carried for him before the mission had somehow kindled into something more?

  Easy answer.

  Because it was impossible. She just didn’t see it yet.

  She was Rita Hayworth. He was Lon Chaney. She was Emma Stone. He was the Phantom of the Opera—without the let-me-fuck-you-and-get-away-with-it voice. She turned every head in rooms she entered. He made people avert their eyes. He’d told her all of that too—and meant every word. She deserved someone who could be with her anywhere, everywhere. A Dom who’d take her dancing in the sun as easily as he pulled her into the shadows. A man who’d never be ashamed to lead her anywhere.

  She’d finally understood, thank God. They’d hugged to affirm the new course of their friendship, righted on a fresh keel of honesty.

  Then why hadn’t his demon gone back into hibernation?

  Why was he taking four days of radio silence from Tess into something more than they were? Why didn’t he believe himself when rationalizing she’d likely just been thrown an intense case? Why was he so restless that he’d called Franz and suggested they go out?

  Why was he so messed up, he’d thought a few hours in Catacomb would calm him? That all this would help with the images she’d evoked the other day? That he’d be able to banish the dream of her nudity as she stripped for him…and then the fantasy of her dark-red curls beneath his fingers as she knelt at his side? And the imagining of her lips, plump and red, wrapped around those same fingers as he slipped them inside her mouth. Then the words he’d murmur, telling her how good it would feel when he fed her his cock in the same way.

  Shit.

  No more thinking of your best friend’s mouth like that, damn it.

  Not even as Max slipped his fingers between his little tamago’s lips, damn near picking up where his fantasy left off.

  Dan grimaced. “Dude. Want to show some mercy to the hard-ups?”

  “Speak for yourself,” Franz snarled. “But you”—he speared a finger Max’s way—“are still being cruel.”

  “Pssshhh,” Max volleyed. “Cruel would be neglecting to tell you who just walked in the door.” After Franz spun on his stool, eyed the cute blond Goth at the door, and then appeared to swallow his tongue, Max chuckled. “Yes, I called her when I knew you were coming. And yes, you’re welcome.”

  The half Samoan swung his friend a pleading stare. “Tell me you reserved room five for us, and I’m naming my firstborn after you.”

  Max barked a laugh. “The thought of your progeny bearing my name is a terror I’d never unleash on the world.”
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  “Whatever. Room five?”

  “What’s in room five?” Dan cut in.

  “Not much.” Max smirked. “No carpet, pillows, or cushions on the rack. Fairly primeval.”

  “Exactly what she begged for the last time we scened,” Franz filled in.

  “Damn.” Dan smirked. “Dog face has found a soul mate.”

  “Right?”

  “Just give me some advance notice for the wedding date. I lost my social coordinator a few days ago.”

  Franz glowered. “Mention the W-word again and you’re castrated.”

  Outwardly, Dan chuckled. Inwardly, a different growl echoed. Castration would be a mercy, my friend. At least my body won’t remember what I’m missing.

  Max held out his hand to Franz. A medieval-looking key hung from his finger, engraved with a fancy number five. “All yours.”

  Franz’s lips burst into a grin. “You’re a god.”

  Tamago slapped his arm. “My line again!”

  “Easy, baby.” Brick’s words were cute, but the tone was command. He stressed the point by tucking a hand beneath her corset and sharply pinching one nipple. After she grimaced, Tamago dipped her head Franz’s way.

  “Apologies for the outburst, Sir.”

  “Accepted, my girl.” Franz threw a grin at Max. “Guess we’ll both have our hands full tonight, buddy.”

  The pronouncement actually gusted Dan with relief. He’d bit off more than he could chew tonight. Mix, mingle, and make-nicey were normally smack-dab in his wheelhouse, but that was in another life lived by a Dan with another face. A guy who’d walk into a club like this and barely pause at the bar, let alone think of camping out at it all night nursing too much Scotch and Shazam-ing tunes from the stream of sensual EDM flowing from the speakers—or wondering why Max refilled two glasses from the bottle of Macallan now.

  “Go have your fun, dude,” the big guy told Franz. “I’ll be pulling public duty for a few more hours tonight, at least.”

  “Huh?” Franz volleyed. “Why?”