What had ever made her doubt he was a sexual dominant? He’d never looked the part before tonight, of course, but then this was the first time she’d seen him in a club, his hard lean body enhanced by the leather harness the way it was tonight. His impressive cock and balls jutted straight out from the silver cock ring that held the torso harness in place.
None of the other Doms she’d glimpsed in the playroom downstairs had possessed a body as hot as his, one worthy of showcasing in nothing but thin strips of crisscrossed leather held together with O-rings and buckles—and the thick ring that emphasized the size and strength of his jutting erection, the luscious fullness of his smooth, pink scrotum.
Just looking at that huge, throbbing phallus made her cunt clench with anticipation. The moment she’d seen it her inner muscles had spasmed and she’d grown wet. Her nipples puckered and tingled. She couldn’t help licking her lips when she noticed the translucent drop of lubrication already wetting his deep, prominent slit.
The silver fasteners on his harness caught rays from multicolored floodlights that flashed around the small dungeon in ever-changing patterns of brilliant gold, red and purple, enhancing the otherworldly setting. The visual feast enhanced her arousal as much as the bold brass and heavy percussion rhythm blaring from the old-fashioned jukebox she’d noticed when Candy had led her through the downstairs playroom.
The Neon Lasso, much smaller than Club Rio Brava where she’d observed BDSM play in San Antonio last summer, oozed a little less class but a lot more sexual sensation. She imagined she felt the aura more keenly now because she’d been an observer then, not a participant.
She’d noticed a stage downstairs, much like the one in San Antonio where she’d observed part of a highly erotic scene that had involved not only a Dom and his slave but also two other males. It had been too much. Embarrassed, she had turned away and buried her face against the shoulder of the date who’d taken her there.
I wonder if Les will take me onstage someday, put us both on display for eager eyes to see.
She didn’t know if the prospect of exhibiting her submission for everyone to see frightened her…or made her wet with anticipation.
I think maybe I’d like letting everybody know Les is my master.
Tonight, Deidre had been relieved when she’d realized he’d booked a private dungeon for them to play. But soon…
Fuck, she was no virgin. Not even close. Surely she’d soon lose the almost-virgin nerves that had surfaced when they’d walked through the door and be ready to service her master anytime, anyplace. They could be alone like this in their own private play world—or the center of attention among a crowd of eager voyeurs downstairs. It wouldn’t matter.
For now, though, she was grateful to be here alone with him, sucking his magnificent cock. Other than her mouth surrounding his flesh and his strong fingers tangled in her ponytail, the only places they touched were where her palms rested on his thighs.
Having his pulsating flesh in her mouth and tasting his slick, salty lubrication on her tongue focused her attention on her master alone. Only the flashing strobe lights and the beat of the muffled music coming from the downstairs playroom reminded her that they were in a club and she was submitting to his command.
Deidre had no doubt when he tugged at her hair and ordered her hoarsely to swallow his cock that Les was the Dom he claimed to be, despite the fact that he’d uttered only one command and had so far used none of the BDSM equipment at his disposal.
His cock was all she needed. Her pussy clenched. Would he lock her legs to the stirrups at the corners of that fucking bed, strap her down and ram his cock into her as though it were a battering ram? Or would he immobilize her on the cross behind her and administer sensual torture until she begged for release, the way she’d seen a writhing sub beg her master that night at Club Rio Brava?
When Les slid his fingers out of her hair she felt deserted—until he used both hands to cup her cheeks, encouraging her with light pressure to deep throat him. His heated groans let her know she was pleasing him.
Pleasing him made her happy even though every cell in her body was screaming for release.
The music stopped momentarily, only to be replaced by a less frenetic, more erotic instrumental that began with an intro of mellow woodwinds and built slowly to a crescendo trumpeting a mood of brass-bold expectation. Deep-pitched, mellow drums beat out a cadence that made Les think of fucking slow and deep.
The show downstairs was apparently about to start.
In case something about the scene about to be projected on the screen disturbed Deidre as Buck had indicated it might, Les wanted to have her under his control yet not restrained by shackles. He lifted her off his straining cock and spoke, keeping his expression stern, his tone commanding. “Get up now and go sit on the bed. I want to fuck you until we’re both too tired to move, and I want to start while we watch the show.”
The eagerness with which she scrambled to do his bidding reminded him that she was new to the BDSM scene, not yet confident enough to play coy or even make a token protest at losing contact with her master’s flesh.
That first night in Dallas she had come across as sexually aware, sensually advanced—uninhibited and skilled at giving pleasure for one so young, yet somehow, inexplicably, innocent. Her play so far tonight confirmed that while she had observed club play, she was a novice at the actual behavior of experienced subs that he had learned on his knees while trying to punish himself by becoming the sex slave Jessica had wanted.
He stood by the narrow fucking bed and looked down at her, practically overwhelmed by the needy look in her eyes when she met his gaze.
“Will you please fuck me, Master?”
“Slaves don’t speak without permission, but I’ll let you get by this time since club play is so new to you.” Though he tried to sound stern he couldn’t withstand the pleading expression on her gorgeous face. “Yes, I want to fuck you, but I also want us to watch the show. Buck mentioned that you used to have a thing for Jack Duval. He and his wife are playing onstage tonight.” He lay beside her, savoring the cool, slick feel of her latex bodysuit, the heat of her exposed nipples now almost as hard as his dick.
“Oh.” She didn’t sound enthusiastic. “May I tell you something? It’s a little more of what I said I’d tell you later.”
Les braced himself to be compared with the lawyer whose skills were as well-honed and hardcore as those of any Dom he’d ever observed in a Houston club. He tweaked one taut nipple, then the other. “Go ahead,
chéri
, but remember I may punish you if I don’t like what you say.”
Deidre snuggled up to him as though she needed the closeness, a reminder that for tonight at least he was her master. She rested her head on his shoulder and lowered her gaze the way a good sub would, only in her case he sensed that she needed to cloak her words in anonymity.
“Jack is my half-brother. Buck was right. I had a huge crush on him until I found out last spring that Four is his father too.”
Jesus, he hadn’t expected to hear anything like that. It must have torn her up inside, learning she’d been fucking a blood relative. “It’s okay, baby,” he whispered when he felt her trembling like a leaf being battered in the wind. He imagined Duval must have eaten her alive, as young and impressionable as she seemed to be even now.
“It’s not like that.” She looked up at him, her beautiful eyes awash with tears. “I never succeeded in seducing him even though I tried awfully hard. I’m okay with him and Liz being married, truly I am.”
Les figured the blood relationship between them explained why Karen and Bye never played with Jack and his bride, even though he had seen both couples perform onstage with nearly every other member of the club. “I didn’t think—”
She laid her hand over his lips. “Yes you did, but it’s all right. I certainly tried hard enough to get him into my bed. You mustn’t ever tell anybody what I just told you, though.”
“You mean nobody around here knows you and Duval are related?”
“Just Jack and his mother, and all of us Cadens, of course, since she decided to spring the news on Bye and me the day of our mother’s funeral. I know Bye told Karen, and I assume that Jack would have told Liz before they got married. Now you know too.”
Les raised his upper body and looked down at Deidre, not certain whether they should stay and watch the show or get the hell out and go spend the rest of the night at his place in Caden. “I won’t say a word. Do you want to stay and watch the show? Jack and Liz always put on performances that get everybody in a fever.”
He didn’t bother to mention that Jack’s scenes were almost all ménages, usually with more than one extra player. Now that he knew that Duval had hurt Deidre he relished the idea of watching the man take another Dom’s dick up the ass, which had been a featured part of the last Duval scene he’d watched. “How about it? Want to see what you missed out on?”
“Okay.” She didn’t sound too sure but then she reached down and took Les’ hard-on in her hand. “I’d like to feel your cock in my pussy. Please, Master,” she added after a short pause and a questioning glance at his face, as though she’d just realized she’d overstepped the boundaries and invited his wrath.
He moved over, knelt and leaned back against the wall. “Come here, then. Bring your sweet little pussy up here so I can fuck you doggy style.” That way they could both watch the show and he could play with her sensitive nipples while they made love.
I must be pretty far gone
, Les thought as he grasped Deidre’s butt until her cunt made contact with his dick.
Doms fuck in clubs, they don’t make love.
Every time he sank into her welcoming heat, though, it felt an awful lot like lovemaking. Right now he wanted to feel like a Dom, not Deidre’s vanilla lover.
“Stay right there,
chéri
.” Reaching onto the table, he grabbed a condom, ripped it open and protected her before sinking again inside her hot, wet cunt. He used his hands on her hips to guide her and control her motion.
Jack’s scene tonight began when he came onstage and found Liz with her legs spread for a male sub who was lapping her pussy with great enthusiasm. Pretending to be an outraged master, he administered a flogging to them both. Les couldn’t help trembling a little when Jack tossed away the flogger and rammed his cock up the male sub’s helpless, reddened ass.
Deidre stiffened as if she were the one being ass-fucked. “Omigod.”
“It’s okay, baby.” It wasn’t, though, because Deidre started to tremble and her body quit moving in response to his thrusts.
He pulled out of her and sat, spreading his legs to give her room. “Turn around and look at me. Forget what you saw onscreen.”
“Please Master, I need you inside me.”
“Easy,
chéri
,” he said, helping her position her legs outside his hips before impaling her again. “Relax. Just close your eyes and concentrate on how it feels to have me inside you.”
“Yes, Master, please fuck me hard.” She didn’t have to say it for him to know she needed him to eradicate the memory of the scene she’d just witnessed at his command.
She held him tight, her arms twined around his neck. She dug her fingers through his hair and wrapped her legs around his torso. Though she’d stopped sobbing, he watched more tears roll down her flushed cheeks, a river to cleanse her mind before she clamped her vaginal muscles down on him and began to come.
“God yes. Squeeze my cock. Don’t stop.” He slid one hand down to cup her ass and slid a finger up her tight rear hole. “I’m going to take you here very soon.”
“Omigod, Master.” Her eyes were glazed, her lips parted and her body limp. Les held her, murmuring soothing, caring words as he watched Duval fuck his wife while she sucked off the male sub and another male Dom fucked Jack’s ass.
The kinkiness of the scene didn’t turn him on the way he’d thought it would, and when he concentrated on the woman in his arms he realized what he wanted was her. Nobody else. A little kink was fine to spice up their sex life but he had no need for club play with Deidre. No compulsion to stake his claim or prove his dominance in public.
Chapter Six
“Open your eyes,
chéri
.”
His heat surrounded her as she came down from the sexual experience she’d thought she had craved. The part of it where Les had claimed her was all she’d expected and more—but Deidre didn’t think the club scene was for her.
Seeing the most graphic sex she’d ever witnessed had disturbed her, even from the distance the video had afforded. It was too much, too intense, something she never would have imagined that people she knew—real people, not actors—would ever do. Not even in the privacy of their home, much less in public for everybody to see.
“Master, do you take part in scenes like that?” she asked, not sure Les could hear her since she couldn’t yet bring herself to raise her head off his chest and see the disappointment she imagined would be reflected in his dark eyes.
“Not exactly like that one but yes, I’ve taken part in staged scenes at clubs.” His reply was clipped, as if he didn’t want to discuss his participation any further.
Deidre knew she wasn’t thinking like a proper sex slave but she had to say it. “I’d rather enjoy our own private scenes.”
Les tightened his arms around her. The leather strips on his harness abraded her nipples when he drew her closer, so close that she felt the warm metal of his cock ring against her clit. “BDSM isn’t the same for everybody, any more than all vanilla sex is alike. Jack and Liz obviously enjoy sadomasochism. Since he’s the one who orchestrates their scenes, he apparently enjoys—” He hesitated, then continued, “Sex with other men as well as with women.”
If the scene they saw was any indication, Les was right. Jack did appear to enjoy anal sex with other men, almost as much as it looked as though he liked fucking Liz. Deidre leaned away from Les enough so she could look into his eyes. “Do you?”
“Do I enjoy sex with other men?”
“Do you?”
“I prefer women.” He’d hesitated just long enough for Deidre to realize he hadn’t exactly answered her question. “How would you like to get dressed and go spend the night at my place? I feel like enjoying sex with one particular woman—you.”
“All right, Master.” Maybe it was her own discomfort that she was projecting onto him, but it seemed to her that he wasn’t precisely at ease here either. Besides, Deidre could hardly wait to peel off the BDSM trappings and be with Les. Only with him. She felt his fingers tighten on her waist.
Then he lifted her off him and slid his hands down to caress her thighs. “Go get dressed. I’ll meet you downstairs in just a few minutes.”
* * * * *
She’d seen the house before, a cozy old-fashioned place that had rocking chairs on the front porch and lace panels covering the two glass windowpanes in the wooden storm door. When Les stepped back and let her go inside ahead of him, she noticed the same pleasant, woodsy scent she liked so much because it had permeated the layers of his heavy jacket.
“Would you like a fire?” he asked when she looked at a fireplace against the back wall of the living room. It looked inviting, facing a brick-red sectional sofa centered on a jewel-toned rug that looked valuable, like her mom’s prized Oriental rug in the garden room at the Bar C.
After helping her with her coat, he hung it and his jacket on a hall tree that reminded her of one she’d seen in an old-time Western movie. When he came back to her he laid one arm over her shoulder as though he was encouraging her to say yes—to spend some time getting to know each other instead of scooting right off to bed.
Deidre was anxious to learn more about Les—where he came from, what made him tick. It struck her that she hadn’t wanted to get that deeply into her past lovers’ lives, and she wasn’t sure exactly why Les affected her this way, other than that he gave her the feeling that she meant more to him than just another casual fuck or a potential meal ticket. “I’d like that, Master.”
He came up behind her and turned her to face him. “Sit down, then, while I get a fire going.” Bending, he took some kindling from an old coal scuttle on the hearth and arranged it below the grate that had already been loaded with several sturdy logs. Lighting a long fireplace match, he held it to the stack of kindling.
Through his denim jeans, muscles bunched in his butt and thighs as he knelt and blew on the little spark, coaxing it to grow and ignite the kindling. As soon as the fire had spread to the first of the logs, he straightened and joined her, lacing their fingers together and staring into the flames.
“I like watching a fire on a cold night like this one.”
Especially with you.
Deidre snuggled up to Les’ side, loving the rare feeling of belonging that being with him had created in her almost from the first time they met. “Did it get cold enough where you grew up to do this? I’ve spent some time in New Orleans but I don’t remember it ever snowing—or even getting below freezing.”
“Natchitoches is a good bit north of New Orleans. It gets colder there, though it rarely snows enough to stick on the ground. New Orleans does get cold from time to time, though. I know firsthand, because I spent four years there going to college at Tulane.”
“Oh.” Tulane was private and expensive. Had Les been a scholarship student or had he come from a well-off family? “I have a couple of friends who went there. How old are you?”
“Thirty-one next month. I imagine I was out of college before your pals went there, since I’m sure I was in medical school at Rice by then. I might even have been starting my residency by the time you graduated from high school, but I’m assuming you’re not jailbait or else Bye would never have introduced us.”
Deidre laughed. “I’m twenty-three. A year out of college at Bryn Mawr. Mom wanted me to get some polish on my country Texas education.”
“That’s good. If you were too much younger people would accuse me of robbing the cradle.” Les paused as though trying to guess, then asked, “What was your major?”
“Psychology and fun, not necessarily in that order.”
Les raised an eyebrow. “Fun?”
“Things like house parties and sailing and skiing in Vermont. A spring break tour of castles in England and Scotland. None of those things was nearly as enjoyable as a brisk ride on horseback across the Bar C pastures or a fall roundup and barbecue. You can take the girl out of Texas but you can’t take Texas out of the girl.” She looked up at Les and savored the warmth in his eyes, the lazy smile on his sensual lips. “I had a lot more fun with you when we went to Dallas. And tonight too.”
His smile turned serious. “It took you a minute to tack on about tonight,
chéri
. Did you really like playing at the Neon Lasso?”
“Part of it.” Dressing to titillate him had turned her on—not to mention how she’d liked looking at the Dom who’d surfaced when Les had taken off the conservative trappings of a respectable country doctor. What she hadn’t liked much was realizing the extent to which D/s play could go, imagining herself participating with her master in acts that were beyond the scope of her wildest fantasies. “Does everybody at the club do…everything, like the scene we saw tonight?”
“Not everybody. Most of the members seem to enjoy watching the scenes. Only a few actually participate in them on a regular basis.” He seemed to be choosing his words carefully and that concerned her.
When she looked up at him, his expression confirmed that he wasn’t comfortable discussing this. She had to know how he felt, though. “Do you like to participate in those scenes?”
“Not particularly. I’ve done it, but not for a long time and never at the Neon Lasso. The only times I’ve played there before tonight have been in the public dungeon, with female subs who came to play with any available Dom—one sub at a time. Because of my work, I’ve been careful not to let anybody see my face.” He looked toward the fireplace as if he didn’t want to meet her gaze.
“You’ve been into BDSM for a long time, haven’t you?”
“I got into it my last year in med school, when the chief resident at a hospital where I did clinical rounds introduced me to the lifestyle. I found that indulging my masochistic tendencies turned me on. I might as well admit it now, in case you can’t stand the thought of it—I spent two years as the 24/7 slave of an older woman who loved to dole out pain and humiliation as much as I craved it.”
Deidre tried hard not to show her shock. Les, a sex slave? A masochist? She realized that BDSM was a power exchange at its root—a snippet of information that had stuck in her brain bank from an early psych class. It wasn’t easy to process, though, that her BDSM master—her lover—had once lived under the control of a hardcore Domme.
“Say something. For God’s sake don’t just sit there as though you just heard me confess to murder.” As though to negate his confession he brought their laced-together fingers to his lips.
“I don’t understand. Why did you want to be hurt and humiliated?”
He let go of her hand and turned sideways on the sofa to face her. “That’s easy. I was trying to assuage a deeply rooted sense of guilt, although it took a good many years and a lot of psychotherapy to get me to recognize it and accept that my sense of culpability had been misplaced.”
“What did you feel guilty about?”
“I killed a man when I was in tenth grade. If I’d been paying more attention I would have seen him stagger out of a bar in Natchitoches and into the street in front of my car, but I had a friend with me and I was showing off the car I’d gotten a week earlier for my sixteenth birthday. Nobody ever seemed to think I was in the wrong, but I knew better.”
Deidre heard regret in his voice, saw it in his downcast eyes. She wanted to hug him, tell him it was okay. The words wouldn’t come, though, so she reached up and laid a hand over his heart. “You weren’t at fault. But that doesn’t always matter, does it?”
“No. What I did to punish myself was my own doing, though.” He covered her hand with his own. “I want a lot more than just a sexual relationship with you. If I didn’t, I’d never have told you—not about my introduction to BDSM and not about the event that made me spend the past couple of years in therapy to understand why I felt compelled to let myself be hurt.”
Deidre wanted more from Les too. She hadn’t allowed herself to admit it yet, but what she was feeling for him was more than lust—more than friendship, though that was part of it. “Do you think most subs submit for the same reason you did?”
“No. Not all subs crave physical abuse or humiliation, and not all Doms get off on causing pain. I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t find it arousing to be flogged or whipped, or to be forced to take part in degrading or humiliating scenes.” He stroked her cheek, his touch caring, nonthreatening.
The firelight bathed his face in tones of orange and red and yellow, reminding her of a portrait she’d once seen of a satyr, as tempting as an angel yet with the highly aroused look of a demon. His mouth drew her gaze, soft yet firm beneath a strong nose and framed by lean cheeks and a firm, dimpled chin.
It was the expression in his dark eyes that brought her out of her fears. She could never be afraid of a man who looked at her with such blatant care. Such love.
“What do you think makes me want to submit to you, Master?” She spoke softly, afraid to hear his reply but needing to know. “Do you believe I feel guilty for something I may have done?”
He turned her to face him and took her in his arms. “I doubt you’ve ever done anything as serious as killing someone, but you may think you did something wrong and want to punish yourself. I doubt that. What I believe you want is someone to direct you sexually, take away your choices and your responsibility for what you’ve been programmed to believe is wrong.
“Not that I think you’re sexually repressed to the extent that you can’t reach climax without feeling your power of refusal has been taken away. I found that wasn’t true our first time. You’re one hot, sexy lady who doesn’t seem to have a problem with coming.”
“You’re one of the very few vanilla lovers I’ve had who could give me an orgasm.”
The only one if you want the truth.
But she wasn’t ready to admit that to him. Not yet. That would be ceding too much power. “I like the titillation of the club atmosphere, the idea of being restrained. The feeling that I have no choice but to hand over my pleasure to a Dom. To you.”
“It doesn’t bother you that I was once a slave, that I subjugated my will to a Domme? Or that I didn’t do it in order to train myself to be a good Dom?” Les sounded hopeful yet dubious. That made Deidre want to hug him and assure him that she didn’t care.
“You’re a Dom now. That’s all that matters.” She needed his strength, the control he exerted over her when they had sex. She wanted to hand over the responsibility for her sexual pleasure to him. The idea of him physically restraining her got her incredibly aroused. When she thought about submission with Les, she even included the possibility that someday she’d want to exist under his control in other aspects of their lives, but…
“Does inflicting humiliation and pain turn you on now, the way receiving those things aroused you when you were with her?” She half expected Les to get angry, tell her that what he had been had no bearing on who he was today. “I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t like to be on the receiving end of a flogging like what I saw Jack do to Liz and that other guy tonight.”
He cupped her chin in one hand and lifted her face to meet his gaze. “My idea of dominating my partner involves getting into her mind and making her realize what it is that she wants sexually, not beating her into submission. I became so fucked up in the head before my Domme dumped me that I wouldn’t wish that feeling on my worst enemy, let alone my lover.”