The Collar (The Submissive 6)

able to play with submissives in the group, but it was surprising he kept asking one who’d repeatedly turned him down. “Do you want me to say something to him?”

“No. I can take care of it. Maybe he’ll eventually get the picture.”

“Or you could tell him you’re not interested in being in a scene with him ever.” He nodded as if he’d decided something. “I’ll be going with you tomorrow.”

She almost told him that wouldn’t be necessary, but the look on his face and the determination in his eyes persuaded her not to. Accepting that this was how it was going to be for the foreseeable future, she simply nodded.

“I’ve been working on how to approach finding out who’s been harassing you. I need a list of all the cases you’ve prosecuted, or at least the people involved. We’ll start with that. How soon can you get it to me?” Jeff asked.

“I’ll have it for you tomorrow,” she said.

It was all sorts of odd with Jeff watching the training session the next day. But she couldn’t put her finger on exactly why. There was no sex involved with the scene. Daniel was just teaching Ron a flogger technique. And she was naked, but Jeff had seen her naked plenty of times.

Maybe that was it, she decided as they drove back to his house. She was naked before him, but not naked for him.

“Daniel has his work cut out for him with that one,” Jeff said, pulling the truck into the driveway of his house.

Dena shot her gaze his way, as these were the first words he’d spoken on the entire trip home. “Really? Why do you think that?” She had never noticed anything off about Ron before.

“There’s just something in his demeanor.”

“I didn’t notice anything with his technique.”

He pressed his lips together. “I noticed.”

He’d stopped the truck and they got out. Probably he’d noticed because he was jealous. Or that’s what she told herself. She watched as he opened the side door and let her in, enjoying the way his muscles flexed under his shirt. Not for the first time that day, she wished it’d been Jeff holding the flogger.

Because of the way the evening turned out at the play party, they’d never had their flogging scene. Of course, all it took was imagining Jeff holding a flogger to ensure she didn’t think about anything else. Eating dinner, she’d watch his hands flex and imagine those hands on her. The movement of his biceps had her thinking of how he’d work a flogger.

Fuck, she wanted him.

So much for rules, expectations, and lines.

“Everything okay?” he asked the second time she almost dropped a dish she was drying after he washed it.

“Sorry; just thinking.” And watching his lips. How full they were.

He took a step toward her, and he was watching her lips, too. “About what?”

Your lips on my body. Your hands bringing me to the edge. “Nothing.”

“Liar.” Another step closer. He put the dish down and dried his hands. “Tell me.”

He was invading her space. And she loved it. She lifted her chin. “No.”

“Yes.” He was so close, she felt the warmth of his body. Any closer and he’d be touching her. They locked eyes. Time stilled.

She licked her lips. “You owe me a flogging.”

“You want me to flog you?”

“Yes.”

“Doesn’t that go against your rules?”

“Screw ’em.”

He crossed his arms. “I’m not going to fuck you.”

Well, damn. But she’d take what she could get. “Fine.”

He studied her for several long seconds before finally saying, “Playroom in ten minutes.”

Chapter Eight

Three years ago

Jeff stared at the pregnancy stick in disbelief. Garbage was scattered all over the kitchen floor, thanks to a dog looking for table scraps, but the pale pink plastic stick may as well have been covered in flashing lights. “Dena,” he finally managed to croak out. She was down the hall but should still be able to hear him.

“Just a minute.”

It was as if he held a ticking time bomb in his hands. “I need you now.”

Laughter came from where she was. “If I had a dime for every time I heard that one.”

Less than a minute later he heard her footsteps in the hall. “Holy shit. Did Ace get into the garbage again?” she asked as she entered the kitchen and stepped carefully over the trash scattered across the kitchen floor. “Yuck.”

He held up the stick, and she went pale.

“What is this?” he asked.

“I haven’t confirmed anything yet. It could be a false positive.”

Being knocked over the head with a brick would have felt better. “It was positive?”

She nodded.

“You’re pregnant?”

“I haven’t confirmed it yet.”

“But you could be?”

It wasn’t that he didn’t want children. He just didn’t want them now. He wasn’t ready to be a father. A long time ago he’d decided exactly what type of father he would be one day: affectionate, protective, supportive. All the things his own father hadn’t been. And he wanted to be able to provide for his family. His business was doing well, but with the economy the way it was, it’d be a bad time to take on that additional financial responsibility.

“Yes,” she said. “I could be.”

“But you’re on the pill.”

“Nothing’s one hundred percent effective except abstinence.”

He mumbled a curse under his breath.

“Yeah, well, that’s why I didn’t want to tell you until I confirmed it,” she said, and kicked a banana peel for good measure.

He felt awful. He knew he should be more supportive. If he were a better man, he’d know just the right thing to say. Unfortunately, he felt like he’d been kicked in the stomach, and if he opened his mouth again, he was afraid he’d say something he’d regret even more.

“It’s not like I’m jumping up and down with joy either, you know,” she said. “I have a whole list of things I want to accomplish before I become a mom.”

A mom. Dena was going to be a mom. To his child.

She got a new trash bag and started picking up the scattered garbage. “We have to clean this kitchen up. The smell’s making me sick.”

As she knelt down on the floor, his eyes fell on her collar. His collar. The black leather band that labeled her as his. She was his lover and his best friend, but she was also his submissive. When he’d put the collar on her, he’d promised to care for her, to love and support her.

He was failing miserably.

“Don’t.” He stilled her hand before it could pick up a wet coffee filter. “You don’t need to be in here if the smell’s making you sick. Go sit down and let me do this.”

“But I—”

“No buts. We’ll talk later.”

She nodded and left the room, leaving him with his thoughts and