Dangerous Game
“Why the bloody hell is there a damn hickey on your neck?” exclaimed Lance as Ashe slipped into the car. Even with the scarf it was difficult to hide the marks Riley had left, although they’d long agreed that she’d never bite him where it could be seen. That was before things had changed between them, before what had once been playful became more than just a game.
“Let’s call them wounds of war,” replied Ashe, unperturbed by Lance’s glare. He was wearing a Dolce & Gabbana suit beneath his coat, a long scarf arranged between his open shirt and his jacket. His tie, which he would need later was neatly rolled inside his jacket pocket.
“I hope to God you mean Coriolanus,” groaned Lance.
“That, too. Don’t worry, Lance; it’ll be invisible with the stage makeup,” said Ashe as he leaned against the seat, taking a deep breath and closing his eyes to lose himself in his thoughts.
Riley had been gone when he’d awoken at four that afternoon. He’d slept for almost six hours after they’d made love that morning.
“Promise me there’ll be no more secrets, Ashe. Promise me you’ll never forget that you’re not in this alone,” she had whispered when he’d cradled her in his arms as the waves of their release faded away. He remembered how their bodies had trembled under the onslaught of emotion and sensation, goosebumps dotting their flesh.
“I promise, flower,” he’d murmured, feeling the touch of her fingers against his face. “But it won’t be easy, what you’re asking me to do. I find it hard to do that to you.”
“You can do it. No one is making a sword of you, Ashe, not to destroy yourself with, or me,” she said, citing one of Coriolanus’ well-known lines. Who needed drugs when there was a woman who saw right through them, Ashe had thought before drifting off to sleep. Riley was the drug he couldn’t get enough of. Hours later, as he sat in the back of a car crawling along the streets of Manhattan, it terrified him to realize just how much he craved her.
Where she’d gone after she awoke, Ashe didn’t know. She’d left him a note saying that she’d seen him that evening and nothing more. When he finally made it downstairs, famished, he discovered that she’d taken the time to make him a late lunch of shepherd’s pie, non-vegetarian this time, still warm in the oven that she’d set on a timer. There was even a bowl of salad in the fridge.
“This arrived at the office today, hand-delivered by the lovely Collette Williams herself,” Lance said drily, handing Ashe a stiff white envelope. “She said you’d know what it’s for.”
Ashe opened his eyes to look at Lance, frowning as he took the envelope and turned it over. The words Sir Ashe were written in ornate script on the back of the envelope. It bothered him now that he’d never used a different name when he’d been involved in the BDSM lifestyle. Most people did, if only to differentiate between their identity in the real world and that in the world of kink, where they could be whatever their hearts desired: master, servant, slave or even both, if they were ‘switches’.
But not Ashe; he’d been too arrogant to change it. As Sir Ashe, there was no separating his real self from the way Catriona had always seen him. It had never mattered to her that he was much younger than she, or maybe he’d just been too young and too full of himself to see through her guile.
“There’s a Dominant inside the young man that I see, dying to get out,” she had told him when he’d first asked her out to dinner. Her unabashed attraction to him had stoked his young ego, empowering him to be more daring in his eventual pursuit of her. He’d prolonged every encounter, each touch designed to build upon the one before, every caress deliberate in its intent to tease out what the Dominant in him had seen behind her facade: that underneath it all she was searching for her own Dominant. She’d proven it later, when she told him she’d be whatever he wanted her to be.
“This is a dangerous game you’re playing, Ashe,” warned Lance. “Please think carefully before you accept. I’ve got plans tonight and I can’t be there.”
“I already have,” admitted Ashe. “Besides, I don’t need you to babysit me.”
“Have you gone daft? Am I to believe that you’ve actually agreed to meet her again?” asked Lance, frowning. “It’ll be a cold day in hell before I let you waltz in on a BDSM party alone. What if there are cameras?”
“I’ll be fine, Lance,” said Ashe. Cameras or not, for Riley’s sake he had to put an end to Catriona’s game.
“The last time you faced Catriona like this you ended up a bloody mess. So now you think you’re ready for round two with her, on her own turf, and expect to win?” queried Lance. “There’s nothing wrong with walking away, Ashe. Do it for Riley, at least. She’s been dragged into this mess far deeper than you and I can ever imagine.”
“She sent Riley a collar yesterday,” Ashe told him, his jaw clenching at the memory of the photo he’d deleted shortly after he’d received it. It grated on him that Riley had unwittingly worn something Catriona had chosen to indicate her status in the kink world. “Do you honestly think I’d simply sit back and let her get away with it?”
“She didn’t! Bloody ‘ell!” exclaimed Lance. “I would have assumed she’d know better than to do something like that. Sirs don’t do that to submissives who aren’t theirs, do they? Not that I know anything about this stuff, but hell, Riley’s not even involved in it,” he paused, staring at Ashe, “or is she?”
“What we do behind closed doors is none of your business, Lance,” replied Ashe as he ripped open the envelope and gave it a cursory glance. He handed it to Lance, who frowned as he read the words on the gilt-edged card. The invitation was to a private party on the Upper East Side. Though it looked like an invitation to any formal society party, Ashe knew better. In fine print was a dress code and rules of conduct for Dominants and submissives in attendance.
“Please don’t tell me you’re taking her with you.”
“She wants to come along,” Ashe replied, adjusting the scarf so it sat higher up his neck though he knew it would be useless.
“I doubt very much that she’s into this thing because she’s curious more than she feels challenged by a vengeful ex,” Lance said. “That’s no way to get into the lifestyle, Ashe, and you know it.”
“Be careful, Lance. Your managerial duties only go so far,” Ashe said as Lance exhaled and shook his head.
“I wasn’t talking to you as your manager; I was talking to you as your friend,” Lance said. “I would have hoped you’d be able to tell the difference, but you’re so determined to win against Catriona you’re not thinking straight.”
“Would you have me do whatever she wants?” Ashe snapped. “What will it be next? She’s already leaked our BDSM contract to the media, and no amount of PR spin is going to change the fact that it still is a real contract. The collar is the final straw.”
They were silent for a few moments, Lance’s phone beeping to let him know of an upcoming message. Ashe felt the atmosphere inside the car lighten as Lance took a deep breath and exhaled as if forcing the topic aside. Lance had been there when Ashe had crumbled under the weight of Hazel’s rape. His friend had never been a fan of the BDSM lifestyle that Ashe once enjoyed, although he tolerated the invitations Ashe continued to receive through formal channels; sex parties in Los Angeles and New York, another on a yacht in Cannes, and tonight, in the Upper West Side.
“By the way, Ben managed to take pictures of two paparazzi waiting outside the Library Café. They’ve also been seen at the park where Riley meets the triplets,” Lance said, handing Ashe his phone with a photo of two men with their mobile phones held up in front of them, recording or taking pictures.
Ashe peered at the phone display. Catriona obviously wasn’t finished with him; she still had her eye on Riley, and it angered him. Why couldn’t she leave her alone? He returned the phone to Lance, not allowing himself to become upset; he had a performance in two hours and needed to center himself. For the next few hours nothing would exist but Shakespeare’s Coriolanus, living and breathing through him; the moment he’d walk off the stage, however, Ashe knew that not even the great bard could keep him away from the real world—the one that contained Catriona.
She’d left him no choice.