Mate Not Wanted (10 page)

To her credit, Lea sat up straighter and focused in on what Madison was saying. She even took some notes. She nodded her head. “OK, I’ll do that. Sully won’t care as long as the event gets off successfully. Here.” She shoved a pile of papers toward Madison. “Look over the decorations and ideas. I’m still not sure what we want it to look like. He doesn’t want stereotypical BDSM-y stuff. No black, white, and red shit or lots of leather. His words.”

Madison chuckled. Sounded like Sully. He may look like a tatted-up and pierced-up hard-ass, always wearing leather pants and striding around like a rock star, but in reality he was a practical man who hated to play to type. “Yeah, yeah. Go make those calls. I’ll be here if you need me. Oh, and I need food. It’s lunchtime.”

“I’ll make sure you get what ya need.” Sully’s Boston brogue rasped out from behind her.

Madison jumped and swiveled around to see Sully peel out of a darkened alcove, drink in hand and dark shades covering his eyes. He grinned and nodded.

“What ’cha hungry for? I haven’t eaten yet. This was my breakfast,” he held up a glass of clear liquid. “Vodka. Mother’s milk. And thanks. Lea was driving me batshit.” He shook his head and took another sip of the alcohol.

Madison’s knees went a little liquid at the raspiness of his voice and the heat she felt coming from behind the dark glasses.

“You could have told her that you were here,” she said, cursing how low and husky her voice sounded. She didn’t know exactly what he was, but she’d always given Sully a wide berth when she encountered him. He was a feline shifter, but something more too, that much she knew. “’Sides, she wouldn’t have called me up in panic mode.”

He curled his thin lips into a wicked smile. “What fun would that be? Baked ziti, yeah? Got some frozen from last night. Got a wicked craving for a plate. I’ll be back. Help yourself to more Scotch.”

He sauntered off with a grace even she wasn’t capable of. Madison found herself staring at his muscular ass, the leather molded around the two mounds so perfectly that she could see the crevice that divided them. Was he even wearing underwear? Would Pierce’s ass look just as good in leather? Did Pierce wear underwear? Her mind spiraled off in a tangent that she couldn’t control.

Heat scratched through Madison’s body and wove around her veins. Her gut tightened as liquid fire pooled in her core. Her clit and nipples hardened further and thudded with want. She shivered as goose bumps broke out over her skin and tingles raced along her inner thighs to the base of her spine. Her mind felt swathed in fog and every thought circled around sex.

She wondered what Pierce was doing right now. Was he naked? Did he need her? Her vaginal walls clenched as her sex and panties dampened. By the time Lea returned, the room was an inferno. The Scotch was gone. Madison wanted to stretch and arch her back, to curl up as if she were a cat in a sunbeam. And underneath it all, she wanted to find Pierce and fuck him cross-eyed.

Her clothes rasped against her skin. The fabric felt too tight, claustrophobic. She had to get it off. Madison scratched at her bare arms. She couldn’t even remember taking off her coat, but it didn’t matter. She had to get her blouse and skirt off. The waist cincher she wore felt too tight. Her lungs couldn’t take in enough air. Where was Pierce? He would give her air; she just knew it.

“Mads? You OK? Jesus, what’s that perfume?” Lea took a step back and waved the air in front of her face while holding a bottle of water. She narrowed her eyes as her pupils widened and her eye color changed to amber. “Are you in heat?”

Madison blinked. Was she? Her pussy pulsed and her clit had turned into a hardened nub that throbbed with need. Her breasts felt too big for her bra and her nipples ached.

“Shit,” she groaned, as she forced her arms to drop to her sides. Silently she willed the lioness to pull back the heat, take some of the burden.

Lea laughed. “Looks like you really do need that bachelor auction after all.”

“Who needs the bachelor auction?” Sully returned with a server and three plates of steaming piles of noodle, melted cheese, basil, and meat. Madison’s mouth watered and her stomach grumbled.

“Food.” She moaned and sat back down, only to hiss as a wave of desire crashed through her body. The arousal had pulled back, but not nearly enough. She tried not to rock against her stool and allow the hardened seat to create friction against her clit.

“Whoa! Female in heat. I’ve gotta get out of here.” Sully put down the plates on the bar and backed out of the room, a hard ridge evident on the front of his pants. His shades were still on but she could see tension in every line on his face. He turned around, giving another sweet view of his ass before he disappeared into the back. The sound of a door slamming shut echoed around the room.

Madison looked at Lea, who burst out laughing.

“Have a female cat shifter in heat and watch the men run just in case she’s mated.” Lea shook her head and settled down on a stool next to Madison. “When was your last heat cycle? Are you early?”

Madison sifted through her mind for the last time she’d gone into heat. “Had to be before my dad’s heart attack. I used the club to help satisfy it,” she murmured. The thought that she was in heat sent shards of dismay through her. “I can’t be in heat…I just can’t.”

Lea reached over and gave her shoulder a squeeze. “It’s OK. It happens. I’m due for mine soon, so the bachelor auction is the perfect place for me to find a guy. Now, what’s Sully doing here? I thought he was at the lodge.”

Lea dug into her ziti. Madison could only watch as her stomach grumbled and more thoughts of a naked, aroused Pierce stumbled around her head. They soon morphed into more potent daydreams that had him striding toward her in leather pants similar to Sully’s. He held a flogger in one hand and a scarf in the other. She’d never thought about floggers being used as a way to arouse her until he’d mentioned it last night, but now she couldn’t hold back the groan at the thought of him using that tool on her.

A poke from Lea drew her out of her fantasy. “Earth to Madison. Come in, Madison. Join me. I don’t want to be the only one gorging myself on pasta. Didn’t even know we had this. Sully’s been holding out on me.”

Madison picked up her fork and dug in. The silence stretched out like a taut rubber band.

“Pierce called me last night to check on me,” she said in a rush.

“And did it turn dirty? Filthy? Absolutely deliciously into phone sex?” Lea teased.

A lava-hot blush flooded Madison’s face, neck, chest, and ears as his words came back to her yet again. They were on a damn loop in her mind and she couldn’t turn them off. “Well, no…”

Lea narrowed her gaze. “What do you mean?”

“It got a bit hot.” Madison shifted in her chair. A small echo of desire coiled in her stomach before it faded away. “But some woman called him and I hung up on him. I think he was at a party or something but I didn’t ask and he didn’t tell me, so it could have been anything.”

Lea sighed. “Madison, Madison, Madison, my darling naïve one. Of
course
he was calling you from a party. But I doubt Pierce is the type of guy to call you while he’s fucking or about to fuck some other woman. Not with the way he was looking at you. You got offended, didn’t you?”

Madison nodded. “He was being all sexy.” She dragged her fork through the pasta and sauce. “And then the woman called him and everything was ruined.”

“I can understand that. It’s been a while since you’ve been in a relationship and the gossip columns are filled with dirt on him and his sex life. But you can’t believe everything you read. If we did then Bigfoot would be the president and aliens would walk among us. Come on, eat up.”

Madison considered her words and felt the impact of them hit her in the chest. Shame filled her. “I guess I should call to apologize, huh? I was pretty rude.”

Despite the words she had no desire to call him, not with her heat cycle kicking in. Who knew what would come out of her mouth? Besides, there were her self-worth issues to get over.

“Hey, can I modify my profile while I’m here? I want to book a session or two, explore a few things.” The blush returned to Madison’s face and she focused on eating and drinking while ignoring Lea’s squees of excitement.

“This, my dear, is the first step. Next thing you know you’ll be pursuing Pierce. I’ll go get my laptop and you can log on through that.” Lea jumped off the stool and headed off to the back.

While she waited for Lea to return, Madison finished off the ziti and drank down the rest of her water. She felt some trepidation about updating her profile. Yes, it was on her list of things to do, but at the same time she couldn’t help but feel that she was opening a door to the unknown. She would be facing something about herself that she’d tried to ignore for most of her life. She’d been a missionary and sometimes doggie-style type of woman, and her sex life had been predominantly vanilla. What would updating her profile bring her?

She pushed away her plate and the bottle of water as her thoughts roamed back to Pierce and leather, only this time there were handcuffs involved. A slow simmer began in her veins as her stomach muscles tightened and her heartbeat sped up just a bit. She licked her lips. Heat unfurled in her belly, and she felt her pussy lips warm. A second man joined Pierce, this one masked. Nerve endings came alive. Pierce called the shots. He was in charge.

Despite her natural inclination to fight against him, there was something appealing about the idea of Pierce forcing her to come to heel and making her submit to him. Her lioness purred at the notion of being tied down, spanked, and fucked within an inch of her life. Being ordered to suck on the mystery man’s cock while Pierce took her pussy extended those tendrils of desire, and she could smell her own feline musk rising into the air.

The scent jarred her out of her fantasy. Damn it, she couldn’t be in heat. Not here. Not now. She felt as though her brain hated her.

“Down, girl. Here, use the laptop. I’ll clear away the plates. Take the time to calm the hell down. If you don’t, you’ll drive the bouncers insane. And they’re already fidgety since they have to take part in the bachelor auction.”

Lea picked up the dishes and the bottles of water and left the bar area again. Madison focused on the laptop. She pulled it toward her and logged into the club’s members’ site. She frowned as she read over her entries and shook her head at the sad lack of details and imagination. Madison took in the many blank spaces and slumped, feeling sadly out of her depth, but she refused to call Lea in for help. Who knew what her friend would put into her public profile that other members would see? She didn’t want to deal with the more extreme set of BDSM and kink.

Instead, she scrolled through her options and read the descriptions that were attached to each choice. She picked ménage fantasy, forced submission—although she only really wanted to do that with Pierce—bondage, handcuffs, scarves, ties and blindfolds, role play, light pain, anal penetration, and spanking. Once she was finished in that area she looked into the Dom and Domme staff members. She dismissed the women immediately. She didn’t have an interest in interacting with women in that way. As she scrolled through the men’s section, she read each profile very carefully.

She read about something called a “munch.” It seemed to be a meeting with likeminded individuals and newbies who were interested but didn’t want to dive right in just yet. It took place on safe, neutral ground with something to eat and was a place to ask questions and have them answered. That sounded like something that appealed to her.

Madison trusted Sully’s judgment, and he was very careful when choosing staff members. She appreciated that everyone still wanted to make sure that the people involved were comfortable and knew the rules. Plus, the munch would allow her to get to know them beyond sex. She scrolled through the list of names and chose Master V and Master M.

“Is it safe?” Sully’s roughened voice held an edge to it that amused Madison.

“Yeah, sorry about that. I didn’t realize that I’d gone into my heat cycle. Lots going on.”

Madison turned around on her stool to find Sully leaning casually against the wall, his arms crossed over his chest, showing off his well-developed biceps. His dark shirt was open, showing off a V of tempting tanned flesh that was decorated with tattooed symbols. He still had his shades on but looked more relaxed. His erection wasn’t so prominent.

Sully gave her a shrug. “It’s all good. Next time some warning, please. Me and the guys, well…” He paused and rubbed the back of his neck before pushing off the wall. “Anyway, this is only a suggestion. Take it however you want. But maybe you should snag a guy from the auction. You know, to help out with your, erm, problem, you know? You can even book a room in the club. There’s a private entrance for women and men who are going through heat to seal off the scent so they don’t drive people nuts.”

Madison smiled at his thoughtfulness. “Thanks, I’ll consider it.”

Sully gave her a nod. “So did you like the ziti? Old family recipe. Shouldn’t have suggested Scotch though
. Noni
would kill me. Anyway, I’ll be around if you need me. And ask Lea for an employee form. We could use a party hostess and goddess knows Lea’s been inundated with shite as of late.”

With that, he left her with a warm sense of happiness. She had a job offer, which meant she could work with Lea in a place that she liked with a boss who intrigued her. Who was she to say no?

Lea came back waving a form. “Don’t know what you said to the boss man, but here you go.” She placed the paper down and grinned. “Fill it out now so we can get the ball rolling.”

Madison logged out of the site, pulled a pen out of her purse, and filled in all the necessary information. With confidence buoying her up, she decided to take another risk.

“Lea, I’m gonna say something and you better not misinterpret it, OK?” She paused and took a deep breath before she pushed on. No going back now. “I’m giving you and Alec permission to bid for me at the bachelor auction. But,” she stopped and gave Lea a hard look, “
don’t
bid on Pierce. Understand?
No Pierce
. Otherwise, you guys have free rein and you can even bid on some guys for yourselves. I’ll give you a check. You use the money and anything you don’t spend you donate to the hospital. Got it?”