Let It Snow (70 page)

Women like Giselle weren’t allowed to break.

“Why can’t you just give in, honey? I always took care of you, whether you asked for it or not. Stop
resisting
me.” His voice took on a somber quality that made her stomach lurch and chest tighten.

“Don’t do this to me, Max.”

“You act like I’m trying to break your will, G,” he said pleadingly. “I’m
not
. I’ve never tried to break you. This has always been about give and take.”

“But you want something I’m not willing to give.”

“No. You’re not willing to take what I’m trying to give you.”

She couldn’t rebut. It was pointless. He was right…and she just couldn’t take the medicine he wanted to administer. She took a steadying breath and dragged her tongue across dry lips. “
God.
”

“We’ll hash this out later.” He gave her a small nudge into the dimly lit room. In her emotion-fueled haze, she didn’t resist.

Vaguely, she registered the sound of the door being closed and locked, and Max giving some instructions to their guests.

She sat on the padded bench near the door and wrung her hands, staring at nothing in particular.

Months ago, she’d decided the best thing for her and Max would be a clean break. No more hook-ups. No more Den of Sin encounters. Her heart couldn’t take it. She also couldn’t endure the thought that he was getting his needs met by other women when she refused him, which she so often did. She was regularly stunned by the fact he hadn’t turned cold to her after all this time. And she held out some hope that they could find some way to make this work, but she didn’t want to be that woman like her mother.

She didn’t want to lose the man she loved to his job—to
violence
on his job—and be the one left picking up the pieces. Maybe she’d hurt just as much if she weren’t his girlfriend and something happened to him, but if he
belonged
to her, chances were good she’d never recover. Her mother hadn’t, and it’d been twenty years since her father was killed overseas. Her mother was a shell of who she once was, and Giselle swore she’d always guard herself against that.

Maybe she’d be sad without Max, but damned if she was going to let him make her a young widow. He’d already been shot three times, and those were just the incidents she knew about.

She looked up to see the mousy man heeling off his shoes and unbuttoning his shirt while the other woman watched. Max spoke to the woman about various bindings. Giselle couldn’t be sure who was the one volunteering to be bound, but the man seemed far too enthusiastic.

What has Max been telling them?

Giselle stood and walked closer. She leaned against the inversion table, which was upright at the moment, and crossed her arms.

The other man continued to undress, working now on his button-up shirt.

The woman reached around her back, likely to her pencil skirt’s button.

Giselle gave Max’s leather-covered ass a pluck.

He turned to her. “Hmm?”

“What’s the plan here?” she whispered. “Are we going to watch, or what? There are other things I’d prefer to be doing right now.” It wasn’t that watching wasn’t fun. She just preferred her eye candy to be a bit less salt-of-the-Earth. If she had to guess, their male pupil would be endowed similarly to that underwhelming ice sculpture.

He shrugged. “I’m making it up as I go along as always. I generally prefer to dominate one person at a time, not three.”

“
Excuse
me?” She looked at the woman who was, naturally, looking at Max. If Max thought Giselle was going to bear witness to him getting his rocks off by some other woman’s touch, then Giselle wasn’t the only one who’d lost her damned mind.

His breath tickled the side of her face and his hand at her waist triggered her obedient turn toward him.

Dammit
. He had her trained, and she hadn’t realized it before today.

“I don’t fuck anyone else. Thought you knew that.”

“What?”

He leaned in and caught her ear between his teeth. The sting, followed by the pleasurable lick, sent wave after wave of anticipatory heat down her spine to her pussy.

“Why does that surprise you? You think a Dom can’t keep it in his pants?”

“I’m sure some can, but…” She let the words trail off, because surely he knew.

“But what?”

“But…everyone wants to fuck the Dark Dom.”

“And the Dark Dom has only let one woman near his cock in the past five years. Why do you think I’ve been through so many submissives?”

“Because you’re too picky.” Even as the words came out of her mouth, Giselle knew there was a taste of untruth about them. Max
had
been through a lot of subs, and Giselle knew that any experienced sub would have stuck around longer…unless they weren’t getting the big bang. The sexual frustration had to be unbearable. All that play and no intercourse
ever
?

She’d never considered that before, but now it made sense.

“I can’t be your submissive, Max.”

“And you can’t be my girlfriend, right? Not even that? Same line again and again.” He turned and looked at the semi-clad guests, then put his attention back on Giselle. “How about you do me a favor?” He dragged his index finger down her neck and popped her top button. Then the next one. And the next. He spread her shirt to reveal her lacy bra and let out a ragged breath. “One little favor.”

“What favor, Max?”

“I know it’s hard for you, but for two days, just pretend that nothing bad is going to happen if you give yourself to me. Today and tomorrow. Just pretend.”

“Pretending is just a pretty way to say
lie to yourself
.”

“You don’t need to have an answer for everything,” he hissed. “Think about that. You don’t always have to have the last word. It’s another way you try to assert your control when you don’t really need to have it.”

“Don’t fucking psychoanalyze me.”

“Then tell me it’s a lie.” His forehead furrowed and eyes behind his mask narrowed. “Go on and tell me what I’m saying isn’t the truth.”

She couldn’t, and she was tired of arguing. She knew that. Yeah, she ached to say something—anything—to put that cap on the conversation, but for once, she’d just listen. She’d take it all in, even if it was chewing her up from the inside out. Even if woke up that Giselle who wanted to go on angry rampages and take out her frustrations on things that couldn’t fight back—the Giselle who came out when she’d been locked away too long. That was the
deal with it
Giselle. Her methods were crude, but she always got the attention she wanted.

“Take off your clothes,” he whispered, then adjusted his mask’s string around his head and tightened his ponytail.

She hesitated only a moment, then turned her back to him and finished unbuttoning her blouse.

“So, how long have you been doing this?” the other man asked.

Max made a noncommittal noise as if he had to really think about it.

Giselle could answer it. She knew exactly how long Max had been donning leather and cracking whips even if he didn’t. She’d been angry the first time she learned of his predilections, but her coolness didn’t have anything to do with his supposed deviance. It had more to do with the company he kept. As in,
not her
. Yeah. She was just as jealous as him.

“About five years,” Max said.

She gritted her teeth as she folded her shirt. They didn’t even speak regularly five years ago. When he’d left for college, they’d lost touch. Those things happened all the time and after a while, she managed not to feel so bruised about it. But, she’d heard about some of Max’s antics in college. The clubs he frequented. How the older women flocked to him and abased themselves for him: a fucking twenty-one-year-old. Virgin to Dom in three years.

She scoffed and unhooked her shirt fastener. And now at twenty-six, he was a master. Hell of a thing to be a prodigy at.

To remove her hose, she sat facing the trio again. The pale man was ingloriously naked and standing with his hands on his hips. The woman was nude as well, but held an arm over her chest and a hand over her crotch as an attempt at modesty. Unlike the man, whose skin reminded Giselle of mottled chicken flesh, the woman actually had a cute little body. Firm where it mattered, soft where it didn’t. She could do better than the man with the shockingly pink pecker. Indeed, he and the iceman had something in common. Or rather, they both
lacked
something.

Giselle diverted her gaze to the hose she was pushing down her calves and suppressed a snort. He seemed so proud of that thing. Given five minutes with Max, though, she suspected it’d either try to run scared up into his crotch or he’d come unprovoked. She’d seen both. People always talked a good game until Max scrambled their brains.

She tucked her too-fucking-expensive pantyhose into one of her shoes and reached for her bra catch.

Max walked over and put her hand over it. “Leave it,” he whispered.

“Why?” She’d never had a problem with nudity, and he’d didn’t generally have a problem with her
being
nude, either.

“Remember what I said? Just trust me and pretend that nothing bad is going to happen. Don’t question everything.” He put his finger over her lips, stilling them before she could get a word out edgewise. But he leaned in closer, insinuating his front against hers, grabbing her ass possessively. “We won’t be here long.”

He let go, and she pressed her lips together tight to hold back the unnecessary retort.

“When you play in rooms like this,” Max said as he approached the couple again, “the very first thing to do is communicate and establish the ground rules for the encounter. We’re talking hard limits and taboos. Everyone needs to know when to stop and when to know it’s over. It may help to pick one thing you’d like to try and end the session after you’ve accomplished it.”

“What do you like to do?” the woman asked.

Giselle pressed her lips together again.

“I do scenes with partners I know well.” He nodded to Giselle, and she willed herself to stay very still. “Mostly, we play things by ear, but we understand what each other’s nonverbal cues are. When one of us shifts the current, the other adjusts accordingly.” He held out his hand. “Come here, please, G.”

Giselle crossed the room and stood in front of him.

He nudged her chin up and locked his gaze on hers. The instruction was clear.
Keep your eyes here.

That had never been hard. She loved having a reason to stare at him. The view was a lot better without that damn mask, though. The first time she’d seen him in ninth grade, she’d thought he was almost too pretty to be a boy. Those lips…that elegant nose…

He was all man, though. No doubting that now.

He rested his hands on her wrists and gave them a small, upward nudge.

She locked her hands together over her head and Max grabbed her wrists in one hand, still looking into her eyes.

When his gaze roamed down her body, she knelt for him and he let her arms fall to their sides.

“How’d you do that?” the man asked.

“G knows my cues, and I know her limits.” Max moved around her and skimmed fingers down her spine.

She sat on her heels.

“I know she’d prefer not to be on her knees, so I don’t ask her to do it often. She complies because I don’t take her willingness for granted.” Max squatted next to her and draped his forearms across his thighs. “She does what I ask because she knows that in the end, I’ll take care of her. She
lets
me take care of her.” His eyes narrowed again, but only she could see them. “If you abuse your partner’s trust, even in a small way, you have to work twice as hard to win it back. Honesty. Empathy. Never breach their trust, because there’s a chance you’ll never re-earn it.”

He nudged the small of her back, and she stood.

He didn’t. His hands passed over her knees and shins, brushing the dust off them. Loving her in small ways.

She wanted to look down. To thank him. To say something. But, she kept her eyes forward until he stood and tipped her chin again.
At ease, girl.

Giselle returned to her bench, cheeks burning hot and nervous fingers flitting over her folded garments. She’d played with Max for years, but she’d always managed to keep him out of her head. Now, he’d flipped the script and upped the ante, and he didn’t have to bring out his favorite flogger to do it.

Max relayed some instructions to the couple and they moved to a case stocked with various implements, still in their pristine packaging.

She tuned them out and rubbed the hem of her shirt until it rolled.

He was right. He’d never pushed her past her limits. He respected her enough to not demand she do things against her nature. He always rewarded her for her trust.

He’d never lied to her. Not
once
.

He said that she knew in the end that he’d take care of her, and that had always been true. He’d been trying to make it a permanent arrangement—not just a playroom promise.

It didn’t make sense that she’d comply in one place but be so resistant in another, even with all her fears about the
worst
happening.

She wasn’t a strong, independent woman who didn’t need a man. She was a coward. A lovestruck coward.

Maybe she could pretend for a night and a day that nothing bad was going to happen just so she’d have some time with Max. After that…well, she wished she knew.

The moment Giselle came out of her daze, Max could tell.

Her shoulders squared and forehead furrowed. She turned her head and scanned the hotel room around her. Her hands settled on the plackets of the black silk robe she’d left the playroom wearing, and she looked up at him.

“How did I get here?”

“You walked, G.”

“I did?” She grimaced and tightened the robe’s belt. “Shit. Losing time again.”

“How often does that happen to you?” It had taken him a good five minutes after arriving at the room to realize she wasn’t quite
there
. The fact that she was doing what he asked without her usual flippant remarks should have been a red flag.