The Principle of Desire (The Science of Temptation) Page 4

  Beth laughed despite the Aaron-fueled spike in her anxiety. “Fire? I wouldn’t say fire, in that circumstance. But no, he was the Dom. I was the sub.”

  Ed processed that for a moment, then nodded. “You swing both ways. Got it.”

  “He doesn’t believe in switches. He was sure it was just a phase I was going through and now I’m supposed to be over it.”

  “Fucker.”

  “Right?”

  “Well, can I help? I mean if you need to pretend I’m your date or something, here I am. Use me.”

  Holy irresistible temptation, Batman. “You’d do that? You’re okay with your friends seeing you like that?”

  Panic flickered over Ed’s face. “Wait, now. In what way would they be seeing me, exactly? I said date, not boy toy. I’m not volunteering to walk around naked with a cock harness or anything. I’m keeping my clothes on.”

  “Sure, if you like. I’ll be magnanimous since it’s your first time.”

  “Phew! Gee, thanks for that.”

  Aaron had spotted her. He fixed her with his best steely gaze and mouthed “Stay” at her before returning to his conversation with one of the other regulars.

  That gaze had once made Beth wet in an instant. Now it just reminded her of Zoolander, and all she could think was Blue Steel.

  Ed, on the other hand, wasn’t pretending when he looked at her. Wasn’t posing. Whatever intensity he showed was genuine, and she was struck again with a craving to see more of that intensity. To bring it out in him, see how suffering refined him into a clearer version of himself. To see how much he would be willing to take to please her.

  “It’s ‘Thanks for that, Mistress.’ And actually, do you mind if I take off your shirt?”

  * * *

  Ed swallowed hard, then shrugged as casually as he could manage. “I guess that would be okay. No problem. Mistress.”

  “Quick study. I like that, boy. Arms up.”

  “Huh? Oh, okay.” He raised his arms and let out a sigh as Beth skimmed his T-shirt up. Trying to ignore the moment of panic at the realization he probably had more body hair than the rest of the club members combined, Ed pulled the shirt off his hands and offered it to her. She took it and shook it out, then started twisting it into a thick rope.

  Smiling as if at some private joke, she said, “Stay,” and circled behind him. Ed planted his feet and tried to make his heart stop thumping in his chest. His effort was wasted when Beth’s breath tickled his shoulder blade. “Put your hands behind your back, boy.”

  “Not sure about the ‘boy’ thing,” he confessed, keeping his hands where they were.

  “When I want your opinion I’ll give it to you, boy. Hands.”

  Her tone said she wouldn’t be denied. Swallowing his anxiety down, Ed pushed his hands back toward her and Beth quickly secured them with the twisted T-shirt, placing the loose ends in his palms and instructing him not to let go without her permission. She rounded him again, inspecting him and finally nodding in approval.

  “I can get out of this, you know that, right? Mistress.”

  “Of course you can. The goal is to make you look and feel bound but give you some security that you have control over the process. Since you’re a newbie. Now, let’s go see what the others are up to.”

  She hooked a finger through his belt loop and resumed her elegant stride toward the whipping post, where Ivan was removing a limp Cami from the restraints.

  “When we stop,” she whispered to Ed, “You should kneel while I’m talking to the others. Don’t speak unless I give you permission. Got it?”

  “You have gotta be fucking kidding me. Yeah, I think I get it, but I’m also starting to think I was nuts to do this. You are buying me a drink or some dessert afterward, yes?”

  Beth glanced back at him, eyes sparkling with mischief. “If you’re good. You didn’t address me properly just then, so that doesn’t bode well. Oh, fuck, he’s heading this way.”

  “Sorry, Mistress.”

  They arrived at the group, and Ed sank to his knees after a shrug and a “what you gonna do?” eye roll at his baffled friends.

  “We’ll explain later,” Beth said. Then she worked her fingers into Ed’s hair and tugged, and he lost track of whatever she went on to say to Ivan, because each tug was like a pull on his groin. What was it about the woman’s hands? Slowly, Ed leaned closer until he could rest his cheek against the warm leather of Beth’s boot. The sharp, clean smell and buttery soft surface invited him to linger, but it was Beth’s fingers encouraging him to remain that truly fired him up.

  He closed his eyes, but his ears pricked right up when a new voice joined the mix. Deep. Masterful. Big mature strong alpha male voice. Beth hadn’t mentioned that Aaron was from South Africa, but the accent was distinctive. Risking a peek, Ed saw an appearance to match the voice. The guy was taller than Ivan, blond, well-muscled. He looked like a Greek statue, and Ed felt suddenly dumpy and unworthy. And sad, because obviously Beth would eventually go back to Aaron. Or rather, to Master Aegis, which was apparently Aaron’s club name. It really was like LARPing.

  “And who’s this?” Beth’s once and future Master knocked Ed’s thigh with the side of his heavy-booted foot. Not quite a kick, but close. It was the first thing he’d said to Beth, and he didn’t even address her politely. Ed wanted to bite the jerk’s ankle, and nearly got up to tell him off, but Beth’s fingers tightened painfully in his hair, holding him in place. Reminding him he was there to play a part.

  “Nice to see you too, Aegis.” Beth was all outward calm. “This is my new boy.”

  No further explanation. Aaron didn’t seem to like her silence.

  “He looks like a stray you dragged in off the street. Off to a rip-roaring start, aren’t you?”

  He was baiting her, Ed could tell. He wanted her to get defensive. For a moment it seemed Beth was wise to him. She stroked Ed’s hair, then took her hand away.

  “We weren’t planning to be here tonight, so he wasn’t dressed for it. And we’re leaving shortly anyway.”

  No, no, no. Don’t fall for that, don’t let him control the terms of your conversation. You don’t have to explain yourself to this asshole. Looking up, Ed saw Beth’s hands in unconscious, agitated motion as she continued.

  “Besides, how he looks is none of your business, Aaron. Not everybody is hung up on surface qualities.”

  She talked with her hands when she was nervous. He had only seen it once so far, but he could tell that was what was happening. He wanted to reach up, still her hands, tell her not to engage. Not to feed the troll. Lead her away, or at least intervene on her behalf. In his current position, though, he probably wasn’t supposed to do that. It would make her look bad or weak in front of the jerky ex, and that was the last thing Ed wanted for her.

  Ed’s basic view of humanity was that most people sucked. That was almost always his starting assumption, when meeting a new person. A few people turned out not to suck, and if they still liked him by the time he found out, he counted them as friends. This Aaron dude—Master Aegis—obviously sucked. He was insecure. He liked to push people around. He was all about appearances, Ed would be willing to bet money on it. But when was the last time he’d hung out with friends just for the hell of it, or helped a buddy move a couch for no greater reward than a beer and +10 goodwill points? Why wasn’t pretty boy married at his age, which appeared to be early forties?

  Thinking of the early forties made Ed think of the number forty-two, leading to a brief mental digression as he recalled some favorite lines from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and wondered if it was time for a reread. Another part of his mind had automatically factored forty-two down to its primes, and thinking of primes reminded him of the thrust-to-weight ratio problem he’d been working on with his scramjet stage research, which made him think about escape velocity...

  * * *

  If she hadn’t known better, Beth would have thought Ed was in subspace. He had relaxed against her leg, and he looke
d blissed-out and intense at the same time. She knew the expression well, and it looked strangely good on her faux submissive.

  Aaron was being such a dick. She’d fallen for it, and was kicking herself even as she responded to him. It was a reflex he’d conditioned in her, that struggle of wills he set up just so he could win. And she hated it. The artificiality of it, the superficiality of it. It had exhausted her when they were together, and she felt the remembered weight of all that exhaustion now, hovering in her peripheral vision, waiting to settle itself back on her shoulders. He was right, though. Ed was a stray off the street. And nobody would ever call Ed pretty. But at the moment, he felt good and so right at her feet, one arm circling her calf, his hand resting on the arch of her foot. He’d dropped his makeshift T-shirt tether on the floor behind him, but she wasn’t going to draw attention to that.

  He’s just doing you a favor.

  “So did you swing by to use the equipment on your boy here, or was it by any chance related to my text earlier?” Aaron asked, his smug face clarifying that he assumed the latter. He actually thought she’d come here to see him. And maybe she had, maybe she hadn’t, but still. Fuck him.

  “I came here to...use the whipping post.” It was the first and only thing that sprang to mind.

  From the sudden death grip on her foot, she surmised that her words had brought Ed right out of the zone. Small wonder. She had just volunteered poor Ed for a flogging, without so much as running it by him beforehand. Totally not okay. Fuck me.

  Think, think, think...stupid big brains, never around when you need them...oh!

  She grabbed Ed’s hair again and forced his head back, meeting his gaze and hoping he would follow her lead. As she did it, she felt a shudder run through him, and although he looked slightly panicked she also saw his pupils widen. Good signs. He was turned on. This might work. “Do you remember your safe word, boy?”

  He had to figure it out. He was a freaking rocket scientist, and this was a simple ruse. Please figure it out, Ed.

  After a long, agonizing moment, Ed licked his lips and nodded. “Fluffy purple unicorn...Mistress.”

  He must have chosen the only safe word he could remember—the one that the character Sub Red used in the kinky graphic novel Balls ‘n’ Chain. It was meant to be a joke in the ‘toon, but she had no idea if Ed knew that. It was definitely not something he would blurt out unintentionally in the heat of passion. At least she fervently hoped not. The idea of him doing so nearly made her giggle-snort.

  Cracking up would have given the whole thing away, so she held it together somehow. Ed looked resigned but bemused as Beth ordered him to stand and led him to the whipping post. Their friends had obviously read the situation, and wore faces ranging from earnest deadpan (Ivan) to barely restrained explosive laughter (Ben). At Ivan’s quiet order, Cami readied one of the leather cuffs and secured Ed’s left wrist. Beth caught his right hand and raised it, using the proximity to whisper straight in his ear so Aaron couldn’t overhear.

  “You’re sure you’re okay with this? I’ll pull my swings and you can safe out as soon as you want to.”

  Ed swallowed, his brow furrowing. Somewhere under his scruffy almost-beard, he seemed to be frowning. “I just found out all my friends are into this stuff, and you expect me to let you fake this in front of them? If Cami took it, so can I. Bring it on, Mistress.”

  “Oh, Ed. You don’t even know,” Cami murmured.

  “Let’s do this,” he insisted.

  “I’ll settle for fluffy if you can’t make it all the way through purple unicorn,” Beth told him, pretending to linger over the buckle so she could feel the solid bone and well-defined muscles of his forearm. Sitting at a keyboard all day had at least left Ed with sexy forearms, and compellingly competent-looking hands. “And thank you for doing this, I so owe you like a million beers. Or rum and Cokes.”

  “A date.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You owe me one date in exchange for this. Those are my terms. Nonnegotiable. We can discuss when and where later. Now c’mon, whip me like a little bitch before I lose my nerve.”

  She snickered, unable to help herself. Risking a glance at Aaron, she saw him frowning at her. At them. What was that about?

  “Okay, then. If you insist.”

  Ivan stood ready with a flogger and a cat, offering her both so she could choose. The cat was glossy leather with wicked knots, and the flogger was a fat mop with broad, soft, saddle-colored falls of elk or deer. Because it was Ivan, Beth knew the whips would both be clean and in superb condition. She also knew which one she ought to choose. The cat was no toy for beginners, but he’d clearly wanted Aaron to think it was a viable option. The fact that he’d offered it was both a sign of his trust in her, and an interesting indication of how much more perceptive he’d become since Cami entered his life.

  The mop was even heavier than it looked. Beth swung it around a few times, getting a feel for its momentum and loosening up her shoulder.

  “Boy, what were you wearing this afternoon when you got into the Professor’s car?”

  “A T-shirt and some baggy-ass gym shorts, Mistress.”

  He sounded as gloomy as Eeyore, as if he knew what was coming. Oh, he was quick. She bounced on her toes with sudden excitement. This was going to be fun. She hadn’t expected that.

  “Baggy-ass gym shorts indeed. You know what Karl Lagerfeld used to say about that kind of shit? ‘Sweatpants are a sign of defeat. You lost control of your life, so you bought some sweatpants.’”

  “Who’s Karl Lagerfeld?”

  “Who’s Karl Lagerfeld...?”

  “Mistress,” he corrected himself.

  “Never mind. How about ‘Clothes make the man’? That’s Mark Twain, you may have heard of him. The baggy-ass gym shorts have those loose pockets, Ed, and what happens with the loose pockets?”

  “My cell phone falls out in Ivan’s car. The Professor’s car. Sorry, Mistress.”

  “You inconvenienced everyone, boy.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  He sounded like he was starting to buy her line of patter. Either that, or his acting skills were on a par with Aaron’s. His body wasn’t. With his arms stretched over his head, Ed looked trimmer, but his back lacked chiseling and Beth knew there was no six-pack on the other side. Just a fully unshaven, unwaxed, non-metrosexual and non-ripped torso. She wondered what it would feel like to rest her cheek on Ed’s chest or belly. Softer and furrier than she was used to, no doubt. Ed looked comfortable.

  Too comfortable. Time to change all that.

  “No more baggy-ass gym shorts outside your apartment.” She swung the mop flogger behind him, flicking it a few inches from his back to warn him of what was coming. Ed flinched, then chuckled when no blow fell.

  “No more gym shorts. Got it. Mistress.”

  Make me proud, boy.

  His jeans were still on, so her options were limited. She aimed for one shoulder blade, then the other, observing Ed’s reaction as the heavy, thudding blows fell.

  One, two strikes, then she swung her arm back to regroup. One, two, pause. One, two, pause. Again.

  After several cycles, Ed relaxed, no longer jumping at each fresh touch of the falls. As his shoulders and back turned a lovely shade of rose, slick sweat began to rise there too, dampening the flogger’s tips. The wet leather was heavier, and stung more, as Beth knew from experience. She expected him to safe out at any moment, but he kept pace with her increasingly severe strikes.

  Then she heard him grunting softly after each blow, and realized his hips were moving to the same rhythm, grinding against the beam he was shackled to. Small things. Small things that made her wet, made her legs shiver with envy for the column he was sort of dry-humping. There was a moment when all these elements came together, and everything disappeared but the two of them, and Beth thought she might go on forever in an endless loop of his pain and her anticipation.

  A sharper cry from Ed pulled her out of it. She’d gone l
onger and harder than she ever meant to, and as her arm tired her aim suffered. Her last stroke had left a sharp stripe across the pink background. She lowered the whip and stepped closer, examining Ed’s back. Tiny red dots dappled his skin, but those broken capillary marks were clustered more closely where the single heavier blow had landed.

  Fascinated with what she’d wrought, Beth pressed her fingers over the swelling welt, savoring Ed’s wince. He’d done it. Taken everything she’d dished out. He’d let her whip him almost bloody. Was she really worthy of that much trust?

  “Good boy. You’ve earned that date.”

  “Thank you, Mistress.”

  God, his voice. He sounded absolutely wrecked. She’d done that to him. He’d given that much of himself, and they were only casual acquaintances.

  Curiosity got the better of her, and she snaked a hand around Ed’s body and down to his belly. Not all that soft. He would still make a comfy pillow, though. And he was definitely furry.

  “Lower,” he whispered, working his hips again. She felt his movement with her whole body, pressed as she was along his side.

  “No.”

  But when she unbuckled his cuffs and he stepped back, she bit her lip and hissed in mock sympathy. “Ouch. Jeans looking a little tighter than when you came in here, boy. That looks painful.”

  The look he shot her made Beth glad he wasn’t the one holding the weapon. But there was humor there, too, the silent acknowledgement that he’d gotten no more than what he’d agreed to. And beneath that, there was a healthy touch of awe. And under everything, a thick base of hot, simmering lust. His. Hers.

  “I’ll survive, Mistress.”

  “Yeah...I think it’s time to head out of here.”

  Chapter Five

  The whole group was out the door by the time Beth thought about Aaron again. She had forgotten about him by the time she pulled Ed from the beam, and she only thought of him now because she spotted his Jaguar parked along the curb.

  “Huh.”

  “What?” Ed continued to trail her like a puppy, and she did nothing to dissuade him. The night air was sultry and didn’t help cool Beth’s heated interest in her unlikely suitor. She’d wondered if the spell would dissipate once they stepped outside the club, broke the scene officially, but she still throbbed and pulsed in places she couldn’t ignore.