Re/Bound (Doms of the FBI Book 1) (4 page)

She looked to him for his opinion on table choice, an affectation he took as politeness and not submission. He led her to the nearest empty table and pulled out a chair. She favored him with a soft smile, and he melted under the power of her flirtation.

“Tell me about you, Theo,” she said as he took his seat. “You kept the conversation about me last night. I want to know about you.”

He stirred his coffee and shrugged. This part of the process usually didn’t bother him, but he desperately didn’t want to lie to Darcy. That was why he had steered the conversation to safe topics the night before. “What do you want to know?”

She laughed. “I don’t know what to ask. Tell me about your family or your work or how you figured out you wanted to be a Dom.”

The safest topic also happened to be the thing they had in common. However that wasn’t the first thing that came to mind. He cut a pineapple wedge into manageable pieces. “I first knew I was destined to be a computer geek when, in high school, the teachers started calling me out of my other classes to fix their computer problems.”

“Oh.” Her eyes softened with sympathy. “Did that lead to social problems?”

He laughed. “No, but I think I got better grades than I deserved, especially from my biology teacher. The man knew every piece of meat in a fetal pig, but he couldn’t figure out how to make a group on his e-mail.”

Darcy shivered. “I hated dissection, and I can honestly say I have no need of those skills to this day.”

A working knowledge of human anatomy had come in handy in the field more than once, but he couldn’t tell her that. “I imagine you batted those long eyelashes and turned those blue eyes to full power, and your lab partner did all the work.”

“I wish.” She shook her head. “If I had it all to do over again, I still think it wouldn’t have been effective. My lab partner was prissier than me. He squirmed in his seat the whole time and went home sick for two of the three days we dissected. I ended up working alone.”

He made a sympathetic sound to encourage her to speak. Just like the previous night, he turned the conversation around.

She batted those blue eyes at Malcolm, and his pants grew a little tight. “If you were my lab partner, maybe things would have worked in my favor.”

“If I had been your partner, I would have shown you a Web site with a virtual dissection and you would have seen all the same things.”

She wrinkled her nose and stabbed at her cantaloupe. “Let’s not talk about this while we’re eating.”

The topic hung in the air like stale cigarette smoke. Malcolm barely suppressed the urge to wave it away. It hadn’t bothered him, but he didn’t like the slight expression of distaste lingering around her mouth.

“Why don’t you tell me how you got to be a Dom?” She took a bite of her English muffin and dabbed at the corners of her mouth.

A safe topic. He buttered a slice of toast, scraping the plastic knife across it in a smooth rhythm. “I met a girl. You know how the story goes. She was hot and she wanted to tie me up, so I let her.”

Darcy’s jaw dropped. This particular peach wasn’t something he’d shared with many people over the years. Why he had revealed it to Darcy now, he didn’t know. Perhaps he wanted to make up for lying about his reason for being there, his name, and his profession? “You started out as a sub?”

“Don’t be so shocked. Most Doms do. Even if they don’t, any decent Dom is going to spend some time under the lash or in the stocks if only so we know what the sub is experiencing.”

Her eyes took on a faraway look, and she nodded absently. After only a few seconds, she returned to the moment. “But you said your girlfriend dominated you. That’s different than spending fifteen minutes bound and gagged when you know you haven’t really handed over power to anyone.”

He shrugged. “The sex was intense. I liked that, so I let her do other things. Nothing I regret, and nothing I didn’t enjoy.”

“So you switch?” She set her fork on her bare plate, not that it had ever contained much food.

“Not in a long time. Do you switch?”

She shook her head. “Never. I mean, I tried it a few times, but I think I was too jealous of Sco—of the sub to enjoy it much.”

Malcolm closed his hand around the fist in her lap. She didn’t relax at all. “You can say his name, Darcy. I don’t expect you to forget him or to pretend like he meant nothing to you.”

She relaxed a little, but she didn’t unfurl her fist. He moved his hand up her wrist. The blouse she wore had a gap just above the cuff. He stuck his finger in there, intending to stroke the sensitive flesh in an attempt to put her at ease. She stiffened and pulled her arm away, but not before he felt the hot, raised skin hiding there. Scars? No, welts.

“Darcy, what’s going on?”

She looked at her plate. She shuffled her napkin around and fidgeted in her chair. “It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it.”

It hadn’t felt like nothing. He schooled his features into a calm mask. “Really? Then show me.”

Color drained from her face. She stood and grabbed her soiled paper goods. Malcolm gathered his own trash and followed her stiff back to the trash can. Once they had disposed of everything, she flashed a polite smile up at him.

“Thanks for having breakfast with me. Now if you don’t mind, I need to go over some notes to prepare for my presentation this morning.”

She jetted out of there, but he followed closely. The wall she’d thrown between them didn’t bother him for now. He’d caught a telling glimpse of what kind of submissive she must have been with Scott. Running hot and cold like this, she must have kept him on his toes. Malcolm gentled his expression, an attempt to put her at ease, but she didn’t look at him. “I’ll walk with you, since we’re going in the same direction and everything.”

That polite smile found him again. He resisted the urge to wipe it from her face. A kiss might do the trick. She had responded very well to his kiss. Then again, perhaps she wouldn’t drop the facade until he had her tied up and on the edge of orgasm. The thought of stripping away her layers titillated him to no end.

She said nothing in the tense silence of the elevator. At the door to her room, she turned to him with efficient movements. “Thanks for your company. I have to prepare for today.”

She stuck the key card into the lock and opened the door, no doubt intending to flee to the safety of her sanctuary. Malcolm pushed them both inside and closed the door. The automatic lock engaged.

She stared up at him through narrowed eyes. He checked for signs of fear, but he found nothing except irritation. She wasn’t even aroused or frustrated.

“Theo—”

With lightning reflexes, he snatched her wrist. She pulled hard. When that didn’t work, she braced her other hand against his chest and pushed while she tugged.

“Let go of me. I did not ask you to come into my room.”

Because she wouldn’t stay still, he wrestled her until he had her arm pinned to the wall with her body behind his and her wrist in front. He wrapped his arm around hers just above the elbow. This both prevented her from being hurt by the wall, and it immobilized her long enough for him to unbutton her cuff.

“You invited me in this morning.”

She tried jerking her arm away, but her strength was no match for his. “You aren’t a vampire. Just because I invited you in one time doesn’t mean you’re always welcome.”

Finally he peeled back the arm of her shirt. A series of thin welts, each no more than a half inch long, dotted the tender flesh of her forearm. One showed a scab where the skin had been penetrated. It looked like she had dug her nails into her skin. “Jesus, Darcy. What happened?”

When she tugged again, he released his hold. She held her wrist close to her body as she buttoned the cuff. Malcolm recognized the defensive gesture and the haunted look in her eyes.

She managed an icy tone. “It’s really none of your business.”

Not wanting to set her off, Malcolm backed away. He parked himself on the other side of the room. Two queen beds separated them. He hoped they represented enough obstacles to set her at ease. That ice was about to become fire.

“You did this to yourself.” He presented the query as a statement, a fact she could acknowledge by not disagreeing. “Why?”

She bristled, crossing both arms over her abdomen. “I did it yesterday. It helped take the edge off my anxiety.”

Understanding flared, but years of self-control kept it from his face. She had done this before he stepped in to give her a pep talk. “Do you hurt yourself like this often?”

She shook her head. “I’ve never done it before.”

He leaned against the windowsill, palms down against the cool wood. Her admission that she didn’t make a habit out of self-torture helped release the tension in his body. “Did it help?”

She chewed that lip again. The urge to take it between his lips and suck on it until she moaned almost had him pushing away from the window. “A little. Mostly you helped.”

Backing her against a wall and speaking harshly to her hadn’t been overly taxing. “Darcy, I can do that again. Just ask.” She had been pushing and pulling at the boundaries between them on and off since the night before. He expected the new sub in his life to test his limits. Then he shook away the thought. She wasn’t his.

Defeat dulled her eyes a bit, and she shook her head. “It only worked because you surprised the hell out of me. I mean, I was freaking out and all of a sudden there’s this handsome, sexy Dom caging me with his arms and commanding me to get it together.”

She had called him sexy. He wanted to use her admission to flirt with her, but now wasn’t the time. “I can still do that.”

Again she shook her head. Her shoulders slumped, and she sank down to sit on the edge of the bed. “It won’t work. That one-trick pony has left the stable.”

“How did Scott handle this?” The more he learned about Yataines, the better he could understand what had happened to him. He and his superiors had their suspicions, and any information could be golden.

“He would spank me or flog me. Not full-out. Just enough to get me calmed and centered.” She licked her lips this time, a caress instead of violence. Invoking the memory seemed to calm her a bit.

“Is this how you’ve managed since he’s been gone?”

Her eyes squeezed tight, and she swiped at one of them. Malcolm couldn’t see, but he guessed it had been a tear. He crossed the room, careful to keep his progress loud enough for her to hear and slow enough to keep her from being startled. He knelt in front of her and took her hands in his. She allowed him this gesture, but she didn’t look at him.

“This is the first time I’ve spoken in public since he’s been gone.”

He remembered the news footage. Unsteady shots of her pale and drawn face, shouted demands from reporters to which she didn’t reply. Close-ups of her face with her eyes wide. In most of the photos and news footage, she had shielded her face or refused to look at the cameras. At the time, many had assumed guilt on her part. Malcolm realized it had been grief and abject fear of public speaking.

“Why did you agree to come here?” He knew enough about her business to understand the networking and visibility this conference represented for her, but he also knew she wasn’t hurting for money.

She shook her head and shifted to move away. Malcolm lifted his hand and rested it on the side of her head. Though he didn’t touch her brow or her lip, she stilled. Her breath caught as she waited for him to assert his dominance. He hadn’t planned to do that, but the way her shoulders shook told him she needed that from him.

He ran his thumb along the curve of her brow, and then he dropped his hand down to do the same thing to her bottom lip. Immediately her trembling ceased. “Look at me.”

She lifted her gaze, revealing tear-bright eyes.

“If public speaking terrifies you like this, then why did you agree to come here?”

She bit her lip, hesitating. He couldn’t let her do that. He ran his thumb over her bottom lip again, and she released it.

“Answer me, Darcy.”

“It’s complicated.” She dropped her gaze.

He recognized her shame, but he wanted to know the cause before he issued assurances that she shouldn’t feel ashamed. He repeated his caress. Brow, lip. “That’s not an answer.”

“I wanted…” She squeezed her eyes shut, but she remembered her position quickly and opened them again. Malcolm didn’t make the mistake of thinking she would react this way with any Dom. She felt a connection to him. He felt the same thing.

“You wanted.”

She sighed. “I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it. Scott always said I had more strength and courage than anyone he knew. He believed in me when everyone else said my idea to start my consulting service was stupid. I wanted to be the woman he thought I was. I wanted to honor his memory, and I’ve failed miserably.”

Two tears trailed down her cheek, and she swiped them away, anger and frustration apparent in her stiff movements. More tears wet the palm he rested on her other cheek, but she didn’t attempt to remove his touch. He abandoned his kneeling position on the floor and sat next to her at the foot of the bed. She rested her head on his shoulder and snuggled into his embrace. He breathed in the fresh, coconut scent of her shampoo.