Chapter Two

 

He’d told himself that she wouldn’t be as lovely as he remembered. He’d seen plenty of pictures of her in the five years since that memorable weekend, but he’d told himself that Instagram lied. That in person he wouldn’t feel drawn to her, wouldn’t find the curve of her chin or her long eyelashes captivating.

He’d been wrong. Wonderfully, deliciously wrong.

She was more alluring now than she had been five years ago.

Her neck and shoulders were left bare by the intriguing leather top she wore. It came up high enough to offer only a hint of cleavage. From what he could see, her breasts looked bigger than they had before. Her whole body looked lusher, fuller. She was a woman now, and had been a girl back then.

“Kiara.”

“Yes—” She stopped speaking, lips pressing together. What had she been about to say? Yes, Sir? Yes, Master?

Damn, he hoped it was the latter. And the fact that he wanted that proved just what a son of a bitch he was.

He watched her chest rise and fall as she drew a careful breath in through her nose, then she looked up, meeting his gaze for a half second, before instead focusing on his nose.

“Reis. It’s been a long time.”

“Five years.”

She nodded.

He waited. He liked silence. There wasn’t a Dom worth the title who didn’t know how to wait out a sub in silence. And Kiara had been particularly susceptible to this tactic.

Minutes passed and she didn’t speak.

Huh.

She’d grown. Changed.

Damn it. Had he lost his chance?

He rubbed his chin with his knuckles. He knew he should stay silent, keep waiting. But he wanted to hear her voice.

“I’m looking forward to…” He drew the next words out deliberately. “…working with you.”

That got a reaction out of her. “Maybe Helen should find someone else.” She spun her chair towards the door.

“Why, Kiara?”

“You know why,” she whispered. There was pain in her voice.

He didn’t want that. “We were good together.”

She winced. “This was a mistake.”

“No, it wasn’t.”

“Did you…” She didn’t twist back to face him. She was staring at the image of Alton and Adelita Sanchez. Reis knew Alton from the scene. He’d even sent a difficult sub or two to Alton for correction.

Seeing Alton, who had once been one of the most feared Doms in LA, living in domestic bliss with a red-headed crazy woman was one of the things that had started Reis thinking about changing his own lifestyle.

As soon as he’d started imagining himself living in kinkster bliss, he’d known exactly who he wanted to settle down with.

Reis had several elaborate win-Kiara-back plans in development when Helen had contacted him. C&C had Kiara on a short list of women they were considering for a BDSM holiday shoot. In the process of looking into her background someone, probably Alton—who’d been at Reis’s infamous thirtieth birthday party—had told Helen about his and Kiara’s dramatic past.

C&C had contacted him to see if he’d been interested in joining the project. He hadn’t been, until they told him who else they were considering.

“Did I what?” he asked.

She swallowed. He could see the movement in her slender neck. It had been five years but he would swear he could still remember the way her skin smelled. He did remember how she’d reacted when he kissed the tender flesh behind her ear.

“Did you ask them to consider me?”

He was looking at her in profile, so he couldn’t fully read her expression. “Is that what you think?”

“Please answer.”

“The answer matters to you?”

The fine muscles in her jaw clenched, standing out in contrast to her creamy pale skin. She had freckles on her cheeks and nose that she mostly kept covered with makeup. The ones on her chests and arms were harder to hide, but he knew she tried.

She was angry, and that was good. If she was angry she’d talk. She’d be honest. She’d open up.

But instead of doing any of those things she stood, turned on her heel, and started to leave.

“Kiara, wait.” He leapt to his feet and for a moment seriously considered sliding across the table rather than wasting time going around.

Helen opened the door, carrying an armful of papers. She nearly crashed into Kiara. “Oh, Kiara.”

“I’m sorry. I have to go. Thank you very much for the opportunity.” Kiara’s words were rushed, and even as she spoke she was trying to inch around Helen to get out the door.

“Kiara, if you’re not interested in working with Mr. Erebus we can find another Dom.”

Damn it. No.

Kiara blinked. “What?”

“If you would rather not participate, then by all means, I won’t prevent you from leaving.” Helen stepped into the room, leaving the doorway unobstructed. “But if your objection is to your partner… If you’d rather not work with Reis, we will find another Dom.”

Kiara blinked. “You’d replace him, not me?”

Helen shot Reis a glance. He shrugged, though he felt like a kid with his hand caught in the cookie jar.

Helen focused on Kiara. “I thought you two would have discussed this. Since it appears you did not, let me explain. Mr. Erebus was invited to participate due to his connection with you.”

“Connection?” Kiara looked between them. “What, uh, what were you told about our connection?”

Helen waved her hand as if it didn’t matter. “Only that you two had good chemistry. That’s what we want. The interactions between the players have to be real and powerful. We’re not making graphic pornography, we’re capturing the power of the power exchange. In order for that to translate to film, the connection has to be genuine.”

“You’d find another Dom?” Kiara asked. “But I still have the job?”

Reis clenched his jaw. “No, Kiara.” She would not find another Dom, damn it. She was his.

She whipped around to face him. She had hazel eyes, the centers citrine with a dark rim of brown. “You don’t get to give me orders, Reis.”

“Not yet.”

A shiver worked its way down her body, and even from the other side of the table he could see her skin tightening into goosebumps.

“It’s your choice, Kiara,” Helen said softly.

Damn it, he was losing her. He’d read something somewhere, probably on the cover of a magazine at a doctor’s office, about how being willing to be vulnerable was the key to relationships.

Though it made his left eye twitch to let his guard slip even this much, Reis said, “Please, Kiara. What we had was special. I’d like to…I’d like to be with you again.”

He sounded like a moron. Probably looked like one too.

Well, that sealed it, she was going to start laughing hysterically and then walk out the door.

And he’d deserve it.

Hopefully he wouldn’t start crying like a little bitch until she’d hit the parking lot. Not that he would actually cry. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d cried. Maybe the last time he watched Field of Dreams.

But if anything were going to make him cry, it would be losing his chance to get back his girl. The one who got away.

Kiara looked at him, her face softening, losing the pinched, tense expression. Her lips parted and he could see her white teeth and just a hint of soft pink tongue. His heart started pounding in his chest and stupid, desperate hope made his stomach twist.

Was he really getting this worked up over a sub?

No. Not a sub. Kiara. That was the whole point. She was so much more, and he’d just been too stupid to understand.

Pull yourself together. They were going to revoke his Dom card and man card on the same damned day.

“I’ll do it,” she said, still looking at Reis.

“With Reis, or would you like us to find someone else?” Helen asked.

Reis’s eye twitched, but he didn’t say anything. His knee jerk reaction was to try and control the situation to get what he wanted. This time he was going to be smarter than that.

“I’ll do it…with Reis.”

He had to brace his palms flat on the table top to stop himself from sagging in relief. “I won’t be easy on you,” he warned. Even if he’d wanted to be gentle, that wasn’t the kind of Dom he was.

“I know.” Kiara looked at Helen. “What do we do now?”

Helen held up the papers. “Time to negotiate the contract.”

 

 

The set was delightfully Christmas kitsch free. Instead of naughty Mrs. Claus, or Santa’s workshop turned BDSM dungeon, C&C had decided to go for a winter wonderland theme. Kiara hugged her robe closed over her stomach, as if the snow-covered ground were actually cold.

It wasn’t. The winter wonderland set had been built inside a large soundstage. Kiara had never been part of something this large-scale or professional. The photographer, a lovely woman ironically named Summer, was working with gaffers to set up and adjust lighting.

There was a producer, another lovely woman named Anan who had only been with C&C for six months. This was her first major project and she seemed desperate to make sure Kiara was happy. Kiara had been offered everything from coffee to a wheatgrass shot since she’d arrived. Her makeup had been professionally done, but Kiara had opted to do her own hair. She didn’t want to feel like someone else, and having her hair and makeup done by others would make an already strange situation seem surreal.

Her dressing room was a folding table and padded chair set up behind a black curtain. She’d been told that Reis had a dressing area beside hers, but she had yet to see him.

Kiara had a detailed contract that outlined what could and couldn’t be done over the course of the next three days, but that didn’t mean she knew exactly what would happen, or when.

They were deliberately hiding the toys from her too, behind yet another set of freestanding black curtains, which the producer called pipe and drape. The photographer, Summer, had admitted hiding the toys had been her suggestion, saying that she wanted Kiara’s reactions to be genuine.

Kiara was sure she was going to have some very “genuine” reactions, but it wouldn’t be to the toys. Or at least, not only to the toys.

After five years she was once more going to submit to Reis. To the man who had helped her open her eyes to her own sexual truth. With Reis she’d learned exactly how deep her own needs ran. Discovered she liked more pain than she’d previously admitted. Discovered she was more into the B and M of BDSM, when previously she’d been sure that what she wanted was to be submissive but not kinky.

She’d learned all that, and had her heart broken into a thousand glass-sharp pieces, over the course of a long three-day weekend.

And now she was about to spend another three days with him.

“All these people won’t be here.”

Kiara hadn’t heard him approach and jumped. “Reis.”

His hand cupped her elbow. It was the first time he’d touched her, and Kiara startled again. His hand was hot though the thin satin robe she wore.

“Let’s walk while they finish setting up.”

Kiara finally turned to face him, the movement causing her elbow to slip out of his hold. He frowned.

“I’m, ah, I’m not wearing shoes.”

“We won’t go outside. I checked, they’re almost done.”

She didn’t really have anything better to do, so Kiara followed him away from the sets. When he took her elbow as they picked their way over large coils of black cable, she didn’t shrug him off.

“Do you still live in LA?” His tone was light, conversational. As if they were old friends catching up.

“Yes. Well, in Torrance. What about you?”

“I actually moved up to Santa Barbara.”

“Are you still buying and selling sugar?” She kept her tone gentle and teasing. It was surprisingly easy to follow his lead and keep the conversation light.

He laughed lightly. “No. Commodities futures is a young man’s game.”

“You’re thirty-five, not sixty.”

“I would look like I was sixty if I’d kept doing it. Too much stress.”

“So what do you do now?”

“Real estate.”

“That’s not exactly low-stress.”

“No, it’s not, but there’s always a solution, an answer. That’s nice.”

“What do you buy? I mean houses, apartments?”

“Actually, I bought a mall and turned it into apartments.”

That startled a laugh out of her. “You mean someone can live in an old shoe store?”

He looked down, as if checking for obstructions, but they were walking in the open space on the far side of the sound stage. Large carts stacked with boxes made a sort of maze, but there were no cables on the floor.

Wait, was he embarrassed?

Reis cleared his throat. “Everything has been redone, but the basic structure of a mall makes it easy to rework. And the residents are all…it’s actually a senior living facility.”

Kiara pressed her lips together. “You own a retirement facility.”

Reis stopped walking, keeping ahold of her elbow so she was forced to stop too. “Are you laughing at me, Kiara?” There was menace in his voice, but it was playful.

It wasn’t anger she feared hearing from him, but indifference.

“Of course not.” She reached out to pat his chest.

He captured her hand, pressing it against his ice-blue dress shirt, over his heart.

Kiara inhaled with deliberate slowness. If she hadn’t she might have started hyperventilating. He had both of his hands on her. The heat pouring into her was more than just the physical warmth of his body. The way he looked at her, as if there was no one else in the world, was so intense, so arousing, that her mind registered it as physical heat.

Beneath her robe and the corsets her nipples tightened into needy points.

“Kiara.” His gaze searched her face, as if memorizing it. He was looking at her as if he’d been alone in the dark and hers was the first face he’d seen since being freed.

But that didn’t make any sense. He was the one who had pushed her away. Who kindly dismissed her, as if what had happened between them meant nothing.

“Reis, Kiara, we’re ready for you. Everyone, please clear the building.” The voice boomed over a loudspeaker, and Kiara jumped back, breaking her physical contact with Reis.

His brows lowered into a glower. “Bad timing.”

No, the timing was excellent, because she needed to stay in the moment. If she started thinking about what had happened five years ago she would either run screaming or turn on him in rage. This was just business. Just a photoshoot. A kinky one, but a photoshoot. Not a scene. Not a munch.

It’s more than that to him. He said he wanted to be with you again. He’s looking at you like he has feelings for you. Real feelings. Strong feelings.

Five years ago she’d had her heart ripped out and her romantic fantasies burned to ash. Since then she’d been cautious with her body, and fiercely protective of her heart.

Last week at the C&C offices her heart had been warning her to run. But after Reis’s admission that he wanted to be with her, her heart had switched teams.

Kiara turned and hurried away from Reis, back towards the set, her shoulders hunched up around her ears.

She didn’t know why Reis had said what he did, but one sentence didn’t negate what had happened between them all those years ago.

She was practical, especially when it came to BDSM.

She would not let her emotions get involved.

She would not fall in love with Reis.

Again.