SIXTEEN
Noah
Charlotte’s reaction to my admission didn’t go unnoticed by me. The shake of her shoulders was subtle, and her lips parted to drag in a breath.
She liked what she’d heard.
Fucking hell. I didn’t just want to explore BDSM more—I wanted to do it with her. She’d been teeming with interest since we’d stepped inside the club, and now it seemed every inch of her was aroused.
If I touched her, what would happen?
Don’t .
I clenched my teeth against the warning firing through my mind because it was pointless. I already knew what was going to happen tonight, what I was going to do. It was inevitable that I’d give up on fighting this thing between us. I couldn’t stop it any more than I could stop a stock from tumbling after a shitty Q4 announcement.
A bead of sweat rolled down the side of Travis’s face as he continued to swing the crop, varying his hits between hard and soft. The stage lights, the exertion, and the needy moans from his partner made him sweat, but what was my excuse?
Sure, it was hot under my suit coat, making my shirt cling to my back, but I was smart enough to know being overdressed had little to do with it. The cause was the blonde girl beside me, the one who was trying so hard not to squirm in her seat.
Did she have the same ache inside her as I did?
I smoothed a hand along the top of my thigh to occupy myself, so I didn’t reach for her.
The sharp slaps of leather meeting skin paused because Travis hooked a finger in the cup of Lilith’s bra and jerked it down. It exposed her small, soft pink nipple to both him and the audience, but not for long. He pinched the bead of skin and pulled, lifting the weight of her breast up and away from her body.
She snagged her bottom lip between her teeth and tried to bring her knees together, but her ankle restraints prevented it. Watching her writhe against her bonds, while her expression announced she was drunk with lust, gave me dark satisfaction.
So far, I’d only waded into the shallow end of the BDSM waters. I’d been controlling and dominating. Used blindfolds and restraints. I could purchase toys and certainly had a hook-up if I wanted to invest in more serious equipment.
My issue had always been finding the right partner, because one of the strengths of the swinger lifestyle was also its biggest drawback. I had to maintain trust with multiple people, balance their desires with my own... and sometimes we didn’t find boundaries until someone inadvertently crossed them.
In New York, I’d played with the same couple for months. They’d told me multiple times what their limits were and reassured me what they wanted and could handle. But one night when I’d sent the wife happily back to husband with my red handprint on her ass, he lost his shit and I never saw them again.
So I’d played it safe since then.
I knew I couldn’t get to the level of trust I’d need with a partner if I held them at arms’ length, so it was unlikely I’d experience anything close to what Travis and Lilith were doing right now. Although I’d accepted that—it didn’t mean my curiosity for it had vanished.
Travis jerked down the other side of her bra so both tits were accessible to him, plumped up by the fabric stretched beneath them. The heart-shaped end of the riding crop caressed gently over her nipples, only to abruptly slap against them.
Each little flinch she gave as he struck her made my pulse jump. Blood pumped hotly through my veins, wanting to flow straight to my dick. The last time I’d seen these two perform, I’d thought it was hot, but bringing Charlotte with me had pushed the heat to another level.
Travis lifted the riding crop, bringing it level with Lilith’s mouth and barked his order. “Open.”
She licked her lips and then complied immediately, opening her mouth so he could set the center of the thin wand between her teeth.
“This stays here,” he said.
Now that his right hand was free, he placed his palm on the center of her chest and coursed a line down her body. It stopped between her legs, and he rubbed her pussy in a stroke that was aggressive enough that she tried to lift onto her toes. But once again, her ankle cuffs prevented that, as did her ‘fuck me’ shoes.
Her groan of satisfaction was muffled by the riding crop gnashed between her teeth, and she stared at him with bottomless eyes.
My mouth went dry.
In all my years and dozens of partners, I’d only had one person look at me like that... and she was seated next to me. The image of Charlotte naked and lying on my kitchen island flashed through my mind, making more heat flare inside me.
But when Travis lowered onto his knees, Lilith’s attention shifted to look at the audience. Like last time, she wasn’t bothered that anyone was watching her. In fact, I sensed she enjoyed it—but not as much as she liked the man watching her in the front row.
In the short time I’d worked with him, it hadn’t taken me long to learn Clay was a guarded, private person. I’d had to earn his trust at every step in the process, and I still wasn’t convinced I’d done that. When I’d gotten the pickup address for the New York order my friends had commissioned, I’d discovered he lived just up the street from my new place.
“Small world,” I’d commented to him.
It had triggered his suspicion-meter in a major way, and it had taken several patient conversations to ease his fears and explain it was just coincidence. I wasn’t interested in him, or going to invade his life, or reveal anything about him to anyone. That wasn’t how I operated.
And it hadn’t been my intent to show him I was with someone else when I’d offered earlier to help him carry the bench in... but I was sure it hadn’t hurt either. Single guys had a bad reputation here and were looked at as predators.
Charlotte gave me legitimacy.
As she watched the couple performing on stage, I watched her with my peripheral vision. When Travis put his mouth on the center of Lilith’s lace panties, I heard Charlotte’s breath stall.
Was she thinking about what that felt like when I’d done it to her our first night together?
Well, fuck. Now I was, too.
More heat and pressure swelled in my slacks, and I finished my drink quickly, like that would somehow stop me from getting any harder.
Travis’s head blocked the view of what exactly he was doing to his partner, but it didn’t take a lot of imagination to figure it out when he pulled the crotch of her panties to the side. Once again, her moan was filtered through the crop clamped between her teeth, and her head lolled to rest against the side of her extended arm.
The crowd was restless as we watched Travis fuck her with his tongue. Chairs squeaked and groaned as people shifted in them. The man sitting beside me had a hand under his partner’s skirt, and he moved it quicker now, matching her labored breath.
Too soon, part of me wanted to warn him. She’s going to come too fast.
If it’d been me doing this to Charlotte, I’d have slowed it down. I’d want her balancing on edge throughout the show, not finishing before it was over.
Lilith stared out at the crowd as Travis nuzzled into her lap, but her eyes were vacant, and I doubted she saw anything but the pleasure he was giving her. Trembles climbed up her legs and she panted between moans, her fingers curling into fists above the cuffs. The sensation of his mouth on her made the muscles in her arms strain against the restraints.
Christ, the scene was so fucking sexy.
She was strapped spread-eagle to the St. Andrew’s Cross, her tits out and her boyfriend sucking on her clit, and her whiny cries of pleasure were muted by the long, black stick she’d been ordered to hold in her mouth.
The orgasm was building in her body, and her focus abruptly snapped to Clay in the front row. Why was that? Did she need his permission? Or had she been instructed to look at him when she came?
But a frustrated sigh came from behind the crop, along with her garbled words. “God, don’t stop.”
It was because Travis sat back on his heels, letting her panties snap back in place.
His laugh was almost sinister as he rose to his feet. “Why? Because you want to come?”
She nodded eagerly, making the leather heart at the end of the crop flop around.
He shoved a hand down the front of her underwear, massaging her clit, and studied the way she bowed and contracted against the cross.
“But...” he dragged it out, “do you deserve it?”
Once more, her head bobbed in an enthusiastic nod.
He wasn’t convinced. “Let’s see what everyone else has to say.” He turned to look at the audience, and his gaze zeroed in on someone on the other side of the aisle, a few rows behind us. “How about you?” he asked. “You think she deserves it?”
It’d been a guy Travis had been looking at, and the man’s answer came in a voice that was full of gravel. “Yeah. She’s been a good little slut.”
The comment caught Travis off guard, but he recovered in an instant. A slow smile burned across his lips before his focus drifted away, traveling across the crowd, before landing on a new person. “And you? Do you think this good little slut deserves to come?”
Every cell inside me became a screw that had been turned a quarter inch too tight. He peered at Charlotte, awaiting her response. She didn’t seem to be breathing, so her unsteady voice had barely any power to it—yet it still flooded the room.
“Yes.”
He nodded in acknowledgement, and his gaze resumed its search for more feedback. However, there was really only one person whose opinion mattered to him, and he focused in on his partner who was seated in the front row.
Clay didn’t wait for Travis to ask his question. His head tilted a degree, and his tone was firm. “Not yet.”
Whatever expression Clay had on his face, it had to be the same as the one Travis wore now. The man on stage looked so fucking pleased. “I agree.”
Behind him, Lilith’s head tipped back in disappointment. She was impatient, eager to get off, and I sensed it was the same for most of the people in the audience. But I had the same thought as these men, that it’d be more rewarding if they made her wait.
Travis marched over to the bench his boyfriend had set to the side earlier, and he began to drag it across the stage until it was centered in front of Lilith. She watched him with anxious eyes, like she was unsure if she’d love what he planned to do next, but she was excited regardless.
He stalked toward her, pulled the riding crop from her mouth, and tossed it aside. His gaze raked over her body, as if he were savoring the image and perhaps reluctant to do anything else. I didn’t understand that until he reached up and unclipped one of her arms.
Ah.
Like him, I had a twinge of disappointment that her time being bound to the St. Andrew’s Cross was coming to a close. He unhooked her other handcuff from the ring, and while he bent to undo her ankles, Lilith lowered her arms back into the same ‘ready’ position she’d used before, holding perfectly still for him.
Such a good, obedient girl.
A deep, secondhand admiration swept through me. It was sexy as fuck the way they partnered together, and I was goddamn envious.
When she was no longer tethered to the cross, he grabbed the clasps dangling from her wrists and tugged her along to the side of the bench. She stood there, staring at the long strip of padding before her, while he freed her from her bra and dropped the lacy scrap of fabric to the stage floor.
He wasn’t mean or rough when he pushed her down onto the bench, flattening her chest and stomach to the pad, but he’d been firm, and her long hair spilled over her face. She wiped it out of her eyes and shifted her body subtly to find a more comfortable position.
Still, it probably wasn’t great. There was a padded bar wedged in her cleavage and she was bent over, her legs running parallel to the A-frame legs of the bench.
While she settled, Travis took off his shoes, pulled off his socks, and hurried out of his pants. It left him dressed in only black boxers, and they hugged his toned form. The guy clearly worked out more than I did, and although I wasn’t attracted to men, I appreciated his defined abs and obliques. It displayed all the hard work he’d invested in his body.
Chances were Charlotte appreciated them too, but when I glanced in her direction, she seemed to be more focused on Lilith. Not that I blamed her. The woman wasn’t just hot—she was stunningly beautiful.
And yet, the girl beside me was the one who held my interest. There was an innocence she seemed eager to shed, and watching her open her eyes to these new experiences was intoxicating. Her enthusiasm reminded me so much of how I’d been when I was new.
Travis padded on his bare feet to the other end of the bench, so he stood beside her head, and loomed over her. “Hands behind your back.”
Her arms had hung loosely down to the floor, so I had expected him to clip her to the rings at the bottom of the bench legs, but he had other plans, apparently. She did as instructed, tucking her arms behind her back, and the black cuffs looked like thick bracelets on her wrists.
There were rings on the clasps, and it took him no time to clip her wrists together. Maybe with a certain amount of twisting she’d be able to free herself, but it’d be difficult, and it had to give her a similar feeling to being bound in a regular pair of handcuffs.
He jammed a hand under the waistband of his underwear, tugging it down out of the way so his dick was free. The woman across the aisle from Charlotte legitimately gasped.
Well, shit.
That envious feeling from before was back.
“I want this good and hard,” Travis stared down at Lilith and demanded it in a rough voice, “so I can give you the orgasm you’re desperate for.”
Two things happened.
She opened her greedy little mouth for him to shove his impressive dick inside, and the woman sitting two seats over from me came abruptly. Her cry was loud enough that several people near us turned to see what was going on, including Charlotte.
Her gaze landed on the guy next to me and his hand disappearing up his partner’s skirt, and it only took a fraction of a second for her to deduce what had happened. Her focus rose so she could exchange a look with me.
Her eyebrows lifted, right along with the corner of her mouth, and she seemed to be saying the same thing I was thinking.
Good for her . . . but too soon.
My chest swelled as I filled my lungs with a deep breath. I’d thought we had nothing in common, but the more time I spent with her, the more I realized I might be wrong.
Fucking hell.
What if we were the same person, and the only difference was we were at different places in our lives?