Free Blue Desire by Sindra van Yssel

and
he’d played with a lot of women. He didn’t understand Brandon’s relationship
with Jessica, and he didn’t want to be involved. “She’s not my sub. I don’t
have a sub.”
    “She
said you gave her a corset. Why would you do that if she’s not your sub?”
    Suddenly
it all became clear. Kat must have talked to Jessica at Le Petit Mort, and
misunderstood. “I didn’t give it to her. I sold it to her.”
    Kat
blinked.
    “I
make them,” Brett added.
    “You
made that? It was beautiful!” She had
a look of utter disbelief on her face, and she said it as if the fact that it
was beautiful made it much less likely he had made it.
    Well,
fine. He could use that. “I could show you how I make them, if you like.” Would you like to see my
etchings, ma’am? It occurred to him the misunderstanding could have
all been avoided if he’d told her that fourth vendor table was his, but he hadn’t
wanted to derail the conversation. And he’d found it amusing, he supposed, if
he was honest with himself. Maybe it had all worked out for the best. It
depended on her reaction, which she seemed to be thinking over.
    “Yes,”
she said at last. “I’d like that very much. I have to lug a few amps and talk
to Cindy, and then I’ll meet you here. Figure about a half hour, forty-five
minutes?”
    “I
could help you move your equipment,” Brett offered.
    Kat
hesitated and then nodded. “Thanks. Sure you can deal with following
directions?” She had a glitter of a smile on her face.
    “Yes,
ma’am,” Brett replied back with a grin.
    She
laughed and kissed him right above the eye where Angus had cut him with his
ring. That was a good sign, he thought. He followed her to the stage. Lisa had
definitely been right about him getting out.

Chapter Four
    They
loaded the equipment in Cindy’s SUV because Cindy lived in a house and had a
garage, and that was much better than keeping anything in a hotel. The other
side of that was that Cindy had a day job and had to keep her cell phone on and
answerable during practices. During gigs, at least, she could turn it off.
    Kat
wasn’t that interested in how Brett
made the corsets. But she thought they were incredibly pretty and wondered how
they felt. She’d worn a corset—with plastic boning—before onstage, but she knew
that wasn’t “the real thing” in some sense. It looked hot, but it didn’t
squeeze the way an old-fashioned corset was supposed to. The women she’d seen
at Le Petit Mort looked different. They walked more stiffly, for one thing. She
wondered if they found it harder to breathe. As a singer, anything that made it
harder for her to breathe onstage was out. She wasn’t sure how she felt about
it off-stage. It was kind of hot, she supposed, but she didn’t want to go
fainting like some old Victorian matron.
    “How
much does a corset cost anyway?” she asked. Cindy had been going to give her a
ride home—she was worried about Kat’s car breaking down on the way to the club,
even though it had made it all the way across the country, because it was way
overdue for an oil change and God knew what else—but instead Kat was riding
shotgun in Brett’s car.
    “One of mine?”
    “Yes. For instance. Jessica’s, say.”
    “Well,
I made that one a while ago. But if I was asked today to make a corset like
Jessica’s, I would charge around three hundred and fifty dollars.”
    Kat
didn’t mean to whistle, but she did. She had spent what money she had left on
sound equipment. The gig had paid decently, but she had intended to use that money
to repair her car. Maybe if the second gig went well, she could hire a lawyer
to try to get her money from Kradle , or she could
make sure she had a roof over her head for the next couple of weeks. With that
being the sort of decision she had to make, she definitely didn’t have enough
money to justify buying a corset.
    If
she was being honest with herself, however, her interest was only partly in the
corset. She was using