Page 37 of Whatever Lola Wants (Odyssey #2)

“Y ou look a lot better.”

Lola smiled at her friends. It was five days post-accident, and she was finally out of the house. In this case ‘out of the house’ meant Simon driving her over to Anna’s to work on wedding plans and eat Chinese food, but she wasn’t picky.

“I feel a lot better,” she replied. “ The bruises are pretty much gone, except for the really big one, and the stitches can come out in another few days. Thank God .”

“Itching, huh?” Anna’s nose wrinkled in sympathy.

Lola resisted her urge to reach up and rub her fingers over them. “ Oh , yeah.”

“Well, I’m glad your bodyguard let you out of the house.” Ginger reached across the coffee table for her glass of wine. “ Even if you can’t drink.”

Lola eyed the pale golden liquid in Ginger’s glass with envy. “ I’m not taking pain pills anymore, so I could have a glass of wine.”

“Simon made me promise.” Anna sent her an apologetic look. “ Then he told Grant he made me promise, so Grant made me promise, too.”

Which meant convincing her friend to give her a glass of wine would mean getting Anna into trouble. Lola scowled. “ He’s such a mother.”

Anna choked. “ Did you tell him that?”

“No, but I might,” Lola groused. “ I’m getting a little pissed about all these restrictions.”

“For someone who’s not a submissive, your life is looking very D /s at the moment,” Anna teased.

“He’s overprotective,” Lola grumbled. “ He won’t even fuck me hard until the stitches come out.”

“Aw,” Anna said with a laugh, and Lola threw an egg roll at her.

“D/s?” Ginger asked.

“It stands for Dominance /submission,” Lola explained. “ Basically , it refers to when a couple stays in dominant and submissive roles in their everyday lives, not just during BDSM play.”

“Oh.” Ginger looked thoughtful. “ So , how would that work?”

Anna shrugged. “ It’s different for everyone. You can structure it however it works for you. Grant and I , for example, are mostly only D /s for sex, or if he thinks I’m overdoing it or putting myself at risk in some way. Then he gets all Super Dom .”

Lola snickered. “ Cape and all?”

Anna grinned. “ I should get him one.”

Lola shook her head. “ Only if you don’t want to sit down for a week.”

Anna got a considering look on her face, and Lola laughed.

“So, let me see if I understand.” Ginger shifted around, tucking her feet under her in the comfortable club chair. “ He tells you what to do, and you do it.”

“Pretty much,” Anna said. “ Because I want to. And because I trust him not to make me do things I don’t want to do, or can’t do.”

Ginger frowned. “ What if he does? Like , what if he thinks you might like something and then you don’t?”

Anna shrugged. “ I tell him, and we talk about it. If we’re in a scene, then I use my safeword, and he stops immediately.”

“Immediately?” Ginger’s tone was skeptical.

“Immediately,” Anna repeated.

Lola nodded. “ A safeword is like an emergency stop button. No matter what’s happening, everything stops. No exceptions.”

Ginger had a curious look on her face. “ Even if you’re in the middle of sex?”

“Even then.” Anna put in. “ The one time I used it was during sex. I was tied up over the ottoman, Grant fucking me from behind, and something shifted and this sharp stabbing pain hit my hip, and I just shouted it out. He was off me and cutting the ropes almost before I could blink.”

“Wow.” Ginger took a long drink of her wine. “ The things you learn in the big city.”

Anna laughed, but Lola was watching their friend with interest. The high color on her cheeks could be because of the wine, but the subtle widening of her eyes, and the way she shifted around in the chair couldn’t. She smiled.

“Ginger.” She waited until Ginger’s eyes met hers. “ Do you think you might be submissive?”

Her color went even higher, and Ginger drained her wine in one gulp. “ Yeah . I think maybe I am.”

Anna blinked. “ Really ?”

“Well, I don’t normally get turned on drinking wine and going over seating charts, so I figure it’s probably got something to do with the topic of conversation,” Ginger replied drily.

Anna let out a peal of laughter while Lola grinned. “ Yeah , that’s a pretty good indicator.” She sobered a little as she studied Ginger’s flushed face. “ Do you have any experience with BDSM ?”

“No. At least, not like you guys.” Ginger jerked her shoulders in an uncomfortable shrug. “ I read a lot of romance novels, and some of them are edgy, I guess. And I’ve had a couple of lovers who’ve been…”

“Dominant in bed?” Lola suggested, and Ginger nodded.

“Yeah. And that worked for me. Like , really.” Ginger blushed again even as she gave a little laugh. “ But the rest of it, the… D /s? I don’t know about that.”

Lola smiled. “ Even with people who really enjoy giving up that kind of control, it can be uncomfortable. Especially at first. The question is, what do you think if you push the discomfort aside?”

Ginger licked her lips. “ That’s a good question.”

“If you decide you want to explore BDSM , you know we’ll have your back,” Anna told her. “ And so will Grant and Simon . And I’m sure Michael would help.”

“Michael?”

Lola watched with amused interest as the poor girl got even redder. She’d heard the story—from both Ginger and Simon —of how Ginger had stormed the club to find Simon the night she’d gotten hurt, but now she wondered if there wasn’t more to it.

Anna, blissfully oblivious to Ginger’s reaction, nodded. “ He’s really nice, and he knows most everyone in the scene in Chicago . Including a lot of people who aren’t club members. He’d be an invaluable resource.”

“Well, I don’t even know if I’m staying in Chicago ,” Ginger replied and bent over to pick up the seating chart. “ Which table did you say you wanted your mother and stepfather at?”

Lola reached for her water as Anna leaned forward to peer at the chart with Ginger , hiding her smile behind the glass.

Ginger obviously wasn’t ready to discuss whatever had happened with Michael or her own desires, so she’d let it go.

But if her new friend really was submissive, she wouldn’t be able to avoid the owner of the most popular BDSM club in the city.

And even though she didn’t know Michael well, she knew no Dom would be able to resist those wide blue eyes and blushing cheeks.

She stifled the snicker. Lucky girl.

* * *

By the following week, Lola was feeling back to her old self, and was back at work and back in the gym despite Simon’s grumblings that she was doing too much.

He’d insisted on tagging along to her gym session with Marcello , and had stood beside the ring like a sentry the entire time, arms folded over his broad chest, those predator eyes blazing as he watched Marcello put her through her paces.

Marcello didn’t take it easy on her, and more than once she’d hit the mat and had to shout a reassurance that she was fine to keep Simon from storming in and scooping her up.

Marcello had been so amused he’d thrown her a few extra times just for fun.

Men.

When he’d taken her home, Simon had commented that if she was recovered enough to be tossed around the gym, he didn’t have to feel bad about tossing her around the bedroom.

She smiled at the memory. After a week of cuddling and sweet lovemaking, they’d both been ready for some wall-banging sex.

This was one area where being little came in oh so handy—he’d literally banged her against the wall.

And when she’d been limp and vibrating from multiple orgasms, he’d demanded she finish the previously interrupted bondage blowjob.

It was good to be back to normal.

A knock on her office door jerked her attention back to the present. She glanced up with a smile for her assistant. “ Bridget . What’s up?”

Bridget walked in, her tablet in hand. “ You said you wanted to go over the schedule for next week?”

“Right.” Lola called up her calendar. “ I’m out from next Thursday through the following Monday for Anna’s wedding, so let’s see if we can shift anything on those three days to the following week. What’s on the calendar that’s priority?”

They spent the next forty-five minutes shuffling projects, appointments, and discussing who could handle any emergencies in her absence.

“ I really don’t want to be disturbed for anything but an absolute emergency,” Lola cautioned.

“ If one of the junior associates calls me to ask something they can just as easily look up in the library…”

Bridget’s eyes danced. “ I’ll make sure they know what an emergency is.”

“Good.” Lola checked the time. “ I’m going to put in a few hours tonight on the Trendy Wendy acquisition, then it should be ready for the client’s review. You can schedule that for tomorrow. Try to get it in before noon.”

Bridget made a note. “ Got it. You’ve got two calls scheduled tomorrow, one in the morning and one in the afternoon.”

“Who’s the morning call?”

Bridget consulted her notes. “ Smith , Jones and Lambert .”

Lola wrinkled her nose. “ They’re still dicking us around on the Chambers deal. Push them to the afternoon, and if they whine about it, you can remind them they’ve rescheduled no less than four times in the last two months.”

Bridget made the note. “ Got it.”

“Anything else I need to know about?”

Bridget shook her head. “ I have to lean on one of the junior associates today; okay if I invoke your name?”

“Go for it,” Lola told her. “ Need me to stroll through the cube farm looking scary?”

“Hopefully it won’t come to that, but I’ll let you know.”

“Good deal.” Her phone chirped, signaling an incoming text. She glanced up at Bridget . “ Anything else?”

Bridget shook her head and rose. “ That’s it.”

“Thanks, Bridget .” Lola said absently as she picked up her phone.

Dress fitting at 4:30. Don’t be late!

“Shit,” she muttered. She’d forgotten. A quick glance at the time made her curse again. She could make it, but she was going to have to scramble. I’ll be there , she typed back, then grabbed her purse, gathered her files, and darted out the door.

* * *