40. Hailey
“I’ve never been in this section before,” I whisper over my shoulder as Arlo takes my coat and hands it to a large man, who it seems is in charge of welcoming guests and taking their coats.
“I know.” Arlo’s lips brush my earlobe, and I shiver. Already the pull of being in this place…with him by my side has my most intimate parts heavy and hot.
His hand presses to the small of my back. It’s skin-on-skin contact. My black skirt is knee-length and flowing, but my top is cropped just under my boobs. It’s cut low too, revealing most of my monsters.
“How do you know?” My voice is still low and cautious.
Yes, I’ve been to Crave many times, always with the highest levels of anonymity in place. Tonight is new.
“You started in the private rooms, Siren, bound and blindfolded from the first. I wasn’t quite so bold. It took me time to work my way there.” He ushers me into what, at first glance, appears to be a lush gentleman’s club for the New York elite. The kind where cigars are smoked and businesses are made and destroyed. “No matter how many times I came, I never saw you here.”
“You looked for me?” My cheeks heat.
“After I knew to look. Every time.”
The walls and ceilings are painted the same deep color that looks black at first glance but hold tints of navy at certain angles and hunter green in others. It drips with architectural features like molding and bas-relief sculptures of women and men embedded in the walls. Each depiction is a person in an elegantly compromised position.
It all lends to a decadent feel.
We weave past a casual seating area of club chairs and low tables atop thick rugs. People of every race, gender, orientation, and nationality carry on conversations as though there isn’t a man hanging from the ceiling hugged by a harness in the center of the clusters.
The man is short and lean and naked as the day he was born. He’s also at the mercy of…everyone. His face is awash in lust as a man nibbles up the inside of his thigh and a woman sucks his fingers into her mouth.
His cock head is soaked in precum.
“Want a taste?” Arlo’s unique voice filters in through my ears and smacks into my brain.
My head whips around to find his gaze bouncing between me and the slowly tortured man.
“No.”
“You can, if you want.” His voice is rich and enticing. Like a honeyed trap.
“I don’t want.” I shove at his shoulder, urging him on and away from the groups.
“Suit yourself.” He grins, grabs my hand, and tugs me along behind him.
I think my intellect leaked out my ears and left a mess on the floor back there, kind of like the suspended man. My mouth opens and closes several times. My eyes follow suit, focusing and losing the back of Arlo’s head at a steady beat.
Surely, he was just fucking with me. Right?
We pass a circle bar made of veiny wood with green velvet stools with backs. A well-dressed bartender offers us a warm smile while a woman in a crisp suit eyes us with definite interest.
Arlo pulls me to his side. “How about her?”
My eyes go wide. “What about her?”
“I’m sure she’d give you a taste or just be happy to taste you.”
I search his face for the joke. His features are serious. My mouth opens once more, but only a squeak comes out.
“Too much?” He kisses my forehead. “I’ll calm down.”
There’s a slightly raised stage with a man securing intricately knotted ropes across a woman’s small breasts. I urge Arlo past it, which is where I think he was headed anyway, then yank him into a dark alcove.
His lips descend on mine before I can get a word out. He holds my face and tilts my chin where he wants it, sweeping his tongue over mine as though it’s the first time. It is since we’ve come back together earlier today. The hours since then have been a whirlwind, and I’m still swept up in the gale.
I shove at his shoulders, and he eases back.
“Are you fucking with me, or are you trying to prove a point?” I don’t give him a chance to answer. My hands go to his lapel, and I yank him forward and down to my level. “I don’t want anyone else. I want you.”
His jaw flexes, and his gaze flashes in the low light.
“Will you let yourself have me?” he snarls.
Again, my voice is worthless.
“I’m not proving a point, Hailey. Not yet. But I will.” He bites my lower lip and pulls me close. “You are more important to me than anything. Your wants and needs come first. If you need the bench, I’ll give it to you. If you need more cock or another cunt to play with, the same rules apply. If you hadn’t safed out when I was away for work, I wouldn’t have stopped caring about you.”
“We weren’t together then.”
“Even if we had been, it wouldn’t change the way I feel about you.” He kisses my lips but pulls away too soon.
“I…I don’t understand.”
“For so many, love is conditional. I’ll love you if… That’s fine for them. Not for me. I love you unconditionally, Hailey. I hope you’re ready for it.”
My heart beats in my pussy.
With that, he tugs me along to a velvet-covered door at the back of the large room. It’s not the only door along the back and side walls. In fact, there are quite a few. This one is the only one with velvet.
He throws the door open as though he’s the king of the castle. I stall in the threshold, not knowing what to expect.
“You’re late.” A voice booms in the room. I recognize Dobson from his accent first. When my gaze finds him, he’s leaning over the back of a tufted velvet couch that looks like it belongs in a Victorian mansion, a modernized one.
He’s wearing a thick wool suit, but his tie is pulled loose around his opened collar. To his left, Karris’s blond hair gleams in the low light pouring from the fire set under the ornate mantel, inset lights in the ultra-high ceiling, and a couple of lamps on furniture pieces that likely cost more than my office mortgage.
Karris turns with a glass of whiskey in his hand and a smile on his face. “You’re gorgeous and forgiven.”
My gaze narrows. “Me or him?” I point between myself and Arlo.
“Both,” Hotaru answers. He stands from his spot on the short section of the L-shaped couch and heads toward a minibar under a massive painting of a lion accentuated in gold leaf.
My cheeks, which haven’t gotten this hot since I had a crush on Dylan Frontner in third grade and my dad found out, downright burn.
Hota stops in front of a row of decanters with small portions of liquid in each and looks over his shoulder. “A drink?”
My mouth goes dry. Three beautiful men stare at me like they know something I don’t. Because I don’t. I don’t have a clue what’s going on. “Make it a double.”
Dobson’s laugh is full. It echoes off the walls.
Arlo kisses the back of my hand and leads us fully into the room, closing the door behind him. “Go, make yourself comfortable.” He swats my ass and heads toward the minibar.
Fat chance.
I’m sure my shoulders are up to my ears, and I’ll be sore tomorrow from…My body flushes the approximate temperature of the center of the earth. From all the tension.
That’s it.
“Come.” Karris sweeps his hand toward the intimate arrangement of two L-shaped couches and a low coffee table made of solid obsidian. “Have a seat. We won’t bite.”
“I might,” I snap, feeling exposed but also so fucking aroused it hurts.
“Lucky us.” Karris grins.
The man is always smiling or smirking, but it never looks particularly inviting.
“Leave her alone.” Dobson stands and offers me a smile. It’s warm and cute. The man reminds me of a teddy bear, big and cuddly, who could also kill you with one swipe of his paw. He walks around to me and offers his bent elbow.
I look up and up some more to meet his gaze. Hazel eyes meet mine. He gives me a wink. Tentatively, I place my hand in the crook of his arm.
“I love your monsters.” He cocks his head toward my mostly bare front, and I regret dressing quite so boldly this evening. Only because I’m off familiar footing.
“Thank you. I do too.” I follow him around to the other couch, where he deposits me, seeming to know I need distance from everyone right now.
He retreats to his original seat but can’t sit. Karris’s outstretched legs rest in the spot. Again, the blond’s sinister smile alights, only this time at the big man. It’s a challenge, or he’s baiting him.
Dobson kicks Karris’s feet off the couch and sits.
Karris’s eyes shift to me. They travel every exposed line and furl. “How bad did they hurt?”
Less than this.
“On a scale from one to ten,” he adds when I don’t immediately answer.
“Two to three, with the sternum and ribs, hit a six.” I shrug. “All in all, very manageable.”
“This isn’t the first time I’ve seen you, but the first learning you have tattoos,” Dobson points out.
“I like having secrets from the world.” I swipe my hair back over my shoulder.
“Don’t we all.” Karris practically kisses the side of his glass as he takes a sip. His words are for me, but his gaze is sharp on Dobson for the barest of seconds.
“Hailey.” Hota holds a couple of fingers of dark liquid out for me. “I can get you some wine if you’d rather.”
“Nope.” I snatch the glass from his hand and toss half of it back in one go. Bourbon isn’t my usual drink of choice, but it’s fitting for this off-kilter evening.
“Okay then.” His gaze is on my face. It’s like he’s going to say something, like he’s drawn to speak, but he gives me a small nod, then sits in his original spot on the other couch.
“Okay then.” I sip the drink this time and level my gaze on each man in turn, even Arlo, as he slowly makes his way to sit to my left. “How often do you fellas come here?”
They share a glance among them. I knew I was on the outside peeking in this evening, but it hasn’t been more apparent than right now. One by one, their gazes meet Arlo’s. So mine does too.
“Before you, once a week. After you, not at all.” Someone snorts, and I think it’s Karris. “Not like this,” he amends. “I came only for you, but the boys amused themselves from time to time.” Arlo’s eyes meet Hota before coming back to me. “Most of them, anyway.”
My heartbeat feels like it’s the first chair in the percussion section of the orchestra. I’m sure they can all hear its frantic staccato.
I toss back the last of my drink and set the glass on the black table. Perched on the edge of the fancy couch, as though ready to make a clean getaway, if necessary, I face Arlo.
“And what is it you boys do here, together, like this?”
Arlo looks amazingly unruffled, especially to how I’d seen him earlier today, in front of his parents’ and brother’s graves. His shoulders are down and back. Both his elbows are draped over the couch as though he is the master of this domain.
It hits me like his right hook.
He is the master.
He didn’t do touch, but touch isn’t a requirement for dominance.
My knees go weak. Moisture floods my sorry excuse for panties. My drumming heart picks up the tempo.
“I’d like to show you, Hailey. If you’ll let me.” His gorgeous fucking face kicks to the side. His gaze follows the line of my cheek, down my neck, and over my breasts and to my hips, before finding my eyes again. “Will you trust me? Really trust me?”
My gaze flies to the other men in the room. Each of them looks totally at ease, calm and self-assured. I stare at Arlo the longest, searching for signs that this will fuck us up beyond repair. Then I remember that I was willing to do that just a few hours ago. So what can this hurt?
“Yes, Arlo, I trust you.”
“Good fucking girl.” His hand clamps onto the back of my neck and he drags me until I brace my hand on his chest to keep from falling. His mouth is pressed to mine. He takes his time kissing me as though we’re not in a room with his best friends, like we’re not in the midst of a major limbo.
He kisses me like he is mine and I am his.
Then as soon as it started, it’s over. He tucks me into his side and asks Dobson about a meeting he had today. That flows into other conversations about work. It’s all very sedate. I notice they steer clear of the gala as a topic, which I appreciate. The conversation leads into talk of Dobson apartment hunting.
“What kind of place are you looking for?” I ask. “My aunt is thinking about leasing her place. It’s gargantuan by New York standards and in The Sherry Netherland. Beautiful views of Central Park. A balcony that runs the length of the building.”
“That would be one hell of an upgrade.” Dobson nods.
“Hell, the cardboard box the guy out back of my building has going would be an upgrade.” Karris shakes his head.
Dobson flips him off. “Not all of us come from money, arsehole.”
There’s a collective look around the room, and from it, I gather that Karris comes from a lot of money, while Dobson does not. I’d be inclined to say Hota doesn’t either, but he’s not so easy to read. I’m not quick to judge Karris on it, though. I learned the hard way, from Arlo, that money doesn't equate to happiness.
“Yeah, but you have enough to buy your own building on the Upper East Side,” Karris protests.
“Has had enough to do that for the past decade,” Hota points out. “I think he’s kept his shoebox apartment just to piss you off, Kare Bear.”
“Aw! I used to watch the Care Bears reboot when I was little,” I beam.
Karris glowers while the others laugh.
The mood is good. Much more relaxed than earlier. The bourbon I drank has worked into my brain, easing my worries. Arlo’s possessive hold does the rest.
“Can we change the subject?” Karris gripes, and his growl turns into a grin. “Hailey, your aunt is hot.”
“Yes, she is.” I laugh.
“Karris?” Arlo’s voice rasps by my ear.
“Yeah?” The blondie hikes a sinister brow.
“That’s the second time you’ve said it, and no disrespect to Natalia, but I think you need a refresher course on hot.” Arlo hoists me off the couch, while somehow still maintaining his reclined position.
Suddenly I’m standing in front of four beautiful men, all vastly different in their personalities and looks. I lift my chin, refusing to cower, though my fucking legs might give out at any moment.
“That’s my siren.” Arlo purrs. “Stand here and face me.”
He points at the space between his spread knees.
It’s too easy to obey him.
“Good.” He smiles up at me. “Now, bend at the hips and kiss me.”
I do. It’s as easy as breathing. His lips meld to mine, and I forget everything but him. That is until his hands move to my ass. He gathers the material of my skirt toward my hips. It rises from my knees up higher and higher an inch at a time.
“What are you doing?” Breathing is suddenly not so easy.
“What I want.” He gives me one of those heady sounds of delight from deep in his throat. “You remember your safe word?”
I nod, completely incapable of forming a single sound.
“You can stop me any time.” He kisses me and nips at my lips. “Tell me you understand.”
I don’t understand anything.
Except that I’m high as hell on Arlo’s commands.
“I understand.” I poke my ass out just before he exposes me.
“Good girl.” He hikes my skirt up, fully revealing the swell of my ass, the crack of my cheeks split by my thong, and the whites of my thighs covered only in sheer black stockings. “How wet is your pussy?”
I gasp. He asked the question so loud. Loud enough for everyone in the room to hear. Syllables catch in my throat.
“Fucking soaked from where I’m sitting.” Dobson’s voice is heavy with his accent and maybe lust.
My body reacts to the sound, going into overdrive. The thunderous beat of my heart radiates from my nipples to my cunt.
“I asked Hailey.” Arlo smiles. “If she can’t tell me how wet she is, then one of you will have to show me.”
A moan slips out. But still no words.
“I’d be happy to help you, Hailey,” Karris offers. “After all, I was the one who started this by talking about your aunt. She’s hot. No question. You are art turned flesh.”
I don’t know if it’s a compliment. My clit takes it as one, pulsing wildly.
Arlo presses his mouth to mine and kisses me so long and hard, I forget where I am and what’s going on. Then a second set of hands are on my skin. Fingertips slide over the swell of my ass, then up toward my spine. I wrench my lips away from Arlo to shriek, but there’s a smile on his lips and a glint in his eye that dares me to speak.
“I don’t think I’ve ever felt smoother skin.” Karris’s fingers slip into the top band of my panties.
My eyes go wide, but still Arlo holds my gaze, cool and confident.
“What is happening?” I sound husky and thoroughly fucked, though I’ve barely been touched.
“Whatever I want.” His tongue swipes over my lips, and then between them.
The lacy elastic of my panties slips down over my cheeks, and then without warning goes the other way. Up, higher and higher, pulling on my pussy lips, splitting my crack.
I moan, bold and brash, unable to call it back.
The look of unadulterated desire it paints on Arlo’s face steals my already choppy breath.
Karris drags my panties down once more, and then up, sharper, harder.
“Oh, fuck.” I grip Arlo’s collar and pull him close. But I’m closer. I’m so close to coming, I can’t complete the mental gymnastics of how it’s possible or what it will mean if his friend makes me come.
“That’s it, Siren.” He reaches up and pinches my right nipple. “Show him how responsive you are. Then he can show me how wet my pussy is.”
Pressure gathers in my belly. A fine sheen of sweat breaks out over my breasts. Breathing is hard, though air flies in and out of my lungs with amazing force. It’s almost too much to gain any relief.
Karris, damn him, twists my panties around his hand and shakes them side to side. Arlo works on my nipple. Heat flushes my chest and belly. My thighs quiver. I feel the impending forest fire. Embers dance overhead. Billowy smoke encapsulates us. The unmistakable crackle creeps closer and closer.
“Give it to me, Siren. I’ll share it with Karris. Make him feel good like the best girl you are,” Arlo goads.
He tweaks both nipples. Karris releases his hold, then pulls high and tight with a flick of his wrist.
“Arlo, oh fuck!” I writhe, my hips pumping along the string of fabric splitting my lips and massaging my clit. “Yes, Arlo. Oh God.”
I go up on my toes, and my body curves in on itself as if trying to reshape my bones. Pleasure pulses through me, stronger than the bourbon.
My face sinks against his face as I come down from the delicious heat.
“Jesus, fuck.” Karris releases the death grip on my panties. “I’ve never seen a woman come so easily.”
I’d respond, but I’m barely coherent. When he moves the fabric down my legs, I lose all semblance of thought.
“She’s easy to please.” Arlo kisses my cheek. “Easier to love.” He says it where anyone can hear, but it’s for my ears alone.
Gentle pressure at my feet has me lifting my stilettos one at a time. I ease up enough to see Karris run the fabric up my legs and over my ass.
“Soaking wet.” He winks at me and then hands the sodden cloth to Arlo. “Thank you, Sir.”
“My pleasure.” Arlo nods, and then Karris returns to his seat. His cheeks are pink, and there’s a bulge in the front of his trousers.
“Holy shit.” I breathe.
My lover drops my skirt. “We’re just getting started.”
He turns me to face the men. Karris isn’t the only one tenting his pants. Arlo pulls me back onto his lap against his swollen cock.
“Start slow tonight. Be sure and let her see everything.” I jerk my gaze to Arlo, but then yank it back to Dobson, who stands, adjusts his pants, and walks to a rear door I hadn’t noticed.
I think he’s about to leave, like he’s the only one with sense among us, but no, he opens the door and takes the hand of a woman. She’s short and curvaceous in a pretty flowered dress and a black satin blindfold.
“Miss?” Dobson holds out his hand, and she fumbles to find it. He lets her. It’s all part of the game. “Do you consent to take three cocks this evening in any hole and order of our choosing?”
If I thought I was dumbfounded earlier, baby, I hadn’t seen nothin’ yet.
“Yes.” The woman chirps as though she’s picking flowers at the farmers’ market.
“Do you have a safe word?” Dobson continues.
“Yes. It’s Nimbus. I won’t need it.” Hot damn, she’s so sure of this. While I am glad to be sitting in Arlo’s arms. If I wasn’t, I’d be on the floor…again.
I’d only thought I was kinky. I’m pretty damn vanilla. Astor will be shocked to know.
Sure, I’ve counseled throuples and polyamorous partnerships, but I’ve never seen it in the flesh. Hell, I’ve never seen two people fucking that wasn’t through a computer or phone screen before traipsing around the club’s main floor tonight.
“Sure look.” I don’t know what that means, but Dobson guides the woman in and closes the door. When it snaps shut, she grins. He walks her past me and Arlo, flashing me a wink and a smile as he goes and sits her in his former spot on the couch.
Whether the two men on either side of her forget Arlo’s orders or this is slow for them, they each descend on her like a small pack of wolves. Karris goes for her neck while Dobson latches onto the ample swell of her breasts. She falls back into the cushion and sighs her approval.
I can hardly fucking swallow.
“You see, Hailey.” I almost yelp. Arlo’s voice is low in my ear. “Before I could touch…” He splays his hand over my throat, emphasizing the fact that he can and will touch now. “I liked to watch.” He directs my gaze back to the debauchery in front of us. “After all, it’s the only thing I could do. At least, that’s what I thought.”
His teeth nibble a line down my neck as Dobson yanks the woman’s dress down, revealing milky tits with dusky brown nipples. He holds one up for Karris in challenge. The bait is taken. Deep and hard. The woman yelps and whines.
“The boys didn’t mind me watching. It made their experience more exciting. Then one day, I was so horny. I was so hard and mad that I didn’t want to touch, but at the same time, I wanted to feel. I wanted to pull the strings. So I did.” He leans to the left.
“Clothes off, now.” He looks at the three in front of us and then tilts his head toward Hota, who hasn’t moved from his reclined perch. “Except you.”
Hota nods while Karris, Dobson, and even the woman rip at their clothes in a hurry to comply.
Why hadn’t Hota joined in with the woman the second she sat down, like the other two? And why is Arlo making him keep on his clothes?
He and I both have on all of our clothes.
Damn. Most of them.
The guys strip off their clothes, and I feel bad that I don’t have an ample stack of hundreds on hand. It’s a show of flesh and feasting eyes. Karris’s. Dobson’s. Mine. Hota’s. Arlo’s.
Karris is built like a swimmer. Svelte with every striation of every muscle on clear display through his pale, smooth skin. While Dobson…
Shit.
He is the opposite in every way. His muscles are bulked onto his frame. A dusting of hair clings to his wide chest and down his thick abdomen.
“Like what you see?” Arlo prods.
“I’ve seen better.” I lean back and bite his chin, so irritated that he can get me worked up with just his voice. However, there’s much more going on right now.
The woman shucks her flowing dress with zero fanfare. As the naked trio gets rid of their clothes and puts their hands back on each other, I watch her explore their bodies without the use of her eyesight. Her hands grasp and fumble. Her lips purse and stretch. She finds both their ample cocks, grins, and starts stroking them at her sides.
I grind my ass on Arlo’s cock, wanting to feel him inside me.
“The point to all this, my siren, is I am not a jealous man. You’re mine, and therefore I have no cause to be jealous.” He grabs my pussy and yanks me flush with his chest. “You are mine, aren’t you?”
“Yes.” I nod. “Yes, Arlo. I am yours.” I turn my face to his. “And you're mine.”
“Always.”
I want to tell him I love him, but it doesn’t seem like the right time for that. So I give him what I can.
“Then I’m yours, always. Broken bits and all.”
“Not broken. Perfectly unique.” He kisses me with the ease of a Master, confident in his reign, sure of his possession. I let him. I fall into the suck and pull. I let the debauched noises of kissing and sucking that echo around the room flow into my ears and turn my body into an amplifier. I’m moaning against his mouth and writhing on his stowed cock.
He pulls away and turns me to face the trio.
The woman has worked the men’s thick lengths to her mouth. She slathers one with her tongue and open lips, and then the other. Their tips are less than an inch apart. Their fat heads are slick with moisture. My cunt spasms, wondering if their tips will touch.
“If you’re mine,” Arlo rasps, “I can share you with my friends.”
My body goes hot. Well, hotter.
“If I wanted, that could be you, slobbering over their cocks. If you want, you could feel them and fuck them, and I would blow my load watching you.”
My pussy hums. Yet… “I don’t want to be between them.”
“What do you want?”
“Your cock.”
“You’ll have it.” He kisses my lips and then turns my head toward Hota. “But first you owe me orgasms.”
I stare into bottomless eyes and whisper, “Why am I looking at Hota?”
“Because, Hailey, I want you to.”
His friend is utterly still. The curve of his jaw and the pout of his lips are the real art in this room. He’s a still life, threatening to burst forth through the canvas. I can see the desire in his eyes, the restraint too. The utter loyalty to the man at my back.
“Wh…while you make me orgasm?” My voice trembles because I already know the answer.
“No, my siren. While he takes them from you.”