His brows went up. “A voyeur?”
“I’m taking a break,” she allowed herself to share.
He shook his head. “Seriously, Evangeline—”
She assumed her Mistress voice and retorted, “Seriously, Clay. I’ll be smart because I am smart. I’ll stay safe because, I’ll repeat, I’m smart. I may not have been there but I can imagine what I’ll find there and if it’s worse than that, so be it. But there’s a reason I have to go and it’s important, or trust me, I wouldn’t go. I’ll do what I need to do and then I’ll get gone.”
He studied her and assumed (correctly), “You’re lookin’ for somebody.”
Evangeline didn’t answer.
“Please tell me it isn’t a sister,” he said quietly.
Yes, Barclay was of the decent variety.
“It isn’t,” she promised.
“Take Mace,” he ordered. “And a crop or a baton, preferably a baton. And not to let it be known which way you swing but to use it if you need to. And Evangeline, babe, use it if you need to. You can beat someone bloody in that scene and they’ll likely be so hopped up, they won’t feel it but they will come while you’re doing it.”
She tried not to sneer but failed.
He caught her sneer and mumbled, “Yeah. No connections there, beautiful. It’s not about the beauty of the life. It’s the embodiment of why the vanilla world thinks we’re all fucked in the head.”
“If you’re done doggin’ my people,” Josh cut in and Barclay and Evangeline looked his way to catch him looking at Evangeline, “I’ll text you when the next one is happening. And if you want me to go with you, I’m there and I’ll do it straight and score after you leave.”
And there was the decent Josh.
“Thanks, Josh.”
“You want me too, darlin’, I’m with you. I’ll give you my number,” Barclay offered. “Just call and I’ll be there.”
She took Barclay’s number because these two were the only two who would know she’d be going. She didn’t intend to go with either one of them because she couldn’t. If she found Branch there, the NDA precluded her from approaching him if anyone she or he knew was around.
But she’d never tell Aryas, Leigh or anyone else in that circle she was going to a Pound. They’d lock her in a playroom at the Honey and torture the idea out of her head (perhaps in ways she might eventually find lovely, but she still couldn’t have it).
So these two—especially, she sensed, Barclay—knowing she was going and on the other end of a phone should things get hairy were better than no one.
So she’d take them.
* * *
It took nearly a week for Josh to text her the details that a Pound was happening that very night.
She had a client that she’d set up five showings for the next day, these starting at nine. This meant getting her game face on and her morning business done after however long it would take her to sort whatever she found (or simply to find it), and probably getting very little to zero sleep was going to hurt.
But in the end, she told herself, it would be worth it.
She knew if she explained what she was doing to anyone, hunting Branch, it would seem crazy to some, creepy to others.
It was only to her, however, that it had to make sense.
But she knew.
Kevin nearly twisted the life she was meant to lead away from her.
She was not hunting Branch with the ludicrous desire she’d move him into the amazing bungalow she’d managed to score in a downturn in the market in the awesome Willo District of Phoenix. After which she’d coax him to take out the trash and honor the appointments he set up to rotate her tires while wearing his rings and planning their future together over Monday Night Football.
What she expected to do was use him to heal her last wounds.
And do it healing his.
All this so they could both move on, perhaps not whole, because she’d only had a chunk taken out of her, but she knew in that one meeting with him that he’d had great masses torn away from him.
But they would still move on.
If that was together, and he turned out to be the guy who deserved it, she’d be open to it.
If not, they’d still both come away, if not whole, then resurrected.
It was a miracle she even wanted that for herself.
What was more, and what she needed to accomplish to heal herself, it would be an even bigger miracle if she could pull it off for Branch.
* * *
Therefore, after negotiating the massive gravel lot in her platform pumps, and handing over two hundred dollars in cash (criminal), she entered the flashing lights and hammering music of the Pound.
She did this without even a single one of the seven enormous security guys who loitered outside the side door to the premises giving her anything but leers at her ass, breasts and hair.
Not one of them even held a metal detector wand.
Which meant there could be anything in there.
Drugs, she knew.
Booze, she was told was sold at a makeshift bar.
But also guns (it was Arizona).
Anything.
She just hoped like heck Branch was also in there.
So she could get him the fuck out.
five
Ma’am
EVANGELINE
It would seem Evangeline had a vivid imagination, because nothing in the Pound shocked her stupid.
Although it was loud and dark (when the makeshift lights weren’t flashing), filthy and crowded, it was all actually humdrum.
It was simply the sheer numbers of people engaged in all of it that was kind of shocking (not to mention, she couldn’t imagine how any of them had come up with two hundred dollars cash just to get in).
But nothing she saw was enough to shock her stupid.
Of course, she’d never seen a drug sale go down in her life so she was a little taken aback when she saw her first, then her second, and her third (all this before she carefully traversed the length of just one side of the warehouse).
But other than that, she’d seen all the positions, the multiple partners, live fellatio and cunnilingus, toy play, blood play, burn play, cat/whip/crop/switch play, homosexual, heterosexual, pansexual activities at the Honey.
And it was far more beautiful to watch there than here, with sweating, grunting, glassy-eyed subs and Doms clumsily careening to lazily navigated orgasms that meant absolutely nothing.
No.
It wasn’t shocking.
It was sad.
And although she did carry a small can of Mace in the sleek black handbag with its short strap that kept it tucked right under her arm, as well as a baton in her hand, as Barclay had advised, she had nothing to worry about.
At five foot eight (but only because she was wearing her six-inch aubergine platforms), she towered above these BDSM heathens not due to her increased height.
Like she was a goddess in tight leather pants and a black Chantilly lace blouse with the boned, silk strapless bustier underneath it.
No one approached.
If any of them were aware enough of their surroundings to catch sight of her, they stared at her like it was Aryas Weathers himself who was there to inspect the minions, tutting at how his flock had been lost, offering salvation with a look.
This made the whole thing even sadder.
And it made her stomach roil in fear that she might actually find Branch here. Tall and fit and beautiful in his broken way, his cavorting with these lost souls would be a travesty.
As much as it would be frustrating she’d driven all the way out there, handed over two hundred dollars of hard-earned cash and been subjected to this wretchedness, she felt, after pass two around and through the warehouse with no sight of him, her heart getting lighter.
She didn’t condone it (far from it) but he could probably find a prostitute to give him what he was looking for.
As for her, if the night was a bust, she had one final resource to tap.
She’d been avoiding it but the only one who knew about Branch was also the only one who’d probably know how to get in touch with Branch.
So she was going to have to do some fancy footwork to get Aryas to lead her to Branch.
And she had a feeling this would need to be serious fancy footwork because if Branch didn’t want anyone to find him, Evangeline had a feeling even Aryas would think twice (or five times) about going against his wishes.