“I think we had an unexpected audience last night, sugar,” Lou said.
Lacey stiffened.
Brogan clenched his jaw and waited for the shock, the horror to come across her face.
She just continued to stare at her lover. “Excuse me?”
Lou grimaced. “The door to my office doesn’t always shut well. After you headed back up to the bar, I got a call from Dugger. Turns out somebody was in the back hall near my office.” He flicked Brogan a look. “It’s your boy, there.”
Now Lacey looked at him. Vivid green eyes narrowed on his face. “Damn, Brogan. I know you’ve got your kinks, but watching me have sex, since when did that get on the list?”
“I didn’t go there to watch you have sex,” he bit off. “I went to talk to you.”
“So why didn’t you?”
“Because by the time I found you, you were too busy with that jackass,” he snarled. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to… Shit, Lacey.” Unable to even figure out what he wanted to say, what he needed to say, he turned away. He needed to level out before he could have this conversation. “Can I call you later?”
“I don’t see why you should bother,” Lacey said quietly.
“Because we need to talk.” Turning back to her, he focused on her face. Seeing her soothed that raw, ragged ache inside him but at the same time, it just made it worse because he realized he wasn’t going to be able to get her back, not as he’d hoped.
He was just now realizing how much he’d needed to get her back.
He thought he cared about her?
It was so much more than that and he hadn’t even seen it.
This was an ache inside him, one that kept him awake at night, that lived within him constantly.
She was still standing next to Lou but now she reached up, stroked the hand resting on one shoulder. Then she eased away, coming to stand a few inches away from him. So close that he could smell the soft scent of her skin, close enough that he could see the freckles on her nose. Close enough that he could just lean in and their lips would touch.
Yet miles stood between them.
“Why?” Lacey’s eyes were sad. “What’s there to talk about? You keep me on the outside, Brogan, and no matter how much I tell you that I want in, you won’t listen. I tell you what I need, what I want, and you pat me on the head like I’m a child. You only share the bits and pieces of yourself that you think I can handle. You won’t let me have you.”
She shook her head. “I’m done with that.”
“Lacey…damn it.”
“No.” Tears glinted in her eyes but she blinked them away. “This has been coming for a long time and what happened at Tracks that night was the last straw. You want me on your terms…and I guess part of me can understand that. But your terms aren’t fair. You want the me you think you know. And that woman isn’t me. Here are my terms. You take all of me, however you want me, and give me all of you. But you won’t do that. So this isn’t happening.”
All of me… That echoed through him. All of Lacey. However he wanted her. Possessiveness, need, the emotions that hit him, so deep and fast, it was more than he could analyze.
Especially considering she had turned away.
Especially considering the little bit she’d added on… Give me all of you…
I can’t do that—Terror gripped him. He couldn’t do that—couldn’t.
Then he watched as she went back to the other man’s side. Stopped, rested a hand against his chest.
They spoke but he couldn’t hear a word they were saying over the roaring in his ears. All he could see was her turning her back on him. Walking away. Just as he’d turned his back on her a dozen times.
Give me all of you.
I can’t do that, he thought again.
Lacey was leaving the room now. Walking away from him. For good.
If he couldn’t find a way to take her, as he needed—as she needed, and find a way to give himself, completely, he was going to lose her.
“Man, I think a drowning man would look a little less terrified than you do right now.”
Half mad with the fear inside him, he turned around, ready to pummel something. Someone.
But he didn’t find amusement on the man’s face.
He saw sympathy.
“She’s not fragile. Suddenly all sorts of lights are coming on for me,” Lou drawled. He leaned back against the counter, crossing his arms over his naked chest. “Trust me. She’s not fragile and she’s not into lace and moonlight and roses. She’s like the raw and the rough. Nobody knows Lacey quite the way I do…and there’s not much you can do that would freak her out.”
Brogan curled his lip. “You don’t know shit.”
Lou just smiled.
The sight of that smile only added to his misery.
Chapter Five
“I’m supposed to be working the bar tonight.”
“I called in to get somebody to cover you,” Lou said, shrugging as he packed up his equipment. He had spent about twenty minutes debating the matter before he made a decision.
Lacey was miserable.
The moron who’d barged into his place was miserable.
The two of them had feelings for each other.
Now, if Lou had been in this position two years earlier, he would have been almost delirious with delight… That was back when he’d still been hoping he could convince Lacey to give him one of those long-term chances. But she wasn’t into his bullshit for the long term. She liked him for fun and she loved him as a friend, and they did one hell of a job twisting up the sheets, but they weren’t a matched pair and they both knew it.
He’d figured it out just a little later than she did…right about the time he’d seen a woman he wanted the way Lacey wanted this guy of hers. Of course, he had no chance in hell of getting her, but that was beside the point.
What mattered was that his best friend was lonely and sad, all because the guy she wanted didn’t see her as clearly as he thought he did.
So Lou was going to move things along.
Lacey might get pissed at him but he was willing to take that chance.
The idiot might decide to rearrange his face…and he was also willing to take that chance, because he wouldn’t mind taking a few swings at Brogan Grainger. He deserved it for making Lacey so miserable.
All in all, it wasn’t going to be a boring day.
People were going to get pissed. And for a little while at least, he and Lacey were going to play.
Once he got things set up. He just had to get the pieces into place, and the players…
It was one thing that had always driven Lacey nuts. He was a born manipulator and the main reason why she couldn’t see herself making it a long-term thing with him. He understood that. Respected it. But this one time, if it made somebody open their eyes, maybe, just maybe, she’d be okay with it.
After the fact.
Lacey knew he was up to something but just then, she was too miserable to care.
Knowing Lou as well as she did, it was likely something to distract and she needed all the distraction she could get.
As he continued to fiddle with his camera equipment, she sighed. “What do I need to wear?” She hated doing photo shoots—well, when she was the model. Lou was the only one she’d do it for too. “What kind of look do you want or is there something already picked out?”
He shot her a wide, wicked grin. “Nah, you can pick out your own clothes. This is just for fun.”
“For fun.” She rolled her eyes. “Okay. What are you in the mood for?”
“The sluttiest you can manage.”
Lacey made a face. “You know, a lot of women would get insulted at that. What makes you think I’ve got slut clothes with me?”
“Do you?”
Lacey sighed. “I can probably figure out something.”
The gleam in his eyes didn’t quite make her smile. But it almost did. That almost smile had faded by the time she was halfway down the hall, though. A photo shoot
with him would be grueling enough that it would keep her mind occupied. A plus, there.
By the time it was done, it would be late and she could just go to the bar and mix drinks whether he liked it or not. She’d take extra clothes and change there. The black pleather underbust corset would work—she’d wear it with the sheer lace bra for her slut shoot and then change and put it over a black shirt for mixing drinks. A denim mini for tonight.
But what for now…?
She studied her clothes. There was a black miniskirt but it wasn’t really short enough…
Memory flashed through her mind.
She’d worn that out with Brogan.
Pain lanced through her heart. Hissing out a breath, she dug a pair of scissors out and cut a jagged strip off the bottom, turning the mini into a micro. She had detachable garter straps that could turn just about anything into garters and she hooked those onto the bottom of the skirt.
Black fishnets and she was deliberately careless as she put them on, tearing holes in them. After hooking the raw edges of the fishnets onto the garters, she put on the sheer lace bra. She could see her nipples through it. “Sluts r us,” she murmured as she grabbed her underbust corset. She was already slender, but it narrowed her waist more and managed to emphasize what little she had in the way of hips and boobs, pushing them up and out.
When she finished, she stared in the mirror for a minute and then went for the makeup.
Dark, heavy and extreme. Heavy on the eyeliner, the eyeshadow and the mascara, very little in the way of blush, topping it off with lipstick the color of blood. Against her pale skin, the effect was almost too much.
But that was the whole point of the get-up. Too much.
She looked like a walking advertisement for fast and easy, she figured. One more thing, though…the knee-high leather boots. She had a pair of thigh boots, but she’d left those in storage.
“Very good.”
Catching a glimpse of Lou in her mirror, she smirked. “I had to butcher a skirt to get one this short. You better approve.”
He came up behind her and tugged the skirt up. “You’re wearing panties.”
“I often do.”
“Not today.”
She opened her mouth to argue, but he was already tugging them down, detaching the garters to get them out of the way. “Damn it, Lou, I don’t often walk around in something this short without panties, you know.”
As he dropped them to the floor, he leaned in and rested his chin on her shoulder. “You just spent more than a year with a guy who didn’t get what you want. Now you’re with somebody who does. Why don’t you just play with me for a while, Lacey?” His hand pressed against her belly, then lower…lower, until he could hook his fingers under the hem of her short skirt and then push two of them inside her. Quick, fast…pumping, twisting.
As he finger-fucked her with one hand, he used the other to nudge her forward. “Don’t you miss playing, Lacey?” he asked. “Really playing?”
And the look in his eyes was a challenge. A dare.
“Are we playing or doing this photo shoot?” she asked, the words squeezing out of her suddenly tight throat as she stared at him.
His grin was wild. “Both.”
“Oh hell.”
A second later, she heard him unzipping his jeans. Then she heard foil tearing and it wasn’t another thirty seconds before he was pumping inside her, hard, fast and deep. When he brought one hand down, hard, on her ass, she moaned.
“You miss playing, don’t you?”
Gasping for air, staring at their reflections in the mirror, she shuddered around him, clenched down tight. “Tell me,” he ordered, spanking her again.
Lacey glared at him.
He fisted a hand in her hair and jerked her head back, hard. As pain blossomed, she smiled. “Yes, I miss playing.”
He held her upright, shafting her slowly, his cock swelling inside her, rubbing against her just there…and it was slow, and sweet, a direct contract to the tight, near painful way he fisted his hand in her hair. He stroked a hand down her midsection, caught one nipple between thumb and forefinger, and twisted it. “Like that?” he asked.
“No.”
“Tell me…”
“Harder,” she whispered, swiveling her hips against his and trying to take him deeper, faster.
He pinched her then, taking it to the point of pain, and she screamed. “Good girl,” he muttered. Her head fell back against his shoulder when he let go and he stroked his hand down the middle of her body, tugging her skirt higher until they could see the curls between her thighs, and lower, his cock as he shuttled in and out. “Can I spank your pussy, Lacey? Do you still like that?”
Lacey cried out, just thinking about it.
He swatted her lightly, but the contact wasn’t enough. She tried to pull away, but he wouldn’t let her. Chuckling, he murmured, “We’ve got all day to play, baby girl. All day…and it’s going to be fun games. Maybe even new ones.”
He continued those light little taps against her swollen clitoris as he rocked inside her clenched vagina.
He brought her to climax after climax…and when he was through, her body was so sated, she almost forgot how much her heart ached.
Almost.
“I need to shower.” Lacey came out of the bedroom, her legs wobbling, her makeup a little smeared.
“Sorry.” He gave her a pained smile and checked his watch. “We need to get to the studio. Like…twenty minutes ago.”
Lacey glared at him and looked down at herself. “I’m a mess, damn it.”
“No.” He shook his head and said honestly, “You look gorgeous.”
She grimaced and turned to stare at the mirror hanging over the couch. “No. I don’t. I look like I’ve just been laid.”
“Like I said…you look gorgeous. You look like the woman I just fucked. That’s a look I want to capture If you shower, you lose the look. Then we have to…” He paused, narrowed his eyes. “Okay, none of that is a bad idea.”
Lacey just stared at him. “Are you ever going to grow up?”
“No.” He slid an arm around her waist. “Aren’t you glad?”
Laughing, she pressed a kiss to his chin. “Well, sometimes…yes. I am.” Then she groaned. “I need five minutes.”
“Sure.” He let go. “Just one thing.”
She was already down the hallway. Turning to him, she started to say, “What?”
Then she saw the iPhone in his hand and she went to block the picture.
But he’d already snapped it.
“Damn it, you moron! I look like a slut!”
“Exactly. My hot little tramp,” he said, grinning.
Lacey locked herself in the bathroom and once he heard the lock snick in place, he sent the picture. Lou had already grabbed the phone number he needed from her cell, programmed it into his.
She looks pretty fucking hot, doesn’t she?
He was smiling as he sent the message.
Now, if his instincts were off, he could be looking at lots of physical pain in the near future—not from Lacey. There were games a couple of lovers could play and as long as they were both good with the rules, all was cool. Something Brogan apparently hadn’t figured out about Lacey—she was kinky. As in Kinky with a capital K. You wanted to turn that girl on? Spank her and call her a little slut. You want to really light her up? Tie her down and do it.
The dirtier the play, the more she liked it.
Now her boy had figured out she liked it a little rough, Lou suspected. And Brogan wasn’t into all vanilla play. He just knew…it was an edge others carried. It was surprising that Lacey was as dark as she was—she looked like Strawberry Shortcake all grown up, but grown up she was, and she liked her games.
Brogan just didn’t seem to get how much.
Lou was going to do him a favor.
It was, he suspected, the only way Lacey was going to be happy. Because she was gone over on the man.
His phone buzzed. He deleted
the message without reading it and put it on silent.
By the time Lacey was done, he had his equipment packed up. He figured they had a few more minutes.
Brogan wouldn’t have left town yet. Not yet. He was stubborn enough that he’d try to talk to her one more time, at least. That was how Lou had pegged him.
Lou just hoped he wasn’t wrong.
The first time he’d seen Lacey, Brogan had all sorts of fucked-up images in his head. He’d wanted to see her stripped naked and spread open in front of him. He’d wanted to see her bent down before him, wearing one of those half corsets she liked that pushed up her breasts—that and a bra. Maybe a short skirt and the knee boots she loved so much. Then he wanted her on her knees.
And he’d had her…all of those ways.
But there were other ways he’d wanted her…darker journeys that he’d wanted to take, and the laughter and light he saw in Lacey wasn’t made for those dark journeys.
But if a woman went down that road and wasn’t ready for it, it only led to misery, and a lot of it. It didn’t matter if he could make her want it. He knew all about making a woman want things. Just as he knew all about what happened when the haze and the hunger wore off. He’d been there. He wasn’t doing it again.
Lacey wasn’t meant for some of the darker roads…
That was what he told himself.
And yet he was seeing her there, glaring at the camera, wearing something that made him want to turn her over his knee and spank her for letting another man see her, something that made him want to push her against a wall and fuck her raw.
His hands were sweating, he realized. Sweating, trembling.
Clenching his jaw, he threw down the phone. He was leaving. She’d made herself clear and he couldn’t do what she needed, she couldn’t be what he needed, in the end. It was better—
Snarling, he grabbed the phone when it beeped again a few minutes later.
I’ll have fun with her if you can’t be bothered.
“Have fun with her?” Brogan stared at the phone. He didn’t recognize the number. But he didn’t need to know who it was.
That friend of hers? Lacey was in for a rude awakening if she thought Lou was really a friend.