Chapter 7

Coop couldn’t help but notice something was bothering Moira. She seemed uncomfortable, restless. Given they didn’t know each other that well, something he was determined to change, he didn’t ask what was on her mind. He’d give her some space.

Again, she glanced at his profile and bit her lip. “I can’t do this,” she said, tears glittering in her eyes before she looked away.

They were minutes from Horseshoe Lake, their destination, although she hadn’t given him a specific address. Slowing, he found a gravel road leading to a fenced gate and pulled in, placing the car in park before he turned to her.

“Have you changed your mind about spending the weekend with me?” he asked. He hoped for anything but that. The time they’d spent on his bare mattress had been the best sex of his life. And he liked her. He really liked her. Her looks, her humor. The way her silver eyes glinted when she turned her head to the side as she stared back at him…

Was this love? Was he falling for her? He almost snorted. Now, he sounded like Danny, who’d fallen for Melody on their first date. But now he understood. Completely. He reached for the hand she had curled into a fist atop her thigh. “What’s wrong?”

“I have to tell you something,” she said softly. Her gaze dropped to their entwined hands.

“You can tell me anything. I won’t be angry.” He couldn’t promise he wouldn’t be hurt, especially if she said she wanted to go home.

“I haven’t been completely open with you.”

His gaze sharpened. She’d lied to him? He couldn’t imagine anything so bad he couldn’t forgive unless… “Are you married?”

Her eyebrows shot up. “Uh. No.”

“Okay.” He took a deep breath, remembering the LT’s phrase. “Rip it off like a Band-Aid, baby.”

She released her breath in a slow exhalation. “Do you remember Anton?”

“The guy at the club?” He relaxed. She was about to tell him they’d been lovers. He didn’t care. Hell, he’d already guessed that by the way she’d been watching him so closely.

“He’s my Dom.”

He sucked in a breath. “He was your Dom.”

“No. Is.” Her gaze met him from beneath a fringe of lashes. “We’re not lovers if that’s what you think.”

He shook his head. “Not lovers.” He knew he sounded stupid, repeating her words, but he couldn’t quite grasp what she was saying. “Not lovers. Have you fucked?”

“Yes.”

“Are you going to fuck him again?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t think you’d allow that.”

“Damn fucking straight.” He let out a pent-up breath. It looked like they had more to say to each other, and he wanted to know what she’d meant by I don’t think so , but first, he needed her naked and under him. “That all?”

She gave a vigorous nod but still looked nervous.

“How far to the lake house?”

“About fifteen minutes.”

“Long enough.”

He turned forward, switched on the car, and then gave her a stern look. “Take off your jeans and your panties. And then I want you to finger yourself until we get there.”

Her frown was adorable. So was the way her lower lip protruded. “Your upholstery will get wet.”

“I don’t care about the upholstery,” he said slowly, holding her gaze.

Her tentative smile told him she’d understood what he was saying, that they were all right. That he didn’t give a damn about her old Dom/boyfriend/whatever-the-fuck he was. And he had plans to prove it to her. Once he was done, she’d never need the bastard’s flogger on her ass again. He’d buy his own. Make sure he got some lessons from Billy. On the sly. He didn’t think he’d like all his buddies knowing he was learning to paddle a woman properly so she’d fall in love with him.

Moira wished she’d had the nerve to tell him the rest. That they wouldn’t be spending the weekend alone. Her worry over his reaction caused her more frustration than her swirling finger. But it was too late to mention it. “Turn here,” she said, wincing because Anton’s truck filled the driveway.

“You better cover up.”

“Don’t have to,” she whispered. “He’ll understand.”

Coop’s eyes widened, and he swung his head toward the front porch of a large log cabin. Anton the Dom stood in the center, waving.

“You couldn’t have mentioned he was joining us?” he muttered under his breath.

“I didn’t know if you’d still want to come.”

“Oh, I want to come,” he said again, not worrying his words were biting. “Your little kitty sounds have had me hard the past five minutes. I just wasn’t expecting anyone to watch us fuck.”

“He’ll only watch if you want him to.”

His gaze hardened. “I don’t want him to.”

“Don’t be so quick to decide.” She opened the door and slid out of the car while he watched through the window as she strode half-naked up the steps, bold as brass, and straight into Anton’s waiting arms.

For his part, Anton’s expression didn’t change, although Coop did detect the light of challenge in his dark eyes as he stared at Coop. Coop wasn’t sure what he was getting himself into. But he wasn’t giving up his claim. Whatever Moira thought she needed from this guy, he’d provide it.

He yanked open his door and stomped toward the couple. Anton smiled, big white teeth gleaming. At least his hair wasn’t spiked like a saw today. It was pulled into a ponytail at the back of his head, which concealed much of the shaved sides. But his eyes were still rimmed with eyeliner.

Anton held out his hand. “Welcome.”

Coop wanted to ignore the hand, but more than that, he wanted the other man to pry his hand off Moira’s waist. They shook, and Coop gave him a hard squeeze until Moira cleared her throat.

Her gaze dipped to her naked lower half. “Can we take this inside?”

Coop released Anton’s hand and held his out to Moira. She took it, moving quickly from Anton’s side to his. Coop gave the other man a thin smile.

Anton led them inside the house. “Jessica said we’re free to play with the furniture.”

Coop didn’t get his meaning until he stepped deeper inside the living room. The blonde from the club was tied to an X-shaped cross, arms and legs tethered by thick black straps to the beams, and completely nude.

Maybe he was getting used to the fact these folks didn’t have any inhibitions about nudity, and maybe he was starting to enjoy it himself, but other than a quick admiring glance because she was a beautiful woman, he didn’t have to drag his gaze back to Moira. “This what you were nervous telling me?”

“It was part of it.”

Coop raked a hand through his hair. “There’s more?”

“Anton’s offered to train you.”

“You think I need training?” So what if he’d been thinking he needed lessons from Billy? He wasn’t about to accept them from her Dom/boyfriend.

“He’s not my boyfriend. Never has been. There’s no need to be jealous.”

“But you’ve fucked.”

She nodded.

“You fuck men you don’t want to have relationships with,” he said evenly, keeping his emotion out of his tone.

“We have a relationship. He’s my Dom.”

“End it.” He sucked in a deep breath. He hadn’t meant to be that blunt. Didn’t have the right to demand a thing of her. They’d only fucked once themselves. Okay, so the fucking had lasted hours, but… Coop shook his head.

“Confusing, isn’t it?” Anton said with a grin.

“Don’t do that.”

“What? Smile?” At Coop’s curt nod, he chuckled. “Want to plant your fist in my face? I don’t mind you trying.”

He said it with such a cheerful candor Coop’s shoulders dropped. “You’d clean the floor with me, wouldn’t you?”

“He’s a MMA fighter,” Britney called out from the cross.

Anton’s grin widened. “You don’t have to be big to be badass.”

Coop slumped into a chair, still holding Moira’s hand while she stood beside him. Her pussy was level with his face. Had the whole world turned upside down?

“The nudity is something you’ll get used to.” Anton lifted his chin toward Britney, who fluttered her fingers at Coop. “But it’s part of the discipline. A form of humiliation that quickly loses its sting unless you’re willing to up the stakes.”

“Was showing her pussy to the crowd at the club upping the stakes?”

Anton nodded. “Exactly. She’d earned a punishment. I gave her what she needed.”

“I can’t do that to Moira.”

“Because you can’t share her like that?”

Coop wanted to say it was because he respected her too much, but he knew Anton would know better. He was jealous of the thought of any other man seeing her intimate parts. Like he was this very minute.

“I’m not staying for the whole weekend,” Anton said, his smile fading. “I was just teasing you, but Moira wanted you to know about me.”

“She could have just said she’d been seeing you.”

“But you wouldn’t have understood. We’re not lovers. Not in love. We’ve shared sex, but only during training or scenes.”

“Training. Scenes. Like the one you and…” He pointed to the blonde.

“Not like that one,” Moira said quickly.

“Because you’re a screamer,” Coop said, letting a little of his bitterness bleed into his tone. Well, he’d made her scream.

Anton sighed. “Coop, Moira doesn’t date. She doesn’t have sex outside the club.”

Coop’s glance cut sideways. Moira’s head was dipped, her cheeks pink. His disgruntlement ebbed away. Again, he shut down the noise in his head, the angry stirring of bees to really listen. “Why not? She’s beautiful. What man wouldn’t want her?”

Anton’s gaze locked with his. “If you’ve already made her come, you know exactly why.”

Because she needed pain, and not every man would understand how to deliver it without really hurting her or scaring her. The realization froze his blood.

Coop stood, turned to Moira, and slowly pulled her against his chest. “You don’t tell guys what you need, do you?”

She hid her face in the corner of his shoulder. “Can you imagine me asking a guy to spank me? To gag me? Or tie me up?”

His body grew rigid at the idea. Steeled against the certainty. “Has anyone ever hurt you?”

“Once. He thought I wanted to be abused.”

He held her tightly and glanced at Anton, who was watching them closely. Everything inside him had been so sure he understood what this was all about. Now, he felt like a fool. He’d come very close to blowing this. Learning everything he needed to know about how to be with her would require this man’s help.

Coop cleared his throat, and even though it nearly killed him, he asked, “Can you two stay for the weekend? Can you teach me?”

Anton’s smile was slow. “I’ll show you some flogging techniques. How to operate the furniture,” he said with a waggle of his eyebrows, “but I don’t have to teach you what it takes to be a Dom. Her Dom. You’re already there.”

He strode away, ostensibly to check on Britney’s restraints.

Coop reached down to gently rub Moira’s ass, his fingers gentling over every raised inch. “What did he mean? I don’t know a damn thing about all this.”

Moira leaned back to smile up at him. “You know me, Coop. You’re willing to experiment. To pay attention to my cues. You’ve already given me the best orgasm any man has ever managed to wring from me.”

“Your ass is pretty tender,” he said gruffly. “What other kinky things make you happy? Please tell me there’s something else.”

“I like to be watched,” she whispered.

He lifted his gaze to Anton, who patted Britney on her thigh and then ambled to a low-backed sofa, where he sat, hands clasped behind his head. “I should’ve made popcorn.”

They were serious. Funny, the thought didn’t bother him so much. “No scoring my moves.”

“Mind a little coaching?”

Coop grunted. Actually, he didn’t mind one bit.

Coop tugged at the chains attached to the manacles around his wrists. “This really necessary?” It was late Sunday night. After a day filled with lessons concerning the application of floggers and paddles, both applied to Britney’s unmarked ass, he was pretty sure he had the gist of it. This seemed like overkill. A chance for Anton to give him a little payback for being an ass when they’d first met.

“How do you expect to truly understand what she feels if you don’t ever experience the joy of a good spanking yourself?” Anton asked, his voice silky and amused now that Coop couldn’t retaliate.

Coop had thought his humiliation was already complete. After all, he was completely nude, and Anton had placed a leather harness over his cock, handling his dick like he handled a man’s junk every day. Coop’s cheeks were flushed. “You aren’t going to spank my ass.”

“Do you really have a choice in the matter?” Anton’s eyebrows gave a waggle, but then he shrugged. “I’m going to let your woman have the honor. She’s good. She won’t slap your balls too hard.”

Coop swore. “Who said anything about slapping my balls?” He twisted to glare behind him. “Moira?”

She was standing there, looking like a wet dream. Naked from the tops of her thighs up. Her legs were encased in shiny black boots with tall heels. When she walked toward him, a riding crop in her hand, his stomach dropped with a thud. She struck the patent leather with the end of the crop, producing a sharp sound that made his dick jump. “What about the flogger?”

“What about it?” she asked, trading the crop for the flogger, touching his shoulder with the end of it, and then moving it downward over his back, causing gooseflesh to rise. When she got to his ass, she gave him a light tap.

He gave an unmanly gasp and then tightened his lips. “This is my first time,” he said between clenched teeth, pretending calm when all he could imagine was the shit he’d get the next day in the showers when he bared a striped butt.

Moira’s gaze narrowed on him, but then she shrugged and gave him an impish grin. “Gotcha scared, don’t I?”

Indeed. He shook his head and faced forward, reminding himself he could trust her with anything, especially the wellbeing of his balls, seeing as she loved them so much.

He reached up, gripped the chains, cleared his mind, and relaxed his body. Everything she said she did when she entered a scene. The first stroke felt like a feather duster brushing his ass. One side of his mouth quirked up. He could take this. Piece of cake.

He glanced over at Anton, who was chuckling wickedly, his eyes squinting he was enjoying himself so much. At his expense. So Moira had more in store for him than just a soft back-and-forth brush across his buttocks. The swishing continued until he felt small, cold fingers creeping up between his legs. He darted a glance downward to find Britney scrunched down behind him, her hands now cupping his balls.

Coop shot another glance over his shoulder. Anton had moved beside Moira and was passing her a more lethal-looking flogger with longer strands and knots at the ends—something he’d used on Britney’s ass once her skin had been warmed up. Phase two, Anton had said.

The first pass of the cat-o’-nine-tails took his breath. Not from pain but from surprise. Or maybe it was Britney’s mouth sucking on his balls. Whichever. He couldn’t believe his girlfriend allowed it, but Moira was open to things like sharing her man’s dick so long as they both drew pleasure from it, and he wasn’t screwing anyone else’s pussy—the one taboo they’d agreed on. Coop wanted to add a whole laundry list of taboos, but Moira had pressed her finger against his lips. “Don’t say something you might want to take back one day.”

Then she’d made him forget what he’d been so worried about. Maybe he should have been thinking about taboos that involved whatever it was she had in mind for him now.

But thinking and worrying took too much concentration. While she swished leather across his back, around his sides, over his buttocks, he swayed with the pleasure. Lord, there was pleasure. More than just the firm hand rolling on a condom, the hot mouth traveling up and down his cock. Moira was putting him in a trance, sub-space, she’d called it. He surrendered to it, taking deeper and deeper breaths. And then the warmth left his cock, and leather slapped his inner thighs, working higher and higher.

He held his breath, sure she was only teasing, that she knew it would be too much. But leather brushed his balls and wrapped around them from beneath, the barbed ends flipping up to slap his cock and his groin.

He hissed between his teeth and tensed as stroke after stroke slapped him in places no man ought to be slapped.

But slowly, he realized he liked it. Liked the edgy fear of wondering whether she’d make a mistake. Liked the warmth of his leather-stung skin. A lethargy sent him reeling, swaying, and he met Anton’s gaze, letting the other man see the pleasure drugging his senses.

Slowly, the chains above him loosened. Britney appeared and leaned her naked breasts against his chest as she reached to unfasten the manacles. Arms embraced him from behind, and a soft body snuggled against him.

Warmth spread through his chest and surrounded him. He knew what he felt. Love and acceptance. He caught one of Moira’s hands and pulled her around him. When they faced each other, he tugged her to the floor.

The other two could watch if they wanted, but he had to be inside her. Now.

“I like the boots,” he murmured.

She arched a brow. “I liked spanking your balls.”

“Won’t happen again.”

“Never say never,” she sang and then laughed.

Coop was sure he’d never allow that to happen again, but he contented himself for now with capturing her hands and pulling them high above her head and with spreading her thighs with shoves of his knees. With entering her on a single, desperate thrust.

Everything he desired was here. Surrounding him, beneath him. Silver eyes. A cloud of red hair. A smart, lush mouth. “I want more, Moira,” he whispered. More days like these. More endless hours of pleasure followed by lazy respite. With her.

“I want everything you have to give,” she whispered back. “Now give me your cock.”

“You still in charge?”

She gave him a trembling smile. “No. Sir.”

Coop cut off his engine and stared at the firehouse. Through the open doors, he watched as his friends from the previous shift slapped shoulders and bumped fists with those coming to relieve them. No longer did he feel the dread that had dogged him since the day Danny had died. Sure, he missed him, and he made a silent vow to stop in and check on Melody tomorrow after his shift ended. Danny would remain a part of his past. He’d see his family was well taken care of.

But right now, he enjoyed the quiet inside him. He felt strangely at peace. He climbed out of his car and reached behind his seat for his duffel filled with fresh clothing. Rather than approaching the open bay, he headed to a side door, wanting the quiet to last just a few minutes more.

His body was relaxed, loose-limbed. He smiled at the memory of the way Moira had wound herself around him to hold him when the alarm had gone off inside her bedroom. “I’m not ready,” she’d groaned. “One more day.”

“We have many more days,” he’d promised, giving her a kiss goodbye.

Inside, he headed straight to the locker room. His glance snagged on the locker beside his, but this time, he didn’t feel a fresh cut. The new guy, Harris, could take the locker. He’d wish him well. He just hoped the rookie had a little horse sense and wouldn’t need to be watched 24/7 just to keep him alive.

A hand reached out and lifted the latch of Danny’s locker.

Coop cut a sideways glance and met a steady stare from a man a little older than he’d expected. And from the tattoo on his arm, he was ex-military, like a lot of new recruits. Men came from active duty still feeling the need to serve, but in a different way. Closer to home.

Coop was okay with that. He lifted his chin toward the locker. “You have big shoes to fill.”

“So I hear,” Harris said, a glint of challenge in his eyes.

Coop cleared his throat. “Danny Truitt was my best friend. He’s missed. Has a wife and a kid on the way.”

“I’d like to meet her. See if there’s anything I can do to help…mow her yard, get her groceries.”

“The wives organize support. But we can check in on her, and I’ll introduce you.” Coop lifted his hand.

Harris’s strong grip squeezed his knuckles, but Coop could only smile. He wondered if Purcell would be shocked when he called and asked for an appointment. Maybe he was ready to talk after all. Let go of the past. Clear his mind and his heart to make more room for another friend.

“Welcome to Firehouse 69, Harris.”