“So you…?” Nikki sculled her drink in one mouthful and then held out her glass, Scarlet refilling it with a snort. “And then they…? And that bitch…? And the other bitch…?” She slumped against the bar and then wrapped her hands protectively around her new glass. “So you’re…?”
That last bit, that throbbing note of concern, that was what had me nodding slowly and smiling.
“So now you’re dating four of the hottest bachelors in town, and you’re checking this place out to make sure you’re comfortable with one of your mate’s kinks?” Nikki said finally.
“Looking, but not participating,” Scarlet warned, but then her attention was jerked elsewhere. “Mates who have just strolled in through the door.”
“OMG, where?!” Nikki said with exactly zero chill, turning around so fast on her stool, it made my head spin.
Only no one had to point out the Lockwoods to her, because your eyes found them the moment you looked their way, or at least mine did. Stalking in the door in a loose collective, Tobias in a severe black suit, Lucien wearing old jeans, a T-shirt, and a leather jacket, Beau in a pair of well tailored pants and a white shirt open at the neck, showcasing an expanse of tanned skin, and then there was Max.
My mate.
I’d seen him in workwear mostly, but right now, he had on a pair of jeans, Converse sneakers, and some T-shirt with what I was willing to bet was a geek themed print on it, his hair looking delightfully rumpled. I wanted to slip off my stool and go to him, smooth it down with my fingers, and then—
“Um…no,” Nikki said, wrapping her hand around my wrist. “Pack hottie might be prowling into this dive, but you came here with me. Chicks before dicks, amirite?” I smiled and nodded, remembering why we’d set this up in the first place. “So what the hell, Sage? Are these boys stalkers or something?”
“Or something.” Beau threw himself down on the bar beside us with a grin. “I’m Beau Lockwood.”
He held out a hand for Nikki to take, and initially, she just stared, then finally shook it before turning to me and mouthing, ‘what the fuck?!’
“Tobias told us to stay away, that you needed some time on your own.” His smile grew wider. “We didn’t listen to him, but we won’t interfere. We’ll be over in that booth” —he nodded to the one that the rest of his brothers were now sitting in— “watching, waiting for when you’re ready to go home. Or not.” That smile grew lazy, his eyes becoming heavily lidded. “Tobias has a private room here that he—”
“Won’t be using tonight,” Scarlet said crisply. “We practise safe, sane, and consensual kink here in my club. Tobias might own the place, but he leaves it in my hands to run, and Sage doesn’t even know if she has dominant or submissive tendencies, let alone how to consent to a scene, especially when she’s drunk.”
“Yeah, slow your roll, McHotty,” Nikki told him. “You’re supposed to wooing my bestie, dating her and letting her get to know you.”
“Oh that’s gonna happen.” His gaze swung to me now, and I felt a warmth flush through me in response. “As soon as Tobias brought the news home, we started plotting. Anyway, not everything in the room has to be kinky. Sage is our mate, an omega that’s going through a transition. She’ll need tending at some point, and we’re here just in case she needs that to happen before she’s ready to go home.”
His gaze now felt insanely intimate, like he was reaching across the bar, past my friends, and straight to me.
“We’re here to be whatever the hell she needs, when she needs it.” Then he turned to Scarlet, and all of that heat dissipated. “Round of beers, thanks, Scar.”
“Fuuuuuck.”Nikki’s curse was one long exhalation as he ambled back and away from us, hands full of beer glasses, but when she turned back to me, her eyes sparkled. “You’re so fucked. Four smoking hot alphas have got their omega’s scent in their nose? You’re going down, girlie.” She pointed a finger to me. “Down to pound town.”
“Yes, well, from what you’ve told me, each one of them has their little kinks and are not afraid to unleash them upon you without a lot of preamble,” Scarlet said. “Drink up, ladies, because I’m about to give you a tour.”
“So how does…?”I whispered the words but then clamped my lips shut as Scarlet shot me a look, because right now, we were in someone’s play space. They had made it a public one, so we were allowed to come and take a look, but that didn’t include intrusive questions. Still, I had many, so damn many, as I watched the girl spin slowly from the ceiling where she was suspended. Her body was held by almost a net of knotwork, with ropes crisscrossing her body.
“The ropes and knots are placed very precisely,” Scarlet explained. “There’s so many of them because it diffuses the pressure placed on the body. Suspensions are something expert practitioners engage in, so don’t let anyone try to convince you to just give it a burl. There’s a helluva lot of anatomical knowledge that goes into the placement of each knot, but what an end result.”
I could hear the passion in her voice, and the love, as she gestured to the girl.
“She’s floating right now, in the air, in sub space, in pleasure.” Her Dom walked up, an older man dressed in leather, but when he reached up and trailed his fingers across her body, I found my eyes jerking away. “And her Dom has to read her verbal and nonverbal cues constantly, looking for signs of discomfort, of distress beyond what was agreed to, of circulation being cut off. Both of them are utterly, utterly in the moment right now.”
“So it’s not just tying your hands to the cricket stumps and him hitting a six with that bat on your arse?” Nikki asked with a nod. “And that could be you?”
“No, I couldn’t—”
“No, I don’t want to. No, I’m not comfortable with that. No, I have no desire to try or do that,” Scarlet interrupted. “But not ‘no, I couldn’t.’ If this is what you wanted, your mate would move heaven and earth to make it happen, and it would. Tobias was always a singular man, but something shifted when he met you. I’ve never seen him so focussed, so driven.”
Her eyes felt like they burned into mine, and some of the alcohol clouding my mind seemed to be burned away with it.
“He thinks he’s going to be able to say no to this lifestyle for you, but really? That man lives and breathes being a Dom, at work, at home, with you. So it’s a matter of hammering out exactly what you do and don’t want that to look like.”
Her focus flicked upwards.
“It could be being suspended from the roof. It could be something else entirely. Let’s take a look at the menu and see what you might want to have a taste of.”