Page 47 of Love by Design (Club Rapture: Risk Aware #1)

SILAS

“ I won’t lie,” Lincoln murmured softly against my neck. “I liked it better when I could take you home and spank you until you cried.”

I snorted. “Sorry, you have to work for it now. Being dominant must be terribly exhausting.”

“It is,” he agreed, knocking his head against mine.

We were on the patio at Rapture, nestled together at a cocktail table with a clear view of the dance floor.

We’d done a quick pass through the place after arriving, and Lincoln had prematurely declared the night hopeless before hauling me outside for a better view.

I wasn’t looking for the same thing he was, but I promised him the night was very young and he still had plenty of time to find someone.

“What happened to that man from the last time we were here?” I asked. “Ethan?”

Even in the dim light of the patio, I could see Lincoln’s cheeks darken. I hadn’t heard a peep about Ethan since the night we’d met him, and the text messages Lincoln had sent over the course of the night and into the next morning to let me know he was safe and alive.

“I haven’t talked to him,” he said .

“Why not?”

“I didn’t get his number,” Lincoln muttered. “An oversight.”

“I have his phone number,” I reminded him. “He put it in my phone the night you went home with him. Did you not remember that?”

Lincoln’s eyes went wide, then shuttered. “I can’t text him just because you have his number. That feels like some consent violation.”

“Do you want me to text him?” I asked.

“That’s the same,” he said. “If I want to see him again, I’ll just have to do it the old-fashioned way. By crossing my fingers and hoping for the best.”

“That doesn’t sound like you.”

Lincoln gave me a forlorn look. “It doesn’t matter, and I don’t want to talk about it. He was fun, but it’s complicated so it’s better to just let it be. Less attachments.”

“You sound very unattached,” I agreed, face somber in my agreement.

“Hey.” He snapped his fingers in front of my face, and I smacked his hand down to the table. “There’s your man.”

I looked into the club, and Lincoln was right.

Marshall was there, easy to pick out for how tall he was, how elegant he looked, even in a sea of skin and leather.

His hair still looked wet—he must have showered after dinner—and even though there was a whole dance floor between us, the scent of his soap filled my nose.

He scanned the room looking for me, and I watched him the whole time until he found me.

His approach after that was like a guided missile, cutting through the crowd with precision until he was right in front of me.

Up close, I gave a quick glance to his clothes, black jeans and a black t-shirt, mostly the same as what I had on but also a hundred times better put together. He gave me the same onceover, but I could tell by the heat in his eyes I was the only one who found myself to be lacking.

“I’ll go get drinks,” Lincoln said.

Marshall gave him a quick greeting and thanks, never taking his eyes off me.

“There’s my brilliant project architect,” he murmured, sliding an arm around my waist and hauling our bodies together. “Are you ready to admit how amazing you are?”

I huffed, cheeks burning. “To anyone except you,” I admitted.

“We’ll have to work on that.”

Marshall leaned down and brushed his lips against mine. He tasted like toothpaste, fresh and clean. I smiled against his mouth and joined my hands together at the base of his neck.

“How was dinner?” I asked.

“He’s far less horrible than any of us hoped. Very much like all of us in his own little ways.”

“That’s good, right?”

He nodded, pulling me into a proper hug. “It’s good. How was the rest of your day?”

“I saw my dad,” I blurted.

Marshall’s arms tightened around me—an act of protection, I realized—and I let myself go weak and vulnerable against him.

“Are you all right?” he asked. “You should have told me earlier. You could have.”

It was easier to be honest sometimes when I wasn’t aware of Marshall’s penetrating stare on me. In his arms, his heart beating inches above and across from mine was a safe place for my truths.

“I’m fine. It was…I don’t know. He showed up while I was having lunch. He knew where to find me.”

“And?”

“He wasn’t angry, just defeated, I think. He implied there was something going on with you and me, but I didn’t tell him either way. I did tell him I didn’t want to talk to him, and I left.”

“Did he come after you?” Marshall asked.

I shook my head, and for the first time, I wanted to cry about the whole thing.

My dad had just let me walk away from him because he was angry at me on the day that I’d won the biggest bid of my career.

My name was attached to the win. When I worked with my dad, they’d all been his name and his glory.

Cory was the first person to give me credit that was due, the second person to see me as an equal.

The first, of course, currently had his arms wrapped around my waist and his face buried in the crook of my neck.

“It’s better this way,” I said.

Lincoln was on his way back, his lithe figure slinking through the crowd and toward the patio.

“I’m ready to celebrate,” I told Marshall, and I meant it honestly.

He pulled away and smiled down at me, leaving a kiss against the tip of my nose, then the corner of my mouth.

“He’s here,” Lincoln said out of nowhere, setting two glasses of wine on the table, his own drink still in hand.

“Who?”

“Ethan.”

“Go get him, tiger,” I teased, untangling myself from Marshall’s arms so I could slap Lincoln on his ass.

“I don’t want to look desperate.”

“You’d look interested,” I said.

“I’m going to wait,” Lincoln said with a nod, his action decided. “He just got here, and he was with a few other guys. I don’t know their deal.”

“Are you sure your name isn’t Thomas?” Marshall asked, handing me my drink before reaching for his own. He took the smallest sip imaginable, smiling at Lincoln the whole time.

“Why would it be Thomas?”

“You’re a doubter.” At Lincoln’s blank stare, Marshall clarified. “You know, from the Bible?”

“Never read it.”

“I thought it was something everyone just knew.”

Lincoln offered him a lopsided smile. “The first time I ever stepped foot into a church was this one, Marshall. I don’t know a thing about the Bible or Thomas.”

“Lincoln?” A voice from a few tables away had all of us looking, but it wasn’t Ethan who stood there.

“Riot.”

“Can we talk?”

Lincoln looked like he wanted the earth to swallow him whole.

“You don’t have to talk to him,” I said softly, using Marshall’s earlier reminder to me on my best friend.

“I know. It’s good. If you guys wander off, I’ll come find you.

” He leaned in close and dusted a kiss against the corner of my mouth.

The opposite side from where Marshall had kissed me last, and instead of any sort of concern over how the affection would make Marshall feel, I only felt overwhelmed and washed in love.

“Does this mean we can begin the celebration?” Marshall whispered into my ear.

“What does the celebration entail?”

“Since when do you care?”

I chuckled, heat racing down my throat and spreading through my chest like wildfire. “We’ve never really…not in public.”

He turned me so my back was to his front. So I could feel the heat of his erection against the back of my hip.

“Let’s negotiate then,” he murmured .

Fuck.

It had been so long since we’d discussed consent and action, not for lack of action but lack of need.

We’d both established the ground rules and the limits and the expectations so there wasn’t much left to say.

I was always submissive to him. I’d even called him Sir in public before at times, but there were parts of what we did that hadn’t left his house before.

Those rules were set but only applied when we were in the privacy of his home.

Taking those acts out of the bedroom was something new for us entirely.

“Do you have different rules in public?” he asked.

“I don’t know. Before…before you, it was only scenes here and there. It didn’t feel so intimate.”

“Then maybe you were doing it wrong.”

“Maybe,” I agreed, resting my head against his chest.

“Is that your way of saying you don’t want to do this here?”

Feeling bold, I took his hand and dragged it down my stomach and lower still until his fingers danced over the hard line of my cock.

“I do want it.”

“Can I fuck you here?”

Arousal exploded between my legs and my dick jumped against his hand.

“That’s delightful, sweetheart, but it’s hardly consent.”

“In a private room,” I said, shivering. “With the door open.”

“Not entirely in the open,” he surmised, and I nodded my agreement. “Can I touch you over your clothes in the open?”

“Yes, please. Sir.”

Marshall curled his fingers around my dick, through my pants, and I groaned, lashes fluttering.

He stroked me with a rough hand before letting it trail up my body again and under my shirt.

His fingers twisted and flicked my nipples, and it was very hard to not writhe and moan for him right there on the patio.

The public setting enhanced everything. The pleasure, the need, all of it amplified with the crowds and the bodies around us.

“What if I take you up to a playroom and strip you naked? Impale you with my cock while I torment the memory of those bruises on the insides of your thighs?” Marshall whispered, breath hot against my ear. “What if we start with that?”

I was nothing more than need. “Yes, Sir.”

“That’s enough wine then.”

We left our glasses on the table, and I followed Marshall into the club.

The music was louder, bass thumping in time with the rapid-fire beat of my heart.

The only steady thing around me was Marshall’s hand curled around mine.

He led me to the downstairs playroom where we’d first made each other’s acquaintance in this new way that had so quickly become familiar, then held out his arm.