His to Take (13 page)

Casting a considering glance to Bailey, he pondered his next move. What if she needed
this and didn’t know it? Hell, he’d never spanked a woman in his life, but the way
he felt like a damn volcano right now, he had to get his palm on her bare ass or he
was going to blow.

“Come here.” He pointed to the ground right in front of him.

She bristled. “I’m close enough.”

He found himself sucking in a breath, squaring his shoulders, tightening his jaw.
“Get the fuck over here. It’s not a request.”

Now she looked a little nervous. But her mouth still kept running. “Or what?”

Amazing that she’d managed to take her brattiness to another level. From what little
he’d gleaned in the last day or so, if he had any intention of giving this shit a
whirl, he had to shut her attitude down now, establish boundaries and control—quick.

“Fine. We’ll bypass the ‘or what’ conversation and I’ll just show you.”

As he stomped toward her, she tried to back away, but the desk stopped her. Before
she could get around it and inch to the door, Joaquin grabbed her by the wrist and
hauled her toward the bed.

“I’ve had enough, Bailey. You don’t run out of here. You don’t show yourself in public.
You don’t put yourself at risk. You don’t question why I care.” He just did. Not that
he could explain it even to himself. “You want some peace? I’ll give it to you.”

He jerked her against his body, her back to his chest. Bailey gasped. He went stone
hard, all the blood rushing to his cock at the feel of her against him, at the thought
that within mere heartbeats, he’d have her ass under his palm. The moment couldn’t
come fast enough.

With his free hand, he jerked at the button and zipper of her borrowed jeans. They
were a size too big, just like the panties underneath, so getting everything off her
hips and shoving it all down her thighs was far easier than he expected. She yelped
in surprise.

Joaquin ignored it as he lunged to the bed and planted himself on the edge, then dragged
her facedown over his lap, doing his best to settle her squirming. Holy fuck, she
had a gorgeous ass. Pale, firm, as delicate as the rest of her.

“What are you doing?” she shrieked. “What the—”

He interrupted her tirade by smacking the flat of his palm directly to her left cheek.
Shit, her skin was so soft. The slap rang in his ears, then reverberated in his brain—the
sound playing over and over in his head. His blood heated, came to a rolling boil.
His cock got even harder. Something inside him stood tall, grew to a mountainous swell
with some need to take her, touch her, control her, dominate her. Own her.

As he lifted his palm away, he saw the red imprint of his handiwork. The sight fascinated
him. Glowing. Pretty. Perfect. He cupped her cheek, rubbed it, kneaded a little.

“What is wrong with you?” she cried. “Are you out of your mind?”

Probably. Shockingly, he didn’t give a shit in that moment.

Instead of answering her, he repeated the process, raising his arm high, then brought
it down with resounding force on her right cheek. The crack of his hand on her butt,
the little jerk of her body, followed by a cry . . .
Yeah. Fuck yeah.
He’d always supposed that a spanking could be erotic, but he’d never guessed how
much. This was flipping his switch in a way he’d never experienced. Arousal burned
so hot, it actually stung his veins. All he could think about was doing it again and
again and again until she screamed, until her head quieted, until she begged him to
fuck her.

That was it. The urge to work inside her pussy was strong, but he knew immediately
that just getting her under him once or twice wasn’t going to cut it. He had to claim
this territory as his own. His to kiss, to punish, to fondle, to arouse . . . to take.
Jesus, the urge was killing him.

He swallowed and raised his hand again, already looking for another place to land
his palm and turn her skin red. In the back of his head, he knew she’d questioned
him. From his observation earlier, he’d figured out that neither submission nor endorphins
happened in the blink of an eye, so if it took more than a few of his spankings for
this to register properly with her, that was more than fine by him.

By the time that logic had wended through his brain, he found the perfect spot to
land his next strike—high on her left cheek, a bit farther from her hip. He eyed that
spot like a target, aiming for a bull’s-eye. With a
whoosh
, he lowered his arm. The blow hit exactly where he wanted. Instantly, the sound of
his skin on hers filled his ears. More of the amazing, arousing sensations filled
him. Shit, being with her made him feel eight feet tall. A brighter shade of red bloomed
across her ass, and he rubbed it again, fascinated.

“No!” she gasped. “Stop it! You can’t do this.”

Her little voice tugged at him, sounding so confused and scared, deflated all the
arousal and confidence he’d been building. Like a pin into a balloon, it popped, burst.

“Please . . .” she cried out.

Joaquin flinched.

“Shit. Oh hell.” He tried to hold her against him, soothe her. Guilt gouged out a
mountain of regret inside him. “I’m sorry.”

She shoved away from him, looking at him with accusing eyes as she yanked her clothes
back into place. “Don’t touch me.”

He shook his head. What the fuck kind of monster was he, to smack her ass and enjoy
it so much? Maybe he hadn’t done it right. Or he’d misunderstood what he’d seen earlier.
It was entirely possible that he’d liked the idea of spanking her so much he’d projected
his desires on Bailey. Whatever. She obviously didn’t want this.

As her whole body twitched with the sound of her sobs, he ached to reach for her again
and offer shelter. But she wanted nothing to do with him.

He backed away, then turned for the door. “I really am sorry.”

With a curse, he forced himself to walk away from her. As he shut the door behind
him and locked it again, breathing hard, his gut soured more. Every footfall seemed
to weigh a hundred pounds more than the last. Something in his chest actually hurt.

As he slammed into his little cubicle of a room, he marched to the bed, sat down,
and thrust his head in his hands. Jesus, had undercover missions and years of cloak-and-dagger
shit, coupled with so much fucking death, finally warped him?

T
HE following morning, Joaquin was pacing outside Thorpe’s office, just waiting. Over
a mostly sleepless night, he’d made some decisions. He didn’t relish them, but last
night’s spanking debacle more than suggested that he’d come unhinged somewhere along
the way and needed to get his shit straight before he messed up Bailey’s life any
more.

Finally, Thorpe sauntered down the hall, heading for his office. He and Sean walked
side by side, heads turned in conversation. Suddenly, they stopped. Callie, trailing
behind and digging through her purse, smiled up at them both. They each took a turn
bestowing a kiss on her red, glossy lips before she headed deeper into the club with
a jaunty wave. She stopped short when she spied him. Joaquin winced. He probably looked
like shit. It was how he felt.

“Is Bailey still in her room? Can I see her?”

“Yeah,” he choked out. “I managed to scramble together a bagel and some fruit for
her. Would you mind taking it to her?”

Callie cocked her head. “Sure. You don’t want to?”

“It’s better if I don’t.”

She raised her brows in question, but didn’t comment. “All right.”

As she doubled back to the little kitchen area, Thorpe glowered. “What’s wrong?”

“Did something happen with Bailey’s would-be killers?” Sean asked.

No, they’d been quiet for hours now, and he didn’t like it. But at this point, he’d
just add that to his shit list and move on.

“Nothing. This is . . . personal. Can we go in and shut the door?” Joaquin gestured
to Thorpe’s office. He knew he’d better fess up to last night’s fiasco. Maybe damage
control now would save his ass later.

“Sure.”

Dominion’s owner looked relaxed enough, but Joaquin sensed his sudden tension. As
he made his way to a chair in the office that oozed with sleek sophistication, Sean
closed the door. The echo resounded in the otherwise silent room. Joaquin heard the
mental tick-tock in his head as the seconds slipped away. Their expectant looks weren’t
getting any less tense. Might as well cough the truth up before Bailey told Thorpe
a tearful tale and the man threw him out or otherwise intervened.

“When Bailey and I arrived, you told me that everything at Dominion was consensual,
that she had to be here of her own free will within forty-eight hours. I fucked up
last night and I wanted to tell you that I’ll make it right.”

Sitting now, Thorpe drilled him with a glare. “How exactly did you fuck up? Explain.”

The man’s disapproving tone made Joaquin tense. “I was alone with Bailey last night
and I lost my head. I—”

“You didn’t force the lass, did you?” Sean asked sharply.

“Are you asking if I raped her? No,” he barely managed not to shout, then searched
for calm and a delicate way to explain. But he’d always been short on diplomacy and
long on brute force. “I . . . I understand that you two are Callie’s Doms. I know
your members here practice BDSM. I get it in principle.”

“But . . .” Thorpe prodded.

“I misread Bailey’s signals.” He shook his head, that crappy shame sludge slogging
through his veins. “I was angry and I spanked her.”

The club owner rose to his feet, his brows drawn down in a glower. “You punished her
while you didn’t have control of yourself and your temper?”

That voice more than suggested his answer better be no.

“I had control of myself,” Joaquin insisted. “I was pissed off, but I wasn’t a raving
lunatic. The second she said no, I stopped.”

Sean sent Thorpe a stare, and the man sat again. “You didn’t have a safe word in place?”

Joaquin didn’t know exactly what that meant, but he could guess in context that it
would be some word Bailey could say that would stop what he’d been doing. “I wasn’t
aware that I should have one. None of this was exactly planned.”

“Next time, agree on a safe word, something she can easily say but normally wouldn’t
during play or sex. If nothing else, go with a traffic light. Red for stop, green
for—”

“There won’t be any ‘go’ between us. I’m pretty sure I shit in that mess kit.” He
sighed. The thought of scaring her bugged him every bit as much as the idea of never
touching her again.

“Why would you say that?” Sean asked. “You should never hit a sub in anger, that’s
true, but I’m sure if you talked—”

“I . . .” Joaquin shrugged. “I don’t have any experience with this stuff. I thought
she might be submissive, but when she pleaded with me to stop, I realized she must
not be. While I was really digging it, she obviously didn’t feel the same.”

The guys exchanged a look before Thorpe frowned at him. “Not submissive?”

“She begged me to let her go like I was . . . torturing her. What else was I supposed
to think?”

“She’s submissive,” Sean supplied.

“Absolutely.” Thorpe nodded.

Great. So it was him Bailey objected to. Well, they had met because he’d drugged and
abducted her.
Gee, wonder why she doesn’t want you to beat her ass, too?

“Well, either way, if she wants to submit to someone, it won’t be me.” He stood and
rubbed his palms down his jeans. “I’ll talk to her this morning, promise not to touch
her again, and get her to consent to remain here for her own safety until we can sort
out these killers from LOSS.”

“What exactly did she say when you spanked her?” Thorpe wanted to dissect the situation.
Why the hell wouldn’t he just leave it be? He’d explained and apologized. Revisiting
this humiliation wasn’t exactly at the top of his bucket list.

“She said, ‘No. Stop. You can’t do this.’ The usual kind of stuff that means ‘get
your fucking hands off me.’ I’m sorry. I got lost in my own head. Seeing the red my
hand had left on her ass did something to me. I—”

“Felt somewhere between a hundred feet tall and invincible?” Sean supplied with a
grin.

Joaquin hadn’t expected either of them to just get it. “Yeah.”

“Dom space,” they said together.

“You were into that place in your head where the act of topping your sub made you
feel powerful and needed and like you had found not just a niche, but something you
require. Does that sound about right?” Thorpe crossed his arms over his chest.

“Exactly.” Joaquin couldn’t believe it. The guy had pretty much reached into his mind
and read it word for word.

“You definitely roll dominant.”

That didn’t do him a lot of good if Bailey wasn’t willing to submit to him. And he
really couldn’t blame her.

Sean leaned forward in his seat, elbows on knees, and spoke softly. “She needs time,
man. You didn’t meet under the best of circumstances. She’s in danger. She doesn’t
know you. But there’s no way she isn’t interested in what you could give her.”

Thorpe nodded. “Bailey may not realize yet that she’s submissive. Your biggest issue,
though, is trust. It may take a bit more time for you to get inside her walls so that
she can let go with you. There’s a good chance the spanking shocked more than repelled
her. Did you see if she was wet?”

“I wasn’t going to shove my fingers up her cunt when she was already crying at me
to leave her alone,” Joaquin pointed out. He wished they’d stop with the third degree
already.

“I understand,” Sean assured. “Consider that maybe her logic was telling her that
she shouldn’t like ‘abuse’ from her captor. In the right circumstances, with enough
trust between you, I can almost guarantee that girl likes a spanking.”

Joaquin studied the pair of them, their words turning and tumbling in his head. Was
there any chance they were right? Sure, he’d found his Dom space, and that had been
awesome. Addicting. Life altering. But what had Bailey been feeling? She’d liked their
kisses. Even when they’d been rough and he’d pressed her up against the wall, she
hadn’t objected one whit. In fact, she hadn’t seemed anything but turned on when they’d
been arguing just before he’d taken her across his lap. Maybe . . . she just wasn’t
ready to trust him, and who could blame her?

Oh, hell. What did it matter? He’d brought her here to protect her, not start a relationship
or explore his Dominant side with her. This chapter of their lives was probably better
put behind them. In a few days, he hoped to have these freaks from LOSS pinned, driven
back, or roped up—something. He and Bailey would go their separate ways. End of story.

Except something inside him didn’t like that ending.

Joaquin frowned. This wanting more than a romp from a female was a first; he absolutely
didn’t know what to do. Normally, he was decisive. He delved into a situation, fixed
it, then stole back out. No harm, no foul, no worrying about how anyone felt. But
the idea of doing that again made his gut tighten in objection. That fucking wasn’t
happening. He wasn’t really sure why it mattered. It just did.

Who did he have in his life? He sat back in his chair. His best friend had been gone
a couple of weeks. He’d barely had time to bury Nate or be astounded by the fact that,
when they’d finally tracked down his next of kin, they discovered that he hadn’t spoken
to any of them in almost a decade. They hadn’t seemed shocked at the news of his death,
and barely saddened. Is that how Joaquin wanted his mother or sisters to react when
some asshole’s bullet found him?

It shouldn’t matter. It never had before . . . but somehow it did now. And he wanted
it to matter to Bailey, too.

Wait!
How did spanking the woman and her liking it, or not, have anything to do with his
connection to his family? Jesus, he was losing it.

“Thanks for the pep talk, but it’s a moot point. I doubt I’ll be spanking her again.
She’s made herself clear, and I need her consent to stay here way more than I need
her okay to paddle her. I just wanted to be aboveboard and tell you what happened.”

“Was she breathing hard?” Thorpe ignored his speech and asked.

“Yeah. She was scared.”

“Maybe . . .” The club owner shrugged. “Maybe not.”

“Were her cheeks flushed? Her nipples hard? See any of the usual arousal signs?” Sean
asked.

Honestly, he hadn’t thought to look as soon as she’d begged him to stop touching her.
“Just drop it. It’s done.”

“If that’s what you want, sure.” Thorpe sent him a cavalier glance that said if he
didn’t pursue this, he was an idiot. “The truth is, I think you need this in your
life. I suspect she needs this even more. She feels scared and everything is beyond
her control. The opportunity to be with someone who can make her feel protected and
will assume the responsibility for her onto his shoulders is something she craves,
I’ll bet. But you can’t know for sure unless you two communicate.”

Yeah, communicating wasn’t exactly his bag. Joaquin often forgot that something went
down better if he sugarcoated it. He winced as he imagined himself suggesting to Bailey
that she’d obviously liked him beating her ass and that he didn’t appreciate her making
him feel like a douche about it. Hell, that would make him sound like some sort of
creepy misogynist rape-happy prick. No thanks.

“Point taken. Now I need to check in on her.” Because that sounded like as much fun
as gouging his eyes out with a screwdriver.

Joaquin headed for the door, but Thorpe’s voice stopped him short. “Talk to her. Or
I will.”

He whipped around and leveled the Dungeon Master with a pissed-off glare. Being under
this roof kept Bailey safe, but it was starting to come at a steep price.

“Don’t meddle in my life,” he warned. “I did you the courtesy of informing you. I
didn’t ask for your advice.”

“It wasn’t advice. It wasn’t a suggestion, either. You have until lunch to talk to
her or I will take her aside and ask her some very personal questions until I get
to the bottom of this.”

“Why the fuck would you do that? I said I wouldn’t touch her again.”

Thorpe sat back, raised a brow. “Don’t make that promise. Based on the way you look
at her, I don’t think you can keep it. Besides, I won’t have her upset about anything
more than the assholes hunting her down. I especially won’t have her worried enough
to call the police.”

“Use your head.” Sean’s voice might be a bit softer, but the message wasn’t. “What
happens if these thugs track you down? What happens if you have to flee with Bailey
suddenly . . . only she doesn’t trust you enough to take your outstretched hand? Could
that hesitation cost both of you your lives? Do you want to take that chance?”

*   *   *

BAILEY was sitting on the bed, towel drying her hair, when she heard a knock. She
tensed, but rose to answer the door. Then remembered that Joaquin had locked it last
night after he’d spanked her and run.
Son of a bitch.

Cautiously, she approached the door. If he’d come back to berate her or rev her up
and flee again, he would find that she didn’t have much to say. Making sure the borrowed
robe covered the essentials, she leaned against the solid portal. “Who is it?”

“Callie. I’ve got your breakfast.”

So Joaquin wouldn’t even feed her now? Because he was worried? Embarrassed? Ashamed?
It shouldn’t matter, but Bailey still wished she knew the answer.

“Come in,” she told the other woman.

A moment later, Callie unlocked the door, holding a plate in one hand, with a paper
shopping bag dangling from the other.

After she shoved the keys in yet another designer bag, the woman looked up with a
smile. “A bagel and some fruit?”

As Bailey took the plate, she frowned. She was hungry, and now probably wasn’t the
time to mention her usual high-protein, low-sugar nutrition. “Thank you.”

“And some more clothes. I shopped for you a bit. I hope that’s okay.”

Anything Callie brought her would be better than the nothing she’d come with. Not
to mention the fact that the woman had great taste.

“Absolutely.” She took the bag from Callie’s outstretched hand. Inside lay some yoga
pants, workout shirts, a few new thongs and bras—all in the right sizes—and a pair
of flip-flops. How had Callie known the sort of wardrobe she preferred? “This is perfect.
Thank you.”