Chapter Two
CHAPTER TWO
IVEY
It took me almost an hour to come back into my body enough to venture out of the playroom. Dalton stayed with me the entire time, stroking his talented and brutal fingers over my body with a feather light touch. He kissed the insides of my thighs, kissed my asshole, then fed me water and helped me get my clothes back on.
“This is a good start to our anniversary weekend,” I murmured, finally finding my balance without his arms holding me up.
Dalton took a step back and gave me an appreciative once over before sliding his Gucci belt back into place centered through his belt loops. He checked his watch, grimacing at whatever time the face told him.
“An hour with the Trophy Doms, then we’re off to the airport.”
The Trophy Doms were his best friends, a group of four other dominant men with more money than sense. Grayson Williams, boyfriend of one Robert McAvoy, had apparently been the one to coin the phrase, which had started as slander, but turned endearing over time. That all pre-dated my re-appearance in Dalton’s life, months before we stumbled back into the early days of our fifteen year-old marriage.
“Only an hour?”
Dalton smiled lasciviously at me, rubbing a hand across his cheek before gesturing toward the door with a quick jerk of his head.
“We’ve been in here a while,” he said.
He unlocked the door to the playroom and I followed him into the narrow hallway and down to the open loft space that overlooked the dance floor and bar below. When we joined up with his group of friends—who were now just as much mine as his—we were met with a raucous applause that would have had me blushing if I had the energy for it.
Dalton rolled his eyes at them, pulling me into his side and kissing my temple. There wasn’t much to say. Arguing over their attention would only make it worse, so when Flynn Galloway pulled his boyfriend Rose onto his lap to open up room on a long leather couch, I was happy to quietly take the seat.
“They’re insufferable sometimes,” Flynn said conversationally.
“Most of the time,” Rose teased, wiggling until he situated himself properly on Flynn’s lap.
I smiled at them both politely.
Dalton’s friends were rich, loud, and forward. My friends back home in New York were very similar, but I still found myself feeling a little uncomfortable and out of place with the “Doms.” It was easier for me to fit in with the boyfriends, even though they were all a lot in their own ways too.
“Do you want a drink?” Flynn asked. “You look dehydrated.”
My cheeks burned.
“I’m fine,” I said, “Dalton made sure I drank water.”
As if I’d summoned him, Dalton appeared in front of me, a whiskey in one hand and a water in the other. “Which do you want?” he asked.
I needed the water, but I answered him honestly. “Whiskey.”
He grinned, like he knew which answer was coming. “Drink the water and it’s yours.”
Flynn huffed out an amused laugh as Dalton shoved the water bottle at me. I obeyed him because I always did, and I always would, and once I finished off the contents of the flimsy plastic bottle, he rewarded me with a tumbler of the whiskey we all loved so much.
“I talked to Rob at the bar and he said if we wanted to leave early, they can probably get clearance.”
The idea was appealing…
Coming up on the one year mark of our second wedding, which was the only one we remembered and the one we planned on celebrating for the rest of our lives, Dalton had proposed a small weekend getaway. The idea of travel wasn’t anything new between us. We’d both grown up wealthy and had carried that lifestyle well into adulthood. We spent the occasional weekend in New York visiting my friends; we’d been to Italy, Spain, and most recently Prague.
Dalton suggesting we take a trip to a no-name town in the middle of the Colorado mountains had caught me off-guard, but he smiled at me like he was keeping a secret so I couldn’t tell him no. Not like I ever would. That wasn’t the foundation our relationship was built upon. Dalton was my husband, my partner, but he was also my Dom and my decision-maker.
I’d spent a long fifteen years without him, trying to find someone who wasn’t scared by the things I wanted in bed. Continually, I’d fallen short…or rather, the men who weren’t him had fallen short. One had come close, my good friend Alex Burke, but that had ended before it even had a chance to start. I was thankful for that every day because Alex and I had been able to maintain our friendship even though we’d fallen into bed more than once, and his friendship was more important to me than anything else we ever could have had.
And then there was Dalton.
The man who knew me and understood me inside and out. He knew every tell, every want, every need, every idiosyncrasy. He was perfect for me in every way imaginable and probably some ways that weren’t. And to think, I’d told him I wanted a divorce.
“Are you in a hurry to get out of town?” I asked, sipping the whiskey he’d brought me.
“Eager to get you a mile in the sky so I can see if you taste different up there.”
“You know I don’t.”
Another blindingly beautiful smile. “Do I?”
I chuckled, biting the inside of my cheek before answering. “I don’t remember.”
“Shame.”
“Indeed.”
Dalton swallowed, his eyes darkening as he reached out and used two fingers to lift the whiskey back to my lips. “Drink up, Ivey. I don’t want to be here anymore.”
I held his stare as I took another swallow of the expensive amber-colored liquor, my skin warm again, my body eager and ready to obey.
“You just got here,” Grayson said from somewhere behind the couch. He flung himself over the back of it, elbows propped up between me and Flynn.
“I’ve been here,” Dalton said, rolling his eyes.
“In there.” Grayson pointed toward the hallway with the private rooms. “Not out here.”
“Owen and Archie will be here soon, I’m sure. Someone else for you to annoy.”
“Frankie is visiting and Owen is much less enjoyable when his best friend is around.” Grayson frowned, and it was a pretend thing with a very real undercurrent of jealousy that I was gentlemanly enough to not bring up in mixed company.
“Send Frankie home with Val and Barclay,” Dalton suggested, and Flynn made an amused sound in the back of his throat.
“They’re already there,” Rose offered, and seconds later Archie and Owen appeared at the top of the stairs. Archie looked the same as he ever did, like he was either coming from or going to work, with Owen beside him in a far more casual outfit and a strained look on his otherwise admittedly handsome face.
“Look, then,” Dalton said, calling his friends over. “They’re here to entertain you.”
“Is Grayson bored?” Archie asked wit laugh. He greeted Dalton with a quick hug, a slap on the back. “Does he need enrichment time?”
“I could use some entertainment,” Grayson lamented. “Can I borrow your boyfriend to tie him up? As a treat?”
“For whom exactly?” Archie asked.
“Yes.”
“I’m concerned if you touch him, he might come,” Archie admitted, smiling at Owen. “He’s close, isn’t he?”
Owen groaned and bit his bottom lip.
“You’re so mean to him,” Grayson whined. “Mean to all of us.”
“Go tie up your boyfriend,” Dalton suggested, and I watched the banter between them escalate to a new level while I finished my drink.
That was the way of them, fast talking and always on. It was easy to be accepted into their circle of trust, but often hard to get a word in edgewise. I took one more swallow of whiskey, emptied the glass, and handed it back to Dalton, who looked like he’d won the lottery.
“Let’s go,” he said, helping me to my feet.
I was unsteady again, like I’d been after he pulled me down from the cross. Sometimes when we played hard enough for me to slide into the quiet perfection of subspace, it took time for me to come out of it, and more often than not, I would slide back into it. Playing with Dalton gave me a chaseable and dangerous kind of high I didn’t think I’d ever get tired of.
“You’re no fun,” Grayson complained.
“He’s plenty of fun,” I countered, which earned me a laugh.
Dalton tangled his fingers through mine and offered all of his friends an Irish goodbye before pulling me down the stairs.
“I’ve never seen you this eager,” I said, following him across the dance floor and toward the front door of the club.
He stopped in his tracks, so fast I ran into his back. Dalton turned and grabbed me by the shoulders, looking at me more seriously than I could ever remember him looking. The severity of his features had my throat going dry and I swallowed hard.
“I always want you,” he said. “In all ways and in all things.”
My chin wavered, and I managed a rough nod in reply.
“I remember your vows,” I said softly, not sure if he could even hear my reply over the beat of the music that bounced off the walls.
“I will always prefer time with you over time with them.”
“I don’t want that.”
He smiled, almost looking shy. “I know. That’s why I still see them every Thursday night.”
I laughed, closing the few inches between us and kissing the side of his neck. Dalton snaked his arms around my waist and nudged me until our lips were slanted together and I kissed his mouth instead. He tasted like whiskey and sweat, and somehow my cock sprang back to half-mast it hadn’t just had the life drained out of it. Stars blinked to life behind my eyes and I groaned, deepening the kiss.
“If you want me conscious at thirty-thousand feet, we should go,” I murmured.
“That is sort of important,” he said against my lips, kissing the corner of my mouth before pulling back enough to see my whole face. “Consent and all that.”
I hummed, nodding my agreement.
“I already had a car scheduled,” he said after we stepped out the doors. They swung closed behind us, the loud music and conversation muffling to a dull hum of noise on the other side of the wood.
“For forty-five minutes from now.”
“Call a new one,” I suggested, but Dalton was already pulling me down the front stairs and around the corner into an alley. The narrow space was lit until it wasn’t, and then my back was against the brick exterior of the church, both our bodies hidden from the street by a stack of wooden pallets, an empty keg, and a dumpster.
“You call,” he said, reaching into my pants and curling his terrible and perfect hand around my cock.
“Are you serious?”
“Call the car, Ivey.” He stroked me slow and soft from root to tip, and I shoved my hand into my pocket to grab my cell phone. “You aren’t coming until we’re in the airplane.”
“You’re mean.” I fumbled the phone trying to swipe the screen on, then misdialed the number four times, completely and wonderfully distracted by the way Dalton stroked me with far too much kindness to get me where I wanted to be.
Finally, I got the number right and raised the phone to my ear. The call connected, and relief flooded my chest.
“City Town Cars,” a woman said in greeting.
“Hi. Yes.” Dalton’s hand was lazy and tender across my shaft, more like a tickle than anything else. “My name is Carter Fox, and I’m calling about a reservation my husband made.”
“What name is the reservation under?” she asked.
I blinked hard, mentally willing Dalton to touch me the way I wanted. Instead, like the sadist he was, he sank down to his knees.
“Dalton.” His name came out on a gasp and he yanked my pants down enough to get my cock into his hot and waiting mouth.
The woman on the other end of the call sounded annoyed. “And the last name, sir?”
“Sir.” It was laughable for her to call me that, and the deep chuckle that reverberated from Dalton’s throat through my entire body confirmed he agreed. “Fox,” I choked out. “My husband is Dalton Fox.”