Submit and Surrender (5 page)

Oh God.

That was where she and Ford had…

They hadn’t even used the restraints at first. There hadn’t been
time
. It hadn’t felt like there was time for anything at all, not for talking, not for thinking, not for freaking
breathing
. They’d just needed each other, right then, right there, as much as possible.

Adra felt his hands on her body all over again and shuddered.

When she refocused her eyes, Ford was looking at her. And so was everyone else.

Oh
shit
.

Adra cleared her throat. “Do you want to go over the stations we have out on the floor?” she said to Ford.

“I think most of them look pretty self-explanatory,” Olivia said softly. “But you should definitely go over them.” She looked pretty enthralled. Particularly by the spanking bench. Adra tried to quell the jealousy that flared up inside her, but to no avail.

Only Derrick looked annoyed.

“This is a waste of time,” he said.

“Not to me it isn’t,” Olivia said, looking sideways at her costar. “If you’re going to have me over one of those things, I damn sure want to know how it works.”

Adra and Ford looked at each other. Olivia might actually be pretty great, so long as she stopped looking at Ford.

“I mean, not…
have
me,” the actress said, suddenly flustered.

“We knew what you meant,” Ford said. “And you’re right.”

Adra hadn’t been able to take her eyes off Ford since she’d remembered their night on that table. In this room. All over the club. And finally, in his bed.

Then Olivia had talked about being had over pieces of equipment, and now Ford was looking back at Adra, too.

She could barely breathe.

“Then let’s get on with it,” Derrick said.

Ford broke his gaze from Adra’s face, shaking his head, turning away slightly. He paused a moment, and then pointed up, toward the center of the room, where a suspension apparatus hung from the ceiling.

“That might not be quite as familiar as the spanking bench,” Ford said.

Adra thought she heard Olivia catch her breath, unaware that anyone had noticed her reactions to all of this. But that wasn’t what caught her attention. It was Derrick, staring right at her.

“I know Adra’s familiar with it,” he said.

It was like being slapped in the face. With something gross.

Adra was so shocked she honestly was sort of speechless. Never mind the level of unprofessionalism that Derrick had just sunk to; it was the fact that it was clearly some sort of weird power play that got to her. Yeah, they’d done bondage and suspension play. Years ago. They’d taken a class in rope bondage, for safety, and he’d tied her up and suspended her, and, well. It had been ok. Just ok.

But to bring it up? Now? When they hadn’t seen each other in years, when this was supposed to be a professional setting, when Adra was supposed to be an authority, when all it would do would humiliate and demean her, when—

“Mr. Duvall,” Ford said. His voice was different. It was
the
voice, only deeper. Threatening.

Ford had turned back around and was staring at Derrick, his eyes on fire, his face dark. He took two steps and put himself between Adra and Derrick, and then…he kept going.

Derrick stepped back.

Ford walked him back until he bumped into the wall. Adra could see Ford’s fists opening and closing, opening and closing, his huge, hulking back obscuring Derrick's face entirely. Everything was very, very quiet.

“Every competent practitioner is somewhat familiar with suspension techniques, Mr. Duvall,” Ford said. “We run a professional club here. I recommend that you behave professionally.”

“Holy shit,” Olivia whispered, looking sideways at Adra.

Adra couldn’t speak.

Then came Derrick's thin voice. “Or what?” he said.

Ford was silent for a long, long time. Adra had never seen him like this. Only once had he been close—the night of Volare’s Bacchanal party, when some jerk had gotten drunk and practically yanked Adra’s arm out of its socket. That guy had left with a broken nose, and Adra had thought that was the most primitive, violent, and slightly frightening thing she’d ever seen from Ford.

Until now.

Ford was breathing deep, his shoulders heaving, his body coiled tight. He hadn’t touched Derrick. He kept his hands to his sides. And he hadn’t looked away. But there was something about the intensity of it all, about the impression of supreme control, that made you wonder what would happen if Ford decided he needed to let go.

He’s protecting me
, Adra realized.
He’s protecting me from Derrick.

The thought hit her like a hammer to the chest.

“Or what?” Derrick said again, his voice slightly higher.

Finally, Ford said, “Don’t find out.”

Oh God, she needed to stop this. She knew Derrick; he was an idiot. And she hadn’t planned on Ford
caring
about Derrick being an idiot, and she definitely hadn’t planned on this testosterone-filled display. The two of them beating the crap out of each other would be an absolute disaster for the club.

“Ford,” Adra said. She didn’t know what she planned to say next. But she didn’t have to.

Like freaking magic, Ford walked away.

He turned around, looked at her, sweat beading on his forehead, and he walked over to Adra’s side.

She could smell him. Oh God, she could smell him. She’d almost forgotten how badly she could want him, and now here it was again, that
want
, alive and clawing at her, climbing up her skin, her whole body aware of nothing more than his presence next to hers.

And then they were all saved from whatever was going to happen next by Roman.

“Am I interrupting?” Roman called, striding into the room. Adra knew Roman Casta well enough to know that with one glance he absolutely knew that he was interrupting something, and that it was something bad. The man could read a room. Thank God.

“Nope!” Adra said, way too enthusiastically. “We were just about to take a break. What’s up?”

“Ford, you have a phone call in your office,” Roman said.

“I’m busy,” Ford said.

“I suggest you take it.”

“Whatever it is, it’s not more important than what I’m doing,” Ford said through clenched teeth. “I’m busy.”

Roman sighed. “Ford. It’s your ex-wife.”

Adra could actually feel the air go out of the room.

Or maybe it was just the air going out of her lungs.

Ford had an
ex-wife
?

“Claudia,” Ford said into the phone.

It felt surreal to even say. They hadn’t talked in over five years. Even now, he half-expected silence.

Would have preferred it, even. He couldn’t think of a legitimate reason for Claudia to contact him that didn’t involve tragedy.

“Hi, Ford,” she said after far too long. “How are you?”

Ford clenched his teeth. Polite conversation took on a whole new meaning with his ex-wife. And she had no business knowing anything about him anymore.

“What’s wrong, Claudia?”

“Nothing is wrong.”

Roman had said it sounded urgent; otherwise Ford would have stayed with Adra. But then again, Roman wasn’t familiar with the Claudia Bane—make that Gifford, now—definition of “urgent.”

Ford took a deep breath, and tried not to think about where he’d left Adra, back in that room, with Derrick's words hanging in the goddamn air.

“Why are you calling me?” he said.

“Ford, don’t you think we can be civil, after all this time?” she said.

“I’m honest,” he said.

She was silent.

“Well,” she finally said, “I thought you should know that Jesse and I are moving out to Los Angeles.”

“That has nothing to do with me.”

“Jesse has done some work for the studio on the
Submit and Surrender
movie,” she went on. “They asked for him specifically because they’d heard he was in the lifestyle. It didn’t seem relevant to me, considering he just worked on the contracts, but what do I know? Anyway, we’re moving out to L.A.”

“And?”

“And we’ll be applying for membership at Club Volare L.A.,” she said lightly. “I just thought you should know.”

“Are you asking for my recommendation?”

“Of course not,” she said, trying to sound as if she didn’t think she needed it. “I just thought you should know, that’s all.”

And she was counting on this call to make Ford feel too proud to actually block their application. Clever, but he could see right through her. It had taken him a long time and a lot of bullshit to learn that skill, but now that he had it, it was like riding a bike.

Unfortunately, she was also right. Ford was over Claudia; that wasn’t in doubt. But he hadn’t forgiven her—or Jesse. So while he didn’t want them walking around his goddamn club, his integrity wouldn’t allow him to blackball them just because he didn’t like them.

“You’ve told me, Claudia,” he said. “Is there anything else?”

“You won’t go all Neanderthal or anything?” she said.

That should not have pissed him off as much as it did. She was trying to joke around, to lighten an awkward conversation; even Claudia wasn’t outright evil. But she had no way of knowing that Ford actually had just gone “all Neanderthal” on Derrick Duvall for daring to make Adra feel even the slightest bit uncomfortable.

God
dammit
.

He’d overreacted. He’d seen Adra hurt, and he’d just…

He’d felt
guilty
about it. And then he’d gone after Derrick.

“Ford?” Claudia said.

“I won’t go all Neanderthal,” Ford said. “Your life isn’t any of my business anymore, Claudia. Good luck with your move.”

And he hung up.

Only then did he realize there was some nervous looking kid with a clipboard hovering about his open office door. It took a moment for Ford to remember that there were a few dozen movie people wandering around the club, and that this poor kid wasn’t actually an intruder.

The kid took a step back anyway.

“Mr. Colson?”

“Yeah?”

“Um, Mr. Corvis said he needs you in the conference room?”

“What?”

“Mr. Corvis? The executive producer?”

Ford tried to make his face as gentle as possible. The kid looked like he might actually be shaking.

“I meant, what conference room?’” Ford said. “We have a conference room now?”

“Um, I can take you to it?”

“Lead the way.”

Ford shook his head as he followed the kid through the club, marveling again at how surreal the whole situation was. Within a week everything had been turned upside down. Within a week, he’d gone from…

What the hell had he been doing? Fucking up, that’s what. As a Dom, he’d fucked up royally. Both he and Adra had screwed up by giving in and neglecting to talk about what they were doing before they slept together; Ford didn’t realize until later that he’d been so certain that Adra had also wanted what he wanted: a life together. A relationship. All of it. He’d wanted all of it. And he’d been sure she did, too.

And he’d been wrong.

Well, shit happens. But he’d screwed up after that, too. Adra had told him, in her own limited way, what she could handle. She didn’t tell him why she couldn’t be with him, but she wasn’t obligated to, and that didn’t excuse his own lack of communication.

Because after that, he’d pulled away. He’d distanced himself from a friendship that was important to both of them, and he’d done it without explanation. He’d told himself it was because Adra had played games with him, was still playing games with him, and that was true—but it wasn’t the whole truth. He’d also done it out of self-preservation, because he thought he’d been in love with her, or who he’d thought her to be, and he’d needed time to get over that.

And today he’d been confronted with just how much that had hurt Adra.

“Goddammit,” he said under his breath.

“What?” the kid said.

“Nothing. Where are you taking me?”

“Right here, sir,” the kid said, pointing at one of the playrooms. Ford laughed out loud—this was what they were calling a conference room? Well, he supposed that could work, in a way…

“Thanks,” Ford said. The kid was staring at the floor. He still looked like a frightened fawn. “Hey, listen. Try to relax. You’re doing a good job.”

The kid looked up, his eyes bright. “Yeah?”

Ford smiled. “Yeah. Any idea what I’m supposed to be doing in there?”

“It’s a script read,” the kid said, proud to know something useful. “The production is under high security because of all the fan interest, so they don’t let anyone go home with a script. You have to read it in there, and the script can’t leave the room. I’m supposed to stand out here until you’re done.”

Ford shook his head again. Hollywood.