The Businessman's Tie (The Power to Please, Book 1) (5 page)

“No problem. I’ll make it simple.” He slowly looked down at
my breasts then back up into my eyes. “You can say no and I’ll shake your hand
and leave you in peace. Or, you can do as I’ve asked. It would please me to see
more of you. It would also please me for others to see more of you.”

He paused a moment to let his words sink in, then continued.
“If pleasing me is appealing to you, you’ll take the opportunity to do as I
ask. By pleasing me, you’ll please yourself, or at least, that is one thing we
might discover, yes?”

I nodded.

“No rush, Think about it.” He looked away from me and sipped
his drink, nonchalant as his gaze wandered over the club at large.

I reached for the top button of my blouse and stopped there.
It was only three buttons. Just three. What would it be like to do this? It was
nothing. Practically nothing anyway. I wanted to know what it would feel like,
to do this little thing he asked. To please him. To please myself.

I unbuttoned the top button. No harm in it. It showed
nothing. Then the second button. I revealed some cleavage. Nothing much. But
the third button ...

I couldn’t bear to check out who might be watching me. I
wasn’t even positive that Michael watched me, I was so focused on that third
button. Heat rose up my neck as I considered what I would do. That button
seemed a long way down my shirt. Well below my breastbone. If I undid it I’d
expose more than just the top of my bra.

I took a breath, and I unbuttoned the third button.

Michael’s voice jarred me. “Excellent. Now spread your
blouse open so I can see what I wanted to see.”

I looked over at him, but he was watching my hands. Slowly,
I opened my shirt, revealing my chest to him. I laid the shirt back and down,
creating a long deep V that showed pretty much everything. My bra was a
demi-cup, so if it was cleavage he wanted, he certainly got it.

A lazy smile played across Michael’s face as he perused my
shoulders and breasts. “Beautiful. And a relief. I’m glad to see it’s all you
filling those cups.”

My face grew hotter. “God, that’s embarrassing. You wanted
to see if I stuff my bra? We’re not in high school.”

“I don’t care if it’s embarrassing. I wanted to know.”

I felt a lurch between my legs. “How long do I have to stay
like this?”

“You can stop whenever you want, but if you want to make me
happy, you’ll leave your shirt open, drop your hands to your lap and leave them
there until I tell you otherwise.”

It was the casual way he said it. Casual, yes, but with an
unmistakable undertone of command. It reminded me of my time in a dark corridor
with a different, forceful man. The trembling sensation in my stomach
increased.

I did as Michael asked.

He said nothing. He only looked, a leisurely exploration of
my shoulders and the rounded tops of my breasts. It thrilled and embarrassed me
at the same time. He was pleased. I saw that. And he was right, in that his
pleasure was clearly doing something for me as well. I felt strung tight and
his attention plucked the strings.

The rest of the room faded away, and it was only me and
Michael, until he said, “I want you to look into the crowd and see who’s looking
back.”

Of course, I thought. The crowd. The people who might be
watching. He wanted them to see me as much as he himself wanted to see. I moved
my eyes toward the rest of the room, but I didn’t actually attend to the
details. Basically, I cheated.

He wasn’t fooled. “Look at them. I can tell you aren’t.”

I itched to diffuse the sexual tension between us by
challenging him, lying and telling him he was wrong. Cowardice on my part. I
took a breath to ready myself, and then I looked, actually saw what was there
to see.

“Many people are looking at you,” Michael said, his warm
voice like a stimulant. “The people who know this is a sex club are thinking
I’m a lucky man to have found someone with potential.”

Though there were at least several hundred people in the
club, no more than thirty or forty of them were in a position to see me, and
not all of them were looking in my direction. Still, it seemed an enormous
number of potential voyeurs.

I saw them, then, the men and women regarding my breasts.
But they weren’t just looking there, at the obvious. They watched my face,
looked into my eyes as well. As I met one person’s gaze then moved to the next,
I saw they understood what I was just beginning to grasp.

A feeling pulsed inside me. It shortened my breath and my blood
thrummed through my veins, a luscious wave of sensation that I would never stop
of my own will.

I knew the thrumming in my body wasn’t caused by
embarrassment that strangers were staring at my cleavage. I knew it. And I knew
that Michael and the others weren’t solely turned on by the display of some
flesh.

It was sensual and thrilling not just because of the result,
but mostly because of the action, the doing of it. I had done as he asked, and
I did it because it pleased him. Even though I was embarrassed. Even though a
big part of me didn’t want to, I did it anyway.

I put myself on display because he wished it. And the
unasked question floating between me and my audience was, what else would I do
to please him?

I think Michael must have sensed my revelation. He reached
out and ran a finger along the edge of my bra, tantalizing the tops of my
breasts. I didn’t stop him. I wanted him to do as he pleased, now, to keep the
heat rushing through me.

He hooked a lone finger under the filmy lace at the top of my
bra. Pushing farther down under the fabric, the back of his fingernail rubbed
against my nipple. I didn’t need to look down to see what he was doing. I
watched the crowd, like he wanted me to do.

He made a sound of enjoyment as the back of his finger stroked
me and my nipple went hard, an animate tingling thing. The people watching no
longer regarded my face. Their interest lay in what Michael was doing to my
breast, under the cover of white lace.

Some of them smiled lazily, some leered, some wanted to be
me, and some of them wanted to be Michael, or to join him. The thought didn’t
frighten me. It excited me. I was with Michael alone. The other people only got
what he gave them.

Michael’s touches raised the game to a different level. I
was in the thrall of this new thing, this new experience. My senses were on
full alert. I felt the driving beat of the dance music. I smelled Michael’s
cologne and the sweetness of the remains of my cocktail, the sharp scent of my
aroused and heated skin. I felt every millimeter of Michael’s finger, the
smooth arc of its rise and fall over my breast, the curious pressure of his
touch, the tweak of a fingernail’s scratch as it passed the sides of my nipple.

I was living a fantasy I never knew I had. My body was keyed
to the moment. What would Michael do next? Would I allow it? How far would I go
for his pleasure? How far would I go for my own?

And then I saw Him. I was drinking the attention of the
crowd when I saw him. He stood next to a grouping of nearby tables, and he was
watching me. His dark hair was brushed back from his forehead. His jaw was
taut, and his body seemed coiled with strength.

He met my eyes with an expression of anger that made me
wince involuntarily. Anger. At who? At me?

It was The Businessman.

Chapter 4

In the eighth year of my marriage, I had an affair with a
man who lived in the apartment above mine. His name was Doug, and he was a
senior in college. Because I married at a young age, only eighteen years old,
Doug wasn’t much younger than I.

He was lovely and what I thought I needed at the time. He
adored me. Or rather, he adored my body. When he looked at me naked, his
features slackened, as if the lines and curves of my figure short-circuited his
brain cells.

I was flattered. He made me feel beautiful and wanted. So I
slept with him every chance I got for nearly two months. When I told him it was
over, he cried. Sweet young man. He thought he loved me.

When my ex-husband and I were first married, we had sex all
the time, common for newlyweds. The sex was okay for me, and I thought it would
get better in time. It didn’t. I never told my ex that being intimate with him
wasn’t as enthralling as I wished; his glass-thin ego never could stand the
weakest knock of complaint. So I faked it. If he wanted sex, he got it. Luckily
for me, as time went on, he wanted it less and less.

The week before I began my affair with Doug, my ex had
climbed into our bed late one night while I was sleeping, and with hardly a
grunt of acknowledgement, proceeded to have sex with me. He rolled me onto my
back, pushed up my nightgown, shoved the crotch of my panties to one side, spat
in his palm, rubbed the spit on his penis, then climbed between my legs and
shoved himself inside me.

His closed his eyes while he fucked me. It was over in a few
minutes. He came, rolled off of me, then stood up and left the room. He never
said a word to me, nor I to him.

I lay in the bed, immobile, legs sprawled open, his semen
slowly seeping out of me onto my bunched-up panties. When the goo cooled and
became clammy, I got up and took a shower.

I didn’t think about anything while I cleaned myself and
changed the sheets. What was there to think about? I knew why he did it. It was
because I dared to suggest, again, that he might look for a job. My bad. Guess
I had it coming. I was a bitch. A fellow deserved a little something to make
him feel better after his wife insulted his manhood, didn’t he?

I didn’t actually believe any of that bullshit. That was his
side of things, and I knew it well. Over the next week, I asked myself, “If you
know you didn’t do anything wrong, then why did you let him do that to you?”

I was standing in the stairwell of our apartment building,
heading home from work, when the answer finally came to me — it was easier to
bear my husband’s vile behavior than it was to try to change it, effort which
would only result in pointless argument.

Could it be that simple? Yes. I didn’t care about him
anymore. I felt nothing, not when he talked to me and certainly not when he
touched me. The night he “chastised” me, the only thing I felt was that damned,
cold semen.

I stood in the stairwell thinking it through, wondering how
many years I’d been numb, when Doug came jogging down the stairs. He ran the
way young men do, young men with more energy than sense. He smiled at me and
said hello in the flirtatious way he always spoke to me. I never encouraged him
... not until that day.

I thought, Doug can make me feel something. So I encouraged
him, and instead of going home to my husband, I went upstairs with Doug.

He was my indulgence. Even more delightful than his
adoration was the knowledge that our time together belonged to me, that my
husband couldn’t take it from me.

I liked Doug to fuck me in positions where I could see a
door, any door. Doggy style was a favorite. Me, on the floor on my hands and
knees, with Doug pumping away at me from behind, his hands roaming over my ass
and back.

His apartment smelled of unwashed clothes, dirty dishes and
half-eaten delivery pizzas. But I didn’t care. I didn’t care that the furniture
was a collection of stained cast-offs and that Doug undoubtedly never vacuumed
the shabby carpet that rubbed faint burns on my knees and reddened my palms.

None of it mattered because Doug, himself, smelled of soap
and herbal shampoo, layered with the delicious scent of honest desire. On my
hands and knees, I would crane my neck to see him behind me, all clean and new,
his skin shining with health and a thin sheen of sweat, a testament to
passionate vigor.

But mostly, I kept my sight trained on the door in front of
me. I imagined my husband kicking the door open and barging inside, seeing me
and my lover in our adulterous glory. I pictured my wastrel of a mate gawping
at me in surprise. He never suspected something like this from me. Never.

And I would shoo him away, saying, “Go home. There’s nothing
for you here.”

And he’d know it was true, so he’d turn around and slump out
the door, still surprised and confused but understanding there was nothing to
be gained from outrage, or even further discussion.

Sometimes I varied the scenes, played out different
scenarios, but the gist of my reaction to his discovery was always the same. An
offhand “Fuck you.”

I never felt guilty about my affair with Doug. I never
would.

Now, here I was, years later, sitting in a sex club. A man
who looked liked a continental playboy had a finger in my bra and was toying
with my nipple while a couple dozen club-goers enjoyed the show.

Then I saw The Businessman among the watching crowd, looking
as devastatingly handsome as I remembered. And he was angry. Definitely angry.

Immediately, I felt guilty.

Guilt. Really? It couldn’t be. The memory of cheating on my
husband blazed clear and large in my mind. I’d felt no guilt for a cuckolded
husband, for broken vows and secret trysts. Not even once. Not even close.

Apparently, I saved my shame for virtual strangers, for men
who seduced me then didn’t bother to tell me their names, or ask for mine.

What the hell was wrong with me? The entire scene was absurd
to the point of farce. I fought down an urge to laugh, though I was in no way
amused.

I couldn’t look away from The Businessman and his anger.
Mixed with my inexplicable feelings of guilt was an equally inexplicable,
though less powerful, tremble of fear. Fear of what? Shame for what?

He and I didn’t even know each other, not in any real way.
There could be no concerns about promises and fidelity. Yet he glared at me as
if I’d somehow betrayed him. Impossible.

Michael noticed the change in me. He followed my gaze to The
Businessman, who immediately switched his glare from me to Michael.

Michael smiled and gave an acknowledgement nod, the briefest
hello. The Businessman didn’t return the gesture. His angry expression
disappeared the next instant, replaced by total blandness. He turned away and
walked off into the crowd, gone from my view within seconds.

Now you see him, now you don’t, I thought. How like him.

Michael, still smiling, appeared unfazed by The
Businessman’s cut. His finger circled my nipple as he asked, “Someone you
know?”

The moment having been considerably dampened for me, I
gently removed his hand from my breast and answered, “A passing acquaintance.”

Mood spoiled, I buttoned up my shirt.

Michael sighed in a playfully dramatic way. “It’s so sad
when a good time is ruined by some random thing or other. Still, you pleased me
while it lasted, so I’m content with that.”

I smiled even though my nerves remained on edge. I reached
for my drink. It was watery and tasteless from the melted ice, but it served
its purpose of wetting my dry lips and mouth, bringing me back to a more even
state.

I asked the question that I wasn’t sure I wanted answered.
“Do you know that man?”

I was certain that Michael almost asked, “Who?” It was
something about the shape of his mouth before he said, “Just a passing
acquaintance, same as you.”

“Do you know his name? I can’t remember it, and I hate it
when I can’t remember a name.”

Michael said he didn’t remember. I was disappointed, until
Michael added, “But I’ve heard some rumors about him.”

Ah, rumors. That was something, anyway. “Oh,” I said, then
waited to see if he would tell me more.

He did. “Some people have said he can be, how should I say
this, unfeeling and harsh to his, uh, to the women under his care.”

“What do you mean, the women under his care?”

“His sexual partners. I’m not much for labels, but in
general, a partner of his would be called a sub, short for submissive.”

This time my “Oh” was no ploy. “Then he’s some kind of
regular here, and has subs. It’s BDSM.”

“Most people who come here are into BDSM,” he said, “in one
way or another, as I more or less told you before. I’m pleased you know the
term. You’d be surprised how many people don’t. Here I thought you were an
innocent young thing with no idea of the ways of the world.”

“Uh-huh. Was that before or after you stuck your finger in
my bra in front of 30-odd strangers?”

He chuckled low and sexy, “Well, perhaps not all that
innocent. Innocent enough that I thought you needed special handling. Now,
however ...”

I didn’t like where he was heading. “I don’t live under a
rock, so I have a general knowledge of what BDSM is. Whips, chains, whatever.
But I don’t know anything other than what I’ve seen in movies or tv.”

Michael grew thoughtful and studied me. “You’re right. There
are whips and chains in BDSM, but they’re just tools. A means to an end.”

A means to an end. I wasn’t sure that bore much thinking
about, not at the moment anyway.

I said what I’d not yet had the chance to say. “That man we
were talking about. The one with the rumors. You said he was unfeeling and
harsh to his partners. Does that mean he dumps a lot of women, or does it mean
he ... physically harms ...” I didn’t know how to finish my sentence.

“No idea,” Michael said. “It could mean many things, or
nothing. It’s only rumors. I find it interesting, though, that the conversation
keeps coming back to him. How did you meet him?”

From his clipped tone, I knew this was a question he dearly
wanted answered. “I don’t remember,” I said.

“Hmm. Interesting.” His arm had been draped casually over
the back of the booth. It wasn’t a stretch for him to reach out and touch my
hair, twirling one of my curls around his finger. “You shouldn’t wonder that
I’m curious about you and him. Perhaps it was my imagination, but I think he
was angry when he saw us together. At first, I thought that he snubbed me
because he was in a foul mood or some other nonsense. But now I wonder. Was he
angry because you were here with someone other than him?”

“I don’t see how that could be possible. We don’t even
really know each other.”

Michael misread my rising agitation. He gave my hair a
teasing tug and smiled. “Don’t be annoyed with me. You can’t blame me for
feeling a little jealous, can you? It’s nothing serious. It’s only that
tonight, by the best of luck, I found the loveliest woman I’ve met in a long
time. All I want to do is talk with her some more about pleasure, while all she
wants to do is talk about another man.”

My first reaction was to assure him that I wasn’t offended
and that I hadn’t been thinking about The Businessman. But I stopped before I
said anything. I would never admit it to him, but Michael was right about me
digging for information. Why was I doing that, anyway?

The Businessman’s anger, like my guilt, was irrational.
According to rumors, he treated women badly. I wasn’t going to be able to ask
Michael for specifics about those rumors. Regardless, the critical point was
that The Businessman walked away from me yet again.

Michael was here. I was undeniably attracted to him. Who
wouldn’t be? I loved the way his long hair brushed his shoulders and the way he
pushed it behind his ears with casual unconcern. His body was lean, taut and
strong. And maybe he was a bit dangerous, too. Who knew where he could lead me.
He was persuasive, to say the least.

I went out that night to pursue a desire that The
Businessman had created. There was no reason why he had to be the one to
fulfill it. Michael Weston could do just as well. Maybe better. I wouldn’t know
without trying.

“I’m sorry I’ve given you the wrong impression. I’m not
interested in that man,” I said.

“I’m glad to hear it.”

“I’m just worried that I might have wandered into something
that’s out of my depth. The idea of BDSM is, well, let’s just say, I’m not a
masochist, and I’m certainly not a sadist.”

“How do you know?”

I laughed at this ridiculous question. “I think I’d know if
I were. If I knock my shin on a coffee table, it just hurts, it doesn’t turn me
on. And I’ve definitely never been excited by someone else’s pain. I can’t even
imagine it.”

I recalled how it felt when The Businessman spanked me and I
almost withdrew my statement. Those smacks felt nothing like a banged-up shin.

“You laugh,” he said, “but it’s only because you don’t
understand. I could talk to you for hours about how you’re wrong, but it would
be much easier to show you.”

I thought of the woman in the stiletto heels, the woman
Michael said he’d whipped. I shook my head. “I’m not looking for a beating
tonight.”

Michael gave a rueful chuckle. “That’s a pity. But I didn’t
think you were. I believe we’ve proven you like to be watched, though, and I
believe the next logical step is to see if you like to watch others, too. It
could serve the additional purpose of a lesson, if you’re interested in
learning more.”

One of the things that most intrigued me about Michael was
his ability to make outrageous offers seem perfectly logical. Normal even. He
said all of the above as if he were suggesting we take in a tennis match
because I mentioned I’d never seen the game.