Jenna's Consent (22 page)

Nick.

She lifted her hand that still had the belt in it and stared
at it, as if it might give her answers to life’s current mysteries. Dropping it
seemed disrespectful so she handed it up to him and he slid it through her
grasp until her hand finally fell.

She lowered her head to the ground feigning being tired—she
was, but it wasn’t the real reason.

Shame.

She brushed her fingertips against the lock on her collar
and stiffened on the realization that she’d just broken every rule Nick had
given her to follow.

She wasn’t worthy of his affection. But that didn’t make her
crave it any less. Earning it now? She shook her head. Thinking about him and
what she’d just done made her tear up.

Ian must have seen her because he lit into her.

“Guess you finally got what you were looking for.”

His snarl pissed her off. She got up from her knees,
straightening her skirt with a huff. “Not hardly.” She hated that he made it
sound dirty. Before she knew it was Ian, that time with Nick had been
wonderful. His…care for her, even when she denied her own needs revealed so
much more about him.

He wasn’t what she assumed him to be.

Realizing she probably didn’t deserve him made her defensive
and she took it out on the person standing in front of her.

She kicked off her heels as she faced him with her hands on
her hips. Facing him down felt great. Keeling over because her legs were Jell-O
wasn’t going to win her any brownie points. It only stood to multiply the
persona she was trying to put off—the one that said she was nothing but a cum
slut for him.

“How the fuck do you figure that? You got a ménage. Who
knows how many you’ve had in the years since we’ve been together. Are you
satisfied yet?”

He somehow came across pretentious and hurt at the same
time. His ability to look down his nose at her had no limits, considering he
was between her legs the whole time, eating her pussy. His cock was more than
just a little bit hard after she came the first time.

“Are you?” She had no problems answering his questions with
a question, especially as he effectively ruined her post-orgasm state of
fantasmagorical.

“What about me?” He wound his belt back into his belt loops,
tucked his still semi-hard cock back into his pants and zipped the fly.

“Are you satisfied yet, Mr. High and Mighty?”

“If you were mine I never would have shared you. And me
slaking my need to be with you is going to take a whole hell of a lot more than
a thirty-minute fuck and a quickie blowjob.”

He advanced on her and she not only stuck her ground but
took a step toward him, standing there toe-to-toe as he huffed—and puffed—and…

The lock bounced against Nick’s collar as Ian flicked it
with his fingers.

“Don’t make the mistake of thinking that little piece of
metal and a circle of leather is going to keep me from taking you back.”

“I’m not a fucking bone,” she bit out as he turned on his
heel and headed for the door.

Did he say anything else on the way out the door before he
slammed it?

Nope.

Not a word, not a phrase, not an inkling about what he had
planned for her.

“Asshole.” She grabbed a chair from the dining room and
carried it back to the entry way. She shoved it underneath her front door
handle, locking the handle and the dead bolt for good measure.

Under normal circumstances she wouldn’t be so paranoid but
Ian was like Houdini with locks.

The last thing she needed was a surprise visitor in the
middle of the night to borrow a cup of sugar or a box of tissues or another
orgasm.

She needed every moment between then and the next night at
The Library because she was going to have to deal with, not only one but two
angry Doms.

The freezer—more specifically the ice cream she promised
herself—called her name.

“Jenna. Eat me. I’m so delicious.”

She rubbed her temples, refusing to admit to the extent of
her exhaustion and definitely not wanting to fall asleep with the taste of Ian
still coating her tongue.

She shook her head as she made it into the kitchen.

“Sugar high, here I come. Midnight snack of champions.”

Gossip in a BDSM club traveled faster than the winner of the
NASCAR 500.

Nick had been aware of that fact for years, being in the
scene for long enough everyone runs into rumormongers here and there.

Most people did tend to stay out of other people’s business
but then sometimes the gossip was so good that even the best, most honorable
people couldn’t help themselves.

It was a fact of life, like death and taxes.

But he was normally on the outside looking in. Like watching
ants scurrying around, carrying little bits of sand—or information—talking
about something that may or may not have happened the night before.

This time he wasn’t on the outside watching. He was in the
middle of the nest, wanting to knock the information out of people’s heads until
those aforementioned heads rolled on the damn ground.

The knowledge that Bryan had effectively hogtied his
submissive and hauled her into her own room where her tied her, cuffed her and
argued with her was spreading like scandal at a church convention.

He’d already watched the footage of Bryan—Ian—the dead man,
carting Jenna out of the playroom. He’d followed them on his new cameras
through all the hallways, up to her space and watched him trussing her up as if
she were a kinky virgin sacrifice being prepared for slaughter.

He’d heard their argument, seen her face when Ian had her on
his lap and had seen the kiss—several times, on several camera angles.

Sitting at The Library bar, he nursed a rum and coke while
trying to wrap his mind around the fact that he’d made the huge tactical error
of bringing Ian into the fold with him and Jenna.

That was on him and he’d belly up to the plate.

His stomach knotted because he cared about it.

Trying to tell himself it was just because his property did
something wrong wasn’t working.

Admitting it was because he had feelings for her in—God
forbid—any kind of emotional way, made him feel like he needed to have a
pedicure and join a bridge club.

So there he sat, alternately giving his reflection and Oscar
dirty looks. While the later lobbed them right back.

“Did you know?” he finally accused Oscar as he plunked his drink
down onto the sturdy wood.

Oscar threw the towel over his shoulder. “Know what? That
our new security head was why Jenna hasn’t slept well in weeks? No, I didn’t
know who he was to her. But he had to hurt her something awful before, if she
actually raised a fist to him how many years later.”

Nick did have to give her a bit of credit for her right hook.
If she’d put more weight behind it and connected, she could have laid him flat.

He shook his head, trying desperately to pay attention to
Oscar since he was the one who’d started the conversation.

“So, no, man. I didn’t know. Sure as hell wish I had though
so I could have warned her. She did seem a bit shocked. I hope she gave him a
concussion. Asshole.” Oscar mumbled the last word under his breath.

Nick didn’t know if he was speaking out about him or Ian. He
decided to change topics because he already wanted to punch something again.

“Do you know if she at least got home okay? And is she all
right this morning? She’s not returning my phone messages.”

Oscar nodded, tugging the towel from his shoulder. “She’s
fine. Apparently needs to buy stock in ice cream now but other than that she’s
physically okay.”

“Mentally?” he asked, already knowing the answer based on Oscar’s
eye-roll.

“How do you think she is? She effectively had the biggest
ghost from her past stomp up in her face in a very public way. She was totally
fucked from the moment she saw him and now is stuck between a rock and a hard
place.”

“I’m not him.” Nick grimaced as he squeezed his beer bottle
again.

“Not yet.”

Oscar walked off before Nick could counter what he said. His
mood went from bad to worse when the owners walked up and sat on either side of
him at the bar.

Chris started, growling at Nick since that was about the
only level of speaking he had. He didn’t beat around the bush or make small
talk before getting to the point. “We knew he was part of your ménage with
Jenna but we didn’t know if the scene continued afterward so we figured we’d
see what happened and intervene if things went too far.”

Jared continued, “If we’d have known what was really going
on, we would have put our foot down immediately. We never would have let him
continue and we never would have agreed to him taking Jenna anywhere. That’s on
us. We fucked up.”

Nick took a swig of his beer, holding it to his lips for a
few seconds longer than necessary. He swallowed with a grimace, setting the
beer down. It didn’t even taste good and he wondered why he kept picking it
back up again.

“I’ll handle it.”

“We’re sure you will. Need anything from us?”

“Ian’s pink slip in his inbox by the end of the day would
make me feel just peachy.”

Jared ran a hand over his head. Looked like he wasn’t all that
shocked by the request. “We can’t do that.”

“Why the fuck not? He lied—”

“He didn’t lie.”

The beer was halfway to his lips again and he clunked it
down, drawing several stares from around the bar. Who the fuck cared?

“He sure as hell lied about knowing Jenna.”

“No, he didn’t,” Chris responded. “We knew he had a previous
relationship with her. We didn’t know how much of a relationship but he did
tell us he knew her and more than just a ‘hey how are you’.”

“So he lied.”

“Look,” Jared began again. “Are we thrilled he wasn’t
totally straight with us? No. But what he did tell us about knowing her years
ago was all true. She’s always been impervious to guys hitting on her. Who
would have known she’d been so affected by some guy?”

“I knew.”

Jared chuckled, staring at him with a “what the fuck” face.
“That’s because you’re some kind of bondage version of Cupid.”

Crickets
.

“Huh? What the hell are you talking about?”

“You helped us out with Cyn, then Kyle and Haleigh with
Scott. You even helped Jackson with Skye, even though you had misgivings
because of her friendship with Jenna. Can’t believe you don’t prance around
here with a little set of a bow and arrows.”

He shook his head, trying to come up with something to say.
“I don’t prance. I leave that up to Oscar.”

Without pausing in filling a drink order he shot Nick the
bird. Whether he heard him or he was still mad at him for supposedly hurting
Jenna, he didn’t know. Nor did he really want to know since everything was so
fucked at the moment.

“I’m no Cupid,” he countered. “All of that was sex only.”

Jared downright guffawed in his face. Chris cracked a smile,
totally freaking him the fuck out. To the tune of, he almost fell off his stool
when Chris actually laughed.

“Uh-huh,” Chris muttered, drying his eyes.

“You’re both a bunch of assholes. Remind me why I work for
you again? Especially since I don’t need to.”

“The warm and cheery working environment?” Jared asked.

“The free booze?” Chris pondered at the same time.

“It sure isn’t the competent management. I helped my friends
out so they could get laid. Hell, so I could get laid. Nothing more.”

“We’re going to sell tickets and laugh our asses off when
you finally belly up to the bar in regards to Jenna.”

“I’m not in love with her and we aren’t exclusive. We didn’t
negotiate for exclusivity.”

Admitting both of those things out loud made him want to rip
someone’s nuts off. Preferably the new guy who was good and absent at the
moment.

“And what about the camera upgrade in the main stage area?
What about that from the sneaky bastard?”

“What upgrade?” Jared asked with a tilt of his head and a
bit more concentration clear on his face.

Nick pulled his phone out, logging into the DVR that
recorded the video from the camera in question. Once he found out about who
Bryan really was, he’d gone back to the night he’d untied her. He’d discovered
then that the camera could move, which was not on the list of upgraded cameras.

What was he trying to hide?

“Watch.” He brought up a secondary PTZ menu and
electronically controlled the camera, moving it back and forth and zooming in
on something across the room.

“Fuck.”

Nick’s self-righteous indignation puffed up as if it were
walking down the beach with a group of pretty girls sauntering toward him.

“That’s awesome!”

Nick deflated, banging his head against the bar.

“I didn’t know our phones could do that. Did you, C?”

Chris snatched the phone out of Nick’s hand to manipulate
the controls himself.

“Can we focus? It’s not on the list of one of the upgraded
cameras. So he lied about that one.”

“Actually that was the demo camera he installed to show us
what the new ones could do. It didn’t have to be on the list because both of us
already knew it had been altered.”

“He didn’t disclose it to me.”

“You’re really arguing he should be fired for doing his
job?” Jared asked without even trying to hide the self-satisfaction in his
rhetorical question.

“We all have a past. Changes us. We all handle it
differently,” Chris admitted it, handing Nick’s phone back to him. “We’ll be
discussing the rules a bit more clearly with him since we now know he didn’t
have express permission to touch Jenna after his scene with you the other
night.”

“Thank fuck—”

“But…” Jared practically sang as he added that
three-lettered word. “We also didn’t have anything stating that he was
forbidden to touch her either. At least for the thirty days Jenna is yours.”

“Consider this your memo.”

Jared shook his head. “You of all people should know that’s
not how it works. We can’t remember shit from day-to-day without having things
written down and filed.”

Nick swiped angrily on his keyboard, sending an email with
those directives, nothing more. “There. It’s in writing. He doesn’t touch her
unless I withdraw the order or Jenna takes her collar off.”

“Speaking of Jenna.” Nick followed Jared’s gaze toward the
entry door. “Looks like you’re up.”

Jenna walked in, wearing a lavender corset, jet-black
leather pants and fuck-me heels that he really wanted to test drive.

His cock throbbed, instantly hard for her no matter how
angry he was at her. Ian and himself were more apt targets for his wrath, if he
was truly being honest.

He stood, striding toward her, not having a fucking clue
what he was going to say to her.

But one way or another, they were going to come to some kind
of understanding or he’d find a way to walk away.

God almighty—she smelled like peaches.