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CHAPTER TWO: FOLLOW MY LEAD
There was a beat of silence as the entire club seemed to stop and watch. An awkward dramatic pause before it all stuttered back to life.
The huge hands released her so swiftly, Max swayed at the shock.
Righting herself, Max saw the large, leather-bound behemoth take a full step back, his posture suddenly less threatening and much more deferring.
She was afraid to turn around.
Who—what—could possibly frighten a man like that?
Max blinked.
What was she afraid of?
She was a ball-busting, ass-kicking queen of the publishing industry. She was a testament of triumph to female empowerment in this next-wave-feminist world. She was a goddamned social justice warrior. She’d come freely and willingly to this club—a well-established if not well-known house of ill-repute—because she’d yet to meet the person who could push her down. She’d just fee-fi-foed off with this giant of a man, ready to scrap it out with the best of them.
Damn it, she was Max Wells and she wasn’t scared of anything.
She turned her head to peek at a golden-haired man standing confident and intimidating just behind her.
He was thin, but powerfully built. Lean and fit. Almost efficient in his form as if he’d long ago stripped himself of anything anyone could have considered spare or excess. With bleached hair pulled back into a long ponytail that fell well past his shoulders, he was tanned—Asian of some sort—and arrogantly stood with his arms crossed, looking like some anime hero.
Or villain.
His face wasn’t classically good-looking—you weren’t likely to see its kind splashed across magazine covers or hocking toothpaste on TV—but it, like the rest of him, was rigid, strong, and hard. It was a wild landscape of harsh angles and jutting planes.
His eyes, likely colored by contact lenses, were an icy blue, frozen in a constantly controlled, all-encompassing, assessing gaze. Max didn’t know this man, but she very much doubted that he missed much of anything.
He wasn’t particularly gorgeous—she had known many much prettier men—but he was by far the most attractive person she’d ever met. Despite all the artifice, or maybe because of it, he possessed an allure that went far beyond looks. She supposed it took great confidence to pull off such an unusual look and this man managed to make it look good. He exuded control. Dominance. He was the alpha male in this decadent den of highly sexual, highly predatory wolves.
“I asked whether there was a problem here.” He didn’t yell, his voice just loud enough to hear over the club’s din, but she could tell by his tone that he wasn’t a man used to having to repeat himself. Ever.
The burly man, who in mass was much larger than his controlled counterpart, suddenly seemed very small. He sputtered, “No, no problem, sir.” Then he scratched his bald head, visibly uncomfortable. “She one of yours?”
Max bristled. “What does that mean?” she balked. “Would I warrant better treatment—more respect from you—if I belonged to someone?” Was that how things worked here? “Funny. I didn’t read that in all the rules to this place.” Screw that idea; Max Wells didn’t belong to anyone.
About to say so, she felt the strange man behind her lean in close. She heard him whisper in her ear, felt his hot breath on her skin. “It’s not in the rules because it’s not a rule and no one is saying it is.”
He sounded so definitive. Absolute. Like law being laid with each word. And, even though she knew—she knew—she’d had a good point, she suddenly felt silly for pointing it out. As if she were fighting a battle no one was waging against her.
“However,” the man behind her went on, “you’re an unescorted probationary guest to our club and you just struck one of the founding members. A popular Dom with quite the reputation.” He placed a hand on the nape of her neck, right over the choker she wore like a collar, holding her in place. She gasped, shocked, and brought her hand to her open lips. “Without anyone here to speak on your behalf, you’ll want to think, very carefully, about what you say next.” Then he leaned back, leaving his hand where it was. “Answer the man.”
“What?” Max breathed, her knees shaky. Think? Very carefully? It was hard to think, boxed in like she was between the two men while panic buzzed about her brain.
She studied the huge, hulking man in front of her. He was a founding member? Oh God, and she’d hit him.
Why had she done that?
She gripped her hand, suddenly feeling the strike throb across her palm in a steady beat.
Well, he’d been negging and gaslighting and trying to use PUA parlor tricks on her.
They’d been fighting and things had escalated.
Quickly.
Then he’d grabbed her hand and wouldn’t let go.
So she’d fought back.
It was that simple. Reasonable, really.
And, okay, yeah, maybe she hadn’t had to slap him. Looking back at the situation, it did seem like an overreaction. But it wasn’t as if it’d really hurt him. As big as he was, there was no way a girl her size could actually hurt him.
Max wince when the club’s light hit the large, leather-clad man’s face just right, highlighting the harsh red mark her hand had left on his face.
Had she done that?
She suppressed a groan. Oh, man, they were going to kick her out of here. She’d just gotten here, hadn’t even been here an hour, and they were going to have security march her out of the club.
How humiliating was that?
Being banned by a sex dungeon, filled with kinky deviants who used whips and chains for foreplay, because your behavior violated their code of conduct.
Well, what did it really matter anyway? She’d already planned to leave and never come back, hadn’t she?
But she wanted to go on her terms, not because they’d kicked her out.
And, oh Lord, what if he pressed charges? For a slap? Could he even do that? Of course he could; she would in his place. Oh God. She squeezed her eyes shut. Even if it never went anywhere, just having a report filed with the police would be enough to raise some pretty awkward questions.
Max looked up when the muscle-bound, bald man shifted his weight back and placed his hands on his hips expectantly, his coat parting just enough to see the flash of what looked like a badge of some sort and handcuffs on his belt.
She gulped.
Sweet Jesus, was this guy a cop? Had she just hit a cop?
No. No, cops didn’t do things like this. Kink. Fetish. SM.
Did they?
She gazed slack-jawed into the hard man’s glittering gaze and the grin cutting his face when he started to grab for something by his belt. The handcuffs? Was he going to arrest her? Really?! Was it still considered assaulting an officer if he was off-duty at a sex club? Max’s dry throat choked as she tried to swallow her panic. Holy hell, what had she done? How was this her life?
“Answer the man,” the Asian man behind her repeated in that same impatient tone. He tightened his grip on her neck, like an owner with a hard-learning pet. “Do you belong to me?”
Max coughed, trying to stall. She’d been in this world for under an hour and she was already drowning. Alone and adrift. Without anyone to speak on her behalf.
She paused. And, as he’d asked, she thought very carefully about the man’s words. Lifting her head thoughtfully, her mind, and body, focused solely on that hand—huge, long-fingered, and softer than any man’s had the right to be—against her sensitive, now humming skin.
If she belonged to him, he could speak on her behalf. Right?
She shook her head. Max Wells didn’t belong to anyone and she’d damn well fight anyone who tried to say otherwise.
But, if she said that she did—if she grabbed hold of the lifeline the stranger behind her was offering—would that provide her protection? Despite their difference in size, she could see—in the deferring tip of the bald man’s head, the way his voice softened and his features smoothed—the man behind her held power. Even over the man in front of her.
Unaccustomed to waiting, the man behind her shook her sternly by the neck. “Speak.”
“Yes,” she squeaked, her voice a reedy, thin thing barely heard over the other noise in the club.
“Yes what?”
“Yes, I’m yours.” Her usually cocky, gamin gaze lowered and her face flushed hot with shame. And because she inexplicably felt she ought to, she added, “Sir.”
She felt the man squeeze her nape again, possessively this time, before loosening his grip. “There you have it, Rand,” he said over her head to the burly man. “She’s mine.”
“Sorry.” Rand shrugged. “Didn’t know. Usually you’ve got ‘em collared.”
Max balked at the thought. Collared? Like a dog. People really did that? She shook her head. She’d always assumed that, like her choker, collars were nothing but a bad joke.
She felt the man behind her slip a hand down to soothe her back, caressing the bare skin between her shoulder blades.
She stiffened.
His hand stilled, but stayed there against her skin.
“As you can see, she’s new,” the man remarked before adding, “though that’s hardly an excuse.” His hand slid further down her back, coasting down the curve of her spine, making her body shiver beneath the touch, before swiftly swatting her ass with the back of his hand. Max jumped, more from shock than pain. “She’ll be punished.”
Rand laughed, still slightly nervous, cagey. “Yeah, I’ll bet. She’s, uh, certainly got some spirit in her.” He rubbed his still red cheek ruefully. “Gotta be one helluva thing trying to tame that, huh?” His eyes hot, he added, “Don’t suppose you feel like sharing tonight?” His gaze studied her from head to toe. “Think of it as making nice.”
There was a pregnant pause while Max held her breath and the man pondered. Rand’s gaze still bore down at her, making her shoulders stiffen and sink. Max stepped back, bumping into the man behind her.
Flush up against him, she felt more than heard him laugh, an arrogantly amused rumble. “As nice as that sounds, my friend, not tonight.” She felt herself flinch when his arm wrapped around her, his hand now resting at her hip. “For now, I left Pip at the bar,” he said with a nod of his head, dismissing the man, and steered her away from the crowded corner.
Once at a safe distance away from Rand—who’d decided to head toward the bar and Pip, Max assumed—she stopped and ducked out from beneath the blond man’s reach. She coughed and tried for an even, professional tone. “Thank you,” she said. “For helping me, Mister…” She trailed off, looking at him questioningly.
The man simply stared at her coolly for a moment. “Follow me.” He started to walk.
What? “Excuse me?”
“Follow,” he stopped, turned, and then repeated much more slowly as if speaking to a recalcitrant child, “me.”
She scoffed, a tight, tense smile on her face. “Look,” she said stiffly, “I appreciate your intervening on my behalf with all that, but I really should be—”
He turned on his heels again. “Come.” Then he continued to walk, swiftly being swallowed by the club’s crowd.
Max gaped dully for a few moments. Did he really expect her to just traipse after him like some obedient little puppy. The nerve!
Well, she didn’t come, follow, or heel!
Especially not at the order of some man she’d just met. She might be a bitch, but she was no one’s dog. Feeling her temper rise, she raced after him to tell him just that.
She plunged into the crowd of dancers, who’d seemed to part for him but stubbornly swayed, grinded, and otherwise aped at sex acts around her. Trying as much as humanly possible to keep from touching anything or anyone, she pushed to the back of the dance floor, looking for the strange, skinny stick-figure of a man again.
Shoving off a pair of hands that tried to lure her back onto the waxed marble dance floor, Max surveyed the back area. There was nothing there. Her shoulders slumped as a strange bout of disappointment mixed with her confusion.
Where had he gone?
It was as if he’d just vanished in the crowd.
But then she saw it, the hidden door in the back. He must have gone outside.
Max quickened her steps, determined not to lose the elusive man. The door was heavy, metal with elaborate electric locks left open and blinking green just for her.
Driven, she shoved the door open.
It shut hard and quick behind her. The loud locks clicked closed, playing havoc on her heart.
She didn’t have to try the door to know it was securely shut behind her.
There would be no escape.
Max had fallen into his maze and there was only one way out.
Him.
She turned in the small foyer and stared at the single set of simple black doors.
She breathed deep.
Raising a fist to knock, she heard his voice, low and menacingly melodic. “Come, Max.”
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