Wicked (11 page)

Lara was turning out to be quite the eager girl with real desires that grabbed

him by the balls. He stared at the light layer of sweat that coated the palm of

his hand. He really wanted her.

"So who is she?"

"Who's who?" Karl opened the menu and skimmed it briefly before setting it

aside.

Val turned in his seat and eyed him.

It was Sunday morning and they were sitting next to each other in the

roadside diner at Grand Forks Junction, their last stop on the weekend road

trip.

All six men were seated around the table laden with eggs, sausages, bacon,

pancakes, and toast, loading up before getting on the road and heading

home. But with six men, there were so many conversations going on no one

was paying attention to them.

"It wasn't a work message because it made you smile. Put that together with

your surprise visit the other night, and the fact that you didn't pick a woman

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up all weekend and I know you've got something going on. Spill."

"It's nothing I want to talk about."

"Bring her by the club when you're ready," he said before placing his order with the waitress.

Bring Lara to Risqué? The idea had appeal. He'd love to see what Val

thought of her.

But first up, he wanted to see what she thought of The Dungeon.

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15

S
unday morning Lara was kicking her own ass for sending her second

email to Karl the night before instead of waiting until morning. It sucked that

she had no way of knowing if he'd even read it yet. Or worse, what if he read

it right after she sent it and since it had been Saturday night—
late
Saturday night, but still Saturday night—what if he thought it was another attempt at

the first fantasy and he was expecting another one for Sunday?

No. He'd said two emails, she'd sent two, that was good enough.

All morning she stewed about Karl's reaction to her story. Her computer was

plugged in and she checked her email obsessively, waiting for his response

while she did laundry, washed dishes, and tried not to imagine him reading

the email and bursting into laughter.

She'd told him she wasn't a writer. He better be happy with what she'd sent.

Checking her email file one more time she saw that he still hadn't responded.

UGH! This was nuts. She wasn't submissive, she didn't even know what

submissive was! Why she'd agreed to give this a try was beyond her.

It was the challenge. Sure, she wanted a safe, sane, normal life. She really

did. Her childhood had been enough of "different" to last her a lifetime. But safe and sane also meant finding other ways to keep life from being too

boring. And a straight-out challenge from a supersexy man that made her

pussy clench was one way to do it.

When Lara was seventeen, after two years of scrounging, stealing and

running, she'd met Richard. Richard had been in his midtwenties, a good guy

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who'd found her sleeping in an alley one night and offered her his couch.

After a month on his couch without him trying to get anything from her, she'd

realized he really was a good guy. For whatever reason, he'd wanted to help

her.

She'd slept with him then. Given him her virginity and pretended to be his

girlfriend until she could find a job, and get out on her own. They'd both

known what was happening, and they'd both been okay with it.

He'd introduced her to the pleasures of her own body. Although he'd never

been able to give her an orgasm, it had been good. In all honesty, the only

time she orgasmed during sex was when she took charge.

Until Karl.

Excitement zinged through Lara. Maybe there really was something to this

submissive thing. Her curiousity piqued, she typed DOMINATION

SUBMISSION into the Google search engine and stared at the results.

Holy shit!

Links to articles and websites dedicated to kink filled the page and Lara

grinned. Oh yeah, it was definitely time for her to see what this was all about.

Picking a link, she clicked on it and was instantly rewarded with the view of a

simple, yet classy-looking site. Lara looked at the photos in the website

header, all black and white pictures of women in various poses of

submission. One woman was naked except for a black leather collar,

another was bound with a rope that circled her breasts, immobilized her

body, and framed her pussy. There was a back shot of a woman bent over, a

crop pressed lightly against her bare buttocks.

A minute trembling starting inside Lara as she studied the photos. They were

explicit, but not pornographic. They were beautiful and highly erotic…and

when she read the quote beneath them, an involuntary shudder rippled

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through her.

I want to live darkly and richly in my femaleness. I want a man lying
over
me,
always
over
me.
His
will,
his
pleasure,
his
desire,
his
life,
his
work,
his
sexuality the touchstone, the command, my pivot. I don't mind working,

holding my ground intellectually, artistically; but as a woman, oh, God, as a

woman I want to be dominated. I don't mind being told to stand on my own

feet, not to cling—all
that
I am capable of doing but I am going to be pursued,
fucked, possessed by the will of a male at
his
time, his bidding.

—Anaïs Nin

Pursued, fucked, and possessed by the will of a male.

A delicious shiver ripped through Lara and she squeezed her thighs

together…and read more.

A couple of hours later, Lara was a little overwhelmed. The technical terms,

etiquette, and safety rules had been enlightening, but the most engrossing

stuff had been the sex blogs she'd found.

People who lived the lifestyle, or just enjoyed the kink as a part of their life,

spilled everything on an anonymous journal for anyone to read and comment

on. And read she had; she'd even commented on a couple, asked questions,

and gone back later to discover that they'd been answered.

Lara was amazed at the openness, and the sincerity of the words from

people she'd never met.

She bookmarked one in particular to read more of later. She'd already

scrolled back and read posts from the woman who'd struggled with her

fantasies of rough sex and pain and humiliation, before she'd found the man

who accepted her, and gave her everything she needed.

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SubbieDreams blog brought Lara to tears at one point, and turned her on so

much she was squirming in her seat at others. She might not want the pain

and humiliation that woman had craved, but the closeness, and the open

acceptance she'd found seemed magical.

Okay, so maybe a bit of the rough sex stuff appealed to her. Being tied up

and having Karl touch, tease, and test her to see exactly what got her off

could be a lot of fun.

The scary part was that in all of the personal accounts and sex blogs, the

submissives talked about never holding back, about open and honest

communication. She had no problem with that when it came to sex, but she

wasn't so sure she'd ever be capable of completely letting a man into her

head.

It just wasn't safe to let anyone get that close.

The timer on the oven went off and she used a tea towel to pull out the

casserole dish. Homemade macaroni and cheese, yum. Enough to feed her

and the boys on their Sunday movie night.

She set the hot bowl on the counter to cool just as there was a knock on the

door.

Since when do the boys knock? Shit, since when do they go outside and

come around to the door instead of using the stairs and the inside entrance

by the bathroom?

She tossed the towel on the counter and answered the door to a face full of

flowers.

Stunned, she just stood there and stared.

"Delivery for Lara Fox," came the muffled voice from behind the flowers.

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Footsteps trampled behind her and Graham squealed. "Ohh, gorgeous

flowers!"

He jostled to get past her. "This is Lara, I'll take those for her. Lara sign for them, dear."

Lara signed the page on the clipboard the guy held out and closed the door

with a smile. "Thank you."

She turned and watched as Graham shuffled over to the kitchen table,

oohing and aahing over the big bouquet the whole time. Feeling a little lost,

Lara stood glued to the spot.

She'd never gotten flowers before.

Peter came over and put an arm around her shoulders, urging her forward.

"Your birthday's not for another couple of weeks, so what did you do to earn

flowers?"

"There's a card."

"Give me that." Lara jumped forward and snatched the card from Graham's

fingers. No way did she want him reading it. The flowers had to be from Karl.

She opened the little envelope and pulled out the card.

Very nice story. Well done.

That was it. Five words and no name.

But her chest tightened and her insides warmed just the same.

"Well, who are they from?"

"Graham," Peter muttered.

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"What?"

"Don't be so nosy."

"Puleease, as if she's not gonna tell us anyway."

"They're from Karl."

She fingered a pretty orange and brown flower. It was a big flower, the whole

arrangement was huge. And so colorful. Orange, white, pink, red. She didn't

know what a lot of them were, but she recognized the giant colorful daisies,

and there were roses and some sort of lily too.

"Oh, honey, I should've known," Graham looked at her, his brow wrinkled

with concern. "Are you okay?"

"Of course I'm okay. They're beautiful." She laughed.

"But, Lara honey, they're kiss-off flowers." Graham looked at her, then the card she still held in her hand. "Aren't they?"

"No, why would you think that?"

Graham looked from Lara to Peter, who was ignoring them both and pulling

plates from the dish rack where they air-dried. "He always sends his female

clients flowers when their case is over. It's his standard thank-you and

good-bye."

Lara shook her head. "Not this time. Never mind that I'm not a client, but the

card is more of a…thank-you than a kiss-off."

"But—"

"Graham," Peter interrupted. "Shut up about it already, and come and get 104

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some dinner. Have you seen
Pirates of the Caribbean
yet, Lara? We brought

one and two down for movies tonight."

Hurt flashed across Graham's face at Peter's tone and Lara stilled. It wasn't

like him to be so harsh. Usually it was her telling Graham to shut up or back

off.

A small ache formed in the pit of her stomach.

Was there trouble in paradise?

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16

M
onday morning wasn't anything special. Typical slow start for the

brain, with everything else around Lara going at warp speed. Just after

lunch, her phone rang on her hip and the sight of Karl's number on the caller

ID slowed everything to a crawl

She flipped her phone open and tried to sound casual. "Hello?"

"Did you like the flowers?"

"What's not to like? They're gorgeous. Thanks."

"You earned them. That was some fantasy you sent me. I thought you said

you weren't a writer?"

"I'm not. Maybe I'm just a pervert."

His affectionate chuckle echoed over the phone line and a shiver rippled

through Lara. "I like that about you," he said. "I'd like to take you out tomorrow night. To a special club."

Tomorrow? She'd already waited all weekend, full of hormones and

fantasies. Yet, she found herself agreeing to wait another day. "Okay. What

time?"

"I'll pick you up at nine. And Lara?"

"Yes?"

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"Wear a skirt for me again, with no panties."

Butterflies came to life in her belly and her nipples tightened. "Ohh, it's going to be a naughty night out, is it?"

"That will really depend on you," he said. "See you at nine o'clock."

Lara could swear she floated above the ground for the rest of the day. Part of

her knew she was letting herself expect too much from Karl. Shit, it was only

their second date, and she never saw a man more than three times…so it

was going to end soon. But she was determined to enjoy it while she could.

That attitude was what had kept her sane.

* * *

T
he Dungeon was pretty quiet on Monday nights, which is why he'd

planned his visit for that night. He had a few things to accomplish, first off

being a visit with the owner.

"Mr. Hardin, Thanks for seeing me tonight." Karl held out his hand to the

clean-cut man standing behind the desk.

"Not a problem, Karl. Please call me Mason. Valentine Ward spoke very

highly of you. He also said you had something I really need to know about?"

He'd had a hard time getting a meeting with the mysterious owner of the club,

so he'd had Val give him a call. Being the owner of one of the hottest