Chapter 34
EMILY
Stepping out of the gold elevator of the Koko club, I walk toward the host’s podium.
I glance at my image in the mirrored walls.
Fiery hair in the perfect updo.
And wearing the perfect dress.
Lorenzo and Antoine have good taste. The dress is elegant and classy, yet it’s very tight-fitting.
Antoine had wrapped the black stretchy ribbon-shaped fabric around my body layer by layer, until the fabric hugged every curve like a second skin.
I can still feel the pressure of each turn. Would I even be able to take a bite of lunch in this tight outfit?
Well, I think, Antoine did say I could call him in case of an emergency. As I approach the snooty ma?tre d’, I watch his face for any subtle indication there’s something unusual about my dress.
But he simply greets me with a smile. “You look lovely, Mrs. Ricci. Allow me to escort you to your table.”
Heads turn as I cross the room. But that’s normal. I’ve discovered that at the Koko club, being watched is simply the price of membership.
Lorenzo rises when he sees me. Something shifts in his expression as his eyes move from my face down to the dress and back up again. He recovers quickly, but not quite quickly enough.
“Emily,” he says, taking my hand. “You look fantastic.” His thumb traces a small, slow arc across my knuckles before he lets go.
It could be my imagination, but could he be subtly licking his lips?
We make small talk until the waiter arrives. Lorenzo orders for both of us without glancing at the menu.
At first, I’m resentful. Where does Lorenzo get off not even asking what I want to eat? But then I realize I can’t eat a bite in this tight dress.
“This dress is incredible,” I tell him. “But the fabric is so snug I feel like I’ll burst if I eat a morsel.”
“Food is overrated,” he says dismissively, still looking at me in a way I can only describe as anticipation.
“The dress fits you even better than I had hoped,” he says.
Something about the way Lorenzo says this makes me think of a vampire anticipating his next living meal.
I force a smile and once again, wonder what he has planned.
Last night’s trip to the museum opened my eyes to Lorenzo’s wild imagination. I should have realized that that was only the beginning.
The first course arrives looking impossibly good. I tell myself one tiny bite can’t hurt. The moment I swallow, the black bands tighten across my midriff.
I freeze mid-bite, and carefully set my fork down.
Lorenzo notices and the corner of his mouth twitches.
When we’re finished with our first course, the ma?tre d’ glides to Lorenzo’s side and dips low, murmuring something close to his ear. My husband’s expression doesn’t change. He just gives a single, almost imperceptible nod.
A moment later, a man in a charcoal suit cuts a straight line through the dining room toward our table, carrying a slim briefcase.
“Nice to meet you, Mrs. Ricci,” the stranger says once Lorenzo introduces us. He has the careful, neutral face of someone paid well to suppress secrets.
“Here, sir, is the object for your approval,” he says, opening his briefcase so that Lorenzo can view whatever’s inside.
Lorenzo gives it a cursory glance. “Please show it to the lady. She’s the one who must approve.” The man sets the briefcase flat on the table and spins it in my direction.
Resting on the briefcase’s black velvet interior is a necklace unlike anything I’ve seen. It’s an architectural web of flat gold ribbons crossing and interlocking, like the lacing of a corset.
“This is so beautiful,” I say, realizing that it must be a custom design. “Does it meet with your approval?” says the salesman.
“Yes,” I say, looking at Lorenzo. “But this is not necessary…”
“I’ll be the judge of that,” Lorenzo snaps, his eyes flashing. He takes the necklace from the box and tests out the various clasps.
“Pretty elaborate,” I say with a small laugh, my eyes counting the row of tiny lock-shaped clasps along the back of the necklace. “Are you afraid it will fall from my neck?”
“It’s not that,” says Lorenzo, his black eyes boring into mine. He pauses. “You know what this necklace means, don’t you?”
I don’t. Not quite. But I immediately sense that it has something to do with the BDSM exhibition we saw last night.
“Turn, please.”
I turn my back to him in the banquette so he can place the necklace around my neck.
As Lorenzo’s fingers work the lock, they feel cool and deliberate at the back of my neck.
He works each small clasp in turn. Click. Click. Click.
The sound is like a key turning in a lock. Closed and final.
When it’s done, Lorenzo turns to the man who brought it. “That would be all,” Lorenzo says.
The man takes his satchel and leaves.
“Are you pleased?”
I nod. “Thank you.”
“Now, before the next course arrives, I’d like you to go to the ladies’ room. I’ll join you in a minute.”
What does that mean, join me in the ladies’ room?
I rise carefully, feeling the dress pull tight across my hips with every step. The black ribbons seem to tighten further as I cross the restaurant.
As usual, restaurant guests whisper as I pass by. Even though I had just a few bites of lunch, I feel like this “wrap dress” is going to unravel in front of everyone.
I find the private restroom at the end of a short hallway and push the door open.
The space is the size of a large walk-in closet, all black marble and gold fixtures.
I step inside, heart already beating faster, and turn to close the door behind me.
Looking in the mirror, I admire the unusual, collar-like shape of the necklace. But what does it mean?
The door opens again almost immediately. Lorenzo slips in beside me. “And now, I have you alone,” he says, locking the door.
An odd wave of fear combined with intense sexual desire washes over me as he steps up behind me. His large hands rest on my shoulders as his dark eyes catch mine in the glass.
Then his thumb traces the cool, interlocking gold ribbons against my throat.
“To the average person, this is just a piece of bespoke luxury jewelry,” he whispers against my ear, his fingers skimming the row of tiny locks along my nape.
“But between us, Emily? It’s a collar. Once those clasps click, there’s no second-guessing the man you belong to. You know what accepting this means, don’t you?”
Before I can answer, Lorenzo speaks for me.
“It means you’re mine,” he growls hungrily. “Now spin.”
I have no idea what he means until his fingers snag the loose end of the black band Antoine wrapped around my waist. He gives it a firm, controlling tug that pulls me an inch closer before he anchors his hand in place.
“Spin,” he repeats.
I turn on my heels.
He holds the fabric taut as I rotate, the three-inch black ribbon unwinding from my body in a continuous spiral—peeling away layer by layer until I am left standing open and exposed beneath his gaze.
Lorenzo lifts me up and sits me down on the black marble counter around the sink. I feel its cold surface on my naked butt.
“I want you now,” he says. “But you must do one thing.”
I’m almost too terrified to ask what it is.
Without warning, he reaches behind my head and pulls my great-aunt’s gold pin from my updo.
I gasp as my auburn hair comes tumbling down.
At the moment of my gasp, he spins me so I’m facing the mirror. Lorenzo steps up behind me
Then I hear him unzip.
My pussy is juicy with anticipation of what’s to come for him.
Then he takes me by the hips and bends me so my nipples are low on the hard marble surface.
I feel his cock against my rear entrance. Pressure. Then heat as he nudges against my tight hole.
A slow, deliberate claim that makes my breath catch.
The way he nudges this sensitive area with the hard tip of his cock, moist with pre-cum, feels good … but oh so wicked.
Naughty.
Forbidden.
My first sensation is intense. The second is a sense that this feeling I’m experiencing is ‘wrong.’
“Want this?” Lorenzo asks in a breathy whisper, nudging more insistently.
How do I answer? I do … and I don’t.
At least not here.
A glamorous bathroom is still a bathroom.
I want silk sheets.
Chocolates and champagne to pair with this sensual experience.
Lorenzo continues his slow, delicious tease, an impossible-to-describe sensation of both pleasure with the slightest hint of potential pain.
He wants it.
And he wants me to say yes.
I look at him in the mirror’s reflection, his hands covering my breasts.
The new gold collar shimmers around my throat.
His eyes catch mine in the glass, dropping down to the gold locked around my neck.
“Remember what I told you,” he whispers roughly. “You’re wearing my collar now.”
Then he eases forward just enough so that I feel the slightest stretch and gasp.
“Like this?” he growls hungrily.
My body freezes.
Lorenzo is a big man.
I’m half his size.
He holds still then asks the unspoken question.
“Is it yes? Or no?”
When I don’t answer immediately, Lorenzo eases back, turns me to face him, and claims my mouth in a hard kiss.
I guide his hard cock into me.
Starved for his touch, my body instinctively rocks to meet him.
“You’re mine,” he says, plunging into my wet pussy.
Lorenzo fists my hair, yanking the silken auburn strands, and tilting my head back, groaning in pleasure.
The sound of his satisfaction makes me feel proud to be part of whatever intense sensation he’s experiencing.
I meet his every thrust with hunger as he pumps into me.
“Say it,” he orders, voice low.
Say what, I wonder.
Then his hand settles lightly around my throat, just above the new collar.
Suddenly, it’s as if I understand what all the works of art in the museum were trying to say last night.
I understand why the women tolerated what initially looked like discipline.
But which I now feel to be a strange, twisted, very bizarre tease of pleasure.
My pussy pulsates in anticipation of my approaching orgasm.
Lorenzo’s words, and his grip on me heighten my intense excitement.
“If you want satisfaction, you must obey orders.”
“Yes … master.”
With those words, we both explode in orgasm.
When we’re both spent, Lorenzo uses the eucalyptus-scented liquid soap and thick washcloth to clean away his seed. “Mine,” he says. “Mine.”