He glanced over his shoulder at me and caught me looking around. Landon stopped, touched my nose softly, and lowered my eyes. I stole one last mischievous look at him and caught him grinning.
“I’m going to enjoy punishing you for that,” he said in a low, growly voice.
I thought about what he might mean by that while we made our way deeper into the club. Eventually, we reached a door where Landon slid his coin in a receptacle like we’d seen outside the sensory deprivation room. It clinked in and the lock disengaged. Landon led me inside what appeared to be a bedroom.
For once, I decided to play nice and kept quiet, even though a dozen questions were swirling around my mind.
Landon closed the door, locked it, and then started walking a slow circle around me.
“Not completely submissive, but getting there,” he said in an almost appraising kind of voice. “So there’s at least potential that you can be trained.”
I looked up.
He clicked his tongue, but the grin he wore was wicked. “The good news for you is I’ll enjoy training you.”
“What now?” I asked quietly. I would’ve continued trying to play my role, but it felt like he was waiting for something.
“Now,” he said, “I give you one last reminder because you’re still new to all of this. Yellow means we’re nearing your limits. Red means stop, no questions asked. Understand?”
I nodded. There was a slight difference between the Landon I had come to know and the Landon I saw when he was playing the role of my dom. His voice was sharper. Things that might’ve seemed like suggestions carried the weight of command. I thought I understood what he was doing, because I also had to change slightly to even try to fill the shoes of a submissive. The normal me was so far from submissive that it was almost laughable. Landon might not have had to stretch as much to be dom-like, but in some way, it helped me better understand it.
“Can I ask a question?” I said.
Landon seemed like he was actually considering saying no, but then he nodded.
“Hypothetically. Let’s say you and I wound up… together. What would happen if I decided I didn’t want to keep doing all of this?”
“Then I guess it would be the end for us,” Landon said.
I stared.
He flashed the shadow of a smile. “To tell the truth, I hadn’t thought about it. BDSM has been part of my life for a long time now. Being here. This club. I guess it was a way of trying to grab control in my life. For as long as I could remember, everything was always just changing so fast and nothing I ever did could stop it. Here, though? I thought if I could just take over the club one day, I’d finally have the control I wanted. But I care more about you than any of that. I’d still give up the club for you if that was what it took, Andi.”
He put his hand on my cheek, eyes falling to my lips and then lifting back to meet my gaze. “Because I love you.”
My throat felt dry, and it might have had something to do with the fact that you couldn’t properly hydrate yourself on a liquid intake of Diet Coke, candy, and a few pounds of rice and chicken. But I also hadn’t expected that.
I tried to remember how long I’d actually known Landon. Was it insane to be dropping “L” bombs after… what, a few weeks? Especially only hours after I’d finally forgiven him for lying to me? But there it was again. I was thinking about what someone else would think or say if I told him I loved him too. I hadn’t even stopped to ask myself what I felt.
“I love you too,” I said. “But,” I stick a finger in his face, “you can still screw this up, so don’t get too excited. And I’m willing to give all of this a shot, by the way. I was just curious.”
Landon gently took my finger and lowered it. “A good submissive doesn’t jab fingers at her dom.”
“Unless it’s up his butt?” I asked sweetly.
Landon was trying not to laugh, but he failed. “No. If you want to keep your job as my submissive, you will definitely not be putting your fingers up my ass.”
I wiggled my eyebrows. “Some things are worth losing jobs over. Like talking back to a rude customer. Standing up for your principles against your boss. Piercing your dom’s dark star…”
Landon laughed louder now, then cringed, as if he was picturing it. He took a deep breath, smoothing his features. “Okay. You make this much more difficult than it should be. Where was I?”
I pointed to the spot on the floor he’d been standing for the past few minutes. “Right there, dom, sir. You haven’t really moved for a little while.”