Bonds of Trust Read online

  Her mind scrambled for coherent thought. Was that all it took to turn her on? Warm breath on her neck? Was she so sexually starved that even that innocent action made her knees weak and her pussy wet?

  She stared into his silver eyes and forgot his question.

  “Alcohol is only served in this room if you need it,” he reminded her. “Otherwise, we can continue on to the other areas of the club.”

  “No, thank you,” she finally replied. Although a shot of liquid courage was enticing, Cali wanted all of her faculties coherent for whatever the evening brought. This was definitely a night she didn’t want to forget or blame on inebriation. It was a choice, a monumental one that she wasn’t going to hide behind an excuse.

  “Shall we continue?”

  Continue. Was she ready for this? “Yes.”

  “This room is exactly what it seems. No open sex or nudity is allowed. Hence, the permission of alcohol.” He guided her toward the red doorway at the back of the room. He nodded at the large man standing at the door before the bouncer opened it and let them through. “Anyone who’s inebriated is not allowed to enter the other sections of the club. It’s for their safety and ours.”

  They stood in a long hallway with numerous closed doors and a stairway at the end leading to the second level. There was a couple making out at the bottom of the stairs oblivious to anything around them, their bodies wrapped around each other, moans trickling down the hall to spike her imagination and her desire.

  “Is there any place you’d like to start?” Jake looked at her, his gaze seeming to catch her every thought.

  She swallowed, her dry throat giving her a moment to find her courage. Finally, she reminded herself that this was why she was here. She wanted sex. Plain and simple.

  Or maybe not so plain and simple.

  She smiled at that thought and found her voice. “I think I’d like to watch for a while.”

  The back of his hand brushed down her cheek, an approving smile curling over his lips. “Very good.”

  She flushed, the heat spreading up her neck and over her face as the praise of his approval warmed her.

  “Do you still trust me?”

  Did she? “Yes, sir.”

  “Then allow me to decide.”

  And with that, he guided her down the hall to the last door on the right before opening it and escorting her inside.

  * * *

  Jake led the seductive Cali Reynolds to an empty space along the wall near the front. The room was crowded, the few remaining seats were at the back, but he wanted Cali closer to the action. Intuitively, he realized he was testing her. Finding her limits—her unspoken, possibly unrecognized, desires.

  He didn’t probe into why he was doing so or when his decision to take on the role of Cali’s escort had been made—a job he hadn’t personally done since the club first opened. But she was too intriguing to turn over to Marcus, or any other Dom for that matter.

  No. For some inexplicable reason, he wanted to define and shape her needs himself. It had been entirely too long since such a captivating sub had been offered to him. His protective instincts had flared as a surprising partner to his desire to top her. And with it, a possessiveness he refused to acknowledge. He was a professional Dom. Contracts only. He didn’t do possessiveness or ownership.

  Yet his gut tightened at the mere thought of keeping Cali to himself. Of her submitting to only his commands. There was something within her clawing to be free. And damn if he would let anyone else discover it.

  He stood by the wall and tucked Cali in front of him until her spine pressed against his chest. He snaked his arm across her abdomen, keeping her hips tight to his pelvis, his cock snug against her lower back.

  She stiffened at the contact.

  “Relax,” he murmured into her ear. “Just watch the show and don’t think. This is about feeling.” The light scent of soap, mixed with a hint of musky perfume, invaded his nose and he took another deep inhale of the heady blend.

  She gave a slight nod, but her muscles remained tight and tense.

  “Trust me,” he commanded. “This is about you. I won’t violate the trust you’ve given me. Remember that.”

  Cali’s body relaxed a tad, and she turned her head until her cheek brushed against his. “Yes, sir,” she whispered.

  His free hand tightened into a hard fist as he straightened and fought to control the urge to yank her from the room and demand she submit to him. But it was too soon for that. She wasn’t ready.

  He would wait.

  Or she would run.

  The lights rose on stage to highlight a man and a woman in an intimate embrace. Jake immediate recognized both parties. Paul and his wife, Trisha, had been members for over three years. They were both in their late twenties and enjoyed the aspects of public displays. Their shows were often sensual and erotic without getting extreme. Their reputation accounted for the packed house.

  They would be a great introduction for Cali.

  Her breath hitched, her attention focused on the couple as Trisha’s silk robe slipped from her shoulders to pool at her feet. Her nipples stood out hard and rosy beneath the thin lace of her pink bra. Trisha had a toned, but sensual body with large breasts and curved hips. Tan all over, her auburn hair curled down her back in waves of taunting copper. She was a beautiful woman who fully understood the power her body held over others.

  Paul dipped his head and nipped one of Trisha’s nipples with his teeth. She moaned and tossed her head back as her husband slowly worshiped the nub before disposing of her bra and taking the naked nipple back into his hungry mouth.

  Cali slowly relaxed into Jake. Whether it was intentional or not, he didn’t care. He absorbed her weight and stroked his hand across her firm stomach over the silk of her black top.

  “How do you feel?” he asked her.

  She inhaled, her chest raising a tempting vision of her breasts over the edge of her top before they receded on the exhale. “Fine,” she breathed.

  Paul had worked his way down his wife’s stomach and was removing her matching lace panties, adding slow nips and licks as the material slipped down her legs. A second man entered the stage, walking up behind Trisha, allowing her to lean on his bare chest while Paul finished removing her panties.

  Cali gave a low gasp, but her ass swayed imperceptibly against Jake’s hardening cock, as if she couldn’t prevent the movement from happening. Jake smiled and let his tongue trail a light line of desire over the shell of her ear.

  “Would you like that, Cali? To have two men worship you?”

  She shivered but didn’t pull away.

  On stage, Paul hungrily licked and sucked at his wife’s shaved pussy. One of her legs was thrown over his shoulder, her upper body supported by the second man, who massaged her breasts and pinched her nipples with large hands. Trisha’s moans echoed through the room, blending with the erotic sounds of Paul’s actions. Her hands were buried deep in her husband’s hair as she held his head tightly against her sex.

  Cali’s hand came up to grip Jake’s forearm, but she didn’t stop his slow, sensual movements over her stomach. It was as if she were searching for something to hang on to, to keep her grounded. And she’d reached for him. Good.

  “Do you find that hot?” Jake breathed into her ear. He let his other hand smooth up the side of her leg, watching her reaction, measuring her submission.

  “Yes.” The barely spoken word escaped between open lips.

  She looked so passionate. Her profile revealed hooded eyes and pink lips wet and open. Her breathing was labored, like she was working to keep her growing arousal in check. Her hair curled temptingly in a loose, alluring halo of blond silk that made her features appear as soft and inviting as her hair. So very different from the straight, no-nonsense bob in her profile picture.

  The short, tight skirt she wore showed off long legs accentuated by the three-inch heels. Her nipples pointed sharp and tight through the thin material of her top, and his fingers ached
to pinch them. To tweak and play with them until she begged for more.

  Just like she said she wanted.

  Straightening, he pushed her away then guided her to the exit. She snapped her head around to catch the action on the stage. Obviously, she was still enthralled.

  “Why’d we leave?” she asked once they were in the hallway. Her eyes sought his.

  The outright lust and curiosity pooling in the green depths had him backing her against the wall, his lips hovering just inches from hers. Her eyes widened, her mouth parting in shock, but she didn’t fight him.

  Fuck. Where the hell was his control?

  “This was only one room, Cali,” he told her, stepping away, his gaze dropping to the rapid rise and fall of her chest. “There’s much, much more to see before the night is over.”

  “Oh.” She cleared her throat and licked her lips. “What do you recommend next?”

  She was going to kill him. And she didn’t even recognize the power she had already. She was a heady mix of innocence and desire, timid and strong.

  Holding her hand, he led her up the hall to another closed door and yanked it open. They were greeted by the sinful rumble of a long, unmistakable moan.

  Cali stalled as they stepped through the door, her hand rising to cover her lips as she viewed the sight of a couple fully engaged in sex on stage.

  Jake grinned.

  Training Ms. Reynolds was going to be so fucking fun.

  Chapter Four

  Cali was on fire. Her blood had turned to molten lava long ago, her bones slowly melting in the current of fiery liquid flowing through her system. She was so aroused, so incredibly turned on that she was almost ready to beg Master Jake to take her.

  To throw her down and fuck her right there in front of everyone.

  It wasn’t like anyone would care.

  They had progressed through each of the downstairs rooms, the stage Scenes increasing in decadence, creativity and outright displays of sex until she ached for release. Oral sex, multiple partners, Doms and subs—at some point her mind had disengaged as she’d watched the Scenes until she’d finally let the last of her inhibitions go. She let herself respond to the acts on stage and to Master Jake behind her, touching her, stroking her skin, whispering dirty thoughts and desires in her ear.

  A long time ago, in another failed attempt to perk up their nonexistent sex life, she’d talked her husband into going to a stage show when they were on vacation in Amsterdam. The Red Light District show had been nothing like these. There, the performers were obviously paid actors, or whatever they were called. The show had seemed so mechanical, the actions stiff and routine. It lacked emotion and had left her feeling empty.

  The Scenes at The Den were filled with undeniable passion. Master Jake had explained that the rooms were open for members to reserve. It was one of the fetishes they catered to—exhibitionism. And in return, voyeurism. The desire of the performers to be on stage came across in the honesty of emotion simmering over the crowd.

  It had been shocking and incredibly erotic to watch what was usually a private, intimate exchange between a couple—or more. To witness the decadence and arousal up close and personal had excited her more than she ever imagined possible.

  “How do you feel, Cali?”

  The deep timber of Master Jake’s voice rippled over her delicately balanced senses, almost pushing her over the edge.

  She gasped then slowly released the trapped air. “On fire...sir.”

  The last bit slipped out unconsciously. Her body—no, her mind—responded to that simple word as if it were an aphrodisiac. So much power held in one syllable.

  Sir.

  But it wasn’t the word alone. It was also him. The man who held her close had slowly, gently taken control of her desire. Made her want not only him, but what he offered her.

  “What do you see?”

  On command, her gaze drifted over the activity in the large open room on the second floor. The Dungeon. Her desire-fuzzed brain tried to focus. Long forgotten were her insecurities and hesitations of earlier. What did she see?

  “Sex.” Everywhere. In different forms. At different stages. “Masters and subs. Acts of dominance and submission.”

  His firm, controlling hands drifted up her sides and across her front, pulling her tight against his hard body. His hard cock. Her head fell back against his shoulder, the muscles in her neck incapable of holding the weight.

  “Details, Cali.”

  Really? How? Her brain could barely form logical thought at this point. She was a mass of over-sensitized nerves and he wanted her to talk. Logically.

  What she saw was not porn BDSM. Not even close.

  Just like the stages, everything in this room was real. Powerful and honest.

  “Cali.”

  God. Her name had never sounded so erotic. He held her captive by her name alone. The soft, throaty purr was edged with varying levels of desire, command and authority.

  “I see lust in every form,” she finally managed to say.

  Erratic emotion-filled moans, grunts and whimpers filled the air with tension and expectation. The repeated hiss of a whip snaked through the noise in a consistent pattern of demand. In contrast, the deep smack of a paddle echoed off the walls like thunder on the edges of a storm.

  She licked her lips and inhaled, getting a dose of the unique blend of sex, leather, sweat and the misplaced hint of lemon that cloaked the space and seemed to cling to the heat of the room. She forced herself to focus. She wanted to answer him. Someplace, deep inside her, she needed to answer him.

  “More.”

  She squirmed in his arms, his erection rubbing across her lower back in an erotic dance of invitation. She couldn’t hold still. Was incapable of simply standing there. Details, he’d said. She could do details.

  “In the far corner, a woman is strapped, stomach down, to a bench. Naked,” she said in an almost clinical way. It was the only way she could get the words out. “Her legs spread. Ankles and wrists bound. Restrained. A man behind her is spanking her with a wooden paddle.” Cali stopped to breathe, the air escaping her chest in shallow gulps.

  “What does her face say?”

  The women’s head was turned toward them, her eyes half opened. Her mouth parted in a silent gasp. The emotions on her face were clear.

  “Ecstasy,” Cali whispered in amazement as the realization fully registered. Even though she was being paddled, her bottom a bright, startling red, the women looked beyond content.

  “Describe another Scene.” The order, though spoken low, was still commanding.

  She scanned the room, glossing over a man in a stockade, a woman gagged and bent over a pommel horse, a dildo strapped between her spread legs, before Cali stopped. “A woman cuffed to a cross...a St. Andrew’s cross, I think,” she mumbled as she desperately dug into her internet-learned lingo. “Blindfolded. Her nipples are clamped and weighted. Her stomach and thighs are striped in pink and red marks. A man is on his knees licking her...pussy.”

  It felt wicked just saying that word. Especially when they were surrounded by sex and the heat of Master Jake’s body pressed into her back. He was touching her, but not touching her. God, she ached for him to rub her pussy, her breasts.

  “And what does her face tell you?” Master Jake murmured into her ear.

  Even partially covered by the blindfold, the emotion on the woman’s face was clear. “Bliss. Need.” Trust. For some reason, she couldn’t say the last one out loud.

  “And the Dom—what do you see on his face?”

  Cali forced her gaze away from the alluring face of the sub and focused on the man who was now standing before the tied-up woman. He had rugged features that would normally be classified as interesting, but not traditionally attractive. But right then, his expression held Cali captivated. Her knees weakened, and she was thankful for the strong arm of Master Jake holding her against him.

  “I see tightly held control and...reverence,” she managed to whis
per. That was the most fitting word she could think of. The Dom stared at the sub not in condemnation or scorn, as she’d seen on the bad porn clips. Instead, there was true respect and lust on his face.

  “Do you see the difference?” Master Jake traced the under curve of her breasts with one finger, a teasing caress that taunted her with its proximity without actually touching where she craved. “What happens at The Den is honest. It’s open and involves deep levels of trust that only heightens the exchange and ultimate release that’s achieved.”

  She did see it. Felt it. And God help her, she wanted it.

  His breath caressed her neck, his lips brushing over the sensitive juncture where it met her shoulder. “What do you want?”

  Did she have the nerve to say it? Now? When it was openly presented to her? Her head dropped forward, her gaze landing on the scratched surface of the polished wood floor. “I already told you,” she answered, her defiance rekindling with her embarrassment.

  He nipped her skin, a chastising snip that caused her heart to race. “Do you still trust me?” The hard bite of his voice matched the tightening grip of his hands on her waist.

  Why did she? She didn’t even know the man. But for some strange reason, with this, she did. More than she’d trusted her ex-husband in many, many years.

  “Yes,” she finally managed to say.

  She felt his chest compress with the slow release of his breath. He held her so close to his front that she could feel his muscles tense, his chest move, his cock twitch. Every movement, no matter how small, was amplified by her over-sensitive nerve endings until she felt like she was a part of him.

  He straightened and turned her around. He kept her tucked tight against him, causing the hardened tips of her breasts to rub almost painfully over his chest.

  “Look at me, Cali.”

  Yes. Look at him. Obediently, she lifted her gaze in a slow ascent that was killer on her blood pressure, but she couldn’t force her eyes to go faster. From the tantalizing bob of his Adam’s apple as he swallowed, over the firm square chin, past the equally firm but inviting lips to finally meet his deep, silver eyes.