Page 9 of Brave
Pony was going to kill her.
She swallowed hard. “Y-you don’t have to wait with me, if you don’t want to.”
“Actually, at this point I probably do. Someone needs to bring Danny back his coat. I don’t think he’ll like it too much if I let you wear it home.”
Hunching her shoulders, Puppy brushed her cheek against the soft collar of the thick winter coat, lined with soft flannel and smelling so nicely of a man’s spiced cologne. Unwrapping herself from the warmth of it, she started to shrug out of the sleeves, but Carlson stopped her.
“The cab’s not here yet.”
He physically pulled the coat back up over her shoulders, folding the two halves over one another to wrap her back in warmth. Although out of the wind, the closed shop was still cold. The coat helped, but the tiny bloom of heat that sparked in her stomach as he adjusted it more snugly around her had nothing to do with the clothing.
His hands didn’t linger. There was no creepy last-minute tug meant to remind her that they were all alone up here. When he was done, he simply took his hands back, slipped them into his front pants pockets and propped his back against the wall. Like he had all the time in the world to just hang out with her, in the middle of the night. Like he had nothing else to do and no one else waiting on him.
Unlikely in a place like this. He was handsome. Older than she was by maybe ten years or so, but that just made him seasoned. And if he played his dominant part as well as his outfit suggested, then surely he had no shortage of partners waiting on his return.
She was keeping him from having fun.
“I-if you want to go…” She looked back, fully expecting to see someone hanging out in the shadows, impatiently checking the time and wondering when he was going to get back to their scene.
“I’m fine,” he said. “To be perfectly honest, I was about to get my kit and practice knots for a while.”
“Shibari?” she asked, not because she knew ropes, but she did know enough to know one kind of school.
“Learning,” he acknowledged with a quirk of a smile. “When nights are dead like this, it’s good to just pick something I don’t know and try to get better at it.”
“It’s that dead?”
“You didn’t notice?”
To be honest, she was so fixed on trying to get through ‘hello’ that she hadn’t paid any attention to anything other than the first person she’d seen—him.
“I guess I just assumed,” she hedged, rather than admit how scared she’d been. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen it when it’s not busy.”
His chuckle was little more than breath. “Yeah, well, if crowds make you nervous, this would be the perfect time to come take a look around. There is nothing going on tonight. I think there’s two other couples sceneing right now, and one of those was on aftercare when I went to get the coat.”
“The club’s not dying, is it?” Puppy asked, alarmed. She hadn’t been to Black Light in such a very long time, and she honestly couldn’t remember the last time she had enjoyed being here for an even longer span of time before that. But that wasn’t the club’s fault. That was Ethen’s, and hers she supposed for not having the courage to bail the way Piggy and Kitty had. Nothing lasted forever, but still, the BDSM community was a fickle beast at the best of times. Interest came and went, people came and went, and even those couples who made this a permanent part of their lifestyle—even they came and went. Black Light fit a niche need among a class of people who’d achieved a financial security that most only dreamed of. Puppy certainly hadn’t achieved it, not without Ethen. She had no idea how she’d managed to get in tonight or how her membership could possibly still be valid, but like Pony, this place was a part of her past and one of the few parts that she actually had fond memories of. Not many, but a few. She didn’t want to see it shut down due to lack of attendance.
She felt an odd relief when Carlson shook his head. “No, no. Nothing like that. Some nights are just busier than others. This is just one of those nights when the stars didn’t align for most people. They’ll be back another night. Don’t worry, Black Light isn’t going anywhere.” He glanced at her, his slate gray eyes openly curious. “Would it bother you if it did?”
Puppy looked away. It shouldn’t. God knows, when she left tonight, she might never come back again. “Yes, actually.”
She hated change. That was probably why.
“Do you want to come back down and have a look around?” he asked. “Like I said, it’s a quiet night.”
She looked outside, with no sign yet of the taxi she’d called anywhere on the road yet.
“Come on.” He shoved off the wall. “No one will force you to play, if you don’t want. Just keep me company while I tie my foot up in the world’s most unsexy corset. Whenever you’re ready to go, we’ll just call you another cab.”
Breath catching, she looked from the street back to him. She really should go home. Every minute she stayed out was a risk of getting caught. What if her mom checked on her? What if Pony woke up and saw her empty bed? And yet, as scary as she found the consequences that either of those ‘what ifs’ might spawn, tiny tickles of excitement were awakening in the fluttering nervousness still spinning inside her. Once upon a time, she never would have let doubts like that stop her from dictating what she did or where she went. Once upon a time, she’d been brave, but no longer. Still, she was an adult. In theory, that meant she could stay a few more minutes… if she wanted to… right?
“Okay.” She turned from the exit just as the slight lightening morphed into a taxi pulling up in front of the shop. If she didn’t see it, then she wouldn’t be tempted to let guilt force her into leaving, so she pretended she hadn’t. Instead, she started walking, quickly, before her courage gave out and she changed her mind yet again.
Carlson glanced outside, but if that really was her taxi pulling up in front of the shop, he didn’t say anything. In fact, the only thing he did say was to Danny as they stopped at the security desk long enough for her to hand back the coat. “Cancel her cab, would you? She’s going to stay a while longer.”
Puppy averted her eyes, refusing to look at the well-known security guard. When Ethen had been the one checking her in and out of this place, it was eyes on the floor, hands at her sides, and silent as a well-behaved menagerie girl should be. He did all the speaking. He did all the arranging, and the only time she took part in any of it was when Danny asked if she wanted to put her personal affects in a locker. As intent as she’d been sneaking out of the house tonight, the only thing she’d thought to bring was her wallet. But she dug that out of her back pocket and passed it to him.
“Do you have a cellphone?”
