REVEAL - Scorpio & Harlan (Fettered Book 2) (9 page)

A
ri lurches
to her feet long enough to grab a velvet bag and toss it to one of the other couches. “You guys are up first.” Her voice is breathy, like she’s still fighting off massive distraction.

I’m not sure whether to be sorry my Dom left or sorry he didn’t stay.

After some jostling, the tiny sub on Quint’s lap stands up. She looks down at the strip of paper in her hand, grins at her team, and holds up three fingers.

“Three words.” Her people have clearly done this before.

She flashes three fingers again.

“Third word.”

She motions Quint to stand up with a come-hither look that has half the guys in the room volunteering.

He raises an eyebrow. “Spanking bench.”

Ari hoots beside me. “That’s two words, Quint—learn to count.” She makes it almost through her sentence before she starts squirming again.

I’m damn glad Harlan doesn’t have a remote in his hand. His eyes are trouble enough. And his cute little rule that means I’m going to be thinking about his fingers in my pussy all damn night. Or my first spanking.

I glance his way and see him holding up two fingers.

Fuck. I hope Ari’s squirming enough to cover the fact that I’m not sitting very still either.

The tiny sub sticks her hands in Quint’s lap, first close together, and then moving one out. Measuring an invisible inflating penis.

Emily, sitting primly on the end of the couch, grins. “Elongation.”

Damon laughs so hard from his team couch that he nearly chokes. “Really, sweetheart? Name one song with that in the lyrics.”

The tiny sub swats Damon and motions Emily to repeat her word, and then makes shrinking motions with her hands.
Make the word shorter.
Emily grins again. “Long. ‘All Night Long’.”

Her whole team piles off the couch for a victory dance, and Quint tosses Emily into the air. “We are so winning this thing.” He looks over at Damon. “I’m keeping her. She’s way too smart for you.”

Emily rolls her eyes and pokes Quint in the ribs. “If you get me spanked again today, I will get even.”

Quint lets go of her like she’s electrocuted him, which has Damon laughing again.

They manage to get themselves under control and back on their couch in some semblance of a well-behaved team, and then it’s our turn. After some elbowing and giggling, Marla pushes herself up and plucks a strip of paper from Ari’s bag. She grins and holds up three fingers and flashes them twice.

I’ve got this. Wedding planners for the win. “Three words, third word.”

She walks over and kisses the man she came with. He pulls her in for a far more thorough kiss, and he doesn’t stick with just her lips.

Ari snorts beside me. “Hot.”

Marla jumps off Jacob, which gets her a swat that mostly misses and a growl that promises this will come back to bite her later. She ignores him and dances over to Doxy and points at her shiny engagement ring, holding one finger in the air.

I say the obvious. “First word. Circle. Ring.”

The guy on the end of our couch looks confused. “‘Circle of Hot’?”

I shake my head. We are so losing this thing. “Do none of you listen to music ever? ‘Ring of Fire’.”

Ari pouts beside me. “Dammit, Scorpio—we wanted to see Marla’s clit ring.”

I don’t even know what that is—and I suddenly realize that the point of this night doesn’t have a whole lot to do with being a good charades player. I suddenly feel like a newbie, and not in a good way.

Marla walks over to Jacob and eases herself into his lap, gasping a little as she sits. Then she winks at me and pulls me right off my ledge of stupid. These people aren’t trying to sideline me—my own ignorance is doing that, but the only one who cares about that is me.

I thought I knew this world, but in this moment, the difference between being a tourist and a resident is excruciatingly clear.

T
his night is
way too fucking long.

My team is so far ahead nobody’s going to catch up, which is totally Damon’s fault. He hasn’t figured out how to distract his sub, and Emily’s singlehandedly keeping us at the top of the leaderboard. Which is quite the trick when you’re a pretty woman in a demure green dress sitting on a team couch full of Doms who’ve clearly failed every acting class they ever attended.

I shake my head as Scorpio’s team takes possession of the velvet bag and Ari gets up again. She looks at her strip of paper, and then something odd crosses her face and she walks over and whispers into the ear of her Dom.

He gives her a look I can’t read and nods. Permission granted, for whatever it is.

She ditches her high-heel boots and latex leggings and lets down her hair, and suddenly she’s Ari in floaty red lingerie, looking young and ethereal and dreamy.

I have no idea what word she’s going after. It doesn’t matter. My eyes are on my sub. She hasn’t moved, hasn’t done anything obvious to grab my attention. But she’s watching Ari, and only Ari, and Scorpio’s eyes are yearning and running scared again—and the spell doesn’t break until the one Dom in the room who clearly didn’t fail his acting classes bends Ari back in one of those swoony kisses that looks like it belongs on the cover of a romance novel.

Then Ari snaps back into being Ari, her Dom pushes whatever evil button he has in his pocket, and she comes in his arms, hard enough to cause an earthquake and cursing a blue streak, and Scorpio’s laughing along with everyone else as the boldest sub in the house loses her bet and plants a huge kiss on the cheek of the man who made it happen.

I’m still stuck in the moment where my sub’s eyes went all soft and haunted. It’s the second time in two days I’ve seen it. Fear and longing.

Fuck. I just want to hold her tonight. I don’t want to push her.

But that’s the man talking.

The Dom can see her need.

There’s an edge coming, and we need to face it, and I’m going to need to help her. But she asked more of me, and somehow I need to give her that too. The fun and the safety and the deep goodness of the in-between. To spank her and tease her and make her come and then tuck her in next to me and hold her while she sleeps.

Even if that makes tomorrow harder for both of us.

O
ne minute
I’m sitting on the couch laughing, listening to Ari curse and mutter, Marla still shaking with merriment beside me. The next I’m slung over the shoulder of an impatient caveman and watching all my new friends laugh upside down as he storms out of the room.

I’m damn tempted to swat his ass and make him put me down. “The fuck?”

“That can be arranged too.” He sounds far too pleased by that thought.

I sway for a moment when he puts me down. We’re in the dungeon, and that’s about all I have time to register before he sits down on a spanking bench, grins at me, and holds up two fingers. “Two more for the smart-ass thoughts you had as I dragged you in here.”

He’s definitely gone all Dom on me—but there’s a lightness to it. A teasing. And damn if it doesn’t make me want whatever’s coming next. I glance over at the door and the big ears I’m sure are on the other side.

“Eyes on me, beautiful.”

My head snaps back to him before I can even think.

“There are consequences to yanking on your Dom’s chain.” He pats his leg. “Drop your jeans and bend over my lap, ass in the air.”

A whimper sneaks out, and I slap a hand over my mouth at the raw desire in that sound and what it must tell him.

He reaches up and pulls down my wrist. “Never try to hide what you feel. Not from me.” The corners of his lips turn up. “Looking forward to this, are you?”

I suck in a breath, not sure whether to shake my head or nod. “Maybe. I think so. I don’t know.”

He chuckles, and then his eyes do that stern thing again. “Pants down. Ass up.”

I thought this might feel like being a kid in the principal’s office. I’m so wrong. Not with the way his eyes are devouring me. I somehow manage to get my belt undone, and my baggy jeans fall down without any help from me.

He slides a hand between my legs and growls. “Not once tonight did you come over and whisper in my ear and tell me what was turning you on. Tell me now and maybe this spanking gets shorter.”

I’m not sure that’s actually incentive, but his hand in my pussy definitely is. “I loved watching Ari’s Dom tease her. I know this is called play, but with them, it actually looked fun. Silly.” I hitch a breath at what his fingers are doing. “And Quint kept touching his sub, even when he looked like his attention was totally somewhere else.”

I close my eyes, and his fingers stop. Damn. “I think I’d like to be in your lap sometime. At an event like this.” I scrunch my face, because this last part is going to be the hardest, and look at him because I need to see his eyes. “And I know they’re listening out there, at least some of them, and it’s making me wet and bothered.”

His fingers slide up inside me. “And?”

Damn him and his all-seeing eyes. “I’m proud to be here as yours tonight.“

He growls, and suddenly I’m over his lap and my face is pasted into the spanking bench and my feet are flailing. “Then let them hear you be proud, beautiful.” His hand rubs my ass, squeezing. I grab the side of the bench with one hand and his pant leg with the other.

I’m so ready for this.

I
’m about
to fucking punish a woman who has just slayed me with her words. I shake my head, damn glad she was getting every bit of the fun side of this spanking before she changed it into something else. She’s earned every swat, with her mouth and her attitude and her unwavering openness to what I’ve been asking of her and to what she wants to give.

The people on the other side of that door already fucking love her, but this is going to cement her place in this community. In the hearts of the people who are my family.

She jerks when I land my hand on her ass, but there’s no withdrawal. No shock. I grin. Not all edges are hard and sharp. This one is soft and curvy and I have a lapful of woman who can’t wait for me to spank her some more.

There are times when being a really cooperative Dom is its own reward. I swat her again, setting up an alternating rhythm that her punk-rock heart can sing with. And when she starts to push her ass up, asking for more, I give it to her.

I keep it light. This isn’t remotely about pain. It’s about membership, and she’s done all she needs to do to earn hers.

She’s wiggling like sin, trying to get my hand to land on her pussy. I pin her down tighter with my free hand and then move the spanking closer to where she wants it. She starts moaning, thrashing in my lap. I don’t remind her of the very quiet audience on the other side of the dungeon door. Every person in the lounge will respect the hell out of what she’s doing here, and she’s far enough gone that the only thing she’s hearing is my hand.

That’s as deep as I want to take her tonight. We still need to walk back through that door.

I move my hand a little lower, deliver a couple of much softer swats to her dripping arousal. Her eyes snap open and somehow they find mine. “Harlan. Please.”

She’s asking for the orgasm I’ve promised her, but it’s so damn much fun to mess with her. I land my hand on her pussy again, loving the spurting wetness. “More of this?”

It blows my Dom ego up like a balloon when she pauses, clearly considering it. “Later. I need to come.” The last word comes out mostly as a whimper.

She’s so fucking beautiful. I slick my palm with her wetness and then rub in hot, tight circles over her swollen folds. I’m not aiming for finesse—this isn’t going to take long.

She comes, shrieking against my hand and my knee and the spanking bench that has just become her world, and I can hear the moans and murmurs on the other side of the door as more than one sub clearly joins her.

I grin and collect up the hot sweaty mess of woman in my lap and go find us a comfortable chair. Part of this scene is going to be walking back into the lounge, but first I need to hold her. I want to breathe in the awesome, playful, brave sassiness of her and just appreciate the moment. I laugh as I sit down, trying to contend with the fact that she’s still got her jeans around her ankles and her boots on. Newbie Dom error, but I’ll deal. I tuck her into my lap and make sure I can reach the water nearby. She drank an ocean of it the last time we scened together.

It doesn’t take her long to come around this time—she went down fast and she’s coming up that way too.

When I see the focus slide back into her eyes, I hand her the water bottle and pick her up, blanket, boots, jeans around her ankles, and all. Her eyes fly up to mine. “Where are we going?”

I grin down at her sexy, mussed-up face. “To see if anyone’s still playing charades.”

She has time to raise one skeptical eyebrow and then Quint’s sweeping the door open for me and I’m carrying her into the middle of the couches that have been re-arranged into a neat semi-circle facing the dungeon. Just in case Scorpio needs any more clues.

She takes in the shifted furniture and the number of subs sitting in Dom laps looking happy and flustered, and makes a strangled sound in my arms.

Ari laughs from her guy’s knees, his hand still between her legs. “Thanks, Scorpio. You have some seriously contagious orgasms.” She tosses me a bottle of the club’s oil, which is magic for parts that have been well used. “Sounds like her ass could use some of this, and maybe a few other places too.”

The tiny sub in Quint’s arms is still glassy-eyed, but he winks at the woman in my lap. “Next time see if you can hold off a little longer, sweetheart. You made some of us have to work pretty fast to catch up.”

All Scorpio can manage is a squawk.

I squeeze her ass, since it’s handy, and sit down on a couch with Damon and Emily. Scorpio looks over at her boss, sitting primly beside Fettered’s owner with bright-red cheeks and one of her nipples showing, and ducks her head into my chest. I hold her for a minute, surprised she’s this embarrassed—and then I realize she’s laughing.

I shake my head and turn her around so she can’t pull that shit—and so that she can see all the smiles. All the appreciation and respect and welcome and love.

She tilts her head back on my shoulder and drinks it all in.

I hold the bottle of magic oil and wonder whether I need to dump some on my heart.