“Funny you should mention your job, because I can’t find any record of you ever having one,” she said.
“I haven’t needed one in a very long time.”
“That must be nice,” Cassandra said wryly.
“Every man has his burden.” There was something in the way he said the last word that caught Cassandra’s ear.
“You’re British,” she said. He’d pushed the accent down, but there was no denying it was there. No wonder his voice was so damn sexy.
“That surprises you?” he asked.
“Seeing as your birth certificate says that you were born in Fort Collins, Colorado, yes, it does.”
Cassandra only had the chance to feel a lick of satisfaction when a crack formed in his smug mask. What was behind it was so much darker. So much more attractive. She took a step back. For the first time in her career, she was seriously contemplating cutting an interview short. Not because she was afraid of him, but because she was afraid of her own reaction to him.
“It appears that your reputation for thoroughness is not undeserved,” he said. “Tell me, Cassandra, do you ever give a thought to what you might find when you go digging?” His voice was rougher now.
“Of course I do.”
“And yet you chose to come here anyway?”
Cassandra straightened instantly. “Is that a threat, Mr. Guildford? Because I don’t care how powerful or well connected you are. I am not afraid of you.”
“Nor should you be,” he said. “I am not concerned about you discovering my secrets, Cassandra, but I am intrigued by the idea of you coming face to face with your own.”
Cassandra swallowed hard. “I don’t have any secrets.”
The wicked smile returned to Richard’s lips, and Cassandra felt her toes begin to tingle. Who the hell was this man that literally made her knees weak.
“Don’t you?” he asked.
“I don’t have any secrets. Nothing important anyway.”
“Oh, but it’s those little secrets that are the most fascinating. Those little fantasies you’ve never dared to speak out loud. Those are the ones that burn the strongest, aren’t they?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Cassandra lied.
He swung his body out from the post and stood directly in front of her. She looked away, unable to meet his gaze. Unfortunately, there was nowhere else to look other than his massive bed.
For a moment she allowed herself to imagine what it would be like to be in that bed with him. His lean body propped over hers. Both of them covered in a fine sheen of sweat as they ground against each other.
“No, not the safe ones,” he said, cocking his head to the side as though he could see her thoughts. “The dangerous ones. The ones you keep trying to push down. But they don’t go away, do they? They keep rising up, each time stronger than before.”
Cassandra had the feeling he wasn’t just speaking in the second person. But he couldn’t know. He was no better than a carnival fortune teller, reading her face and playing the odds that, just like everyone else, there was something buried deep inside that she was ashamed of.
“And that’s what you do here at Mercy Club? You give people the chance to act out their secret fantasies.”
“We free people from the bonds of shame,” he said.
“For a price, of course.” She gave an exaggerated look at his outfit. “There must be good money in the wish fulfillment business.”
“I wouldn’t know. There is no charge for our services.”
Cassandra gave a cynical laugh. “You can’t convince me that you’ve spent millions of dollars renovating this place in order to open the world’s first sex charity.”
The corners of his crystal blue eyes lifted slightly, and Cassandra had the feeling that she had given him exactly the opening he had been hoping for.
“Perhaps it would be better if I showed you,” he said.
Cassandra’s eyes went wide. He couldn’t possibly mean….
He strode toward the door. “You can continue with your interview, if you like, while I give you a tour,” he said in a teasing tone.
“Of course.” Her cheeks burnt with embarrassment that he had read her thoughts so easily. “I’ll follow you.”
“I like the sound of that,” he said in a rough whisper as he passed her. A shiver shot through her body, straight to her core. Damn. She had to get a hold of her reaction to him, or her panties would be soaked through before she got out the door.
Marcus was still standing outside the door when Richard opened it. He’d obviously been given instructions to stay, but why? Richard hardly looked like the kind of man who needed a bodyguard.
“I am going to take Cassandra on a tour of the club, Marcus. Will you ready the Iron Room for us?”
Marcus nodded before making his way down the hallway.
“The Iron Room?” Cassandra asked.
“It is in the lower level of the Arsenal. I have a feeling it will be of interest to you.” He guided her toward the stairs.
Cassandra refused to think too hard about what he meant by that. She tried to pick up the conversation from before.
“So you don’t deny that you’ve turned the Arsenal into a sex club?”
“Does that shock you?” he asked.
“I’ve lived my entire life in San Francisco. Very little shocks me.”
“Then why have you taken such an interest in what we are doing here?” There was only genuine curiosity in his voice, no anger.
“There are many people in this community who object to turning this historic landmark into something vulgar.”
He stopped once they reached the next floor. “Vulgar is a harsh word, Cassandra. Is it yours or theirs, I wonder?”
Cassandra opened her mouth, but no answer came. She didn’t have one.
She didn’t need to have one, she reminded herself. This was her interview. What she needed to do was wrangle back control of it. She was the one asking questions.
“If you are so proud of this place, why don’t you advertise what you do here?”
“The people who need us find their way here,” he said. “Just like you did.”
Cassandra bit into her lip. She pulled out her slim pocket notebook and scribbled down a few notes. Not that she would need the reminder. She had the feeling that every one of his words would be branded in her brain for a long time.
After a few moments of her stalling, he leaned in close. So close that she could smell the crisp scent of his silk shirt.
“Are you ready?” he asked patiently.
“For what?” she asked, even though she knew well enough. She had come to witness the dirty deeds that went on here. That time had come.
He led her toward the second door on the right. Cassandra closed her eyes as he turned the ornate brass knob. What was she doing? She’d waited over a year to see exactly what went on behind these doors. She couldn’t chicken out now. She forced them open as she walked inside.
The room was narrow, no wider than a utility closet. No doubt that was what it had been before its renovation. Now a whole wall was missing, and in it’s place was the dark side of a two-way mirror. But it was what was on the other side that made Cassandra gasp.
It was an opulent Victorian-themed room, and everything from the burgundy-colored wallpaper to the damask drapes looked as decadent as Cassandra had imagined. A naked woman was draped across the center couch. Her hands were clasped above her head, bound together with a length of crimson silk. A shirtless man stood at the armrest and held the excess like reins, keeping her body pulled tight. Every muscle in his torso was clearly defined. Another man, dressed in the same all black uniform as the security guards, knelt on the floor with his head between her thighs.
Cassandra’s jaw fell open as she watched the woman writhe with pleasure. The woman’s nipples were tight, straining upward as she arched her back. She wasn’t the vision of willowy perfection like the woman who had passed Cassandra on the stairs, but ri
ght now in the throes of ecstasy, she was beautiful.
The man holding the silk turned and inclined his head in Richard’s direction.
“Can they see us?” Cassandra asked.
“No,” Richard said.
“Hear us?”
He shook his head.
There had to be some signal she hadn’t caught.
Not that it mattered. Cassandra was more concerned with trying to contain the sizzle of forbidden pleasure that burned inside her. She tried to think of questions to ask him, anything that would distract from what she was watching.
“Who are they?” she asked.
“She is a guest here. I can’t tell you her name; it goes against our privacy rules. But the man licking her pussy is Brian, and the man at her head is Geoffrey.”
“Geoffrey? Geoffrey Stark?” Cassandra glanced at the floor as her memory stirred. “That man is one of the club’s owners?”
“Indeed. He is one of the nine.”
“Do you all take part in your guest’s fantasies?”
“Not always, but when we invite someone here it is for a purpose.”
Goosebumps rose on Cassandra’s arms. Richard stood at her side, but he wasn’t looking through the glass. Just like in the bedroom, his gaze was only on her. She thought of the red envelope that she had found on her desk. Her heart began to pound in her chest as understanding dawned inside her.
Richard Guildford hadn’t accepted her interview request. He had invited her to Mercy Club. For this.
“Is this…representative of what goes here?” she asked, struggling to find words.
“Everyone has different desires, and we cater to them all,” Richard said.
The woman’s moans sounded from the speakers mounted on either side of the room. The more urgent her cries became the farther Geoffrey Stark drew back the silk scarf. Soon it was pulled so brutally tight that the woman struggled not to be dragged away from the source of her pleasure.
Cassandra stood transfixed as the woman looked up at her tormentor with wide pleading eyes.
“Is she in pain?” Cassandra asked.
“No more than she wants to be. This is her fantasy, and she can stop it at any time.” Richard inched closer. He was nearly pressed against her now. Cassandra knew exactly how inappropriate this was. She shouldn’t be alone with him. She should be putting as much distance as she could between them, and fighting to regain her reason.
She should be, but she wasn’t.
“Does that happen? Do people ask for it to stop?” she asked.
“Not often, but sometimes. All she has to do is say her safeword, and it will all stop.” Richard moved behind her. His breath was hot on the exposed skin of her neck. “But she won’t. If I know anything, it is the look of a woman that has found ecstasy. Look at her, Cassandra. What do you see?”
Cassandra focused on the woman. Her eyes were wild with passion. Her chest rose and fell with each panting breath. Every inch of her body was stretched tight, pleading for release, as the man between her legs lapped at her clit.
“Let me come, sir. Please let me come.” The woman’s voice echoed in the cramped room.
The man wrenched up on the silk and forced the woman to stand. He bent her over the armrest of the couch, handed off the reins, and unbuckled his belt.
Cassandra gasped as Richard pressed his chest against her back. Cassandra propped her palms against the flat panel of glass in front of her. She started to turn her head to the side as the man in the next room lowered his pants, but Richard wrapped his fingers around her ponytail. He held her head still.
“Watch her, Cassandra.” Richard’s lips caressed the sensitive flesh of earlobe, and she shivered. “Don’t turn away.”
“It doesn’t seem right, watching this without her consent.” Her voice was a ragged whisper.
“She knows we’re here. That’s part of the fantasy. She wants you to watch as much as you do.”
“But I don’t—” All of her protests stopped the moment that Geoffrey’s cock sprung free. It was long and thick, and Cassandra felt a shock of shame at the primal want she felt at the sight of it. She swallowed a moan when, in a single thrust, he buried it deep inside the woman’s cunt.
Richard kept his grasp on her hair. There was no pain. Not yet. Deeply buried desires rushed to the surface, making her wish that he would pull tighter. Make her squirm. Make her scream.
His lips touched the back of her neck. She pushed back against him. Her ass pressed into his groin. Cassandra felt the hard outline of his cock through his clothes. Her pussy clenched.
As Cassandra watched the scene in front of her, Richard rubbed his other hand over her waist and stomach, up to the curve of her breast. She wished her would stroke against the painfully hard peak of her nipple, but he stopped short.
Desire sharpened to a fine point inside Cassandra. The woman’s moans became her own. But as the other woman inched closer to release, Cassandra’s frustration only grew. Every nerve in her body felt alive, craving the stimulation she dared not ask for.
“Is that what you want?” Richard asked as the man began to pull his cock all the way out before slamming it home again.
Cassandra wet her lips. She nodded. True, her breath was ragged, but she couldn’t deny that it was cowardice that kept her from answering him aloud.
“Liar.” His voice was cold. His grip on her ponytail tightened. A bolt of hot pain flashed across her scalp as he jerked her head back. “You hunger for something darker. Much darker. I sensed it in you as I watched you standing outside the Arsenal. I saw it the second that you walked into my room.”
Cassandra closed her eyes, but the sound of the woman’s pleasured cries invaded her ears, wearing her down.
“All those secret desires, Cassandra, all the ones you’ve been afraid to admit to, you want me to fulfill them, don’t you?”
Cassandra tried to nod, but her held her too tight.
“Say it,” he whispered in her ear.
“Yes.” Her voice shook as much as her body.
He released her hair and wrapped his hand around her upper arm instead.
“Then come with me.” He didn’t have to use any of his coiled strength to guide her. She followed him willingly. Once they reached the main floor, he tried to continue down the stairs. Only then did she pull back.
“Where are you taking me?”
“Down.”
“What’s down there?” He didn’t reply. He didn’t have to. He was in control. His fingers didn’t even have to tighten around her arm to draw her down into the dim light of the Arsenal’s basement.
Cassandra stepped onto the poured concrete floor of the lower level. All the other floors may have been renovated to opulent comfort, but not this one. The walls were little more than exposed stone and wood beams. The only light came from single bulbs dangling from wires overhead. A hundred and fifty years ago this had been the Arsenal’s dungeon. It still was.
“Is it ready?” Richard called out down the narrow hallway.
Cassandra peeked out from around his shoulder to see Marcus leaning against a far wall.
“Of course,” Marcus said. He stepped away from an old metal door as Richard approached. Cassandra wasn’t tall enough to see through the small barred window cut in its center. Rust flaked from the hinges as Richard pulled on a bar that locked the door from the outside. It looked incredibly heavy, but he opened it effortlessly.
Cassandra’s mouth fell open as Richard ushered her inside. This was the Iron Room. She’d seen it a thousand times in her mind, though she’d never known its name. It was the center of every forbidden fantasy she’d ever had.
The floor was bare, the walls reinforced with iron plates. Other than the single chair in the corner of the room, the wood table laid out with an assortment of tools, and the single chain dangling from the ceiling, the room was stark. It was nothing more than a stripped holding cell.
“Do you know where you are?” Richard asked. His tone was as
intense as his stare.
Cassandra nodded slowly as if she were under some erotic spell.
“And you know what is going to happen? If you don’t want it, say it now.”
Of her own free will, Cassandra stepped into the center of the room. The sound of her speeding pulse rushed in her ears. Her hands shook, and for the first time in her life, she didn’t try to hide it.
“I want this,” she said.
“Good. So do I,” Richard said with a predatory gleam in his smile. “Ready her for me, Marcus.”
Richard turned his back to her as he began to unbutton his shirt.
"Leather or metal?" Marcus asked, but the question wasn’t directed to her. She’d given up her right to choose.
"Leather, I think, Marcus. She needs something alive against her skin."
Marcus pulled a pair of tanned cuffs bound together with a short chain off the table. There was no judgment in his eyes as he walked toward her, no surprise either. It seemed that everyone but her had known this would be the outcome of her visit to the Mercy Club.
“What is your safeword?” Marcus asked.
Cassandra shook her head. “I don’t have one. I’ve never needed one before.”
“Then just use the traffic signal. ‘Red light’ means stop. Easy enough to remember?”
Cassandra nodded.
Marcus lifted her sweater up over her head, exposing her favorite bra. Pink with silver embroidery, it was jarringly out of place in this dark place. Her breasts strained against the soft material. Cassandra sucked in her belly as Marcus undid the clasp on the back of her skirt and slid it down her legs.
Marcus lingered there a moment, on his knees, his face even with her groin. He closed his eyes, and Cassandra grew even wetter, knowing that he could smell her arousal. He stood and grasped her hands. He gently wrapped each wrist in a leather band. When he was done, he traced his hands up the column of her arms.
The leather warmed quickly as it came in contact with her skin, even as it held her immobile. She twisted her hands in their prison, but the bindings didn’t give an inch.
Dark Mercy (Masters of Mercy #1 BDSM Erotica) Page 2