Gray gently answered my questions on a very brief tour of The Asylum. Not once did his hands leave my skin. He steered me from scene to scene, protected me with his mere presence, and turned me on with his tutoring of all that I saw and heard. He even introduced me to a Dominatrix. She didn’t belong to the club but was visiting from another. We exchanged information and she agreed to chat with me later about learning her trade.

More than any scene with ropes or toys or whips or floggers I was aroused by the way Gray reacted to my need to explore these new sexual avenues. With him.

I’d gone to the club wanting Foster Bennett to show me the ways of domination, but all along, I only ever needed Gray.

This time he couldn’t hide the tent in his pants. We sat in the car in silence. I was afraid to say anything more and break the spell. With each passing minute his hand inched its way up my thigh. Mere blocks from home, he slid his fingers between my legs and teased me with caresses so fucking close to those crotchless panties I had to bite my lip not to beg him.

He pulled into the garage and retrieved his hand.

“Look how wet you already are.” His fingertips glistened with my moisture.

Gray stuck his fingers in his mouth and sucked them clean.

Of course I was beyond turned on. Some of what I’d seen at The Asylum was way more anything I ever wanted in the bedroom, but the power rolling off Gray had me on edge.

“Gray—”

“Go inside before I lose my last shred of control and fuck you on the trunk of this car.”

That was exactly what I wanted him to do. “I don’t want to go in.”

“You have to. For me. If I fuck you now, you won’t like it. But I will, and I won’t do that to you. Please, Angel. Go. I’ll be right behind you. I just need a minute.”

I got out of the car like he asked. I didn’t want to, but there was real pain in Gray’s voice. Not anything I’d ever heard before.

I hated that he thought I wouldn’t like anything he did to me, with me. At least I understood better what turned him on.

The men were all home and I headed straight for the harem lounge, wanting their company. Ilario lay sprawled, arms behind his head, legs spread like only a guy would sit, and buck naked. Dominic stood behind him, arms crossed and eyes intent on me like a dark African warrior tracking prey. I doubted by the look in his eyes that he was the submissive one tonight. Cade walked in two seconds later, in only his jeans.

“We are ready for you, Mistress,” Ilario said and got to his feet.

“Great but,” this was a little beyond ready. “how –”

“I called them.” Gray came in and stood in front of me. “Use some of what you saw today. See if you actually enjoy those fetishes, or if you just like the idea of them.”

Some of what I’d witnessed was on my new list of hard boundaries. But now that I had a real introduction to BDSM I was definitely trying out a whole bunch of the B’s, I knew I liked the D’s, S had its advantages when it was about submission, but I wasn’t going anywhere near sadism or masochism. For now.

“There are a lot of things I want to try.” With you. Nope. Not gonna say it. We both knew. “And plenty that already have me so hot if I don’t try them and like them I’ll be shocked.”

Gray stood over me, centimeters away. Our chests fell and rose together. He touched my cheek and then grabbed a strand of hair, wrapping it around his finger, playing me while he played the strands. “If you do,” his eyes sparkled and went black, “then I’ll take you back to The Asylum.”

Yes. Yes, yes, and hell yes.

Finally. Gray was here, with me, on board. We could be together in the ways we both wanted, oh so much.

“But what about...” I turned to the guys. So, yeah, threesomes and foursomes were kinky, and I knew they all liked the dynamics of domination and submission. Were they actually up for some BDSM experimentation?

While I knew better, in my mind, I had imagined trying some of the kinkier things I’d seen today with Gray. He had made me say I was his after all.

He twirled that hair around in his fingers, giving it the slightest tug. “They’ve all been vetted by me, Angel. Do you really think I’d allow anyone into your house and into your body without choosing them myself?”

What the fuck? That was not what I expected to come out of his mouth. God dammit.

I took a step back, because if I didn’t get some space between the two of us I was going to sock him. I clenched my fists, channeling my anger into the palms of my hands. “You didn’t think I could do this on my own at all?”

It hurt that my biggest proponent didn’t even think I could survive independence.

“It’s not like that, Angel.” He moved toward me. “I was surprised at first that you were actually going through with any of this, from night one and that dirty fucking bar, but I never doubted for a second that you could pull off anything you wanted to.”

“Then what the actual fuck, Gray?” That got his attention. Yeah, that’s right. I do have a backbone. I thought you knew that already.

He narrowed his eyes and clenched his jaw hard enough we could all see the muscles there working. “I didn’t do it for you.”

“I don’t understand. Not you. Or what’s going on here.” I looked at the guys and was flabbergasted that I hadn’t realized how deep they all were under Gray’s control. Like he was a spell cast over them. Over me.

Gray shook his head. The muscles in his jaw worked overtime. “I didn’t do it for you. I did it for me.”

He reached out for me and I recoiled. How could he both be there for me and betray me at the same time? I knew he was doing it for me, all of it. It sure as shit didn’t feel like it.

“Dammit, Angel. I couldn’t handle not knowing if you’d be safe. I couldn’t take that this situation would be out of my control. You’re my whole god-damned world. If you got hurt, or I lost you because of a stupid mistake by some glorified matchmaker, I wouldn’t survive it.”

Coño, un desmadre.

I couldn’t move. This wasn’t what was supposed to happen. I tried my hardest to pretend I wasn’t in love with him, that I was content to bide my time fucking around with other men until he didn’t feel like my rebound anymore. For fucks sakes I’d gone and hired a whole fucking harem.

I didn’t want to pretend anymore. “How can you say that? Any of that? You stood idly by while I fucked two strangers. You gave any control you had to Cade. You’re not in love with me, so stop pretending you are.”

Gray attacked me like a DELTA Force ninja. Before I could even blink he grabbed me under the legs and lifted me like I was a screaming kitten and carried me across the room. “Don’t ever question my feelings for you, Angelina.”

He laid me down on the biggest chaise lounge, his body over mine and pinned my hands above my head. I thought for a blissful moment that he would take me then, claim me for his own.

Cade came up behind us and wrapped his belt around my wrists. He looked to Gray for approval and got it. Ilario and Dominic perched on the couch, sitting on either side of me. Gray released my hands and let Cade keep me bound, arms above my head. The loss couldn’t have hurt more than a slap to the face.

Gray stood and took a step back. “Do your job, gentlemen. Make her come. She’s more than ready.”

“No, Gray.” I struggled against Cade’s grip. “I fucking want you.”

For the flash of a moment his eyes softened, the strain went out of his muscles. He touched my cheek. “I’m not going anywhere, sweet Angel. Let me do this my way. I need to.”

“No, Gray. Why?”

He jerked his hand away. “The way I want to take you, neither of us are ready for. You saw the evidence of that tonight.”

I could take whatever he wanted to give me, whatever he wanted to take. The plea in his eyes made me acquiesce.

I could deny him nothing. He could have me and my body anyway he wanted. If he needed someone else between us to keep his control, I’d give him that for now. As long as he didn’t leave.

But soon, we would talk about this “not ready” bullshit and I would have him and in the way I wanted.

Gray waited until I nodded. “Good girl.”

He handed a bag to Cade. “You’re in charge of her new toys. Use them wisely.”

More presents he’d hidden away waiting for the right moment?

Cade pulled out nipple clamps, which I already liked and a new addition that I’d seen for the first time tonight, a Wartenburg pinwheel. “Oh, yeah. This is going to be fun. You ready to do as I say, Angelina?”

I glanced from Gray to Cade and back again. This was what they both wanted.

“Yes.”

Cade handed the clamps to Ilario. “Suck on her nipples and get them ready for the clamps. Dominic, suck on that pretty pink pussy of hers.”

“With pleasure.”

The intensity Cade showed for his schoolwork finally came out in our play. For the first time he looked to be enjoying himself. Each command to give me a pinch or pull sent shockwaves of pleasure to my pussy. My first moan sent a smile to his face.

While Cade directed, Grayson stood watch, never once taking his gaze from mine. I watched his breathing ratchet up, his eyes darken. Still he didn’t move.

Cade pulled on the belt binding my wrists together and extended it over my head. Then he knelt behind me and whispered in my ear. “There is so much more I want to do to you, babe. Now that you’ve gotten a touch of BDSM, our play can get more intense. I can hardly wait to get all three of our cocks in you with you blindfolded and not knowing who is going where.”

“Oh yes.” Because while I wouldn’t know who was who, I could imagine Gray being one of them. “Please, yes.”

Cade took the nipple clamps from Ilario and pushed him to join Dominic between my legs. He tightened the clamps and slipped them on, pinching them tighter than ever before. He tugged and pulled and each movement sent fire racing down my body and straight to my clit. I moaned feeling that first push toward orgasm.

He grabbed the small metal wheel and ran it lightly over and around my areolas creating so many competing sensations. It was pleasure, it was pain. My heart pumped more blood to those erogenous zones and my nipples engorged, plumping up, pressing against the tight squeeze of the clamps.

“Ohhh, madre de dios.”

Gray watched the wheel score across my skin and sucked in a breath. “Give her more.”

Cade doubled his efforts spinning the teeth of the wheel directly across my nipples. When he did, Dominic pushing two fingers inside of me too. He found that lovely spot that made my insides turn to mush. It wasn’t long before the first orgasm was on the edge. I closed my eyes and prepared to ride the wave of pleasure.

“Don’t come, Angel. You are not allowed to come until I say so. This orgasm is mine.” Gray’s voice was right in my ear.

My body betrayed his command. I needed Gray’s permission. But my body didn’t care, it was going to enjoy itself in spite of me. If this was just the beginning of our BDSM experiments I might die of orgasms before we were done.

Ilario ducked beneath my knees and raised my butt onto his hands. His tongue found a darker place. I’d never had anyone lick my ass before, and the dirty pleasure sent me another step closer to coming.

My eyelids fluttered, out of my control. I was so close I could feel small spasms through my sex. It was too much. “Please, Gray.”

He didn’t give in even a little. Instead, playing the part of watchdog, a bodyguard over me. “Not yet. I want to hear you scream.”

“I will.” I panted. “I swear. Please let me come.”

My body was tightening muscle by muscle. I wouldn’t hold out much longer. The pleasure all over my body was too intense.

I closed my eyes and breathed, in and out, in and out. Too much, it was too good. Maybe I should hold my breath instead.

Gray’s voice sounded next to my ear. “Are you allowed to come yet?”

I shook my head. So close, so close. Please, please.

Then I felt a hand on my throat, just as I’d seen Foster do at the club.

“Are you close, love?” The hand tightened, not to cut off my air, but to press against my pulse. Gray held my life’s blood in the palm of his hand. The whoosh whoosh of my heart pumping deafened me. Stars floated around my eyes.

My lips formed the word. Please. But no sound came out. Every instinct in me body told me to come, but I couldn’t. Not without Grayson’s command.

“That’s it, Angel. Give me what I want, what I need from you. You’re mine.”

Again, my lips said please. I would die, my world would end, if I couldn’t come now.

“Come for me, Angelina. Come now.”

The hand on my throat pressed deeper into my skin and my world exploded. I felt only pleasure. So much pleasure, my world did end. Every muscle I had and some I didn’t know existed clenched and seized, then released in a dark pulsing beat.

“Yes, love. That’s it. Come long and hard for me. Let me see your pleasure. Give it to me. It’s mine, Angel. It’s all mine.”

Gray’s words, his hold on me, his claim pushed my body beyond anything I’d ever felt before. This wasn’t just my pussy releasing, this was my whole entire body.

“Gray!”

I cried his name, screamed his pleasure until I couldn’t scream anymore.

A hazy abyss overtook me, comforted me with a flood of feel-good hormones rushing through my body like a drug.

At least for now and for the rest of the night, I didn’t know anything else.

I had the vague sense that I was being carried and then washed. I floated in sparkling spell-like state through it all. The pillowy softness of my bed soon surrounded me with a warm hard body pressed to my back.

Somewhere in my afterglow I drifted in to lovely, dark sleep.

I awoke the next morning back in my own room. Safe and warm, Grayson’s at least partially nude body wrapped around me. I wouldn’t move even if I could.

He must have been waiting for me to wake up, because his arms wrapped tighter around me with each breath I took. It reminded me of the previous night and sent shivers from my spine to my pussy.

“Gray?”

“Yeah, love?”

I had about a million and forty-two questions for him. Starting with why he wouldn’t actually fuck me and ending with, could we always wake up in each other’s arms like this.

In between were a bunch of questions about BDSM and that whole lifestyle he’d told Foster Bennett I wasn’t ready for. Throw in a couple more about training in high protocol and some of his other admitted kinks and I’d almost have the first question answered.

He ran his fingers through my hair. “Your mind is working so hard I can smell the smoke coming out of your ears.”

I snuggled deeper into him, not wanting the soft morning to become harsh morning-after yet. “I don’t know what to say or ask right now.”

He nuzzled my neck, lingering there like he didn’t want the day to begin either. “Then don’t. Let me ask you something.”

“Okay.” I didn’t want to, but my body stiffened a little waiting for the axe to fall.

He sighed, and it sounded worried, like he wasn’t confident about his question or my response. “How was the scene we did with the guys last night for you?”

“Seriously?” Like he couldn’t tell?

“Seriously.”

“Amazing. No wait, that word doesn’t quite do it justice. How about terrific? No, uh, stupendous.”

He chuckled. “Okay, okay, I get it. So, you’d like to do it again?”

“If I say ‘duh’, is that too obvious?”

“Without the puppies.”

Oh.

I needed to choose my next words very carefully. On one hand, it’s all I wanted. Me and Gray and a bed...or anywhere else for that matter. On the other hand, I felt like I was a real woman coming into my own, for the first time ever. I liked having the harem at my sexual beck and call. I didn’t want that to end. Couldn’t I have both? “Umm. Can you elaborate?”

“You’re mine, Angel. I think I can control my darker urges around you, if you agreed to let me train you. I want you for my own if we do that.”

Cono. “No more harem? Is that negotiable?”

He pulled me tighter into his arms and just breathed in and out before answering. “I don’t know.”

Give up my new freedoms to get my heart’s desire? That felt like a betrayal. I’d spent most of my life giving into others’ compulsions and resenting it. I didn’t want to resent Gray and whatever we were building together in our own maze of a way. But even now when I was on the verge of getting everything I thought I wanted, it was still hard to ask for it. I had to try.

“Couldn’t you train me and them? They’re as much yours already as they are mine.” Maybe even more so.

“I’m having a hard-enough time sharing you now. The only thing allowing me to watch them have their hands and mouths all over you is seeing you come apart the way you do.” He took a slow breath. “And the way you say my name when you come.”

Because my pleasure was all his.

He still didn’t seem to know that, or if he did he was still denying it. Last night had moved us closer to what I knew we both needed from each other. Something worked in my mind that I couldn’t quite get a grasp on, but it had a sense to it that if I gave in now it wouldn’t work. That this was a test for us both.

I still didn’t want to be his damsel in distress. He still needed to rescue me.

Only I could rescue myself.

“Please?” I did my very best to use the same throaty plea that had come from my lips last night.

“Damn, you’re hard to resist, Angel. I think maybe I’m the one being seduced here.”

Hell yes, he was, right into our eventual happily ever after.