Chapter 1 #2
Do I dare? she asked herself as he walked past her, only a foot away from the pillar she was hiding behind.
The answer came at once—not tonight. But soon.
Tomorrow night was their weekly dinner date and Shane was taking her to LeFronge as an early birthday present.
She’d been born on Valentine’s Day—hence her not-too-creative name—and it was always a pain in the ass to go out on the actual day because of the crowds.
So she’d gotten into the habit of going out the week before and then staying in on her actual birthday, which could really be more fun sometimes.
This year it could be a lot of fun but Valentine knew she would have to work up to it slowly. Silent as a shadow, she slipped from behind the thick pillar and headed for the exit of the Black and Blue.
She had a lot of planning to do.
Shane couldn’t figure her out. Valentine was looking beautiful tonight but that was nothing new.
She’d had a heartbreakingly gorgeous face since he’d first met her and then she’d grown a curvy, plus-sized body to match.
So the fact that she was positively mouthwatering as she sat across from him in a little black dress that looked like it had been painted on was no surprise.
But there was something else about her—some inner radiance that he couldn’t figure out.
“Val, sweetheart, you all right?” he asked, reaching across the spindly little table to touch the hand not holding her spoon.
She’d been quiet all night though several times she’d opened her mouth as if to say something and then shut it again.
Shane hadn’t missed those moments of hesitation or the fact that their conversation was mostly one sided with him supplying almost all of it.
“You have something on your mind?” he asked her.
“You could say that.” Valentine toyed with her spoon, licking a tiny bit of crème br?lée from the back of it with her dainty pink tongue.
The sight of her lapping cream with that soft little tongue made Shane’s pants feel suddenly way too tight.
He reminded himself sternly for what seemed like the hundred thousandth time that Val was strictly off-limits, wondering as he did so if she had any idea of the effect even her most innocent gestures had on him.
“Well?” he said, his voice coming out raspy and abrupt. “What is it?”
Valentine hesitated. “It’s something I saw. Something I want.”
He laughed. “If you’re angling for another birthday present you’re too late—I already picked something out for you and you can’t have it until your actual birthday.”
A look of mild annoyance flitted across her face. “Honestly, Shane—I’m not twelve anymore.”
Don’t I know it! He smiled at her ruefully, wishing she was.
If he could have somehow frozen her back at the innocent age when he’d first met her, back when he and Peter were still in high school and Valentine had been in junior high, things would be so much easier.
He was sure he would never have had the improper desires he had to battle every time he was near her now, desires that had only grown sharper over the years of denying them.
But there was no help for the situation—Valentine was Peter’s little sister and as such she was completely, totally, and forever off-limits.
Shane would have sooner reached into a fire and grabbed a hot coal as he would lay a hand on her.
Peter was his dearest friend and there was no way Shane would betray the trust he’d put in him, no matter how tempting his little sister might be.
And she was pretty damn tempting, with that halo of pale, soft blonde curls that made her look like an angel and those tilted green eyes that said there was a little bit of the devil in her too.
Right now those eyes were flashing at him and Shane had an idea he was about to find out what exactly she had wanted.
“It is something I want for my birthday,” she said now, giving him a playful smile. “But it isn’t something you can buy me. And it’s not something I can get for myself—I know because I’ve tried. God knows I have.”
Shane was mystified but intrigued. It wasn’t unusual for Valentine to talk in circles.
She was extremely intelligent as her degree in biochemistry proved.
Shane had always thought her sharp mind was a turn-on—she turned every dumb blonde joke he’d ever heard on its head—but it did take a little while for her to get to the point sometimes.
“I’m waiting,” he said, smiling. “Are you going to explain that or do I have to guess?”
Valentine smiled nervously. “Sorry. I want…what I want are lessons.”
He frowned. “Lessons? Like guitar lessons? Language lessons? You want to learn Farsi or Japanese all of a sudden?”
“No, I told you—it’s nothing I can do or get for myself.” She took a deep breath. “I saw you, Shane. At the club—the Black and Blue. I was there last night and I saw what you did.”
“What?” Only one thing registered with him. “You were at the Black and Blue? Do you know how dangerous that is? Were you there with someone?”
He didn’t know what he wanted the answer to that to be. On one hand, the thought of her being by herself in such a dangerous place was very upsetting. But on the other hand, he couldn’t bear the thought of some other man making her submit—making her his.
“What the hell were you doing there?” he asked again, frowning.
“I was…I was looking for someone to show me about that world. The lifestyle.”
“You don’t belong there,” Shane told her.
“Where? In the club or in the D/s lifestyle?” She was beginning to look pissed but Shane didn’t care.
“Either one,” he told her fiercely. “It’s too dangerous, Val. You need to stay away— stay out.”
“So you’re allowed to be there, doing what you want—flogging people—oh yes, I saw you, don’t think I didn’t—but I can’t?” Valentine glared at him and he glared right back.
“That’s right.”
“And why is that? What makes you so much more deserving than me?”
Shane opened his mouth to say, I’m an adult.
Then he closed it again. She was about to be twenty-four—she was more than legal.
There was no way he could stop her if she wanted to go back to the Black and Blue.
But God, just the thought of her wandering around, looking innocent and fresh and attracting every piece of bottom-feeding, low- life scum in the entire club made his skin crawl.
“I need this, Shane.” Her voice dropped, becoming less angry and more pleading. “And I need a guide to show me the way. I tried to get Gavin to help me but—”
“Don’t.” He held up a hand to stop her. The last thing he wanted was to hear about her sex life. To imagine her with another guy. Some loser who didn’t deserve her.
“I was just going to say that he wasn’t into it. And…” Her voice dropped. “And I think maybe he thought it was kind of sick that I was. That I wanted to be, anyway.”
“There’s nothing wrong with the lifestyle,” Shane said automatically. “It fulfills needs—desires some people can’t come to terms with any other way.” Then he closed his mouth—why was he giving her the lecture he usually reserved for girls he was dating who found out what he was into?
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I have those needs—those desires.”
Shane frowned. “You may think you do but you’re probably just curious. Most people are. Then they find out a little about what really goes on behind closed doors and their curiosity dies pretty quick.”
“I’m not just curious,” Valentine said softly. “I know what I want. I’ve looked into it—read as much as I could find about it.”
Shane felt a surge of relief. “So you’ve just been reading about it, huh? What books?”
“SM 101: A Realistic Introduction. Erotic Surrender: The Sensual Joys of Female Submission. Screw the Roses, Send Me the Thorns. Just to name a few.”
Inwardly he groaned. “That last one—it’s practically the submissive’s bible. Is that what you’re interested in? Submission?”
“Among other things.” Valentine put down her spoon and took a sip of her rose dessert wine.
“What else?” Shane felt his throat go dry as he spoke. The thought of her naked and kneeling at his feet, ready and willing to submit was hard to shake.
Valentine licked her full pink lips nervously. “Punishment. Spanking. Role-playing. Sensation play.”
“My, my. You have done your homework.” He kept his voice dry, trying not to let her words form pictures in his head.
Valentine tied to his bed or bent over his knee, her gorgeous heart-shaped ass high in the air for a spanking.
Valentine dressed in various costumes. Valentine naked and helpless as he touched her, tasted her, pushed her limits one at a time until she gave herself to him without reservation…
She nodded without a trace of irony. “I have. But I’ve decided I can’t learn any more from books. As I said, I need a guide. And after what I saw last night at the Black and Blue, I think you’re the one to guide me.”
He didn’t even have to stop and think about it. “No, absolutely not.”
“Why not?” she demanded.
“You know why not. A lot of what you’re asking crosses the line and you know it, Valentine.”
“What line? Why does there have to be a line between us?” She leaned forward and covered his hand with hers, touching him the same way he’d touched her earlier.
“I want to submit, Shane. More than that, I need to submit. I need to have my boundaries pushed. Need to give myself completely to someone I can trust, someone who knows what they’re doing. You fit the bill on both counts.”
“I can’t do that with you.” Though God knew his cock wished he could.
Just the thought of turning his little Valentine over his knee and spanking her until she was wet and hot between her thighs, of hearing her moan and cry while he punished her tight little pussy with his cock was almost more than he could stand.
“I can’t,” he said again, his voice gravelly with suppressed need.
“Fine.” She leaned back and crossed her arms over her full breasts. “I’ll go back to the Black and Blue and find someone who will.”
“You do that and I’ll tell Peter what you’re up to.” It was the worst threat he could think of but unfortunately it fell flat.
“Maybe I’ll tell him what you’re up to then.” She arched one delicate blonde eyebrow at him. “Does Peter know about your…proclivities?”
“This isn’t about me.”
“It’s about both of us. Are you going to help me or not?”
Shane shifted angrily in his chair. “Threatening to put yourself in an unsafe position when you know I have to watch out for you and saying you’re going to give away private information to get your own way—you know what we call what you’re doing in the lifestyle?”
She smiled happily. “Topping from the bottom. I’m pretty good at it, don’t you think?”
“I think you’re biting off more than you can chew, little girl.” He could feel the anger building in him and the words came out as a growl.
Valentine’s tilted green eyes widened and for the first time she looked scared. Good, she needs a scare thrown into her if she’s acting like this.
“You know my reputation around the scene?” Shane leaned closer, looking into her eyes.
Slowly, she shook her head.
“I’m a Dom who doesn’t take any shit from his subs.
They do what I say or I cut them loose. And it’s strictly nonsexual.
Nobody gets fucked—at least not physically.
” He deliberately made his words crude, watching with grim satisfaction as she flinched.
Valentine was used to being treated like a lady and that was fine—in everyday life.
If she really wanted to be a submissive she’d have to learn to submit—which appeared to be a skill she hadn’t quite mastered.
Was there a flicker of disappointment in her face before she nodded?
Surely not. Shane knew she’d had a crush on him back when they were kids together but he had no illusions about how she felt about him now.
He was just another big brother, like Peter.
Probably the only reason she was asking him to do this was because she trusted him to stay in control for exactly that reason.
“No sex, just submission. I got it,” she murmured.
“Master.”
“What?”
Shane took her chin between his thumb and fingers, keeping his gaze locked with hers. “If we do this, from now on you call me Master. Got it?”
“Got it…Master.” She trembled under his touch, her eyes wide and scared.
“Good. Now, are you sure? Because once we start, there’s no going back.” Shane was hoping to scare her so badly that she’d back down.
But she only nodded. “Yes, Master.”
Damn—apparently he’d have to try a more drastic approach if he wanted to put her off the D/s lifestyle permanently.
And that was exactly what he needed to do, he realized suddenly.
In fact, Valentine was giving him a golden opportunity.
If he could throw enough of a scare into her during their “lessons” he could erode her interest in kink.
Then he wouldn’t have to worry about her going into some BDSM meat market like the Black and Blue by herself and getting hurt. It was the perfect plan.
“All right.” Shane nodded, letting go of her chin. “Be at my house tomorrow night and be ready for a punishment. After the way you acted here tonight you deserve it.”