Raven's Seduction (The Pleasure Pros #1) (7 page)

For some reason, I thought that she would go
easy on me since she was a girl… I couldn’t have been more wrong.
 
Sapphire and Sable both turned out to be
at least as brutal as any of us guys.
 
I honestly didn’t think my balls were ever going to be the same after
our first few sessions, but they survived.
 
In fact, I found the pain and agony to be strangely addictive.
 
That’s when I began to realize why some
people kept coming back over and over to conquer even more challenging levels.
 
It truly is a challenge, not unlike a
triathlon, mountain climbing, or any of the adrenaline-fueled sports.
 

In BDSM, there is adrenaline, fear, pain, and
the eventual reward of an endorphin overload, which is exactly what makes it so
addictive.
 
It’s definitely much
more fun than skydiving or base jumping, but it’s every bit as challenging to
master your fear of the unknown.
 
Sapphire was always a huge fan of blindfolds, so I never knew when the
cattle prod or the next crack of a cane was coming.
 
Just like in real life, I simply had to
train my mind not to fear the uncertainty.
 
Once I mastered that and learned to relax into the pain, then the
humiliation training had begun.
 
That’s a whole story within itself.

Over the past few months, though, things had
begun to grow a bit stale.
 
The
money was great and the job wasn’t hard, but it seemed as if the same girls
kept on coming through the door over and over again.
 
I was more than ready to meet someone
like Raven, so I found myself hoping that I could convince her to stay.
 
I went so far as to contact Jasmine, a
friend of mine who was a makeup artist for the movie industry.
 
She had helped me cloak my identity when
I first got started, so I knew she would be able to do the same for Raven.
 
In the meantime, we could continue to
use the blindfolds or even something more extreme like a hood.

I just want to work with her.
 
I want to see just how far I can push her.
 
I
knew she had to have been a strong person who, like me, had simply experienced a
few bad breaks.
 
It’s easy to get beaten up in this
crazy, fucked up world.
 
The best
way to find yourself again is to push yourself to the absolute limit and see
how much you can really take. That’s what I hope to do for Raven.
 
She seemed to be a kindred spirit,
someone I had never expected to find, especially in the dungeon.

Raven

As I stood in front of the Excelsior Hotel, I
had to wonder if I would ever be able to get past the guilty feelings that I
kept on harboring.
 
I felt as if I was
about to do something horribly immoral, even though I was simply waiting for a
dinner date.
 
Maybe it was because
my thoughts kept diverting back to the way he had driven me to multiple orgasms
the night before and how I had melted into a puddle of hormones against his
touch.

My heart skipped a beat, once again, as the
black stretch limousine came into view.
 
My breath caught as I anticipated the opening of the car door.
 
When it did, out stepped Gunner dressed
in a black tux, white shirt, and tie.
 
Holy shit, he looks good!
 
I took a deep breath.
 
I knew it was going to take all of my
resolve to resist this handsome devil that came dressed as if he was George
Clooney at the Oscars.

“Hello, Raven.
 
It’s a pleasure to see you again,” he
said with a glimmer in his eyes and a smirk on his lips.
 
“You look stunning.”

“Thank you.
 
You look great, too.”

“I thought I would go upscale tonight.
 
I didn’t want to be outclassed by you
two nights in a row.”
 
He smiled and
nodded his head, signaling me to get in the car.

“Where are we going?”
 
I enquired as I scooted to the middle of
the seat.

“To the mansion,” he replied.
 
“I want you to see the other side of
things.”

“Whose mansion?”

“It’s the corporate mansion; the five of us
can use it or crash there whenever we want.
 
I thought you might like to see that
it’s a first class operation,” he explained.

“Okay, but I don’t think it will change my
mind.”
 
I’m not getting involved.

“I’m not sure why I’m telling you this, but
my real name is Dalton Taylor.”
 
He
held out his hand to shake mine.

“Jillian Price.”

“I know.
 
When I worked downtown, I would see your beautiful smile each time I
looked out my office window.”
 
There’s that devilish grin again.

“So you knew who I was the whole time?”

“Actually, the black hair threw me at first,
but when I took of your blindfold last night, I noticed that it was a wig,” he
confessed.
 
“I have to say, it was a
real turn on once I realized it was you.”

“Well, thank you… I think.”

“You should definitely take it as a
compliment.
 
After all of the women
I’ve worked with, it takes a very special woman to turn me on.”
 
At that point, he broke eye contact and
turned back toward the window.

The mansion was located in the foothills, not
far from the place we had gone to the previous evening.
 
When the limo pulled up to drop us off,
it became clear that it was truly a mansion.
 
It was at least a hundred years old and
would sell for millions.
 
I racked
my brain trying to recall who had purchased it.
 
I
should know who owns this.
 

“Your face used to be all over the
valley.
 
I often wondered how you
had become so successful at such a young age,” he said after a few moments of
silence.

“That seems like a lifetime ago,” I replied
with a sigh.
 
“Sometimes I wonder if
it was just a result of the real estate bubble.
 
It’s been much more of a struggle in
recent years.”

“Everyone has had a tougher time since the
crash.
 
All you can do is dust
yourself off and move on,” he said with a growing look of concern.
 
“What the hell happened to you?
 
It had to be more than just the
economy.”

“Perry Walters happened to me,” I admitted in
a moment of self-pity.

“So he’s your ex?
 
You must be attracted to powerful men.”

“I used to be.
 
I always had a tendency to scare off the
weaker ones.” I laughed trying to make myself feel better.

“Just for the record, you don’t scare me a
bit.” He smirked.

Jesus, I feel like a damn schoolgirl around this guy.

~~~

The entrance to the house was spectacular, with
a huge chandelier hanging in the vaulted entryway.
 
The beautiful marble floor led into a
formal living room complete with overstuffed leather furniture, an incredible
stone fireplace, and the largest flat screen television I had ever seen.
  
In the adjacent wing was a huge
dining room with a massive handcrafted oak table that looked like it could seat
twenty guests.
 
Everything was bold
and overstated.
 
This was definitely
put together by someone who had a powerful ego and wanted to impress his or her
guests.

In the center of the house was a magnificent
open kitchen that overlooked the entire city.
 
After sampling a few appetizers and
pouring a glass of champagne, we took one of the spiral staircases down to the
equally stunning pool area.
 
Looking
in one direction there was that breathtaking view of the city.
 
In the other direction, there was an
equally impressive view of the coastline and ocean.
 

“The views are incredible up here
.
”
 
I kept looking around trying to take it all in.

“Let me introduce you to the guys,” Gunner
said leading me over to the pool.
 
“Raven, this is Blade and Renegade.”

“Hey, Raven,” they each replied in turn.

Gunner and Renegade could’ve easily passed as
brothers, maybe even twins.
 
Other
than the color of their eyes and the fact that Gunner was a bit more muscular,
one could’ve easily been mistaken one for the other.
 
Blade was totally different but still
hot in his own right, with his shaved head, intense eyes, and ominous expression.
 
 
He definitely would’ve scared the shit
out of me if he had stepped out of the limo last night.
 
I’m not so sure I could’ve gone through
with it.
 

“We’re going to go over the contract,” Gunner
informed them.

“You would do well,” Blade said with a
shit-eaten’ grin.
 
His eyes
continued to canvas my body from top to bottom.

“Yeah, you’d be good competition for the
other two,” Renegade added.
 
“We
need a little more of that around here.”

“I think they approve,” Gunner relayed in a
hushed tone as we made our way toward an outdoor fireplace.
 
“Sapphire and Sable are both so compact
and muscular.
 
It will be nice to
have a tall, lean woman like you in the mix.”
 

“You’re assuming I’m going to stay?” I asked,
a bit shocked by his assumption.
 
“I
told you last night that this is way outside of my comfort zone.”

“That’s why I brought you here.
 
I wanted you to see the more normal side
of our existence.”

“You think this place is normal?
 
I would say it’s someone’s attempt at
recreating the Playboy mansion,” I replied raising my eyebrows.

“Hey, everything is platonic around
here.
 
Nothing goes on at the
mansion,” he stressed.

“So you are saying that you and Sapphire
aren’t involved with each other?”

“She was my
Domme
,
so we’ve done it all.
 
We are still
on a set with each other once in a while, but it’s strictly for work,” he
replied flatly.

“This is all so beyond my comprehension right
now,” I said feeling a little flustered.

“It’s no different than what you and I did
last night.
 
It was business,
nothing more,” he said using that same flat tone.

“But you made it seem as if you actually
liked me.
 
Am I really being that
naive?”

“I really do like you.
 
That’s why I want to take you all the
way,” he replied with more urgency.
 
“I want you to experience heights that you couldn’t possibly imagine
right now.
 
You and me baby, all ten
levels.”

“So you want me to be your new
submissive?
 
Your sex slave?”
 
I felt a wave of anxiety instantly wash
over me as a result of hearing myself utter the words.

He lifted my chin with his fingers and said,
“I want to uncover that incredibly strong woman that has somehow become trapped
inside of you.
 
She’s still in there
and she’s even stronger than you remember.”

He’s so damn sexy.
 
I
really want to feel his naked body next to mine.
 
But I don’t want to do anything
stupid.
 
Shit, I’m about to do
something stupid.

“Take me through level two and then we will
discuss the contract,” I threw out there in a moment of pure lust.

“You’ve got it.” His demeanor instantly
changed as he took me by the hand and led me toward the gate.