“But do you?”
I was supposed to be demanding answers, but my voice came out as a cautious little purr. Tobias’ nostrils flared slightly as he looked down at me.
“I have a playroom at home as well as at the club, yes.”
“How did I not know this?”
Their house was this massive, sprawling mansion in one of the leafy suburbs of Adelaide, complete with extensive grounds. There was just too damn much of it to get my head around yet. Each man had his own wing, though I hadn’t really ventured down to Tobias’. He slept with me, just like the rest of his brothers, in a bed they had purchased not long after meeting me.
“I didn’t think you were ready—”
“Oh, I’m ready,” I said in a sufficiently riled tone, one that had the others chuckling. “When we get home, you’re showing me.”
“You’re too stirred up—”
“And you’re a bossy prick. Show. Me.”
So that washow I came to be standing in front of a large wooden door next to Tobias, who had a key in his hand.
“We don’t need to do this now. I had every intention of introducing you to this space and the one I keep at the club when you were finished with Scar.”
“Show me,” I said, nowhere near as calm, but somehow? I needed to know.
Each one of them had taken me out every night, to different events or just to walk on the beach. They’d even come around to Nikki’s for a BBQ once. We spent time, so much time together, slowly getting to know each other, but…I felt like part of Tobias was locked away in here, along with his ‘toys.’ Right now, it felt like I needed to see them, see him.
“Sage, you’re pissed off and running on adrenalin.”
“And you’re stalling. Make with the twisty twisty, key boy.”
His breath came out in a low hiss as he opened the door and led me in.
Was this what I expected it to look like? It wasn’t all lurid reds and pitch-blacks, like a playroom would look like in my head. The windows were still those ornate Federation styled frames, a lattice work of lead crisscrossing the panes of glass. Natural light swept in currently, but the heavy curtains made it clear they could be drawn to close down the space. Tobias watched me oh so carefully as I walked in and looked around.
In some ways, it looked like a library. There were shelves and cupboards all along the walls, but when I opened one drawer, I shoved it closed again, seeing a shining array of stainless steel devices laid out there. He joined me, placing a hand over mine, and then pulled it out again much more slowly.
“I keep all the different implements of pleasure I might want to use on a partner in here.” My fingers went lax at the mention of other people, my hand going to pull away, but he stopped me. “I haven’t, not here. My brothers thought me an idiot for creating this space, only to never use it, but…” He moved our hands then, trailing it across the cold steel bulges of what looked like dildos and butt plugs. “In some ways, this was my dreams made flesh. Every time I wondered what our omega might be like, what she might enjoy, every time I saw something on a website I thought that mysterious mate might enjoy, I bought and stored them here. Everything is untouched, waiting…”
“Waiting for what?” I knew the answer, but I just wanted to hear it. I wanted to hear him say the words.
“Waiting for you.” His free hand slid up and under my nape, smoothing over the skin there. “I felt like if I collected everything…” He yanked open drawers, one after the other, revealing candy-coloured vibes and strange clamps, feathers and flails and handcuffs. “If I had it all waiting here, she’d come.” He moved closer then, covering my body with his, his breath on my neck. “She’d step in here once she stepped into my life, my heart—”
“Shit, and I forced you to unlock the door.” I let out a little hiss.
“It was never locked against you, Sage. Every door in this place is open to you, in any of the properties we own. More than that, it’s yours.” He set my hands on the next drawer, then pulled away to leave me to decide whether to open it or not. I slid it open slowly, revealing some sex toys I couldn’t work out how you’d use. “Yours to choose from. Yours to have used on you, or for you to use on me or any of my brothers. Yours to pick and choose from. Yours to experience every satisfaction human ingenuity can devise. It has belonged to you since I started building it. I was just waiting until you were ready to come in and edit the collection down, discarding what you don’t like and keeping what you do.”
“You want me to Marie Kondo your sex toy collection?” I turned around and shot him a disbelieving look. I turned around and picked up the nearest thing, which looked a little like a pair of small tongs, but the ends were small flat circles. “Does this give me joy? What the hell is it, anyway?”
He grabbed one of my hands and then pushed my fingers into the gap at the centre of the tongs before pressing a button. I jerked as it felt a familiar vibration.
“It’s a couples’ vibrator. The top pad sits on your clit and the other inside you, right where your G-spot is, hopefully. As one of us pushes inside you, it will force the vibrating pad up harder against it, hopefully making you gush.”
“Ohh…” My reply was manifestly inadequate, because I was just staring up at him, seeing those brown eyes burning into mine, sucking down my every response. I pressed the button to turn the vibe off but was forced to cycle through a rapid array of different patterns before I could get it to end.
“Mm…” He moved in and drew in a lungful of my scent. “That one could bring joy. We’ll keep that one.” He set it back in the drawer and then stepped back. “This isn’t such a bad idea. We needn’t go anywhere with any of this today, but starting to see what you might like or dislike is all part of the process.” His hand rubbed up and down my spine with a slow rhythm. “Your heat will come in soon, and I would much rather know now what your hard and soft limits are.”
It all made sense.From what he’d told me, what I’d learned lobbing into Scarlet’s office several times a week, I needed to make decisions with my big head, not the one between my legs. Some subs could be easily influenced into doing things by a strong Dom that would later not sit well with them. Considering options while you had your wits around you and weren’t mid scene was the smart way to go.
Plus the whole heat thing?