Descended (The Red Blindfold Book 2) (5 page)

“No,” he said, to
expressions of disappointment. “Not her.”

“Such a shame,” the
other man said. “How beautiful she’d be with every hole filled.”

Every
hole?
Bottom lip in my teeth, I tightened my fists and
glanced around. Even if I wanted to make my clumsy escape in towering
heels and a corset, there wasn’t a door in sight.

Seeing me trembling,
Marc reached out and pulled me to him. “My sweet Pet.”

He kissed me softly,
teasing my tongue with his own as the men watched. I felt his hand
graze my breasts through the corset, and then his fingers began to
loosen the knotted ties.

I felt it like a flame
to my skin, and jerked my head back. “Absolutely not.”

His expression stayed
placid. “They want to see you, and so do I.”

“I don’t care.” I
tried to push his hand away but he kept it steady.

“Sophie, I thought we
–”

“I agreed to nothing
of the kind,” I hissed. “The corset stays on.”

Slowly, his expression
changed to one of surprise and admiration. “She has limits.”

“You’re just
figuring this out?” I whispered a little too loudly.

The men around us
laughed. I couldn’t help smiling in response. “She’ll be a
delight to tame,” one of them said.

“If she
can
be tamed,” Marc replied with a smirk. “That’s still in
question.”

“Is it?” I said. “I
thought I just made it clear.”

The corner of his mouth curved
upward. “All right, Sophie. We’ll see how feisty you are when
you’re locked up in chains.”

Taking me by the hand,
Marc led me from couple to couple, introducing me to people he knew
and both of us to people he didn’t. I smiled and nodded, keenly
aware of my exposed skin. I was grateful when Marc took two glasses
of champagne from a passing waiter and handed one to me. Guzzling
three fizzy swallows, I prayed for courage. Or, barring that, a robe.

“Why does everyone
keep thanking you?” I asked Marc when we had a moment alone.

He took a sip of
champagne. “I started these gatherings eight years ago,” he said.
“The Sade name drew a lot of people who would never be seen at a
public club.”

“This is private?”

He nodded. “Private
and confidential. Everyone has to apply, and the initiation fee
discourages all but the most accomplished and committed. I used to
screen applicants myself before I got too busy and passed it off to
somebody else. I assumed the gatherings would stop once I left, but
they’d taken on a life of their own. They’ve continued once or
twice a month.”

I couldn’t take my
eyes from his face. I hadn’t really understood him before now. Only
a man dedicated to dominance would start a group like this.

But something had
happened since. He’d shut down his desires for years. But tonight,
with me, he was back.

“Who runs the club?”
I asked.

“Daphne, who isn’t
here tonight. She’s a dominant married to the CEO of a cosmetics
company. She screens new members, and Louis acts as treasurer. He’s
over there with his mistress.”

As if he sensed the
mention of his name, Louis smiled and waved from his chair, which
could barely contain his girth. His mistress was much younger, with a
mass of white-blonde hair piled on top of her head. She sat at his
feet like a loyal dog in her studded red bustier, resting her cheek
adoringly on his thigh.

“What do people do
here?” I asked.

“The same things they
do at any other club. Talk. Drink.”

“Have sex?”

“There are rooms for
that, yes,” he said. “Some people like to be observed by others.”

“And does
everyone…share?”

“Most don’t. Some
do.”

“And you?”

He gave me a subtle
roll of the eyes. “You know how I feel about fidelity, don’t you?
I brought you here to show you off, not to let other men have their
way with you. I hope that’s not what you’re expecting.”

“God, no.”

“Good. Or I’d be
taking full advantage of the club’s tools of discipline.”

Hand resting on my
lower back, he showed me the elegantly appointed rooms, the plush
chaise lounges in deep jewel colors, silver platters of oils and
creams, smooth leather tables fitted with wrist and ankle restraints.
There were stacks of fluffy white towels, scented candles, and
underfoot, soft maroon carpets. Outside every door stood a servant
wearing a suit and an earpiece.

“What do they do?”
I asked.

“Whatever’s
required,” Marc said. “Observing, fetching food and drinks,
cleaning up. They’re trained to always say yes, unless the request
involves direct sexual contact. But our members know the rules. We
don’t have trouble enforcing them.”

After descending a
short flight of marble stairs, we entered a barely-lit space with a
ceiling so low it made my hands clammy. I felt like I’d wandered
onto the set of a bizarre theater production.

Faint blue light rose
from an illuminated strip along the floor’s edge. Against one wall
was a table, as well as wooden stocks that looked like something from
the Salem witch era. A circle of cut glass votives burned on a table
beside a large steel contraption with chains dangling from the top. A
crystal chandelier gave the whole scene a high-end, gothic air.

“What the hell?” I
muttered.

“Hell is right, my
lovely girl,” Marc said, taking my hand. “Welcome to the
dungeon.”

A
dungeon
. Exactly what Julia had warned me about in a
joking text.

But this was no joke.
This was as real as it got.

“Wow,” I whispered.

“What do you think?”
Marc asked, fingers tightly gripping mine.

I shook my head slowly.
“I’m thinking…what’s that metal thing?”

“That’s our Saint
Andrew’s cross. We had it handmade by a blacksmith in Germany. It’s
been very popular.”

I was about to ask him
how it worked when a couple came down the stairs behind us. “Sorry,
already in use?” the man asked in an accent that didn’t sound
French. He was tall and pale with an angular, cruel-looking face. The
woman was tiny, olive-skinned, with the slim-hipped body of a dancer.

“Just taking a tour,”
Marc said. “It’s all yours.”

“Feel free to stay
and watch if you like,” he said cheerfully. “My wife and I enjoy
that.”

He snapped an order at
her in some guttural language. She responded by spreading her legs
and arms in front of the cross, her back toward us. With expert
swiftness, he chained her limbs and looped a leather restraint around
her waist, tightening the buckle so that she was completely immobile.

“Want to go?” Marc
asked in a quiet voice.

I felt frozen in place,
too fascinated to move. “Not yet.”

“If it’s too much,
tell me,” he said, kissing my shoulder.

The man took one of the
wooden paddles from a rack on the wall and slapped her ass with it,
lightly at first, then hard enough that her shriek split the air. My
stomach clenched. Again and again he brought the paddle down, his
muscles flexing as he used all of his force. He was really hitting
her, not in the way that Marc cropped and spanked me, but with a
hostile force that frightened me. Her skin ignited after each blow,
marks forming in the oval shape of the paddle’s head.

“She doesn’t like
it,” I whispered, wanting to rush over and free her.

“How do you know?”
Marc asked.

“Listen to her.”
She was gasping now, her head turned to the side, her jaws locked
together. He said something to her that sounded harsh and unfeeling.

“You can’t know
what goes on between them, or how she responds to it.”

“Her face says it
all, Marc. Can’t you see it?”

“I see that she’s
here because pain excites her. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t
hurt.”

I looked up at him,
feeling a mix of fear and confusion. “Why are we here? Is this
what’s coming?”

“For us?” His arm
tightened around me. “We’ll see, but I enjoy punishing you with a
little more restraint. Come on. I think we’ve seen enough.”

With the woman’s
cries following us up the stairs, he led me to a room at the end of a
long hallway. Nodding to the man standing outside, he ushered me in
and shut the door.

Finally, we were alone.
There was no one to meet, no harsh sadistic ritual to watch, just us.

Once my eyes had
adjusted to the candlelight, I could make out a long leather table
with two gleaming stirrups at the end. There was a large arrangement
of purple irises and a sofa draped with a fur throw. A fire smoldered
in a gas fireplace with a stainless steel mantel.

Marc finished his
champagne and set the glass on a sideboard. “That wasn’t exactly
a gentle introduction to the club, was it?” he said.

“Is it always like
that here?” I asked. “So…violent?”

He pulled me hard
against his rigid chest. I looked up into his face, feeling like my
whole world depended on his answer.

“Sometimes it is. We
don’t keep shackles and dildo machines just to look at. Does that
scare you?”

“A little. That woman
looked so unhappy. I don’t want to be like her.”

“You’re not like
her. And I’m nothing like him.”

“How do I know?”

“Because you
know
,”
he said, squeezing me until I thought I might break. “You can feel
it.”

“Honestly, Marc?
After the last few days, all I feel is pissed off and confused.”

“Aw, poor baby,” he
teased. He slid both of his hands under the silk of my panties and
around my backside, squeezing my flesh firmly. “And don’t forget
aroused. Very, very aroused.”

His voice was
tranquilizing, a hypnotic spell I couldn’t resist. “You’ve
never wanted so badly to be fucked, have you?”

“No,” I said,
lowering my eyes. “It feels out of my control.”

He stroked my skin.
“Everything you’re experiencing is part of submitting to me. It’s
disorienting, and it’s meant to be. You have to lose your old
bearings before you can gain new ones.”

“All this is going to
happen in a week?”

“I don’t know,”
he said, unlacing my corset and pulling the straps off my shoulders.
“That’s up to us, isn’t it?”

My stomach fluttered as
he ran the pads of his index fingers over my nipples. His eyes were a
fiery trap I couldn’t escape. “According to our rules,” I said
in a whispery voice, “it’s up to you.”

His tongue glistened
over the corner of his mouth. “What a good girl you are for
remembering. Not that it’s going to help you tonight.”

He took my champagne
glass and set it beside his. “Lie down on the table, Pet. Put your
feet in the stirrups.”

I could hardly believe
it. My frustration was going to end here, in an undisclosed location
with fur pillows and a uniformed sentry at the door.

I lay down and slid the
toes of my shoes into the metal rings. Sitting on a leather stool
between my legs, he pulled my hips to the edge of the table.

“Now let your legs
fall open, all the way.”

Feeling my joints
stretch, I spread them as far as I could. “You’re very wet, I
see,” he said, so calm it chilled me. “Always wet. Always
responsive.”

“I’ve been
deprived,” I said.

“It was intentional.”

I gave the ceiling an
acid glare. Of course it was. I’d known it all along. “That’s
cruel.”

“Yes. And you love
it.”

I refused to answer.
But God help me, he was right.

He kissed the insides
of my thighs, long, sucking bites I knew would leave marks. For at
least ten minutes he teased me, licking my belly, making me slide
even closer so that all of me was available to him. I gripped the
table, so far past excited I could hardly breathe except to say,
“Please.”

“Please?” he said
quietly.

“Touch me. I’ve
waited long enough.”

“But you’ll wait
even longer,” he said. “As long as I want you to.”

I felt his hot breath
against the slit of my panties. He nipped at the silk with his teeth,
drawing out the torment, kissing along the edges where the elastic
met my skin. Seconds stretched to agonizing minutes of sensual
torment. And then, with a sudden hungry passion, he dipped into my
wetness.

I gasped and bit my lip
to keep from screaming. Forcing my legs wider, he licked me, sinking
his tongue into my pussy. I couldn’t help lifting my hips to meet
every wet, warm thrust.

“You’re fucking
delicious,” he said. “I can’t get enough of you.”

Oh, please, let that be
true. Again and again he lapped my full length, ending with a light
flickering on my clit.

“It’s so good,” I
whispered.

He sucked my soft flesh
into his mouth, biting me until pleasure merged with pain. Just as my
muscles began to tighten and quiver, he stood up, slipping out of his
clothes and tossing them unfolded onto the sofa.

He faced me, his
erection red, hugely thick, and veined. “Keep your legs apart,”
he said, moving the stool aside. “Wide open so I can see that
gorgeous pussy.”

He pushed my knees back
until they almost touched my shoulders. It was only moments away now.
Would the man standing outside the door hear us? Did it make his cock
hard to imagine what was happening in this room?

“Arms out,” Marc
said, gruff and impatient.

He reached along the
table’s edge and slid out two wrist restraints, locking them firmly
into place. It wasn’t enough to have me in split-crotch panties
with my feet in stirrups in a bondage club. He wanted to see me
locked down, completely unable to move.

With a smooth click,
the restraints closed around my wrists. I struggled on instinct and
Marc’s pupils flared.

“My sexy captive,”
he said. “Isn’t this what you wanted? To be held down and fucked
like the slave you are?”