CHAPTER 3 #2
At the doctor’s office, a good restaurant, at an amusement park. As a society, we’d come to expect it. Patience was a virtue.
However, waiting twenty minutes for Zeke to be available hadn’t been on my agenda for the day. I’d hoped to stop in, grab the keys, head up to the apartment, and sleep for a while. At the very least, get a shower and wash off some of the travel grime.
Then again, I doubted Zeke gave a shit about my agenda or whether or not I shuddered anytime I thought about those sheets I’d slept on last night.
The shower I’d taken in the hotel room had done nothing to dispel that itchy feeling.
Had we planned ahead, Case and I could’ve slept in a four-star hotel.
Instead, we’d stopped at the first place we came to when it became damn near impossible to keep my eyes open. Lesson learned.
And now I should’ve been minutes away from a nap. Instead, I was sitting on the leather sofa in the fancy reception area, waiting for Zeke to stop fucking with us. Any other day, perhaps I would’ve been impressed by the power play. Today was not that day.
The phone on Dale’s desk rang, and based on the way he answered, the call had come from inside the office. He hung up and glanced over. “Zeke will see you now. His office is downstairs.” He motioned toward the hallway.
“Thanks,” I offered as I pushed to my feet, my back cramping. I needed to be horizontal for a while.
“Good luck,” Dale said with a smirk as we passed by.
I allowed Case to lead the way, following him down the wide hallway that opened up to the offices belonging to Landon, Langston, and Luci.
While I desperately wanted to play it cool, I wasn’t sure that was possible as Case and I headed down the stairs leading to Zeke’s office.
My exhaustion disappeared, as did the pain in my back.
There was a strange buzzing in my head, as though I was walking the plank, and any second now, the floor would be ripped out from under me, leaving me at Zeke’s mercy.
Strange, huh? Yeah. My brain tended to do shit like that when I was nervous. Conjuring up nonsense.
I glanced around, noticing all the closed doors. The place was a ghost town today. The only warm body we’d encountered had been Dale back in the reception area, and from what I could tell from all the dark rooms, no one else was here.
While my imagination worked overtime to get away from me, I tried to remind myself that we were in an office building. Not a club. I seriously doubted I had anything to worry about with Zeke. Not like he was going to command us to strip naked in his office. Right?
Granted, that hadn’t stopped him on Trent’s personal jet during our trip from Dallas to Chicago.
In fact, Trent had been in the next cabin.
Not to mention, Troy, Clarissa, the pilot, and the flight attendant.
They’d been on either side of the room where I ended up stripping buck-ass naked and kneeling for the big Sadist.
But this was an office building. A professional place.
Nothing kinky should be going on here. Then again, I did recall the time I walked through, serenaded by the cacophony of Luci’s squeals while she was getting her ass paddled by one of her Doms. That was just last week sometime.
They certainly hadn’t cared that anyone had overheard them.
Maybe I should be worried.
Once we made it down the stairs, I took a deep breath and put one foot in front of the other.
I’d noticed how Case was breathing a little roughly for someone in such good shape.
The guy was built like a Mack truck, but he had the cardiovascular system of a damn runner.
Which meant he was getting worked up from the mere prospect of seeing Zeke again.
For some reason, I was no longer worried what Zeke would do; I was worried he would do nothing at all.
I was depraved, no doubt about it.
I felt like a teenager being called to the principal’s office for something. I wanted to shove Case in front of me so I could hide behind him as we approached the open door to Zeke’s office.
“Hey, Zeke,” Case said in a ridiculous attempt to sound casual.
I wanted to laugh because the man nearly choked on his own words. I stifled it by squeezing my lips together.
“Pretty boy,” Zeke acknowledged from where he sat behind that massive desk.
I stepped around Case and took a good, long look at the Sadist who plagued my thoughts.
His bald head gleamed in the fluorescent lights above him, his dark eyebrows shadowed those piercing black eyes, and his thick beard framed the lips I’d fantasized about.
Yep. I was a fucking mess because this man, who wasn’t attractive in the traditional sense—he was too aggressive-looking for that—made every cell in my body come alive.
“Cowboy,” Zeke smirked. “Nice hat.”
“Thanks.”
“You ever ride a horse, cowboy?”
“Yes, Sir.” I swallowed. “I mean, Zeke.”
“Ever ride a bull?”
For fuck’s sake. I actually started to sweat from that simple question.
He raised an eyebrow.
“Actually, yes. I have.” However, I got the feeling Zeke wasn’t referring to the four-legged version.
Tank chose that moment to wander over and sniff my hand. I couldn’t resist petting the dog, even as I wondered how a beast like Zeke had ended up with the cutest damn dog I’d ever seen.
“Hey, Tank,” I greeted softly, letting my gaze naturally shift to the floor.
“We came by for the keys to the apartment,” Case said, his voice stronger than before.
I was impressed.
“Did you now?”
“Yes, Zeke,” he said obediently, a slight tremble making an appearance.
I’d bet money Case’s cock was as hard as a steel pipe right about now. Mine was, which was weird because I was still petting the dog.
Stop petting the dog, you dumb ass.
Standing up straight, I glanced over and noticed two keys sitting on the top of Zeke’s desk. Were those ours? Was he wanting us to grab them and turn around? This could’ve been a simple in and out, but Zeke made no move to get them.
“What’s in it for me?” Zeke asked, steepling his hands as he leaned back in his chair.
It was a wonder the damn thing didn’t snap in two from the sheer weight of him alone.
I’d venture to guess the man weighed somewhere between two sixty and two eighty.
At six eight, he was a monster. Which had me curious as to the size of his dick.
No. Nix that. I wasn’t curious. I was here to get the keys. Then, if I couldn’t catch some Z’s, maybe I’d find some coffee, and I could get on with my day.
“What would you like?” Case asked.
Christ Almighty. That was not a question you asked Zeke Lautner. The gleam in his eyes alone said he was thinking all sorts of things, and I doubted a single one of them didn’t involve some sort of humiliation.
Strangely, that made my cock harder.
Zeke motioned across the room. “Have a seat.”
It wasn’t a request; it was a command. One that had Case and me moving across the room even as I wondered why the rush.
I’d long ago stopped questioning the perversion I had when it came to Domination and submission.
It wasn’t something I’d experienced until after I came to work for Trent.
Oh, sure, I’d gotten off a few times to an ex-boyfriend wanting to pull my hair or nail me to the wall.
Aggressive sex had always turned me on. But it wasn’t until I’d witnessed a scene at Dichotomy between a Sadist and a masochist that I’d truly understood some of the darkness that fueled me.
It was then that I’d realized I hadn’t even scratched the surface of the true depth of my depravity.
However, my desire to explore Zeke’s particular brand of Sadism had been cemented the night I watched as Zeke took over a scene with Case.
Another Dom had offered to flog Case in an effort to get him off.
It was the very reason we went to Dichotomy.
We sought the release that came with scenes of that nature.
Case and I had come to the understanding back in the beginning that we needed to experiment to see how to sate some of the deeper urges we had.
And we’d agreed to do it together. So, as long as we were at the club, we rode the wave where it took us.
We’d scened numerous times with various Doms, and our limits were minimal.
The only rule we had was that we discussed the scenes afterward, in depth.
It was important to us that we kept each other in the loop as to which direction our desires were headed.
I’d known from the beginning that I could never give Case everything he truly needed when it came to sex.
While my kink leaned toward the humiliation department, Case was into serious pain.
The sort I couldn’t inflict even on my worst day.
I was sure a therapist would’ve had a field day outlining the cause of Case’s obsession.
Surely there was something in his past—abusive parents, neglectful family, inappropriate contact with someone in his life—that had molded him into what he was today.
While I got the feeling something had caused Case to seek the pain, he insisted otherwise.
Aside from having sex at an early age—he’d lost his virginity at the ripe young age of fifteen—Case insisted he’d had a normal upbringing.
Nothing that would trigger a need to be beaten.
I knew in my soul that when Case told me he was mentally intact, he wasn’t lying.
His parents were still married, and we’d spent quite a bit of time with them over the course of our relationship.
They didn’t have an issue with Case being gay or even that he had a fondness for kink clubs.
They were actually more tolerant than most people I knew.
Sometimes, people just needed things they couldn’t explain.
I agreed with that sentiment; however, I still believed there was something in Case’s past that had him seeking someone to deliver pain that most people purposely ran from.
After we had taken a seat on the couch, Zeke continued to stare at us without saying a word.
I didn’t look him in the eye, even as I admired the hard lines of his face, the angle of his nose, the aggressive slant of his eyebrows.
The man scared me, had from the moment I met him.
But it was the sort of fear that made me feel alive, made me crave the darkness I could see in his aura.
“I can only assume I didn’t scare you off completely,” he finally said, pivoting his chair so that he was facing us.
The office was large, with a wall of windows that offered a shitty view of another building.
Granted, it allowed sunlight to filter in, which was a good thing.
Aside from the monstrous desk, there was the black leather couch we were currently seated on, two chairs facing Zeke’s desk, a four-drawer black metal file cabinet, and an overstuffed, navy-blue dog bed in the far corner, where Tank had retreated.
There weren’t any pictures on the wall, no diplomas or other certificates.
Nothing personal, either. On the desk was a laptop computer, a banker’s lamp, and the keys I assumed were for our apartment.
In a word, the office was bare. Almost minimalistic in nature. As though Zeke didn’t spend any time in here, and when he did, it was simply to work and nothing else.
“You didn’t scare us off, Zeke,” I said when it was obvious Case wasn’t going to respond.
“Yet.” He sounded as though he truly believed we might be gone on the next strong breeze. In fact, I got the feeling Zeke did his best to get people to run far and fast away from him.
Despite my curiosity about the man, I hadn’t asked around the club for fear word would get back to him. I couldn’t imagine it would go over well if Zeke found out we were trying to get the lowdown on him. When most people said his name, it was either in awe or pure terror.
Personally, I felt a significant amount of both when I was this close to him.
Yet I couldn’t even fathom walking away.