17. Declan
Chapter seventeen
Declan
I 'm not sure if setting Serenity up to work in my home office with me was a good idea.
She said she wanted to feel useful, so I thought giving her some of the more benign admin work would keep her mind busy. But it's having the opposite effect on me. I can barely read two sentences of my email before my eyes are drawn back up to her. She's sitting turned slightly away so she can't see me staring at her unless she turns her head. I can't quite place what it is about her that draws my eye so much.
Her hair is in a tight braid, so I can trace the curve of her temple, the soft hairs on the nape of her neck. My eyes drag greedily over the sweet curve of her ear, the soft curve of her neck, the length of her collarbone. There isn't an inch of her I don't want to trace with my tongue.
She's wearing business clothes that Vivek bought for her. They're high end, and while the white button-down shirt tucked into a tight black skirt plays into every office fantasy I've ever had, they don't fit her. They don't match her. I know Vivek bought them for me to enjoy, but they don't fit her entire nervous, shy, inexperienced vibe. She looks like if Cinderella dressed up as a madame.
I snort at the comparison, and her eyes shoot up to mine.
I clear my throat.
"What's got you thinking so hard? They're only background checks."
We get applications for membership every day and try to keep our numbers stabilized, but we do background checks on everyone in our backlog, eliminating them early in the process to make room for better choices.
She chews on her pencil, her bottom lip denting in a way that is so fucking innocently sexy.
She hesitates for a moment, unsure if she wants to tell me or not. She doesn't trust me, and I hate that.
"I'm looking up prostitution law in DC."
I raise an eyebrow at her and her eyes widen. "Oh. Shit. I'm sorry, I got sidetracked. I'll focus on the background checks again. I'm sorry."
Her cheeks pinken as she lowers her head back to the laptop in front of her.
I stand and walk to her, leaning my hip against her table.
"Tell me why." It's not quite my dom voice, but I'm testing giving her orders; how obedient she is. Maybe she'll be a brat, and a total turn off.
She chews the end of her pencil again, looking up at me with those huge blue eyes. I gently take the pencil from her mouth and wait for her. She sighs. "Well, I was thinking about what you told me - how you provide a safe space to explore. But then my ADHD got the better of me and I started to wonder if instead of just providing a safe space you could provide the experience. So, I looked at the ten most popular porn sites on the internet and the most popular categories are stepsiblings or stepparents and cheating wives." She taps the notebook next to her with lists of categories of kink, in order. "So, then I was looking up prostitution law because we all know about the DC Madame, so she must have had a loophole. But I can't find one. I was thinking we could hire people to play the stepsibling, stepparent role." She taps her pencil against the desk in rhythm, still clearly lost to her mind.
"What if we had bracelets to identify what kind of step-role the person was interested in? Like... blue for a stepmom wanting a stepson? Green for a step-brother-and-sister type situation? And trust the members to role play? That's a thing, right? Role playing in the bedroom? And then the wives thing sorts itself and we can just have a themed night for married couples who are willing to share."
She looks up at me with nervous anticipation.
I'm floored. Setting up the format of the business, the financials, the background checks, the marketing, and the legality of running a membership like we do was years in the making. Creating a safe space like this is innovative. We're the only club of this caliber in DC. We did research into other clubs and their offerings, but they never took it to the next level.
"Matching kinks?"
"Oh! That's a great idea! What if we have everyone fill out their kinks or what they're looking for that night, since I'm assuming kinks change? And then we can notify them with like those little buzzers at restaurants when your table is ready, and they can meet their kink partner in one of the rooms!"
I sit and watch her in silence, admiring how willing she is to push boundaries and go to the next level. It's not enough to have a successful club, she wants to offer experiences unique to the individual. And she's right. Stepsibling porn is popular but how many people actually have stepsiblings they could engage with sexually? It's the taboo nature of it that's appealing. The fear of getting caught. The excitement of doing something you know you're not supposed to.
Could we replicate that in the club environment? Would people want to? Would it be too much to play act?
There's only one way to find out.