Chains and Canes (15 page)

“I’m taking the day off too.”

Naya crossed her arms. “You never take the day off.”

Perhaps chastened, he looked up at her from under his brows. “I’m…working from home?”

“Good enough,” she said with a laugh.

“You look like you could use another ten hours sleeping.”

“You too.”

That didn’t mean he was any less handsome or commanding. In fact, the slight weariness around his eyes and the tightness bracketing his mouth added to his appeal. Men who looked like that were men who worked hard. And played hard. Men of passion.

Daniel scrubbed a hand across the back of his head. “Another reason to stay home. I’d have stayed in bed with you but…” He inhaled long and slow. “I couldn’t stop my head.”

Gingerly, Naya sank onto the soft suede cushions.

“Wait, let me see.” He stood and raised her camisole. The worst, though, was the pain still blistering her ass. “Oh, angel. Come on. Back to the bedroom.”

He brooked no protest as he guided her to their king-sized wrought-iron canopy bed. The dark metal contrasted with decadent sheets and a snowy duvet, all of which beckoned to her sore body. It wasn’t just her skin or the muscles beneath. She ached, as if she’d driven for twelve hours. Tensing and bracing, then releasing and tensing again. Physical reminders of last night were drilled all the way into her joints.

Yet she reveled in those reminders. She pressed her front against Daniel’s drool-worthy chest and stretched. Arms raised. Back arched. She stretched until he needed to catch her around the waist because she balanced on tiptoe. Her moan was indulgence and relief, topped with a smile.

“Fuck, you’re sexy.” Daniel dipped low to lick the hollow between her breasts. She moaned again, in invitation. He straightened her spine until they pressed flush.

Naya was already unbuttoning his shirt, impatiently, needing the solid wall of his body and the gorgeous strength he wore so casually.

Their minty morning kiss turned torrid after a few flicks of eager tongues. His broad palms massaged her breasts. Softly first. Like saying hello. They had never been slow lovers. Sparks turned to backdrafts in mere seconds. Maybe that was part of the appeal of playing with Remy. No matter that certain elements were explosive, he prolonged the joy of bodies and minds coming together.

She was teaching him patience and the value of tension on the dance floor. He was showing her and Daniel how to relish one another.

Not right then. Remy hadn’t come home with them. Instead he’d taken a taxi from the penthouse to wherever he lived.

Did Daniel feel as confused and desperate?

They kept kissing as he tugged down the sleeves of his shirt. Naya splayed her hands through his thatch of chest hair. They were naked within moments. He lay on the bed cast in bronzed shadows by the light poking in from behind the drapes. It was so easy, so right, to straddle him and sink onto his stiff, morning erection.

I rode Remy too.

She inhaled sharply.

He was careful not to touch her back or her ass. Naya steadied her rhythm with both hands on his chest, while he worshipped her breasts. She leaned low and arched so that he could lick and suck her nipples, which weren’t as tender as she would’ve guessed.

Or maybe she was just getting greedy. They used to go months without seeking a Domina. She’d flown higher in a few days than she had all year.

“Harder,” she gasped.

“That’s not my job.”

“Didn’t seem to bother you last night.”

Daniel smiled against her damp skin, then sucked her nipples with shocking ferocity. She grabbed his head and pulled. Mouth. Closer. More brutal.

He caught her hair and lifted her to see her eyes. “Like that?”

“Just like that.”

“I’m learning,” he whispered as he pounced from one breast to the other.

She was learning too. When had she ever commanded Daniel to do anything? She was giving orders, and he was being rough. Remy was in the room with them, in spirit if not in form.

Why did this feel like making do? She and Daniel were better than
making do
.

Naya shoved up and away, then completely off him. He pushed onto his elbows and looked meaningfully to where his prick lay hard and slick against his lower abdomen. “Um.” He smiled, teasing. “Something just went
really
wrong.”

“This is the moment when you stop being so fabulous and understanding.”

“If I act like a Cajun bastard, will you climb back on?”

“Daniel!”

She went to scamper off the bed, running from…
Dios
, she didn’t even know. Daniel grabbed her upper arms and drew her back down. Remy wasn’t the only man who could manipulate her body with convincing force. Daniel had been the first to mix rough strength and safe tenderness—which made what they were doing all the more insane. They were risking everything good and beautiful.

“Another man! More than that. A male Dom. How did this happen? Why did you
encourage
it to happen? You let him fuck me right in front of you.
Twice!
”

Daniel didn’t joke or condescend this time. He smoothed his hands down her arms. “Lie down, yeah? Despite how much I was enjoying myself just now, which I
really
was by the way, I didn’t bring you in here for a quickie.”

She lifted her brows in silent question. Her heart was beating too furiously for too many reasons. Speech was going to be tricky. Like last night. Only, she wasn’t flying now. She’d returned to a shadow of the panicky state of mind she experienced after the crest of an endorphin high. Her comedowns included moments of terror that, although awful at the time, became a way of purging everything she feared.

Daniel had used soft words to urge her to drink Gatorade, while Remy had applied lidocaine to her bruises. His words of approval, sometimes just marveled sounds, had helped calm her down. Yet he hadn’t been the one to hold her close as the town car whisked them home. Daniel had curled his body around hers when irrational tears dragged her out of the heavens and into a pit. Safe at home, naked in bed, she’d needed an hour of his patient attention to come back down to level.

She’d asked him once why he stayed with her during those moments, listening to her inane, almost paranoid babbling. “Because of your trust,” he’d said.

She couldn’t offer that trust to Remy because he’d still left them. The way he ran was enough to temper what threatened to become a full-blown obsession. Her mind was in no shape to keep a four-day distraction from splitting cracks between her and Daniel, but she needed to do just that. Daniel was the best thing in her life.

“I brought you in here because your ass is a mess,” he continued. “I know someone who’d be turned on as fuck to see it. So we’re gonna spray you with some more lidocaine, take some pictures for Remy and talk about this.”

“Take pictures…?”

“I told you we’ve been texting.”

“Oh, so he can make morning-after demands, but he can’t stay the night?”

Daniel stared at her for a moment, then nodded. “Yes. All right. We’re still good. It hurt you too, that he didn’t want to stay.”

“Daniel Wilson Baker, I’m going to use my high heels to smash off your toes.
Make sense
.”

“Lie down. Lidocaine. That much, at least.”

She looked up at him and found the same unwavering resolve Remy had shown during their play. Yet for all his magnetism as a Dominant, Remy would never possess Daniel’s assurance and easy confidence. Daniel didn’t doubt. He decided and he acted on those decisions.

After pushing tangled hair back from her face, she exhaled and lay on her stomach. “Okay.”

Ten minutes later, the worst of the sting was gone as Daniel tended the most intense bruises she’d ever had.

He stretched nude beside where she still rested on her stomach. “You’re thinking things.”

“Remy missed the nuances.”

Daniel absently scratched his chest, then pillowed his head on his bent arm. The move lifted one side of his torso, revealing ligaments and ribs and long sweeps of graceful flesh. He was big, strong and just…astonishing. After four years, her admiration hadn’t dimmed.

“I think he knew part of it. The instinct part. Hurting you or any other willing person—it’s a turn on. And obviously making me do…”

Naya closed her eyes against visions of Daniel on his knees, his expression happily dazed while Remy forced him to swallow cock. And how, after so many previous attempts, Daniel had been able to give her a little of the pain she craved.

“Yeah, that’s a whole other topic.”

“Not really,” he said. “I’ll get around to it.”

She walked her fingertips across his stomach. “Of course you will. My man’s got a plan.”

“Hell yeah. But if you keep tickling me, I’m going to flip you and fuck you. Then you won’t get to hear it.”

She huffed a lock of hair out of her eyes, but at least she felt like smiling again. She
was
smiling. “Fine.”

“Remember what you told me about discovering your masochistic streak? Through dancing and then with Patrick? Your introductions to pain felt right, but you didn’t know why. It was a process. You learned what you need, how you giggle like a madwoman, how crying is practically like orgasm, and even how freaky your comedowns are. All of that.”

“You helped.”

“I did. So did some really intimidating women in latex.”

“I was paying more attention to whatever piece of ouch they were holding.”

“Can’t blame you there.” He twined their fingers and rested their hands over his heart. “But, poor girl, you’re dealing with two amateurs. Neither of us did right by you last night. Things could’ve been worse, and you don’t even get to argue the point. We were too caught up, I think. Too selfish and overwhelmed.”

“You feel confident enough to say that for both of you?”

“Sure. Same problem, but coming at it from different sides. He knows just enough to be dangerous. Last night was a big lesson for all of us, at your expense.” He curled her close and kissed her head. “My angel.”

“We’re still here, Daniel.”

“We are.”

“But you need to see the bigger picture,” she said, her temper returning. “You’re talking like we can train him to be a good Dom and everything will be great. To what end?” She pushed onto her elbow to make sure he read absolute truth in her eyes. “Are you listening to me? This is tempting fate. It’s dangerous. For us. If we spend more time with him, it’s only going to get more complicated. What the hell right do you have to be so careless with our future? Two encounters. Two! He’s already in my head…” She closed her eyes and swallowed. “Daniel, he could be my
Sir
.”

“Look at me, angel.”

Naya forced herself to meet his direct gaze, which hadn’t changed. Still calm and in control.

“I told you these topics were connected. I
submitted
to him last night. I obeyed and I swallowed cock and I hurt you, all because he told me to. It was like finding a part of myself. I’m thirty-five and, wow—how long have I been waiting to kneel? To give up control? Apparently my whole damn life.”

“Yet you still stood up for me. Literally.”

“That won’t ever change.” His expression turned tender and a little apprehensive. “But, Naya, we’re in this together. He could be my Sir too.”

Chapter Fifteen

Daniel exhaled. Just to say the words. Submit. Kneel. Sir.

So freeing.

Sometimes Naya tempered his enthusiasm when his ambitions got too big, and he did the same in return—their checks and balances. She was wearing that expression now. “Just how is that supposed to work?”

“We borrow him.” He grinned, feeling ridiculous. “He’d have a field day with us if he heard me say that.”

“
Borrow
him. Like a library book? Daniel.”

“Okay, wrong word. How about…” He rolled onto his side and dipped low, licking from the underside of her breast to her throat. One long luxuriant trail. She tasted salty and felt like satin. He paid special attention to the little bow-tie-shaped pinches left by the clothespins. “How about let him seduce us? Is that better?”

“Daniel,
estás loco
.”

“Completely
loco
. But I’ve made a pretty nice life by making choices like this.”

She gripped his shoulders. Even she didn’t seem to know whether to pull him closer or push him away. “Choices like
risk perfect for even more perfect
? That doesn’t make sense.”

Daniel sat up. He stared at the far wall because he couldn’t look her in the eye. What he had to say was too raw. “What if I said we weren’t perfect?”

She whispered his name and touched tentative fingertips to his back.

“Imagine if you’d learned about your masochism from Patrick, then met me and I… What if I hadn’t been able to handle it? No listening to your desires. No Dominas. You’d have been forced to make a choice.”

“You or my kink.”

“Yeah.” He dropped his head. “So last night, there it was. What I’ve been missing. After my ego stopped fighting it, I was
giddy
. Me? Naya, seriously? Try to use me and the word giddy in a sentence.”

“How about, Daniel is never giddy?”

He turned, his grin lopsided. She was smiling too. He should’ve known better than to turn away from her. He could tell her anything. They’d been that synced almost from the beginning.

“Very funny.”

She studied him. “It’s not endorphins for you. It’s giving up control.”

He nodded, despite a neck stiff with tension. “My burdens were lifted. I didn’t have to think. For a few minutes there, I’d have done anything he told me to.”

“Clothespins, Daniel. After you knew I was safe, you did
everything
he told you to. And you want more of that.” He liked that it wasn’t a question, and that she’d sat up to face him. They crossed their legs together, holding hands. “I suspect we can’t buy our way out of this one,” she continued. “There aren’t any Rent-a-Remy stores.”

“See? He’d beat you for that one.”

Naya laughed, which sounded like when she was wiggling out from under harsh tension. She stretched up and kissed him.