Vienna Betrayal: Billionaire Mystery Club Romance: Vienna Trilogy #1 (Orchid Club Book 7)

by Lila Dubois

  He’d found them a spot at the back of the room where two A-frames supported a crossbar three meters off the ground. A freestanding suspension structure.

  During his set up she’d tried several times to start a conversation, but he’d never replied verbally, instead nodding or shaking his head. He was back to being the quiet man, and it was as if the conversation in the hall hadn’t happened.

  He continued winching, raising her hands until they were stretched over her head, her upper arms tight against her ears. Alena rose onto her toes, which put some slack in the chain. After a moment of that she dropped back onto her heels.

  “Not long,” he murmured as he secured the winch.

  She tipped her head back so her own arms weren’t muffling her hearing. If she hadn’t been looking at him, reading his lips, she wouldn’t have known he’d spoken.

  Alexander crouched down and started sorting through his kit—a large leather case, similar to what she’d seen several other Doms carrying. The cuffs he’d put on her and the small chain linking them had both come out of the bag.

  “I can’t decide if I’m terrified of, or fascinated by, your kit.”

  Alexander snorted and swiveled on the balls of his feet, still crouching, to look at her.

  He considered her for a moment, then said, “Fascinated.”

  Progress! He was talking again.

  “You’re not wrong,” she said mournfully.

  “Of course I’m not.” The corners of his eyes crinkled as he smiled. “I’m the Dom.”

  Alena laughed, genuinely amused.

  Alexander rose, holding a short riding crop in one hand, a flogger in the other.

  Alena’s laughter died. She tensed, taking an instinctive half-step back. The chain connecting her wrists clanked against the hook, and the sound, coupled with the uncomfortable pressure on her wrists and shoulder joints, was enough to short-circuit the panic.

  She wasn’t some fainting virgin. She could handle, had in the past handled, impact play from both those implements. What she’d told him was true. She could handle pain, but that didn’t mean she found it pleasurable the way a pure masochist might have. For her it was the Dom’s choice to hurt her, to push her, that aroused.

  “Two at once, Sir?” Her tone was softer than it had been, and not by design.

  Alexander walked towards her, but it wasn’t just walking, it was the arrogant prowl of a Dom.

  He raised the flogger and let the tips of the falls dance over her breast. Made either of suede, or perhaps deer hide, the flogger was soft against her skin.

  One strand slid against the very tip of her exposed nipple, managing to touch her with such exquisite precision that she rose up onto her toes in reaction to the jolt of pleasure.

  Alexander tucked the flogger and crop under his arm as he circled around behind her.

  His fingers were warm on her back, which was chilled from exposure. That didn’t stop her from shivering as he pushed her hair over her shoulder so he could see what he was doing.

  He undid the uppermost closure of the corset bra. Alena’s blood heated, her body warm with arousal.

  Though he worked with brisk efficiency worthy of a healthcare worker, having him undress her felt intimate. It was intimate, and trying to pretend it wasn’t was stupid.

  BDSM wasn’t always sexual, in fact most people played in ways that either weren’t sexual, weren’t about sex, or both. However, BDSM was always intimate.

  In the next moment the bra fell away, leaving her breasts bare and vulnerable.

  He tossed the undergarment aside where it landed atop her discarded shoes and cloak. She took careful breaths, counting to five as she inhaled in effort to keep herself both calm and focused.

  Approaching him as a submissive had been a calculated risk. This moment, bare-breasted and in bondage, was the first time it felt like the risk outweighed the benefits.

  He gathered her hair into a single tail at the back of her head. She felt him lean in. When his warm breath washed over the sensitive skin behind her ear, she shivered.

  “I will not be gentle with you.”

  He pushed her gathered hair forward over one shoulder, leaving her back bare and accessible.

  The first strike hit her upper back, just right of center. She flinched, tiptoeing forward a few inches in an instinctive desire to get away from the source of the sensation. A moment later her brain registered what she’d felt. A thump. The flogger, not the crop.

  She settled down on her heels, her arms stretched painfully up and back because she’d shifted forward. Quickly, she backed up, taking the pressure off her shoulders.

  Thwack. Again the flogger struck her upper back. This time she didn’t shift away. Instead she inched her feet apart, bracing herself.

  “Very good,” he murmured.

  “Thank you, Sir.”

  Around them dozens of people engaged in various debauched and taboo pleasures.

  There were more sexual activities on display than there had ever been at the munches she’d attended or clubs she’d visited. Then again, those had been populated by ordinary people, who, if not exactly normal, were far more likely to feel constrained.

  Rules didn’t apply to the uber wealthy.

  A couple was scening several meters away, the submissive woman facedown over a sawhorse as her male Dom worked a series of anal plugs, in graduated sizes, into her ass.

  The flogger fell again, snapping Alena back into the moment. Her back felt warm where he’d struck.

  “You’re good with a flogger, Sir.”

  “How would you know? I’ve only placed three strikes.”

  “Two sentences in a row?” She tried to look back at him, but with her arms pulled tight alongside her head she was only partially successful. “How unusual, Sir.”

  His lips quirked. “A brat? Unexpected.”

  In her peripheral vision she saw his arm rise, the tails of the flogger swaying gently.

  Thwack. This time it struck her ass, the blow harder than those to her back. She felt it, a solid thump with a few outlying stings where individual strands had nipped her.

  “Are you?” he asked.

  “Am I what, Sir?”

  “Ein verzogener Fratz.”

  She spoke enough German to get by, but his Austrian accent threw her off for a moment.

  “A…warped?…something.”

  Another blow to her ass, and the heat that lingered there multiplied.

  “You spoke German before.”

  Thwack.

  “Only a little, Sir.”

  Thwack.

  For several minutes he concentrated on flogging her ass. The buildup of heat was tipping towards the point of pain. Alena was breathing deep but steady, shifting her weight foot to foot.

  And after the pain would come pleasure. You’d get there faster if you gave up trying to build rapport with him and let yourself sink into the scene.

  The next two blows fell on the back of each thigh in turn. She wanted him to continue flogging her ass, to focus there until she couldn’t think anymore. Until all she could do was submit.

  He worked the flogger up and down the back of her legs with soft blows to each calf, heavy-handed ones on each thigh, and particularly ferocious, stinging ones on her sit spot. He carefully avoided the back of her knee, and didn’t let the tails wrap around her limbs.

  When he paused to run his hand over her ass, down one leg and then up the other, her breath caught. The touch of his hand was a far less acute sensation than the flogger, but it wasn’t the physical impact she was reacting to, but the emotional one of having her Dom’s hands on her.

  “You are taking it well.” His voice was dark and low, a bit rough, as if he needed to clear his throat.

  “Thank you, Sir.”

  She waited for him to say more. He said nothing. Her quiet man.

  Dammit.

  “What was that you said before, Sir, in German?”

  “A spoiled brat.” His fingers curl
ed around the lace band at the top of her thigh and began to roll her stocking down. “But that is not the right term for you.”

  “No. I’m not a brat. I don’t throw tantrums or break rules as a way to goad my partner and top from the bottom.” Her plan had been to remain detached enough to—if not top from the bottom—at least influence their scene to ensure they established rapport.

  “What do you do?” he asked.

  “I ask for what I want. For what I need.”

  He finished with her right stocking and started on the left. “Unusual.”

  “My thigh highs, or that I ask for what I need?”

  He finished with the second stocking and she lifted her foot so he could remove it.

  When he stayed silent, she rose on her toes and pirouetted in place so she could see him. He was crouched, elbows on his knees, looking up at her.

  The reversal of position might have held connotations of a reversal of roles, but there was no doubt who the Dom was. Alexander looked at her with the predatory gaze of a hunting bird, and the calm arrogance of a billionaire.

  “You ask for what you need?” He raised one brow.

  “Is that so unusual?”

  “Some people. Many people…” Alexander picked up the flogger and stood. “…don’t know what they want.”

  Alena started to turn back around, but he stopped her by reaching out and cupping her breast. He slid his thumb across her nipple, then palmed her breast, lifting it slightly.

  With his other hand he raised the flogger, then smacked it down on the breast he held up.

  Alena cried out, rising up on her toes as pain warmed her breast. One strand of the flogger had struck her nipple, and sensation zinged through her.

  He bent bringing his face within inches of her abused breast. She couldn’t stop herself from arching her back, thrusting her nipple towards his mouth in a silent plea.

  “Dangerous,” he all but growled. “I might bite, not suck.”

  “You already bit me.”

  “And it hurt?”

  “Yes.” She strained forward. “Bite me, please, Sir.”

  “Pain is what you want?”

  She needed to say “no.” She should temper the moment, try and keep this light so she didn’t sink too deep into her own submission.

  But he was touching her breast, her ass was smarting from the flogging, and her whole body felt warm and ripe, ready for him to use and abuse.

  “I want it. I’m ready for it to hurt.” She licked her suddenly dry lips, and glanced at his face.

  She met his gaze for just a moment, then submissively lowered her eyes. He rewarded her with a swipe of his thumb over her nipple.

  He released the first breast only to cup the other. “What else do you want?”

  Before she could speak, the flogger slapped down. With his hand under her tit, the flesh was forced to absorb the full impact of the strike.

  She breathed through the sweet pain, nearly whimpering when he released her breast and stepped back.

  With uneven breaths, she watched as his gaze roamed over her front, as if considering where to strike next.

  He studied her the way a master sculptor examined a block of marble.

  He raised his arm.

  The flogger struck, in rapid succession, each thigh, then the upper outside edge of her thigh—her hip area, but not high enough to land on the part of the hip that was out of bounds thanks to the kidneys and other soft organs not protected by the ribcage. Back to thighs then breasts, hip area again, and breasts once more.

  By the time he was done, Alena was gasping and no longer able to keep still. Between blows she would rise up on the balls of her feet, arch her back, twist side to side, or some combination of all three. She wasn’t trying to get away. The opposite.

  She needed more.

  Her whole body was warm and throbbing. The moments of waiting between the strikes were torture.

  “Tell me what you need,” he commanded.

  “Again. Don’t pause. Please, Sir. More.”

  “More pain?”

  “Yes,” she gasped. “If that’s what you want.” She blinked to focus her eyes on his face.

  He looked grim, his jaw muscles clenched. Anger? No. His brow wasn’t furrowed, and his eyes were…hungry. Control. He was near the edge of his own control, clenching his teeth as he fought to hold himself in check.

  She didn’t want him reserved. She wanted him wild, and it had nothing to do with why she was here. It had stopped being about the job, about the next move in the game, when he flogged her breast.

  Bringing a Dom to the edge of their control stoked her own perverse desires.

  He started up again, this time adding in blows to the outsides of her thighs, and striking her breasts less frequently.

  “Hurt me, please,” she begged during a pause. “Make me feel it. I don’t want to think for a little while.”

  His expression shifted to surprise for just a moment. Then it closed down again even as her rational internal voice was screaming at her to back up a proverbial step.

  At least she hadn’t said all of what she’d been thinking. I don’t want to think about why I’m really here.

  He raised the flogger and started to flick it through the air, moving only his wrist. Soon he had a good rhythm, the flogger making an infinity pattern.

  She watched in wonder and masochistic fascination as he turned to her, the rhythm of the flogger never altering.

  Snap. He struck the top of her right breast with a down swing, then the underside of her left with the upswing. The strands of the flogger were moving fast. This wasn’t the thumping sensation of a moments ago.

  She’d never been flogged like this, with quick fast blows. Instead of the warm thumps, the strikes were sharp, the sensation closer to the sting of a crop, but with a multilayered sound as each tail hit at a slightly different time.

  And it hurt. Wonderfully. Terribly. She cried out, rounding her shoulders as her breasts started to burn with heat, the sting not having time to fade before he struck her again.

  “Shoulders back,” he commanded.

  “I…I…”

  “Give me your breasts. They are mine to abuse tonight.”

  His perverse command made her shiver in need. She needed this, deserved it. How had she forgotten how good it could be to submit?

  Years ago she’d been so heavily into BDSM that she’d actually hosted a monthly munch—a BDSM meet and greet.

  Then she’d grown restless and slowly drifted away from the community and the lifestyle, taking with her everything she’d learned about how complex a person’s sexuality could be, and how universal the desire for connection was, even if that connection was found on opposite ends of a whip.

  The flogger never stopped, and she lost track of time. The sound of each strike was like a metronome, relentless and mesmerizing. Her breasts ached. She felt swollen and tender, each blow a warm sting.

  The pattern broke, the flogger not striking her left breast when it should have.

  “We’ll pause for a moment.”

  Alena forced her eyes open, blinking.

  Alexander casually bounced the flogger against his leg, the only sign of impatience during the small intermission.

  “Look at me,” he commanded.

  Their gazes collided, and for a moment Alena was sure he could see the truth. The truth of why she was here, what she wanted from him.

  Anxiety flashed through her, cold and sobering.

  Alexander simply nodded, then leaned in, examining her breasts. He used the butt of the crop handle to lift each breast in turn, examining the underside.

  “Your skin marks beautifully. No bruises of course, but you will be pink for several hours.”

  “Thank you, Sir.”

  The words were automatic, almost habitual.

  As if Alexander had pulled that buried submissive part of her forward in the space of an hour.

  This was a terrible mistake. There was a piece in
play she hadn’t seen, and that piece, her long forgotten submissive needs, bolstered by the sexual chemistry between them, had knocked her back several moves.

  This plan had seemed perfect, both because it was one of the only ways she could gain access to him, and because she was an experienced submissive. It was an approach no normal person would have dared, unless they were so ignorant of what BDSM was that they walked in blind and ignorant.

  Alena’s life had never been normal. At best it had been interesting, and at worst traumatic. She was who she was, and did what she did, because of it.

  “We’ll continue.”

  The flogger swished through the air, finding the rhythm once more.

  Instead of her breasts he focused on her thighs and hips.

  Thwack. Right hip.

  Thwack. Left thigh.

  Thwack. Right hip.

  Thwack. Left thigh.

  The blows were stronger now than they had been on her breasts, but not as hard as what he’d used on her ass.

  She’d been right.

  He knew exactly how to use a flogger. He knew the implement, knew how to use it to cause completely different sensations, how to moderate his swings for different sensations and strengths of impact.

  He was precise. Methodical.

  The kind of man who wasn’t easy to trick.

  Alexander paused, stepping back, and she sagged for a moment, letting her head fall back and lifting each leg in turn, circling her ankle and feeling the heat in her thighs.

  “Again.” The word was merciless. He was merciless.

  She braced her feet, closed her eyes, and forced herself to breathe.

  Thwack. Left hip.

  Thwack. Right thigh.

  Thwack. Left hip.

  Thwack. Right thigh.

  He’d reversed the pattern, which meant he was striking virgin skin.

  “You’re almost at your limit.” It wasn’t a question, it was a statement.

  “No, Sir.”

  She didn’t want her limit to be what stopped them. She wanted him to keep going, wanted to linger in this place of uncomfortable heat. It was like the first moments of getting into a too-hot spa after a day in the snow.

  “No?”

  Alena arched her back, thrusting her breasts towards him.

  “Ask for what you want,” he commanded. “Or was that a lie?”