DutyBoundARe (5 page)

“You’re—you’re not the kind of girl who needs to get involved in that stuff.”

“What kind of girl should be at the dungeon? Pain sluts? Rope bunnies? Electro-groupies? Please, educate me more on the type of people who should be at a dungeon.”

He had both hands on his knees, leaning toward her he narrowed his gaze. “Wait, you had clients who were into the lifestyle? What kind of clients?”

“I’m forty hours away from being a licensed sex therapist. Talking about sex and what gets people off is my job, Mathieu.”

He gaped at her, and maybe finally the kid gloves he’d been handling her with were coming off. “Your parents let you do that?”

For all that was holy, she wanted to smack the man. Lisette balled her hands into fists and counted to five.

“There was no letting me do anything. I went to school on my own scholarships and the money Paw-Paw gave me.” Unlike her older sister and younger brother, her parents had rarely given her anything. She’d always been expected to sit quietly in the corner while they talked about how successful Juliette was at everything and how adorable baby Lafayette was. Lisette was the spare in this three-ring circus.

The only person in her family who ever really saw her between her sister’s success and her brother’s antics was Paw-Paw, her fraternal grandfather. At holidays when everyone else was bustling around, Lisette could sneak out on the back porch where Paw-Paw would puff on his cigar and sit with him, listening to the evening song. Usually, he’d slip her a piece of taffy. Her siblings had never gotten that sort of treatment from the gruff old man, but Lisette had.

Hell, Lisette wasn’t even certain her family knew Paw-Paw had left the trust fund to her. He’d passed quietly in his sleep and the Will had been read in private by his lawyer because Maw-Maw was too distraught.

Mathieu continued to stare, his brow furrowed and lips parted. She breathed deep, refusing to fidget or squirm under his gaze. She’d played meaner Doms than Mathieu, but they’d never captured her heart like he had.

He licked his lips, appearing completely off kilter. “Is that why your parents don’t talk to you? You switched to sex therapy?”

“My parents stopped talking to me when I refused to forgive Seth and take him back. In their view, the only place for me is married to a respectable man, popping out babies and fixing dinner. I might as well be barefoot while I do it.” The bitterness burned in her chest.

“I just. . .I knew your parents had odd expectations of you. . .”

“My parents never had expectations for me. They had a daughter when they already had one, and finally got the son my father needed to feel like a man. Look, Seth pushing them was the final straw and our relationship collapsed. I don’t talk to Mom, Dad, Julie or even Leo anymore.” Lisette reined in all her hurt, took a deep breath and blew it out.

“Okay, clearly there’s a lot of family drama you didn’t mention.”

She shrugged. “You didn’t ask. It’s a long story and there hasn’t been time or a reason to drag out all the sordid details.”

“I agree. That’s cool.” He eased back onto the couch, as if he’d finally decided not to run screaming from her. “Did you do the kink stuff with Seth?”

Lisette shook her head. “No. Not a chance. Seth was very alpha, but vanilla. The relationship had a lot of power exchange dynamics, but they were organic. He was the first vanilla man I’ve dated in, gosh, maybe since you in college. I knew after I was with him for a while it wasn’t something he would be receptive to; besides, there was always something tightly wound in him that never felt safe. I didn’t want to put myself in a potentially dangerous situation, and I knew that in order to be truly happy in a relationship I wanted the option of having the kink. Ultimately, that’s why I left him. I didn’t love him enough and there were parts of me I was hiding from him.”

“He never knew?”

She bit her lip as invisible hands squeezed her lungs. “He knows now. I don’t know how he found out, but the first time he-he beat me he was yelling about it. Said if I wanted someone to hit me he’d give it to me real good.” A shudder shook her body as she remembered the utter terror that had gripped her.

“Hey...hey...shh.” Warm hands rubbed her back and another hand cupped her cheek. Mathieu had moved from the other end of the couch to kneel next to her, his gaze full of concern. “There you are. You just kind of left me for a minute. You okay?”

Had she blanked out for a whole minute? Lisette shook her head and rubbed her temples.

I’m alive. I’m whole. Mostly. And I will be okay.

“Yeah. I’m good.” She hated this part. The moments where she felt like a victim. As if some part of her had been stolen away and broken.

“Scoot.” Mathieu patted her hip.

Lisette didn’t think, didn’t want to, just did as he bade and scooted away from the armrest. Mathieu slipped in behind her and pulled her back against his chest, cradling her in his comfort and lending her his strength.

Lisette closed her eyes as the words of her old professor echoed through her mind.

When you’re not strong enough to stand on your own, find someone to lean against.

.

chapter four

Kinky

Mathieu stroked Lisette’s hair, the sweet floral fragrance wrapping around him, pulling him into her world.

Was she telling the truth? Had she been living the kink lifestyle for all these years? He still couldn’t wrap his head around it. Even with her tattoos and the scars on her body, there was something about her that was soft. Innocent. Or maybe that was how he wanted to see her.

Everything in him said to protect her. Shield her with his body if need be. But the more her story unfolded, the more he came to understand the woman she’d become, the stronger she seemed.

The strength it must have taken to go back to the authorities time and time again, and having nothing done. She hadn’t tucked tail and run. She’d made a calculated move, shoring up her defenses when the first choice of action wasn’t working.

Mathieu brushed his lips across her brow and wondered at the strength of the woman within. Clearly he’d done her a disservice and underestimated her.

Lisette sighed and he felt her body relax, growing soft and supple against him. It was almost scary how easy it was to be with her. Holding her felt right. It shouldn’t. They were practically strangers after these years.

“Satisfy my curiosity,” Mathieu said into the otherwise silent apartment. Even Gator was lying on his bed under the far window, quiet. “How did you come into kink?”

Lisette shifted so she could more easily tip her head back and see him. “Class, actually. There was a section on sexuality and gender identification, and some local kinksters came in to talk to us. I hit it off with one of the Pro-Dommes and we hung out a few times. I was just curious and fascinated, so she helped me learn. Found people for me to play with. Really took me under her wing.”

“Sounds like a classy lady. Do I know her?” He’d send her flowers and a thank you card.

“Not likely. She died a few years ago. Drunk driver hit her walking home.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I flew back to Georgetown for her funeral.”

“Wait. Georgetown?”

“Yeah. I only did summer school and my first year here. After that I transferred to Georgetown.” She smiled and wiggled around to lay more on her side, chin propped on her hand, gazing at him.

“That’s how you got away with changing your major.”

“Pretty much. Finished my undergrad at Georgetown, then went to Chicago for my Master’s. I’ve been trying to get my internship hours done, which was why I was in Florida. I was at a practice there, just shy about forty hours before I’m good to go. I had to take time off here and there to work up some more money for living expenses, otherwise I’d have been done a long time ago.” She sighed and shrugged.

“Is there good money in it?”

“Yeah, but it’s not really about the money. I like what I do.”

“Last I knew, you were going to do social work.”

She shook her head. “I tried, but it broke my heart. I did a short stint at one of the city facilities and hated it.”

“And sex therapy is better?”

“It’s a lot more than you think.” She smiled and light suffused her gaze. “One of my favorite clients in Florida was this woman in her forties. Her husband brought her to the office because she was going to leave him. He was still madly in love with her, but they always had issues connecting. She agreed to six weeks of sessions, and at the end if things weren’t better, he would sign the divorce papers. The first few sessions were rough but partway into it she admits that she’d never had an orgasm in her life. Her husband loved having sex with her and she just hated it and a lot of her anger toward her husband was over sex and feeling inadequate. We talked through things, got at the heart of the matter and I’ll never forget it. I got a phone call at like, eight at night and she’s just breathless and yells into the phone, “I had it!” She called me after her first orgasm. It was weird, but they’re happily married and have an outrageous sex life now.

“Another of my clients is—was—a young man. His family brought him in at eighteen and together they showed me pictures of him growing up. Mathieu, the boy had looked so feminine his entire life. They were so concerned about making sure he knew they loved him, but also urging him to make whatever decision about his life he wanted. Last I saw him he was considering what his girl name would be if he decided to go forward with a sex change. I think he will. But it was so, I don’t know, special to be with him and his family during that journey.”

“You help people with more than just not being able to get their Johnson hard?”

Lisette sputtered in laughter. “There’s plenty of that, but most men just go to their primary doctor for a little blue pill.”

She seemed to have returned to her cheerful self. Shadows no longer haunted her gaze. Instead, a smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. He could move to the other side of the couch again, but he didn’t want to.

“Mathieu?”

“Hm?”

“This is just an idea, and you can say no.” She bit her lip.

He stopped stroking her hair, waiting for her to speak.

“I’m concerned that my grasp of consensual and nonconsensual is broken because of Seth. I haven’t played since we were dating, which at this point is about a year ago. What if you used the flogger on me? Just as a test.”

Everything in Mathieu screamed, No. He hadn’t touched a flogger much less played with someone in, well, over a year. The muscles across his chest constricted until it was hard to breathe. Without comment, he pushed to his feet and paced into the kitchen, running his hands over his head.

There was an eerie similarity between his ex and Seth, except Amanda had never hit him. She’d just stolen his pride and everything he had until even keeping this apartment was a miracle. He’d also never introduced her to kink, not out of self-preservation, but because she’d seemed so broken and fragile she would never understand the beauty of the D/s dynamic.

Maybe she would have; Amanda had conned him into believing her injured dove act. There was the chance she’d have gone for it. But then he’d have seen through the crying acts and known her for a fake.

Lisette peeked around the corner into the kitchen. “I’m sorry. Clearly that was a bad idea.”

“It’s not that.” Mathieu whirled and paced the length of the galley kitchen again.

His apartment was built on a figure eight. The kitchen ran up against the inner wall, next to the door, and was a long rectangle, with exits on either side. One side was supposed to be for a dining area, but it was taken over with boxes and a small desk he never used. The living room sat in front of the kitchen, with the bedroom and bathroom to the right. It wasn’t even seven hundred square feet. The longest uninterrupted stretch for his pacing needs was the kitchen. And Lisette’s breakfast cooking was all around him.

“Okay,” Lisette replied, nodding and offering no complaint or pressure.

He stopped and leaned against the stove. “I’ve been out of the scene for a while. A long while and I haven’t touched a flogger or anything else.”

It occurred to him that he hadn’t even mentioned Amanda to Lisette, but then again he spoke of her as rarely as possible. Amanda was his shame. A blight on his life he wished he could remove.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know. I just saw the flogger and thought…”

There was no dishonesty when Lisette met his gaze. Her face creased in pain, not for herself, but for him. And she didn’t know his full story. Amanda had left her marks on his life, but not the other way around. Mathieu had accidentally run into her last fall, right after the divorce was final and she’d cleaned him out. She’d been with a man who appeared to be taking care of her. He’d seen in those few awkward moments how little he’d meant to her.

“No, it’s not that.” He leaned against the counter and sighed. “I haven’t played since before my ex-wife and I got married.”

Lisette’s eyes opened wide. “I didn’t know.”

“No, it’s okay. We barely knew each other when we got married. It lasted, oh, maybe six months before it went to hell and we got divorced. My friends have been telling me I should get out and play again.”

“Why haven’t you?”

“Are you trying to shrink me?” He tried to chuckle, but the sound was hollow.

“Sorry, natural curiosity and my inborn desire to help. I promise I won’t charge you for it.”

He threw his head back and laughed, breaking the unpleasant tension. He blew out a breath, staring at the floor. “I don’t know why I haven’t. Just haven’t felt like it.”

“And that’s okay. I’m sorry I brought up painful memories.”

Once he’d found a lot of pleasure from playing with an enthusiastic woman. They hadn’t all been sexual relationships, but the connection had given him something. Maybe it was time to find that again.

“What are your limits?” Mathieu asked without preamble. BDSM scenes often began with a little negotiating. They each brought their likes, dislikes, and things that were out of the question to the table so there were boundaries and clear expectations. It kept everyone honest, aware of the risk they were stepping into and ensured there was direct consent.