Show and Tell: A Forbidden Flowers Story

by Lynne, Donya

  She bit back a smile. “Ah, so the rules aren’t necessarily in place to be followed. Is that it?”

  The way he shrugged one shoulder and smirked out one side of his mouth read as tomato, tomawto. “Some rules are there to be violated, and some are there to be followed.”

  “How does a submissive know which is which?”

  “Sometimes it’s obvious, such as the rules about recreational drugs not being allowed and that consent must be given for all sexual acts. But then sometimes it’s not so obvious.”

  “What rules would those be?”

  He winked down at her. “That’s for you to find out.”

  “In other words, I’ll find out when I break them.”

  He let out a lighthearted chuckle. “You’re catching on.”

  She assumed he was referring to the rules that didn’t make sense, such as the one that frowned upon polite conversation while within the walls of the dungeon. Those were the rules that were put in place to ensure submissives had plenty of opportunities to bring on the wrath of their Doms, all in the name of play, pain, and pleasure.

  He continued showing her around, answering her questions, explaining various pieces of equipment, telling her what to expect from this person or that one. It didn’t take long for her head to begin swimming from all the various levels of stimulation.

  A woman wearing a metal mesh dress and no undergarments knelt on the floor at the feet of her Dom. Other women wore leashes, leather straps, or nothing at all in one case.

  There was so much to see, so much she didn’t understand, and so much she couldn’t wait to try.

  A crowd began to gather in the back of the room around a woman wearing leather hot pants and a see-through bra being undressed by a man wearing light-gray, wide-legged pants that reminded her of what a Buddhist or martial artist might wear.

  Jenna glanced down at her Oscar de la Renta fashion statement. “I’m starting to feel a little overdressed,” she whispered as Warren took her hand and led her toward the action.

  “Some of the Doms like to show off their submissives,” Warren whispered back, guiding her to the edge of the growing crowd.

  “And you don’t?” she asked.

  “No.” He maneuvered her around a small group of people in various states of undress. “I think it’s more exciting to leave something to the imagination, don’t you?” He pointedly looked at her, and she got the distinct impression he was referring to the mask he was wearing to prevent her from seeing his face.

  Her gaze traveled over the simple black mask. She couldn’t deny that the mystery intrigued her and gave her something to look forward to. Something to aspire to. A reason to “behave,” because if she pleased him, he would reward her by letting her see his face. And, yes, that was exciting. Very exciting.

  “Besides,” he said, looking away, “I enjoy undressing a woman too much to want her to parade around without her clothes on. For me, undressing a woman is part of the fun. It’s like unwrapping a Christmas present.”

  “Even if you’ve already unwrapped it before?”

  He grinned. “Every time I undress a woman, no matter how many times I have, it’s always a gift, especially when the wrapping paper changes.”

  In other words, the clothes that a woman wore—her wrapping paper—added to Warren’s excitement. Which was probably why he liked choosing her wardrobe. Because at the end of the night, he knew he would be the one taking it off.

  She got the sense that he reaped great satisfaction in seeing a woman wear the clothes he’d chosen for her, and even greater satisfaction in peeling her out of them. She was his real-life, living, breathing Barbie doll, and he was playing an adult game of dress-up.

  And when she thought of it that way, it wasn’t hard to imagine that the dress he’d bought for her to wear tonight had been as much a gift for himself as it had been for her. He probably got off on seeing her styled how he’d fantasized. Which might explain why he’d been disappointed that she’d put up her hair. Maybe he’d envisioned her with her hair down, and she had taken that away from him by doing her own thing.

  Next time, she would leave her hair down to make up for it.

  Either way, she couldn’t help thinking that Warren was the type of man who would make her wear a corset just so he could unlace it. Slowly and methodically, of course, drawing out the suspense for them both.

  “Let me guess,” she said, as he continued guiding her toward the wall, “you were one of those kids who carefully removed every bow and piece of tape from your Christmas presents, then removed the wrapping paper just as carefully so it didn’t tear.”

  He chuckled. “Actually, no. I was an overexcited kid who tore through the paper . . . then sat back a little disappointed when there was nothing left to unwrap.”

  “So you learned to take your time as you got older? Is that it?”

  “Something like that.” He stopped in an opening and directed her attention toward what everyone else was looking at. “Let’s just say I’ve come to appreciate taking my time at”—his gaze raked her appreciatively from head to toe—“unwrapping beautiful things.”

  An irresistible smile broke over her face as warmth filled her cheeks and flutters erupted inside her belly. Warren sure knew how to pour on the flattery.

  His arm wound around her waist, and he bobbed his chin toward the front of the room. “Now, watch. I want you to see this.”

  She turned her attention to what was going on in front of the crowd. The man had finished undressing his submissive and was now deftly winding and tying a long red rope around her as she knelt on the floor in front of him. The rope crisscrossed in intricate designs and held her arms behind her back with complex knots that looked like it would take a week to untangle.

  “That’s Cujo,” Warren whispered. “Not his real name, of course, but that’s what we all call him.”

  “Why?”

  “Because once he starts a scene, he becomes laser-focused on seeing it to completion, building the intensity moment by moment until . . .”

  “He comes?” she whispered, looking up at him.

  He shrugged as if to say that was one possible outcome. “Or until she does . . . or they both do . . . whatever his goal happens to be.”

  She looked back at the scene unfolding in front of her. Cujo tossed the end of another rope over a thick wooden rod suspended over the woman, then pulled it down and wrapped, tucked, and knotted it to the ropes already binding her, creating a handle.

  Within minutes, he had the woman’s ankles bound in such a way that all he had to do was pull on one of the ropes to open and close her legs, and another to lift her off the floor completely.

  Gagged and suspended in the air with her legs parted, the woman was helpless. She couldn’t escape, couldn’t move, couldn’t even say, “No, I don’t want to.”

  But then, consent had already been given, or she wouldn’t have been where she was. She was a silent but equal part of the scene Cujo was creating.

  Actually, no, she wasn’t just a costar and equal participant. She was the star. At first glance, it was easy to think Cujo was the main character in this scene, but that wasn’t the case at all. He was merely the makeup artist who made the star look good. The stylist who came in and picked the outfit the star would wear, then did her hair, selected her jewelry, and chose her shoes.

  Without his submissive, Cujo was just some guy with a rope who could tie elaborate knots. Big deal. It was the submissive who gave the Dom his power.

  Jenna was beginning to see firsthand what her research had always told her. The submissive really was the one who held all the control. Being inside an actual club gave her such a new perspective on the relationships between the players that she was connecting the dots between all the BDSM concepts she’d read about in whole new ways.

  Without a submissive, a Dominant was nothing. And without a submissive’s permission, a Dominant could do nothing. Taking it one step further, if a submissive had had enough and used
her safeword, the Dominant was required to stop. If he didn’t, he broke the necessary trust that was required for a D/s relationship to even exist.

  But Cujo obviously had his submissive’s trust in every way, because she seemed to be enjoying every moment of what he was doing to her, even as she whimpered behind the ball gag stuffed in her mouth and mascara-tinted tears streaked her face as he fingered her, used a dildo on her, then a vibrator, wielding each new toy with mastery.

  The scene ended with Cujo fucking her as he manipulated the ropes holding her legs open with one hand and held a Hitachi Magic Wand vibrator to her clit with the other. It was all very fascinating to watch, like a puppet master pulling the strings of the marionette to give the audience the best show.

  Jenna hadn’t realized how enraptured she’d been with the scene until it was over and she looked to the right to see another submissive kneeling in front of her Dom sucking him off. And a few feet in front of Warren, another Dom had his submissive pressed face-first against the wall. He’d just finished shackling her wrists in cuffs that were bolted to heavy chains that hung from the ceiling. A smaller crowd gathered as the Dom took a flogger from a nearby hook, then slapped it across her ass.

  Couples paired off all around her, male and female Dominants riding Cujo’s energy as they manipulated their submissives where they wanted them as small crowds splintered from the main group to watch, no doubt waiting their turn.

  “See anything you like?” Warren asked quietly, taking her hand and strolling her down the center of the room.

  She felt as if she were at an all-you-can-eat buffet for adults, and every dish looked as appetizing as the one before. This buffet needed a sampler platter.

  The basement was quickly becoming a symphony of moans, commands, and slaps of leather against skin, followed by choked squeals. So much was happening in so many different places, Jenna didn’t know where to look. It was like a deconstructed orgy.

  “I, uh . . .” She blinked at a burly male submissive being led across the room by his diminutive female Dominant who was even shorter than Jenna. The man’s cock had been bound and was ruddy and swollen.

  “It’s a lot to take in, isn’t it?” Warren said, wearing a knowing smile, which held a hint of cocky amusement.

  All she could do was gape at the orgiastic carnival being erected right before her eyes in real time.

  For the next hour, Jenna felt like she was in one massive adult game of show-and-tell. A veritable display of hedonism. Warren walked and talked her through each scene, quietly filling her in on who the players were, what she could expect from them, warning her not to talk to this one, encouraging her to get to know that one, and answering her questions. But mostly they watched, voyeurs to submissives being laid bare, punished, rewarded, and pleasured.

  As she was watching a particularly intense scene where a Dom had his submissive bound to a table and had been mercilessly edging her with a variety of vibrators, as well as his fingers, mouth, and cock, Warren moved behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist. A moment later, he pressed his groin against her lower back, letting her feel his full erection.

  “Would you like to play?” he whispered in her ear, his breath warming her skin.

  The suggestion sent a powerful ripple of excitement through her, making her tremble. “Here?”

  The idea definitely tempted her, but she wasn’t sure she was ready for such a huge step. It was only her first time at the club, and she didn’t want to disappoint him. What if she couldn’t follow his rules? Or, even worse, chickened out mid-scene? What if seeing the faces watching her was too much. Sure, fantasizing about being watched while she had sex got her hot. But what if the reality wasn’t as exciting? What if, instead, it made her self-conscious rather than aroused?

  “No, not here.” He took her empty glass and set it on a small table with his, then reached for her hand. “Come with me.”

  “Where?”

  “Someplace private.”

  “Private? Isn’t that against the rules?” The list of rules he’d sent her said that all play was to take place in the dungeon and that the rest of the house was off-limits to anything but socializing.

  That wicked mouth of his curved into a sexy smirk. “It’s my house. I’m allowed to bend the rules.”

  “Is that so?” She took his hand, eager to be alone with him after a month of tantalizing phone sex and two hours of watching everyone around her living out her fantasies.

  She had dreamed about being with a man like Warren since that first spanking all those years ago. Now, here she was with enough sexual tension coiled inside her that she could spend a month as his sex slave and still not exhaust it all.

  He merely grinned and led her to the elevator.

  Sliding a card into a slot on the keypad, he pressed the button for the fourth floor.

  “Why do you need the card?” she asked.

  “Because the fourth floor is off-limits to everyone but me.”

  The elevator began its slow ascent as Warren turned and faced her.

  “What are you going to do to me?” she asked, backing up against the wall as he closed the distance between them.

  “Whatever I want.”

  “What about what I want?”

  He placed his hands on her hips and gently pulled her forward. “You’ll want what I want to do to you,” he said, his tone self-assured.

  Her palms slid up his arms, stopping just below his shoulders. “How are you so sure?”

  He leaned down and brushed his lips over hers with the perfect amount of fire to make her insides boil. “Because I know you. I know what gets you hot.”

  “And how would you know that?”

  “Because I’ve read your books,” he whispered with an undertone of heat. “I’ve seen inside your mind.”

  The truth was he probably knew her better than anyone. Because he had read her books. He knew not just Jenna, but also Lillian Bangs. He was privy to all her innermost fantasies as she had played them out between her characters. So of course he knew her. How couldn’t he?

  When the doors opened, he stepped back and gestured for her to go ahead.

  Leaving the elevator, she entered a miniature foyer decorated with a small table, flowers, and a pair of modern paintings filled with blotches of color she could have stared at for hours. He took her hand and guided her down a short hallway to a closed door. When he opened it, she got her first glimpse of his bedroom.

  It looked like any other bedroom she’d seen, only bigger. A lot bigger. It easily took up at least half of the fourth floor, with furnishings that would have been more at home in the living room, with one exception: an elaborately constructed St. Andrew’s Cross that was set up in the corner.

  A favorite toy of his perhaps?

  Other than that, there were a pair of brown leather chairs, a large matching couch, two bureaus, an armoire, and a California king bed against the far wall. A thick charcoal gray comforter covered the mattress, and large plush pillows were neatly stacked against the massive, baroque headboard. Even from across the room, she could see the intricate hooks and eyes carved into the sturdy wood. Same with the footboard.

  She knew what those accoutrements were for. Would she find herself tied to that headboard before the night was over? All bets were yes.

  Taking in the room as her stilettos clacked demurely on the hardwood, she couldn’t help wondering if this was where he’d been during all their phone calls? Had he been lying on that magnificent bed fantasizing about her naked and bound beside him? Or had he been seated on the couch staring at the St. Andrew’s Cross and imagining her shackled to it?

  Warren crossed to the window, grabbed the curtains with both hands, then flung them open with dramatic fanfare, revealing New York at night. “If I remember correctly, you like the curtains open.”

  Her cheeks warmed as she smiled.

  And wasn’t it sweet that he had remembered?

  He dimmed the lights, then returned, stopping in f
ront of her. “Take off your mask.”

  She reached behind her head and untied the bow, then handed it to him, hoping against hope that he would take off his mask too. But he had told her he wouldn’t, and he made good on his promise, leaving his on.

  His gaze swept over her french twist. “Take down your hair.” His voice remained calm and unemotional, yet commanding, as if he expected her to do as he said without question.

  Which, of course, she would. She had already broken enough rules for one night. If she ever wanted to see his face, she needed to start impressing him sooner rather than later.

  She began pulling out the pins holding her hair in place, loosening the twist little by little, using her fingers to comb the strands free.

  Once she’d finished, he took the pins from her, set them and her mask on top of the nearer bureau, then took her hand and led her into the center of the room, closer to the bed.

  He took two steps back, then slowly raked his gaze up and down, from her freshly spilled and slightly mussed hair to her glamorously adorned toes.

  Biting her lip under such intense scrutiny, she began to shift her weight, but he held up his hand, stopping her.

  “Don’t move. Just . . . stand there.”

  Squaring her feet side by side once more, she gripped her clutch in both hands in front of her as he walked with studious deliberation around her. His eyes examined every inch of her body and the way the dress hung over her slight curves, but he never touched her, keeping himself at arm’s length.

  When he circled behind her, he loosely gripped her hair between his thumb and fingertips like he was examining it, then made a quiet, thoughtful noise as if he’d seen something he especially liked. Then he came back around to the front and took his place only a few feet away, giving her a long, appreciative perusal.

  “What are you doing?” she asked quietly. She had begun to shiver. Not because she was cold, but from anticipation.

  His eyelids flicked upward behind his mask. “Deciding where to start.”

  “Where to start?”