Hooked (Decadence Nights Book 1) (5 page)

“You have two choices, Olivia. Forget about last night and go back to the way we were. Working together on friendly terms, but tamping down your desires, living in self-denial because you’re afraid to go for what you want.” Gently stroking a finger down her cheek, he met her shimmering blue eyes. “Or, you can come to me at three o’clock and surrender, to both the pleasure of last night and when needed, the discipline of this morning, fulfilling your long suppressed desires and living your life as you’re meant to, not merely going through the motions, but experiencing it at its fullest, with me. If you choose surrender, you will do so on your knees.” He moved closer, his lips brushing hers as he spoke. “One more thing, no touching. When you come to me, I want you as you are now: cunt bare, gloriously wet and hungry for me.”

He took her lips, his tongue plunging inside and claiming her. After a moment of the most heated kiss of her life, he stood. His hand under her jaw tilted her face up to his.

“Now, little one, on my terms, this session is at an end.”

With his decree given, he left her. It wasn’t until the door thumped shut in his wake that she realized he had released her bound wrists. That’s when she wilted, sagging limply against the side of the couch. Her body still humming from his touch and aching with need. Livvy wished for the power to call him back and tell him she didn’t need more time. She already knew what she would be doing at three o’clock tomorrow afternoon.

“Spill.”

“I’m fine. Why thank you, Emma. I appreciate your concern. Yes, I’d like to come in and take off my jacket. A glass of wine would be wonderful, too.”

Color flooded Emma’s cheeks as she glanced at David, who simply grinned while shaking his head. “Sorry,” she uttered softly.

“C’mon in, Liv,” David offered where his overeager wife had not. Moving forward, he helped as she pulled the lightweight jacket from her shoulders.

“It’s wet,” she warned. The rain had continued all day, perpetuating her gloomy mood.

“How about that glass of wine you mentioned? You might need it since Em’s intent on raking you over the coals.”

With a tilt of her head, Livvy eyed her friend who appeared ready to burst at the seams with curiosity. She couldn’t resist teasing. “If I knew I was coming to an interrogation, I’d have brought a rubber hose.”

“All right, you two, I apologized. I can’t help that I’ve been dying to hear about Club Decadence.” Emma grabbed her hand and dragged her over to the couch. “Tell me everything. Don’t leave out the smallest detail. Did they really have gold plated fixtures and marble floors? Were the Decadence Masters as smoking hot as everyone claims? And the dungeon, tell me about that. Did they fuck openly in the dungeon in a free for all BDSM orgy?”

“Emma!” Her husband chastised sharply with a grimace. A Dom himself, he didn’t tolerate crude language from his submissive wife, unless they were playing, when, according to Emma, both of them could get pretty salty.

“Sorry, babe.” She flashed him her dimples, which earned her a warning look.

“Can you behave while I get Livvy a glass of wine?” he asked.

“I’ll try really hard, Sir.”

He grunted. “It will take a miracle, I’m afraid.” To ease the sting of his words, he kissed the top of her head before disappearing into the kitchen.

“Okay,” she immediately whispered. “Now that the big bad Dom is gone, give me the dirt.”

Livvy tried to answer her questions in order. “Let’s see. First, I honestly didn’t notice the fixtures or the floors. Second, yes, every one of the Masters was to-die-for hot, and third, again, I don’t know because I never made it past the bar to the dungeon, but the third floor apartments are very nice.”

Emma’s jaw dropped and she blinked. “What? Wait! Apartments? I never heard anything about apartments.” She paused a moment, her brain clearly struggling to process the information as she added, “And back up a minute. How could you go and not see the dungeon? Did you chicken out?”

“No. I met someone.”

Emma’s shock and bewilderment were instantly swept aside and replaced with a wide grin. “Awesome! Did you finally get laid?”

“Emma Jean, that is enough!” David barked on his way back with three glasses of wine held easily in his big hands.

After murmuring another apology for being crude, she turned wide eyes on Livvy. “Let me rephrase. Did you sleep with him?”

Her already
warm face flushed with a near blistering heat
, which was an answer in itself.

“Hot damn, you did!” Emma turned to David, ignoring his heavy sigh, and repeated, “She met someone.” Back to Livvy, she demanded, “Tell me all about this someone, Liv. Is he a hunky Green Beret, too?”

“Not quite. I think he’s hunky, but not in a huge, mountainous Green Beret kind of way. He’s built more like Michael Phelps the Olympic swimmer than John Rambo, very smart, and—”

“—good in bed? Did the room even have a bed? Or did you do it on some fancy piece of bondage equipment?”

Livvy opened her mouth to reply, but her eyes shifted to David and she stopped.

“Don’t mind me,” he said, unfazed. “People tell me about their sex lives all the time during therapy.”

As a clinical psychologist, David no doubt heard all manner of outrageous things, sex included. She turned back to Emma and admitted, “Yes, there was a very nice comfortable bed and good doesn’t begin to do it justice.”

Her friend practically vibrated with excitement. “What does do it justice? Great?” Emma held her hands up about eight inches apart. “Fantastic? Magnificent? Humongous?” With each word she moved them farther apart, until she had her hands a ridiculous—and humanly impossible—distance apart.

Both Emma and Livvy burst into laughter as David, playing the put upon husband, grabbed his wife’s hands and pulled them down. “You are both incorrigible.”

“Seriously, Liv, give me the deets.”

“I won’t go into size specifications—”

“Bless you,” David interjected.

“But,” Livvy went on as though he hadn’t interrupted, “the experience was great, magnificent and fantastic, all of that and more. It was also potentially life-altering because there’s a problem. I’ve known him for years.”

Emma gasped. “You’re kidding. Who is it?”

“Joseph Hooks.”

This time Emma’s jaw practically dropped to the floor, and her eyes got as big as moons. For once, Emma was speechless. David, who had taken a seat beside her, reached over and with a finger beneath her chin, closed her mouth for her. That seemed to snap her out of it.

“Joseph is a Dom?”

“Very much so,” Olivia replied. “Who knew?”

Emma shook her head in denial, but David promptly raised his hand. She turned to her husband. “How would you know? You’ve never met him.”

“Darlin’, I’ve listened to Livvy go on about the man for three years. He’s intelligent, self-disciplined, a natural leader, emerging at the top of his field in a very short time. Where so many attorneys turn smug and egocentric, he has clearly risen above that and maintained his self-respect and his regard for others.”

“You got all that from what I’ve said?” Livvy asked in amazement. “Are you a psychologist or an FBI profiler?”

He chuckled. “Often that’s one and the same. Although, it doesn’t take a PhD to know he’s a dominant when I know you are submissive. You wouldn’t be attracted to him otherwise.”

“Why didn’t you ever say something?” Emma demanded. “If she knew her boss was a Dom, it would have saved her a lot of lost time and frustration.”

“I believe love must find its own way, as you know.”

“That means he’s anti-matchmaking, Liv. So even if he’d told me his impression about Joseph, I would have been forbidden to say a word.”

David smiled at his wife’s astute summation, then turned quizzical eyes on Livvy. “So what is the problem you mentioned?”

“Other than going to a BDSM club, outing myself to my boss, and then having sex with him?” Livvy asked as if his IQ had dropped forty points, although in David’s case that would have left it still well above normal.

“Yeah, honey,” he answered, “other than the fact you went to a fetish club specifically to meet someone and when you did that someone happened to be the man you’ve been mooning over for years. On the surface, it sounds like a win-win. So aside from all that, what seems to be the problem?” He said this with an all too recognizable glint in his eye. She knew that look and it usually preceded the offering of a few pearls of wisdom from his unique insight into the human mind.

“This morning,” she began, without much arm twisting, knowing that one or the other of them would wheedle it out of her anyway, “when the heat of the moment had passed, I panicked.”

“And you ran,” David surmised.

She nodded.

“But why?” Emma asked.

“I was riddled with doubts. In three years, he never made a move. He could have any woman he wants with his wealth, power and good looks. I convinced myself I was nothing but a piece of ass, an insignificant legal secretary, and that he was only interested in one night.”

“Oh, Livvy!” Em’s cry was heartfelt as she reached over and gripped her hand.

“I know; it was stupid. Believe me, he wasn’t happy when he arrived at my door this morning.”

“I imagine not,” David said with a frown. “Did he bust your butt? I would have.”

Livvy shifted in her seat giving herself away.

David chuckled. “Sounds like me and Joseph would get along quite well.”

“Why do I do this to myself?” she asked under her breath as she tossed back the rest of her wine.

“Allow me to take a crack at that.”

“I can’t wait to hear this,” Emma whispered, which earned her another warning glare from her husband.

“I’m keeping a mental count, Emma Jean.”

She promptly wrinkled her nose, but said nothing more. Livvy, despite the murkiness of her situation, was amused and worked hard to suppress a giggle.

“When it comes to love and romance, Livvy dear, as the saying goes ‘sometimes you can’t see the forest for the trees’. I’d hazard a guess that Joseph returns your feelings, but his reluctance to express them might have something to do with a little thing called sexual harassment. Power exchange in the lifestyle is consensual, but in the workplace between a boss and his subordinate, it is inherently dangerous. As far as not having made a move, if you think back on your relationship with the perspective you have now, I’m certain you’ll find signs you’ve overlooked.”

“He’s right, Liv.” Emma nodded encouragingly. “He often took you to family and office functions rather than a date, never forgot your birthday, and sent you flowers just to say thank you.”

“I thought he was being nice.”

“Honey,” Emma said with a small laugh. “My boss has never sent me flowers.”

“And he better not,” David growled. She stroked his forearm as though gentling him, which Livvy thought was sweet.

“So how did you leave it with him?” she asked. “You being here can’t be a good indication.”

“He had to go out of town for work tonight, but as he left, he gave me a choice. Rewind and go back to yesterday—status quo—or come to him tomorrow and submit.”

“You’re not seriously considering saying no!” Emma cried in outrage. “Olivia Suzanne Wright, don’t you dare! You’ve been gaga over that man since the first day you met him.”

“I had just been dumped by Vaughn when I met him and had sworn off of men, if you recall.”

“Is that what’s making you hesitant?” David asked, clearly wearing his PhD hat. They had been there for her after the break-up and knew all the gory details. She’d been a mess for a while afterwards, and David had helped her get back on track, or so she thought until her insecurities reemerged yesterday morning.

“I thought Vaughn was “the one”, too. What if I’m wrong again? I have more to lose now than the last time.” Her eyes got misty as she thought of losing both her job and Joseph. “I don’t know why I even bother looking for love. I always screw it up. A cat is looking better by the minute.”

“That’s a rather defeatist attitude, honey,” Emma observed gently.

“I don’t mean to sound flippant or rude, but that’s easily said when you’re sitting with your husband’s arm around you.”

“Consider this,” David offered. “You talk about wanting to find someone, to settle down and start a family, but down deep, because of that bastard Vaughn, you are afraid of loving and losing again. Therefore, you’ve turned down good men for dates, found minute flaws and rejected the ones that you deigned to go out with, instead, clinging to the one consistent relationship you had with a man that was safe—me. However, your need to submit is so great, because that is who you are, you went to a club hoping to find a safe Dom to fill that emptiness. Instead, you found Joseph, the man you want the most. Bonus, he’s the Dom of your dreams, but he threatened your safe place and you ran, preferring not to take the risk at all rather than trying and failing at love again.”

Astonished by his laser accuracy, she stared at him in awe, then gaped at Emma with wide-eyes.

“Imagine living with the man,” she replied with sympathy. “He’s a Dom and an expert in human behavior. I don’t stand a chance of putting anything over on him.”

“I don’t recommend that you try, baby.” David’s arm tightened as he pulled her in close, his hand lowered and by Emma’s high pitched yelp, Livvy guessed he’d given her a mitigating pinch.

“So doc, what is your recommendation?”

“What do you want, Olivia?”

“I want Joseph.”

“Then you don’t need me to tell you what to do, honey. Do you?”