Under His Command (For His Pleasure, Book 17) (4 page)

“Meeting?” He gave her ID a cursory glance and then handed it back to her.

“Yeah, the one that’s happening at eight o’clock. Is it in back or downstairs?”

He stared at her. “Twenty dollars.”

“You want twenty dollars to tell me where the meeting’s being held?”

His cold, flat eyes didn’t change, nor did his annoyed tone of voice. “No, I want twenty dollars because that’s the
cover charge
to get inside. I have no clue about any meeting. We have a good local band playing later tonight. That’s about it.”

Kennedy felt herself blush as she dug into her purse and found enough cash, leaving herself only five dollars for the rest of the night. She handed him the money and he clamped a yellow bracelet over her wrist and nodded for her to go inside.

The bar was crowded, the music coming through the speakers was loud and raucous, and the people drinking and talking were just young New Yorkers. It didn’t have the feel of the kind of place that someone like Easton Rather would hang out.

Kennedy’s confidence started to dwindle.

Meanwhile, as she made her way through the bar to try and find a back room where a private event might take place, she was getting plenty of interested looks from the single men in the room.

Kennedy felt claustrophobic. Even when she was a teenager, boys had made plenty of overtures. But she’d been shy and her parents had insisted that she shouldn’t date until she was sixteen. By the time she’d reached the promised age, Kennedy had become uncomfortably shy and developed a reputation as a brainy snob who didn’t like anybody.

Girls and boys alike had resented her. They’d even circulated rumors about her being a lesbian, or an undercover cop. It had been ridiculous and laughable, but it had hurt.

She’d never really regained her confidence in social settings as a result. Even at MIT, where she’d been surrounded by other young people who’d undergone similar experiences, Kennedy had always felt isolated and different.

A couple of students had asked her out on dates and she’d gone, but nothing had ever progressed very far. Truth be told, she’d never even been tongue kissed—just a few quick chaste pecks on the mouth.

The more years went by without having gained any kind of romantic experience, the more Kennedy had begun to feel that it was just never going to happen for her.

And yet here she was, in a crowded New York bar, surrounded by willing men who seemed interested, and Kennedy felt the same old feelings of insecurity overwhelming her.

She focused instead on finding that elusive secret room where Easton Rather would be found. Kennedy strolled the length of the bar as casually as possible and then entered the small hallway that led to the restrooms. There was a door marked employees at the every end of the hall, but that was it.

There was no obvious door to any potentially secret rooms.

“Hey sweetheart, can I buy you a drink?” a man said, as she came back out of the hallway. He was a shorter, balding man that looked too old to be in a place like this.

She smiled at him nervously. “Sorry, I’m—I’m just looking for someone.”

“Boyfriend?” he asked, putting a hand briefly on her forearm and then taking it away.

“No, just—“

“Well then, let me buy you a drink. One drink. You shouldn’t have to look for anyone, they should come to you.” His hand returned to her forearm and stayed put.

Kennedy quickly backed away. “Sorry, I really can’t. Sorry.”

“Just one drink. Come on.” He smiled, but she was already continuing to move away and then she was simply walking across the room to get as far from that man as she could.

Music had started up, and it was loud. The bar was getting crowded.

She was nervous, wanting suddenly to make her way outside and get some fresh air. Besides, she thought, there was nothing and nobody here to do with Easton Rather.

It had clearly all been a fantasy, something she’d concocted in order to continue her dream of working for Red Jameson.

Staring mostly at the floor, Kennedy pushed through the throng as best she could, until suddenly she pushed into somebody who didn’t move out of her way very easily.

“Excuse me,” the man said.

First, she noticed he was wearing expensive leather shoes and dress pants. This was very different from what most of the people in the bar were wearing. As she scanned him quickly, she saw that he was in a full suit, complete with tie. His hair was slick, and his glasses trendy.

“I’m just trying to get outside,” she apologized.

The man didn’t reply for a long moment. And then he said, “You should watch more closely where you’re going.” Something about it struck her, and she glanced at his hands, his delicate watch, and saw that just below the face of the watch, he wore a tattoo on his wrist.

>X

She stared at the tattoo for a long time, and the man smiled, watching her. “Do you see something you like?”

Kennedy nodded slowly. The symbols she’d seen on that credit card instantly clicked into place as she saw the other half of the equation presented on the man’s wrist.

“Infinity is greater than any number,” she replied.

The man’s eyes widened. “How do you know about that?”

Kennedy met his gaze. “I’m a friend of Easton Rather. He asked me to meet him here tonight.”

“Did he.” The well-dressed man’s eyes became colder once more. “That’s interesting. That’s also very unusual.”

“I know,” she lied, and then she shrugged, trying to appear as bored with his mistrust as an entitled rich girl might appear. “Would you mind bringing me with you?”

she said. “It’s my first time.”

Now the man did smile. “Good for you,” he said. “Easton can show you the ropes and then some.”

A thrill of excitement and also fear ran through her belly as he turned and led her outside and around the back of the club, to a completely different entrance. Kennedy wanted to ask a million questions. What was this place, and how were they able to use a back entrance to this bar? Where was he taking her? How did he know Easton Rather?

But they didn’t speak. When the man arrived at the back entrance, he knocked.

The door opened and a large, heavily muscled man with Italian features nodded in recognition. When his eyes met Kennedy’s, however, he hesitated.

“And this?” he asked, in an accented, smooth voice, gesturing to her.

The well-dressed man gave a slight shrug. “She claims she’s been asked here by Easton Rather. I don’t know her.”

The Italian man stepped aside and let her guide through the door but then stepped back in front of the entrance again. He pushed a button on a small headset beside his ear and spoke softly. Then he glanced at her warily.

“He’s expecting me,” she said, attempting to go past him.

He put a hand out and stopped her cold. “Mr. Easton said I should let you in, but only if you can give the account number.”

Kennedy laughed. “Are you serious?”

The Italian security guard didn’t smile in return. “Account number. Quickly.”

She sighed deeply, closing her eyes. Instantly, she recalled the image of the credit card and the obsidian, reflective quality of the plastic. And then she saw those numbers, flashing at her. Kennedy began repeating the numbers out loud as if she were reading them directly off the card—which, in a way, she was.

Once she’d finished reciting the numbers, she opened her eyes.

The man stepped aside and let her go past.

Kennedy was trembling, shocked that she’d somehow found her way to this place that shouldn’t have even existed. It was quite a lot of trouble for her to go through just to get a job as an executive assistant, and it was also quite a lot of trouble for Easton Rather to have put her through.

If she was right in thinking that he’d created this test for her to take, Kennedy found it very strange that he’d bothered. All of this—for what? So he could be sure she would take diligent notes in meetings?

Inside, the secret club was far different from the bar she’d been in minutes ago.

The lighting was so dim as to be almost nonexistent, and the hallway she walked down was empty of any activity. Faintly, she heard thumping music, but it could have been anything or anywhere. As she continued walking, she noticed that up ahead there was a series of doors. All of them were closed.

Kennedy’s heart was beating faster and faster. Faintly, she heard a moan and then a scream. Or maybe they’d both been moans. She couldn’t tell.

What the hell is this place?

She smelled leather and wood and mustiness, like an old chair in the MIT library.

The music was louder now. It sounded like typical club music, with a strong, heavy beat and thumping bass line. As she passed by the closed doors, the sounds of people behind them were louder and more alarming.

She heard muffled commands coming from masculine voices.

And then came sounds of slapping, as if people were coming to blows—literally fighting with one another. Moans soon followed. And then there were more cracking, whipping sounds. More commands.

Kennedy stopped and stilled herself, trying to hear what was going on. She crept next to one door and put her ear right to it.

As she strained to listen, someone called out to her.

“That’s really not acceptable behavior here, Miss Saunders.”

Kennedy jumped away from the door and found herself just a few feet away from Easton Rather, who was wearing a similar if not identical outfit to what he’d worn earlier in the day. Only now, his shirt’s top few buttons were undone and his hair was mussed.

“Mr. Rather,” she said, sounding as if he’d just walked in on her rifling through his wallet. “I—I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend anyone.”

Easton strode a couple of steps toward her. She shrank back a little bit, afraid of him now that she was in his presence again. Somehow, she’d both expected and feared this moment from the beginning of her quest to locate him.

“What are you confused about?” he demanded, as another loud crack sounded from behind the nearest door. This time, it was followed by the obvious response of a girl’s voice, moaning, something between pleasure and pain.

Kennedy shot a frightened glance at the door and then looked back at Easton, who was smirking at her. “I don’t know where I am,” she said, gesturing around her. “I don’t know what this place is.”

“Yes you do,” he replied. “The woman who figured out how to find me here, knows exactly where she is.”

Kennedy tried to steady her nerves, but Easton’s intent gaze was making her falter. Her came another step closer. Now he was close enough that she could see the sheen of sweat on his skin beneath his unbuttoned shirt. She could see herself dimly reflected in his eyes. He was studying her, the way she might study a particularly interesting math textbook.

She took in the sounds and sights of this place, the secretive nature of it, and the kind of man that Easton seemed to be. “I guess,” she said, “that I’m in some kind of brothel.”

Easton’s interested smirk turned into a wide grin. “Come on now. You can do better than that.”

“It’s an S&M dungeon.”

He crossed his arms. “Now you’re getting closer. But you’re not there yet, Kennedy. Do you want to know what it really is?”

She nodded hesitantly. “Yes.”

“Are you sure?”

She felt her breathing almost come to a standstill, as Easton stepped towards her once, then twice, until his face was just inches from hers.

She could smell him now—his cologne, and the scent of his expensive clothing, his hair product, and the muskiness of his skin. He was a man, and not one of those bookish academics she was used to talking to at MIT. Nor was he just some rich boy with his playthings.

Easton Rather, she knew, was a “serious man.” That was how her father had described someone who could handle himself in all aspects of life. A man of both intelligence and strength shouldn’t be afraid to walk into a seedy bar or a boardroom, a courthouse or a back alley.

Easton struck her as just such a guy, even though he was only a few years older than her.

And now he was close enough to kiss her, and suddenly she realized that she wanted him to kiss her more than she wanted anything else, including the job. She would have given up the job to spend the night with him—as terrified as she was of the prospect.

At that moment she would’ve given up
everything
for a night with him.

But Easton wasn’t moving in to kiss her, though she could feel his breath on her skin, her cheek, then her collarbone and as he looked her up and down.

“Why did you follow me here?” he said softly.

In the silence that followed, Kennedy was dimly aware of the sounds coming from the rooms to either side of them. Sounds of pain and pleasure, of whispers, commands, moans and groans and cries. It was dirty and dark and wrong, but somehow right in a way that made her tingle in her fingers.

“I wanted to show you I could do it,” she said. “I know you were testing me.”

“The test hasn’t even begun yet,” he replied, his voice getting darker. “I don’t think you’re ready for this world. My world.”

She couldn’t meet his eyes. She was looking down, away from him. And then his fingers touched her jaw, turning her face towards him. She locked eyes with him and it was like an explosion of need—as if all those years of deprivation had come crashing in on her all at once.

This was the man, she suddenly knew, who was supposed to take her—teach her—the man that she could somehow give herself over to completely. Kennedy felt her knees start to buckle, but somehow she held herself up.

“I’m ready,” she whispered.

Easton’s fingertips brushed her cheek and then across her lips, and without thinking, she allowed her tongue to taste his skin, and he tasted salty and sweet and she wanted to suck on his fingers, and then suck on anything else he wanted.

“You don’t know what you’re asking for, Kennedy. You have absolutely no idea.”

His fingers withdrew, but his face was still perilously close to hers, his mouth almost touching her mouth.

“I want to find out,” she said. “Tell me what to do.”