When Jeremy freed Brendan, Marguerite stood back and watched The Zone employee help him sit up as he checked vitals. Brendan was forced to lean on the other man while the world oriented itself and became what he knew it to be, though she was sure the band of fire across his lower back made his immediate future different. She stood away from him, in front of him, her clothes back in place. She explained the aftercare while he drank the glass of water Jeremy pushed on him. His gaze watched her hungrily, so she made sure her voice was firm, cool, reminding him of her boundaries and what would and would not happen after this night.
She saw the reminder sink in, the acceptance come into his eyes more easily than she would have expected. It suggested that tonight's experience had changed his reality, taken him to a different plane of understanding of himself and her. Brought him an inner tranquility. The post-euphoria of a successful pain session, she told herself, knowing it was at least partly true. When she gathered up her bag of items and put it over her shoulder, he rose from the bench and knelt before her, despite the pain she knew the position must be causing him.
"Thank you, Mistress. "
She nodded, walked around him without touching him and left the room.
The carpeted hallway outside was blissfully empty. Moving quickly toward the women's changing room, she nearly ran into the door before giving herself time to pause and turn the bronze door handle.
They offered individual changing rooms along with an open vanity area. She went into one of the rooms, closing and locking the door. Sinking down on the bench, drawing up her feet so no part of her could be visible under the door, she laid her head on her knees, closed her hands around them. Then she let the shuddering take her, rack through her body like a sudden fever.
Why had she done that? Why had she taunted Tyler when every molecule of her focus should have been on Brendan?
She knew why.
But it took several more indrawn breaths for her to say it in her mind. Breathing in, lifting the diaphragm, breathing out, letting the energy channels open, releasing the buildup of nervous tension.
He was right. She wasn't a coward, though she had never wanted to be one as much as she wished to be at this moment.
She took off the boots, stood before the mirror in her bare feet. When she walked through The Zone, the people there saw what she wanted them to see. When she stood here, she saw someone much younger. Someone she had created the Ice Queen to protect, someone who was not strong enough to survive this world. Pale skin, pale outfit, pale hair. A ghost with the glitter of diamonds to give her life.
God, she was in a mood. Time to go home and treat herself to a cup of chamomile, an herbal infusion. She couldn't do tea tonight, not as wound up as she was. Reaching into the bag, she pulled out a cream-colored tunic and donned it over the bodysuit, belting it with a sash tied loosely on her hips. She found a pair of short heels for her feet and dropped the diamonds in their velvet box, tucked them back into the bag. When she tied her hair back on her shoulders, she was normal-looking enough for the street, the mundane world, though she had one stop to make first before she could escape to it.
When she stepped out into the hallway, he was sitting on the wide carpeted staircase that led up to the main floor. Because of the excellent soundproofing in The Zone playrooms, there was no audio evidence of what might be going on behind the nearly thirty doors along the hallway. There was an almost hushed stillness in this area.
All the music, voices and light on the main floor above were contained behind the heavy wooden doors at the top of the stairs.
It always made her feel as if she were alone in the great hall of a castle. The vaulted ceilings offered equal visions of pleasure and pain, silhouettes of bodies, the gleaming curves of exposed skin, a ready hand or brushing of lips. Nearly two hundred scenes painted along the arched expanse, a masterpiece created exclusively for The Zone by an anonymous patron, though everyone suspected famed erotic artist J. Martin. Life-sized erotic statuary was placed between every third and fourth door along the hallway, the silent sentinels guarding a world beyond the comprehension of most people's lives. But not hers and Tyler's.
She walked toward him, a straight line, her gaze fixed just past his shoulder, neither of them smiling. He sat on one of the lower steps, a hand on the dividing handrail, the other on his knee, a masculine pose. An authoritative pose. A still one, because he was a master at stillness, at giving nothing away by body language.
The dark slacks and white dress shirt open at the throat suited him. Stark black and white that didn't detract from the etched planes of his face, the intensity of his eyes fixed on her. He'd shaved before he'd come tonight, so his jaw was smooth, perfect. Her fingers curled with a sudden desire to touch it, feel that satiny texture that a man had after a shave, to lean in close enough to flare the nostrils and try to identify the aftershave he used. What would it be like, to be part of a man's intimate life like that?
See how he took care of himself every day? She'd never thought herself interested in such a thing before. The Zone's front door was a door she literally and emotionally closed behind her every time she left, such that she'd had Mistresses or submissives come into Tea Leaves and it took a couple blinks before she realized why they seemed familiar, or seemed to know her.
She stopped twenty feet from him and resisted the urge to defensively tighten the belt of the sash. Instead she remained motionless, studying the pattern of the carpet that ran on the stair alongside his hip. What did he carry in his pockets? Keys, perhaps Chapstick or gum. Were there pictures in his wallet?
She wanted to forget everything she'd resolved in the changing room and walk away. This could not go well. She could not do this.
"Was that entirely necessary?"
She didn't pretend that they both didn't know exactly what he was referencing.
"If you recognized it for what it was, then yes, I suppose it was. " Not even by a tremor did she betray what was going on behind those pale eyes but somehow Tyler got the impression that the exterior of the formidable woman before him had become glass since she'd left the room she'd shared with Brendan. He'd surprised a street dog in an alley once, a female with glittering eyes and a very impressive set of teeth. Every line of her lean, muscular body had indicated she would be aggressive if pressed but he understood her primal fear of being trapped, helpless.
He'd stepped aside and she had shot out of the alley, escaping his perceived threat.
With the same instinct, he sensed Marguerite was at the end of some emotional tether and was showing her teeth to get him to step aside. And it wasn't just the emotional drain from an intense session with a sub. It had made him hurt for her, to watch her studiously avoid touching Brendan at the end. Like watching a mother refuse to touch her infant as it came naked and shivering from the womb, turn her back so it would not completely shatter her to give him up.
"Will you come sit by me a second?" He nodded to the spot on the stair beside him.
She looked startled by the mild request, the softer inflection. After a moment, she came up the steps, smoothed her tunic beneath her and took a seat in the informal position as easily as she might settle herself in more elegant furnishings. Of course - he suppressed his grim amusement - she sat on the other side of the railing from him, the one that cut down the middle of the wide staircase.
"You were magnificent tonight," he said. "This will probably rank in the top three experiences of that kid's life until he's on his deathbed. "
"It was very moving to me as well. "
"Watching you is like watching a highly trained horsewoman handle a fractious stallion. Though, admittedly, Brendan's more like a yearling. " When he smiled, he was surprised to see an answering curve of her lips. She read him well. Knew when he was being sarcastic and when he wasn't, honest versus passive aggressive or overtly aggressive. But then why was he surprised by that? She had an exceptional abilit