Cady bit her lip. “I thought you might like to come to The Twisted Thorn one Saturday night. We usually go each week. I could get you a visitors pass. It means you can’t play with anyone Simon, Gray, or Hunter don’t preapprove and you’d have to sign a confidentiality contract first. Maintaining the privacy of the people who go to The Twisted Thorn is important. But it would give you a taste. Maybe help you unwind a little.”
“You said that before, how would it possibly help me unwind?” And was she really that tense that Cady thought she needed to unwind? “I mean, doesn’t the stuff you do there hurt?”
Cady snorted. “Only as much as I want it to.”
“You want it to hurt?” She rubbed her temples. All right, now her brain really was on overload. It was too much to process. “Why would you want to be hurt?”
“It’s a great stress relief. Sometimes when everything piles up, and it gets too much, all I want is to just let go and forget for a while. When Hunter is in charge, I don’t have to worry about anything. All I have to do is what he wants me to do. Well, sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I do what I want to do. But normally my butt pays. Or he doesn’t send me to my happy place.”
She wasn’t certain she really needed to hear about Cady’s happy place.
“I don’t find it easy to talk about shit.”
She could have fooled Lacey. She was doing an excellent job of talking about things that Lacey would never feel comfortable bringing up.
“Especially when it comes to the way I’m feeling. A bit of pain can let out all those emotions you bottle up during everyday life. But it doesn’t have to be pain. Sometimes just letting go and submitting is enough to lift me out of my worries. And when I hit subspace, well, it’s like I’m floating. I’m free and I know Hunter will be there to catch me.”
“So you need to trust your Dom to take care of you.”
“For me, yes. Other people can play without having an attachment to the Dom. And that works for them. But not for me. That’s just who I am.”
Lacey got that.
“I couldn’t let go with someone I didn’t trust fully.” Um, okay, where had that come from? She couldn’t let go at all because she wasn’t a submissive, right? “
“I think you might enjoy it. With the right Dom.”
With Gray.
Oh shit. She had to stop thinking about him.
Lacey started to frantically gather up her leftover lunch. “Thanks for the thought, but I’m not a submissive. And I don’t think I could ever trust someone that much anyway.”
Cady sighed and grabbed her garbage. “All right. Sorry if I scared you.”
“You didn’t.” Lacey paused and stared back at her. She hoped Cady wasn’t angry with her, she couldn’t stand that. “I’m not judging you or anything, it’s just not for me.”
Cady shrug
ged. “Sure thing. But if you ever change your mind about visiting the club you know where I am.”
As Lacey followed her back to work, her words kept playing over and over in her brain.
Submissive. Release. Orgasm. Floating.
What would it feel like to give up all her worries for a time? To just live in the moment? To release all the stress and the continuously looping feelings of failure and fear she lived with constantly? Would she be able to give up control for a short time and trust someone to respect her limits?
But then, if she was in a room filled with people they would have to respect her limits, right? There had to be people monitoring and watching. Besides, Cady said she wouldn’t be able to play with anyone who hadn’t been approved by Hunter. He might have his faults, but he was one of the most protective people she’d ever met, even towards her.
And who said she had to play? She could just go and observe. Maybe figure out if it was something she could be interested in. She wasn’t turned on by the idea of pain, but she admitted to a small fascination with spankings. Some of her favorite romance stories involved the heroine being spanked by the hero.
She licked her lips as she sat down behind her desk. No doubt the reality was far less romantic than fiction. No, BDSM wasn’t be for her. She could never let go that much and allow someone to control her.
Better that she just put it from her mind completely and forget Cady had ever said a thing.
Chapter Eight
Gray sat at the bar and stared out at the club. The thudding sound as implements descended on bare flesh, the smell of leather, the moans of pain and delight, usually brought him a sense of peace. Some satisfaction. A touch of excitement. Tonight, he just felt tired.