The submissives he’d encountered at the club always knew how to act the part. There were no challenges, for that matter, no instruction. Oh sure, they moaned and shook their little asses, but for only one reason. They wanted to be fucked. True passion had been left at the door.
The clubs weren’t his cup of tea anyway. A dom once told him a true sub comes willingly and submits only to pleasure, not tricks. God, Adam wanted that more than anything. To know how to bring pleasure without the party tricks. He wanted a woman to know his true nature—to feel the same desire and release as he did when he took the belt to her or tied her up.
He’d masturbated to a thousand videos. He’d watched others at the club. He’d scared the hell out of a fiancée because she thought he was barbaric. Who knew? Maybe he was. But Lily’s full ass walking away got his instincts humming and his dick rock hard. Damn, he could picture the smile on Nick’s face right now. He could almost feel his younger brother standing next to him, laughing. Adam was ogling the eye candy that had just walked out the door while Nick was sleeping in the casket. Nick would expect no less. Adam grinned and looked over at the coffin. God, he’d give anything to hear that laugh again.
He turned to the front of the somber-looking room. His dad stood next to the head of Nick’s coffin. The man had been crying all morning, but once the first guest arrived he was as stoic as ever. His usual jolly nature was subdued in light of the situation. One son was dead, and the other had almost been dead on so many occasions. Matter-of-fact, Adam thought as he made his way back to his father’s side. I should’ve been the first to go. His job was a constant hazard, and his adrenaline-junkie attitude had put him in more than one perilous situation.
Adam fisted and released his scarred hand. The damn thing still got stiff from time to time. He took his rightful place next to his father as Mr. Copeland stepped forward to wish them both his sincerest condolences. All Adam could think about was the time Nick pitched him a fastball in the backyard, and Adam had hit the ball so hard it crashed right through Mr. Copeland’s bedroom window.
He coughed into his hand, trying to hide his smile. His brother was dead, and Adam wanted to burst out laughing when he remembered Mrs. Copeland came running out of their house in nothing but a pink bathrobe, her tits bouncing all over the place. Nick never seemed to have noticed the way her fat nipples stood like peaks on the tops of two gigantic mountains. Adam pointed at Nick and ran for the back door. They were grounded for a week and had to pay for the window by mowing the Copelands’ lawn for a month. He missed those days, back when things were simple.
He turned to the set of double doors, wishing Nick’s Lily Flower would walk through again. God, what I wouldn’t give to see her ass wrapped in a pink silk bathrobe.
* * * *
The flight home was not as restful as Lily had hoped. Her torturing thoughts bounced between the image of Adam stalking toward her at the wake and that first afternoon Tony had showed up on her doorstep. She tipped her head to watch out the tiny window as the dying sun’s dwindling light painted the sky with brilliant shades of orange and pink.
Safety—that was the first sensation she remembered when Tony had walked through her front door over three years ago. She’d still been recovering from the book tour. Too exhausted to put on anything other than a pair of sweatpants and a tank top, she’d drown her loneliness in a tub of rocky road. Needless to say, when Tony knocked on her door she wasn’t in the best mood, shape, or state of mind.
Her foggy brain recalled the dark-haired, mysterious man asking for his book to be signed only weeks before he’d shown up on her porch. When she’d asked him what he’d like inscribed, he said her phone number. Lily was in shock until she noticed Kimberly, a young woman from her Biblical History of Women class. The student introduced the dark stranger as her brother. He was cleanly shaven, every hair perfectly in place, and the black suit he wore was obviously expensive and cut to showcase his broad shoulders. Her hand had trembled as she tried to scribble her number on the page. The whole time she couldn’t help but wonder how a man who looked like this mysterious, muscular model for some ritzy men’s magazine could give a second thought about a chubby woman whose favorite outfit was an old LSU shirt and ratty sweatpants. The thought of a man flirting with her had been a welcome surprise, embarrassing because it happened to be in front of his sister, but welcome all the same.
The handsome stranger had been interested in her.
Tony had been more than interested—he would later tell her how mesmerized he’d been by her intelligence and obviously submissive nature. He’d read her books and, without her knowledge, been to several of her classes. Large lecture halls made each student a name, unless they were in the front row, of course. Kimberly had been a star student, with wise insights and enthusiastic participation.