Some of the men shout encouragement. “Fuck her! Take her like you own her!”
Do I own Isabel?
I don’t claim to. But I do wonder if I would be bothered if another man took her. Suddenly, I feel an urgency to show all the men in the audience that this woman will never be satisfied by any of their cocks.
But will I ever call her my own?
As I thrust into her mercilessly, I feel my balls fill. I’m not sure that I’ll ever make her mine, but I’m sure as fuck going to let everyone know that she’ll never be satisfied by any other man.
I reach around her, unleashing the gag. “You can make all the noise you want now.”
She moans, loudly, “Yes! Yes!”
I lean over, humping her hard and deep as I hold her by the shoulders. “You like the way I fuck you?”
“Yes! Oh, God, yes!”
Knowing other men are watching us, salivating over her, spurs me on. “Do you ever want somebody else’s cock inside of you?”
“No! Please, no!”
I smile in spite of the fact that I’m not about to make any kind of a commitment to her. “Would you like me to make you mine?” I give her a hard thrust.
“Yes!”
It’s enough for me. The other men know she wants to be mine. That’s enough for me. I now wear a cocky grin as I lift my torso up and finish fucking her, standing tall behind her. When she comes, I do too. It sends a chill through me. We’ve become so well adapted to each other’s bodies—that has to be the only reason it feels as fucking good as it does. Better than it’s ever felt with anyone else.
The curtain closes and I pull out of her. Releasing her from the stockade, I take off the blindfold. She’s breathing hard as she looks at me. “Grant, did you mean what you said?”
Without answering her, I take her to the dressing room so I can clean us both up and massage her body. My silence has her following my lead, not saying a word.
Isabel isn’t the type to ask anything more than once. She knows what my answer is without me giving voice to it.
The shower in the dressing room is large, made for two people. I pull her corset off her. Dropping my pants, I lead her inside the tiled walls to wash away the sweat and other bodily fluids. Neither of us wants to walk around smelling like that the rest of the night.
She’s limp as I wash her body. I never ask her to wash mine. I don’t want her hands all over me. “Get out, dry off and go lay on the bed so I can massage you.”
She nods and gets out. I can feel the sadness emanating from her and know I don’t want to deal with it. But the after-care is part of it all. I have to deal with it.
After I clean myself up, I throw a towel around my waist and go out to find her lying on her stomach on the small bed. I begin the massage at her feet, without saying a word to her.
Her sigh lets me know she isn’t feeling so great about things. So it’s my responsibility to see to her emotional well-being too. “Was there any part of that you need to talk about, Isabel?”
“And if there was?” She tries to roll over to face me, but I won’t let her.
“You talk, I’m getting these calves and thighs back in working order.” I go to work on them. I would rather deal with her body than her mind any day. But I have no choice in the matter.
“Why did you say that, Grant?”
“Say what?” I know I’m acting stupid and that it won’t get me out of the awkward conversation, but I have to try.
“The part about if I’d like for you to make me yours. Why did you say that?”
“I didn’t say it to hurt you.” I’m not sure what to say to her about it. I know it was selfish and irrational, but I couldn’t stop myself in that moment.
“Okay,” she says. As I finish the massage, ending with her shoulders, she rolls over to face me. She looks at me with those dark, soulful eyes. “Grant, I’m not sure where you and I stand. Saying things like that, even during an act, is confusing to me.”
“I know. I’ll refrain from doing that again. It wasn’t fair to you.” I run my hands up and down her arms to loosen them up. Our faces are close and my lips tingle, wanting to kiss hers.
“Did you say it because you want that? Do you want to make me yours? Are you afraid I’ll turn you down? I wouldn’t turn you down, Grant. I’d give you anything you want. I want you to know that.” The way she blinks her heavy dark lashes slowly makes my chest tighten.
“I don’t want you to give me any more than you already are.” I have to be honest with her. I demand honesty out of her, and she deserves for me to give her the same. “When I realized that all those men were looking at you as a sex object, a thing they might like to toy with, it hit me that I needed to make sure that never happened. So I said what I said.”
“Oh. So what you’re telling me is that you don’t want me, but you don’t want anyone else to have me either.” She looks off to one side.
What am I supposed to say to that? She’s right. But I don’t want to admit that. “I want you when I want you. And I don’t want to see you with anyone else. I know that makes me an asshole.”
“Yes, it does.” She looks at me right in the eyes. “But I consider you my asshole. And the fact is, I don’t want to see you with other women, either. So what are we going to do about this?”
She wants to be exclusive and, in a way, I do too. But that would lead to more and more until she and I were lawfully wedded and raising a family and living happily ever after.
Only I know there are no happy endings. At least not in my family.
“I think you and I have spent too much time together. We’re starting to feel as if we own one another. I didn’t take you on as a sub. I’m not really your Dom, and I’m definitely not your boyfriend. Hell, I’m not even your fuck-buddy, Isabel.”
“Fuck you, Grant Jamison!” The slap she gives me hurts far worse than anything ever has. It shakes me all the way to my core. She pulls back to give me another. Which I deserve, but I catch her by the wrist.
“No more.” I let her hand go and walk away from her.
I have gone too far with her. And now we’re both hurt because of it. I vow from now on that I will not spend more than one session with any woman.
I can’t.
And I can never be with Isabel again. Somehow our hearts have gotten into it, and that was the very last thing that was supposed to happen.
Putting my tux back on, I ignore the glare she’s giving me. She gets off the bed and puts her dress back on then walks to the door, ready far faster than I could be.
Before she leaves, she turns to look at me. “No one needs to know about this. I won’t talk bad about you, you don’t talk bad about me. Deal?”
“Deal.”
“I’ll treat you with respect in public, and I expect you to treat me the same way. I don’t want gossip going around about us. We work together, that’s it. No more training, no more scenes. I’ll get over you. In time.” She takes a deep breath as she gathers herself then walks out the door.
My body sags after she leaves me alone. I am a complete jackass. It feels awful to know that about myself.
At least I’m not lying to anyone. Not myself or Isabel. Whatever we have, it’s over.
I didn’t know I could miss her, but I already do.
Damn, it feels like shit.
Part Two
Chapter 9
Isabel
It’s hard to believe that just as the club opens, whatever Grant and I had falls apart. I know we were only ever together for the sake of training—we aren’t a couple and never have been. But I can’t help getting attached to the man. How could I have helped it? We get along great. And we have mind-blowing sex too.
Even though I’ve known about his hang ups with relationships since the beginning, I guess a tiny part of me thought he might’ve changed his mind in the past couple of months. Why can’t he see what’s right in front of him? I understand his needs—all of them. His sexual and emotional needs.
/> He and I are perfect together.
A small part of him must’ve seen that too. He admitted that he didn’t want to see me with anyone else, and I don’t want to see him with another woman. So why did he put an end to it all? He doesn’t even want to give us a chance.
After our argument, I head to my office. In the large bottom drawer on the left of my desk is a bottle of Macallan eighteen-year-old Scotch. I bought it to give to Grant after the doors close tonight.
Instead of giving it to him, I open the expensive bottle and pour myself a glass. The first sip burns like fire as it slips down my throat. I know the numbness it will bring will outweigh the pain.
All the pain. The pain in my body, in my head, in my heart. It’s everywhere. And I have to push it all down. I have to act as if nothing has happened.
Opening night is supposed to be a celebration. We’ve all worked so damn hard to get the club up and going. The show Grant and I put on was supposed to be the pinnacle of one great night. A night that I thought would be beyond belief.
I guess it is. I feel pain that’s beyond belief.
It’s after the third sip of Scotch that the realization fully hits me—I love Grant. I love that sorry son of a bitch more than I’ve ever loved any man.
But he isn’t capable of loving me back.
I have the comfort of knowing he will most likely never be capable of loving anyone. At least I have that.
I’ll have to see the man all the damn time. That will be difficult, but I’ll figure out how to deal with it. The money I’m making isn’t a thing anyone can walk away from. Plus, I have a five-year contract that forbids it.
Another sip of Scotch and the numbness starts settling in. I can do it. I can get through the night. One glass of Scotch at a time.
A knock comes at my door, and I put the bottle away. I put the glass in the top drawer, closing it, hiding it from view. Getting up, I go to answer the door. A young man is standing there with a young girl’s hand in his. “We’d like to make a contract. How do we go about doing that?”
“Come in and take the seats in front of my desk. I’ll get all the papers together and get you two going.” It’s the first Dom/sub contract that the Dungeon will make. The first of many we all hope.
I hand them each a paper they begin to fill out. “Check the boxes next to the kinks you’re willing to do.” I take a seat in my chair, wishing I could keep that glass of Scotch in my hand. It didn’t do much to soothe me, but it does seem to have taken the pain away.
Grant’s intentions were never to make me love him. I know that. He was never loving or caring with his words. Hell, most of the time, not even with the way he fucked me. But when he was doing the after-care, that’s when he showed his softer side, when he was soft, caring, loving.
I know he has it in him to be those things. I know, with time, he could find himself giving me more and more of that part of him. But he has put a stop to it all.
I pushed too hard. I should’ve shut the fuck up. I knew that, even as I spoke the words to him, asking him why he’d said what he had. I knew I was fucking things up. Pushing, and pushing, a thing Grant didn’t allow. But he never should’ve said that to me in front of everyone either.
After I get the new couple out of my office, I lock the door and take the drink out, downing it in the hope that the numbness will come back.
I’ll have to go out there and face him. I can’t let him see my weakness. All I’ll show Grant Jamison is that I can do just fine without him.
He’ll see. I’ll be just fine.
One more glass of Scotch and I’ll go show him. I don’t need his ass.
Chapter 10
Grant
The night is going insanely well. Everyone is on top of the world. It’s obvious the club will be a great success. The other owners and I are all smiles as we all envision that the accounts will soon be bursting at the seams with all the money people are spending.
One of the members asks me to help him in one of the private rooms. He and his partner want to try out some flogging techniques, and he wants to be sure he doesn’t cause her any real harm.
As I head into the dimly lit room with its red walls, and black floor and ceiling, I realize it bothers me to be in here with anyone other than Isabel.
Oh, I have to get over that, and quick! “I tell you what, let me go out and grab a woman so I can demonstrate on her and you can follow suit.” I head back out and find it’s easy to find a woman who wants to help me out with the demonstration.
Back to the room we go, and I move her into position. The other man does the same with his woman, and I show him the first technique.
As my hand moves the flogger and it lands on the woman’s ass, a pain shoots through my heart.
Is what I’m doing wrong?
I gulp back the feeling and move on. “You okay, doll?”
She turns her mask covered face to look back at me. “Yeah. I liked it. Do it some more, please.”
Shaking my head, I try to rid my mind of that pesky notion that what I’m doing is bad. “Okay, a figure eight motion is also good.” I demonstrate and feel that pain in my chest again.
I realize I have a weakness.
Isabel.
I have to get past it. I have to.
The girl I found turns to look back at me again and winks. “We should get our own room.”
Though my heart isn’t in it, my head tells me to do it. Getting another girl under you is the quickest way to get over the girl who’s haunting you. It goes something like that, I’m sure.
So I do just that. I take the girl to the next private room and proceed to forget about Isabel.
I’m not the man for Isabel anyway. I’m doing her a favor by letting her go.
Am I really letting her go?
Can it be that easy?
My hand slides over her round ass. It’s creamy, smooth, and it should be getting my dick hard by now, but it’s not. I thought picking a random woman off the floor of The Dungeon of Decorum would help me get Isabel off my mind, but it’s not working.
Ignoring my limp dick, I push the girl, whose name I don’t know and don’t want to know, down on the hard wooden surface of the spanking bench. Trying to get out of my own head, I ask, “Have you been a bad girl?”
She laughs sexily. “Very bad. I think you might need to spank my bad ass.”
“So you came here for punishment, did you?” I put my hand on her back to hold her still as I pick up the belt off the table of torture devices and slap it against my thigh.
“Yes, master,” her words ignite a fire inside me, in a bad way.
“I am not your master. I am merely the man who will dole out the punishment you want. Do you understand me?” I smack her ass, and a bright red mark appears on her right cheek as she lets out a shriek.
I did it much too hard. I’ll have to rein that in a bit. Pure anger is flowing through me like a hot wind that threatens to take me over. I know I have to get a hold of myself—this club is a safe space, not a place where you go to get spanked by a raving lunatic who can’t control his temper. But it’s easier said than done.
“You’re not my master. Yeah, I get it. Ow!” She looks over her shoulder at me, her long black braid falling across her other shoulder. “You take this shit pretty damn seriously, don’t you?”
“You want to leave?” I take a step back and hold my arm out in a gesture to the door. “Be my guest. You asked me to come here, I didn’t ask you. Do you want to see the real side of BDSM or the candy-ass version? Because with me, you get the motherfucking real deal. Do you understand that?”
She’s perfectly still for a moment, staring a hole in me. “I’m new to this.”
“Then you should get yourself a man who is also new to this, shouldn’t you? You vanilla little twat.” I suck in my breath, unsure of why I just called her such an ugly thing. “Go. You should go now.”
She takes my warning and hauls ass out of the room. I fall onto a chair that’s me
ant to restrain a submissive and bury my face in my hands.
Why did I do that?
Why did I lose control?
Is Isabel worth me losing my mind over? And why do I feel this way?
I know what’s best for us. I know I’m not the man she thinks I can be. So why can’t I do it? Why can’t I go back to being me?
I need a drink, and fast. And some manly talk, too. Fuck, I need something, and I need it now.
Putting my shirt back on and pulling on the tuxedo jacket, I push my hand through my hair to fix it a bit before walking out of the private room, alone.
The hallway where the private rooms are located is dark with intermittent red and green lights above each door. The sounds coming from the doors with the red lights tell me the occupants are all getting what they came here for.
Moans, groans, the snaps of various whips and chains make my heart pump that much harder.
Damn, how badly I want to join in. What dreams I had about the first night and all the debauchery I would take part in. But Isabel and her damn desire for something real with me has ruined it all.
I walk out of the hallway and head straight to the bar, stopping dead in my tracks as I see her sitting there, a man talking to her much too closely.
What the fuck is she doing?
“Isabel!” I shout across the room, like a mad man.
I move with great speed across the rest of the room and find my hand on the shoulder of the man who dares to get that close to the woman I’ve just been intimate with in front of all of them.
All I can do is look at her as the man quickly leaves us alone—I didn’t even have to say a thing to him and off he went. “Really, Mr. J., was that necessary?” Isabel rolls her eyes, which are still covered with the mask she’s worn since the night began.
She reaches for her drink, a cranberry cocktail from the looks of it, but I catch her by the wrist, pulling her up and making her follow me. “You and I have to set some ground rules it seems.”
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