by Force, Marie
“Night.” The door clicks shut behind her, and I have to tell myself to move, to go down the stairs to my car when every fiber of my being wants to be inside that building with her. Leaving her feels wrong, as if I’ve left something essential behind. Astounded by the way she has tipped my entire existence so precariously out of balance in the scope of one day, I pull away from the curb and head back uptown.
With my body alive with unspent desire and frustration and other emotions that defy easy definition, I know there’s no way I’ll sleep. Rather than go home, I head for the Park and East 65th building that houses the Quantum offices, among other things. It’s the other things I’m interested in tonight.
I take the ramp to the underground parking garage and place my hand on the palm scanner. The metal doors slide open, and I drive into the garage and park between Hayden’s black Porsche 911 and Jasper’s silver Audi A-8. I also notice Marlowe’s sleek white Bentley and Kristian’s gaudy red Lamborghini Aventador. I hate that car, but he loves it, so I keep my opinion to myself.
The whole gang is here tonight, and I’m eager for some time with my closest friends and business partners. We came up together in Hollywood. Hayden is a director, Jasper a cinematographer, Kristian one of the top producers in the business, Marlowe and myself the token actors who have starred together often enough that the paparazzi love to speculate on our personal relationship. Despite the drooling lust of the Hollywood press, since a brief romantic relationship ended years ago, there’s been nothing but close friendship between us. She’s like a fourth sister to me—the one who doesn’t report directly to my parents.
Thanks to the extreme secrecy and security in effect at Quantum, no one knows much of anything about the five of us or our sexual “predilections.” Beside the elevator, I place my palm on yet another scanner, and the doors open for me. Inside, I’m faced with a decision—go upstairs to the offices or downstairs to the playground, as we call it. I’m too wound up to concentrate on work, and I’m way too wound up for the playground, but I know I’ll find my friends there at this hour on a Saturday night, so down I go.
The doors open into what might be mistaken, at first glance, for a nightclub. It is that, but it’s so much more, too. While music thumps a low and sexy beat through the sound system, Jasper stands over a naked woman strapped to a St. Andrew’s cross. Flogger in hand, he speaks directly into her ear.
Dressed in leather from breasts to thighs, Marlowe is berating her naked sub for some infraction that will require stiff punishment. The man, president of one of the biggest banks on Wall Street, weeps from the pain of Marlowe’s stilettos cutting into his back. She’s a harsh Dominatrix with a line of subs waiting for a chance to experience her brand of punishment.
At the bar, I drop onto a stool, and Gabriel, the bartender who is also our head of security and club manager, puts a glass of my favorite Scottish single malt in front of me. “Thanks, Gabe.”
“Rough night?”
“No, a good night.” A great night. A fantastic, life-changing night. I take a sip of my drink, and the Bowmore burns its way through me. “How are things here?” I spot Kristian on one of the sofas, fully clothed and speaking with a woman I don’t recognize.
“Same as always.”
“Who’s that with Kristian?”
“A new member.”
Though Gabriel knows the full story on everyone who steps foot into the club, he’s good about staying out of the personal business of the five celebrities he works for. When Kristian wants me to know more about the new member he’s brought in, he’ll tell me himself.
“Is Hayden around?”
“In the dungeon with Cresley.”
“This I’ve got to see.” I take my drink with me when I cross the room, waving to several other members of our exclusive club who are making use of the sofas and sitting areas to get to know each other. Perhaps they’re negotiating the terms of a Dominant/submissive relationship or maybe they’re talking shop. The Hollywood lifestyle is as present here as the BDSM lifestyle is. Both are a big part of my life, which is why I have no business starting anything with Natalie.
“I won’t sleep with any man unless I’m married to him.”
What would she think of this place? The thought, which I would normally find amusing, saddens me. I’ve been a part of this lifestyle for most of my adult life, and have long ago stopped feeling like I have to explain myself to anyone. My need for sexual domination is as much a part of me as my parents’ DNA or the chin that comes straight from my paternal grandfather.
I lay my hand flat against another palm scanner and gain entry to the stairwell that leads to the dungeon in the basement. This area is available only to the five principals and their guests, all of whom are subjected to the same in-depth background checks and medical testing that prospective members endure. The difference being that full members are required to pay million-dollar initiation fees and sign confidentiality agreements that make it clear we’ll ruin them if they ever speak of what goes on here. Guests are only required to sign the confidentiality agreement, and we let them know we’ll enforce every word of it without hesitation.
Our chief counsel, Emmett Burke, drafted airtight language that has kept our clubs here and in LA the best-kept secrets in show business for more than a decade now. The five of us approve every member, all of whom come to us via referrals from existing members, and we admit only people who have something to lose. Case in point—the supermodel currently being vigorously fucked by Hayden.
Cresley Dane, one of the most famous faces in the world, a dynamic, aggressive businesswoman who rules the runways from New York to Paris and everywhere in between, is a true sexual submissive. Tonight, the gorgeous blonde is trussed up in an elaborate web of rope with her arms tied above her head, her spectacular breasts and torso tightly wrapped and her legs hoisted up and apart. Hayden is a master of Kinbaku, the Japanese art of erotic tying.
Standing in the shadows of the dungeon, I sip my drink and watch my friends, thinking of the many threesomes we’ve enjoyed in the past. Cresley is always up for an adventure, as she calls the scenarios Hayden and I have dreamed up over the years. We think of it as harmless fun among consenting adults who like to stretch their boundaries. We’ve only recently brought her into the club as a member, thus the formal training process she’s embarked upon with Hayden as her Dom. A year ago, Cresley won a hard-fought battle with her vindictive ex-boyfriend for custody of their three-year-old son. She has a lot to lose, thus we trust her implicitly.
Hayden catches my eye, nodding slightly to acknowledge me without losing his focus.
He’s also a master of delayed gratification, a skill he taught me after making me aware of the BDSM lifestyle. An actor he met on a film set when we were twenty-one introduced it to Hayden. He introduced it to me, and we were both instantly hooked. It was like we’d found the missing piece to a puzzle. I like to watch him in action, though I’m not attracted to him or to men in general. I’m objective enough to admit that my best friend is an extraordinarily good-looking man. He has dark hair and blue eyes that women go nuts over. Watching usually turns me on. Not tonight, however. Tonight, I’m stuck in a weird never-never land thanks to Natalie.
Thinking about her, I realize just how long it’s been since I spent time with a woman outside the lifestyle. A “vanilla,” as we call people who prefer their sex straight up with no embellishments. The term, which implies blandness, doesn’t do her justice. There’s absolutely nothing bland about Natalie, except perhaps her thoughts on sex, which make her extremely vanilla by my usual standards.
I already know that nothing about her or how she makes me feel can be classified as “usual.”
Hayden and Cresley interrupt my musings with their sharp, high-pitched cries of fulfillment as they finally let go and give in to the desire that’s probably been building between them for hours at this point, if I know Hayden. Their releases are epic and loud, and under normal circumstances, I’d be hard as a
rock watching Cresley get off. Not tonight. Tonight I feel nothing but confusion, agitation and anxious desire to see Natalie again—as soon as possible. As if she might slip through my fingers if I don’t act quickly. I’m unaccustomed to feeling desperate when it comes to women.
Hayden slowly unties Cresley, wraps her in a blanket and holds a bottle of cold water to her lips.
She drinks greedily. “Thank you.” Her voice is hoarse from hours of screaming.
“We’ve got company.” Hayden nods in my direction.
She’s not at all surprised to see me. “Oh hey, Flynn. How long have you been there?”
I step out of the shadows to join them in the middle of the enormous room. “I got here just in time for the big finish.”
“It was a big finish,” Cresley agrees.
“You know me,” Hayden says with a cocky, satisfied smile, “go big or go home.”
“You’ve certainly got the big part covered. I may never walk properly again.” Cresley gathers the blanket around her and stands on trembling legs.
“Why thank you, darlin’.” Hayden reaches out to steady her, and I step closer out of habit. Protecting and caring for subs, especially after a scene, is essential to who we are as Doms.
“I’m okay,” she says, waving us off. “I’ve got to get home. My sitter can’t spend the night.” She leans in to kiss Hayden’s cheek. “Thanks for the lesson.”
“Any time.”
She pats me on the chest. “Flynn, nice to see you as always.”
“You, too, Cresley. Say hi to my little buddy for me.”
“I will.”
Her son, Ty, is one of my favorite kids, right up there with my own nieces and nephews.
As she heads to the elevator, Hayden pulls on a pair of sweatpants and gets busy cleaning the equipment and coiling his ropes. “I wondered if we’d see you tonight.”
“I had a thing.”
“A thing.” Hayden glances at me disdainfully. “With the child you met earlier?”
I love Hayden. He’s the closest thing I have to a brother, but damn, he pisses me off sometimes, mostly because he knows me better than anyone on earth—and never fails to remind me of that. “She’s hardly a child.” I make my way over to the bar in the corner and refill my glass. Arguing with Hayden requires reinforcements.
“You can’t be seriously considering starting something with her.”
“So what if I am?”
“Flynn, for the love of God and all that’s holy, what the fuck are you thinking?”
I nearly snort whisky out my nose at his choice of words. Only he can mix religion and fucking with such powerful effect. “I like her. She’s different.”
“You’re goddamned right she’s different. I took one look at her and could tell she’s pure as the driven snow. How do you plan to tell her about all this?” His wide gesture takes in the dungeon, the implements hanging from the wall, the hooks and cables extended from the ceiling, the spanking bench, the St. Andrew’s cross and the cabinet that contains every sex toy known to mankind.
“I don’t plan to tell her. We’re not about that.”
“You’re not about what? Sex? Since when are you not about sex?”
Since about ten o’clock this morning. I wisely decide to keep the thought to myself. Hayden is right. Everything he’s saying is true, but none of it changes how I already feel about Natalie.
Hayden stores his ropes in a cabinet that he locks with the only key. Then he turns to me, hands on his hips, the muscular chest and abs that make the ladies drool on full display. “You need to stop this before it goes any further. Didn’t you learn anything from what happened with Val?”
The mention of her name is a flashpoint for me, as he well knows. “Don’t bring her into this. She has nothing to do with it.”
“She has everything to do with it! And you know it.”
I do know it, but I don’t want to think about her now or ever. I especially don’t want to think about her in relation to Natalie.
Hayden crosses the room and takes the seat next to mine. “I don’t mean to piss on your parade.”
“Sure you do,” I say with a gruff laugh. He and I go all the way back to childhood in Hollywood with four parents in the business. Whereas mine stayed together and thrived through all the madness of fame and fortune, his self-destructed in spectacular—and very public—fashion. Hayden and I graduated together from Beverly Hills High School and often tell people we were the real-life inspiration for the show Beverly Hills, 90210. That we were eleven when the show debuted is of little consequence. We’ve never believed in letting the truth get in the way of a good story.
“Seriously, Flynn. For once I’m not trying to be a flaming asshole. I saw the way you reacted to her, and I had a bad feeling about it from the get-go.”
“Funny, I’ve had a good feeling about it from the second she barreled into me.”
He raises an eyebrow that conveys a full dose of skepticism. “Even when her dog was taking a piece out of your ass?”
“It was my arm, not my ass, and yes, even then.”
“Make me understand, because I’m really struggling to get how someone as self-aware and intelligent as you are would willingly go down this road—again—after being so badly burned once before.”
His words strike a chord with me, even as I try to convince myself they don’t. “She’s normal, unaffected, passionate about her work, and she doesn’t give a flying fuck about who I am. Do you have any idea how refreshing that is?”
“Of course she gives a flying fuck about who you are. There’s not a woman alive who could spend five minutes with you and not be completely tuned in to who and what you are—or the parts of yourself you’ve given the world. The rest, the part you keep private, is what worries me the most—and it should worry you, too.”
“She’s no threat to me, Hayden. Shit, Cresley is a bigger threat to me than Natalie will ever be.”
“Cresley, and all the others we let in here, poses a threat to your reputation. Natalie is a threat to your mental health. Big difference.”
Did I mention Hayden knows me better than anyone?
In a low, soft tone, he says, “She’s a mouse, Flynn. A young, inexperienced, albeit strikingly gorgeous, mouse. She has no place in this life. It’ll swallow her whole and spit her out utterly changed. Is that what you want for her? You gotta stop this while you still can.”
Fuck, I hate his guts, because every word he says is true, and I can’t deny he’s one hundred percent right. I don’t dare mention that I asked her to go to the Globes with me, but then again, she never gave me an answer, so there’s really nothing to tell. And then I remember the key I gave her to my apartment.
“Don’t you ever want more?” I ask him.
“More than what?” He throws his arms out wide. “Who has it better than we do? Look at this place we built together, and not just down here. Upstairs, too.” Our production company is one of the most successful in the business, and we have the awards to prove it. We long ago dispelled the notion that we’re riding on the coattails of our successful parents. We’ve proven ourselves over and over again, until all talk of nepotism and favoritism has been erased by results.
We live by our own rules and have life by the balls. What more could we possibly want indeed? Except, sometimes… Sometimes I want more. I want the connection my parents have, that ability to catch an eye across the room and to know without a shadow of a doubt what the other half of me is thinking in that given moment. As I get further into my thirties, I’ve also begun to think, occasionally, about one day having kids of my own.
“Flynn.”
Hayden brings me back to the present, to the stark realities of this life I’ve chosen. After growing up in the shadow of my famous parents, I certainly knew what I was signing on for, although I never could’ve predicted that my fame would eclipse theirs a thousand times over. At times like this, I resent the fame, the notoriety and everything that goes with it. I
also resent the needs that drive me, that have made it impossible for me to have a long-term, satisfying sexual relationship that doesn’t include domination. Those needs played a big part in the disaster my marriage became, so Hayden’s point is well taken.
“You know what you have to do.”
“Yeah.” The detour with Natalie was just that. A detour. A diversion. A night away from reality. My life is here, in the basement of Quantum, with hooks hanging from the ceiling, a willing sub bent over a spanking bench as I fuck her up the ass that I turned bright pink with my hands and paddles. Not in my wildest dreams can I ever picture Natalie as that willing sub.
Hayden is right. It’s better to stop this thing with her before it gets started. But damn, it would’ve been nice.
“You need to get laid, man. Want me to set something up for you?”
“Not tonight. I’m going home.” The thought of touching any woman who isn’t Natalie makes me sick. I hope that will pass before too long, because I need sex the way other men need air.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.” I tell him what he wants to hear, but I know it’ll be a while before I forget about Natalie and what could’ve been if I was someone different. I take the elevator from the dungeon straight to the parking garage, and when I get in the car, I’m greeted with the lingering remnants of her scent. I take greedy breaths on the short ride home.
When the elevator opens into my apartment, I’m again assailed by her scent, and the desire for more of her nearly brings me to my knees. Then I imagine her horror and disgust if she discovers who I really am, and I know I’m doing the right thing calling a stop to it now, while I still can.
It’s only when I toss my keys on the dresser in my bedroom that I see the keycard I gave her. Any hope I had that she might seek me out evaporates in a cloud of profound disappointment and bitter regret. In that moment, I actually hate my life for the first time ever.
Chapter 6