Insolence

Lex
Valentine

Aric Calderwood discovers that a decade as a Dom is no match
for his long-repressed feelings for a woman he’s known since childhood. Owner
of Insolence, a BDSM club, Aric’s been immersed in the lifestyle. When his best
friend, the normally cocky Ainsley Connor, turns up at Insolence and offers to
be his sub for the weekend, Aric is shocked. Ainsley’s no submissive, but even
so, Aric can’t resist her. Once he touches Ainsley, Aric’s control is
overwhelmed by unrelenting lust and a flood of confusing emotion. The sex, both
vanilla and kinky, is hotter than anything he’s ever experienced. But two days
of Ainsley in his bed, at his command, changes everything between them. He
can’t go back to just being friends. The intimacy he shared with Ainsley shows
Aric what he’s been missing in his life and he realizes that regardless of
whether she’s submissive or insolent, all he wants is her.

A
Romantica®
contemporary erotic romance
from Ellora’s Cave

Of all the clubs she could have walked into, she had to
pick mine
, Aric thought sourly, paraphrasing his favorite actor’s famous
quote. She spelled trouble for him and he would rather do without the headache.
When she sat down at the bar, he waved off the regular bartender and headed
over to her.

Sleek strands of chocolate-colored silk spilled over her
shoulders. His fingers twitched with the need to touch them but he pushed away
that need as he had every time he’d felt it over the years. A spike of
annoyance went through him. Last night he’d told her not to come to Insolence, yet
here she was. Disobedience didn’t sit well with him, and with everyone other
than her he didn’t tolerate it. This time, he wouldn’t tolerate it from her
either.

A pale, heart-shaped face turned up to his as he stopped in
front of her, the width of the bar’s gleaming surface between them. Peridot
eyes gazed at him defiantly and his gut clenched. He really didn’t need this
tonight. She would have to go.

“I’ll have a Jack and Coke,” she said in a firm voice that
did nothing to hide the sensual, husky cadence of her natural tones.

“I don’t think so,” Aric replied, crossing his arms over his
chest.

Her eyes narrowed and Aric resisted the urge to check his
chest for a poison dart. He’d seen her level that intense glare on other men
and had to admit he’d enjoyed their discomfiture. He had a soft spot for her
determination, but this time the glare was directed at him. He hardened his
heart against her. She didn’t belong at Insolence and he’d told her so. Showing
up here in spite of his warning threw his annoyance into high gear. No one
disobeyed Aric Calderwood. He was probably the most powerful Dom in the
community, yet one pushy, bossy woman thought nothing of thumbing her nose at
his orders.

“It’s just a drink, Aric. I’m not here to poach on your
subs.”

The hard, determined expression on Ainsley’s face reminded
Aric of the last time she’d been in town. They’d met for dinner as they usually
did. They’d chatted about the same stuff they usually did. Yet Ainsley had
seemed different. Her demeanor came off edgier than usual and held a hint of
despair he didn’t want to speculate on. When she’d hit town yesterday they’d
gone to dinner again, but this time Ainsley’s despair had been replaced with
belligerence.

“That’s not the impression I got from you last night, Ains.”
He leaned over the bar, bringing his face closer to hers. “You said you wanted
to come here. You said you were interested in the lifestyle. I know you, Ains.
You’re a loose cannon, and I won’t have that in my world.”

Her pale-green eyes flashed and for a moment, Aric could
have sworn he saw hurt there before defiance took over. “In all the years we’ve
known each other, I never realized you didn’t like me,” she said in a flat
tone, a muscle twitching in her jaw.

“Don’t put words in my mouth.” Anger speared through him.
Talking to Ainsley when she was in this kind of mood would try the patience of
a saint, and he stood completely on the opposite end of the spectrum from that
status. “I’ve liked you since the first grade. We go to dinner every time you
come to town. We talk on the phone a few times a month. Hell, I talk to you
more than I talk to my own father. You’re my best friend, but that doesn’t mean
I will ignore what you’re like. You’re a whirlwind sweeping everything before
it. I like my world ordered not chaotic, especially at Insolence.”

Ainsley put her hands flat on the bar. Aric glanced at the
long, elegant fingers and his gut tightened again. He hated how she had the
ability to tie him in knots with just a touch or a look. She’d had that effect
on him from the moment they met as children and Aric had spent his life hiding
it from her and denying to himself what it could mean. When she spoke, her
voice lowered to a register that sent warning bells through his mind.

“I just want to—”

Aric sucked in a breath. He didn’t want to hear what she
wanted. Didn’t know if he could take it. Ruthlessly he cut off her explanation.
“You just want to pick out a nice sub and have some simple fun just like any
other dominant female in here.”

Aware that his harsh words were fueled by anger at his lack
of self-control around her, Aric felt the warning bells become an acute alarm.
He didn’t
care
what she wanted. She’d disobeyed him. The urge to punish
her set his senses alight and he fought for control. Only Ainsley had ever been
able to shake his much-vaunted self-possession. All the more reason to keep her
out of his club and out of his world, except for on the periphery where she’d
stood since they graduated from high school and went their separate ways.

“I know you, Ainsley. Nothing is ever simple with you and I
won’t have you turning my place into some kind of flesh auction or wrestling
pit as the subs fight to be with you!”

The shimmer in her eyes might have been tears if he thought
she had it in her to cry. In all the years he’d known her, he couldn’t remember
ever seeing her cry.

“Don’t put words in
my
mouth,” she shot back, her
eyes definitely damp.

The warning bells inside him turned from an alarm into
full-blown sirens as the emotion in her eyes deepened. No way. In a million
years, he would not believe that Ainsley Connor could cry. Slug someone who
hurt her? Yeah. Drop-kick someone who put her down? Absolutely. Cry? Never!

“I don’t want a sub, Aric. That’s not why I’m here.”

He stared at her, the inexorable fact of her tears glaring
back at him. Shock rippled through him and he suddenly wanted to kill whoever
had made her so vulnerable that tears misted her beautiful eyes.

“Then why are you here, Ainsley? Why did you disobey me?”

She turned her hands over, palms up. She pushed them across
the bar toward him. “I want you to punish me for disobeying you, Aric.” The
soft words barely registered above the noise of the music and the raucousness
of the crowd. “I’m here to be
your
sub.”

Aric took a step back from the bar. Her words slammed into
him almost physically. No. Fucking. Way. She was no submissive. He knew it. She
led. She never followed. She created chaos wherever she went. She didn’t have a
submissive bone in her six-foot-tall body.

Those eyes glittered up at him and her lush mouth turned
down at the corners. “You’ve known me longer than anyone else, so I thought
maybe you would understand why I came. I can see I was wrong.”

Her words sounded choked, her voice thick from the tears.
She curled her fingers into her palms and pulled her hands back toward her
body.

Acting solely on instinct, Aric snapped his hands out and
caught her wrists, clamping down, her fingers biting into his palms as he held
her immobile. Emotion began to unfurl within him. “Why?”

Now the eyes turned angry and defiant, their expression
familiar to him.

“Because this is who I have always longed to be. Who you
never
let
me be.” Her whispered words rasped harshly, raw with emotion.

Aric’s heart rate had pretty much gone into cardiac-arrest
zone. It beat so fast and hard, he expected it to stop at any moment. Ainsley
spelled danger. To him. For him. She always had, so he’d made it a point to
keep part of himself back from her. In the beginning it hadn’t been that way,
but somewhere during their junior high years, he’d figured out that she had the
rare ability to get beneath his skin as no one else could. He’d begun to keep
parts of himself from her.

Looking at her now, he thought perhaps she had done the same
thing, because he sure as hell didn’t recognize this wet-eyed woman who asked
him to dominate and punish her. Her lower lip quivered just a tiny bit, giving
away her lack of confidence.

A crack in Aric’s defenses appeared. The wall within him
suddenly gave way. Ainsley had been a model of confidence the entire time he’d
known her. He’d always admired that in her. As he got older, the admiration had
turned to desire. But she was his best friend and he couldn’t take advantage of
that. Now he could not let another man—another Dom—take advantage of what he
knew must be a temporary weakness on her part. To keep her safe, he would risk
anything, including his heart.

As desire swept through him, freed at last from a place deep
inside where he’d banished it years before, he realized that being with her
would challenge his control, his self-confidence and the plans he’d made for
his life. He didn’t know what would happen after being with her, but he knew it
would change everything.

His fingers eased on her wrists, his thumbs stroking over
the wild pulse that beat there. He liked that her reaction to him seemed
intense despite her stillness. She let her hands lay lax in his grasp, not
initiating any move herself. Unbidden, the thought rose in his mind,
just
like a good sub
.

He tugged at her hands and she lifted her eyes to his, a
question in their depths. He fought back a smile. A good sub wouldn’t have done
that, raised her eyes without permission, but he understood why she had. They
were in public and nothing was settled between them. She had a right to question
his intent.

“Let’s go up to my place.”

Confusion filled her face. “Not the dungeon?” She glanced
over her shoulder at the entrance to the club’s play area.

Revulsion rose within him, shocking in its intensity. He’d
been a Dom for nearly a decade, but the thought of parading her through the
dungeon, of dominating her and fucking her in front of the club’s patrons
turned his stomach. Bile rose in his throat. This was too personal for the
club. She meant too much to him. No way could he do anything to her in public.
Besides, his body already trembled at the thought of making love to her. He
didn’t think he could control himself enough to participate in a scene with
her. But since she didn’t know that, he’d give her a taste of his dominance,
get his libido under control and then find out just why the hell she’d come to
him asking to be his sub.

“No,” he said firmly. “You’re my best friend. I don’t fuck
people I care about in public, nor do I participate in public scenes with them.
We’re going up to my apartment.”

Aric released her hands and stepped around the end of the
bar. Ainsley in low-heeled shoes was eye level with his nose. They had always
been the tallest in their class from first grade through their senior year in
high school. The fact that their names were close in the alphabet meant they
often had to sit by each other. At six years old, placed next to each other in
first grade, both of them new to the town, they had naturally latched on to
each other.

Taking one of her hands in his, Aric led her to his office
at the back of the club. Although muffled, the music still thumped the walls.
Her head swiveled slowly as she looked around curiously, but Aric had no use
for the room at the moment. Every cell in his body screamed for him to take her
upstairs to his home.

He walked over to the small elevator in the corner and put a
key in the lock. The door slid open and he ushered Ainsley into the small car.
He stepped in, facing her, and the door slid shut behind him.

“No turning back now,” he whispered as he stared into her
impassive face.

“Good.”

That single syllable fired Aric’s blood. Had the woman
before him been anyone else but Ainsley, he would not have had to continuously
caution himself to go slow. Of course no other woman would have pushed his
buttons so quickly either. From the moment he’d thought of another man
dominating her, possessiveness filled Aric and his cock had been ready to go.

For twenty years, Aric had known that to think of Ainsley in
a sexual way was courting far more trouble than he could deal with. Yet he’d
been on fire to have her the entire time. He just hadn’t wanted to acknowledge
it. Now, since she’d asked to be his sub, under his complete control, maybe he
could work out those long-held feelings of lust for his oldest and best friend.

The elevator stopped and the door opened. Cupping Ainsley’s
chin in his hand, he tilted her face toward him.

“This is it. If you step into my house, you belong to me.
You do what I say, when I say it. I do not tolerate disobedience. If I do
something you don’t like or ask you to do something you don’t want to do, you
need to say your safe word. And you will give me that word before you step out
of this elevator,” he said quietly, holding her gaze with his own. He didn’t
see a lick of fear or hesitancy there, and he knew she would agree to whatever
he said. His balls began to ache.

“Patience.”

Aric blinked, startled by her one-word response to his
warning. “What?”

Her lush lips curled into a smile. “My safe word is
patience. Can I go in now?”

Heart thudding heavily, Aric stepped back into his
apartment. When she followed, her tall, lithe frame crowding into his personal
space, he thought he would pass out from excitement. She cast her eyes down,
not even looking around at his home. His senses went into overdrive. This was
Ainsley. The girl he’d wanted to fuck from the time he’d turned twelve. And
she’d given him the right to do whatever he wanted to her. Every cell in his
body exploded with joy.

He knew what her field of vision held, his legs and the
thick ridge of his erection pressing against his zipper. She didn’t seem
curious about his apartment, didn’t try to sneak looks at it as she kept her
head slightly bent and her eyes downcast. Her nostrils had flared when she’d
stepped close to him. His scent had caught her attention. Beyond that, she
acted the perfect sub. Acted being the operative word, of course. He needed to
know if she truly wished to be his submissive.

Aric would fuck her. He’d already decided that. If that was
all she wanted, he’d give it to her and send her on her way. If her desire to
sub for him stemmed from something other than a years-long curiosity about sex
with him, however, he would have to take things to another level. Because God
knew he’d had years to wonder what it would be like to have her. Her choice of
safe word summed it all up for him. No one had ever tested his patience as
Ainsley did, nor required so much of it.