Worth The Wait: A Nature Of Desire Series Novel (8 page)

“Well, since you’ve given me a challenge…” 

He was as good as his word. Not the boredom part of course. He could read the phone book and she’d hang onto every word. But he kept things relaxed and friendly, the intensity of those earlier moments gone like they’d never existed, except they felt imprinted on every inch of her body and her lightly throbbing wrist.

 She was still reeling from it, even after they concluded their tour, had soup and a sandwich from the café, and he was walking her back to her car. Stopping by her door, he turned her to face him.

“Did I answer your question about what kind of Dom I am?”

“You did.” She wasn’t sure if ‘thank you’ was the appropriate response. She was wondering if he was going to kiss her, like at the end of a normal date. Nothing about this felt normal, and she meant that in the best way.

“You said when we met yesterday you’d be interested in letting me demonstrate my rope technique on you,” he reminded her.

“I think you may have just done that. I’m sold. If ever you change your mind about performing, you have a slot. As far as the consulting you offered, if you give me your email, I can send you the specifics on who will be doing what for the show. You’ll want to—”

“Stop.” Des touched her shoulder. She realized she’d placed a hand on his chest when she’d turned toward him, and was worrying the button of his shirt. He closed his hand over hers, glancing down at it. “Julie, I want to come see you later this week. I want you to experience what I do. I want to see you decorated in my rope. Is that what you want? Yes or no.”

“I don’t know.” She drew her hand away, stepped back. “Yes. Or rather, I’d say yes if I knew it could stay manageable. If it won’t be another great experience that will end up crashing and burning.”

His gaze softened. “Your honesty is heartbreaking, love. Okay, let’s do it this way. It’s a session, like you’d experience in a club environment. We’ll set ground rules. Helping you understand what will be happening on your stage is the biggest part of it. All right?”

So you’re going along with my farce to get your foot in the door. We’ll both fake it and pretend it doesn’t mean anything, because we both know I can work with that.

Snarling at herself for being a smart ass, she tilted her head in a stiff nod. “Okay. Uh…what should I wear?”

“That will be up to you. If you want to do clothes, wear something that’s not loose, like leggings and a sports bra. If you’re okay with no clothes, I can incorporate more things into the experience. Like candle wax.”

“Got it. Um, anything else?”

“Yeah.” He brushed her face with his knuckles. “Bring someone with you, like Madison. It’s important to be safe, and it will help you keep the control you need right now. You don’t really know me as a rigger and, while I have a good reputation and you’re not going to be hurt under my care, you’ve only got my word on that.”

“So it will be rope, maybe some candles, and Madison there. No sex.”

“No sex. Not that night. And not just because of Madison’s presence.” He had his back to the sun, so his eyes were dark. He had a very straight nose, a firm chin. Nice features upon which she tried to focus so she wasn’t caught in his deep, rich earth eyes. She should be saying no to this. A big hell no. But she’d suggested it, hadn’t she?

“This is your first scene, isn’t it?”

She warred with embarrassment, even as she knew it was stupid to feel it. It wasn’t like saying she was a virgin. He snapped her attention back to him as he wrapped her hair fully around his hand, used it and the pressure on the base of her neck to bring her closer to him. Her hand fell on his chest again.

“Answer me, Julie,” he said quietly.

How did he do that? “Outside of my really vivid imagination, yes. This is my first scene.” She pretended she didn’t sound breathless.

“That’s what I thought. And why I’ll save my vast seduction techniques for another night.”

She was fairly sure he’d already seduced her in the Conservatory. It sounded like a game of Clue. Mr. Hayes, in the Conservatory, with that intriguing pain-pleasure grip on her hand. It had made her nervous, her knees weak and her whole body stimulated. But he was trying to make her smile now. When she couldn’t summon one, he touched her face, his own expression sobering.

“I’ll come at six o’clock, day after tomorrow. You have my number, Julie. If you have to cancel, cancel. But I hope you won’t. I’ve enjoyed spending time with you today.” He straightened, making a show of surveying the parking lot. “And look. No zombies.”

“Yet,” she said ominously. “They would attack urban centers and then fan out, right?”

“You are a fascinating, weird woman.” Giving her a friendly look, he left her side, headed for a battered green Ford pickup she expected was his. “I look forward to seeing you soon.”

F
or the first production
, Julie and the stage manager were doing double duty as co-directors, and Julie already considered Harris a gift from the gods. He was an obese thirty-something with sharp pale blue eyes, a golden beard and silky blond hair he kept in a long tail down his back. He looked like the first mate on a pirate ship. He’d done stage manager work in dinner theater out on the West Coast, and was in a position to volunteer fulltime to help Julie.

Like most of the cast and crew, he was part of the BDSM scene, a submissive who served and lived with two Mistresses, also lovers. Though Julie had yet to meet them, his adoration for Millie and Tiana was obvious.

Over the past few weeks, he’d shared long hours here with Julie, and his eyes had glowed as brightly as hers as they took each step toward turning the building into a playhouse and bringing the production together. He had the marvelous and terrible passion that afflicted all those dedicated to the theater, whether in front of the curtain or behind it.

Madison had recruited theater students from the area community colleges to provide technical skills. On Julie’s recommendation, she’d shamelessly used Julie’s resume to attract their interest. Whereas actors could look for work through the trade papers, those interested in a career in backstage work had to build themselves from the ground up, not only volunteering in high school and college productions, but doing heavy networking to get experience that might lead to paying jobs. Julie had worked in almost every backstage capacity in her twenty years in theater, including paid work on Broadway and Off-Broadway shows, before deciding to move to community theater work. Working under her would look good on a theater student’s resume.

Harris’s ability to organize the students freed Julie up to focus on the other million details a managing director had to handle. Like today, when he was at the theater handling some technical direction, while she was signing off on the scene pieces the set design students were finalizing in Logan’s barn.

Unfortunately, once she took pictures and measurements for Harris, she was still later than she’d intended to be. Tonight was the night she was supposed to meet Des at the theater, and being late only spun up her nerves further. Rush hour traffic had her pulling back up to the building at 6:20.

Harris was already gone, but he’d received her text to let Des in before he and the others took off, because Des’s old truck was out front without Des in it. She’d texted Des as well, filling him in on the delay.

As she walked past the Ford, she glanced in the open bed. Tar paper, shingle bundles, several coils of twine. A cut piece of PVC pipe, an empty gas can, a scattering of fresh clumps of dry red clay and dried leaves. A crumpled coffee cup was wedged beneath the shingle bundles. She wondered if he’d tucked it there to throw away later, because except for it and the natural debris, everything in the truck was organized and secured with twine.

The bindings on the shingles seemed more thorough and far more elaborate than she suspected was the norm. Had it been an idle pastime on breaks between jobs, practicing his skills?

She hadn’t let herself think about what was going to happen tonight, though it had been in the back of her mind simmering like a witch’s cauldron ever since she’d somewhat agreed to it. The parameters he’d set had helped her rationalize away the multiple flares of panic. It was just a session. That was all. It didn’t have to be anything outside of that. Inside of it, it could be incredible and intense, as Madison had warned. Yet when it was over, it was over. No fallout. That was what she wanted. As long as she held onto that, she could fully enjoy the experience.

She hadn’t had a second thought about Des being in her theater without anyone else there. Out of all the worries she had about Des, trusting him here wasn’t one of them. That feeling was reinforced when she found him sitting on the edge of the stage.

He had his hair pulled back more sleekly tonight, accommodating the jaunty black plaid fedora he wore. He wore a dark blue button down over stonewashed jeans. Several brightly-colored woven bracelets were on his right arm and he had a small knife sheath threaded onto his belt. The untucked shirt crumpled high enough up on his hip in his seated position to see it, and the curve of his ass pressed to her stage. His biceps rippled in an appealing manner as he sipped from a bottle of his preferred flavored water, black cherry. When her footsteps made him twist around to find her with his russet eyes, he smiled.

He could lasso a woman with that smile as easily as with any rope he could call to hand. It was the real deal, a gift of the gods. Not artificial charm, not the luster of the sun reflected off a fortunate surface, but the sun itself, a limitless energy source.

If she was composing flowery narrative, she was in trouble. He screwed the top back on the bottle and set it to the side as she crossed the stage. The curtains were drawn, leaving a several foot wide apron of the stage visible. A ghostlight was on to illuminate the theater area. In theater lore, it was kept burning throughout the night for friendly spirits. It also kept unfriendly ones away, supposedly. She mused it must be working, since all she saw was Des.

“Hey there. What are you doing?” She took a seat next to him. It felt natural to sit close enough to brush his shoulder, particularly when he flipped open the cooler next to him and twisted the top off an Angry Orchard to hand it to her. It was crisp apple flavor, her leisure time drink of choice. He’d talked to Madison.

“Listening.” He leaned back on both palms, his side touching hers. He smelled like heat, tar, smoke, wind. “You must do this all the time. Sit and listen to it.”

“I do.” Though she was surprised he guessed that. When Julie had arrived, she’d given up her room at the Extended Stay as soon as she’d set up a cot in the dressing room. Madison had already achieved so much, but Julie would require some insanely long hours to get the theater, staff and first performance, already being promoted, ready on time.

That was just an excuse, though. She liked exploring the silent building in the middle of the night, imagining the performances that would happen here, the responses of the audience.

“What do you hear?” he asked.

“All of it. Every performance, the characters laughing, crying, talking. The audience responding. The thumps as they rush across the stage. The audience gasping.” She gestured, sweeping her arms wide. “And I won’t have to imagine it much longer. Once we start doing performances, the theater stores it away. Then you can hear all that even more clearly in the silence. I think it’s the way a theater breathes.”

Initially, Madison had hoped to start the theater in the building she’d used for her earlier benefit, but the cost and city regulations were too prohibitive. The rural zoning had been essential, since permitting for an erotic theater might have met greater opposition in the city limits. It might have even in the county, but Logan’s personal friendship with two of the county commissioners had helped, as he’d been able to assure them this would be avant-garde theater, not a sleazy strip club that attracted criminal elements.

One of the donors had offered Madison a great lease-to-own deal on a long-vacant tax write-off property outside Matthews. The picturesque town where Madison ran Naughty Bits butted up against the edge of Charlotte.

Inhaling the energy of this building, an infant theater about to be born, Julie knew this was where it had meant to be all the time.

She took a thoughtful sip of her cider. “You’re like a character come to life yourself. Far too colorful to be real.”

“Most people are colorful, if you shine the right light on them.” He studied the darkened rows of seats before them. “I’d like to be a pirate stepping out from the curtains, loud and dangerous.” He straightened, puffing out his chest in parody. “I’d pick the most spirited woman out of the audience, tie her to my main mast and bring out all her inner fire.”

“That would be great for a scene. Oh…” She drew in a breath, grabbing onto the idea and his arm at the same time. “You come out dressed as a pirate. Your partner, she’s in the audience, an aisle seat. When you head in her direction, she tries to run away, but you cut her off, like you’re kidnapping her. You toss her over your shoulder, carry her to the stage… While you have her over your shoulder, you could bellow at the man nearest you: ‘If you’re thinking of rescuing her, mate, my cutlass is far bigger than yours… Wanna see?’”

She made her voice boom, echo off the walls, causing his eyes to widen and a grin cross his face. She knew her gaze was sparkling, filled with the idea, because his reaction seemed as much for that as for her unexpected vocalization.

“Okay, but how do you transition that to the intensity of the rope scene?” he asked. “You don’t want that part to be comedy.”

“No, definitely. Even the audience part shouldn’t be entirely farce. Except for that one joke, you would be serious, romantic, dashing. Very large, powerful and dominant, making every sub’s pulse flutter. Or that part of each person that can imagine being a sub, even if we aren’t actually that way all the time, or identify as that.”

Des pursed his lips. “I could pull off romantic and dashing, but you’d need to pad my shoulders to make ‘large’ work.”

She nudged him. “I’ve felt your grip. You can pull it off. The pirate bit would inject humor, pageantry, a hint of the sexual excitement to come. Your outfit could be piratical in the audience, but on stage, you strip down to black trousers, returning us to the contemporary, and a more serious note. We could apply some sexy tattoos on you, like your ladies. Do you have any real ones? Can I see?”

The lines alongside his eyes were still creased with amusement at her enthusiasm. “Yes, but I have to take my shirt off to show you.”

“How horrible. I’ll suffer through it. Off, off, off.”

He shook his head. “Don’t get pushy with me wench. I’ll tie you to my mainmast.”

“Is that a hugely optimistic double entendre?”

She shrieked as he reached out and grabbed her thigh above the knee, a ticklish spot. “Remember, this is hypothetical,” he warned. “I’m not one of your performers.”

“No, but roll with it. I might be able to make it work for another rigger. Seeing you shirtless will help the creative process.”

He snorted but complied with her hopeful request. He took off the hat and playfully put it on her own head. As she adjusted it to a cocky angle and gave him an expectant look, he removed the shirt. He did it in a functional way, telling her he was neither overly proud of his physique nor self-conscious about it. Slipping several buttons of the garment, he pulled the whole thing over his head rather than unbuttoning it all the way, and put it down next to him.

He was lean and hard all over, as her glimpse of his abdomen at the garden had suggested. He wasn’t wearing the insulin pump or cannula tonight. It must be a day he was changing out the injection site. She saw some nicks and scars on his torso, probably the result of his very physical job. The light mat of dark hair on his chest funneled to that silky arrow of hair she still wanted to touch. To prevent herself from being too forward, she focused on the reason she’d asked him to remove his shirt.

A tattoo of a black dragon coiled around his biceps. It started as a spiral of rope and became a serpentine version of the mythical creature. The other arm had a black inked rope wrapped around his biceps, intertwined with a vine of thorns.

“One more on my back.” He twisted around to show her the design, a sunburst between his shoulder blades in blazing colors of orange, gold and red, the orb outlined in another twist of rope.

“I’m sensing a theme,” she observed.

“Yeah, rope’s kind of my thing.”

She reached out to the dragon on his biceps. It was lovely work, but it was merely an excuse to touch him. He was incredibly resilient, his muscles even at rest as evident as an anatomical drawing. She wanted to explore that terrain further, but when his gaze dropped to the contact, she withdrew.

“I’m sorry. If you’re a Dom, and I’m here to see how a session works, I guess I should have asked you if it was okay to touch you first.”

“Not a problem for me. You touch what you want to touch, love. When I want you to keep your hands to yourself, that’s what my rope is for.” He tilted his head to watch her trail her fingertips over the length of the dragon’s tail. “You’ve an easy way about you, earthy. Did you get that from your family?”

She’d been nervous about tonight, but his lack of urgency about getting to anything fast helped to relax her. She suspected he was doing it intentionally. She probably wasn’t the first nervous sub he’d had to help calm down. The realization didn’t thrill her, since she wanted to think of herself as unique, an entirely unrealistic expectation. She squelched the negative reaction.

“Most people down here think I’m too direct and brassy, too New York. And God, no. My family…they’re Upper East Side, old money. Well, my father is. All of them polished and contained, clear markers. No personality ooze overflow. Don’t get me wrong. I love them and they’re family. I’d go after anyone who hurt them with a tank, but…you know how Mowgli was raised by wolves?”

“
The Jungle Book
? I thought it was Baloo and Bagheera that raised him?”

“You get serious points for remembering their names, but it was wolves that found and raised him. Bagheera and Baloo were his friends. I’m not sure if that was the book or the Disney movie, or a little bit of both. It’s been a while.” She ignored the amused sparkle in his eye. “Anyhow, back to my point. Humans and wolves are both predators. They think in a lot of the same ways, so Mowgli wasn’t a bad fit for them.”

She sighed. “My family and me, it’s more like they’re rabbits, all snug in the same warren, and I’m a turtle with fin feet. Can you imagine anything more different? Turtles are happy swimming along in our shells, our home on our backs. We’re not trying to be cute or fuzzy. Our shell is shiny when it’s wet and we’re kind of wrinkly, but there’s something so damn cool and unclassifiable about us. Just don’t turn us over, because it ruins everything.”