Beyond Control(10)

She reached up, and the collar shifted as the top of her halter dress loosened and fell to bare her chest. The slinky red fabric slipped down to her hips, then the floor, and she stood there, clad only in his ink, his leather, and her high-heeled shoes.

So much for giving Noelle and Jasper back their spotlight. "Thanks," he drawled before patting his thigh. "Care to sit?"

"We can do better than that." She dropped to her knees.

He'd lost count of the number of times she'd blown him right here, just like this, and every memory paled beside the reality of having her on her knees. Burning, like that collar was the only thing holding back the kind of explosion that would singe a man to ash.

Sometimes she was a little scary when she looked at him like that, and f*ck if he didn't like it. "I don't know, love. The way you're looking at me, I don't trust you not to use your teeth."

She laid her hands on his knees, slid them up his thighs. "Has that ever stopped us before?"

"Not really." He rested the hand holding his glass on the back of the couch and slid the other into her unbound hair. "Is this what you were going for, Lexie? Is this what you wanted?"

"I always do." His belt buckle clicked, and leather whispered over leather as she drew open the belt. She reached for the button on his pants, the zipper--all by touch, as if she knew this moment too well to even look down.

He tightened his fingers in her hair, a quick tug of warning. "So you're going to swallow my dick like nothing's changed?"

"You want something else?" she asked, pulling against his grip as she leaned over his legs. Closer. "Is that why you asked me to sit on your lap? So I could ride you right here? Now?"

The first time he buried his cock in her, no one else would be watching. He'd been waiting too long to share any part of that first time, even the sight of her coming for him. "No," he murmured, pulling her hair hard enough to edge her chin up. "But being collared means you get my dick when I give it to you."

"Oh." Her hands stilled. "So that's how it's gonna be."

He left his drink balanced precariously on the back of the couch and stroked his thumb over her lips. His skin was chilled from the ice, and her breath burned as hot as her gaze. "Is that a surprise? I remember you saying you knew all about what gets me off."

"Of course." She smiled, easy and bland.

Sometimes it amazed him, how fast she could shutter her eyes. A product of her training from Sector Two, no doubt. Sighing, he released her hair. "That ain't it."

Lex sat back on her heels and folded her hands in her lap. Waiting, silent and obedient and so sweetly submissive they were attracting stares again. Lex on her knees was nothing new, but Lex in a posture of surrender...

This is what he got for trying to play the game without discussing the rules first. She was gazing at him like an empty-headed doll, and he had no one to blame but himself. "Get dressed, Lex. Tomorrow we'll have a talk."

She snatched up her dress but didn't bother slipping into it before she stalked off, through the crowd and out the door.

"Well done, old man," Dallas grumbled before draining his whiskey. The party would go on, and he'd sit and endure their looks and their barely concealed speculation, but by God if one of them dared pity him--

Well f*cking done, indeed.

Jasper stared at him in sympathy. It wasn't overt, but Dallas had known him long enough to see the commiseration beneath his seemingly impassive features. Then he broke the awkward near-silence with a muttered question to Noelle, one she answered with an eager nod.

At some point, the flogger had found its way from the dais to the main floor. Bren handed it over to Jasper, who tested its weight and balance in his hand before drawing the suede tails slowly through his fingers--and then across Noelle's bare, upraised ass.

The crowd fell silent, and even Dallas held his breath as Jasper began to twirl the flogger, rotating his wrist until the tails swirled in a smooth figure eight. The tense silence broke when he let the first hint of suede thud against Noelle's skin, and her grateful moan ripped through the room.

A show. The kind that would please his woman but also distract a drama-hungry crowd from gossiping about Lex's sudden departure.

It was working, too. By the time Jasper began to intensify his efforts, landing harder and faster blows on Noelle's reddening skin, people had either gone back to screwing each other, or they were watching with a rapt attentiveness that left no room for thoughts about Dallas.

And f*ck if Dallas didn't owe him for it. Big time.





Chapter Four



Lex had a splitting headache, a sore neck, and a powerful urge to crawl back under the covers and hide from the world. All three were her own damn fault, and irritating enough to drive her from her bed and into the shower.

Ten minutes to linger under the steamy water, and she forced herself out. She dried her hair first, then wound the strands into an intricate mass of braids, a style she hadn't worn since her days in Sector Two. More than a decade, and her fingers still moved automatically, smoothing every hair into position.

She'd never be rid of that goddamned place.

The last thing she did was fasten Dallas's collar around her neck. It was exquisite, easily the most beautiful thing she'd ever owned, and the weight of it threatened to strangle her. But what had she expected? That he'd lock her in a collar and suddenly change, read her mind and give her exactly what she wanted?

Maybe she had expected that, and why not? Fuck, if a man wanted to own a woman like her, he'd damn well better earn it.

With that rebellion fresh in her mind, she wrapped herself in armor--a boned leather corset and jeans that sat low enough on her hips to bare her fresh ink. Every bit of ownership carefully framed, from the tattoo to her collar to the darkening bruises on her skin.

Let him look at what he'd bought.

He answered on her second knock with a muffled, "Come in," and she pushed open the door to find him bent over the desk with a stack of papers under one hand and his hacked computing tablet under the other.

His scowl faded when he glanced up, but frustrated tension still knotted his shoulders. "Lex."

His gaze raked over her, and she welcomed it. All the other bullshit aside, she turned him on, quick and hard, so at least she wouldn't be the only one twisted up. "I came to discuss my duties."

He frowned. "Duties? Really?"

"Hmm, maybe not." She dropped into a chair and crossed her legs. "You made it pretty f*cking clear last night this is all about appearances."

"Is that what I did?" He shoved the papers aside. "Why don't we back on up to the beginning of this tangle?" He pointed at her tattoo. "Don't pretend I'm the one who set this off."

After the humiliation of the night before, she'd pretend whatever she pleased. "I got a little ink, and you jumped at the chance to put me in my place."

"No, I took you up on your invitation."

"Did you?"

"Yeah. But I made a mistake." Dallas jerked open his desk drawer, rummaged around, and pulled out tobacco and rolling papers. "We skipped right over the important part, and I know better."

She watched his hands, mesmerized by the leashed strength there. "The negotiation, you mean."

"Mmm." He measured out the tobacco with easy, absentminded movements, most of his attention focused on her. "You put me in a hell of a spot, love. Normally, I'd tell you to take that collar off until you agree to what comes along with it, but you forced my hand a little, didn't you?"

Lex would have admitted as much--hell, she had the night before, but now... "I didn't force you. You had other options."

"Forced my hand, not me." He paused with the tobacco-filled paper pinched between his finger and thumb and gave her a level look. "Let's cut through the bullshit. We've been dancing around this for years, but until last month, I never thought you'd consider a collar. Because you don't get to be just another girl in my bed, Lexie. None of the others has been one of us. You know where this puts you."

He'd had women in and out of his bed, always collared and always outsiders, women who came and went like clockwork. Shift change, Lex had ruefully called it.

No more.

"It means I have duties," she said, feigning a patience she didn't feel. "Is it the word that offends, or the fact that I'm not slobberingly focused on the many things I get to do to your dick once you deign to let me touch it?"

His gaze dropped to her throat, where her fingers had come to rest on the collar. Lex tensed but refused to jerk them away, and he clenched his jaw as he turned his attention back to his task. "All right. Duties is fair enough, as long as touching my dick isn't one of them."

As if she'd been the one to deny him. "That's the funny thing about these collars." She scratched one fingernail over the rough surface of the O'Kane emblem. "Most men put them on women they plan to regularly f*ck the shit out of."