33. Chapter Thirty-Three

My lips curved into a smile as I read the text on my phone. I had just waved goodbye to my staff and loaded Juliana into her car seat to head home for the day. Grayson was coming over for dinner and I needed to make a quick stop at the store. I was trying my hand at making his baked spaghetti dish and I had forgotten the recipe called for tomato sauce, along with spaghetti sauce. The recipe wasn’t complicated, and Grayson always did the majority of the cooking, but I was slowly learning how to make a few of our favorite recipes so he wasn’t always the one having to cook. It would make plenty of leftovers for the week as long as it turned out edible.

Grayson:Do you know what today is?

Me:Tuesday?

Grayson:Smart ass. It’s exactly one year since the day that we first met in Dallas.

Me(secretly pleased he had remembered): Does that make it a special day? We aren’t going to start counting this as our anniversary, are we? Because I’m not sure how I feel about having the day we hooked up be something we count yearly. Sounds like some shit I remember from high school.

Grayson:Well, since you refuse to marry me and you refuse to let me claim you, I have to take what I can get. Yes, this is our anniversary, and we shall celebrate accordingly. Drop Jules off at Jamie’s. They’re expecting you.

Marriage was an argument we’d had a few weeks ago. After the incident where Grayson had been shot, and we’d said our I love you’s, Grayson had brought up the subject of marriage. I felt like marriage was an antiquated custom that held no real value, other than a convenient way to strip an omegas rights from them if an alpha chose to. There were still several outdated laws active on the books that skewed everything in an alphas favor. Not that I thought Grayson would deliberately hurt me, but I had witnessed a few colleagues going through divorces that had turned ugly quickly. Grayson had a different opinion, feeling it would solidify our bond more.

His argument for mate claiming was much the same as his argument for marriage. But a mate claiming was even harder to break than a marriage was to dissolve. Divorce was relatively easy by comparison. Breaking a mate claim was a long, painful process and didn’t always work. A mate claim was a huge commitment to make to another person, and as much as I loved Grayson and the life we were building together, I just wasn’t ready to take any bigger steps yet. It all just seemed unnecessary to me. We were as committed as a couple could be. I thought of him as my mate. Saying some words, signing a piece of paper, and biting each other wouldn’t change how I felt about him.

Buckling my seatbelt my mind raced, wondering just what the man was up to and had planned. Because there was fuckery afoot.

Me:Marriage is gross. What are you planning? How long will they have the baby? Do I need to pack an overnight bag? You can’t just order me about and not tell me more details.

Grayson:I can do exactly that, and you know you love it when I do. Here are your instructions, since I knew you were going to have follow-up questions. Drop Jules off. Go to my place and change into what you’ll find on the bed. Then go to Sinful Playgrounds. At the front desk, tell them who you are. They’ll be expecting you.

At the mention of the kink club Jamie owned, my body tingled with anticipation. I had never been there, though I had checked it out online. Grayson had told me he’d been inside plenty of times but had never done more than have a drink at the bar. Or pestered Jamie in the privacy of his office. But he had never played there with any subs.

My mind spun with all the possibilities of what he might have planned for tonight, my dick hardening in my slacks. Palming it, I pushed it down. My hole clenched as it grew wet with slick. Already I was turned on just knowing that Grayson was taking me there, hopefully to do a scene. It had been so long since we had played, since I had been submissive to him and been able to completely let myself get lost in the feeling of subspace.

Childbirth, newborns, holidays and unexpected visits from parents hadn’t given us much time to do more than live our daily lives. Oh, there had been sex–great sex–but it wasn’t the same as being able to get lost in a scene.

Grayson:How do you feel about crossing off a few things on that list of yours tonight?

Inhaling sharply at the text, desire spiked through me so fast, my hands shook as I turned the key in the ignition. Julianna was happily babbling away, while my dick was so hard inside my pants it was doing a good job of trying to split the seams.

Fuck, yes.

My sex to do list was long, and even as I checked items off, I seemed to think of more to add. Grayson was more than happy to oblige helping me make my way through the always growing list.

Me:I could be persuaded. Driving now.

I wasn’t driving yet, hadn’t even pulled out of the parking lot. I needed a minute to calm down and get my dick under control. Driving with a hard on wasn’t fun.

Grayson:Be at the club in an hour. Don’t be late.

Me:Are you going to punish me if I am? An hour isn’t much time.

Grayson:One hour. You’d better not be texting and driving right now.

I could almost hear his deep, gravelly voice in the typed words, and I grinned to myself. I loved this teasing side of him, and the easy way he brought that side of me out too. We often bantered good-naturedly back and forth, and I kind of thought of it as our love language. I knew it was a side of himself he rarely showed, and only to a select few number of special people. That I was one of them warmed my heart and made me feel extra special.

Me:I’m not. But now I really am driving.

Ending the conversation for good this time, I headed out of town to Jamie and Bash’s. After dropping Julianna off to a wildly grinning Jamie, who had assured me that Grayson had only asked them to watch her for a few hours, I pulled up to Grayson’s cabin.

Using the key he had given me, I rushed into the bedroom, stopping short when I spied the items spread out on the neatly made bed. Picking up the silky red jockstrap, I twirled it on one finger. The front was mesh, made up of barely enough material to cover my dick, held together by strings. There was a tiny red heart in the back that would sit at the top of the cleft of my ass cheeks. Next to it was a tan raincoat, the material expensive, and long enough to cover most of me.

I had never stripped so fast in my entire life, including the night we had met. I still had no idea which one of my fantasies we were going to do tonight, and I didn’t care. My throbbing dick made it nearly impossible for me to get the jockstrap on correctly. But after some maneuvering, I finally managed it. Admiring myself in the full-length mirror attached to the back of the bedroom door, I smiled at the result.

My leaking dick was already making a wet spot on the front of the mesh and the tiny square of material barely contained me. I looked down the length of my body and saw my tip just poking out of the top of the red material. Turning to see my backside, I grinned at the little red heart sitting prettily at the top of my ass. It was cheesy, yeah, but I didn’t mind. Another side of Grayson few people got to see, and I probably could do with more cheesy moments in my life.

My stomach was flat again, not as flat as before my pregnancy, but that was because I was at a healthy weight for once. My ass was still as high and firm as it had ever been, with just the perfect amount of jiggle to the pale globes.

Done admiring myself in the mirror, and aware that my time was ticking away quickly, I shrugged into the coat. It was too big in the shoulders and waist, but as I cinched it tightly, Grayson’s scent wafted from it. Closing my eyes, I inhaled deeply, his spicy scent making my nipples pebble against the silky lining of the coat.

The jock string that ran between my cheeks was already soaked with slick and I couldn’t wait to get to the club.

A half hour later, my legs were trembling as I showed my I.D. to the massive alpha standing guard at the ornate dark door at the entrance to Sinful Playgrounds. He hadn’t said anything as he scanned my name, just gave me a two fingered salute while pulling the door open for me.

I stepped into a small room that held a reception desk, with a tall shelf of cubicles behind the workspace and computer system. It was windowless and the first stop of anyone entering any further into a place they didn’t belong and hadn’t been vetted to be in. The beta standing at the front desk in the small reception area was a little more talkative than the alpha at the door, as she checked my I.D. again, and had me place my cell phone and keys in a plastic bin. Club policy, she had explained with a warm smile. No cell phones were allowed on the club floor.

She had me sign some general release forms, making sure I understood that I was there on a day pass at the request of a member, and what the general safe word was for all participants of the club. She quickly explained that the DM’s were trained to listen for that one word and would quickly come to anyone’s aid who had used it. After I had repeated the safe word–accountant–several times back to her, she had seemed satisfied that I would remember it if needed.

I hadn’t realized Grayson had an actual membership to the club. For some reason I had just assumed that because of their friendship Jamie gave him special privileges to come and go as he pleased. We might need to put Grayson’s membership to better use than him just grabbing a drink and never playing after tonight. My body hummed with excitement for what was about to happen, my mind whirling in anticipation.

“Mr. Beckett has requested you leave your coat here,” she held out her hand in a gesture for me to hand over the cover, and my fingers tightened on the tie of the coat. I had no idea what might be waiting for me on the other side of the lock coded door.

The thought of what I was wearing underneath the coat–or not wearing–and the unknown of what waited for me when I was allowed beyond that door filled me with anticipation and trepidation. But Grayson had picked this outfit, he knew how I was dressed. More than that, he knew all my secret desires that I had written on that piece of paper. I trusted him.

Right now, in this building, he was my Dom and I was his sub.

Sliding the coat off my shoulders, I handed it to her, standing tall and proud in my near nakedness. It wasn’t like the silky mesh and thin strings were hiding anything. Holding my head up, I stared straight ahead at the black door and what waited for me beyond it.

She returned from putting my coat away, my mind all over the place while I waited for her to unlock the door. Taking a deep breath, I tried to steady the nerves threatening to overwhelm me and let myself drift into the mindset of knowing pure desire and ecstasy was waiting for me on the other side.

Beyond that door Grayson waited. My Grayson. My Dom. My alpha.

Our mate, my giraffe helpfully supplied, before skittering away. They always made themselves disappear during any sexy times, thank the Goddess.

“I’ll just put these on your wrists,” the beta’s soft voice nudged me out of the head space I had drifted into, and I blinked blearily at her. She slid several plastic, stretchy bands over my thin wrists and I stared down at them, before giving her a questioning look.

“These are so the others in the club can identify what you are here for,” she explained with a warm smile, “Mr. Beckett picked them out for you.”

I had read of such things, of course, but seeing the bracelets encircling my wrist made me feel warm with the knowledge that my Dom had been thoughtful enough to do the thinking for me of picking what colors I should wear. Because there was no way I would have been able to make my brain work enough to sort it out right now. I was already drifting a bit in that lovely floaty place, and I didn’t want to have to leave it to actually think.

“The red one tells everyone that you are not available. No touching, don’t approach you.”

My lips curved at the feeling of ownership that bracelet brought with it. Grayson was claiming me for the entire club to see. A way to mark me since I didn’t carry his claim bite yet.

“The purple one is for spanking. You like spanking and want it. The pink one indicates you are a sub, and the camo one tells everyone you are role playing, or open to role playing. That any scene with your Dom is consensual. Unless you safe word out, of course.”

“But the red claims me as taken so the rest seem unnecessary.” My brain was online enough that my logic kicked in.

She shrugged, her hand hovering over the keycode pad of the door. “I stopped trying to figure out Dom’s minds a long time ago. I just go with however they want to identify their subs. Maybe he wants to make sure that everyone knows whatever you might be doing you are okay with it. Hard to fucking tell, especially with Becks. I could faster figure out a brick wall than that man.”

Her explanation of the bracelets told me several things about what was waiting for me, whether she realized it or not. That we wouldn’t be in one of the private rooms the club had. That we would be doing this scene out in public view of anyone who might be there tonight. Even though it was relatively early for a Friday night, the parking lot was full.

Imagining all the eyes that would be on me, watching me, had my dick jerking against the mesh it was trapped in. The wet spot on the front spread, as did the trail of slick sliding down from crease of my ass. Desire swirled low in my stomach, and my nipples hardened as if invisible fingers had tugged on them.

Finally, after what felt like forever, she punched in the code and the door clicked open.

“Go straight. Past the bar and then to your left. You’ll find him in the back booth waiting for you. Have fun.” She waggled her eyebrows in a not very professional manner, but one that put me at ease, before leaving me to return to her watch behind the desk.

Swallowing hard, I ran my hands down my slightly sweaty chest. My fingers were trembling. With need, anticipation, or excitement? A combination of all three?

Taking a deep breath, I stood to my full height and stepped into the heart of the club.