Make Me (The Club #17) (2 page)

"That's okay."

It wasn't. He could see that. She was hyperventilating. "Would you like me to get you a glass of water?"

"Yes." Cari sank back into her seat, still clutching at the tattered book as if her life depended on it.

With Lucy still in the back talking to Jet, he walked behind the counter and filled a clean glass with water and brought it back to Cari. Handing it to her, he sat in the booth as she drank it down. "Are you okay?"

"Yes. No. I was deep in thought. Sorry."

Yes? No? Which was it? Cari's cheeks were flushed, making her face pink and although her eyes lit up when she saw him, she looked nervous. "Thought I'd come and ask for your phone number."

"Oh. I don't know that I'd be very good company. You see...I haven't dated for a long time."

"It's been a couple of years for me, too," Ryan said. "No chance for a private life in the army. We could do something simple like catch up for a movie if you prefer."

"I'd like that."

He noticed her hand was trembling as she reached inside her handbag to extract her cell. "There's also a nice little restaurant called Bella Bella Italiano, in this old section of town we could go to if you like Italian food."

Her hand clutched her phone, the knuckles white. "Italian is my favorite. I used to go out to eat a lot when I lived in New York."

"Why did you come to Texas?" he asked.

"I needed a change and to be with my twin. Annabel is my rock, especially since..." Cari stopped and her lip wobbled.

What had happened to make her tremble like a deer? He liked this delicate woman. He wanted to sooth away her fears but he wasn't planning to push her.

"I'll forward you my contact details."

"And your address so I can come and pick you up. I'm old school when it comes to dating."

A bead of perspiration, like a tear, made its way down her face. She swiped it away.

Ryan got out his cell and gave her his number and she sent her information to his phone. "So movie or restaurant? Or both?"

Cari froze. "I can't."

He frowned. Something was deeply wrong. "What's the matter?"

Cari put her cell down on the table. "I'm embarrassed to talk about it."

"I'm a good listener."

"My fiance passed away two years ago. Annabel says I should move on but I can't."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Ryan said. He reached out and gave her hand a quick squeeze. Her palm felt fragile under his. Soft and delicate. "I know how it feels to lose someone close. It's rough. That pain doesn't go away."

"A fiance?" she asked.

"My first love. I signed on with the army for four years. She said she'd wait. Hurt like hell when she left me two years ago. Thought I'd go crazy because I was on tour and I couldn't do a damn thing about it."

"She left you?" Cari repeated.

"Yeah. Met someone else. Maybe we should have broken up before I went. Maybe that would have been better. I don't know. It was incredibly stressful."

Something like relief flickered across her face. "So you do understand. Since Rob died, the only time I'm relaxed is when I'm busy at home writing. I'm all right at school too because I'm flat out and there's no time to think. I freeze when I go out. It's like I look out on the world and everyone is happy except me."

"Then I'll come over to you." Ryan took her hand in a firm grip.

Cari let out a long sigh then pulled her hand out of his. "You're kind. I want you to but...I just can't date."

"He looked her squarely in the eyes. "It's going to be okay, Cari. You can move past this."

She dropped her gaze. What he wouldn't do to sweep her up in her arms and make it better. Trauma had unraveled her world.

"I'm sorry Ryan. I really am. I have to go home." She slipped out of the booth and hurried away.

Ryan watched her go. She was like a butterfly. Stunning yet fragile. Fluttering with nervous energy. He had the feeling they could have something special together if he could just get past the wall she'd built around herself.

He understood grief and how it affected people. Kerry hadn't coped with him leaving her for the army but he'd been twenty-two, loved his country and had wanted to serve. Eventually her emails had become fewer and then Jet had told him she'd found someone else - a Dom and when he didn't work out, another and another. Furious he'd sworn never to have anything to do with her. If only he'd been less hostile. Less angry. Had answered her pleading emails to reunite a year ago. Somehow he'd lost that love when she'd betrayed him. His gut twisted.

Disappointed that he couldn't convince Cari to date, Ryan stood and noticing her coffee cup on the ground, stooped and picked it up. Her coffee had spilt over the tiled floor. He grabbed a napkin, bent and wiped it up. As he did so, he saw some of Cari's pages had slipped onto the floor under the booth. He bent low, swept them up and caught sight of his name.

Ryan started to read.

At home in her twin's apartment in the fancy old New Orleans style part of town, Cari squeezed back tears of disappointment. What was wrong with her? It had been easy to say no to invitations to date when she'd lived in New York after Rob had passed away. She hadn't been interested. Instead, she'd immersed herself in her teaching. But Ryan was a different matter.

He made her sizzle. There was something commanding about him that drew her to him. She'd cried tears of frustration with Annabel this afternoon over how stupidly she'd behaved. Her own twin had sworn Ryan would be good for her.

Cari sat at her dining table, reached into her handbag and pulled out her tattered diary. After Rob had died, she'd just started writing anything that came to mind to get the grief out. Over time, what with missing Rob and the companionship of a man, her writing had evolved into her erotic fantasies.

Too strange, too out there to do. For her.

She doubted she'd find anyone who'd want to act them out anyway. They'd be calling a therapist like her sister threatened. She started placing the ratty diary pages in order, diligently reading them over until she realized several pages were missing.

Dear god. Cari closed her eyes and took several deep breaths. She certainly wasn't going to trek back to the cafe to find them. Hopefully Lucy would throw the pages out. It wasn't as if she had her name on them and anyway, who had time to read someone else's drivel?

She needn't worry.

Ryan parked on Gerome Street near The Club. He wasn't planning on staying long so he didn't use the private car park for members but he needed to resolve what was troubling him. He'd had a gutful of The Club. When he was there even visiting the
Fisse Prive
room last night - the spanking room - flooded his mind with memories he didn't want. The scene had left him cold.

He walked down the nondescript street to the corner where The Club resided in a building with wrought iron balconies and no windows on the first floor. The owners Jet Mak and
Tallulah Belle Fremanis
had gone to a lot of trouble to protect the privacy of the patrons. He pressed his forefinger on the scanner and the door clicked open. He recognized the head of security, Preston Stevens and gave him a nod in greeting.

The foyer was subtle, dark wood with some black and gold accents. Italian in flavor but not too over-the-top. On his right in the security room, he noticed the guard staring riveted at the security screen of training room three, one of the playrooms upstairs. Ryan walked over to take a closer look. There was a scene going on. A naked woman was pinned spread-eagled on her back on a table wearing just a corset, wrist and ankle cuffs. Each limb was tied to a table leg so she was completely helpless. A blindfold prevented her seeing what was about to happen to her. Her Dom was holding a flogger, which had left red stripes across her pale thighs. Her face turned toward the camera. Ryan recognized the sub from last night. Ruthie. A sub who'd flirted with him. Perhaps her Dom had decided to fulfill her fantasy of multiple men because there was another man in the room with an enormous erection and he was about to drive it into her. Still another turned her face towards him, his cock ready to penetrate her mouth. He pinched his forefinger and thumb on her jaw so she was forced to open her lips.

Ryan turned away. Although all of this would have been agreed upon before the session, it did nothing for him. He would never share his girlfriend. This was not a gift he could give because he was too possessive. From the look on Ruthie's face, she was enjoying himself. Her Dom appeared to be too. Each to his or her own. That was what The Club was about. Ryan didn't judge but even after several visits it never ceased to amaze him what turned other people on.

Ryan moved past the foyer and handed over his cell phone to Gianna who worked at the hostess stand.

"Thanks Ryan. Nice to see you back." The corset Gianna wore barely contained her breasts but Ryan hardly noticed.

In his pocket he fingered the page full of Cari's fantasies. They were so erotic, she had gotten into his head. He had to find Annabel, which shouldn't be too hard, given the model was an exhibitionist. He scanned the bar area on his right and then the dance floor which was writhing with hot, steamy bodies in all stages of undress. If Annabel wasn't dancing on the first floor or in one of the V.I.P rooms, she'd be performing in the voyeur room upstairs.

Ryan made his way to the bar and ordered a rum and coke while he focused on the sweaty mass of dancers, the heat from their bodies punching the air in front of him.

"Here you go." The bartender pushed the glass across the bar and Ryan picked it up, took a large sip, glad for the cutting coolness. He scanned the room. Somewhere here was a Dom who liked to play rough. When Kerry had left him, he was certain a violent Dom had found Kerry. The bastard wore a mask, but Ryan was determined to locate him. Every time he came to The Club, he checked the crowd. One day he'd find the bastard and make him pay.

Unable to see Annabel either, he strode toward the V.I.P booths at the end of the room, briefly checking the V.I.P bar before he entered the double frosted glass doors. A sensuous vision greeted him in the first booth to his right. Annabel was sitting on the table like a queen holding court. Her blunt cut red bob framed her delicate face and she was holding a long lead. Her sub was attached to the end of the lead and he was sitting at her feet on the floor like a dog waiting for his mistress's command. He was wearing a leather collar and tight leather shorts, which would be damned uncomfortable if he had a boner. Ryan felt for the guy. He wouldn't be able to get any relief from the discomfort until Annabel, his Domme, allowed it.

The sub, who was one of Texas's wealthy oil ranch billionaires, was wearing a look of yearning and who could blame him, given the state of erotic dress of his mistress. Annabel, who had a glass of champagne in her hand, was dressed in a black leather corset with suspenders and thigh high black boots, which accentuated her superb long legs. A thin gee-string barely covered her sex. Tallulah, one of the club owners, though everyone called her Tally, was talking to her and several other members were gathered around them.

Annabel noticed him standing at the door and raised one finely shaped eyebrow. Ryan wasn't interested in playing court. There was only one woman who had caught his attention but he wouldn't go there until he had talked to her twin. He motioned to Annabel with his fingers to come and she did, sauntering over to him with a practiced model walk, which was generous of her given her queen bee Domme status.

"What brings you to my salon? I know how you like to play so it clearly isn't me."

Ryan ignored her flirting, knowing it was her nature. "Can we talk about Cari? I need your advice."

"Sure," she said, her expression turning serious. She pulled on the lead and her sub followed, crawling on hands and knees out of the booth and into the one next door, which was vacant. She lay back on the booth lounge, while her sub arranged the pillows behind her head so that she was comfortable.

Ryan chose to stand, careful not to be drawn into Annabel's web. "I liked your sister but I'm concerned about her."

"My shy, little twin. I'm worried about her too." Annabel motioned with her index finger to her sub. "You may start. Ryan won't mind watching."

The sub unzipped her thigh-high leather boot revealing her long semi-see through stockinged leg. He unclipped her stocking from its garter and peeled it off. His pink tongue snaked out of his mouth and he started to suck on her toes.

Annabel's eyes became hooded when she turned to Ryan. "I've known you a long time and I love my twin. I want you to help my sister. Jet Mak thinks if anyone can, it's you."

Damn. He could feel himself getting hard at the scene in front of him and he didn't want to. Wrong twin. There was little left to the imagination under Annabel's gee-string. Cari would look exactly the same as her twin, though he wondered if she would have her sex carefully groomed and cropped. Somehow he couldn't imagine Cari displaying herself for perusal and he wouldn't want her to, except for him. He put his hand in his jean's pocket, feeling the edge of his annoying boner, to dig out the now crumpled page of Cari's writing. "I asked Cari out. She wanted to go but she couldn't. What's going on?"

Annabel reached down and grabbed a fistful of her sub's hair guiding his face up her thigh as she started to spread her legs.

"Do you want me to lick you mistress?" the sub asked eagerly.

"Not until I say. We have a guest watching."

"We often have a guest watching," the sub said.

"Just kiss the inside of my thigh, pet." She patted him on the head.

Ryan could see the man's pink tongue glide close to Annabel's sex earning him a sharp smack across the cheek.

"Naughty," she said.

He smiled up adoringly at her. What Ryan wouldn't give to have the intensity of someone special in his life, someone who understood his world but he didn't want just anyone. Cari intrigued him.

Annabel turned her attention back to Ryan. "Cari needs to live out her fantasies to draw her out of her shell. I trust you. I saw how tender you were with Kerry."

Ryan winced.

"I'm sorry about what happened but it wasn't your fault. It's time for you to move on. I like you. Always have. I want you to try with my little sister."

Annabel was frank, alarmingly so, but he could see her words came from a place of love. Heartened, he held up the tightly scrunched paper. "I found a piece of her writing addressed to me this morning. It detailed everything she wanted."

Annabel yanked her sub by the hair so he stopped kissing her thigh, her large eyes alight with interest. "She gave it to you?"

"No. It slipped out of her diary."

"I didn't think Cari would be so forward. Not like me. I make it clear what I want, don't I pet?"

Her sub grinned, pointed his tongue and waggled it.

"If Cari had given it to me and expressly said she wanted it, I wouldn't be discussing it with you," Ryan said tersely. "I need to know, does she have any experience with being a sub? Does she understand the rules?" He didn't want to make a mistake with Cari. Normally he'd discuss every aspect with the sub before anything happened but even having a conversation had seemed difficult with Cari.

"Not in the formal sense."

"So she's never been to a club like this?" Ryan checked.

Cari rolled her eyes and laughed. "She really does think this place is a bowling club. Cari's the open twin in terms of telling me about her sex life. Her love life was vanilla or so she said. I never tell her about this place or that I'm an exhibitionist because it's too out there for her."

"But her writing contains everything and more." Ryan frowned thinking about the fantasies he'd read.

"Her fiance Rob was a dominating type of guy but he wasn't a Dom. She loved being told what to do by him. When he died she was lost. Still is."

"She wants to be taken."

"Every woman wants that. We only differ on how it is done. I want my twin to be happy and she liked you. Go gently. She'll tell you to stop if it's not what she really wants." Annabel let go of her sub's hair, reached into her corset and extracted a key holding it out to him.

He stalked across the room and took it from her, careful not to look at Annabel's sub kissing along the seam line of her gee-string. Ryan wasn't afraid to go outside the rules. Hell, it had kept him alive in the Middle East, but he was cautious too. He had to get this right. Cari was a delicate flower waiting to be opened.

"Look after my little twin. Use your instincts."

"I will." He knew the heartfelt connections that could occur if an intense relationship developed. If this relationship developed into anything with Cari, he was going to make sure she was safe in body and spirit.

"I need you to save my twin before she retreats too far inside her shell and never comes out again. I want my sweet little sister to be happy. Can you do that for her?"

"I'm going to try."

Annabel gave a nod to her sub and he began to peel off her gee-string.

Ryan opened the door and closed it behind him, glad to be out of there. The Club reminded him of the relationship he'd lost because of his youthful arrogance. Part of him wanted to put his last relationship behind him and move on. Once outside the booth, the heat and music closed in on him. This place contained too many secrets and lies. It wasn't what he wanted.

Cari flicked off the lights in the lounge area and yawned. She had to teach Shakespeare's Hamlet to her sophomore class on Monday, so she'd spent her Saturday night revising the soliloquies. She loved Hamlet's intensity and all his flaws, relating to his agony of inaction. The exam questions always came out of the soliloquies and she wanted her class prepared.

Looking at her watch, she saw it was well past midnight. She never waited up for Annabel who was having an affair with a wealthy Texan she'd hooked up with in that bowling club of hers. Who knew that bowling had become so upmarket?

Cari made her way to her bedroom, stripped off her jeans and tee-shirt and took a shower. Under the hot steam, she ran her hands over her breasts soaping the day's disappointment away. When she slid her fingers between her legs, she thought of Ryan. The man seemed strong at a time when her own strength had deserted her. How she wanted to have his hands on her, touching and savoring her. She moved her fingers around her clit savoring the sexual buzz as she imagined Ryan touching her. Yet she couldn't even accept one date and move on from this paralyzing stasis. Cari turned off the taps and dried herself. Life had to be something more than spending night after night miserably alone sure that life was passing her by.

She hung her towel on the bathroom towel rail and opened the door to her bedroom. Confused, she realized the bedroom was in darkness so she walked to the doorway to turn on the main bedroom light. She could have sworn she'd left it on.

A hand closed over her mouth and an arm wrapped around her torso pulling her back, binding her against a hard naked male body. Terrified, heart in her throat, Cari fought, digging her nails into the hand that bound her mouth. He smelled of soap and raw male lust. She was tall but this man was taller and strong. She kicked at his shins with her heels, twisting and writhing, determined to free herself.

"It's time to play, Cari," he said, his voice smooth and slow. Cari recognized Ryan's voice instantly.

"I'm going to give you everything you want, but you're going to do as I say. Nod if you understand me."

Cari nodded. Her heart still thundered in her chest, her throat constricted with fear, but Ryan, though controlling, wasn't rough.