“This movie sure as hell couldn’t be further from my life,” she murmured to herself, settling back into the pile of cushions.
She’d never had a “normal” life, certainly not according to her father. She’d grown sick and tired of hearing him ask why she couldn’t get a normal job, like a secretary or a schoolteacher. Why she didn’t do what he felt was a woman’s duty in life and settle down with a good God-fearing man, get married and have babies. Those ideas had been shoved so hard down her throat, she’d gotten into the habit of rejecting them purely because they were his—that and his lack of expecting anything else from her—anything more—because she was female.
Most of her thirty-one years had been spent fighting those ideas, first by dating musicians and losers, then, in a more positive effort, by becoming a strong, self-supporting woman. She’d built that strength like a shield around her. And now Duff was trying to get in.
It was not happening. Even if every inch of her skin ached for his touch. Even if her stomach fluttered every time she let his name roll through her brain.
Not. Happening.
She massaged her forehead, flipping the channel until she found an action film, and lost herself in flying bullets and speeding cars. And to the sound of ringing gunshots, she fell asleep.
? ? ?
TUESDAY MORNING AND afternoon dragged as Layla tried to busy herself with packing up some new pieces of sculpture to ship to a gallery—she’d been making her living as a full-time artist since her early twenties—but finally it was time to meet Kitty at The Ruby Slipper Café on Magazine Street.
They’d been going to the café since meeting there five years earlier while waiting to get in for Sunday brunch, chatting until their friends showed up. Then a few months later she’d run into Kitty at The Bastille. Kitty had been new to the kink life at the time, and Layla had taken her under her wing, mentoring her, and they’d become fast friends.
Layla pulled open the door to the café, and the hostess greeted her, along with the homey scents of good, strong chicory coffee and grilled food—comfort food.
“Hi there, Layla. Kitty’s in the back.”
“Thanks, Rochelle.”
She moved past the high polished-steel counter that made a U-shaped curve in the middle of the café, seeing Kitty’s pale blond head bowed over the menu at a table by one of the tall windows. Kitty looked up as she approached, the sun lighting her blue eyes.
“Hey, honey.” Kitty stood and gave her a quick hug before settling back into her chair. Her friend was a gorgeous, proudly curvy girl who always wore corsets to accent her hourglass figure at the club, but today she was dressed in work attire: black slacks and a sleeveless pink silk blouse.
Layla sat down across from her. “You’re looking at the menu? Don’t we both have it memorized by now?”
“Of course I do, but I always like to think I’ll order something different than my usual barbecued shrimp and grits and some iced coffee. What about you? You having that salad you like?”
Layla shook her head. “It’s a bananas Foster French toast kind of day.”
Kitty put down her menu. “Uh-oh. That can only mean you either have something to celebrate or something bad has gone down, and I take it from the tone of your phone call yesterday this isn’t celebratory French toast.”
“It’s not.” Layla looked out the window at the traffic going by, at a woman walking a dog past the café. “I don’t even know where to start.”
“Honey, you start at the beginning, right? I’m not going anywhere.”
Layla sighed out a long breath. “Okay. You remember that night a while ago when that guy—that big Dom—first showed up at The Bastille with Jamie?”
“The Scottish Dom? How could I forget? That man fills up a room like another wall, only more solid. And that black kilt was just hot. Isn’t he Jamie’s cousin?”
Layla nodded. “Well, I’ve run into him a few more times, and, Kitty, I swear he stares at me like he can see under my clothes or something.”
Kitty shivered. “Was he wearing the kilt again?”
“At the club, yes, every time. He looks just as good in jeans.”
Her friend shook her head. “Now, that’s just not fair. I saw him staring at you. And personally, I don’t think I’d mind that one little bit.”
“I mind. I mind it a lot.”
The waitress stopped by their table, interrupting the conversation, and they gave her their orders.
Kitty leaned into the table. “Layla, why on earth would you mind a hot man being interested in you?”
“Because I’m a Domme, which is obvious to anyone who’s been at the club for more than five minutes. He’s watched me play. Watched me. It’s unnerving. And poor protocol.”
“Is it really poor protocol, honey? Or is there some other reason why it bothers you so much? Either way, I still think it’s flattering.”
“It might be if I were a bottom.”
Kitty was quiet a moment. “Layla, let me ask you this. You’re pretty much straight, right? Not into girls?”
Layla shrugged. “Pretty much, yeah. I mean, you know I only play with girls these days, but it’s not about sex for me.”
“But if a woman came on to you, you’d still be flattered, wouldn’t you? Even if she knew you didn’t swing that way?”
“I guess so. Yes. I would be.”
“Why is this any different?” Kitty asked, her blond brows arched.
“It just is,” Layla insisted. The waitress returned with their iced coffees, giving her a minute to think about Kitty’s reasoning. “Maybe you’re right, Kitty, but he just . . . pisses me off. I can feel his eyes on me at the club. It’s so intrusive.”
“Does he stand there and watch you while you’re in scene? Is he stalker-y?”
“No, that’s not it. He goes off and does his own thing. It’s hard to explain.”
“Apparently,” Kitty teased, pouring milk into her coffee and taking a sip.