The blonde who had been sharing her man problems with him got up and backed away as if she feared a punishment caning. While he had Bunny in his arms for a few seconds longer, he buried his nose in her red curls. Her scent was a bold mix of flowers, vanilla, and a burst of citrus and, beneath it all, the provocative essence he’d experienced the first time he’d kissed her, in the stairwell beneath his master suite at Hazelle House. He could’ve taken her right there, but he wanted her horizontal for hours while he taught her how deep her responsiveness to him really went, past the mask she wore.
His little flame. Fiammetta suited her to a tee.
After finding out from Grogan Home Theater and Communications that she wasn’t available when he’d asked them to send her out, he’d called her cell phone and left a message for her. She’d never returned his call, and he wanted to know why. He wanted to finish their conversation…to finish what they’d started.
With his hand at the small of her back, he guided her to the front door.
“Good night,” Mike, one of the bouncers, said with a nod of his head as he held the door open for them.
“Oh, that’s okay. I’ll be coming right back in,” she said to him as she paused and turned to Joseph.
Joseph frowned at her. “But that young woman will see you come back inside. I appreciate you saving me from an uncomfortable situation, but I don’t want her confronting you, either.”
She slid a hand into her back pocket and waved the other one in a dismissive gesture. “She’s probably already telling her man problems to some other schmuck in there. Why women do that, I’ll never understand. My girlfriends are sitting on the other side of the club. The corner is kind of dark, so I’ll just slip back in, and she won’t even see me.” She brushed the perspiration and strands of her red hair which were curling up in the September heat and humidity from her forehead.
He tilted his head and gave her a look that usually guaranteed obedience. “But you and I need to finish our conversation from the other night.”
“Which conversation? The one where I told you that if you’re not feeding me, financing me, or fucking me—”
He grasped her arm and pulled her farther from the door, where the bouncers were doing a stellar job hiding their amusement. “Keep your voice down. I am referring to our time in the stairwell.”
The roses in her cheeks bloomed brighter, and she jerked her arm from his grasp and leaned toward him, completely unfazed by their height differential. “I’m sorry. My take on our time on the stairs was that you’d just as soon keep it secret so your precious little subbie-whatever doesn’t find out. I didn’t want to go anywhere with you tonight. I was just helping you out of a bind. That’s what a friend would do. I guess I stuck my neck out when I shouldn’t have. Later, friend.”
Amusement probably wasn’t the best reaction, but he imagined they must look like a Chihuahua yapping at a mastiff. And he certainly wished he could eat her in one bite.
He halted her return to the club with a gentle grasp on her arm and nodded at Mike when he brought her purse out to him. The bouncer quietly mentioned that she’d arrived with Violet and her men. Good of Ethan to be aware of what was going on in his club. That was what a good Dom did, no matter what the activities taking place on the premises were.
“My purse!” She yanked it from his hand, and he chuckled when he heard her tiny growl. Such a fiery little thing.
“Come with me, fiammetta, I want to talk with you.”
“Why do you keep calling me that? I’m not your fee-whatever. Jeez, are you dumb? I was being your wingman in there. I’m not your date.”
He tugged her close until they were nose-to-nose and growled back. “Good, because we’re not dating.”
“Well…well…you’re not the boss of me, either!” She yanked at her arm, but when his grip didn’t loosen, she firmed her succulent lips and then bared her white little teeth over his hand, milliseconds from biting him.
“Don’t. You. Dare.”
Obviously not given to taking orders, or warnings, well, the little tigress sank her sharp teeth into the flesh between his thumb and index finger.
He halted his initial reaction, which would’ve been to jerk back, the risk of hurting her teeth or jaw stopping him. Instead, he swore and let her go.
Panting, she put her hand to her mouth, and at first, he thought she might have hurt herself. Then the look of horror flashed across her face, as if she hadn’t expected to do that. Impetuous brat.
The moment was over in a flash as she balled up her hands and glowered at him. “You made me do that, you jackass. Next time, remember I don’t react well to being manhandled.” Scowling, she turned back toward the club and then halted, growling in frustration, a little sound he’d heard her utter before and that he should not find amusing but did. He doubted she even realized what she’d just said, but he definitely planned on there being a “next time.”