Closer and Closer Read online

  Still aware I was under Lucy’s scrutiny and losing the ability to defend against it by the second, I kept my eyes forward. Captivated, annoyed, envious—and unfortunately, again, utterly awkward. My attempt to shutter my interest was quickly losing ground against the sight of the bare skin of his back and arms and the enticing trail of his tattoo.

  When Claire’s gaze rose to his, her lips brushed the thick—and irritatingly phallic—handle of the flogger. In spite of my most determined effort at control, my breath hitched.

  “You all right there, babysub?” Lucy was by my ear again, so near her torso and hip pressed against my arm. I forced my lips together in a hard line and nodded, refusing to meet her eyes.

  “Fine, thanks,” I murmured, shifting incrementally away from her.

  “Interesting picture? Cat o’ nine tails got your tongue?”

  I couldn’t look in her direction. Didn’t dare respond to her. And I was far more interested in watching him.

  He draped the long leather strips over Claire’s shoulders, letting them splay across the round of her back, and slide down its length, a gentle, measured course. She shivered, apparent even across the room, as he allowed the thick leather to glide along her skin. There was a rhythm about his movements, even in this, the earliest stage of their scene. Or demo? Was this a scene or a demonstration? Claire said “stunt bottom,” so that must mean this is nothing but exactly what it looks like.

  What would it look like if what he was doing to her, or to someone else, meant much more?

  Occasionally his voice registered; mostly I heard nothing more than the sound of my own breath in my ears. This was nothing like I’d imagined; the sight of him adjusting his hips, increasing the arc of his arm and the wide fan of the flogger’s tails. As he discussed which areas on Claire’s shoulders, backside, and thighs could withstand such attentions, I was confronted with my years of wondering—and concocting scenarios when I’d allow it. The times I’d given in to curiosity and opened files online, only to close them as revulsion and arousal choked me. None of it was the same as hearing the air stirred by the heavy leather opposite his bulky bicep and feeling the temperature in the room rise as the bodies around me drew closer.

  What would it—what would he—feel like? That close, his breath on my neck as he dropped those leather ribbons over my shoulder, let them cascade down the curve of my neck, between my—

  A resonant slap-thump, answered with a soft, female oof snagged the familiar lines of script running in my head. They were far more interesting. Watching in the same room, hearing the increased breathing of the others who observed, the scents of sweet perfumes and natural musks wafting into the air as bodies warmed with intense interest and probably arousal at the scene before me, was entirely different.

  And again, real.

  It was the first time—ever—I could recall having no encroaching memories of the past or questions of the future. I was bound to the moment, watching each movement of Walt’s arm and wrist, the clench of his thighs as he moved with his swing and delivered another thudding blow across Claire’s flushed skin.

  Claire and Walt, and what little I knew of them as distinct people, faded away as the scene intensified, leaving me with the simplified impressions of maleness and power, and a femininity that wasn’t made wholesale when it was offered.

  For his use. For his whims. His guidance, his intentions, his will. Given up to him.

  And on the heels of that revelation, as always, just like when I managed to actually watch one of those videos online instead of looking away, the logical and conflicted part of me sneered at my own romanticizing of what was happening before me.

  He was hitting her, I reminded myself. What he was doing was no longer the sinuous stroke of leather, led on by gravity, across her flesh, all at the whim of someone who took control of her. Simply, her wrists were cuffed to two crossed planks of wood. A large, powerful man was hitting her with a hard, brutal tangle of black leather. And I couldn’t look away.

  He paused and took a second flogger, twin to the first, from the back pocket of his jeans. The strips of leather swung out, stretching from his wide fists and landing across her pale skin. As the black hide ribbons rose and fell again and again, the dimmed room and its inhabitants seemed to fade away.

  My breath aligned with his arm as it swung away from his body. With each thump-whack as he turned and flicked his wrists, like the sound of a weightier, more determined ceiling fan, the leather made impact with her skin. I exhaled, long and silent, in reply.

  Circling over her, the dark leather tails became swirling extensions of his forearms. The floggers arced and intersected. Light and shadow fell in rhythmic flickers over his face and shoulders. Each time he struck her back, the air rose and lifted a few dark curls from his forehead, his body’s only answer to the slap of leather on skin.

  It went on, and I know it did for some time. Vivid pink stripes began to emerge on her back. Once, I felt a body pass beside me. Music changed tempo, a thin gasp and wail rang out. His muscles shone, glazed with sweat, in the dim light streaking down the wall. That alone would have taken minutes.

  Skin doesn’t spontaneously glimmer with sweat. It’s a physical reaction. It takes time.

  I couldn’t stop watching. I fought to not look. Impossible. Where else could I look but where he stood?

  “That’s my good girl.”

  The flogger’s dance ended. They dropped abruptly, dangling at Walt’s hips. Blinking heavily, punch-drunk from what I’d seen and felt, I glanced around me. In the hushed room, Paul’s voice was a rude wrench back to reality. He stepped forward and stroked Claire’s hair, her cheek, then unhooked her cuffs from the bar over her head. I peered behind them, searching for Walt.

  Why did he stop? I realized, too late, I’d said it out loud.

  “Paul handles his girls’ aftercare.”

  Lucy. She was still there, watching. A cagey cat eyeing a dish of cream.

  Squaring my shoulders, I turned to her, my “here for business” smile fixed firmly in place.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Walt’s probably heading outside for a breath of fresh air. Paul does what he wants, and that means he does aftercare if he lends out one of his girls.” She shrugged, her drawl plunging with each suggestive dip of her eyelashes as she spoke. “I think I’ll take in the night breeze myself. Why don’t you grab something cool to drink from TK? Claire’s fine. She’ll find you in a bit.”

  I watched her stride away. Lends out?

  And Lucy was quite serious about it—Paul considered Claire his property to lend to Walt. Dread knotted in my throat. It was the same dread I’d experience in high school when Danielle brought boys home on the nights our mother closed whatever restaurant she was working at after a dinner shift. I swallowed at it, licking my dry lips. The easiest thing would be to occupy myself with the formalities of a drink, maybe finding another brief patch of conversation with TK before I left.

  The process of gathering my purse against my body and edging through the crowd until I reached the entrance played out in my mind. And even though it was the best, most sensible, safest thing to do, I couldn’t leave. Not without seeing him again.

  “Wanda.” Something cold and wet nudged against Walt’s shoulder. Icy water trickled down his side and he shot to his feet, swatting with the T-shirt clenched in his hand.

  “You wanna watch that, Louis?” He grumbled and pulled his T-shirt over his head. He accepted the bottle of water from Lucy with a nod and drank the bulk of it in heavy gulps. “Thanks.”

  Lucy settled herself into one of the numerous wrought iron deck chairs and crossed the length of her fishnet-clad legs. Her eyes didn’t leave his once. Damn her.

  “I’m not in the mood.” He finished the water and tossed the bottle in one of the galvanized steel trashcans scattered around the small, enclosed deck.

  “Aw thanks, babe. I had a headache anyway.” Lucy’s eyebrow arched at him. She turned her hands in front of
her, admiring her glossy black manicure. “I’m just checking on you. No reason to snarl at me.”

  Walt nodded and walked across the empty concrete pad. His elbow and wrist twinged with warning after each step. Why the hell had he agreed to do a damn demo with that big-assed flogger after a long day at the park? He couldn’t remember talking to anyone at CPEP about it, but Lucy and—after an odd, silent minute, TK—insisted the plan had been in place for months.

  He swung his arms wide a few times, stopping when he felt a satisfying pop in his shoulder.

  “I’m fine.” Shaking his head, he stood and faced Lucy. “How’s Claire?”

  “Paul’s with her. I’m sure she’s okay. You barely rubbed her back, you pussy.”

  “Right. Why don’t you ask her about her back, hound?”

  Walt cracked a smile, in spite of himself. Luce was the only person who could kid him out of a funk with love disguised in unvarnished verbal abuse.

  It was hard to walk away from any bottom after he’d played with them, though Paul would make sure Claire was okay physically. The way he’d just cut in and ended the demo—that was more than a bad example. Paul had little regard these days for the way things had always been done, both at the Charlotte club and up at Tate’s house.

  Walt knew he’d have to find Claire and check in with her, even if it was for only a few seconds. That moment was as important to him as any other. Aftercare was an open circle finding its way closed, the I’m okay, you’re okay, we’re done here of topping someone. If he didn’t close that gap, the old demon—wondering if what he’d done was really okay—might start talking, questioning, condemning.

  “When you’re cooled off, come inside. There’s someone I want you to meet.”

  “Oh no.” Walt threw up his hands, laughing. “You stay away from me with that welcome wagon bullshit.”

  “I don’t know what you could possibly mean. Claire brought a friend along.” Lucy blinked at him and damned if she almost looked innocent. Almost. Until she smirked. “I’m just being a friendly-friend. All friendly to the new people.”

  “Come on, Luce. You’re never friendly to the new shiny. You have ’em for dinner.”

  “I always have a sensible meal before CPEP.” Her mouth drew together in a smirk. “New shiny is my midnight snack.”

  “All right, let’s do this,” Walt said, standing as he shook his head at her. “I’ll be nice to the new people. Then you can hit the buffet and I’ll head home.”

  They lingered as the door closed behind them, allowing their eyes to adjust to the dim interior light. The social aspect of attending CPEP was Lucy’s playtime, saving her real kinky play for the Enclave parties and her own home on Lake Arden. Walt let her lead him through several group conversations, pausing only to greet a couple of people who came out to Tate’s house regularly. Lucy trailed by the homeowner himself, mussing his hair mischievously and earning a swipe at her ass for her trouble. A couple of eyebrows rose at them, and Walt chuckled to himself over it.

  Lucy was a kitten; you just had to know when she put her claws out for real.

  “Hey, Ma, don’t mess with the hair,” Tate drawled, and offered his hand to Walt. As they shook, Lucy draped herself around Tate’s shoulder and fussed with his hundred-dollar haircut. “I pay a girl good money to fix that shit up before I come to town.”

  “I’m not surprised. You know, Tatiana, you’re the most tarted-up Southern girl in this room.” Lucy tucked a couple of pieces of hair behind Tate’s ear and kissed his cheek.

  “The hell you say.” Tate’s grin was wide enough, but it hardened a bit and Walt couldn’t blame him for it.

  The guy fought the rumor mill all the time, thanks to the envious stories about him and his invitation-only house parties carried around the Charlotte and Atlanta communities. If Tate Jernigan did half of the people and a quarter of the things those stories insisted he did, the guy would either be dead or on a constant stream of antibiotics. And not many guys could handle Lucy’s repeated swipes at their masculinity like Tate and Walt bore in mostly good humor.

  “Louis, you’re one to talk about tarted-up.” Walt raised an eyebrow at her, hoping Tate would take the opportunity to dish it back to her with someone on his side. Sometimes he rolled over for Lucy just a little too quickly. And he didn’t take the bait this time, either. Walt cleared his throat. “How’ve you been, man?”

  “Good. Finished another bench last night.”

  Tate’s latest hobby was designing and building dungeon furniture. Claire had worried over him using power tools up at the house by himself, but he swore it made him focus on keeping all of his fingers rather than worrying about the bottles of bourbon he wasn’t drinking.

  “Oooh, can’t wait to break it in for you,” Lucy purred.

  “Hey, Walt, speaking of the furniture, I might head down to Atlanta later this summer. There’s a new club opening in an old meatpacking plant downtown. I know the guy. Might be able to sell him a couple of pieces.”

  Tate always knew a guy. He knew most of the kinky East Coast, and a good bit of the left coasters too.

  “Selling a couple of pieces? Why…” Walt stopped himself. It couldn’t be for money. Tate didn’t lord his family’s wealth over his friends, but he also wasn’t shy about making himself comfortable because of it. “That’s great.” He glanced at Lucy, who widened her eyes, as curious as he was.

  “And I’m thinking we should do another mentor’s class later in the summer.”

  “Okay, okay, princess.” Lucy turned a wink toward Walt as she nudged Tate. “We might have coaxed the bear from hibernation, but let’s not fill up his schedule too fast.”

  Instead of scrubbing at his face, Walt shoved his hands in his pockets. The entire evening was beginning to reek of setup.

  “All right, Lucinda. I’m just hitting him up while he’s in a good mood,” Tate said. “So, you two interested?”

  One of the few true stories about the happenings at Tate’s house was about a sixteen-week private mentoring class held there once a year. Usually. The last group had finished in the early spring.

  “I would love to!” Lucy threw her head back and rolled her eyes in outlandish ecstasy. Of course she’d love to—she bossed her mentees around like they were fraternity pledges. But they came out being among the best Tops in the southeast. “Love. To. Give me three of them!”

  “One victim per Top, Lucinda.” Tate took a swig of his ever-present Diet Sprite and nodded in Walt’s direction. “How about you, man? I might have a couple of people interested in driving up from Atlanta and Birmingham for weekend intensives too. We can split the registration fees.”

  “I’ll have to see what things look like at work.”

  “You count caterpillars, chase down lost hikers, and bust underage drinkers at the campground,” Lucy said, huffing. “That’s not really a tight schedule.”

  “I might have something going on then.” Walt eyed Lucy, setting his jaw. He’d done the last four rounds of mentor groups. He was tired of it, tired of the hollow, soulless sound of things he caught himself saying to his assigned mentees in the last two rounds. “Uh…I’ll let you know, okay?”

  Tate had a sense about people, almost as good as Claire’s, and thankfully, it appeared to kick in before Lu could come back at Walt with another jibe.

  “No worries, man. Just let me know if the other thing doesn’t pan out.” He shook Walt’s hand again, edging past Lucy with his hip. “Luce, why don’t you come with me to talk to Paul and Tommy about it while they’re here and not working over their bottoms of the hour yet?”

  Walt drifted away from them, grateful to be released from Lucy’s high-intensity focus for a few minutes. He wandered through the crowd, stopping to talk and exchange hugs with bottoms he still played with occasionally and kissing the upturned cheeks of the few other girls he’d done more than play with over the years.

  By the narrow bar that stretched from TK’s desk, Claire was perched on a barstool. She loo
ked okay—subdued, but smiling happily and leaning in to speak to—

  Someone he didn’t recognize.

  A blonde. Pale, her skin turned near pearly in the band of light falling over her. Most of her hair was piled into a tidy ponytail that swayed across her round shoulder as she leaned and nodded, listening to Claire. More than one Top in the room would be dying to give her hair a good yank, pulled up like it was. She turned a bit, so she could see someone Claire pointed to. He stopped hard, probably almost stepped on someone’s toe or thrust one of his big arms out too far in the middle of so many people, but he had to take a breath and get his shit together and resist the urge to just stare like a damn kid at her.

  Everything about her face was soft—the curve of her cheek, her full lips, and the wide, round eyes he saw behind her little silver-rimmed glasses. She’d covered up her body nearly as much as most of the women in the room had uncovered theirs, only showing a few long, pale-tipped fingers under the cuff of her black blouse, and a swath of milky skin at her neck.

  She looked a little uncomfortable, a little overwhelmed. Right over the fold of her crisp black collar, flushed skin hinted at a climb toward her ear. God, skin like that. Before he could catch his libido and wrestle it down, she leaned across the bar to say something to TK, crossing her legs and showing off her round pillow of an ass. She’d hidden so much under her sensible black clothes. All the covered-up skin tempted, making him wonder what that ass would look like, pushed up and pink, her hair loose, spilled over his bed, her eyes turned toward him, waiting…

  “Walt!”

  Shit.

  He waved and smiled in Claire’s direction, discomfort and dread surging in his throat. There was no one around he could divert his attention to. He was going to have to walk their way, holding back the mental image of his hand resting on the curve of this unknown woman’s bare ass with every step he took toward them.