Darkest Desires (The Club #14)

by Nicole Blanchard

  As he guides me up the steps to Will Call, my mind is a whirl of doubts, what ifs, and should I’s. I gave myself one night at The Club and it should be more than enough to slake my needs. Clear my mind.

  But it’s not.

  As he urges me through the double front doors, I push The Club—and the man—from my mind. This man is here, he’s real, solid. Based on the butterflies fluttering like mad in my stomach, this could be the kind of man I’ve always dreamed of. There’s no use pining for the fantasy when reality is standing right in front of me.

  I didn’t expect the piercing burn of longing that stabs me straight through the heart when the lights begin to dim and we take our seats in his box. Furious to find hot tears prickling my eyes, I blink rapidly and focus on studying the man next to me instead.

  I didn’t expect to like him either, and I don’t know what to make of that.

  He’s the man I always imagined I’d be with. The perfect man, in fact. Steady job, polite, sense of humor, considerate. He not only paid generously for the meal beforehand, but even bought champagne and had it brought to our seats.

  Sipping on the bubbly concoction, I ask, “Okay, I have to ask. How have you not been snapped up already? What? There aren’t any women in Texas interested in a handsome doctor?”

  He glances toward the stage where the opening act begins with soft, romantic music. When he looks back, he says, “Well, one did, but we aren’t together anymore.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” I say.

  When he doesn’t say anything, I worry I overstepped an invisible line, then he wraps an arm around my shoulder, pulling me closer on the bench seats and I brush my doubts away, determined to enjoy tonight.

  “You’d be great on stage,” he says.

  I take a sip of champagne, carefully considering my response. “Thank you. Though it’s not as glamourous as it seems.”

  “Neither is being a doctor.” He pauses for a second, taking a drink from his own glass. “Following your dreams is rarely easy.”

  My back stiffens and I frown. “I know.”

  “Do you think you’ll ever go back?”

  “Maybe, someday,” I say after a moment. “But I’m not sure. A couple years out there with no success is hell.”

  “Never accept defeat,” he says.

  I turn to him, taking in his dark hair and blue eyes, his thoughtful expression. “I’m sorry?”

  He laughs at himself. “Sorry, just something my grandpa used to say that got me through med school.”

  “Sounds like a smart man,” I say.

  “Oh he’s the best. Maybe I’ll take you to meet him,” he glances at me with heated eyes. “Next time.”

  My belly tenses, butterflies revitalized. “I think I’d like that. Depending on how the rest of the night goes, of course.”

  He leans closer, all pine and warmth, “Upping the stakes, huh? Is this like a performance evaluation?”

  “Don’t worry,” I say. “So far you’re getting rave reviews.”

  For once, I’m too distracted to focus on the actors bounding across the stage in front of us. My brain is too clogged with memories of my own performances, the longing stirring a sugar-sweet ache deep in my chest. I counteract the yearning by leaning in to the white-hot heat of Mikhail’s side, enjoying the comforting embrace of his strong arm wrapped around my shoulders. The ease of his touch erases some of my self-doubt.

  “What are you thinking about?” he asks.

  I duck my chin. “Nothing, just wondering how we end up where we do.”

  “Grandpa would call it luck,” he says.

  “Bad luck.”

  His fingers trace a pattern on my arm as he watches the play and considers his response. “Well, didn’t you say the other day you have to take the good with the bad?”

  Laughing, I say, “Already turning my own words against me.”

  We watch the remainder of the play in silence, but it’s a comfortable one. A silence fraught with pulses of elation as his fingers secretly map the overly sensitized flesh on the inside of my arm. Our legs brush once, twice, and stay pressed together, hip to hip, when they meet the third time.

  When it ends and people start filing out, he holds me in the protective, possessive, curve of his arm and I let him.

  Anticipation rises as he leads me to his car. I’d been kidding about giving him a performance evaluation, but the closer we get to my mom’s house the more I imagine the good night kiss. It’s ridiculous how my fingers tremble and I have to hold them steady in my lap. Ridiculous that after what I did last night, the thoughts I still have, that something as simple as a kiss can make my knees loose and watery.

  He pulls to a stop in front of my mom’s house and my breath freezes in my chest. We share a heated glance before he smiles and hops out to open my door again. I try to ignore the flutter in my stomach, try to catch my breath, but the effort is wasted as soon as he reaches my side.

  This time, he doesn’t give me room to move by him, instead he pulls me out into his arms and my breath comes out in a whoosh. His gaze meets mine with bold assurance. There’s no teasing glint in his eyes now. He’s a man sure of what he wants and what he wants…is me.

  Then he says in a voice like the low purr of a well-satisfied feline, “Just to give you something to think about,” right before he lowers his head to press his soft, warm lips against mine.

  Desire, banked by uncertainty and nerves, roars to life between us. The kiss itself doesn’t catch me off guard. Based on the looks and touches he’s been giving me all night, he’s been waiting to do just this. What surprises me is the barely restrained lust I feel thrumming underneath his own skin. I can feel it in the way he keeps the kiss the barest press of lips, how he keeps a slight distance between our bodies, even as his chest and thighs brush against my own.

  In that restraint, my body roars to life. My previously hesitant hands release their hold on my purse, letting it drop to the floorboard with a muffled thump. They wrap around the supple leather of his collar to hold him to me. I’m tall for a woman, but he is so much taller. Even in heels, I have to lift on the balls of my feet to fit close to him.

  Beneath my questing hands, his body is as hard and unyielding as granite. His own hands grip my waist with the same possessive, persistent grip he used to guide me all night. It’s the perfect contrast to the man from The Club. Where he’d made me feel dangerous and sexy, Misha makes me feel delicate and feminine. I sigh into his mouth, leaning into his chest and tipping my head back.

  And it’s as if that is the signal he’s been waiting for because the kiss turns hungry and carnal. It deepens, appetite whetted by the barest brush of lips and teeth and tongue. He explores my mouth, drugging me with his scent and taste, as if testing to see how long and how far I’ll let him take the kiss.

  Need, temporarily slaked by my risqué adventures from the night before, burns hot and bright behind my closed lids. It coats my sensible lingerie between my legs and perfumes the air around us.

  Pressed against him, a thought streaks though my head as electrifying as lighting itself.

  I’m so screwed.

  Chapter 6

  Him: I want to see you again.

  I shouldn’t want him. Shouldn’t want the things he does to me.

  But I do.

  I should turn around, go back to the safety and security of a man like Mikhail, but I can’t stop thinking about the man from The Club, how he made me feel. I want it again, have to have it again.

  Just one more time.

  Or at least, that’s what I tell myself as I pull into the secluded parking lot located underneath The Club’s nondescript structure. After my last visit, I was accepted for membership, having been approved by the owners. Today, I’ll be put into the system, a full fledged member rather than a guest.

  In the days since I was here last, I’d done a lot of research. Learned most clubs like this meant what they touted about the privacy of their clients. For which I am gratef
ul. My mom may be a free bird, but I sure as hell don’t want to hear what she’ll have to say if she finds out I returned home from New York to join a BDSM club.

  Despite that, I’ve never felt as at home anywhere else, except on stage. Walking into the club, aside from the initial nervousness, was like finding a piece of myself I hadn’t known I lost. I don’t know if it’s going to be as easy to let this newfound freedom go when the time comes.

  And it will. I’ve already made another date with Mikhail. Maybe the two sides of my life, the two sides of me, will never even have to meet.

  My knees are wobbling, tense with anticipation as I trek across the garage to the member’s only entrance. Then I hear it. Somehow I know it’s him. The hairs on the back of my neck prickle and my skin starts tingling. The low purr of his engine comes to a stop behind me in the parking spot nearest to the entrance.

  Knowing his penchant for privacy and secrecy, I don’t give in to the temptation to turn around and catch a glimpse of his face, even though I want nothing more. I feel his weighted gaze on me, already enticing my submission, my confession, my pleas. He hasn’t even touched me yet, and I’m wet for him.

  Suddenly, feeling him watch me has my chest growing too tight for my short inhalations. My exposed skin prickles, coming to attention, knowing he’s near and aching for the commanding touch of his hands. A breeze caresses the dips behind my knees, the hollow of my throat, and my temples where perspiration has collected.

  His boots echo in the empty parking garage, then come to a stop just behind me. I imagine I can very nearly feel his heat, even as the night air whisks it away.

  “Head to the third floor. Group Room number 4 is reserved for our scene tonight. Whenever you join me here you’ll put your things in the lockers, go to the room and undress. Then put on the blindfold on the table and kneel by the door and wait for me. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir,” I say.

  I do as he asks, rushing up the three flights of stairs in a flash. The dark hallways are deserted and even though I’m sure the rooms are sound-proofed I imagine all sorts of erotic scenes taking place behind the closed doors. There are a few women in the women’s locker rooms, but I keep my head down as I take one of the empty lockers to store my things.

  The doors to the owner’s suites and business offices are pulled shut as well as those for a couple other private rooms and the Fisse Prive—I’d googled the name when I got a tour of The Club online and realized it is the spanking room. The thought makes me shiver as I walk the short hallway down, across from the Fisse Prive to the group room. My name is on the reservation for this slot and I know that must be intentional. I give a passing thought to his identity before the growing urgency in my blood pushes me over the threshold and into the shadowed room.

  It takes seconds for me to strip to the practical, but still sexy, black panties. I fold my clothes and place them on an unobtrusive chair in the corner by the door, then I settle on my knees with the blindfold over my eyes.

  Seconds, minutes, hours pass with sluggish intensity. Sweat returns to all the valleys and dips along my curves as I wait. I perch on my haunches, knees spread, bare chest thrust out and ready, waiting for his attention.

  My heart nearly pounds its way out of my chest when I hear the door open and close. He doesn’t come right to me, and it takes a few moments for me to piece together that he’s doing it on purpose. Wanting to keep me waiting, needy, and on tenterhooks.

  Metal snaps together. Footsteps click against the floor. I try to keep my head slanted toward the ground, but each taste of sound is a mystery I want to solve and ears tilt this way and that to try and discern what he has planned.

  Finally, I detect his slow, steady steps coming to where I kneel waiting.

  My fingers clutch desperately against my thighs, my nails digging into the skin. A hand, steady and sure, cups my chin and he leans down to press a firm, unflinching kiss on my ready lips. He rubs back and forth, more to tease than satiate.

  “Are you ready, girl?” he asks, his fingers caressing my lips, still sensitive from his kiss.

  Sensing it’s a rhetorical question, I bite my tongue to keep from begging for him to touch me.

  His hand coasts from my lips, up and over my cheek, and dives into my hair. Then tightens, stinging my scalp with a pleasure-pain that shoots straight to the place throbbing and sensitive between my legs. He cups the back of my head and guides me to my feet and slowly across the room. The wood floors are cold and hard underneath my bare feet. He stops me after a bit and his hands position me facing opposite him.

  I hear chains rustling and my abs tighten, my imagination running wild, wondering what he’s going to do.

  “This room is intended for large group scenes,” he says. “I’ve modified it a little today so everyone can watch what I’m doing to you if they want to. You can’t see it but in front of you is a wall of two way mirrors and on the other side, I imagine there’s quite the growing crowd.”

  My thighs clench together.

  “You like that?” he asks as he wraps a piece of something—leather, or maybe thick cloth?—around my wrists. He attaches them to the length of chain, and I realize it’s a pulley. He’s going to string me up for everyone to see as he does whatever he likes to me. My ragged breathing is his only answer. Even if he let me speak, I don’t think my mouth could form the words.

  The darkness is complete, absolute, all-encompassing—and I relish it nearly as much as I relished the weighted feel of his gaze on my bared flesh.

  The pulley inches upwards, stretching my arms to full extension above my head. Not so much that it became painful, or overly so, but just enough to spear awareness through my joints and birth a pleasurable warmth in my quivering muscles. I knew the spectacle I must make, splayed naked in the middle of a dark room like a feast...or an offering.

  I want to be both; I will be both. At least, once more. A taste to satiate the growing desires inside me. A farewell to the parts of me I don’t quite understand. They’ve always been there, just beneath the surface. And he’s determined to discover each and every one of them.

  "They're watching you," he says from somewhere close. The parts of the room I had been able to make out before the blindfold were all black. A single black table covered with implements, floggers of all sizes, straps and belts to fasten a body to any of the various setups in the room, and a black bag—the contents of which I can only imagine. And my imagination is vivid. The walls are draped with thick black curtains. It muffles his movements, making it hard for me to discern his location and heightening my awareness. "What a pretty picture you make."

  Even though my eyes are covered, I lower them. My pleasure, my pain, is his. I'm his. If others are watching through the two way windows, they're at the back of my mind. His attention is far more exhilarating than a hundred pairs of eyes.

  “What do you want me to do to you?”

  I take a deep breath. Exhale. Anything. “Everything.”

  “Is there anything you’d prefer I didn’t use?”

  A shiver courses through me, imagining what he’ll choose. The anticipation is almost as sweet as the action. “No,” I answer once I catch my breath.

  “Anything off limits?” His voice is closer now, and I imagine I can feel his breath on my skin.

  “I want you to do what makes you happy. I trust you.”

  My sense of hearing overcompensates for my loss of sight and I hear the catch in his throat, before he says, “Are you certain that’s wise? This is your first time doing a scene like this.”

  “With you, yes. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t. That’s the whole point isn’t it? To trust you.” By this point I’m shaking, but not just from the sweet pain from my extended arms. My body calls to him, for his touch, for his cock. I want anything and everything he has to give and more.

  “You’ll let me decide what the point is tonight,” he murmurs from behind me, his heated breath coasting over my bare skin like a caress. I t
est the length of the restraints, arching back, scooting on my toes to try and make contact with the firm expanse of his chest, needing to touch him, almost as much as I need what comes next.

  Cool air wraps around me as he retreats. “Did I say you could move?”

  My pussy clenches at the steel threading through his voice. Yes. This is it.

  I tuck my chin farther into my chest. “No.”

  “No, what?” he bites out, slapping a palm against my naked ass.

  “No, sir,” I amend. A fine sheen of sweat coats my skin and tremors dance beneath.

  His voice is a deep rumble in his chest. “I think you need a reminder.”

  I tuck my fingers around the material extending from my bound wrists for extra grip. Metal scrapes against wood, followed by soft, measured footsteps. Heat touches my foot, the firm grip of his tapered fingers. He positions a thick band around the top of my foot and buckles it down to one of the latches fixed on the floor. After he does the same to the other, he checks to make sure neither are too tight and when he’s done, I’m well and truly at his mercy, unable to move.

  He pats my thigh and says, “Tell me if you experience any discomfort or strain.” When I don’t answer he gives my ass a little slap, and I say, “Yes, sir.”

  I hear him walk away again and retrieve something from the table, my mind goes wild imagining what it can be, how the people on the other side are reacting, but more than anything, it’s the not knowing that causes perspiration to build and my muscles to quiver.

  His warmth reaches my back first, then his arms wrap around my waist. A thin cloth belt wraps around my hips and they jerk back a little at the contact, brushing against his jeans-clad legs. He situates the belt around and between my legs, buckling it on the side when it fits to his satisfaction. Then he clicks a smooth piece to the front, and my stomach drops. The slim bullet fits into a pocket in the crotch of the panties and presses intimately against my sex.