Jake pulled a collar out of his pocket. He must have had it on his person or kept it in his locker. It was a leather collar, thin and feminine, with a delicate silver ring on the front. He held it out, showing it off before he nodded to Adam.
Adam crowded her from behind, his thick erection rubbing against her backside. She shivered a little as he gathered her hair and held it up. With a solemn formality, he clasped the collar around her neck.
“It’s just a training collar. You can relax. It’s not a commitment. You don’t seem to want that.”
She wanted it more than anything. She just knew how much it meant. Doyle had committed. Her father had committed. Both had walked away when it became easier to do so than to stay. She knew she could be difficult. She lived in her head most of the time. It had been that way since she was a child. She could stop writing, but she couldn’t stop those voices in her head. Doyle had never understood that her inner life didn’t take away from her care for the outside world. It was just a part of her.
Jake and Adam would get tired of her remoteness in the end.
“I don’t want it. I just want the training.” The words sounded flat to her own ears, but he seemed to require an answer.
“If all you want is some real-life experience for those books of yours, then you shall have it.” He turned, every muscle rigid. “Follow. Don’t look the other Doms in the eye. It’s rude. Keep your head down and don’t speak unless you’re directed to. Any infraction will cost your ass five swats. I’ll pull your skirt up and spank you publically. If you aren’t ready for that, I would behave.”
Adam’s face was a careful blank as he took her elbow and started to walk her into the dungeon. The privacy rooms were to the side, but Jake walked past them, his long legs eating the distance between the entryway and the raised stage where a pretty sub with long, black hair was being strapped to a St. Andrew’s cross. Her naked flesh was on full display, her shoulders relaxed as she allowed Ian to tighten the cinches at her wrists and ankles.
A second woman was already secured. She was a brunette with a curvy backside. Her head was thrown back as though simply waiting for her punishment to begin. There was a hushed air of expectancy that ran through the dungeon. A small crowd stood, almost all in some sort of fet wear. Serena took it all in. There was enough leather to start a mega store. Most of the women had on skirts and bustiers, but several wore nothing at all. There were Doms and Dommes with their submissives, both male and female.
What were they like in their everyday lives? Her mind raced with the possibilities. Were they powerful in their own ways, each seeking a bit of peace that came with submission? Did they crave it because the stresses of responsibility ate away at their souls? Or were they like her? Did they need permission to let go, to trust in any circumstance?
“She’s gone again.” Adam looked down at her, a ghost of a smile on his face.
Yes, she’d done it again. “I apologize.”
“I wasn’t mad,” Adam said, his hand coming out to sweep against her cheek. “I just wish I knew where you went. I envy you.”
“Why?”
“Because there’s a whole other world in your head. I’ve been reading your books. I’m not a huge romance fan, but I know a good story when I read it. I know that you sink into every book. In that head of yours you’ve already lived a hundred lives, seen things, felt them in a way the rest of us can’t. I wish you would understand that I know how precious a gift that is. I want to protect it, to nurture it. I want to take care of the little things so that beautiful brain of yours can have the adventures it was built for.”
He really knew what to say to her. “You would get tired of it after a while. You would think I was ignoring you.”
He shook his head. “I would know I was in there somewhere. I would read what you wrote at the end of the day to find out about the stories you weave about me. You would be writing about me. I would make sure of it. I would love you so long and so well that you would have to write about me.”
Jake didn’t look her way. He kept his eyes on the stage, but there was an intimacy to his voice that gave away the fact that he wasn’t entirely unemotional. “And I would force you to come out of it from time to time. I would keep you with us. We could keep you grounded, Serena. You don’t have to hide all the time. I get that you love your work. I want you to. But you can love your reality, too.”
Her reality was horrible right now. Her reality was someone trying to kill her and the men she loved being far away from her. She knew it was her choice. She knew she was being stubborn, but she couldn’t quite reach out and grab them. “You’ll pardon me if I don’t enjoy real life right now.”