His to Take

  or . . . whatever it was. Every time, the man caressed her skin with the flogger, his wife’s body twitched or bucked. Bailey found herself tensing, holding her breath, anticipating his next smack.

  “Who is that?” she asked Callie absently. “He looks so familiar.”

  “You’ve probably seen him on the news. That’s Jason—”

  “Denning. And that’s his new wife?”

  “Yes. I’ve known Jason for years. I never thought he had the capacity to actually fall in love. Nice to know I’m wrong. And oh, you never saw him here.”

  “Sure.” Bailey shrugged. It made sense that privacy was a big issue at a place like this.

  The man she’d first seen was finally done spanking the woman previously perched over his lap. Now he held her in his arms. The sight struck Bailey on a visceral level. The tenderness he now showed her after the almost ruthless way he had spanked her made no sense—and yet Bailey responded with something far beyond curiosity.

  Damn it, she was actually wet. Worse, she felt almost envious.

  “I don’t understand.” She pointed to the pair cuddling together on the bench.

  Callie just smiled. “Most likely, he was disciplining her. Now he’s giving her aftercare. If he gave her a command she didn’t heed or she failed to observe a rule, then it’s his right as her Dom to punish her. Or it could be that the spanking was for their mutual fun. It’s something they both wanted. You can see that.”

  Bailey could. The woman clung to her Dom, with her head on his shoulder as he caressed her back and whispered something in her ear. How could an ass smacking like that morph into something so tender?

  “Sometimes, when you feel like your world is spinning out of control, it’s so comforting to hand yourself over to a man you know will help you relieve your troubles. I’m sure that sounds old-fashioned or silly. I can, in fact, take care of myself. She can, too. You have to be strong to truly submit. But that . . .” Callie gestured to the pair. “What those two are sharing is priceless. I can’t explain. It’s not one-sided. He needs control and he needs to be needed. Believe me, they’re giving something precious to one another.”

  Psychologically, Bailey had no idea how that worked, but she didn’t doubt Callie. Another jab of envy, this time altogether different, stabbed at her. What would it be like to trust someone enough to give herself over and let him turn her inside out? Reduce her to her most vulnerable moment? Scrub her soul raw?

  “It’s . . . beautiful.”

  “Done right, with affection and trust, it is,” Callie whispered, as if she found the moment sacred.

  It felt that way to Bailey. She swallowed down more wine.

  “We should go,” the brunette said. “I’m going to get more than a friendly tap on the ass if I don’t get you back and spend some time with the guys.”

  “Thorpe will really spank you?”

  “I can almost guarantee it. But as the wedding has drawn closer, Sean and I are both on edge. Like we’re worried something is going to come along and screw it up. He’s been a bit paddle-happy lately, too.”

  And she didn’t seem to mind one bit.

  “Let’s go,” she offered as Callie headed toward the door.

  “Do you want more wine before we head back into the secure area?”

  Bailey hadn’t finished the glass she had. “No, thanks.”

  The woman opened the door, and a big, burly guy with flat eyes and shoulders like the side of a mountain stood there with a look of annoyed expectation. Axel.

  “Oops. I guess I forgot to tell my watchdog that we were coming up here. Darn. I think I’m in more trouble.” A saucy smiled played at the corner of Callie’s lips.

  Bailey kind of wondered if she was crazy, then shook her head. Crazy like a fox maybe. If Callie got the sort of connection from her men after a spanking that she’d seen between the couple on the floor, Bailey imagined she’d be happy to disobey a little more often.

  As the other woman started down the stairs, Bailey stopped her. “Why did Joaquin bring me here?”

  “The way Thorpe explained it, he needed a safe place to bring you, but he also knew that Sean and I would have background that no one else would. Two birds, one stone.”

  That made sense. And it should have set her at ease that he apparently hadn’t had kinky sex in mind when he cuffed her to someone else’s bed. On the other hand, she felt oddly unwanted, almost rejected, that his motives hadn’t been lascivious. Other than the hot kiss they’d shared, he hadn’t pursued anything sexual before or since.

  “Is Joaquin . . . Do you think he’s like, um, Thorpe and Sean?”

  She didn’t know how to ask the question without sounding sexually interested. Heat flamed across her cheeks.

  Callie stared over her shoulder. “Dominant? I don’t know him well. But if I had to guess? Oh, honey. He’s got all the earmarks. I don’t know how much he actually knows about the lifestyle, but I’ll bet if he spent even a few days here without having to worry about bad guys and dead bodies, your ass would be a fabulous shade of red.”

  “Mine?”

  “Yours. He’s watching you. And just a heads-up: You left your room without saying a word to him.”

  “But I’m with you,” Bailey protested.

  “A Dom, especially one who’s borderline paranoid about your safety, isn’t going to care if you’d been guarded by the entire Secret Service. He didn’t know and he didn’t make the arrangements. End of story.” Callie shrugged. “But maybe I’m reading Joaquin wrong and he doesn’t roll that way. We’ll find out.”

  Maybe they would, and the possibilities Callie raised made her pulse flutter and her sex clench. Hell, why did that man excite her? And why did the thought that he would want to strike his palm to her bare ass in the name of discipline rev her up?

  Because in the last twenty-four hours, she’d gone absolutely mental.

  Following Callie down the stairs, she found her stomach knotting as Axel grunted and gestured them ahead. He guarded their flank as he shepherded them back to the secure area of the club.

  Callie looked a little nervous as she glanced over her shoulder at the hulk. “How bad is it?”

  Axel grunted. “Don’t expect to sit at your wedding.”

  She winced and shoved open the door leading to the hallway that held Thorpe’s office. In the doorway, he glanced at his watch, then raised a dark brow. Perched on the edge of Thorpe’s desk, Sean polished off the last of his drink, then shook his head, tsking. Joaquin stood just behind them both, looking positively furious. Bailey swallowed.

  “Do you need a new watch, lovely?” Sean asked, his voice silky.

  “No,” she answered softly, head bowed.

  Bailey knew how the woman felt. When she risked a glance at Joaquin again, she fought the odd urge to apologize, look down . . . something.

  He came at her on angry footfalls. “Are you fucking crazy?”

  “Of course not.”

  Joaquin took hold of her half-full glass and sniffed. “Wine?”

  “I thought it would relax me.” She took it back from him and downed the rest with challenge in her eyes.

  “Did you drink any?” Sean asked Callie sharply.

  “No.” The heiress shook her head and held up her bottle. “Water. See?”

  That clearly surprised Thorpe. “You passed up wine. Are you feeling all right?”

  “Mitchell . . .” She sent him a saucy scowl.

  Joaquin ignored the trio and rounded on Bailey. “If you wanted something to drink, you could have asked me instead of going into a public area of the club where anyone could have seen you.”

  Bailey didn’t want to get Callie in trouble. “We got a glass, then she took me to a secure observation room. I’m fine.”

  “I had Axel watching them,” Thorpe supplied.

  Joaquin still didn’t look happy.

  “You never told me I couldn’t leave the room with your frie
nds,” she argued.

  Her statement made Joaquin look like he wanted to grind his teeth into dust. “Do you remember the pictures of the bodies on my phone? Do you really want to chance that happening to you? Because if Axel could drive up from Houston and arrive here a few hours ago, I guarantee that anyone else who got the idea that you might be here could have reached Dallas by now, too.”

  He made perfectly good points. Bailey felt a bit guilty that he’d gone to so much trouble to save her and she’d succumbed to a little cabin fever and the desire for some vino. Seeing him somewhere between angry and disappointed dug at her in a way she didn’t understand. She had a hard time meeting his gaze. “Sorry.”

  “Did anyone see you?”

  “I don’t think so. We kept to the shadows before we left the most public area and went to an observation room. It was up high. The windows were tinted. No one could see.”

  “But you weren’t supposed to stray far from Axel’s side,” Thorpe pointed out, looking at Callie like her ass was grass and he was the lawnmower.

  Not that Bailey worried about her new friend. The woman would probably enjoy her punishment. What would it be like if Joaquin did the same to her? The idea made her shiver.

  Callie objected. “She just wanted to see—”

  “Do you really want to take up this argument?” Sean prodded.

  She hesitated, then shook her head. “No. She was curious and . . . I wasn’t thinking.”

  “Let’s go.” Thorpe stepped away from the desk.

  Sean fell in beside him, motioning Callie closer with a sweep of his fingers. She followed them silently toward the door.

  “If you need anything around the club tonight, Axel will be here until four a.m. If you want food or drink, our receptionist, Sweet Pea, will help you,” Thorpe instructed. “We’ll be back tomorrow morning, but you have our numbers if there’s an emergency.”

  “I do.” Joaquin nodded. “Thanks.” Then he looked Bailey’s way. “I’ll deal with this situation.”

  * * *

  AS he took her by the arm, Bailey looked like she wanted to protest. Before she could engage in anything so unwise, Thorpe and Sean swept Callie out of the room and down the hall. The brunette turned to Sean and said something, looking as if she was trying to argue her case. Her fiancé shook his head. Her Dom smacked her ass.

  Now, there was a good idea . . .

  Joaquin turned his attention back to Bailey. “Come with me.”

  She didn’t say anything. For once, she was surprisingly quiet as he led her back to the bedroom she’d been staying in. He shut the door behind them, locked it. The sound made a soft snick in the otherwise silent room. He took the empty glass from her hand, managing not to succumb to the urge to slam it on the nearby dresser.

  “Explain what the hell you were thinking.” He was willing to hear it, not that he expected to like it.

  “I already did.” She shrugged, but didn’t quite meet his gaze. “It’s been one devil of a day. You’ve turned my whole world upside down. I barely know who I am right now. I just wanted out of this room for a few minutes. I wanted wine. I wanted a moment’s peace. That’s it.”

  Joaquin tapped his toe, feeling antsy. While he understood her desire for some fresh air and some liquid fortification, with this much danger lurking, he didn’t like it. At all. She’d put herself in goddamn danger without thinking. He repressed the urge to fidget. No other woman had ever made him this itchy or had crawled under his skin so quickly. Why her?

  “You wanted?” He didn’t mean to bite out the words, but they slipped free.

  If he’d followed even half of his urges simply because he’d wanted, she’d have a red ass, a sore pussy, and be wearing a smile of satisfaction. And damn it, he had to stop thinking like that.

  “So you just thought, the murderous freak who likes to butcher women . . . ‘Ah, fuck him’?” he challenged. “Because you’re what? Smarter? Stronger? Or you’re just playing the odds?”

  Bailey looked chagrined for a moment, then her anger kicked in. It showed in the tightening of her soft lips and delicate shoulders. She drew in a deep breath, but somehow only looked angrier for it.

  “Why do you care?” she spit at him. “I only matter because I was born Tatiana Aslanov, and you think I can help your cause, whatever that is exactly. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have given a damn about me. You would have passed me on the street without looking at me twice if I’d been anyone else.”

  Joaquin stared at her for a moment, his shock climbing. He’d spent just enough time at Dominion, observing Callie and her Doms, to understand a bit about how the relationship flowed. He’d heard of BDSM before, but never seen it in action until the past twenty-four hours. He’d be lying if he said it didn’t fascinate him. And he’d realized quickly that when Callie put on her “bratty pants,” Sean and Thorpe came down all over her.

  Bailey was sounding pretty bratty about now.

  He’d also seen a man spanking his sub tonight when he’d gone looking for Bailey in a panic. Axel had explained the reasoning behind the discipline to him. A short explanation, yes. But he got the part about the submission and the endorphins mixing together to send her into a subspace that would calm her mind and emotions.

  Casting a considering glance to Bailey, he pondered his next move. What if she needed this and didn’t know it? Hell, he’d never spanked a woman in his life, but the way he felt like a damn volcano right now, he had to get his palm on her bare ass or he was going to blow.

  “Come here.” He pointed to the ground right in front of him.

  She bristled. “I’m close enough.”

  He found himself sucking in a breath, squaring his shoulders, tightening his jaw. “Get the fuck over here. It’s not a request.”

  Now she looked a little nervous. But her mouth still kept running. “Or what?”

  Amazing that she’d managed to take her brattiness to another level. From what little he’d gleaned in the last day or so, if he had any intention of giving this shit a whirl, he had to shut her attitude down now, establish boundaries and control—quick.

  “Fine. We’ll bypass the ‘or what’ conversation and I’ll just show you.”

  As he stomped toward her, she tried to back away, but the desk stopped her. Before she could get around it and inch to the door, Joaquin grabbed her by the wrist and hauled her toward the bed.

  “I’ve had enough, Bailey. You don’t run out of here. You don’t show yourself in public. You don’t put yourself at risk. You don’t question why I care.” He just did. Not that he could explain it even to himself. “You want some peace? I’ll give it to you.”

  He jerked her against his body, her back to his chest. Bailey gasped. He went stone hard, all the blood rushing to his cock at the feel of her against him, at the thought that within mere heartbeats, he’d have her ass under his palm. The moment couldn’t come fast enough.

  With his free hand, he jerked at the button and zipper of her borrowed jeans. They were a size too big, just like the panties underneath, so getting everything off her hips and shoving it all down her thighs was far easier than he expected. She yelped in surprise.

  Joaquin ignored it as he lunged to the bed and planted himself on the edge, then dragged her facedown over his lap, doing his best to settle her squirming. Holy fuck, she had a gorgeous ass. Pale, firm, as delicate as the rest of her.

  “What are you doing?” she shrieked. “What the—”

  He interrupted her tirade by smacking the flat of his palm directly to her left cheek. Shit, her skin was so soft. The slap rang in his ears, then reverberated in his brain—the sound playing over and over in his head. His blood heated, came to a rolling boil. His cock got even harder. Something inside him stood tall, grew to a mountainous swell with some need to take her, touch her, control her, dominate her. Own her.

  As he lifted his palm away, he saw the red imprint of his handiwork. The sight fascinated him. Glowing. Pretty
. Perfect. He cupped her cheek, rubbed it, kneaded a little.

  “What is wrong with you?” she cried. “Are you out of your mind?”

  Probably. Shockingly, he didn’t give a shit in that moment.

  Instead of answering her, he repeated the process, raising his arm high, then brought it down with resounding force on her right cheek. The crack of his hand on her butt, the little jerk of