Chapter 5
5
F rom the moment he’d noticed her in the club, Alex kept his gaze firmly fixed on Leslie, even when the blonde excused herself to go the restroom and then returned. Now, as the blonde prattled on about her recent trip to Paris and how she’d gone to an exclusive sex club outside the city, Alex tried to tell himself he was just keeping an eye on his best friend’s little sister to make sure she was safe, but that was a bullshit excuse. Her bodyguard, Elvis, was even now mingling with the crowd, ready to handle any threat against Leslie in a moment’s notice. No, Alex wasn’t worried about anything bad happening to her in this club, where the clientele was affluent and screened beforehand. In addition to her bodyguard, if someone got out of hand, it would be mere seconds before one of the big burly bouncers who were strategically located throughout the club would throw them out…or worse.
No one got away with breaking the rules here. But just because he knew Leslie was relatively safe, especially with him here, it didn’t mean he didn’t want to rip the arms off the man she was with—the man Alex had dubbed Doctor David or Doctor Douchebag or Doctor Dickhead depending on Alex’s mood.
As soon as Alex had seen him in this context, he’d realized why the man who Leslie claimed to have an open relationship with had seemed familiar to him when he’d met him at that charity bachelor auction.
He frequented some of the same sex clubs as Alex.
Had he been here with Leslie before?
Had he tied her up and fucked her?
Had he been the one to put that damn ball gag in her mouth?
Had he spanked her? Dominated her?
The woman next to him cried out at the sound of shattering glass, and it was only then that Alex realized he’d slammed his drink glass onto the bar so hard it had cracked in two places.
“So you prefer brunettes, huh, lover? She looks a little tame for you.”
Again, Alex ignored her, keeping his gaze on Leslie’s profile as she took in the act on stage. He didn’t miss the way she leaned forward and her lips parted. He imagined her heartbeat flickering in the vein in her throat. She was aroused. Intrigued and turned on.
Except, it seemed, when her date talked to her.
Then any hint of energy in her face seemed to flitter away.
And that gave Alex way too much satisfaction.
He should turn away. Focus on the blonde. Face the opposite direction. Or get the hell out of the place. He should let Leslie have her private time here.
But he couldn’t.
Couldn’t leave.
Couldn’t stop watching.
Couldn’t walk away.
Not from Leslie. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t walk away from Leslie.
The bartender came over and Alex handed him the cracked glass. Then Alex ordered himself and the blonde another round. “Put it on my tab,” he told the bartender.
“Thank you,” the blonde said, simpering at him. “Want to take our drinks to go?”
He studied her then said, not unkindly, “Thanks for your interest, but we’re not fucking tonight. We’re not doing anything tonight.”
“Are you sure?” the blonde began as Leslie’s date tugged her out of her seat and began leading her across the room, following a waitress and heading toward an open table at the front of the stage.
Alex traced the curves of Leslie’s body with his eyes. For someone so petite, she had lean and long legs, legs that he’d so often imagined wrapped around his waist, just like he’d imagined her thighs squeezing the sides of his face as he fucked her with his mouth.
Suddenly, Leslie stopped moving and Alex held his breath.
Turn around, he silently urged her. Look at me.
And as if they were in total sync, Leslie, already attuned to his need to command her and her need to submit, turned and faced him.
He couldn’t hear her gasp, but he knew it was the sound she made. Her eyes widened and her face flushed, and he tracked that flush as it spread down her throat and to her chest.
The bored look she’d worn when talking with her date was gone, and in its place was pure desire.
That’s right, baby, he thought. I’m here, and there’s no fucking way you’re staying in this club another minute when you’re not with me, whether it’s standing by my side, having a drink with me, or on your fucking knees.
And that fucker you’re with is going straight to hell.
At least, that’s what he thought.
But then he remembered who he was and who she was and why he’d so adamantly insisted that they remain friends and nothing more.
For a moment, he didn’t think he could do it – walk away from Leslie yet again. But he forced himself to call up the memory of another woman’s face. Both when he’d met her and when she’d been ripped away from this world. And that was enough to strengthen his resolve.
He turned back to the blonde. “Why don’t we take our drinks to go, after all.”
He’d dismissed her.
One moment Alex had been looking at Leslie as if he wanted to eat her alive, then at David, his expression nothing short of murderous, and then the next moment his expression had suddenly flattened and grew dull. At some point, it was as if he wasn’t even seeing Leslie anymore, but was lost in time, in another place altogether. Then he’d turned to the blonde and said something to her before they’d both stood and wandered out of her view.
Feeling like her chest had been hollowed out where her heart used to be, Leslie just continued to stand there.
He’s going with her. He’s going to have sex with another woman even though he knows I saw them. And yet I still want him.
I still crave Alex.
I still hunger for Alex.
It looked like Alex was right all along.
He was dangerous to her.
“Leslie? Have you changed your mind?”
She blinked when David spoke to her. The cocktail waitress was looking at her with just as much uncertainty. Embarrassed, Leslie pasted a fake smile on her face and put a hand on David’s arm. “Sorry. I…had something in my shoe. I’m fine.”
David gave her a strange look, but continued to lead her to the small table Anya had reserved for them. He pulled out a chair and she sat down.
As the next sex show started, Anya continued to bring more drinks. Leslie didn’t take a sip of any of them. While she watched the show, everything seemed mechanical to her. There was nothing intriguing anymore. Nothing arousing. She felt numb as the only thing she could imagine was Alex fucking that blonde.
Would he squeeze her throat the way he’d squeezed Leslie’s?
Would he give her his cock when he refused to give it to Leslie?
Would he speak poetically to her, calling her the equivalent of his oak, or ocean, or star, or some other type of bullshit? Because it had been bullshit, what he’d said to her. Yes, he’d told her they couldn’t be together. Yes, they’d agreed to be just friends. But for Alex to have done what he just did, he couldn’t be her friend.
He couldn’t care about her the way she thought he did.
The sex act in front of them ended, something she only became aware of when David applauded a little too loudly. He was shouting, most of his words slurred, and that jarred Leslie back to the here and now. She’d been aware that David was drinking heavily but now he was clearly drunk off his ass.
Before the next act came on, she said, “David, I’d like to go now.”
Ignoring her, David leaned in and put a clumsy arm around her. Gone was the meticulously dressed and sophisticated doctor she’d been dating for weeks. Normally composed and charming, he now appeared disheveled and out of sorts. His handsome face, which she had once admired, was now flushed and splotchy, the redness evident on his cheeks. His once sharp eyes looked heavy-lidded and dazed, and she could tell he was struggling to focus on her. He leaned to one side, as if the weight of the world rested on his shoulders, and since he was leaning on Leslie, she was now leaning to one side. His allure had been already fading, but now she was hit with a surge of repulsion.
“I have a thought,” he said, breathing heavily into her face.
She pulled back and tried to stand, but he was too heavy. “David, I’m leaving.”
David gestured to the hallway he’d pointed to before. “Those rooms. There are some fun things inside them, like floggers and handcuffs or chains hanging from the wall. I think we should try them out.”
She frowned at him and pushed him away, finally managing to get free. She stood at the same time he did, but unlike her, he swayed on his feet. “That wasn’t the agreement we made when we came here.”
He ignored her. “We could watch some more detailed action, or just play around with each other. You know. You could blow me, or I could go down on you. Or I could tie you up, or—”
Leslie looked around. Somehow, they’d become isolated as others had moved on. She needed to get out of here.
Without another word to David, she turned and started walking away.
He caught her arm, his grip hard, making her wince. “We’ve been dating long enough. Fuck me. Or at least blow me.”
“Let me go!” Leslie cried out.
Where was her bodyguard?
She tried pulling away again, but his grip was too tight. She tried to rationalize with him. “David, you and I agreed that tonight was just for us to watch. We set up boundaries ahead of time that we wouldn’t go into one of those rooms precisely so we wouldn’t end up here: one of us wanting to, and the other—”
She stopped speaking when David shocked her by shoving his hand up her skirt and roughly grabbing her between her legs.
Real fear surged through her.
“Stop!”
“I saw him there, you know,” David sneered. “Over at the bar. Alex Samuels. And I saw you staring at him. You were all but drooling.”
She shook her head. “I wasn’t!”
He laughed caustically and with his other hand, fondled her breasts. She jerked back and slapped his face.
His head snapped back and his face grew red with rage.
“Alex doesn’t want you, Leslie. You’re nothing to him but his friend’s little annoying sister. Someone he’s hired to protect. That’s all you are to him. In other words, you’re nothing.”
Somehow, David’s words ripped her to shreds more than her fear of him did.
Because he was right.
She didn’t mean anything to Alex.
He’d left her here and—
Suddenly, David cried out as he was viciously pulled away from her.