by Cynthia Dane
“I have no idea.”
“Come on, now. You worked here. You have plenty of experience in a related industry. Now you’ve been here as a guest tonight. Tell me what you would change.”
Alice took a closer look at the behind the scenes workings of the club, not so much the style of the people patronizing it. Hostesses slipped through crowds, showing guests to seats and chatting them up. Servers in slick black outfits gracefully moved, trays high above their heads and bedecked with drinks that cost twenty bucks a pop – at least. The occasional guest ordered a whole bottle, and the server would perform with a flourish as she tipped drinks into glasses. That was unless the guest had a sub who went out of his or her way to serve the drinks instead.
That was the service end. On the main stage an erotic dancer seductively moved, her long, lean and tanned limbs spinning through the air as one piece of clothing after another fluttered to the floor. When she finished, she graciously accepted tips and applause before clearing the stage for a BDSM demonstration between a Domme and a young man who was more than eager to please. About half of the room was enthralled.
Meanwhile, farther back, men and women in business suits had low, quiet conversations that sometimes included graphs and figures on their large tablets. Business meetings conducted on the floor of a sex club? Interesting.
“Is it normal for people to do business like that here?”
“Yes, of course. I like to think a million dollars can be made here in a night. It’s not uncommon to take the more informal parts of business to a place like this. I do it all the time.”
Do you, now? Alice pretended she didn’t hear that. “Whenever we had after work conferences at any of the restaurants, we always made sure they had a more private and quiet place to converse. That’s not available here unless they pay extra for VIP, yes?”
“Yes, and most people aren’t going to pay for VIP unless they’re really here to party.”
I’m sure. I cleaned up my share of bodily fluids that night. Including her own.
“They’re coming here because they see it as a place to relax and soften feelings while they conduct after-hours business. Nevertheless, most people will find it strange to talk stocks and dividends while someone is getting whipped and moaning on stage… sir.”
“Suppose you’re right.”
“People go to nightclubs. This is the most prestigious nightclub for people of your caliber. If you made them feel even more comfortable when they come here not to immediately get off, they’ll bring more people and spend more money.”
Monroe wound her hair around his finger. “It is something to consider.” He left a light kiss on her shoulder. “Every night we spend together, the more I fall in love with you.”
Alice turned toward him, the leash landing in his waiting hand. “Do you mean that? You’re not just saying that?”
“My love.” His hands cupped her cheeks, that cologne of his eradicating the last of Alice’s brain cells for the day. Is there any man better than him? Any man more gorgeous, more officious, more virile? Alice hated to admit how much of his father was in him. The determination, the drive, the cutthroat manner in which he approached life and his pursuit to acquire whatever he wanted. She also saw plenty of his mother in this face. Empathy, for one. Unlike Russell, Damon was capable of feeling tenderness – which he passed to her now with his fingertips. “I am a charmer, and I do not back down from admitting that I can be a master manipulator. But I am not a liar. I would rather watch my world crumble than lie to you about love. I do not fear it.”
“Fear what?”
“Love.”
Alice wrapped her arms around him, mask pressed against his loosened gray tie and nose pushing aside his shirt so it could nuzzle the light chest hairs beneath. She smelled more of his natural scent than the cologne now.
He led her back to the couch, their corner of the club now devoid of any intrusions that kept Monroe away from his precious girlfriend. As he brought her drink up to her lips, he said, “This may shock you, but I do have fears.”
“Doesn’t everyone?”
“I’m not supposed to fear, though.” Monroe put the glass down and brought her closer to him. Alice rested her cheek upon his chest and let her hands languidly work the buttons on his shirt. “From as far back as I can remember, I trained myself to not give in to fear. I couldn’t fear losing another parent. I couldn’t fear what other kids thought of me. I sure as hell could not fear for my future. I have spent much of my life numbing myself to the world. One day after another passes by. Nothing remarkable happens. I make tens of millions of dollars… so what? What does that mean? I lose tens of millions of dollars… so what? I’ll make it back again next week with a better investment. My life is so sterile.”
He kissed her, pushing her head against the back of the couch as his tongue delved deep into her mouth, caressing the roof and the frenulum beneath her tongue. Yeah, this guy makes my frenulum sexy. When Monroe moved far enough away to speak, Alice remained beneath his erotic spell.
“Then I met you.”
“Fate, right?” Alice whispered.
“You were there. You tell me.”
She relaxed against the couch. Her body, as he teased her with kisses and fervent touches, responded with such alacrity that she almost swore she was the easiest girl in the world. After all, it had taken all of three encounters in one night to get her to fuck him. Two so-called dates to get her to be his girlfriend. One week in Chicago to make her seriously consider marriage, let alone what their children would look like.
“I felt something too,” Alice confessed. “I thought it was mere attraction.”
“So did I.”
“If you had never pursued me like you did, I would have considered you a fond memory and gone on my way.”
“I could not have done that.”
“But I would have compared every man after that to you.”
That satisfied the ego bruising beneath her grip. “What a coincidence. I was prepared to compare every woman in the world to you, to convince myself that you weren’t worth throwing my life out of sorts over.”
“And?”
Alice fell down against the couch, Monroe’s breath teasing her breasts. Her nipples wouldn’t be able to stand it at this rate. “Every woman paled in comparison. It has to be you, Alice. I don’t care if you don’t love me half as much as I love you. Even a drop of your love is enough to satisfy me for the rest of my life.”
Too much! How was she supposed to believe something like that?
Nevertheless, she giggled when he pulled her off the couch and stole a key to a private room. That key was probably reserved for another guest. Not that the owner cared.
“Go sit on the bed,” Monroe said, securing the door behind him. “Sit and think about what you’ve done.”
Alice flopped down onto the bed, mask sliding across her face and leash jingling into a coil beside her. “Think about what, sir?”
Monroe leaned against the door. “What you’ve done to me.”
One breast threatened to fall out of her bra as she hurried to sit up. “What have I done?”
“Exist.” The light wasn’t bright enough to illuminate the look on his face. What did he look like? Devoted? Distracted? Annoyed that someone as simple as Alice had stolen his otherwise impervious and frozen heart? “You existed in my presence. For that I both thank you and resent you.”
“Why do you resent me?” Was this a good or a bad thing? Definitely did not sound like a good thing…
Monroe’s hands refused to move from his pockets. “Because now I have to restrain myself from making love to you.”
“No you don’t.” Legs dangling over the side of the sparse bed, Alice continued, “You can do whatever you want to me.”
“You’re mistaken, my love.” His hands were fists of channeled frustration. “I can’t do a damn thing until I’m convinced that you love me at all.”
“What?”
Monroe kicked h
imself off the door, but only met Alice halfway across the small private room. “You’re going to convince me that you need me. I’ve spent this whole night acting like a fool in love. Now you’re going to drive us both crazy with love and desire.”
“Just me!”
“Just you, Alice.” Monroe stood inches out of reach. “I refuse to touch you until you’re begging for me… and I believe every word of desperation coming out of your mouth.”
She trembled. Not from fear, or discomfort, but from the way his voice growled in the depths of his throat. “Is that an order, sir?”
“You want to obey, don’t you?”
Yes. Best to share that thought, wasn’t it? “Yes, sir.” She pulled her legs up onto the bed. What the hell should she do? Without Monroe giving her concrete orders, it was difficult to figure out what he wanted. I’m supposed to know what he wants, though. Hadn’t he just said what he wanted? He wanted her so eager for him that he could no longer deny the call for passion between them. In a way, it was a reenactment of the night they first met.
Alice recalled her first impression of him. Strong. Handsome. Dark, both in the eyes and in the heart. The way he flippantly treated his employees and vapidly watched a half-naked woman give him a lap dance. Damon Monroe had been a man going through the motions and convinced that nothing would ever inspire him to live life to the fullest. Then he met… Alice? I still can’t believe it. What was so special about her? She was pretty. Inoffensively so, but that was it. Monroe couldn’t have known about her mind or character from simply conversing with her for two minutes. Like him, she had assumed their first encounter was about nothing but lust. He had wanted her. She had wanted him. Having sex that night was as natural as breathing. When two strangers craved each other that much… how could they feel bad about what happened?
“Kiss me,” she pleaded, head pointed in his direction. “Or at least let me kiss you. Please.”
He backed away from her. “No.”
“What do you want, Damon?” Alice unsnapped her bra and let the fabric fall unceremoniously to the bed. Her breasts were heavy. Heavier than the lump in her stomach. “Do you really want me to make a fool of myself?” She struggled with her thong, the string refusing to move down her hips. “Fine. I’ll do whatever you want, but don’t deny me you.”
Was it the way she said it? Or had she finally gotten through to him? For by the time Alice clung to the edge of the bed, Monroe relented, coming to her with a fearsome swirl in his eyes. A hurricane. A typhoon. The room may have been dark, but Alice saw those ambers as clearly as she saw his whole body before her.
“Please, sir.” Was that what he wanted? To always feel like the most important man in the world? You are, Damon. You’re the most important man in my world. “Please let me be with you. Every second you don’t touch me is a second of my life wasted.”
He snatched her chin so deftly that the world quaked beneath her knees. “Who am I to you, Alice?”
She wetted her lips, for they were so dry that breathing pained them. “You’re the man I love.”
“No, Alice. Who am I to you?”
Quivers ripped through her, and she didn’t know if it was arousal or terror eating away at her insides. His tone made her wet, but his words quickened her heart in ways she was not prepared for. “You’re my Master.”
His hand abandoned her chin only to grab her hair, yanking her head farther back. The leash echoed in her ear. “Do you belong to me, Alice?”
“Yes, sir!”
“Would you ever belong to anyone else?”
She hesitated. “Only to myself.”
Monroe chuckled, easing his grip on her hair. “I think I can stand having you as my main competition for your heart and soul.”
“Trust me. I’m easily swayed.”
“Apparently, so am I.” She leaned into his hand, his thumb pulling against her bottom lip until it slipped between her teeth and across her tongue. The man on the other side of this touch stiffened. “I don’t merely want to obey you, sir,” Alice whispered upon his thumb. “I want to serve you. I want to make you feel as good as you make me feel.”
The leash was taut in his hand once more. “Then do so. For once in my life, I want to feel as worshipped as people say I am. Do that, and I’ll give you anything you want, my pet.”
Alice sat up on her knees, arms reaching around his neck. “I want you, sir. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
“Then have me.”
Although he stood as rigidly as a man wary of love, the bright light returned to his eyes, the first sign Alice ever truly had that a mortal man lurked somewhere within this impressive form. This was as close as she would get to true intimacy for now.
The man had lowered his emotional guard. What else did Alice demand of him?
In truth, all she wanted was to throw herself at his body and worship every inch of him. That included what he adorned himself with. The buttons of his shirt disappeared between her lips, tongue searching for his soft skin as he sighed beneath her touch. Alice clawed at his jacket, willing it off his damned torso so she could rip the expensive silk apart. Onyx cufflinks tangled in her hair. A belt made of gold and a watch made of silver grazed her skin. Alice may have been nude, but it was Monroe who was naked, baring as much of himself as he dared to her. After all, he feared. He was a man. He was mortal. The world built him up as some untouchable god who wasn’t allowed to feel anything but desire and power. In front of Alice? He could finally be who he felt inside.
Desire and power. They were there, always present beneath the heat of his skin and the depths of his voice. I feel other things, though. Desire. Power. Vulnerability.
The more he bared himself to her, whether it was his clothes shedding from his body or his heart exposing itself through his words and actions, the more Alice convinced herself that maybe… perhaps…
This could be forever.
How could she become closer to him? Was it through desperate kisses to his physique? Combing his hair with her shaking fingers? Grabbing his cock and diving into the heady world of oral comforts? Even when he was halfway down her throat, precum threatening to choke her more than the collar around her neck could, Alice remained convinced that she wasn’t doing a good enough job displaying her need for him. This man probably hadn’t felt real love in the past twenty-five years. Alice was it. She was his chance.
He trusted fate enough to guide him to her. Alice could not let that down.
“I love you,” she insisted, denying any pithiness in those words. There was nothing concise about confessing love, especially when that love encompassed a level of emotion that Alice could not explain.
She would do anything for him. She would do anything, if it meant feeling his body against hers, hearing his voice, and experiencing his passion within her heart every day of her life.
Anything he asked in this moment? She would have agreed to it. Any humiliation. Any degradation. Any and all of it was fair game when Alice Culver was so deep in this love.
She almost wept when he swept her up in his arms and fell with her to the bed.
Everything was a frenzy. The hushes. The moans. The creaks of the bed. The spread of Alice’s legs. The sharp punch of his hips as they speared her thighs. The pull of her hair and the yank of her leash. The bites to her breasts and the peaking of her nipples. The rush she got when she was so wet and eager for him that penetrating her was a mere formality. The man taking her over, filling her with his cock and seed. The increasing speed and foul, fouler, foulest words that marked her as his and no one else’s. Only Damon Monroe could dare to call her such wretched words and not only get away with it, but be deified for them. Alice thought her fair share of foul words as well. About herself. About him. About the perfect disaster that was their fated romance.
It empowered her.
Alice Culver had never been a self-important woman. No one would have ever said she suffered from bouts of Narcissism. So it was only fair to believe her when she sa
id she was the only woman, the only person on Earth to ever make this man feel this way. No one else could have, or would ever claim the honor of turning Damon Monroe into an utter mess. She knew, as innately as she knew her own heart and mind, that she was the only person put on this planet to go toe-to-toe with this man. To take what he offered, happily and with a flippant “How do you want me?” Who else could handle the rough way he expressed his love in bed? Who else was bestowed the temperament to deal with his ever-changing whim?
Who else could look the threats surrounding her in the eye and tell them to fuck off?
It was worth it, when the alternative was never feeling like this again.
“You’re mine, Alice,” Monroe said, first with a murmur, and then with such spirit that she didn’t know if she got off more on that or the way his cock touched her innermost refuge. “Today, tomorrow, the rest of your fucking life.”
She whimpered from the feisty pain she received when he turned her on his cock and spanked her ass.
“Do you understand me?” The leash whipped back, the chain tickling her ass. “I own you, Alice Culver. I’m the man you’ll be thinking of every time you look at another.” His cock buried itself so deep within her than she bit her own finger. “You can’t deny me. You can’t look the other way when I’m around. I’ll consume your thoughts even when we’re apart. Like you consume mine.” He sucked her throat, his cock already swelling with the need to come. “I’m giving all of me to you. You will give all of you to me.”
“Yes!” Alice shrieked into the bed as he spanked her again, her muscles squeezing him within her. “You have it! You have all of me!”
She believed that with every weeping part of her being as she cried out in the bliss it gave her. His mouth was on hers, consuming whatever it could as she climaxed – and not for the first time that night.
There was nothing sweeter than experiencing his release only a few seconds later. Well, almost nothing. Perhaps the sweetest thing was hearing what sounded like his heart blasting thunder through the room the moment they both realized they were in too deep to ever have a rational thought about their love again.