Tied Up and Twisted (Mills & Boon Spice Briefs) Read online

  All of the nervous gestures she’s worked for years to disassemble come back in force. Her head goes down. She looks up at him from under her glossy, dark bangs. She bites her bottom lip, hard, welcoming the immediate spark of pain as a way to clear her head. When she was a top, she was able to bury these glitches—what she has come to consider as the human side of herself—beneath an icy exterior. Somehow, that ability has disappeared. Frost does things to her.

  “Don’t worry,” she says, almost more to herself than to him. She squeezes her thighs together under the table, feels her bare legs touch above the lacy tops of her stockings. She knows, in her mind, what this will be like, what she’s asking for. There are men who would snap her up in a heartbeat. She doesn’t want those men. Frost doesn’t see the treasure she’s offering. “Training me won’t be so difficult. I’m good. I simply need a little discipline.”

  He looks at her directly. She feels that appraisal she sensed at their first meeting. “What do you want from me?” His voice is gruff. They’re talking for real now.

  She can’t help herself. “How long do you have?”

  He considers what he has to say. The heat between them is palpable, shimmering like hot liquid metal in the air. “I don’t think I can do this again.”

  She’s confused, but she sees pain in his eyes, and she wishes she could help him. “We’ve never done anything before.”

  “Not you,” he says. “This.” He acknowledges their connection with the slightest gesture of one finger. “It’s been too long for me. I’m accustomed to what I’ve got now.”

  Everything in her wants him. She visualizes pushing away the table—hearing the coffee cups clattering—and crawling to him on the floor. She knows just what it would be like to undo his fly, suck his cock. If any of those behaviors were socially acceptable, she would be in motion. Or if this was a different type of establishment where the rules are skewered. There are so many places she could go, dark clubs. She knows the way down their shadowy alleys, knows they offer her salvation. She doesn’t want that. She wants him. None of this makes sense to her. Love at first sight is a fairy tale, and she no longer believes in fairy tales. But she feels something with this man. The fact that he hasn’t walked away gives her hope.

  “What have you got now?” She has to ask the question, even though she doesn’t think she wants to know the answer. That’s the journalist in her, always digging in other people’s dirt.

  He drains the rest of his coffee. The half-smile on his lips is bitter. “Nothing.”

  * * *

  “Good to see you back, Hadley,” the ginger-goateed bouncer says as she enters the building. Some habits are more difficult to break than others.

  She nods curtly in response, feeling the rush of anticipation build inside her. This is what Hadley does when she’s in turmoil. She hits a club. The one she lands in is an old favorite. It’s dark inside—they’re all dark, but this one, with the rippling black satin on the ceilings and black painted walls, is like stepping into a midnight. Without stars. There are illuminated statements on the walls, artistic quotes bent into curved neon.

  She wears all black this evening, as do most of the club’s clientele. Her hair is up, tight, shiny and neat, so that the back of her neck is exposed, not a strand loose. She feels cool and ready. The last time she visited, she was a different person. Guy tugged on the end of her leash, and she put him through the motions automatically, almost without thinking.

  Now she’s different. She scans the room for someone who will play the way she wants to, someone who will exchange power with her for one night. Maybe she can put Mr. Reed Frost out of her head if the pain-and-pleasure mix is perfectly blended. A concoction of the most deliciously decadent sort is on her inner agenda.

  As she looks over the rest of the players, a man comes up behind her and slides one hand on her waist. This is a greeting of equals, not a sub seeking her out, not a dom pushing her down so that her knees buckle and hit the floor. She turns and meets his eyes. The man’s name is Dean Murphy and he isn’t all about show, like Guy. He’s a gorgeous, leather-clad master who doesn’t give a fuck about the sex of his partners as long as they are willing to submit to his requirements. She’s seen him in action a handful of times, and she’s always had a colleague’s appreciation. Dean’s handsome and he’s hung, but she’s not going to fuck him. They will not be a long-term item: he cannot give her that elusive thing she’s looking for. But he can give her what she wants tonight.

  And what she wants is discipline.

  “You were missed, Hadley.”

  She’s been a dominant for so long the craving for what she wants now feels exciting and new. There’s a crackle, like electricity, in her head.

  “Dean,” she says, in greeting.

  He has to press his lips to her ear so she can hear him over the throbbing techno beat. “Which lucky sub are you playing with tonight?” He motions to the figures around them, all those eyes watching hopefully.

  “I want to play with you.”

  He doesn’t pick up what she means. Why would a dom need a dom?

  She takes his hand and places it on his silver belt buckle. He looks at her. Her heart pounds. She’s only been his peer in the past. What is she asking him for? She answers his unspoken query. “Do a scene with me?”

  Now he understands. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  He hesitates only for a second before gripping her wrist. “Back room,” she says. He nods, accepting the fact that she’s letting him know what she wants. In the past she would have stalked forward, Guy following behind. Now Dean is the one who parts the crowd as he walks, and Hadley feels her cunt respond. She is going to be punished, and she will relish every stroke.

  The fact that redemption is so close is flawless, golden foreplay to her. If she were to slide one hand down her skirt, she’d meet instant wetness. She’s grateful for Dean because she knows he will give her what she needs. The times she’s watched him on stage have told her so.

  She’s seen him bind down both men and women. She’s seen him wield a crop, a quirt, a whip. She knows that he will respect her boundaries, but that he will take her right to the very edge. She wants to tell him that she’s ready. God, she is so fucking ready.

  Dean is a man who knows his way around a rope. He ties Hadley into place with the artful gestures of a true bondage master. When he’s close to her face, he whispers, “Safe word?” and she says, “Angel,” naming her favorite rock tune.

  Only when Hadley is bound does she finally feel the constant racing of her mind begin to slow. She has never fully understood why bondage works for her, but she accepts that this is her meditation. Her church. Her altar. She used to be the one doing the binding. Being forced to hold still takes her to a whole new level.

  Dean lifts a crop. She shuts her eyes for a second, then opens them when he asks her a question: “You’re sure you want this?” he says. “You know what I can do.” He’s checking one last time.

  Hadley knows better than to nod. She says, “Yes,” and she adds “sir,” even though the word feels alien on her lips.

  The crop connects with her ass and she sucks in her breath.

  Why does she like to play with pain? Why does giving in accentuate the pleasure for her? She used to ask Guy those sorts of questions, late at night, when she was putting him back together after taking him apart. Now she has to come to terms with them herself. But tonight she doesn’t ponder the whys—all she does is give in.

  Dean whips her quickly, and neatly, lining up the blows. He punishes her through the black leather pants she’s wearing, and the fabric mutes the pain. She lasts longer than she thought she might, waiting until he gets in five blows with the crop before saying uncle.

  With each stroke, she imagines Frost holding the handle of the weapon.

  * * *r />
  Guy watches the entire exchange while leaning against a wall and feeling as if he’s fallen down a rabbit hole into hell. He can’t believe what he’s seeing. People change. He knows that. But he doesn’t think this is really Hadley. It couldn’t be.

  Christ. She’s back in town. His wish has come true. Who knew that getting what you dreamed of could feel so fucking wrong?

  * * *

  The article runs in the paper, and this gives Hadley the reason to return to the gym. She could mail the piece. But she wants to see Frost. Needs to see him. She stands outside the gym, wavers, returns to her car.

  The local mom-and-pop bookstore doesn’t carry any porn. (Mom’s decision, she thinks snidely to herself. Pop would carry smut.) She can’t find the titles she desires. It’s a trip to San Francisco before she locates a bookstore that fulfills her requests. She buys him The Story of O. She buys him 9½ Weeks. She puts those along with the article into a brown paper mailer and sends them to his attention at the gym.

  Personal and Confidential.

  She hopes Guy doesn’t get to the mailer first.

  That night it is another trip to the club. To take the edge off, she tells herself, like a junkie would. To fill the need. She’s always had those needs, the ones that wake her up in the night—or keep her from falling asleep in the first place. Top or bottom, there are urges, cravings. The ones that make her attempt to punish herself when nobody else is available. She’s not that capable. She pulls back. Spanking your own ass does nothing—you can’t feel the sting. Not the way you can when there’s a master on the other end of the whip.

  She takes care of her needs in other ways. Dom or sub. No one else would be able to guess. She pushes herself when she works out. When she does anything. She always has to go one step past the finish line, has to cross the line before anyone else.

  Guy calls her cell phone as she’s arriving at the club. “Come on, Hadley. Don’t shut me out.”

  She won’t rehash their final fight. Now that she has distance, she can see that nobody was right and nobody was wrong. They simply don’t mesh.

  “Frost won’t be able to give you what you need.”

  “You have no idea what I need.”

  “I used to.”

  “That and my vibrator will get me off.”

  She hangs up and shakes her head. Of course, her ex would be working at the same place as the man she desires. That’s the kind of luck she has.

  * * *

  Unfortunately, Guy knows her too well. That’s her fault. She had him trained to anticipate her desires. She’s in a corner of the club when he arrives. He’s wearing leather and black, and he moves with the elegance that drew her to him in the first place.

  On the surface Guy is everything she ever desired. Scratch the surface and, as she discovered, there isn’t much there. Guy is all about his attire, his perfect body, his luxurious hair. He couldn’t get to the place she needed to be—couldn’t take her there, beyond the shiny exterior, into the slithery mess of her mind.

  But that’s not entirely fair.

  When they were together, she didn’t really know what she needed. Now she does.

  He spies her, and he starts moving through the crowd. Fuck. Hadley heads quickly in the opposite direction. Her motion halts Guy. That sums up their relationship in the crack of a whip. He sees her approach Dean, and he grimaces.

  “Twice in a week,” Dean says, and his hand grips the back of her neck. “I must have won the fucking lottery.”

  Dean is less hesitant this time. He treats her the way he would any other sub. The respect of dom to dom has entirely disappeared. All Dean wants to do is be on top. Hadley is thankful for that. She needs to feel the heat of the pain in her soul. She wants to own every blow.

  He uses a slapper this time—two pieces of leather attached together at the handle. The noise is more startling than the pain. She knows all about this particular tool. She’s had her own for years, and it was always one of her favorites. Every time the leather connects, her pussy contracts. She can feel that Dean is whipping her carefully, in order to make the scene last. Not too hard, but forcefully. He clearly doesn’t want it to be over before they start.

  She knows that out there in the crowd, Guy is paying careful attention. She wonders how many times he will stroke his hair while he drinks in the scene.

  * * *

  Watching twists Guy up inside. He was with her. He was her sub. What they had together fit for him. He still doesn’t understand why she left. He doesn’t care about Dean. It’s the way Hadley looks at Frost that makes Guy crazy. Guy was the one who brought Hadley into the gym—so that she could see him, so that she could remember what they had together. His plans rarely backfire. He’s always been good at setting a web.

  What is wrong with her?

  Dean switches over to a flogger, and Guy imagines what the tiny tails must feel like to Hadley. He’s been on the receiving end of those sorts of weapons so many times before. He loved when Hadley would make him stay in place without any bindings, make him hold his hands over his head while she used a cat-o’-nine-tails on his naked back. That was the most difficult for him—that and when she pegged him with the strap-on.

  Now Hadley is the one being punished, and Guy can’t comprehend the range of emotions that swell up inside him.

  “Twenty,” Dean says. “Count them out for me.”

  Oh, so the dom wants Hadley to keep track. That was one of Hadley’s own tricks. Guy would try his best to count for her, but he would always fuck up, and she would start again at one. How many times did she chide him for losing his place? How many nights did she make him stand in the corner, his dick so hard, refusing to give him release because he had been a naughty boy?

  Guy mentally counts the blows along with her. At seven, he starts to formulate an idea. He will invite Frost out for a drink to expose Hadley for who she truly is.

  But he watches, first. He stares at Dean, seeing the man expertly deliver the pain that finally makes Hadley cry out.

  Good, he thinks. Cry.

  That doesn’t stop him from coming to the image when he gets home. We’re all mercurial at some point, he thinks. Desires slip and change, shift and glide. Pain is pain and pleasure is pleasure. For him, and for Hadley, the two sensations are entwined. Does it matter that she needs to be on the receiving end?

  Guy uses a bottle of hand lotion this time; the honey-vanilla scent was Hadley’s favorite. He likes to smell like her. But as he jacks off, he can’t stop himself from envisioning Dean. Dean tying him up. Dean flogging him. Guy stares at his reflection in the mirror. He tries to make himself fantasize about Hadley whipping him, tries to force that image into his head.

  Instead, he sees only Dean.

  * * *

  Frost receives the package at the gym. He laughs to himself when he sees what she’s sent him. She’s like a child, he thinks, begging so many different ways for a treat. He doesn’t know how he should respond, so he does nothing. There’s no need to rush.

  If she wants something bad enough, she’ll tell him in person.

  * * *

  It’s been a week. Guy can’t function. He’s in charge of PR at the gym, and he does his job as if in a dream. Every time he closes his eyes, he sees himself up on stage at the club. Bound in place. Forced to take what he desires, what he deserves.

  It’s Dean making him count now. Dean instructing him to behave, to be a good boy.

  He runs a comb through his thick black hair, a soothing gesture. He tells himself that he still wants Hadley. At the end of the day, as he dials Frost’s number, he realizes that he almost believes the lie.

  * * *

  “She’s bad news,” Guy says to Frost as soon as the older man sits down.

  “I haven’t even ordered a beer yet.”

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sp; Guy feels himself talking too fast. His face is hot. He wishes he had asked for ice water instead of vodka while he was waiting for Reed, wishes he hadn’t downed the drink so fast. “You should stay clear from her if you don’t want to get hurt.”

  Frost enjoys talking with Guy. The boy is so immature. He’s good at his job. Public Relations requires someone slick like Guy. But the kid can’t see two weeks in front of him, let alone the rest of his life. Frost is not offended by Guy’s words. He finds himself entertained by their interaction. Nothing like this has happened to him for years. So long, he actually forgot what this part of his brain was for. He trains his athletes’ core—he’d left his own to decay.

  He has no idea what he’ll get from the evening. But maybe he’ll learn a little more about the girl.

  “How could she hurt me?” Frost is genuinely curious. A young waitress in a velvet catsuit delivers his Heineken. He cradles the green bottle in one of his large hands.

  “She’ll get you all wrapped up, all twisted, and then she’ll leave.”

  “Like she did to you.”

  “I know her. She’s into stuff you won’t like.” He motions to the bartender for another vodka. He senses he’s going to get drunk, but he can’t seem to stop himself.

  Frost drinks his beer slowly. He wants Guy to try to tell him what he won’t like. If Frost chooses to drink more, he can do so at home. His feet up on his coffee table. His apartment, even stark and bare, is a comfort.

  “You should look into the club she goes to. You’ll find out for yourself what she’s into.”

  “That’s not a bad idea.”

  So Frost is ready when Hadley calls him.

  * * *

  “I want to do another scene.”

  “We work well together,” Dean says, pleased that a woman like Hadley continues to choose him.

  “This time is different,” Hadley explains. “I want to put on a show for someone else.”

  She is honest about the whole situation when she explains her desires. Dean is game. He’s always up for a performance with a beautiful sub. He’ll spank her and humiliate her and make her beg anytime she wants. But they don’t have a deeper bond. They go through the motions and everyone gets off, but there’s no desire to wrap her arms around him and stay sealed to his body. All she wants afterward is a shower.