Wednesday, May 16, 2018

Chapter Reveal - Safeguard (NYC Doms ) by Jane Henry















She’s feisty, gorgeous, impossible.
Submissive.
And all mine.

I don’t do half-assed relationships. When I set my sights on the most headstrong, tenacious submissive I’ve ever met, I’m all in. I’ll show her the dark, sensual world she craves, dominate her, and leave her begging for more. But when her safety’s endangered, she needs more than a dom: she needs a safeguard.



I hear the clink of metal behind me, and I know I’m in trouble this time. There is no escaping what’s going to happen. I’m like a cornered animal with nowhere to go, and the feeling both exhilarates and terrifies me all at once.
“Hands on the wall.” His voice, at once sharp and commanding, stops my heart in my chest. Trembling, I do as he says, placing my hands on the wall in front of me. I stare at my small, oval-shaped nails, painted a vibrant crimson, a sharp contrast to the brilliant white wall underneath my hands and for one brief minute, I let myself feel the panic.
He’s taking you to prison.
He’s going to cuff you, and frisk you, and haul your ass to jail.
I shiver as he approaches me, feeling his presence before I actually see him.
“You knew this would happen,” he scolds in a warning tone, the whisper of his voice tickling my skin. “You knew the price you’d pay for breaking the law.” A low growl makes a shiver course through me. “Do not move those hands.” The click of metal against metal reaches my ears, my eyes shut tight as I fully experience my situation, then cold grazes my skin, the slightest warning before my wrists are shackled. I do as he says, frozen in place.  
My wrists secured above my head, I brace myself for whatever he’ll do next. I’m at his mercy now.
I’m wearing nothing but a thin tank top and shorts despite the chilly fall air, and he makes good use of my bared skin. He begins at my shoulders, strong fingers probing me, slightly painful yet soothing, like a deep tissue massage. He moves over my shoulders, down my back, and a shudder of anticipation weaves its way through me. When he reaches my hips, his hands anchor on either side of me, spanning my taut frame. One hand lifts off my right side and whack! With a resounding slap, his palm spanks my ass.
“Such a naughty girl,” he says with a cluck of his tongue. “Such wicked things she’s done. Things that she knew would get her punished.” Even though I can’t see him, I can imagine him shaking his head behind me. “What should I do with a bad girl like you?”
I don’t answer. It’s a rhetorical question. If I speak, he’ll punish me. The last time I spoke before he allowed it, he took his belt to my ass. Tonight, I don’t know what he’s capable of. When he pushed me up against the wall, he had a gleam in his eyes, a look I’ve learned to both crave and fear.
In silence, I shiver in anticipation. Without warning, he squeezes my ass so hard it hurts, but I only hiss out a breath.
“Very good,” he breathes. He shoves his hand between my legs, but doesn’t touch where I need him to, his fingers grazing my inner thighs. “I bet we could find a way for you to pay,” he says. “To make retribution for breaking the law.” A pinch to my ass has me gasping out loud. “Answer me.”
“Yes, officer.” I bite my lip to keep from smiling. This is my favorite part.
“Do you need to be punished?” he whispers in my ear.
I nod my head vigorously. “I’ve been wicked. Sinful. Terrible. I need to be taught a lesson.”
“Hmm,” he says, and he takes his hands off me altogether. “Maybe you need to stand here and think about your transgressions as punishment.”
What? No! Wait, wait, wait. What’s he talking about?
“Or maybe you need to go to bed without your dinner,” he mulls. I turn my head to look at him, growling low enough that he can’t hear me, but he catches the vibe. Fuck, he’s sexy. He’s dressed in his uniform, a black, short-sleeved, button-down shirt, black slacks, and shiny black shoes, complete with a thick leather belt. He doesn’t normally wear a uniform but he has one in his closet, and I love when he puts it on for me like this. He’s even wearing his badge, which turns me the fuck on.
Officer Zack Williams.
“You’re the one who ought to be punished,” I say snidely, a lilt of flirtation in my tone. “It’s illegal to be that sexy.” Tattoos sneak under the edges of his shirt, large, muscled shoulders alluding to his strength and power. One corner of his lips quirks up as his golden-brown hair falls across his brow, his chestnut-colored eyes rimmed in stark black lashes meeting mine. He runs a hand across the thick stubble on his jaw.  
“I don’t think so, sweetheart,” he whispers, a wicked note to his voice warning me that shit’s about to get very real. “I’ve only just started with you.”
His voice drops, a sharp command like the crack of a whip. “Face the wall.” He snaps his fingers, and my spine stiffens. I quickly move to obey. Damn, he’s sexy as fuck.  
He comes back to me and strips me bare. With a rough tug, my panties and shorts slither to the floor in a puddle leaving me in nothing but my tank. Without a word, he straddles me from behind. I hear the clink of metal and the whir of a zipper. My breath catches. He’s going to take me, right here, right now, with my hands cuffed and pushed up against the wall, him fully clothed and me dressed in nothing but a thin tank top.
Squeeeeeeeee.
I barely contain my glee.
“Need to make you submit. Maybe then you’ll learn your lesson.” He’s at my entrance, hard and soft and warm, and fuck, I need him in me. I stopped breathing at the word submit, anticipation ringing in my ears. With a savage thrust, he plunges into me with a groan and my breath whooshes out. I gasp for air, inhaling deep, cleansing breaths, grasping the wall for support. He has to bend down so he can take me. I want to brace myself but can’t with my wrists bound in cuffs. He’s hard, so fucking turned on, and it takes no time at all before he’s soaring, grunting his release, and I follow on his tail, a shudder of ecstasy ripping through me. Nothing makes me come harder or faster than when he does this to me.
I sag against the wall, wrists still bound. “I’ve learned my lesson, officer,” I whisper. “I’ll be sure to obey the law in the future.”
“The fuck you will,” he says with a chuckle, giving my ass a playful slap as he withdraws from me. I shiver at the loss, wishing we could’ve stayed like that for so much longer. But I know him. I know that if I wait, he’ll take care of me.
He knows I like losing control, knows I like being taken and used like this.
“I want you to arrest me some time,” I whisper. “Will you do that? Like for real with the sirens and cuffs in a cruiser, and then you can punish me for breaking the law like in the car?”
“You just don’t know where to stop, do you?” he asks. “Next thing I know, you’ll want to publicly scene at the club, just ratchet up that fantasy even more? Get a couple of my buddies with their night sticks in on the action?”
“Holy hotness,” I breathe. He smacks my ass again, harder this time.
“As if I’d let anyone come anywhere near you but me,” he growls in my ear. “Can hardly joke about it. Damn near ready to cuff you to my bed when I leave for work so no one else sees you, touches you. Could beat the shit out of those guys you teach at the gym.” He’s on his way to my bathroom.
I grin. God, he’s so adorable when he gets his alpha on.
“One of them was flirting with me the other day, you know,” I say nonchalantly as I hear the water running. “Asked me to dinner.”
He comes to the doorway and his body goes tight. “Did he?”
“Yes. But don’t worry, honey,” I singsong. “I politely told him to screw off.”
He moves impossibly closer to me, nearly stifling me. “Babe, would’ve been okay to tell him so impolitely. Still, you’re a good girl,” he croons in my ear, cleaning me off. That’s Zack. He just fucked me up against the wall and somehow, impossibly, is still a gentleman.
I bite my lip. There’s something about good girl that undoes me.
I never was the good girl. I’m still not. But hearing him say it makes my heart sing a little.
His mouth comes to my ear. “Gonna uncuff you now, baby.” I watch as he slides the key in, turns the lock, and my wrists swing free.
He tucks the cuffs neatly into his pocket, then spins me around, pulls me closer, and presses me up against his body. Weaving a hand through my hair, he gently tugs my head back. I look into the chocolate brown of his eyes a split second before he leans down and brushes my lips with his. “Gotta get you to bed,” he says. “It’s late, and you’re teaching a 6 a.m. class tomorrow.” He takes me by the hand and leads me to bed.
“Oh, you’re no fun,” I tease with a pout. “I was hoping we could watch TV. And maybe eat some ice cream or something.”
His lips quirk up, but he points to the bed. “Bed, Beatrice.”
“But daddy, just two more minutes?” I tease.
He narrows his eyes and points to the bed. “Go get yourself ready and hop in bed.”
Teasingly I stick my tongue out, which earns me a good ass smack as I head to the bathroom. I’m really just teasing him. I love that he looks out for me like this. I really do want to watch TV and eat junk food, and if he wasn’t here, I maybe would. But I know that 5 a.m. wake up in preparation for the early class is seriously not fun on too little sleep, and anything more than a glass of water will make my stomach feel like crap.
Still, it’s hard to do this whole adulting thing sometimes.
I brush my teeth and hear him leave the room. I smile with a sudsy mouthful of toothpaste when I look at myself in the mirror. My eyes are cornflower blue, my nose small and pert, lips full and pink. My just-fucked, fine blonde hair is askew, and my cheeks are flushed pink. But most of all, I look happy.
I hear my phone beeping in the other room, so I finish washing my face and brushing my hair, then head back to my bed. Zack’s sitting on the edge, still dressed in his uniform, with my stack of mail in hand.
“Seriously, Bea, how long has it been since you’ve gone through this?” he asks, quirking an eyebrow at me.
“Oh, I don’t know.” I feel a little guilty now. Maybe there’s something important in there, but my bills were fine...I think. Still looking at the mail, he distractedly lifts the covers on my bed and pats the sheets for me to get in. I flop face down on the bed, suddenly exhausted, and grab my phone. He asks me something, but I see there’s a message from Diana. I swipe to read the text, but before I can, the phone is out of my hand and he’s giving me “the look.”
“I asked you a question,” he says. “Pay attention.”
What a lot of people don’t know about Zack is that he’s more than my boyfriend. He’s my dom. When he talks to me, he expects I listen.
“What?” I ask.
“I said, did you see this big invitation-looking thing?”
I sit up, curious. “No! What is it?”
He hands me a large ivory envelope with golden accents, the lettering with my name on the front in hand-tooled calligraphy. Whoa. The paper is thick and smooth. I slide a finger underneath the edge as he sorts the junk mail out of the stack, and take out a large, elaborate invitation with a vellum overlay. A name catches my eye. Chantilly Moore.
My youngest cousin. It appears Uncle Herb’s baby girl is getting married. Immediately, I’m back in my childhood home, the massive, sprawling estate where I grew up, music filtering through the speakers at an outside barbecue with my uncle singing, “Chantilly lace, and a pretty face,” while he spins his daughter around. I’m a girl again, sipping a Shirley Temple in stemware, while my cousins and aunts and uncles celebrate my birthday.
I haven’t seen Chantilly or Uncle Herb in ten years, since they moved to L.A. A pang of nostalgia hits me in the solar plexus. I swallow hard, then scan the invite.
“My cousin Chantilly’s getting married! And she’s coming back to New York to do it!”
My heartbeat patters in a rapid beat against my chest.
“When, honey?” His voice is patient. “Who knows how long that invitation’s been in that pile of mail?”
Oops.
I quickly glance through the small stack of cards in the envelope.
“Shit! The R.S.V.P. card was due two months ago! The wedding’s this weekend.” My voice catches at the end. Tears spring to my eyes.
“Beatrice,” he chides, scolding me. “You can’t let this stuff just come in and pile up like this. What if you had something important in here?”
This was important.
I wave my hand at him and pull up my phone. “They were accepting RSVP’s on some website. I know, I know. I’ll be better about it. Oh, wait. Zack! Tell me you can go?”
He crosses his arms and lifts a brow at me. “When and where?”
I fill him in.
He takes the invitation from my hand and looks it over, then bends down and kisses my temple. “Yeah, baby. Like I’d let you drive all that way alone.”
All kinds of happy and scared feelings flutter through me. I’m taking him home. To my family. I’ve fucked the guy ninety ways to Sunday and still haven’t told him about my family yet, but the idea of facing them without his protection is nearly unbearable.
“Of course I’ll go,” he says. “You’ll have rules, though.”
I shiver with a smile. “Oh?” What kind of rules?”
“We’ll talk about that later. For now, see if you can still RSVP. And if you can, put me down for the steak.” I punch the RSVP into my phone, send a pleading and apologetic message to Chantilly via the website, then place it down, suddenly exhausted.
I can’t miss Chantilly’s wedding. But that means letting my parents in on my life again...letting Zack see where I came from, who I was. He’ll know I’m not just a yoga teacher in a studio apartment in NYC. He’ll meet my parents, and see where I grew up, and… I know what they’ll think.
What will he?
He tucks the blanket around me, and my eyes feel heavy with sleep.
What we have is good. No, better than good. I don’t need things to be… better. Permanent. This is kinda exactly what I like. He has his space, I have mine, and we don’t need any of those messy complications like joint bills and his toothbrush near mine, or… God… kids.
What we have is perfect.
He doesn’t know about my parents… or Carter… or anything. I don’t tell anyone. That stuff was all in the old Beatrice’s life. Not mine.
It isn’t mine anymore.
Did inviting him just totally fuck things up?







USA Today Bestselling author Jane has been writing since her early teens, dabbling in short stories and poetry. When she married and began having children, her pen was laid to rest for several years, until the National Novel Writing Challenge (NaNoWriMo) in 2010 awakened in her the desire to write again. That year, she wrote her first novel, and has been writing ever since. With a houseful of children, she finds time to write in the early hours of the morning, squirreled away with a laptop, blanket, and cup of hot coffee. Years ago, she heard the wise advice, “Write the book you want to read,” and has taken it to heart. She sincerely hopes you also enjoy the books she likes to read.






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