Just One Taste (Topped #2)(64)

“What are you doing?” Kori asked the minute Jared stepped away.

Yes, that was the question of the hour. He shrugged, trying to make it look like this was no big deal. “I need a sub. Do you have a play partner for the evening?”

He’d been intending to ask Charlotte to find him a sub. He didn’t even want to make the decision. He’d known going into tonight that this was an academic exercise. He wasn’t going to get what he needed tonight. Another issue he could lay at his brother’s doorstep. He certainly wasn’t going to relax knowing his brother was watching him. Judging him. So he simply needed a sub who wouldn’t mind taking a spanking and answering some questions about it.

Maybe one of the training subs.

That wouldn’t work now because he’d seen the way baby brother looked at Kori like he could eat her up and his inner caveman had started grunting and dragging his knuckles on the floor.

“I don’t have a partner,” she replied, her dark eyes wide. “I haven’t had time to find a partner because the minute I walked out into the club your brother found me.”

“Well, then you’re free to bottom for me.” Found her? Yeah, Kai bet Jared had run from the locker room looking for Kori. She was exactly Jared’s type. Curvy, pretty, round breasts, and an ass he could grab and hold on to.

He turned to the prep table. He didn’t really need to look it over. He’d prepped it himself. He’d used the time to psych himself up to not murder his brother’s friends. It was so obvious to him that they were hanging on Jared like parasites, and his brother didn’t see it. He never saw things like that, and when Kai tried to point it out to him he got called out for being pessimistic or dragging everyone down.

He’d show Jared dragging someone down. Little * didn’t know what the phrase meant.

“Kai, I don’t think this is a good idea.”

He was definitely loosing his mind because Kori’s soft words made him angry. It was irrational. He knew it even as the questions floated through his head. Did she think it wasn’t a good idea because she wanted Jared? Had she gotten a really good look at the man she’d known at some point and realized she wanted him? Had she already had him and now Jared was back and she wouldn’t even look at another man?

Irrational. Emotional. Out of control. He hated it.

“Hey.” A soft hand moved over his bicep. “I was only saying that because we’ve never played before. We’ve always kept a certain distance between us.”

Had they? Maybe a physical distance but now that he thought about it she was the person in the world he talked to the most, relied on more than any other. He fixed breakfast for her because she would eat crap if he didn’t. She would show up before work and they would sit together and have a nice breakfast and coffee and talk about what they would do for the day.

He missed her on the weekends. He would sit alone and wonder what she was doing, who was taking care of her.

Why hadn’t he played with her? He could tell himself all day long that it was about being a professional, but it was wrong. He knew the truth now.

He was afraid of losing her.

What if she was afraid of him? What if she couldn’t handle what he needed? What if they played and she hated it?

He knew she played with other Doms and he also knew she didn’t have sex with them. He knew she’d asked some of her Doms to go easy on her.

He went hard.

“I won’t hurt you.” He would hold back. He wouldn’t give her a reason to fear him more than she did. “It’s just for Jared’s education. I’ll go easy and we’ll use the stoplight system.”

Green meant keep going. Yellow meant the sub needed the Dom to slow down, and red put a stop to the play.

He didn’t intend to get her to say red. He could control himself.

Her hand moved over him, stroking him. Somehow he could feel her warmth seeping from her skin to his. “Are you all right? Do you think he’s here to hurt you again? He told me he’d slept with your fiancée. Kai, I’m not going to sleep with Jared. I’m not going to walk away from my job to be some Hollywood type’s girl on call for a few weeks. That’s the furthest thing from my mind, so if you want me to go and find a sub for you, I will. Mia’s in the lounge. She’s in the training program so this would be like extra credit for her.”

She was giving him an out. An easy out at that. She’d seen right through him, gotten to the heart of the issue, and was now kindly allowing him a free pass. He could go firmly into teaching mode and that would help diffuse the situation and nothing would change between them.

“I would rather use you unless you’re afraid of me.” The words were out of his mouth before he could think to keep the damn thing shut. His inner caveman was super talkative and made bad choices. Well, maybe not bad exactly, but certainly not the most expedient decision.

He waited for her to explain all the ways he frightened her. Since she’d come to Sanctum, she’d played around in what Kai liked to call the shallow end of the pool. She stuck to Doms with a light touch, the friendly ones who winked and never brought their subs to tears. She seemed drawn to suspension play and loved rope bondage, but any impact play he’d seen her participate in had been restrained, light. So she would tell him to go pound sand and they would go back to their nice, safe, comfortable relationship.