Chapter 4
4
T he scotch in Alex’s hand had turned warm long ago, but he didn’t ask the bartender for another. Instead, he contemplated how best to get away from the blonde next to him. He’d come here tonight in the hopes of finding a woman to fuck. A woman who was into the same things he was into: domination and submission, bondage and voyeurism, pleasure and pain. A woman who could finally make him get a hard on for someone other than Leslie Duke–the same woman whom he’d kissed and touched intimately for the very first time during the Thanksgiving holiday and now, almost two months later, had taken over his thoughts and fantasies to such a degree that he couldn’t fuck another woman.
Not to say he’d been asexual.
He jerked off plenty, but he hadn’t had a woman since he’d had Leslie’s throat under his hand. Somehow, it just didn’t feel right. Leslie had wormed her way into his psyche so deep he had yet to find a way out.
He’d thought tonight would be the night he could finally let her go. When the gorgeous blonde sidled up to him and begun flirting, he’d been encouraged by the twitch of his cock. But the fucker hadn’t moved since. He wasn’t interested.
Instead, his mind wandered once again to last November in Montana and how, after he’d made her come and the guilt had started to flood in, he’d leaned down to gather her into his arms, hugging her close as she trembled.
She leaned into him, resting her head against his chest. He stroked her hair for a long time before he finally stood up and pulled the blankets around her to keep her warm. “You did good, baby. So good. But I can’t do this. Let me go. Embrace the sun in you and live the brilliant life you’re meant to.”
When he’d dressed and headed toward the bedroom door, she’d called out, “I won’t give you up, Alex. Because I know you want me, too.”
He took a deep breath then turned to face her. “You’re wrong, Leslie. I want to fuck you. I want to drag you into the dark and get you filthy. But I respect your brother too much to do it. And I don’t want to hurt you but I know I will. Because darkness might like to play with the light occasionally, but it always, always moves on to its own kind eventually.”
“You sure you don’t want to go into the spanking room?”
Alex jerked when the voice interrupted his memories and he almost growled with irritation at the blonde next to him, who continued speaking. “I like to bend over and take it hard. You can slap me with a whip until I bleed. Call me a cunt while you do it. Tell me I’m a filthy, bad girl. Yell at me that I’m unworthy and don’t deserve you. You’d like that, wouldn’t you, tiger?” She dangled a key out in front of him. “I already reserved one of the rooms. You want me, don’t you?”
No, he didn’t. This wasn’t the first time she’d tried to tell him what to do, even after he told her he was a dominant. And she didn’t seem to get that not all doms were into degradation or wanted to inflict it on a total stranger. No matter. He didn’t fault her for trying. Everyone was into their own kink; they just had to find the person who was into the same thing.
“Sorry, I’m heading out,” he said. “But let me buy you another drink before I leave.” He glanced up at the bartender and gestured for Ian to get the woman another drink but Alex put his hand over his own. Time for him to pack it in.
He was about to close out his tab when he froze. Something had caught his attention.
“Holy fuck,” he breathed.
Leslie was here.
“Something wrong, sir?” Ian asked.
“No. Nothing’s wrong,” Alex said shortly, even though he suddenly felt like his world was crashing down around him.
His damn cock finally jerked to life with vigor, and he could just imagine what it would say if it could talk: Now that Leslie is here, everything is very, very right.
Leslie watched a woman on her knees give a man a blow job while another man stood behind her and lightly tapped her ass with a flogger. The woman moaned with the man’s cock in her mouth even as she arched her back, pushing her ass back as if wanting the other man to spank her harder.
A few minutes earlier, David led her to a couch in front of a stage where they caught the tail-end of a masked man hog tying a woman with silk rope. The cocktail waitress, Anya, had brought them their drinks while the masked man proceeded to bring the woman to orgasm before he carried her off the stage, still restrained. Then the threesome had taken their place.
Leslie found what she was seeing intriguing but she was only mildly aroused by it. It was kind of how she felt, minus the intrigued part, when she and David fooled around. Kind of how she felt when she’d fooled around with other men.
Maybe there was something wrong with her, she thought, not for the first time. But then she remembered how she’d felt when Alex had touched her. How she felt when he was simply around her. Alex inspired plenty of desire in her, and if he’d given her a hint he was open to it, she would have lost her virginity to him in a heartbeat.
She sighed and took another sip of her drink.
“What the man is holding in his hand is called a flogger,” David said beside her.
For the last few minutes, he’d been quietly giving her a blow-by-blow of the action even though she could obviously see what was happening.
Leslie almost rolled her eyes at his comment about the flogger.
Okay, Mr. Obvious, she thought. Of course she knew it was a flogger. She was a modern woman but David clearly thought he was an expert when he’d previously led her to believe otherwise.
“So with this club,” David continued, “typically people have a few drinks and watch the action on the main floor. After people watch for a while, one can either rent a specialized room and partake in some BDSM action, or one could go to one of the private rooms to be alone.”
He emphasized the word alone , as if doing so would somehow magically make her grab his hand and sprint with him to one of those private rooms when she was only just beginning to explore what the sex club had to offer. Her irritation with David grew, as it was prone to do of late. Maybe this hadn’t been a good idea. Maybe instead of coming here with David, she should have waited to come on her own, after she’d broken up with him.
Because Leslie finally had to face facts. David didn’t do it for her. She was never going to love him, never even going to have sex with him, and it wasn’t fair to lead the man on.
“Those are the rooms right through there,” he said, pointing to a hallway in the distance.
“Right,” she murmured. “David, you’ve obviously been here. The staff know your name. I’m not sure why you gave me the impression you’d never been to a place like this before,” she said. She’d worked hard to keep any censure out of her tone, but a little had slipped in anyway.
He chuckled uncomfortably. “You’re right, Leslie, I have been here before. But I didn’t lie. I just didn’t tell you the whole truth.”
She cocked a brow. So that’s the stance he was taking. “And why is that?”
“I wasn’t sure what you’d think of me. And maybe I was trying to protect you. To not expose you to this world until you made it clear it was something you found intriguing.”
Lord, save her from another man who wanted to protect her. She adored her brother Branden and although she bristled at his protectiveness on occasion, the reality was he was a very rich man. Hell, Leslie was a very rich woman. There were all kinds of people who would target them because of that. So she could cut Branden some slack. And Alex, too, because it was his job to protect her. But David?
Maybe she was being too harsh. David was supposed to be her boyfriend, even if they weren’t exclusive, something Leslie had insisted on. It wasn’t bad that he wanted to protect her, she supposed, but to use that as a reason to lie to her? No.
“I’m a grown woman, David,” she said, modulating her tone to keep her frustration and growing irritation from showing through. “Capable of protecting myself. As for your history with sex clubs, I know that would be awkward to share, but when I suggested going to one, that’s when you should have told me, rather than me finding out by the valet saying your name.”
“You’re right,” he said quickly. “I apologize. Would you like to leave?”
She should say yes, break things off with him, and then come back here another time to do her own exploring. But suddenly, Alex’s face came to mind, as if egging her on.
Come on, Sunshine, don’t you want to see what I’m into? What this world is all about?
“We just got here,” she finally said to David. “Let’s have our drinks and watch, the way the others are.”
“Wonderful,” David said with a relieved smile.
The cocktail waitress brought over another round. Leslie took hers and set it down on the small table next to them while David downed his.
“Is your drink to your satisfaction?” David asked. “I can always order another one if you didn’t like the one they brought. It would be no bother, really.”
“The drink is fine,” she said.
“Good.” David slid an arm around her shoulders and leaned back on the sofa. The threesome had switched things up, and now the woman was tying up the two men, both men standing face to face with their hands wrapped around the other’s waists as the woman bound them together with a long leather strap. Suddenly David dropped his hand down and caressed the top of her breast. She shifted in her seat, ostensibly to get a better view of the floor show but in reality to get David’s hand away from her breast. He’d given her mild pleasure with his touch in the past, but right then she found his touch not just annoying, but almost unbearable.
After the act ended, Anya came over with another round. Leslie hadn’t even started on her second drink, but David was downing his fourth. Was he more nervous than he was letting on? Seeking Dutch courage? And if so, for what?
“The acts are taking a five-minute break. I noticed a table over near the other stage that’s empty. I saved it for you, thinking you might appreciate being closer to the action,” Anya said.
David looked at Leslie, a hopeful smile on his face. “What do you think, Leslie? Should we move over to the table?”
Leslie glanced over to where Anya pointed. The table was intimate, with comfortable seats, and had a front-row view of the stage. More people had come this way in the short time she and David had been there, and the bar was already crowded. They’d be lucky to get those seats, she realized, but she was once again conflicted by the dual desires to stay and go.
“David,” she began, and it was as if he could tell she was about to suggest they leave because he stood, took her hand and tugged her out of her seat. “Come on, let’s grab the table while we still can.”
Leslie pasted a smile on her face for Anya. “Thanks for the heads up.”
“No problem. I’ll lead the way.”
Leslie and David followed Anya through the crowd. At some point, however, Leslie’s footsteps faltered. She kept walking even as an inexplicable sensation washed over her, causing her skin to prickle like it was being caressed by a thousand tiny feathers. With each step, her chest tightened and the air around her thickened with something electric, like the charged stillness before a thunderstorm. She couldn't shake the feeling that something mysterious was beckoning to her, urging her to look over her shoulder and discover what hid in the shadows. It was like a haunting melody, faint yet captivating.
Finally, Leslie stopped walking altogether and pulled her grip from David’s grasp when he tried to keep tugging her along. Tension raced down her spine, and she couldn't help but feel a sense of being watched by an unyielding gaze, like that of a predator fixated on its prey. Leslie's heart quickened its pace, her senses heightened, attuned to every movement around her.
Slowly, she turned around to face the bar.
She gasped.
All the air seemed to evaporate from her lungs.
Her heart leaped into her throat as she spotted Alex sitting at the bar, a magnetic presence that immediately drew her in like a moth to a flame. His dark hair, tousled slightly, framed his handsome face. His intense, dark eyes locked onto hers with a fierceness that sent shivers down her spine. The slight shadow on his strong jaw only added to his allure, and his tall, broad-shouldered frame exuded strength and confidence. The tattoos exposed by his short-sleeved black shirt added the extra edge to his appearance that made her instantly wet.
As their eyes met, Leslie felt an electric charge pass between them, his gaze burning with a possessiveness that she had never witnessed before, not in Montana, not at the charity bachelor auction where Alex had met David, and not any time after that.
The idea of being someone's prey had never appealed to her, but now, under his gaze, it felt thrilling and enticing. She wanted him. A part of her yearned to surrender to his intensity—to be devoured by his passion and to lose herself in the wildness of their desire.
Because there was desire in his eyes.
Not for the blonde sitting next to him, who was obviously trying to get his attention, but for her.