Chapter 4
HARPER
Nate leads me back to the hallway. We pass several doors and I can’t stop myself from trying to see inside each, my curiosity piqued. I stumble a little when we pass what looks like a classroom, complete with student desks and a blackboard. Nate grins down at me a wicked glint in his eyes.
“Some of our members like role playing,” he says. “A few of the rooms can be fixed up into different settings to help with the mood.”
I barely have time to wonder what other “settings” might be lurking in this building before Nate is pulling me along again, not stopping until we reach a large plexiglass window. “Oh good,” he says. “They’re about to start.”
“Start?”
Before I can peer through the window, Nate pulls me into a nearby doorway. This room is empty and small, barely larger than a closet. But one entire wall is glass, giving us a view into the room whose window we had just passed.
“They can’t see us,” Nate says, drawing me closer to the window. “One-way glass.” As I peer into the room, I can see that the opposite walls are mirrored and wonder if that, too, is one-way glass.
“There are…there are other rooms like the one we’re in?” I ask, my throat dry.
He nods. “You can either watch from the hallway or from a viewing room, and there are several.”
“Why?”
He grins. “In case you want more privacy than the hallway provides.”
My throat goes completely dry. We’re alone in here, just the two of us, about to watch who the hell knows what.
“I thought you might want to see the other side of the coin,” he murmurs, once again stepping behind me. He tilts my chin towards the glass and his voice is amused. “Look around. I’m sure this will be very enlightening for your studies.”
There’s a padded bench placed in the center of the room.
Waist high, it appears to be made of wood and covered in red leather, with several cuffs attached in various places along the legs.
I watch in fascination as a fully dressed man enters the room.
He’s wearing jeans and a white tee, his face partially obscured by shadow.
He walks to a counter top, running his fingers over whatever is set there, arranging things I can’t see in the dim shadow of the room.
Then she appears in the same doorway. The woman is tall and willowy, blond hair pulled up into a tight bun high on her head, dressed in a short black robe. She makes me think of a dancer, all long limbs and graceful movement.
The man walks to her, smiling, holding out his hand as she makes her way to meet him near the bench. I can see them both much more clearly— the lights in the room must be directly over the bench, obviously the point of focus in the room. I swallow.
The man slips the woman’s robe off, revealing her naked form.
He kisses her once, on the forehead, and then gestures at the bench.
I’ve read enough on the subject to have a pretty good idea of what I’m about to witness, and my heart beats wildly in my chest, so hard that I’m starting to feel dizzy.
As if he can tell, Nate tightens his arms around me.
“How much would you like to hear?” he asks.
“Hear?”
He nods against my shoulder. “There’s an audio feed from the performance room,” he explains. “As well as from the other viewing rooms.”
I freeze in his arms. In the room, the woman kneels over the bench so that her chest is flush against the leather. “Can the other rooms hear us?”
He shakes his head. “Only if I turn on our feed. Which I won’t do, not tonight.”
I nod, relieved, as the man in the room begins the task of securing the woman’s arms and legs to the cuffs. “I think I’d like to hear.”
Nate reaches out to press a few buttons. There’s a static sound in our room and then the voices come through. Murmured tones from what I assume are the other viewing rooms. And the sound of the man’s voice in the performance room as he continues with the straps.
“You’re doing beautifully,” he tells the woman. “What are your safe words?”
“Yellow to slow down and red to stop.”
She’s strapped in place now and he kneels down in front of the bench, his face even with hers, and kisses her lightly on the mouth. “Very good.”
The man stands and walks to a small table where he picks up a rope-like object. A whip.
Shit. I feel suddenly weak in the knees, uncertain if I really want to see this. Then he raises the whip above his head and I slam my eyes shut. It doesn’t stop me from hearing the swift whistle of the leather, or the sickening sound of it hitting her flesh. Or her small cry of pain.
There’s an appreciative sigh from the speakers, the faceless strangers in the other viewing rooms reacting to the scene.
“Harper,” Nate says softly, his mouth right next to my ear. “Harper, open your eyes.”
There’s a part of me that’s scared to do as he asks, to confront what’s happening through that window.
To confront the way it makes me feel. But there’s a command in Nate’s tone, as soft as his voice had been, and there’s something inside me—deep inside, in a place I’ve always been too afraid to examine closely—that insists I do as he asks.
His gaze is steady when I turn to look at him over my shoulder.
“He’s not abusing her. I promise,” he says, voice both soothing and authoritative.
Just the sound of it sends shivers across my bare arms. “I want you to watch this. I want you to watch her.” When I don’t immediately turn back to the glass, a small smile tugs up the corners of his mouth. “Trust me.”
I do trust him. As crazy as that is, trusting this man I barely know, I can’t deny it.
Out in the front room, I’d gotten the impression that Nate wants to look after me.
That he cares about me. And I know, in this moment, as the whistle of the whip once again breaks through the silence, that my impression was true.
I turn back to the glass just in time to see the whip biting into the skin of her ass. Again, she cries out, her eyes squeezed tightly closed. My gaze is drawn to the red marks appearing on her skin, easy to see under the bright spotlight over the bench.
“Her face,” Nate whispers, as if he can tell where my concentration is. “Look at her face, Harper.”
I do as he asks, trying to focus on her expression, to look for a clue as to how she might be feeling.
Her brows are furrowed, lips clenched in a tight line while she waits for the next blow.
It hurt her, that’s obvious from the way she cried out when she was struck.
But her eyes are open now, bright under the lights, gazing in our direction.
I know our window is mirrored on her side, but still she seems to be watching us like I’m watching, her eyes fixed directly on our glass.
She’s panting, the rise and fall of her shoulders against the leather almost eager.
As I watch, she wiggles her ass a little bit, and I get the distinct impression that she’s trying to create some friction between her legs.
“She likes it,” I whisper.
Nate tightens his arms around me. “She does,” he says softly. “Many in the lifestyle enjoy whip play. And if it gets too intense for her, she has a safe word. Her partner will stop the second he hears it. She’s in no danger.”
“But she is in pain,” I argue.
“The line between pleasure and pain is thinner than most think. For some of us, pain increases the pleasure. Heightens it.”
I watch for a minute more, absolutely enthralled now. Just as with the blindfolded woman, I find something beautiful about this scene. The way her partner seems to know her body, anticipating her every response. The way she trusts him so fully, to be completely at his mercy. It’s thrilling.
And so fucking hot.
“She likes it,” I say again, my voice stronger this time.
And with those words a weight seems to lift from my chest. All those years of wondering about this, of trying to ignore the dark fantasies.
Of trying to convince myself that I don’t want those things, that I can’t want them, that they’re wrong.
Watching this woman give herself so completely, the trust so plain on her face, the sounds of appreciation I can still hear from the other viewing rooms, knowing that other people feel this too, that I’m not the only one…
the weight of the guilt I’ve carried seems to fade away with the sounds of her cries.
“So now you know how she’s feeling,” Nate murmurs in my ear. “How do you feel?”
“I…I feel…” I don’t know how to explain this to him, how to describe the sensation that’s filling me as I stare at the woman’s face. “I feel good,” I finally whisper, the word in no way big enough to encompass the depth of this feeling, this relief.
“Good is good,” he replies, laughter in his voice. He pulls me back tighter against his chest and I can feel the warmth of him seeping through my dress. “Can you elaborate?
I concentrate on that warmth, on the feel of him behind me, so strong and solid. I shift a little and feel his obvious hardness brush against me. I gasp. “Excited,” I blurt out. “It makes me feel excited.”
He pulls me tighter still, and I can feel his erection pressed against my lower back. He’s hard and the feel of it sends a thrill of desire through me.
“Aroused?” he whispers.
“Yes.”
His lips brush softly against my neck and I have to clutch his forearms to keep myself standing, my knees feel so weak. He’s so close. So warm. So hard. Good Lord, what is he doing to me?
“Do you ache, Harper?”
Oh, God.
“Yes,” I whisper, leaning back against him. “So much.”
“Let me help you with that.”
I freeze in his arms. “What do…what?”
One of his arms slips from the protective circle he’s holding me in. Then his hand is slipping down, across my stomach over the thin fabric of my dress. “I can make you feel better, Harper.”
Holy shit. Holy shit. Is he actually offering to—