Chapter Six #6
Leaving her friend to mull that over, she stepped up to the door, cracked it open, and weighed up everyone’s current location. The bathroom was visible from the tables where the group congregated, but was shielded slightly from the main bar. As yet, Reaux hadn’t returned to sit with them.
If he wanted to call her his queen, that was fine. She summoned her inner royal bitch, straightened her spine, and walked out as if she owned the place. Instead of making her way back to the table, she simply veered left and pushed through the doors into the reception area.
Deciding that hacking the computer would take too long, she hurried upstairs, braced for someone to call her name and thwart her attempt at finding peace, solitary peace, for the night.
The call didn’t come, and she finally took a breath when she reached the top of the stairs. Just one night was all she was asking for—one night alone, without Reaux’s presence affecting her senses, his scent permeating her brain.
One night, that was all.
Boudreaux
He watched her go into the bathroom after the little blonde.
He watched as the blonde went back to the table, more than twenty minutes later.
Watching, it seemed, hadn’t benefitted him in the slightest because by all appearances, his petite beignet was clever enough to give him the slip. Still, he waited a few more minutes, his patience straining, but Violet didn’t emerge from the bathroom.
“Problem?” Levi asked, cocking his head so the small spotlights above the bar turned his hair a vibrant shade of dark red. “You’ve been glaring at the women’s restroom for nearly half an hour.”
“Hmm. Either Violet has barricaded herself in a stall, or she’s made an escape. She followed the small blonde in there, the one who moves like a ninja,” he explained when Levi looked baffled. “The blonde has returned. Violet has not.”
He laughed. “Ninja is the perfect word for Tabitha. Ninety-nine percent of the submissives are terrified of her, and around ninety percent of the Doms. Think Molotov cocktail crossed with a firecracker, and add in a really short fuse.”
Reaux eyed up the woman—she was short, obviously fit judging by the graceful, predatory way she moved, and was blessed with delicate, feminine features.
Her hair was an incredible shade of the palest blonde, drawing attention to her from all angles.
“I’m going to scope out the bathroom. If Violet went home, I need to prepare myself for booby traps. ”
Levi’s hand paused in the midst of raising his glass to drink. “Whoa there, buddy. We have strict rules here about safe spaces; the women’s bathrooms are off-limits to Doms and male subs. One of the girls will have to check for you.”
“Huh.” Reaux approved of the notion, even as he silently cursed it. “Perhaps this Tabitha will tell me if Violet remains inside?”
“No harm in asking.” Drink in hand, Levi nudged Elias, interrupting his conversation with Liam. “We’re heading back to the table to interrogate Tabitha. You guys coming?”
Liam’s eyebrow arched incredulously. “Hope you have good health insurance.”
“Is she that volatile?” Reaux wondered.
“Talking to Tabitha is akin to holding a bomb in both hands and trying to disarm it with a screwdriver between your teeth.” Elias chuckled and patted his shoulder. “You might walk away unscathed, or not at all.”
It would be simpler for him to just poke his head through the door and see if Violet was using the no-men rule to keep him at bay, if he was being honest, but he valued the importance of abiding by club rules.
Dutifully, he followed Levi to the table, followed by both Liam and Elias. He remained standing, smiling politely as Levi introduced him to Violet’s family circle, but his gaze was firmly on the little blonde, studying her as though she possessed the answers to every universal question.
She stared right back at him, stunning ice-blue eyes searing into him.
“Tabitha, do you know if Violet is still in the restroom?” Elias asked firmly, demanding honesty with his tone.
Eyes unwavering, she rubbed the corner of her mouth with her middle finger, effectively flipping Reaux the bird. “No.”
“No, she’s not in the restroom, or no, you don’t know?”
“She’s not in there. I’m supposed to give you a message, though,” she said with a touch of glee in her voice.
She rolled her bottom lip between her teeth, and Reaux knew Violet had recruited this one over to her side before he even got a chance to prove himself.
“What was it now… oh, yes. You can sleep wherever you want because the Mistress won’t be going home tonight. ”
The table fell silent, all eyes on him, gauging his reaction. From the combative gleam in Tabitha’s stare, she was waiting for him to snap his leash.
“Do you know where she’s planning to sleep?”
“Far away from you would be my guess,” she retorted glibly, then scowled when the man beside her cleared his throat in warning.
She rolled her eyes, then added in a saccharine tone, “Apologies, sir. I don’t know where she is or what she’s arranged for sleeping arrangements. She didn’t tell me and I didn’t ask.”
This one was strong in nature, almost dominant. He couldn’t get an accurate read on her, but he didn’t sense the usual vein of soft, yielding submission within her. She was somewhat of an anomaly.
“It is not wise for her to be on her own right now.”
“The Mistress is capable of deciding that for herself.”
Yes, definitely combative. He felt her hostility vibrating through her, an almost ominous sense of danger emanating off that tiny frame. What the hell had Violet said to the woman to make her want to disassemble him piece by piece?
“Do submissives not have as much of a duty of care toward their Dominants as their Doms do to them?” he asked softly. “If your Dom was hurting, upset, in need of love and reassurance, would you not do everything in your power to figure out the problem and fix it?”
Oh, that made her stop and think, he mused. A little frown appeared between her brows as her mouth twisted with indecision. She knew something, that much was clear.
“Did she swear you to secrecy, chérie?”
She nodded once. “Pinky swear.”
Evander’s wife made a serious sound in her throat. “Uh-oh. Can’t break a pinky swear for anything.”
Mack’s wife nodded solemnly in agreement. “Big no-no.”
Reaux groaned silently. “It doesn’t count as a broken promise if I guess, right?”
A silent conversation ensued between the three, avidly watched by the rest of the group. Small movements of their heads, subtle changes to their expressions, little flickers of their eyes… they were absolutely fascinating.
Finally, Tabitha sniffed and angled her chin higher. “Guessing the secret wouldn’t violate the pinky swear. However, I cannot confirm or deny whether your guess is correct.”
Well, this got better and better, didn’t it? Resigned to spending the rest of his evening trying to ferret out Violet’s secret without fracturing her friendship with Tabitha, he got comfortable in his chair and studied the blonde’s face with critical eyes.
In all honesty, there really wasn’t anything else he’d been planning to do except fuck his woman, but that was off the table until he found where she was hiding. Besides, if he unearthed the secret, perhaps things would improve between them.
To do that, he needed to crack the vault in front of him just enough to pull out clues.
“Is it something I’ve done?” he asked, grabbing the bull by the horns.
One question was all it took to redefine her opinion of him, he noted. The way her head tilted, those eyes narrowing, it was pretty obvious her initial estimation had been worthless. Now she was reevaluating him as a potential adversary.
She nodded once.
Okay, something he’d done. That opened a lot of doors. “Recently?”
Another, slower nod.
“Before or after I came here?”
Tabitha held up two fingers to indicate the second option.
Hmm, intriguing. What had he done in the last week that would become a closely guarded secret between Violet and Tabitha?
Aside from the scene that rocked his world, then the sex that razed it to the ground, he’d been an exceptionally good boy.
Mainly because Violet kept herself from being in the same room as him, but still, he’d had every opportunity to pester her.
Drumming his fingertips on the table, he watched Tabitha’s face. She was patient, her features an implacable mask, as she waited for his next question.
Reaux glanced around at the expectant group of Violet’s friends.
They were all ears, apparently as invested in this endeavor as he was, which was a problem.
He didn’t know how much they knew about her personal life because it seemed like she’d become a very private person here, guarding herself from outside judgement.
“Come on, man, take a guess.” Levi poked him with an elbow.
“Just think of how many ways you’ve fucked up with her and assess the consequences.
It’s been what, a week, ten days? Unless you’re one of those guys who lives with his foot permanently in his mouth, there has to be a limit on the potential fallout. ”
“Leave him be, Levi,” Merrick rumbled from down the table. “He’s thinking.”
“Do you love her?” Tabitha asked quietly, her words barely reaching across the short distance to Reaux’s ears. “Mistress Violet, do you love her the way Grit loves me or Merrick loves Tamsyn? Are you the one person in the entire world meant to be hers?”
“Yes.” He spoke before thinking and didn’t regret it.
“I made a colossal mistake a couple years ago, a choice that was ripe with good intentions yet backfired catastrophically. It was my choice, my mistake, and I haven’t stopped loving her since the day she walked away.
The whole reason I’m here now is to win her back so I can marry the infuriating woman. ”
Chuckles rippled around the tables from the Masters, a low hum of solidarity.