My Tye (3 page)

The
sweet thing
comment ordinarily would’ve irked her, but the way he said it didn’t upset her in the least. She knew he called her that out of flirtatiousness and to ease her anxiety, not due to any sort of creepy tendency on his part. And with him? It totally worked. His style… The similarities to Tye were undeniable. Maybe they were related somehow. Brothers or cousins. Something.

Too bad she’d never find out since she never, ever, intended to mention to Tye where she’d spent tonight.

Jack, or Marshall Mac as she now thought of him, came around the desk. “You can leave your purse here if you like. I’ll be locking the door.”

She set her clutch on the chair and ran her hands down the front of her jeans to dry the sweat off them as she turned back to face him.

Mac held his hand out once again. “After you.”

Okay, this was it—her first glimpse into a real BDSM club. Nothing fake going on here, nothing staged. What she was about to see was as authentic as it got.

“As you probably guessed, this outer atrium is for hanging out, getting together, setting up scenes, that kind of thing,” he said as they left the office and strolled along. “We like to keep a fairly chill atmosphere in here. Every now and then, though, you’ll see some aftercare going on from, you know, those more intense scenes. We ask you not to disturb any of the people involved in that, just like you wouldn’t bother them if they were still in a scene.”

She nodded despite his measuring gaze, like she completely understood the need to have a cozy place to de-stress with a nice round of quiet, undisturbed aftercare.

“We keep the refreshments over there,” he said, pointing out a small bar surrounded by a half-dozen barstools tucked away in the far corner. “Again, there’s no alcohol, but help yourself to any of the juice, sodas or bottled water you may find.”

As they continued to make their way toward the back of the room, he stopped every now and then to introduce her to other club-goers. Every person she met greeted her with a warm smile and a considerate handshake. One woman, a gorgeous blonde named Nicole who had legs that went on forever, actually hugged her.

“She’s one of the original members,” he told her as they moved on.

Laine glanced over her shoulder, catching the sway of Nicole’s hips and the flow of hair that reached halfway down her back. “She’s beautiful. Stunning, really.”

Mac simply smiled and said, “Yes. Yes, she is.” Laine could’ve sworn he even blushed as he said it. “But don’t sell yourself short, Sara. You’re just as beautiful.”

He was obviously diverting the focus off him, and she felt comfortable enough with her new friend to call him on it. Just as she was about to throw out a teasing remark, they rounded a corner and stopped short in front of a wall of black drapes. Any words she’d meant to say at that point disappeared before ever leaving her tongue.

“Here we are,” he said, turning toward her. “All the action, so to speak, happens beyond these curtains.”

He placed a gentle hand at the small of her back and steered her closer. The too-long material hung from a thick, red, metal curtain rod. The ends of the rod boasted silvered crystal finials that matched the front doorknobs. The heavy drapes themselves were dotted with red, silver and black beads, sequins and glitter. When she looked at them, it was as though she was gazing at a cloudless night sky through a pair of rose-colored glasses.

As he held back one side of the drapes and ushered her through, Laine couldn’t keep from settling her hand over her stomach, as if holding herself there would control all the rambunctious butterflies flitting around inside her.

Several dozen people—more than she envisioned being back here—stood grouped in front of different areas, each cordoned off by more of the black drapes. Music drifted through overhead speakers, but not loud enough she could blame the bass reverberating through her body as the cause of her thundering heart.

Mac nudged her along, easing her further into the space. Each step she took felt more surreal than the last. The lighting back here was more subdued and much dimmer than in the gathering room out front, which, in turn, only served to enhance her other senses. The warm palm lingering at her back, the throb between her thighs. The aroma in the room, one of sex and sweat and spice, dancing under her nose. The tingle along her fingertips when she touched her own skin and the sticky-sweet taste of her lip gloss as she nibbled on her lower lip.

“What would you like to see first?” Mac asked, guiding her closer to the first scene. “We have many to choose from tonight.”

As her gaze bounced from space to space, trying to peek through hot bodies to get a better view, Mac moved in behind her. He stroked his hands up her arms and pushed her gently forward. Men and women stepped aside to make room for them, which would’ve been fine had they not all stared at first her and then Mac as if they might be the next ones performing for them.

“Ah, I’d heard Dallas and Kim were doing this tonight.” Mac gripped Laine’s arms a little firmer and leaned in closer to her ear. “Fire play. Have you ever seen this?”

Laine hadn’t, and shook her head to tell him so.

“It can be fairly intense and should only be performed by someone who is experienced. Watch.”

Kim, Laine assumed, lay face-down on a padded table, naked except for a matching set of wrist and ankle manacles. The manacles were tied to hooks embedded into the legs of the table with lengths of hot pink rope. Kim’s hair was brushed to the side and a look of pure serenity was on her face.

Dallas, on the other hand, came off as intense, albeit with a raw sexiness swirling around him. He, too, was shirtless, as were most of the men and a handful of the women watching. He wore only latex gloves and tattered blue jeans, with the rips and tears in just the right places, and his feet were bare. Laine loved the stark sensuality of his appearance, along with the passionate way he looked at woman laid out before him.

With a flair of rock-star-esque showmanship, Dallas whirled a long wand in his hand before skimming the tip across a pillar candle on a pedestal near the foot of the table. The candle ignited the end of the wand in an impressive burst of fire that settled down to a more manageable two-inch flame.

Dallas’ next steps flew by in a fast-forward blur. He squirted liquid from a bottle into a circle on Kim’s lower back, and as he did, Laine could almost feel the chill of the liquid, as if it were on her own skin.

“Alcohol. The rubbing form, made just for this,” Mac whispered to her.

In one swift motion, Dallas ran the flaming tip of the wand over the liquid, lighting a ring of blue flame at the small of Kim’s back, before swiftly blowing out the flame and smoothing his hand over the area. He quickly repeated the steps, moving lower each time, setting fire to the rise of her ass, the backs of her thighs, all the way down to her calves.

After the first few passes, Laine stopped watching Dallas’ show and started concentrating on Kim. The way she clenched her hands, curled her toes and opened and closed her mouth on moans and sighs… With Kim’s brows drawn together and her eyes closed, Laine couldn’t tell if she was in pain or on the verge of orgasming simply from being set on fire.

Then again, maybe she was both. For so many living this lifestyle, pain
was
pleasure.

For Laine, though, that was an odd and foreign notion.
Pleasure
was pleasure.

“There’s more,” Mac said quietly. He guided her to the side, away from Dallas and Kim and toward the next viewing area.

Now this scene was more along the lines of what she had in mind, and then some. There were four people, two women and two men. In the center of the space were two separate boards, each painted black and covered with splatters of silver paint. The boards were attached at the top so that they formed a teepee shape. On one side of the board was one of the men, on the other, one of the women. Both were secured at their wrists and ankles, flat-footed on the floor and spread-eagled with their arms wide. The man, who wore a blindfold and had a ball-gag in his mouth, was being stroked over his arms, shoulders and chest with the fringed end of a black leather whip by the other woman, who was decked out in classic patent-leather Domme fashion. The woman on the flip side of the board wore a blindfold similar to her fellow sub, yet the Dom on her side had her gag pulled down to hang around her neck while he leaned in and kissed the hell out of her. The sight of the woman’s hips lifting off the board as the man ravaged her mouth had Laine wanting to mimic her too. She could feel the need growing between her thighs, deep in the center of her pussy. Her breath sped up, yet became shallower. It was all she could do to not cup herself, to not apply at least a little pressure over her clit to appease the ache building there.

In perfect synchronicity, the Domme stepped back and expertly whipped her male sub across his thighs just as the Dom on the other side ended his kiss and clipped a pair of nipple clamps onto his sub’s nipples. The male sub clenched his jaw and fisted his hands, while the woman let loose a strangled cry.

Laine’s entire body stiffened, but whether it was from seeing the pleasure bloom on the female sub’s face seconds afterward or from the very first show of sudden pain, she couldn’t be sure.

With Mac standing behind Laine with his hands resting on her shoulders, he had to have felt the way she tensed up.

“You okay?” he asked her.

Her instinct was to play off her telltale reaction as no big deal with a quick, if not casual, nod. Instead, she didn’t say or do anything. She just stood there, staring at the foursome while picturing herself up on that dais, wondering how she would react if the same thing had been done to her.

Honestly, she didn’t know
how
she would’ve reacted.

“The four of them, they live together. Have for about two years now. It’s a complicated relationship, but somehow they make it work.”

This time Laine did nod, simply because she didn’t know what else to do.

“It’s not for everybody, you know,” he whispered closer to her ear.

She peered up and over her shoulder to meet his gaze. “I… It’s just that I’ve never…”

“I know. But remember what I said before, about which road to travel on?” he went on, steering her toward the next area. This one was empty except for a padded table that had a single ceiling light hanging above it. He stepped closer to the table, under the wash of the light. “Not every road is for every person. We all pretty much know in our heads and hearts what we like. This,” he gestured back toward the foursome in the previous cubicle, “what they like may or may not be what you get into. But you reacted. I felt it. And you think that reaction was from a perceived notion of pain. Of
her
pain. What I want you to consider for a minute is that for her, those clips simply added another level of sensation to her already off-the-chart awareness.”

When Laine tilted her head and looked at him, he smiled.

“You don’t believe me.”

She swallowed hard and drew in a deep breath. “No, I do. I’ve just never experienced anything close to that. To me, pain hurts. Plain and simple. I have a hard time seeing it any other way.”

He hitched his hip onto the table. “To most people pain
does
hurt. And in any other instance, I’m sure Holly in there would agree with you. But at that moment, with all those other sensations she was experiencing… Well, it’s different.”

“Different,” Laine repeated.

“Very,” he said. “But the vibes I’m getting from you tell me that you might lean a little more toward the psychological side. Which,” he said, standing, “has its mind-blowing qualities as well. For a lot of people, it’s the combination of the two that gets them going. All I’m asking is for you to not completely discount it.”

Mentally, she got it. She couldn’t argue with his reasoning or experience. But physically? She wasn’t so sure she wanted to try out that particular aspect of this lifestyle for herself.

“Come on,” he said, dropping the subject and moving on. “There’s one more area being used tonight. After you see that, then you can make the decision as to whether or not Euphoria is a place you’d like to visit.”

Mac took the lead, but as he came around the edge of the last curtained area, he stopped dead in his tracks and glanced back to her. “Okay, this one here might be more intense than what you’re looking for.”

“What is it?” she asked, coming up beside him and peering around the curtain.

The scene that greeted her also shocked the hell out of her. In the center of the space stood a woman—tall, dark and intense, and despite wearing a shiny red skirt and halter top, she was also very goth-looking—holding what appeared to be a six-inch-long upholstery needle, only thinner and way sharper. Next to her, lying back wide-legged in an old metal chair, was a bald-headed, shirtless man. He had to be in his late twenties, fit and muscular, with a tattoo of a swirly demonic creature of some sort covering his left shoulder.

He seemed calm, almost eerily so. But when Laine glanced down at the man’s chest, she didn’t understand how he wasn’t clutching the sides of the chair while shrieking at the top of his lungs.

More of those same needles, a half-dozen or more, were pierced through both of the man’s nipples, creating a starburst design. Blood ran in thin rivulets down the man’s stomach, disappearing under the waistband of his tight, black spandex shorts as he panted in and out through clenched teeth.