Page 64 of At Her Pleasure
He uncrossed his ankles and bent his knees, bracing his feet against the pavement. “Is someone in the running for the last one? Beyond the occasional session?”
“Why would you say that?” Startled, she glanced toward him. He met her gaze again. The brown eyes were thoughtful.
“Because you’re always taunting me, trying to provoke me into the ring. Usually it’s more amiable. This felt driven by someone who’s gotten under your skin.”
“Which means it has to be about sex and a guy?”
The corner of his lip tipped up. “Are you saying it isn’t?”
She scoffed. “Nice try. I’m a better poker player than that.”
“You’re excellent.” He linked his hands over his knees. “Lucas wants another poker night so he can recoup his money. Ben just wants to ban women from attending.”
“Typical.” She chuckled. “Your CFO wants to balance his bank account, and your lawyer prefers scorched earth.”
“Having team members with different approaches can be good for a company.” Matt nudged her. “If they’re the right mesh. As Ros well knows. Back to our subject. If, hypothetically, someone has gotten under your skin, I can threaten him for you. Beat him up. I’ll consider it dress rehearsal for when Angelica starts dating.”
“Thanks,” she said dryly. “But I prefer to reserve the pleasure of beating him up or threatening him myself.”
“I figured. Bring ice packs for him.” He lapsed into companionable silence. Another carriage went by at the end of the street, this one with a white horse. There were flowers woven into the harness. “You know what you said, about a sub bratting? It’s not that different, what a submissive or a Dom is seeking. Trust. Even if it exists only in that session. But sometimes we stumble on a trust that reaches soul deep, and well outside the club doors. It’s incredibly rare.”
The words rippled across her nerves, creating an uneasiness that competed with the throb in her head, but she kept her tone indifferent. “Are you going somewhere with this?”
“When we think we’ve found it, it destroys our world, tears it apart. We have to rebuild it with a whole new view of what the world can be.” Matt stretched his long legs out in front of him again and propped an elbow on his gym bag. “If we’ve seen how fucked up the world is, it’s harder. We have to rebuild without thinking about it too much.”
“Not thinking about things too much is one of my strong points,” she noted. “In case you hadn’t noticed.”
Matt’s brown eyes twinkled. “I like you a great deal, Cyn. You’re the TRA woman I’d try to poach first, if I didn’t respect Ros so much. And if I didn’t know the synergy of your team is as vital to TRA’s success as my team’s is to ours.”
Fortunately ignoring her flustered shock, he pushed onward. “Whoever he is, the man who put you in this headspace? If you’re considering a longer investment, you’ll need to give yourself some time and breathing room to believe in it. And to let him earn it.”
She wasn’t some neophyte Domme needing a mentor, but she recognized a friend’s advice. She just wasn’t used to it coming from outside the TRA group. It helped her feel better, there was no denying it. She also realized she didn’t want to be mad at Mick anymore. She took out her phone.
CNC is still on, unless your earlier text was you pussying out. Let me know if I need to find another sub for it.
She followed it with five cat emojis. With arched backs and fuzzed-up tails.
As Matt put the ice pack on the curb and tested his jaw, Cyn gave him a critical look. “I better not hear you were mugged. I want Savannah to know you were beat up by a girl.”
“I was beat upon by a girl. And you should want me to tell her I was mugged. The most protective women in the world are submissives. You know this. You spar with Marcie.”
Marcie was married to Ben. When he and Marcie hooked up, she’d been it for him. Marcie took everything he needed to give out, and received what she needed from him in return.
Out of the handful of female fighters at Roughnecks, Ben’s fierce submissive provided Cyn the most consistent challenge in the sparring ring. Some smartass had added a score chart on the gym’s leader board, M vs C, with chalk marks to show the accumulation of victories on either side. They’d suspended the workouts—at least until Marcie was no longer pregnant.
“You’re only up by one on her,” Matt followed the train of thought. “My money is on her to pull ahead by year end.”
“Hope you didn’t bet a lot. Having that baby is going to give her different priorities.”
“It sure will. Being a mother will make her determined to improve her fighting skills. So she can kick ass to protect those who matter.”
While talking with Matt about Mick as a “hypothetical” relationship was unstable but okay ground, this terrain was quicksand. Cyn pushed herself up. “I’ve got to go.”
“All right.” As he rose with her, shouldering his gym bag, Matt gave her face another assessing look. “Ros is right. Go home for a nap and more painkillers.”
“Same to you.” She started to move away, then remembered. She wasn’t a welcher. “So what do I owe you? You won the bet.”
“A weekend of babysitting,” he said, with an easy smile. “About four months after the baby is born, the team is planning on taking Ben and Marcie for a weekend getaway. You can bring Vera or Skye—"