Page 12 of At Her Pleasure

Andra Day’s “Rise Up” was playing. Tardis had some fucking bizarre timing. It was getting hard to breathe, just like the lyrics said. Unfortunately, she had sharp-eyed friends.

“Cyn?” Vera ventured.

“I want to loosen up on the dance floor. I’ve got a session with Sy.” She pushed the expresso shot the waitress had brought her to Vera. “All yours.”

“Only if I want to be up all night.” Vera passed it to Skye. “Here. You don’t sleep, just like her.”

“I do when I have the right sleep aid.” Skye signed the response, sending a fond glance toward Tiger. Though he wasn’t close enough to hear the conversation, the look was enough to capture his attention. His lips tipped in a half-smile, all for her.

Ros was still focused on Cyn. “Do you know Mick?”

“I might have crossed paths with him. But if it’s him, it was years ago. So no. I don’t know him.”

He’d been defined by what he’d done for her that night. Ten years gave her nothing about him now. One thing she was certain hadn’t changed, though, because that kind of thing didn’t.

He liked pain at a woman’s hand.

She still remembered the steel erection, the look on his face, when she’d said it straight out.

“You liked the pain.”

“You liked giving it.”

“What would you have done if you’d won the fight?”

“Whatever you wanted.”

“I don’t know who he is now,” she repeated.

As she left them, the women exchanged glances. “If it is him, he made an impression,” Ros mused. “She doesn’t like to talk about her past. She’s only given us snapshots from her life in Jersey.”

Abby took a sip of her mango drink. “So was he part of the darkness, or was he a light?”

Vera gazed at Cyn’s retreating back. “Maybe both.”

* * *

Cyn took Sy with her to the dance floor. She liked rubbing against him, not letting him use his hands, but allowing him to prove how creatively he could convey his desires without an obvious bump and grind. He was a very good dancer, and she liked that, too, watching his muscles ripple and flow, and his graceful footwork. Because she could touch him as much as she wished, she slid her hands over him. Cupped, curved, dug in.

When her nails scraped his collar bone and followed the same diagonal track as Skye’s finger, she recalled how often she’d lain in bed, tracing that route on her flesh. She’d fantasized about putting her teeth on the cop’s collar bone, on each inch of the cut, tasting the mark she’d left upon him.

She’d move down from there, biting the sensitive area around the nipple, making him gasp and steel himself against the pain. Or lean into it. She’d have his hands bound above him, body stretched out for her, nowhere to hide or retreat.

It was time. She spoke into Sy’s ear, so he could hear her over the music. “Wait for me in the room. Strip and assume the position I prefer. I’ll be there when I’m tired of dancing.”

He nodded and backed away from her. His jaw was tight with anticipation. His cock was already hard, evident against his jeans. It would only get harder as he knelt in the room, waiting for her to arrive.

She twisted, turned, beat out the rhythm with feet and the rocking urgency of her body. Her desires rose with the music, becoming more urgent.

“Be Mean” by Joe Jonas. A club favorite. When the whip popped in the song, the dancers liked to jerk, as if feeling the sting. Then they’d laugh and dance some more.

Eyes were on her, nothing special about that. Everyone indulged the visual human feast Progeny provided. Unless a Master or Mistress ordered a submissive not to look.

Would the cop obey such a command? Over the years, as she’d embraced her Domme core, she’d considered that question. The mixed Dom, sub or switch signals the women had felt from Mick had been present back then as well. But he’d definitely hungered for what all beasts craved. Sustenance, and the freedom to embrace savage instincts. He’d looked at her like she could provide those things.

But he hadn’t taken them. Or asked for them.

Oh hell, she was full of shit. Strip away the embellishments the years manufactured, and it was simple. A cop had helped a kid, too mired in rage and grief to know how close she’d been to the point of no return.