Hostile Takeover (5 page)

While she hadn’t been completely prepared for the emotional impact of his rejection, she had anticipated something like it happening. There were always snags in a negotiation, setbacks. The key was a backup plan, and she had one. When she’d come up with it, she’d wondered if she’d have the bravery to pull it off. Now, galvanized not only by his stubbornness and anger, but those moments she’d seen and felt something entirely different from him, she had the courage to use a battering ram if necessary.

As the cab moved away, leaving him behind, it gave her the space to take some deep breaths, marshal her thoughts. It was time to stop reminding him of the child she’d been and hit him full force with the woman she
was
.

* * * * *

Ben brought the choker back out. It was still warm from her skin. Staring at the forget-me-nots pressed under the glass, he knew he needed to go to Progeny himself. He’d find a submissive, fuck her brains out, work her over hard. He’d pay a staff member to do the aftercare so he could walk away. Finish out the night at his favorite bar filled with questionable characters and the odor of stale beer. He might get a drink, or two or three. The Irishman’s crutch. He knew the dangers. Which was why he’d probably go straight to the bar.

Progeny wasn’t where he wanted to be. Doing a scene with a submissive required precision, control, artistry. A mutual exchange of pleasure. What he needed was a down and dirty whore, one who’d blow him off, let him fuck her in the ass with enthusiasm, and then leave him with a knowing half-smile and a pocketful of his money.

In the past when this mood took him, he’d go find one of the guys, hang out at a sports bar or one of the classy burlesque clubs, eye naked females, and it would be okay after a while. When Peter had been single, they’d often trawl the streets together until dawn. It was why they’d called the ex-National Guard captain Nightcrawler. Ben had even given him an original signed cover of the famous comic book character for his birthday. It was framed on the wall of Peter’s office.

But things were different now. Savannah was seven months pregnant. Matt wasn’t going out in the evenings right now, because her pregnancy hadn’t been an easy one and she was on bedrest until the baby came. Lucas and Cass still had three of her siblings at home, Cherry, Talia and Nate. He could call Peter and Dana, or Jon and Rachel, but it felt wrong. It all felt wrong.

He’d told her she was asking for trouble, and she’d parried with that half-smile, the taunt in her gaze. But she hadn’t been making light of the threat it was, and that made it worse. If she would act like a clueless kid, reckless and naïve, he could brush it off easier. But the knowledge was in her eyes.

She wasn’t experienced; if she’d been to a club, he’d bet money she’d only watched, not participated or given herself to a Master. Something ugly tightened in his chest at the thought of her being anywhere near a Dom in that setting. He pushed past that. No, she wasn’t experienced, but she understood. She knew what she was, what he was. She was daring him to let it loose, wanting to see if she could handle what he’d dish out.

He thought about calling Lucas, sounding him out on it, then played out how that conversation would go. “Hey, just wondering. Did you know your wife’s little sister is a submissive, and oh, by the way, have you been taking her to clubs to have her ass smacked by random Doms?”

Oh yeah. That would go over well. Luc would say, “Stay right there, Ben. I’ll be by directly with a baseball bat to beat your fucking brains into the sidewalk.”

He returned to the table, paid the check. He had some work he could handle at the office, but he wasn’t in the mood to go back and do that either. Jesus, she’d be there tomorrow. Alice was gone for two weeks. It was too much to hope he’d taken care of the problem tonight, spooked her. He’d read the stubborn jut of that chin when she got in the cab. She’d been one breath short of telling the driver to ignore his directions and take her to Progeny. If she’d done it, he would have yanked her out of the cab and blistered her ass right there up against it until she was moaning…

Holy fuck.
He’d walked down the street several blocks, and now he decided to sit down on a bench. Seedier elements who kept an eye out for the solitary pedestrian traffic gave him considering looks and he met their gazes square on.
Yeah, you want to be fucked up, you give it your best shot.

There were some working girls, and he motioned to one of them. When she approached, he shook his head before she could start her spiel. Instead, he nodded to the cigarettes in her purse. “A fifty for one of those and a light, darling.”

“For a fifty, I’ll give you two, sugar.” When he handed over the cash, she proffered the two cigarettes. He cupped his hands over hers to protect the flame as she used her lighter. She had wicked long nails, scarlet with some flashy stuff on it. Nodding, he sat back, and she trawled back to her friends, recognizing a man who wanted to be alone. Good whore. On another night, he might have taken a second look. Yeah right. He hadn’t tapped that risky kind of pussy since he was a dumb-ass teenager.

Drawing deep, he closed his eyes and laid his head back against the wall of the old brick building behind the bench.

Marcie lost her virginity at nineteen. Christ on a cupcake, she’d called him to talk about it. He’d given up lecturing her on what was appropriate to discuss with him. The last time he’d tried, she’d teased him, told him he was her best girlfriend, earning a snort. Then she’d become more serious.

You listen. You always give me the right kind of advice, and you know when not to give me any at all. You’re my friend, Ben.

She didn’t know him or what he was. He and that whore had way more in common. It was showing in the smoking, in the proliferation of f-words in his vocabulary lately. His increasing apathy about all of it.

Marcie had sex at nineteen. By the time he was nineteen, he hadn’t been a virgin for years. Those experiences weren’t innocent gropings in the back of a Mustang. They were the type of memories best left buried like the rotting corpses they were.

He didn’t want to dwell in those dark spaces, so he thought back to that phone call. In truth, he’d been surprised she’d waited that late, given that most teens these days lost their virginity in high school. She’d stumbled around a bit, but she’d wanted to talk about it. The guy had been an okay sort who’d done a decent job, not completely screwed up. She didn’t say so baldly, but he could tell she hadn’t had an orgasm, not unusual for a girl’s first time, but she’d felt those stirrings that suggested it could go that way sometime down the road. He’d confirmed her experience was normal. Without endorsing her going out on a Debbie-Does-Dallas pilgrimage to find the ultimate orgasm, he’d told her it would get better.

He’d cautioned her to be careful, told her what to watch out for. She’d gotten a little teary. After he made sure the tears were just typical female catharsis over an important turning point, and not because Bill What’s-His-Name needed to have his dick twisted off, he’d reassured her they were normal too.

Not too long after that, the letters and calls stopped coming so regularly. Cass had said she didn’t have a steady boyfriend, so Bill hadn’t lasted. However, dinner tonight clearly suggested she’d figured a lot of things out, and not just about sex.

Was the brat smart enough to realize the importance of that break in contact with him, setting a clear demarcation line between the relationship that had existed between man and teenager then, and man and woman now? Plotting it out so she could show up in his life as a sexy, grown-up young woman, homing in on him like a sleek barracuda? That kind of calculation was a bit scary, but she’d always been precocious.

She had self-confidence, determination, and the Dom in him who recognized it, recognized what she was, hungered for it. He wanted to hurt her, give her pain, and she acted like she’d welcome it. She was off limits, but a big portion of him—entendre intended—was just not giving a rat’s ass. The combination of innocence and sexual drive made her damn near irresistible.

So if that was all there was to it, why wasn’t he going to a club to blow off steam? Or calling up his preferred reputable escort service to take care of his more functional and dangerous cravings?

Because she was in his head. Hell, her scent was still on his clothes, where she’d rubbed up against him during the dancing. He’d smiled at her during the Cajun two-step, and kept smiling. It was hard not to appreciate her, especially when she was utterly serious and yet had that dancing light in her eyes.

It had reminded him of something he couldn’t deny. While he may have helped the teenage Marcie let loose and laugh again, her dry wit and self-deprecation, unexpected for her years, coupled with the occasional dose of teenage omniscience on every subject, had kept him grinning and impressed back then. Plus, as the others had found their “one” and gotten married, affecting him in ways he hadn’t expected, she’d seemed to understand when it was getting to him. She’d loosened up things inside him about that.

That was the problem, wasn’t it? His relationships with women were about the physical, and the pure psychology of D/s. Marcie had an emotional connection to him he couldn’t deny, something no other woman—other than the K&A wives who had more clear boundaries—had with him.

He imagined her eating that dessert at home, alone, the chocolate melting in her mouth. The tines of the fork imprinting on her lips, her moist tongue coming out to catch a bit of sweet. He could see her brown eyes, thinking over the evening, analyzing, planning her next attack. Hell, Marcie had started studying for her SATs when she was eleven. Superhuman focus and drive was a family trait. Except in her older brother Jeremy, unless you counted a superhuman determination to self-destruct.

He drew on the cigarette again, a shadow passing through his mind at the thought. It had been awhile since he’d asked Lucas how that was going. For the past few years, Cass went to Thailand monthly to visit Jeremy. She took one of the kids with her each time. Sometimes Lucas went. Through him, Ben knew Marcie had made the trip a few times as well. But the last report Lucas had given the group said Jeremy’s time was running out.

Of course, if Jon hadn’t found that clinic trying an alternative treatment, and mixed it up with some Eastern hocus pocus by having Jeremy stay in a Buddhist temple near the clinic, the kid would have been dead over six years ago. With full-blown AIDS, he’d been living every day on borrowed time, a fucking miracle. Of course, all of them were living on borrowed time, weren’t they?

Lately it felt like he wasn’t doing shit with his.

Jesus, he wasn’t even fit company for himself. He was beating himself up for sending her off in that cab. He thought of the way she’d sneaked in those little brushes of her body, her wandering hands during their dance. He’d had her turned against him once, her backside soft against his groin. It would have been so easy to cup her breasts, hold her tighter against him, bury his nose in her hair.

He was going to go home, stand naked under a cold shower, wrap his fingers around his dick and jack off until his legs buckled. He already knew he’d be imagining her on her knees, working him in her mouth, that blonde hair slick on her skull. He’d probably have to spurt three or four times tonight. When he was finally drained, he’d lie in bed, stare at the blinking light of a mute television, make his way through a bottle of whiskey, and try not to think about the fact he was starting to backslide into a person he’d vowed he’d never be again. But the monsters were always waiting, weren’t they?

Some shit was best not stirred up, and she was like a great big wooden spoon, ready to attack that cauldron with a double-fisted grip. She’d get scalded, and he couldn’t allow that.

Marcie: I can’t believe you couriered French bread and capellini to me in a warmer. It was so fresh, it was as if I was sitting in the kitchen at home watching you pull it out of the oven. The only thing more perfect would have been if you brought it yourself, though maybe that wouldn’t be a good idea, since half the girls on the floor are now in love with you.

Ben: Hmm… Not really interested in the “in love” part, but a floor of co-eds in lust with me? I’ll be right there. That Mercedes you’re always mocking can do well over a hundred on interstate. Prepare the Jell-O tub and wet T-shirts.

Marcie: Pig. Yes, your car is fast, but you have to stop for gas every hour. Of course, it was pretty thrilling, taking it from 0 to 60 in four seconds. But I’ll deny it if you tell any of my green friends.

Ben: That’s green with envy, brat, not eco-conscious. And you better not tell Cassandra I let you do that. She’ll want to do it too. I only let you do it because you nagged incessantly.

Phone call between Ben and Marcie, freshman year

Chapter Three

“You know, all the greats—Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth—they could pick up any old bat and hit it out of the park. You only need a caveman’s club if you can’t hit the side of a barn without one.”

“Just keep telling yourself that, Luc. Whatever you need to feel good about that inferior equipment of yours.”

Jon snorted, coming into Ben’s office. “Glad to see you two are getting some real work done this morning.”

Ben braced his foot against the side of his desk as he drank his morning coffee. He eyed Lucas, who had his ass planted on the arm of his couch. “You know Lucas can’t resist talking about my dick. It fascinates him.”