Page 28 of The Dom with the Kink Monsters

He could almost hear the line crackle with all the words she would have liked to sling back at him. They’d never gotten along well, and had little to no contact after they’d moved out of their mom’s. How she’d found his number was a mystery.

“I’m going whether you watch him or not,” she said quietly. “If you don’t want to help out that’s fine. I just thought it might be a good chance for him to spend some time with a guy that isn’t a complete asshole, and that you might have been interested in getting to know him.”

Two weeks. That wasn’t that long, right?

A sigh escaped him. “Fine. I’ll do it. If I mess him up though, I’m not paying for his therapy.”

“Yay! Thanks, Ramsay! If you ever have a kid, I’ll watch it for you sometime.”

He snorted. “Yeah, not going to happen.”

*

The name of this band had escaped him. They were the fourth group up, but they had a good sound compared to the three before. The others had sounded like toddlers banging on pots. Around Mack, Winter, Saya and himself, the crowd stirred and surged – a milling, sweaty mass of humanity. He was glad he was taller than the girls. It meant he could protect them when guys around them started to flail, and he rarely ended up with his face in a sweaty stranger’s armpit.

In front of him, Winter and Mack were both moshing and were slowly getting drawn into the pit. Ramsay edged back and pulled Saya out of the way. A mosh pit was no place for her. Saya wasn’t much smaller than Winter, but she wasn’t as tough.

Protective instincts always won out over the urge to join the adrenaline-fueled horde.

“Go!” Saya shouted to him, giving his arm an encouraging shove. “You don’t have to stand around babysitting me. I’m a grown woman. If it starts getting too rough here I’ll go back and sit at our table.”

He debated it for a few minutes, but eventually the draw of the pit was too strong.

“Okay, I’ll go. I’ll be back in a few minutes. Stay out of the mob?”

She nodded up at him and he had a last-minute moment of anxiety as he watched her walk away alone. Unable to stop himself, he followed her for a few steps. Saya turned back and shooed him away with a flap of her hand.

For a strange moment he felt like a dog whose mistress had rejected his devotion. Her world might center around him, but it was a mutual obsession.

He glanced around, feeling even less certain. A bar full of half-drunk guys wasn’t a safe place for a little girl. He watched until she sat down at their table, which had miraculously remained vacant while they were in front of the stage. Jeff, one of the bouncers they’d gotten to know lately, walked over to her and spun a chair around and straddled it. He’d keep an eye on her for a few minutes.

As he reached the edge of the steadily expanding mosh pit, a drum solo caught hold of him and he became blissfully lost in the tide and the energy. Someone small ran into him from behind, and he turned to see Winter laughing crazily as she staggered back. Mack caught her and shoved her back at Ramsay, then crowded in on her. Around them people were jumping and yelling, oblivious to the fact that their own motion had changed. As Ramsay pressed up against her, and Mack ground against her ass, Winter went fromlooking amused, to annoyed. She tried to slip out from between them, but they both grabbed hold of her and kept her there. The conversation he’d had with Saya about him and Mack sharing her came to mind, and gave him a visual of doing the same to Winter. She wouldn’t be so biddable. Would she safeword, though?

Staring down at her, eventually she dropped her gaze and looked cowed. Was she that easy to dominate? His stupid cock was getting hard again, as though they could share her here, in the midst of all these strangers. The low heel of her industrial boots came down on his instep and pain shot up his leg. He stepped back, giving her space.

“I’m not yours to paw at, you overgrown fucktard.” She stalked off before he could apologize.

There was just something about her that made him take liberties. Obviously, it wasn’t that she liked it and was giving him come-hither signals. Maybe the fact that Saya wanted him to have her was the issue. It was giving him too many ideas. Or maybe it was that he was so used to domming Saya that he didn’t know how to act around other women he found attractive. It had been a long time since he’d used any of his girl-hunting tactics. He’d been a teenager at the time, and not exactly suave.

Mack laughed aloud and rammed into him, which distracted him from feeling like a tool. After a few minutes, the song ended and there was a lull. Voices rose up around them as the guys on stage fiddled with equipment. Ramsay’s gaze strayed in the direction of the table and the crowd shifted intermittently to allow a brief glimpse of the women sitting together. Was Winter complaining to Saya? He needed to talk to her.

“Don’t worry about it, fuck.” Mack grabbed his shoulder to stop him from going, then let go of him like his skin was acid. “If you go running after her to apologize, she’ll think you’re weak. Most girls like the sensitive type, but Winter has no use for a guy that tiptoes around and hopes she notices him. Just treat her like a friend and eventually she might look your way.”

Was Mack really talking to him about the best way to mess around with Winter? He should have had another beer before attempting this conversation. “So seriously, what is your plan? I know you and I have been joking about sharing them, just to see what it’s like, but are you serious?”

Mack’s dark gaze met his. His cheeks were still flushed from jumping around, and he had a bruise forming over his eye from an earlier collision in the mosh pit. For an awkward moment Ramsay noticed that his lashes were so dark it almost looked like he was wearing eyeliner, but he wasn’t. Were straight guys supposed to notice those thingsabout other guys?

He realized he was staring and tried to look away – to make this exchange look casual to the people that milled around them, but no one seemed to be watching, anyway.

“I’m game for whatever you want to do.”

Fuck.

Mack’s words were said in such a way that made it obvious he was offering himself, as well.

“We need to talk.”

He led the way toward the exit then stopped and glanced back to check on Saya. She was smiling at Winter, laughing at something she’d said. She’d be okay for a few minutes. His entire body was hyperaware that Mack was behind him, following obediently. Instead of heading out the front door, he took the back exit that led into the loading area. They’d been at Sprawl so often lately that the bouncers just nodded to them as they passed.

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