Do Not Disturb (12 page)

Her chin lifted the tiniest bit. “I think you like to play games I don’t have the rules for.”

Damn it, that sounded like she was backing away. “Don’t sell yourself short. You’re more than capable of holding your own against me.”

Her gaze dipped to her own glass of wine and she took a sip. “I’m not so sure.”

Swallowing half his wine, he set the glass on the counter and made his way around it to her. She lifted her head to watch him, eyes wary but her lips parted as if she couldn’t get enough air.

“Did you really only invite me up here for wine? I’m fine if that’s the only reason. But I want to be clear about things. I don’t want to make you nervous or do anything that might upset you. What I do want is to strip off all your clothes and lay you out on that bed again. And this time, I want to tie you to it.”

He heard her swallow.

“Are you willing to play with me, Tally?”

He kept his tone even and straightforward, without an inflection of any kind. It was difficult as hell, because what he really wanted to do was lay her out on the counter, drop to his knees and put his mouth on her pussy.

She blinked several times, her skin flushed a bright pink. He wanted to spank her ass and see if it turned the same shade.

He had a hard time keeping himself from grabbing her and spinning her around so he could grind against her ass while his hands kneaded her breasts and he bit at her neck.

“I think you already know the answer to that question.”

Her quiet voice still held enough backbone that he smiled. Damn, he absolutely loved strong women. He especially loved them when they gave him carte blanche to make them come.

“I want to hear you say it.”

She continued to hold his gaze but made him wait for her answer.

He let her have the time, hoping like hell he hadn’t misread her and that she couldn’t see his sudden insecurity.

In the blink of an eye, her expression transformed and a slumberous heat infused her gaze and the curve of her lips. “I enjoy playing games with you, Dane.”

Yes.

He actually had to plant his feet so he didn’t grab her and bend her over the counter.

“Would you like to play one now?”

Her head tilted to the side. “I guess it depends on the game.”

“I’ll make sure you enjoy it.”

Her lips curved even more and his blood pressure skyrocketed. He could barely control his urge to tell her to strip.

She raised her brows, taunting him. “Then what are you waiting for?”

He shot back the rest of his wine and set the glass on the table with a slight bang. She looked so damn cool and controlled. But the pulse at the base of her throat throbbed at a maddeningly fast pace. He wanted to lick it, suck it. Then he’d bite her. Hard enough to leave a mark but not enough to be painful.

“So who are you meeting tomorrow? You said you had a meeting.”

She blinked, drawing in a quick, sharp breath. Then her eyes narrowed as she followed along with his change in topic.

“Trudeau. And supposedly Greg, but I doubt I’ll see him. He seems to have a lot on his plate right now.”

“You sound like you don’t believe he does.”

She wrinkled her nose and looked down at her drink for a second before she shook her head. “It’s not that. I like Greg. I really do. I just don’t like to see Sabrina upset.”

Neither did he. He liked the younger woman. She was a sweetheart with a bright smile and a big heart who was totally in love with Greg.

“Maybe she needs to talk to Greg.”

She smiled, a slightly wicked bent to it. “I’m not sure they do a lot of talking when they have time together.”

Dane laughed. “You’re probably right.”

“So is that all we’re going to do tonight? Talk?”

He controlled the urge to smile. She’d turned the tables on him and he liked that. “No. But I thought we could talk a little before I strip you naked and kiss my way down your body.”

“Haven’t we been talking all night?”

Was she that anxious to get him inside her? Good to know he wasn’t the only one burning up. “We have, but sometimes a long buildup is just as hot as getting naked and horizontal.”

She lifted her brows. “And sometimes making a girl wait too long for what she wants will backfire on you and she’ll take other measures. Without you.”

Fuck.
“Maybe I’d like to watch.”

Her head cocked to the side, as if fascinated. “Do you get off on watching?”

Yeah, he did. “Do you?”

She paused and he tried not to let on that he was holding his breath waiting for her answer. Because, holy hell, he really wanted her to say yes.

He wanted to invite her to go to the Salon with him next week. And he’d never had the urge to invite anyone solely for his own pleasure.

She held his gaze for several seconds before breaking eye contact. “Honestly, I’m not sure. I’ve never had the opportunity.”

“Would you like to? Have the opportunity, I mean?”

A slight pause. “I guess that would depend on the circumstances.”

It was the perfect opening, but he hesitated. Did he take the chance and introduce her to the Salon, now, while there was no one there? Or did he wait and risk scaring her away if he asked her to attend a sex party?

And when the hell did you start to overthink things?

Dane had been accused of being a lot of things over the years. Hedonist came up a lot. Heartless had popped up a few times, mostly from women who hadn’t intrigued him half as much as this one did.

That’s why he hesitated. Because he had a feeling this woman could mean more than a few nights of hot, sweaty sex. And he wasn’t exactly sure how to handle the situation because he’d never been in this position before.

If a woman wasn’t interested, he moved on to the next. There’d been a few over the years and he’d never given a second thought to them after they’d turned him down.

If Talia balked . . .

Then again, what if she didn’t?

He didn’t think she would. Christ, he really hoped she wouldn’t.

“Dane? Is something wrong?”

He made up his mind. “No. Nothing’s wrong. There’s somewhere I’d like to show you. It’s in the hotel so we’re not going far. But . . . you’ll need to sign a legal waiver.”

Her eyes widened with amusement. “Is that a joke?”

He shook his head. “Not at all.”

Her amusement faded and was replaced with curiosity.

“And you just happen to have a legal waiver on hand?”

“No, but I can have one waiting.”

She shook her head, but he didn’t think she was giving him an answer. “You’ve got to be kidding. You have to realize this all sounds a little too much like some B movie, right?”

“The waiver’s necessary to protect everyone involved, you included.”

“And what’s so special about this place that I need to sign a waiver to even see it?”

“You’ll never know unless you sign it. That’s really all I can say. But I’m hoping you’ll sign, Tally. Because I really want to show you. I think you’ll enjoy it.”

Her curiosity was getting the better of her. He could see it in her eyes.

“I swear there’s nothing for you to be afraid of. You won’t be hurt. You’re not giving consent for anything. You’re just agreeing not to talk about what and who you see.”

She didn’t respond right away, simply continued to stare at him.

When she didn’t answer after a full fifteen seconds, he figured he’d lost her. A tight ball of regret started to form in his chest.

Finally, she set her glass on the counter and nodded.

“Okay. I’m game.”

Talia had no idea what to expect when Dane waved her out of her room and back into the elevator.

His cryptic words and triumphant smile made her curiosity soar. But the fact that whatever he wanted to show to her required a legal waiver made her twitchy. Anything having to do with the law made her short of breath, and made her want to run the other way.

The lawyers her mom had had to deal with before and after her father’s arrest and trial had made Talia wish to never see another one again in her life.

The fact that Dane wanted her to sign away her rights to talk about something should’ve been an automatic denial for her.

Instead, she rode with him to the fourth floor, which is where Jared and Tyler both had apartments.

When they got off the elevator, they didn’t turn right toward the apartments. They turned left.

A few feet down the hall, Dane opened a door and waved her through into darkness.

A second later, she blinked as he turned on the light and an office came into view.

“This is Jared’s personal office.” Dane rounded the desk on the other side of the room and opened a drawer, as comfortable here as if it were his own.

“And he doesn’t mind you digging around in it?”

Dane’s gaze met hers for a brief second before he pulled out a sheet of paper and a pen and set them on the desk.

“He trusts me.”

Three simple words said with such conviction.

“Did you tell him you were bringing me here?”

“There’s no need. No one’s here.”

She looked around Jared’s tastefully decorated office. “This is what you wanted to show me?”

He shook his head and pushed the paper toward her. “Read this and sign it if you agree. If you don’t, no harm, no foul. We can go back upstairs and pick up where we left off. But . . . if you sign that paper, I can guarantee you won’t be disappointed.”

She held his gaze for several long seconds before she looked at the paper and pulled it toward her.

With deliberate movements, she picked it up and began to read.

The language was a straightforward nondisclosure agreement, basic and binding.

She read through it twice, just to make sure there wasn’t anything she’d missed the first time around then signed her name to the bottom and pushed it across the desktop toward Dane, who took the pen from her hand and signed his own name as witness.

She raised her brows at him. “So tell me¸ what’s the Salon?”

Dane smiled and her stomach did a little flip-flop. “It’s easier if I show you.”

Walking to the wall to the left of the desk, he pressed against the molding. She couldn’t help a tiny gasp as the wall split open to reveal a door.

“Well, damn.” She looked at him with a smile. “What other surprises do you have for me tonight?”

“Quite a few, probably.” He held out his hand. “Wanna get started?”

This time, she didn’t hesitate. She closed the distance between them, took his hand and let him lead her into darkness that was filled with a soft light seconds later.

“Oh, wow.”

Which didn’t begin to describe her reaction.

She’d seen some amazingly beautiful spaces, particularly in her position as a wedding planner. But only one or two could rival this space.

The room took up at least a third of the entire hotel floor, probably more.

So much to look at, her gaze couldn’t land on one thing in particular. It was visual overload.

So she forced herself to take it in pieces.

She looked up first¸ at the ornately decorated ceiling. Molding created interesting patterns and a chandelier hung dead center, dripping with crystal teardrops. Her gaze dropped to the silk wallpaper gleaming in the light from the chandelier, the pattern beautiful but not overwhelming. A perfect backdrop for the artwork.

And, oh, wow, the artwork.

“Those must be from Jared’s collection.” She couldn’t take her eyes off of them. “They’re stunning.”

She’d seen erotic art before. Annabelle had an entire gallery full of it. The only shocking part about Jared’s collection was the beauty of the pieces.

“He has an eye for it,” Dane said from behind her.

“Annabelle and Jared truly were meant for each other, weren’t they?”

“So you are a romantic at heart?”

The tone of his voice made her turn to give him a look. “What made you think I wasn’t?”

He shrugged. “When you work in certain professions, sometimes you see the bad more than the good. It can skew your perceptions.”

“Sounds like you have some firsthand knowledge of that.”

“It’s pretty hard to work in the news field and not be a little jaded.”

That was getting a little too close to serious discussion, and she really didn’t want to have a serious discussion right now. So she turned her attention back to the room.

The decadent elegance of it made her sigh.

She realized now that the room was octagonal, with several distinct areas.

Directly below the chandelier sat an octagonal game table. In one corner, a baby grand piano held court, lit by a leaded glass piano light that had to be Tiffany.

One wall was completely covered by a huge, glass-front display cabinet that held a collection of things she couldn’t see from here.

Several distinct seating areas were scattered around the room and beautiful patterned fabrics covered the chaise lounges, chairs, and ottomans. One seating area sat in front of the majestic marble fireplace, now glowing with a gas fire that’d lit when Dane had flipped the light switch.

The room was a sensualist’s dream. Every fabric, from the silk wallpaper to the velvet and brocade upholstery to the lush carpet beneath her feet, called out to be touched. Or caressed.

Her stomach tightened at the thought. “It’s beautiful. Is everything authentic?”

She began walking toward the glass cabinet, intrigued by what she couldn’t see.

“The artwork is. All the furniture are reproductions,” Dane said. “We can get a little enthusiastic, and Jed doesn’t want anyone to feel like they have to hold back in fear of breaking an expensive antique.”

She stopped by the side of a thickly tufted chaise lounge, her fingers brushing along the curved arm, her eyes taking in images her brain hadn’t yet made connections for.

This room . . . there was something about it that didn’t add up.

“And what exactly does Jared use this room for? I’ve never heard anyone mention it before.” Then she remembered the nondisclosure she’d signed. “And why did I need to sign a legal document to even know about this place?”

“Freshman year in college, Jed and I and a few other friends were sharing a couple bottles of whiskey and bitching about a mandatory class in world cultures. The professor was a real prick. Got off on tormenting freshmen. We decided to take him down a few pegs.”

With his hand on her back, he pressed her forward, toward the case she’d wanted to check out earlier.

“Since a few of us had what you could call advanced computer skills, we hacked his private email accounts. And found a hell of a lot more than we expected.”

She’d been listening intently . . . until her brain registered several of the items in the case.

And after several seconds, she realized her mouth had been hanging open.

Dildos filled one shelf. Glass, marble, wood, one or two made of material she couldn’t identify. Beautiful works of art, some clearly antiques.

Different sex toys filled another shelf. Some had familiar shapes. Others were nothing she’d ever seen before. But some . . .

“Did you know there are underground Victorian erotica societies around the world?”

“No.” She barely heard her own voice, and she swallowed hard.

Another shelf held whips, chains, paddles, clamps.

“Professor Kohn had this secret life as a writer and researcher for one of those societies.” Dane stood right behind her, so close she felt the heat of his body seeping through her clothes, but not close enough to be pressed against her. “They’re kind of like the Masons, but their organization met to discuss and reenact scenes from Victorian erotica.”

She swallowed as her brain started to put the pieces together.

“So this is a sex club.”

It made sense. The artwork, the furniture, the entire ambiance of the room.

And where had all the air in the room gone? Why couldn’t she seem to catch her breath? Was she really turned on by all of this?

“No, not a sex club. We don’t come here only to have orgies. And not just anyone is invited in. There were ten of us originally. Well, twelve, if you count Tyler and his former fiancée. We were all close friends and had been for years. We know each other, trust each other implicitly.

“With Professor Kohn’s group, you had to be sponsored by at least three current members to get an invitation to be interviewed to join. Once you were in, you signed a confidentiality agreement. They had a required reading list and health screenings. Once all that was taken care of, if you were invited to join, you got to participate in ‘scenes.’”

She swallowed, still checking out the contents of the cabinet. “And what are ‘scenes’?”

His hands settled on her hips and she started. But he didn’t release her. And she didn’t want him to.

“They recreated scenes from books like
Fanny Hill
and
The Pearl
. Our scenes are more organic. We’re not bound to a script. But the one trait we all share is that we’re hedonists.”

He’d leaned closer, his lips only centimeters from her ear. She tried to suppress a shiver but had no luck. She swore she felt him smile.

“So this is a room where people have group sex.”

“No.” He stepped away, and she couldn’t decide if she was glad for the space or disappointed that he’d moved. Now he stood several feet away, staring at the case as if looking for something. “People have all sorts of sex in this room, not just group sex. Sometimes we use it in pairs. Sometimes in threesomes. Sometimes . . . yes, we have parties.”

“And Annabelle and Kate . . . they know about this place.”

He paused. “Yes.”

“And Sabrina.”

He didn’t answer but that hadn’t been a question.

“And they all participate in your . . . scenes?”

Another pause. “Greg’s pretty possessive, so they don’t participate with the group, although they have been here for a party. Tyler’s not really into the parties, but he and Kate use the room on their own. Annabelle . . .”

“Enjoys the hell out of it.” Talia shook her head, a smile forming on her lips. “That doesn’t surprise me one bit.”

The sensuality of this place would definitely appeal to Annabelle. And now that she’d signed the confidentiality agreement, she could discuss this place with her friends. Who hadn’t even hinted about this place to her.

The thought pricked at her feelings, but she didn’t want to think about her friends now. Not while she was here with Dane. Tomorrow she’d have more than enough time to think about everything else.

Tonight . . .

She turned to Dane. “You helped Jared put this place together. What are your favorite parts?”

Something that looked a hell of a lot like relief flashed through his eyes before he started to smile, which made her tingle from head to toe. Then he turned to the cabinet, opened the door and grabbed a bottle.

“Sensation is such a personal thing.” He tugged on her hand as he headed in the opposite direction, toward a shadowed corner of the room where a couple of chairs sat on either side of a long, low coffee table.

At first glance, the table and chairs didn’t seem to match the rest of the furniture in the room. Their legs appeared thicker, sturdier. The design brought to mind a Victorian parlor, but she knew they’d been specially made for this room.

The chairs had cushioned seat pads but were higher than normal. And the seat itself curved in at the front. The longer she stared at the chair, the more intrigued she became. And the more detail she noticed. Like the three metal rings on the outside of the legs, at varying intervals.

Her body heated as she considered uses for those rings. Then her gaze switched to the table, where she saw those same rings on the legs.

“Jared had these pieces commissioned on my designs. Not as elegant as other pieces, but the company who produced them are craftsmen. They took the raw designs I gave them and created something beautiful.”

His hand settled against her back again, making her breath catch in her throat. He did nothing but let it lie there, though her body reacted as if he’d caressed her.

“The same company made the larger piece in the corner.”

She automatically turned to see what he was referring to, following the direction in which he pointed.

She knew as soon as she saw it what it could be used for. The images that came to mind made her wet.

Holy hell. She wanted him to strip her right now and screw her. On the floor, on the table, on the chair. On that padded, black-leather horse.

She wasn’t as much of a prude as her friends obviously thought she was. She read voraciously and had acquired a taste for erotica along with the thrillers and mysteries she devoured on a regular basis.

She loved the freedom the women in those stories enjoyed and had often wished she could be just as adventurous, but she’d never met a man who made her want to give up that much control.

Until she’d met Dane.

“Which do you prefer?” She glanced up at Dane and found him watching her with blistering intensity. “The horse or the chairs?”

For a second, she thought he might insult her intelligence and ask if she knew what the pieces were used for. When he didn’t, she wanted to reward him. And she would. Maybe right there on that chair.

“I don’t have a favorite. Each has its own reward. I think it depends on what you’re in the mood for.”

“And what are you in the mood for?”

He lifted a brow at her. “Why do I have to choose only one?” A pause. “So here’s how it’s going to go. You’re going to strip and sit on that chair.”

She tried to control her reaction but couldn’t, because she felt as if every bone in her body had gone liquid.

How did he know exactly the right thing to say to make her want to do exactly what he said?