Page 44 of Wanted
He wasn’t playing with fire, he was playing with a bomb. And yet, his hands felt perfectly steady as he reached for each item of clothing that Anna handed him. He’d have preferred to keep her dressed, especially in the middle of Black Light where already she was attracting attention from single tops looking for something—someone—to do tonight. That she would eventually find someone to play with had been one of his biggest reasons for coming here. Ethen was a shark, and she’d gotten bit. Part of her healing would have to involve getting back in the water, or she’d wind up afraid of the ocean forever.
He’d been braced for this, or so he’d told himself. He’d known she would attract eyes from the moment she stepped onto the floor. She was still too thin, but the weight she’d thus far gained had done wonders to help fill out some of her skeletal gauntness. The dark rings under her eyes were little more than shadows. The hollow boniness of her cheeks wasn’t quite as pronounced. And she was pretty. She was more than pretty. She was taller than most women, and her thinness just helped to dress her in the envy and illusion that she could perhaps be or once have been a runway model.
Perhaps he should have braced himself a little harder, because the reality of actually having her here was different from what he’d imagined. He didn’t like the way people were looking at her. Some were even whispering, not that those people mattered. He was pretty sure Ethen’s name was on half their lips, but people would be people and he honestly couldn’t have cared less about the gossip. It was his fellow doms that he was starting to have a problem with, and he had no idea what about that rankled him. Of course, they wanted to watch this. Anna was gorgeous, submissive, and she was taking off her clothes with the quiet acceptance of a woman who’d spent so much time naked in front of people that she no longer even thought about it. As he’d told her to, she left her heels on and now stood before him in nothing but her thigh-high stockings and shoes.
Small wonder they were staring.
Marcus could barely take his eyes off her either. His fingers itched to do what his eyes were, explore her, the curve of her small, perfect breasts, the slender plane of her belly, that v of bare flesh where not a trace of pubic hair had been left to stand guard over her naked pussy.
Oh now, there was a shadow he wouldn’t mind getting lost in for a while. It took everything he had to let his gaze continue moving over her, the way an interested dom would and should gaze upon anyone willing to gift him with the pleasure of their body. No stopping, no lingering. No thinking about how she would feel beneath his wandering fingertips, or how she would taste.
Or how she would sound, moaning his name as he slid his tongue, his fingers, his cock up inside the tight, slick well of her body.
Hot against his thigh, his cock was already swelling in anticipation.
This was a dangerous game, and he knew it, just like he knew he should have someone else do this for him. For him to play the Dom in this scenario was an unnecessary complication doomed to bite them both in the ass. He could tell himself he was doing this to make absolutely sure nothing went wrong during her first gentle reintroduction back into the lifestyle, but he knew better. He could monitor this scene just as competently from the sidelines. So why insinuate himself into it?
Because just thinking about cruising this room in search of another dom had grated straight up his spine until he could physically feel the skin-flaying between his tensing shoulders.
It was because this was so important, he told himself. He couldn’t afford for her to have a serious backstep, especially since of all his methods this was the one—should it come out in court—most likely to get him into hot water.
He waited, watching her, saying nothing while she took a deep breath, composing herself the way he’d told her to before, with all the grace that only years of practice could give a woman, lowering herself from high heels onto her knees. Her head bowed, her hands turned palm-up on her thighs, her legs slightly spread.
He liked the shadow. He liked the illusion of being the first to travel that hidden highway in search of all her private treasures.
Who knew, she might actually be nervous about this. Their negotiation had been the shortest of his entire experience. If he hadn’t been living with her, he never would have stopped it so prematurely. In its entirety, it had consisted of:
“Is there any place you would like me to refrain from touching?”
The way her chest quickened as she took her shallow breaths, the flutter of her racing heart in the hollow of her throat, and the blush, so faint it could barely be seen under the dim ambiance lighting of Black Light’s bar—they all told as much of the truth as her words when she finally said, “No, Sir.”
“Think carefully,” he’d told her. “Be honest, because I intend to make that one question the focus of my scene. I’m going to touch you. Every inch of you. If the thought of me shoving my fingers or my cock in your mouth, your pussy, or your ass bother you, now’s the time to say so. Again, is there any place you’d rather I not touch?”
That flutter of her heart was racing harder, her breathing just that much shallower than before. Her voice had a slight tremor when she said, “No, Sir.”
“What are your hard limits?”
He saw it in her eyes as she tried and failed to find something to deny him. He had all kinds of hard limits and knew exactly what he’d never do to her, even when she shook her head.
“Get naked,” he’d told her. “Everything but your shoes and stockings. When you’re ready to begin, you can let me know by kneeling. That’s when our scene will start.”
Now, here she was, on her knees and waiting, her visibly pounding pulse adding to his excitement. Her hands were resting on her thighs, palms turned up in open submission, eager to be commanded. He could just have devoured her.
“Bourbon,” he ordered. “Straight, please. They know what I like. You may bring something for yourself, if you like.”
Even as he said it, he knew she wouldn’t. Her nipples were tight little beads and the tips of her fingers were trembling ever so faintly. She was finally being allowed to do the one thing she ached most to do, and which had been denied to her for almost a year. She wasn’t about to waste a second of this on herself, which meant he’d have to be extra watchful to ensure her care.
As if watching her was any kind of hardship. She rose to stand with such smooth grace, her lithe body pure poetry of motion as she walked away from him to the bar. Naked and scantily dressed women were not an uncommon sight in Black Light. It made picking out the experienced doms from the novices and wannabes through the bar easy. Experienced doms in conversation with their own submissives barely glanced her way. Those that did, admired briefly and then went back to what they were doing. To the inexperienced, Anna was irresistible. Eye candy that drew longing looks from all directions.
That was the point of this, a little voice in the back of his head whispered. It was hard to hear it over the surge of possessiveness that immediately rocketed through him.
He didn’t like any of the men he saw following her with their hungry eyes.
He didn’t know any of them either. Finding her a qualified dom had to be part of the ultimate goal that marked her healing progress, and yet there wasn’t a soul in the bar that he didn’t instantly judge on the opposite end of that spectrum the second he clapped eyes on them. Upwards and including the blond man in black leathers who did a double-take when Pony stepped up to the crowded bar beside him and patiently waited for Klara to notice her.
The way he looked her up and down sent the electrified need for movement jolting down his spine and into his legs. Marcus almost came up off the couch, but the man hadn’t done anything wrong. He hadn’t done anything period, and yet that need to storm across the room and insert himself between them was almost more than he could swallow.
He wasn’t even the jealous type. Or at least, he never had been before.
