Authors: Joey W. Hill
are. He wanted me to come here,
spend the day with you, if
you’d like that. He hates that he has
to be away from you
right now.”
“Wel , that’s just sil y. I mean, we…
It’s not that we’re
strangers, but we have just started…
whatever this is.
Right?”
“Hmm.” Dana set aside the cane.
When she reached up
toward Rachel’s face with both
hands, Rachel stil ed, not
sure what she was about. The woman
laid her palms on
Rachel’s cheeks, slim fingers
stroking to her jaw, then down
farther. Rachel drew in a breath, her
heart thudding as
Dana investigated the col ar, stepping
closer to feel the
lock on the back of it. Her breasts,
clad in the soft T-shirt,
brushed Rachel’s. Even through
terrycloth, the contact
made her pulse thud. What made it
worse or better,
depending on her perspective, was
that as Dana
investigated, Rachel felt the black
woman’s nipples tighten.
It aroused Dana, knowing Rachel
was col ared. Then she
cupped Rachel’s skul , lifted onto her
toes and put her
mouth on Rachel’s parted lips.
Blessed God
and
Goddess. Again—
not into women
—
but it didn’t matter. It was sexual
contact, and her body was
ravenous for any kind of touch that
wasn’t her own. In some
way too primeval to explain in
civilized company, it gave
them a provocative bond, that this
woman also cal ed her
man Master, submitted to his
ownership. Rachel had
imagined Peter carrying out his
threats, Dana bent over his
knee, that large hand smacking her
bare buttocks, giving
them a deep rose tinge under the
brown pigment. And of
course from there it wasn’t much of a
leap to remember
Jon’s use of that ruler on her own stil
-sore ass. Dana’s kiss
was like an initiation, a welcome. A
reassurance that
Rachel wasn’t alone on this path.
Rachel dove hard and deep into that
kiss, making a
whimper in her throat as she gripped
Dana’s waist. Dana
brushed her hands aside, though, and
slipped the robe tie.
Rachel breathed a sigh of relief as
the garment was
pushed off her shoulders, freeing her
body once more.
Then Dana explored, fol owing the
chain down from
Rachel’s throat, between her breasts
and over her
abdomen. She stopped short of her
clit, fol owing the chain
around to the back and then
smoothing her graceful hands
over Rachel’s buttocks, her knuckles
trailing across skin.
Interestingly, though Rachel quivered
and jerked from the
near misses around cunt and nipples,
Dana was obviously
careful to offer no direct touches
there. Eventual y, her
hands came back to claim Rachel’s,
fingers tangled and
holding together.
When the other woman at last broke
the kiss, stepped
back, Rachel stared at her in
amazement. Dana’s mouth
was wet with hers, her brown eyes
considering, a secretive
but rueful smile playing around her
lips. “That
bastard
. No
wonder he wanted me to come spend
time with you. You’d
jump a teenage Boy Scout sel ing
popcorn tins right now. It
would serve Jon right if I let you do
it. Or cal ed Max back up
here and let him take ful advantage of
it, though he
probably values his job
and
his life
more than that.”
Rachel imagined the slimmer, less
physical y imposing
Jon against Max, but then she
remembered that look he’d
had when his gaze fel on the bruise
on her cheek. No, it
was probably best not to make any
assumptions about the
unpredictable, fascinating man who’d
invaded her life over
the past couple days.
“I was thinking I could have checked
out his ass more
without that coat he was wearing,”
she managed weakly. “It
covers a lot.”
“Trust me, you could bounce a
quarter off Max’s ass. The
advantage of being blind.” Dana
affected an exaggerated
Southern bel e accent. “Sometimes I
can’t help stumblin’,
now can I? I just
have
t’grab onto the person next to me
before I fal . And I can’t see where
I’m grabbin’, darlin’, now
can I?” She gave Rachel a broad
wink and a grin. “Peter
gave me a real wal oping for that
one, because Max was
such a tattletale. But I wasn’t sorry.”
Something unexpected came behind
Rachel’s laugh. A
tiny sob. Ever intuitive, Dana made a
reassuring sound in
her throat, her hands squeezing
Rachel’s hard. “C’mon, girl.
Let’s sit down and have that tea. You
keep the robe off. I
can’t see you anyhow, and I know
you’re more comfortable
without it.”
* * * * *
“Not just more comfortable,” Rachel
admitted as they sat
at her cheerful bistro set by the
window, mid-morning sun
streaming in. “It felt…like what he’d
want. You were the one
who told him I wasn’t married,
weren’t you?”
Dana had her now bare feet drawn up
and curled on the
chair edge, one arm linked loosely
over her shins, the other
hand holding her coffee mug, since
she preferred that to
tea. When they sat down, Rachel had
noticed Dana also
wore a set of dog tags, embel ished
with a solid silver
frame. They were strung on a chain
along with a handful of
jasper beads that picked up the mixed
rusts and earth
tones of the T-shirt. It was a short
chain, the tags fal ing
below her col arbone, making them
easy to read.
Winston,
Peter R
. It might as wel say
“Property of”, Rachel thought
with a longing pang beneath her
breast. She noticed Dana
toyed with them often as she spoke,
as she was doing now.
“Yes, it was me. I hope that’s okay.
Jon has an
unbreakable code, they al do. But he
kept coming back to
your classes. He’s thought about you
a long time, Rachel.”
“I’m older than he is.”
“You’re older than two thousand
years? Real y? Because
I’m pretty sure Jon’s soul dates back
to the Druids. I see
him standing on top of some temple
platform, gazing into a
forest, and when he turns his head, he
has this mystic
charisma that tel s you he’s some
kind of conduit for the
gods.”
“Wow. You get al that without
sight?” Because it was al
too accurate.
Dana grinned. “Some things you see
better when you
don’t look with your eyes.”
Rachel sighed. “Thirteen years
between us, Dana. And
it’s not only the years. He did al this
to keep my mind
spinning with lust, and believe me,
it’s working, but at some
point I have to come down from that.
From his standpoint, I
know that wil be okay. He’s
probably had plenty of
relationships like this, and I guess I
should be glad that for
the first time in my life I get to
experience a Master’s touch.
It’s better than I ever imagined,
because of him. I should just
let that happen, enjoy it while it lasts,
but I don’t know if I
can. I don’t know if…”
Dana put a hand over hers on the
table, traced the
fingers with the same sensual touch
she’d used when she’d
explored the chains on Rachel’s
body. “No ring. You took it
off.”
“Jon did. I couldn’t…couldn’t bring
myself to put it back
on.”
“Hmm.” Peter’s fiancée cocked her
head. “People make
their own decisions. It’s obvious you
have a lot of hurt
stored up in you, a lot of
disappointments. Now you’re
figuring out how to deal with those
against a force of nature
like Jon, and I think that’s good. He
needs to see that, know
what obstacles he faces. You’re right
—pretty much up until
two days ago, Jon could walk into a
BDSM club, or hook up
with someone in his business or
social set, and thoroughly
enjoy a short-term relationship. He’s
very good at seeing
them to their natural end and making
that end go down
smooth as silk.”
She was supposed to be glad to be
hearing this, instead
of wanting Dana to stop putting
images in her head of Jon
with other women. Dana’s fingers
flexed on hers, as if
sensing the direction of her thoughts.
“I think you need to know a little bit
more about the K&A
men. Would you like to?”
A sensible person would say no,
would resist being
drawn deeper into a world where she
couldn’t stay. Instead
she already had her mouth open to
give her answer. “After
yesterday, I’m overflowing with
curiosity.”
“What happened yesterday?”
Rachel hesitated. What if what Peter
had done wasn’t
acceptable to Dana? How would she
handle that?
“I expect my fiancé was somehow
part of whatever
happened.” Dana reached out with a
foot, nudged her with
a toe. “That’s part of what those five
are about. Don’t worry,
just spil it.”
She did, briefly, aware now that
Dana picked up a lot
from what wasn’t said. The woman
kept her head in that
listening tilt, her eyes thoughtful.
When she pressed her lips
together, her fingers curling around
her knees, Rachel
reached out, touched her.
“Please tel me that was al okay, or
expected. I couldn’t
forgive myself if somehow I let
something happen that
would hurt you in any way.”
“Oh hon, nothing to forgive.” Dana
closed her hand over
Rachel’s fingers on her knee. “I’m
here to tel you, when the
K&A men decide on something, a
woman’s got a
snowbal ’s chance in hel of having
any say in it at al . She’s
just got to hang on for the ride of her
life.” Now her smile
was back. “The reason I reacted the
way I did was because
of how much I like you. And how
glad I am that Jon chose
you this way. It’s happy sadness, like
at a wedding.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You won’t, not until it comes from
inside, so I’m not going
to say a lot about it, but whatever
Jon’s relationships with
women have been in the past, trust
me when I say you’re
different. You want to know about the
K&A men? They’re a
pack, a pack that’s connected on
some visceral male level
that’s scary as hel to experience,
while at the same time
you never want that experience to
end. You belong to one of
them, but in a peripheral way, you
belong to al of them.
Like a family, only you have a lot of
feelings and
experiences with this family that
would be highly frowned
upon if you truly were blood-
related.”
She flashed a grin. “They each have a
specialty, if you
can believe it. If there was a Cordon
Bleu for pussy-eating,
Lucas would be their valedictorian.”
At Rachel’s startled
reaction, a choked laugh, Dana
nodded, a sage look on her
pixie face. “Peter… My man is tit-
obsessed. He can do
things to your breasts with a touch, a
flick of the tongue, the
removal of a nipple clamp at the right
moment, that can
make you come in a heartbeat,
without touching any other
part of your body.” A little shiver ran
over her skin and
echoed in a reaction over Rachel’s.
“Al of them have… They’re al …?”
“Yes, and it does make the tongue
trip up and the heart
ricochet with the thought of it. Al five
of them are sexual
Dominants. They’re so different, and
yet there’s this
incredibly similar core to them.
Ben…” Dana snorted. “I
can’t wait to see the woman who wil
final y catch his
attention. Poor girl. You don’t see it
at first, because of the
slick, charming lawyer thing, but he’s
probably the toughest,
most hardcore Master of al of them.
And his thing is…wel ,
no way to put it delicately. He’s a
master at ass-fucking.
Cass and Savannah haven’t
experienced it directly,
because, as I said, each of the guys
are somewhat different
in how their Dominance works.”