Chapter 10
That isn’t me. The sex goddess in the reflection—the one with glossy red lips, a sleek high ponytail and a tight red dress, with long sleeves and a turtle neck made of lace that only pretends to hide the pale skin beneath, and a skirt so short it makes my legs look long—isn’t me.
At least, it’s impossible to believe it is.
I turn my foot and peer at the three-inch red Louboutins. I’m not sure how much these cost, but it’s definitely more than I would ever have spent on myself. Not to mention the makeup.
When Erik showed up with a suitcase full of goods, including the dress I was fitted for earlier, and saw me, he squealed, “Oh, honey, we’re going to have fun!”
He certainly seemed to enjoy himself, humming and chatting my ear off about his boyfriend and his upcoming wedding plans. All the while, my anxiety grew.
“Do you know where Gavin is taking me?” I asked him.
Giving me an amused glance, he said, “It’s Gavin, is it?”
“That’s what he asked me to call him. Does he not do that with other girls.”
“I wouldn’t know. You’re the first he’s called us up for.” He sprayed my hair for the hundredth time. “All I can tell you is, he wants a ponytail. One can only guess why?” He arched a thin brow.
“Why?” I frowned at him.
He giggled. “Honey, if you don’t already know, you’re going to find out tonight. Ooh, he’s going to fucking love it!”
I subconsciously reached for my hair and stopped the moment the memory of Gavin fisting it hit me. My cheeks heated and Erik laughed harder.
“Exactly,” he said.
Now I’m standing in front of the mirror that hangs over the table by the elevator as I wait for Gavin to come pick me up and take me out on a real date, and all I can think of is the fact that he specifically asked Erik to put my hair in a ponytail so he can pull it while he fucks me.
It’s a contradiction. On the one hand, he’s treating me like one of the many girls I envied every time I saw them hanging from his arm, going to some expensive restaurant or to the theatre. On the other, he’s reminding me that I’m here for one reason. To get fucked.
No matter how I look at it, I’m a whore in a red dress. Like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. The irony of it doesn’t escape me. This might resemble a movie, but it’s real life. In this story, I won’t end up on a balcony with him making his way to me, a bouquet of flowers in hand.
But I will end up with enough money to leave this town. That alone will make it all worth it.
And the fact that I like it? That I like that he’s already planning how he’ll fuck me? That it makes me wet to think of him inside me, stretching me, making me ache?
“I’m so fucked,” I say and shrug.
Just then, the elevator dings and the doors slide open. Through the mirror, I see Gavin step inside, already dressed to the nines in a tailored black tuxedo.
I turn to him and he pauses when our eyes make contact, his blue gaze going from intense to nearly feral. “You look good enough to eat.”
“Thank you. You look handsome as well. Where did you change?”
He stalks toward me. “In my office.”
I peer up as he stands so close to me, his legs rub against mine. “Where are we going?”
“A private club.” He runs his fingertips over the hem of my short dress and I’m instantly breathless. “I’ve never taken a girl there before.”
“Oh? What makes me so special?”
“You’ll see.”
I do see the moment we step out of the elevator into the lavish foyer on the fifth floor, and through the set of red velvet tufted doors of Club Voyeur. While it’s posh and obviously caters to a wealthy clientele —with its plush red chairs, marble tables full of expensive wines and tiny plates loaded with caviar and crystal chandeliers hanging at intervals—it’s the performances happening on the three stages that explain why Gavin would bring me here.
“It’s a sex club,” I state the obvious.
“Not just any sex club, Andie. Come on.” He takes my hand and escorts me through the crowd of finely dressed men and women, all enjoying the shows.
Tucked far back and center, in the dimmest part of the room is an elevated private booth. Gavin helps me slide into the leather seat before he moves next to me.
Even though we’re cloaked in obscurity, from this vantage point the entire club is visible. The exits, tables, and the halls that lead to the bathrooms and kitchen.
On the small platform to our right, two beautiful women on a red camelback couch are kissing as they caress each other’s breasts lovingly. On the one to our left, a man on his feet is receiving oral pleasure from a redhead. And on the larger stage up front, two men are having passionate sex in missionary position on a four-poster bed.
As for the guests, they’re eating and drinking merrily as if this is any other dinner and a show kind of place.
“I guess this is what people with too much money like.”
Gavin chuckles and I realize I spoke out loud. “When you have everything at your fingertips, it’s easy to get bored. If they didn’t, I wouldn’t be in business.”
“Bored,” I laugh sarcastically. “Rich people problems.”
“Tonight you’re one of those rich people, Andie.” He makes a motion with his hand, and suddenly a young woman is standing in front of us with a bottle of red in her hand. “Stella.”
“Mr. Alexander. Will it be your usual tonight?” she asks as she pours a glass for me first, then for him.
“Bring us the menus, please. I’m not sure what my date would enjoy.”
Out of all the men I’ve ever dated, he’s the first one to let me choose my meal. But even with that, I don’t take it to mean anything more than he’s a gentleman. He did bring me here, after all, and let me know I’m the only one. Why is that? Is it because he’s not afraid of what I’d think since I won’t be around long anyway? Or does he see me as one of the girls on those platforms?
He hands me my glass and I accept it absentmindedly, my eyes still affixed to the main stage. When I set the glass down, I ask, “Are they prostitutes?”
“Would it be wrong if they were?”
My gaze snaps to his. He’s looking at me with a quizzical expression, and I suddenly wonder if it does matter what I think.
“I would never judge someone’s choice of profession.”
Something in him relaxes visibly. “Good, because we’ll be spending a lot of time here.”
“We will?”
“It’s my business, Andie. I’m expected to show up.”
“And me?”
“And you…” His gaze drops from my eyes to my lips, then farther down. “You make this place less boring.”
“Ah. You definitely have problems if I’m more entertaining than this.”
“You have no idea.” He chuckles again and I can’t help but smile. Then he points to the stage. “We call them the cast.”
“That’s an odd thing to call them.” I tilt my head as I observe the men intently.
I’ve never seen two men having sex. The one on top is obviously enjoy it. But the one being penetrated… His mouth is open in pure ecstasy. As if being filled this way is the greatest pleasure he’s ever felt.
It makes me wonder about things. Things I’ve never experienced before. Things that seemed not only taboo, but undesirable because I’ve always considered myself as broken.
“It’s a production, Andie. They are just performing.”
My mouth has gone completely dry. Something liquid and warm is building in my belly as I watch, because I can do that. I can take a man the same way. And if I did, would I look like that? Like I’m lost to anything but my partner and what he’s doing to me?
“Andie.”
“Mmm?”
“Does it turn you on to watch them?” He’s studying me very carefully.
I clear my throat and take a sip of the wine. “They get paid for that.”
“Of course. Great pay, they choose their partners, full benefits.”
Finally able to, I glance around in amazement. Everyone is a stranger, people I’ve never ran into in the employee lounge or simply walking around the casino. It’s like a completely separate world within, hidden from view. Or rather, in plain view with it being on the fifth floor.
“All this time this was right under my feet,” I whisper to myself. To him, I ask, “Are there other places like this?”
“This is the only one in Vegas. There are three in the States and one in Mexico. They’re owned by a savvy woman.”
“And they’re all underground, I bet.”
“Like I said, she’s smart. It’s illegal in most places. So she places them in the care of very powerful people.”
“And you run it out of the kindness of your heart?”
“It brings me business. Not to mention a cut of the profit.”
“Is that all you do here? Or…” I peer at the table directly in front of us. Business is being discussed, there’s no doubt about it. The question is, what kind? “Do you do other illegal things here?”
“Not in the club,” he says and I breathe easier, until he adds, “But I do outside of it.”
“So you are in the mafia?”
He shakes his head. “I’m more of a vendor. A marketplace, if you will.”
“Of what?”
Tapping his thumb against the table, he seems to consider how much he wants to tell me. I’m not sure what convinces him to say anything at all. Maybe he knows I’m in too deep to say shit.
“This place affords me the ability to network. Someone has a surplus of crack but doesn’t have the connections to these good folks—” he lifts his glass and motions to the crowd in a big circle “—I make that connection. Seller to buyer.”
“Like a broker.” I didn’t realize there was a need for that in the drug world. Then again, when I was on the streets, all we sold was weed and never to anyone rich. “How do you keep this place a secret?”
Gavin gives me a proud grin. “This isn’t the sort of ship only the captain goes down with. We’ve made sure that if it sinks, everyone here sinks with it.”
I take another sip of my wine, my mind still stuck on the real reason I believe he brought me here. Licking the excess wine from my lower lip, I peek at him through my lashes. “You said you’ve never brought a date here. But… Do you fuck those girls up there?”
“No.” He lifts his hand to my cheek and strokes it. “I’ve never wanted to fuck anyone on that stage before.”
“Before what?”
“Before you.”
Just then, Stella returns with the menus. She sets them on the table and remains there for a moment, but neither Gavin or I break eye contact with each other.
She clears her throat. “Can I get you anything to start?”
“I’ll call you when we’re ready,” Gavin tells her, his stare still on me.
“Yes sir,” she replies and disappears.
“You want to have sex with me up there,” I say it as a statement because I know it’s true. “That’s the real reason you brought me here.”
He tucks a lock of hair that’s come lose behind my ear. “I wanted to. Yes. I imagined you on that bed, your legs spread for me. I imagined everyone would watch as I made your pussy mine.”
“Performing in public wasn’t part of the deal,” I hiss, part of me annoyed that he’d assume I’d be okay with it, while the other part is stirred by the mere idea.
Quicker than I can react, he seizes my ponytail and yanks, forcing my head back. I cry out from the shock and slap him, but he doesn’t let go. Instead, he draws me to him until our mouths are an inch apart, manipulating me with his hold on my hair.
“Whatever I want from you is part of the deal,” he says huskily. “If I want to fuck you on the sidewalk, I can.”
It angers me that I’m in this position where he’s right, because I’ve given him that control. “Then do it. Fuck me on that stage or on the sidewalk if that’s what you prefer.”
The corners of his lips pull up. “That’s the fucking crux of it. If I do, I’d have to kill any motherfucker that saw you naked.”
His answer confuses me. But before I get a chance to ask what the hell he’s talking about, he’s kissing me. Every thought, every protest, instantly vanishes. The slide of his tongue against mine erases everything, my fears, my shames, even my own name.
All of the background noise fades into muted static, leaving only Gavin.
I’m engulfed in his heat and I melt against him. He breathes out and I inhale him, a toxin that fills my veins and makes me stupid.
I can’t think straight when he touches me and I feel myself helplessly falling deeper into his clutches.
He maneuvers me so that I’m straddling him. My short tight dress rides up and rolls to my waist. Or maybe it’s him that makes it do that when he runs his palms roughly over my thighs.
The table on my lower back and his hands on my ass make it so that I’m pressed intimately to the huge bulge in his pants. That insatiable need he provokes in me begins to build in my core, making me swollen and wet.
Unable to help it, I grind myself against him shamelessly. I want release, no matter that anyone can see. Somewhere in the back of my mind I laugh sarcastically, because the truth is, if he tried to fuck me on a sidewalk, in plain sight of everyone, I’d react like this. Wanton. Desperate. Crazed.
When he breaks the kiss, I suck in a gulp of air, and yet I immediately miss the inability to breathe.
Then his hands are on my chest as he searches for a way to my bare breasts, but the dress isn’t made that way. He tears pointlessly at the lace that covers me until he must realize there is no opening there.
“Who chose this thing?!” he demands, but doesn’t wait for me to reply.
I’m suddenly being lifted and dropped onto my back on the table as he fumbles with his zipper. Then, my panties are brushed aside and he’s inside me. He wraps a hand around my throat as the other holds one of my thighs to secure me in place as he begins fucking me like a madman.
I turn my head in time to see a brunette watching in utter fascination. She elbows her partner and he glances our way, his gaze heating with sensual interest.
They’re not the only ones peering our way. Several other people are focused on Gavin and me, as if somehow we’re now the only thing worth seeing. The only entertainment arousing them.
It does something to me to know we’re being observed. I want to say it makes me ashamed, but I can’t really call it that when I spread my legs farther apart and grasp for his pants to urge him deeper into me.
And when he does, I come harder than I ever have. I come with my eyes wide open and set on the crowd.
When he reaches his climax, he tugs me upward. Our mouths collide in a painful kiss as he pumps into me once, twice, and remains still on the third. But I can still feel him pulsing inside me, filling me.
We’re both panting when it dawns on me what we’ve just done. What I’ve done. I performed in his club.
I want to be embarrassed. Maybe I will be later. Right now, I’m too dizzy from the high.
Peeking up at him, I say, “You got your wish. Satisfied?”
He exhales as he peers around the room. “Sweetheart, all you’ve done is make me wish for more.”
* * *
We don’t spend much time in the club after he fucks me at the table. Gavin’s entire demeanor changes after that. He glowers at everyone, accusing them of something I can only guess at. They saw us. That’s all they’re guilty of.
But wasn’t that the point of his fantasy? Or was it the stages he imagined, and me performing on them, only he forgot others would be there too?
“Are you angry?” I ask when he adjusts his tie for the hundredth time, like it’s strangling him or something.
He turns that glower on me and I fight the urge to shrink into the booth. “You came.”
“Yes.”
“While you looked at them.” He flicks a glance toward his patrons, some of who are still watching us.
“Why does it matter where I was looking?”
His jaw works as he lowers his gaze from my face to my torn dress. “We should go.”
“But—” I’m not allowed to finish my protest.
Snatching my wrist, he pulls me out of the booth and begins to drag me through the tables, toward the exit.
“What’s wrong?” Clearly he’s upset. “Gavin, I can’t walk that fast in these heels.”
“Then next time you should consider wearing flats,” he says pointedly when we approach his private elevator. “Kurt,” he greets the man there.
“Leaving so soon, sir?”
Gavin doesn’t reply, simply stares straight ahead until the doors slide open and he pushes me inside. I lean against the wall and cross my arms over my chest. His eyes instantly pick up on the motion and lock there, heated. I glance down to find my bosom pushed upward and accentuated by the bits of lace he tore in his effort to get to my skin.
“Your stylist chose this, not me,” I remind him.
“I’m sure he gave you options.”
Huffing, I shake my head and smirk, “Options? If I’d had that, I would never have chosen something so slutty. Even if it was for a sex club.”
“All right, what would you have chosen then? A T-shirt and tight ass jeans?” He steps closer, that predatory gleam in him increasing. “That would have been fucking worse.”
He scares me, but my pride gets the better of me and I don’t back down. “Worse? My pussy is practically hanging out of this dress. No wonder you couldn’t control yourself.”
“Had you worn your jeans, Miss Burrows, we wouldn’t have made it to the booth. I would have fucked you on the floor, right in the middle of all those tables.” He points in the direction and I automatically look, though all I see are the elevator doors. “Don’t you know how crazy you make me in those? I never had to see your pussy to imagine it. And now that I’ve felt it,” —suddenly his hand is between my legs, cupping me, feeling the moist heat through the material of my panties— “and tasted it,” —he slips the slight fabric aside and thrusts a finger through my folds to gather some of the wetness that lingers from our sex. My eyes lock onto him as he brings it to his mouth and licks the juices off— “it’s impossible to stop.”
Before I can react, he spins me and has me pressed against the wall, my hands pinned above my head with one of his. With the other, he searches for the small holes on the lace covering my breasts as he grinds his incessant hard-on between the mounds of my ass. When he finds a tiny rupture, he pulls at it, forcing it to tear apart.
“What are you doing? Gavin!” I scream, but he does it again and again, until the entire front of my dress is in pieces.
I’m panting, my breaths labored. But when he bends his head to bite the crook of my neck at the same time as he tugs the satin lining still clinging to my chest and exposes my nipples, I almost stop breathing altogether.
“I don’t care who chooses your outfit, I never want you to wear anything that restricts my access to these again. Is that clear?” He grazes his palms over the soft peaks and I gasp. “I asked you a question, Andie.”
“Yes,” I moan, because right now, I’d agree to anything. Whatever he wants as long as he touches me like this. As long as he drives me mad.
“Good girl.” He undoes the zipper of his pants and his cock springs free.
He enters me from behind and we’re both instantly sucked into a frenzy. My brain switches off all thoughts not essential to this moment and I give in to the sounds of his body slapping against mine, the feeling of him stretching me, hitting that part so deep inside that makes me short-circuit.
I’m so far gone, that I barely register the elevator doors opening at the penthouse and closing again. And when it begins to descend, I don’t have a mind to wonder where it’s going or who’s called it down.
It’s not until the doors slide open once more that I look over my shoulder to peer at the guard and patrons entering Club Voyeur’s foyer.
Gavin looks back too, and growls a mumbled curse. But he doesn’t stop fucking me. I’m not sure he can.
Instead he moves so that I’m covered from their view and they are from mine. I turn my face to the wall and forget everyone else.
He fucks me until he comes. Until he once again releases every last bit of himself into me.
Then he drops his forehead onto my ponytail just as I hear the doors slide shut behind us.