Chapter 11
Chapter eleven
Discretion
Aiden
I hover by the windows, whiskey glass in hand.
My suit is off, replaced by a fitted button-down shirt and the jeans I bought last year because my friend, Marcus, forced me to.
Stating, “a man’s got to have something to wear in between suits and sweats.
” I look casual, but my heart is running at test-bench speeds.
My phone pings. A message: “Here. Should I let myself up?”
I reply, “Yes. Code is the same.”
Cat’s always early, but never more than five minutes. It’s the first time we’ll see each other outside the office, outside the club, outside any mask but our own skin.
I hear the elevator before I see her. The click of her heels, sharp and purposeful, echoing up the marble corridor as if they belong here more than I do.
Even from behind the smoked glass of my front entry, I can track her approach, each step a pulse, every pulse a data point in the slow-rolling event horizon that is Catalina Vaquer.
When I see her silhouette, I open the door.
“Good evening, Mr. St. James,” she says, the words crisp and clean.
“Good evening, Ms. Vaquer,” I answer, stepping aside to let her in.
I don’t even try to hide the fact that I am staring at her like I’m fucking starving and she’s a buffet. She wears a nude sleeveless cocktail dress, with a distractingly deep V and a delicate black floral mesh overlay. The fabric is so thin it catches on her curves like static.
Her hair is down tonight, long and wild, and her lipstick is a dark, feral rose that makes her mouth the only color in the room. She holds a small clutch and larger-than-life confidence.
My penthouse is the inverse of the office, matte instead of gloss, open space instead of strategic bottlenecks.
The lights are low, the air scrubbed of anything that could be mistaken for domesticity.
There are no family photos, no art that isn’t monochrome, the absolute absence of clutter, nothing to suggest a human lives here.
The only focal point is the view, floor-to-ceiling glass running the length of the living room, city lights smeared across the night like code on a monitor.
Cat takes it all in, cataloguing every corner. I want to ask her what she sees, if she’s judging the lack of color, the absence of comfort, but I keep it in. I’ve already exposed more of myself to her than to anyone alive.
“Nice place,” she says, voice neutral. “Minimalist, but it suits you.”
“I hate distractions,” I say. “Would you like a drink?”
She considers, then nods. “Please.”
I gesture her toward the sunken lounge, then make for the bar at the far end of the room.
I pour for both of us, set hers on the smoked-glass table before I take my own seat.
We sit facing each other, a low slab of black stone between us.
The only illumination comes from the city outside and a handful of LEDs recessed in the ceiling.
She takes a sip, eyebrows arching in approval. “So. Is this a date, or are we negotiating terms?”
“Can’t it be both?”
She laughs. “You know the club rules, right?” she asks after a minute.
“Of course. No recognition outside the premises. No entanglement that might jeopardize the Velvet Stag, or its…patrons.”
“And yet, here we are,” she says, “in a situation that seems custom-designed to violate it all.”
I tap my glass, listening to the vibration. “I don’t take what we did or are going to do in the club or otherwise lightly. In fact, I’ve never done it before. I don’t usually form…connections.”
She leans forward, chin in her palm, gaze cutting through the whiskey between us. “What is this, an NDA pitch?”
“If that’s what it takes to continue.”
She studies me, and I know she’s not just thinking about the club.
I lean forward, elbows resting on my knees and say plainly “Look, we’re not in violation if we’re in agreement. I want exclusivity,” I say, voice lower now. “I want you unmasked, uncensored. No lies. No games unless they’re the ones we choose to play.”
She relaxes into the sofa, a devious smile curling the corners of those full lips that I can’t wait to have wrapped around my cock. “Why, Mr. St. James, are you asking me to be your secret girlfriend?”
“Accurate,” I say. “And I want the club arrangement formalized. If we do this, it’s only with me. You are only with me. At the club or anywhere else.”
She studies me over the rim of her glass. “You’re serious.”
“Always.”
She considers, then nods. “I want to keep my job.”
“You’ll have it,” I reply, and I mean it.
“And I want to keep our current office dynamic.” She takes a sip from her glass and smiles, adding, “Discreetly, of course.”
A slow grin. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.” Catalina teases me until I am about to break or burn and I suspect that the secret part of it, that dangerous part, is why she is so willing to agree to my terms and conditions.
She traces the rim of her glass, thinking. The whiskey hitting her system just enough to soften the edges. “Why rope?” she asks. “Why that, of all things?”
For a second, I don’t answer. Then, “It was the first variable I ever learned to control.”
She blinks, not expecting honesty. I surprise even myself with it.
The whiskey is loosening my tongue, and I want to stop, but I don’t.
“My mother was a trainwreck, moved every year, new boyfriend every six months. No rules, just chaos. The world was never safe, but knots were. They are strong. Consistent. You tie something right, it won’t fail you.
Rope was the first thing that made sense.
Every knot has a reason. Every wrap, every tension point, it’s all control.
Even when you’re improvising, the logic holds.
It’s the only math that works on people. ”
She listens. Really listens before asking, “Did she…?” She trails off, careful. “Did she ever get better?”
I shake my head. “She’s dead. Overdose, late nineties. I was fifteen. Taught myself everything else after that.”
Cat nods, fingers curled around her glass, knuckles white. “Makes sense.”
I reach for the decanter, top off her glass. “Why the lounge? Why the stage?”
She shrugs. “I like the power. The attention. I like knowing that everyone is watching and that I can make them want me, even if they can’t have me.” A pause, then, “Except you did.”
The silence stretches, but it isn’t uncomfortable. It’s loaded.
Eventually, she sighs, “I’m not actually sure really.
Maybe it’s because I have two sisters and four brothers and was starved of individual attention.
Or maybe I have Daddy issues. I just like what I like.
” She sips her whiskey, and the ice in her voice melts a little.
“But this? No masks, no anonymity? This is scarier than anything I’ve ever done on that stage. ”
I nod, not trusting myself to speak.
She knocks back the rest of her drink and places the glass down between us, before she breaks the tension with a smirk. “So, what happens now?”
I stand, extend my hand. “Now, I give you the grand tour.”
She takes it, lets me pull her to her feet.
Her hand is warm, steady. I lead her through the apartment, bedroom, office, the empty guest room.
She touches nothing, but she leaves an imprint everywhere she goes.
By the time we circle back to the living room, the tension between us is a livewire, ready to snap.
She looks at me, eyes searching. “You’re not going to tie me up tonight, are you?”
“Only if you ask.”
She grins. “What if I beg?”
“Then you’d better not stop.”
She takes a step closer, the space between us shrinking to a breath. “I won’t,” she says, voice barely above a whisper.
The air changes when Cat leans into me, her chin lifted in challenge, lips parted as if she’s about to bite. For a second, neither of us moves, like animals uncertain whether to fuck or fight. I count three breaths, then step away.
“Wait here,” I tell her, as if the next step is as simple as fetching a file from another room. It’s a lie, or at least an evasion. What I really need is a minute to recode myself, to switch from the risk calculus of exclusivity to something even more dangerous—trust.
I vanish down the hall to my bedroom, bypass the walk-in closet, and enter the sanctum: my private studio.
The room is as organized as a server rack, spools of cord lined up by length, color, and fiber; reference books stacked by topic; practice mannequins, naked and inert, posed in the corners like shamed witnesses.
I scan the racks, select a portable wooden case, and head back out before I can second-guess myself.
When I return, Cat is perched on the arm of the sofa, glass balanced on her knee. She sees the case and her eyes go sharp, the way they do when she spots a margin error in a six-figure contract.
She sits up straighter. “Is this the part where you show me your toys?”
“Do you want to see them?”
“Depends,” she says, voice half a dare. “Are you going to use them?”
“Only if you want,” I say, setting the box on the table and flicking the latches open. The lid lifts, and inside is my collection, red silk on the left, jute and hemp in the center, a trio of black bamboo blends for special effects and a set of precision scissors, for safety.
Her eyes widen, just for a second. She leans forward, fingers dancing over the coils, feeling the difference between hemp, jute, and silk. “These are gorgeous.”
“They’re functional, but also decorative,” I say.
“This one’s heavier,” she notes, holding up a coil of jute.
“For suspension. Has more bite, and more memory. But it leaves marks.” I tap the red silk. “This is mostly for show. It’s softer, leaves less trace, unless you want it to.”
She threads a length through her fingers, then pulls a coil of midnight blue, thinner than the rest. “And this?”
“Decorative. Used for hair, or to accent a main tie.”
She grins, taking the red silk from my hand and uncoils it. “This is your signature,” she says. “I remember the way it looked on me.”
I see it every time I close my eyes. “Would you like to feel it again?”
Her pupils dilate. She nods.
She gives me her right wrist. I start with the simplest cuff, a single column tie, doubled, with a quick-release at the edge.
I narrate as I go, half for her, half to keep my hands steady.
“There’s no trick to the first knot. The trick is in the tension.
If you go too tight, you’ll cut circulation.
Too loose, it may as well just be for show.
” I finish the knot and trace my fingers down her arm. “You want it snug, not dangerous.”
She flexes her fingers, testing the bind. “That’s tight,” she says.
“It’s supposed to be,” I answer. “The point isn’t just restraint. It’s structure. Geometry. You build a system to hold what the world can’t.” I smile, then undo it in a blink, returning her hand to freedom.
“Show me more?”
I kneel and slide my hand up her thigh, just under the hem of her dress. “May I?”
She nods. I gather the fabric, exposing the high line of her hip. She’s wearing a black thong, almost invisible, and I make a mental note to take that off her with my teeth before I move to her ankles, and in one quick motion, loop the silk around them, binding her legs together at the knees.
She laughs, a rush of sound. “Already making me helpless?”
“Not helpless. Highlighted,” I say. “You can always say stop, or your safe word if you remember it. You have to give consent, every time. Otherwise, it doesn’t work.”
Cat nods, her dark curls falling into her face as she looks down at me. “Can I ask you something?”
“Anything.”
“Does this ever not end in sex?”
I laugh, unable to stop myself and when I glance up to meet her gaze, she’s frowning.
“It depends on the person. For some, it’s enough just to feel the rope, to give up control and relax.
Others its more about the physical sensation of the ropes themselves, the pain, the weight of them.
” I continue the mermaid tie around her calves.
“And for you?”
I want to answer honestly, but the words are hard.
I try anyway. “Because it’s predictable.
I know what every knot will do. I find just the action relaxing and beautiful.
” And of course there is the complete trust and control that you have over another person, but I’m sure she would have decoded that part already so I left it unsaid.
I stand and offer her both of my hands to help her stand so she can feel the strain of the knots. I pull her up slowly, she wobbles and I grab her waist to steady her. Or at least that’s my excuse. Truthfully I just want to touch her more.
It’s painfully silent for a moment. Our bodies pressed flush against one another. I’m already hard, and have been for a while, thankfully the jeans hide it better than the suits do but I’m almost positive she can feel it.
Leaning down, my mouth hovers over her lips as I ask, “How do you want this to end Catalina?”
“I want it to end in sex,” she whispers before closing the distance and kissing me. What little bit of control I was struggling to hold onto slips through my fingers. She is the siren and I am the sailor that’s ready to drown.