My club would be different.
It would be full of wealth.
Power.
Dominance.
Submission.
Memberships would be given to those who hungered for them, but there was a limited amount. Each candidate was thoroughly researched and certain criteria had to be met.
The LA location had been open for seven years, Miami for five. New York, Vegas, and London facilities would be opening in the next two years.
What started as a passion had turned into a business, and I treated it as one.
That meant I didn’t fuck at the club. In fact, unless it was for a professional reason, I didn’t mingle with the members in any of the main or private areas. I stayed in the office upstairs instead.
Sexually, I got what I needed, I just didn’t get it there.
Until Bale.
I remembered when I saw him for the first time. I’d just grabbed some dinner from the fridge and returned to my desk. I was working late and planned to be there well through the night. An alert had come across my computer that showed me Bale had entered the club. The system was set up to do that for new members and to track them, so they could be monitored during their first few visits. I wanted to make sure they followed the rules and were mixing in well with the others.
Bale came in wearing a suit similar to the one he had on tonight. His hair was shorter, his beard trimmed and edged. He walked with a confidence I didn’t see often. His smile was a little sinister. His presence demanded my attention.
I liked everything I saw.
A little too much.
To the point where I couldn’t look away.
He’d walked down one of the hallways and stopped in the first doorway. Inside the room, a woman was tied to a chair. She was blindfolded with a gag in her mouth.
She’d been in there, waiting for someone to come in.
Without saying a word, Bale walked over to the armoire that was in the corner and he chose a long feather from one of the drawers. As he brought it over to her, my pussy began to tingle. My clit pulsed as he ran it up and down her naked body.
I couldn’t stop watching.
I couldn’t stop fantasizing that feather was on me.
Over the next few hours, I’d watched him deny her an orgasm.
Minute after minute of pure lust.
Need.
A slow torture that had three of my own fingers thrusting inside my pussy, my wetness dripping all the way down to my wrist.
She never came. He wouldn’t let her.
He was the partner of my dreams.
The next night, I watched him do the same thing to a different woman.
The third and fourth evenings were identical.
After a week, I couldn’t stand it anymore, I had to experience Bale for myself. So, I went downstairs shortly after he entered the club, and I followed him to the archway of one of the rooms where he had stopped to watch two of my members. The scene involved a sex swing that was extended several feet up in the air.
While he stared at the couple, I looked at him.
And I continued to do so until his eyes moved in my direction.
It took one second for our gazes to lock. For my body to respond. To know this was the man who was going to give me a level of pleasure I hadn’t ever experienced before.
And he did, night after night, until he walked out of my house and didn’t return . . . until this evening.
Now, as I walked down the same hallway I had the first time we’d been together, I found my body reacting to the anticipation of seeing him. My hands were tingling. My pussy was dripping.
My heart was torn between anger and an ache so deep it was hard to catch my breath.
A quick glance at my watch told me it had been nine minutes.
I had thirty-six seconds left.
So, I paused outside the locked door and I took a breath. I straightened my shirt and tucked a small chunk of hair behind my ear. I tightened my fingers around the key that was in my pocket.
I didn’t have to go in.
I could go upstairs to my office and watch his reaction from the camera feed when it hit ten minutes.
I could completely wash Bale Pierce from my life.
But I knew that wasn’t possible.
My body wouldn’t allow it. Neither would my heart.
So, I stuck the key in the lock and his eyes caught mine the second I opened the door. His stare followed me to the table where I paused on the other side.
Six feet separated us.
“What are you doing here, Bale?” I had so many questions, but this was a safe start.
“I missed you.”
I laughed. Not from the edge in his voice, or the way he looked at me like I was a medium rare ribeye, his favorite temperature and cut of meat. I laughed because I could tell he was being honest, and that wasn’t something I wanted to hear.
I wanted a lie. One after another of why he’d left, why it had taken him this long to return. Why he hadn’t called. Why he was here now.
The truth hurt.
The look in his eyes hurt even more.
“Why?” My question didn’t just apply to his last statement. It covered the last three weeks, the reason he had disappeared, and the cause of him coming back.
“You don’t want to hear the answer to that.”
“No?”
He tilted his head a little to the side, his stare dipping down my body, before slowly lifting to my face again. “No.”
“Why—”
“I have eight hours until I have to leave again, and I don’t know when I’ll be back. Do you want to waste that time arguing about something I can’t change? Because I can’t discuss why I left, but you already know that.” He paused for a second, continuing before I had a chance to respond. “I know you looked for me even though I told you not to, and you hit a dead-end. Bale Pierce disintegrated the moment I walked out of your house.”
He was right; I’d looked.
I had my entire fucking team look.
But Bale was gone—from my house, from the internet, from any documentation I had on him.
The only crumbs he left behind were memories.
And I had so many of them in the short time we’d been together.
His hands dropped to the leather cushion, his fingers wrapping around the edge of the table.
“I know what you want,” he said, even though I still hadn’t responded. “I know what you need.” The tips of his nails turned white. “Don’t stop me from giving it to you.”
I didn’t answer.
I just stared—at his lips, at his hands, at the length of his body that was more powerful, more dominant than any man I had ever been with.
God, he was so achingly handsome.
“Bale . . .”
“Don’t,” he warned.
I had a choice. He was just reminding me which one I should make.
“I want you to remember something, Pepper.” He leaned forward a few inches, as though getting closer would emphasize his words. “I want you to remember what my tongue is capable of.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Bale
Pepper was the type of woman who needed to be reminded of things. She had a tendency of focusing on what she couldn’t change instead of appreciating what was right in front of her. And that was a man who wanted to lick her cunt.
I didn’t want her heart involved in this conversation.
I wanted her to think with her body. I wanted her to listen to her pussy.
I wanted her to take off her clothes and get on the table, so I could tie her wrists and shackle her ankles. And besides, “Yes,” the only other things I wanted to hear were her screams and moans.
“I know you want this,” I said when she still hadn’t responded.
She didn’t move. She didn’t say a word.
I walked around to her side of the table, put my hands on her
waist, and turned her toward me.
She faced me without a fight and stared into my eyes.
Heat radiated off her body.
I felt her need pulsing through her skin.
“You’ve never disobeyed me in this room,” I said, placing two fingers underneath her chin and tilting her head up. “Don’t start now.”
I’d missed her lips.
And that fucking smile.
I ran the pad of my thumb across her mouth, the softness brushing against my skin. “All I can think about is getting you flat on that table and having you stay perfectly still. I don’t care how hard I’m licking you or how badly you want to come, the only movement I’ll allow is the goddamn rise and fall of your chest.” My hand dropped, and I caged her nipple, squeezing it until I saw a change in her eyes.
She didn’t need to be convinced. I’d already done that.
I could tell by the way she was breathing. By the look she was giving me, how she was taking me all in.
The reason for her silence was to punish me.
I guessed I deserved that.
That was the only reason I didn’t put her over my knee and slap her ass until my hand was printed on it.
But that didn’t mean I was going to wait forever.
So, while she still played hard to get, I refamiliarized myself with her body, knowing the sensations from my fingers were going straight to her pussy. And with each second that passed, those feelings were building.
Slowly, I went lower, halting when my palm was at the top of her pussy. I tilted my wrist back and slapped her clit. She had jeans on, but they were thin enough she could feel the sting. The friction.
I did it again.
On the third time, I cupped her cunt. So much warmth came from it, my skin was burning. “I’m not going to wait. I want you naked. Now.”
She let out a long, sensual sigh.
That was when I pulled my hand away and moved to the other side of the table. I gripped the edge of it and locked our eyes.
“You’ve made your point, and I’ve been lenient long enough. Take your fucking clothes off, Pepper.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Pepper
I couldn’t ask Bale the questions that were burning inside of me, nor could I tell him how badly he had hurt me. Conversations like that just couldn’t happen at Lush. Not when every word spoken within these walls was recorded and the girls in my office had full access to the feed.
Physically, I had no secrets.
But emotionally, the girls knew nothing about my relationship, and I wanted to keep it that way.
A discussion with Bale would happen later. Right now, we both needed something I’d put off long enough.
“Bale . . .” I started.
His brows rose.
His lips parted.
“I want you to promise me something,” I said.
“I’m listening.”
I reached toward the bottom of my shirt and gradually lifted it over my head. I held it in my hand for several seconds before I dropped it onto the floor. “I want you to promise you’re not going to be easy on me.”
“Fuck,” he hissed, his teeth gnawing into his bottom lip.
“Because for the last three weeks, I’ve thought about your tongue . . .” I kicked off my shoes, my pants, then my panties and bra, and I crawled onto the table. “And I haven’t been able to stop touching myself.”
“No one has licked you since me?”
I shook my head. “I was waiting . . . for you.”
Now that I was on the table, I spread my body across the leather, separating my legs as far as they would go without crossing the edge of the cushion. I did the same with my hands, anticipating the material he was going to use to secure them.
“You know I’m going to reward you for that.”
I didn’t know.
I’d just hoped.
He turned his back to me and walked to the armoire in the corner of the room, where there was an entire section of shackles. There was rope and twine, handcuffs and ties. I never knew what he was going to choose and that was part of the excitement.
Before Bale made his selection, he took off his jacket and tie and hung them over the corner of the Tantra Chair. His button-down was fitted and it showed off the muscles in his chest and arms. I wanted to rub my fingers over them. I wanted to feel their power. I wanted to slide them through the thin, dark hair on his pecs and the trail that ran straight to his cock.
His cock.
Fuck.
God, he was one delicious, dominate man—perfect to stare at, to fantasize about.
With his back to me, he opened one of the drawers, and removed something. When he turned around, I saw it was rope. The material was thick, white, and extremely rough. It would burn my skin and leave marks the harder I fought.
I loved it.
“Yes!” I roared as he wrapped the rope around his fist and moved closer. Once he reached me, he tied it around my hand and I moaned.
“Is your pussy wet?”
It wouldn’t stop clenching.
It wouldn’t stop dripping.
I hadn’t been this wet since the last time he’d touched me.
“Yes,” I answered.
“I want to tie you so tight you’ll be on the verge of bleeding.”
“Yesss.”
He slapped my breast and I yelped, even though it felt amazing.
“Yes, what?”
“Sir,” I breathed. “Yes, sir.”
“I’ve been lenient, Pepper. That’s going to stop right now, do you hear me?”
“Yes, sir.”
He traced his fingertips around my breast, soothing the skin he’d just whacked. “You’re such a good girl.”
My clit throbbed, and I clenched my fingers together, waiting for him to move to the next wrist, where the added friction would only build the need that was pulsing through me.
When it finally came, when he had it as snug as the first knot, I almost tried to close my legs.
But I couldn’t.
I wasn’t allowed.
When I was on this table, I was Bale’s. I had to follow his rules and instructions. If he wanted me still, that was the way I had to remain until my feet hit the floor.
Once both wrists were secure, he moved to my ankle, looping the rope around me, and then through the hole in the corner of the cushion where he tied it underneath.
“Ahhh,” I breathed when it tightened against my flesh. I made the same sound when he repeated the action on my other ankle.
Now that he was done, he took a step back to admire his work.
I was spread wide, vulnerable, completely at his mercy.
I wouldn’t want it any other way.
Despite Bale disappearing, I still trusted him when it came to my body. He knew what I could handle and what I enjoyed. We had a safe word we were both comfortable with. And he was the type of lover who only focused on my pleasure, who consumed every one of my senses while taking care of needs I never even knew I had.
His absence hadn’t changed that.
If anything, it made our desires grow stronger.
Still standing at the foot of the table, his eyes roaming my body, he groaned. “You’re so fucking gorgeous. I don’t know how I’m going to get on that plane tomorrow.”
“Then don’t.”
His lids narrowed. “Do you know what would happen if I didn’t return?”
I shook my head, my heart aching at the thought of him leaving again. And this time, I had a feeling he wouldn’t be coming back. That the four months we’d spent together was all I’d ever have with him.
That stung worse than the rope biting my skin.
He walked to the other side of the table and leaned into my ear. “My partners would find me. And they would kill me,” he said softly, since he knew he was being recorded.
I sucked in a breath and held it.
“
People can’t quit what I do, Pepper,” he continued. “You retire when you’re too old or you die. Those are the only options. So, I want you to enjoy tonight, because it’s all we have.”
His words echoed inside my chest.
I knew how to push them away. This club had trained me to do that. If emotions seeped through these walls, I wouldn’t have a business. My members were here for one thing. And tonight, Bale and I were here for the same reason.
That didn’t mean it was easy.
I just couldn’t allow it to ruin the time we had together, so I focused on his presence, on the way his mouth moved away from my ear, how his teeth nipped my cheek.
His face hovered directly over mine and I saw a change in his eyes. They turned hungrier. Feral.
He was back in the moment.
And he was ready.
His hands pressed against my face. “While you’ve been thinking about my tongue, I’ve been dreaming about your cunt.” He dragged his tongue across my lips. “All I’ve wanted is to lick it.” He moved down my chest, the wetness he left behind on my skin turning cold from the air conditioning. “And to do this . . .” He went to the side of the table and put his nose on my clit. He inhaled. Not just once. These were long, deep breaths he took in and didn’t immediately release.
“That fucking scent,” he moaned. “It’s consumed me these last three weeks.”
“Oh God,” I hissed.
He wedged in deeper, his nostrils now between my lips while his hands surrounded my pussy. He was spreading me wider to get a better whiff.
It was so incredibly hot to feel his air shoot across me.
It was even hotter to know the hard-on that was bulging through his suit pants was because of me.
I was doing everything I could to stay still.
But it was becoming impossible.
He pulled his nose away, but he didn’t leave. Instead, he replaced it with his tongue and a long, pent-up scream came pouring from my lips. “Bale . . .” I gasped as his tongue swiped me.
“Mmm.” It was a growl much deeper than the other ones he’d made. “That fucking taste is better than I remember.”
He licked again, this time covering my entire clit. He stopped at the very top to suck it into his mouth. While I was surrounded by his heat and wetness, he flicked, using just the tip of his tongue.
Mixtape: A Love Song Anthology Page 43