Page 47 of Bottoms Up
I considered our best option. Being in charge meant directing the scene. Makingalldecisions within our agreed-upon rules. “If I’m in charge, I want to possibly include someone else. Gavin’s sending me someone to drink from when we return, and he was clear he’s offering him for a feed-and-fuck with the traditional European rules, meaning torture and such is fine so long as he’s returned to Gavin healthy. I understand the young man is a jaguar shifter, so we’ll just have to put him through a fewchangesbefore we return him. I propose you flog him while I feed from him, and then we blindfold him while he’s horny as fuck, so you and I can have our fun before we bring him back into it.”
She sat up and smiled, and I could see and scent her relief. She’d needed to know I could take control again.
“Yeah, okay. That works. Is he part of the flock, or a slave?”
“Neither. He’s part of their security team, ex-military. Gavin says he’ll be assigned to us during the day tomorrow as our close security.”
She frowned. “He can loan his security out?”
“Special arrangement with this particular guy, who apparently needs pain. He’s an alpha sort, not submissive, but he’ll submit to a certain extent sexually if it means pain.”
She leaned into me again, rested her head on my shoulder, and I stroked her back.
“I love you,” she said into my chest, so I felt the vibrations. “I wish Marco had found another solution, but his way worked, and I got to be with you while you learned what you needed to.”
I felt the same. It’d been bad, but it was so much better than the alternatives. “I understand his other option would’ve been to send me away, to let someone with a good track record train me, but he said he worried that process would break me, and he never worried you’d do that.”
“It was hard,” she agreed, sitting up to meet my gaze, “but yeah, I’m glad we didn’t have to go nine or more months without any contact. That probably would’ve been even harder. We’re good, and I know this first scene is going to take a little work to get right, but we managed it once — we can do it again.”
The door opened and Lauren stepped in with a security guard. “Gavin wants security in the box with us until he gets here. This is Atlas.”
Ah.The jaguar.
I drew a long breath in, slow and deliberate, separating his scent from Lauren and Silver’s while I took in everything I could about him.
Six feet tall, maybe a little more. Lean build, military posture, upright and balanced. Dark brown hair with olive-toned skin that might have passed for Middle Eastern in a combat zone, but I was guessing Italian roots.
At first glance, he looked like any other high-end shifter security: fit, alert, forgettable by design.
But his scent was the opposite of ordinary.
Most of Marco’s security personnel are ex-military, and they all have this scent that identifies them as security. It’s hard to explain, but I think it’s a combination of mega-alpha-male, leashed aggression, super-watchfulness, and reflexes backed by muscle memory ready to explode into action in a microsecond, and almost always with some trauma mixed in.
Atlas’s scent was heavier onallof that, including the trauma.Especiallythe trauma — the kind that hasn’t scabbed over yet, though it felt as if he’d walled it off. Kept it private. Contained.
While his scent didn’t carry an iota of weakness or instability, it told me he’d survived the kind of trauma that reshapes a man.
I took another breath and noticedcontrolwas front and center — like it took more for him to contain the aggression, toleash the soldier so he could fit back into society. That kind of control usually comes with cost. A man like that? He’d need an outlet, which explained the need for pain — something intense enough to match what he holds back.
“Atlas, this is Julian and Silver, though we don’t call her that where people might hear. She’s pretty good at not being noticed, but if you say her name, that ends.”
This is the security guard Gavin offered, I telepathed Silver.
“Of course,” Atlas said, his voice quiet and smooth, his smile warm. He met my gaze. “While I’m working, I’m afraid there can’t be anything sexually suggestive, but I look forward to spending time with you later this evening.”
My cock twitched, but I diverted blood away from it. He’d just told me he had to focus now, so blooming the scent of arousal into the room would be bad form.
Still. He felt promising. Not submissive, but pliant enough under the right conditions. The kind who’d fight you if you tried to hold him down, but might beg you to do so given the right incentives.
“Makes total sense,” Silver said. “You can call me Jules if you need to get my attention around people, but otherwise, I prefer Silver. Julian said you’re ex-military?”
He nodded, and I said, “Delta Force, I believe Gavin said.”
“Right,” said Lauren, “but he was part of an even more impressive unit when he retired. I know what it is because Gavin paid Nathan to find out, but I guess we aren’t supposed to talk about it.”
“I have a friend who works for Drake, and she says the only guys more badass than Delta Force is the CIA Paramilitary,” Silver said.
Lauren and Atlas looked at each other, then Atlas looked back to Silver with a slight shrug. “Can’t verify anything, but your friend knows her shit.”
