[Billionaires in Disguise 01.0] Every Breath You Take

by Blair Babylon

  Play Room One was one of the standard dungeons. She had seen every room in The Devilhouse even though she had worked on the vanilla side, so she wasn’t shocked by the Dark Ages Decor. The pale yellow bulbs encased in iron-banded sconces lit the gray stone on the floor and walls and cast pale light over the various hulking instruments and devices of torture, or at least mutually consenting pseudo-torture.

  Alex threw back his head and laughed out loud when he saw the room.

  “I kind of expected you to run out screaming or stalk out, revolted,” Georgie said.

  “You’ll get to know me better tonight,” Alex said. He dropped her knees and let her body slide down his front. The silk of her dress snagged on his jeans’ waistband and rode up as cool air washed over her ankles. Under his tee shirt and jeans, his chest, his rippled abdominals, and his hard thighs felt like he was carved out of smooth stone.

  Her palms trailed over that hard, hot manflesh, and she could just do that all night long, preferably without all these clothes in the way. The cotton and denim would look much better wadded up on the stone dungeon tiles of the floor.

  Pressed up against his chest, that green-grass and warm spice cologne that he wore on his skin filtered through his shirt, and she breathed it in. The sharp tang of lemon air freshener filled the room around them, and Georgie leaned in to rub her cheek on the soft cotton of his tee shirt, catching a whiff of his clean, masculine scent under it.

  Alex stepped back.

  Georgie stumbled, and when her high heel wobbled out from under her foot, her ankle tweaked. She caught herself.

  He was still smiling. “Stay here. Face the door. Don’t look around. I want to see what we have here.”

  “You want me to face the door?” she asked, raising one eyebrow.

  He stepped back toward her, suddenly looming over her. He looked down, and his dark eyes took on an ominous glare. His rough voice, still hoarse, deepened even more, though he was entirely calm. “I said, face the door.”

  It was one of those moments of decision, one of those times when Georgie could fight or run, or in this case, submit.

  She always ran. She was going to have to run again very soon, most likely.

  Georgie was going to run in a few days. Anything else was denial. Technically, she was already running, because she had her bug-out bags and had no plans to go back to the dorm.

  For the last six years, she had done nothing but run or prepare to run at a moment’s notice.

  This time, though, she would call or email Rae and Lizzy and tell them good-bye.

  And Flicka. This time, she would find a way to tell Flicka and apologize again.

  But for now, she didn’t want to run.

  Georgie pivoted, slowly, and faced the door.

  From behind her, Alex stroked her hair and whispered near the nape of her neck, “Very good.” His fingers trailed over her bare shoulders, and he brushed her dress strap aside and kissed her skin.

  Even if she wasn’t going to run just yet, she felt like she was leading him on, first by asking him to come visit her, though that had been before she had known she was going to need to run again, and now by fucking him again.

  Not telling him that he was never going to see her again was unethical, and she shuddered at the thought of that.

  “You know, Alex, it’s okay if this is just a nookie run,” she said, still watching the big, black door. Carvings scrolled over its surface like smoke and fires. “There’s a lot of stuff going on in my life. It really can’t be anything else.”

  He slid his arm around her waist, pulling her back against his body. The softness of his tee shirt brushed her spine. He whispered into her hair, “I mustn’t get involved in a personal relationship right now. If I don’t work as hard as I can, every moment that I can, it will all collapse, and so many people are counting on me. They don’t realize how precarious it all is. I’m holding it all together with just the strength of my will.”

  “Yes,” Georgie said. “Oh, thank God. So, this—” She motioned over her shoulder, her fluttering fingers suggesting a connection between them. “—This is just for fun, right? Or it’s just a moment for us, but we can’t let it become anything else.”

  “Just a moment for us,” he said, moving her hair aside and drawing in a breath that tickled the nape of her neck. He nuzzled her skin back there and whispered, “Just a moment suspended in time, where nothing else matters. We’ll stop believing in the rest of the world, because this is just a moment for us.”

  His mouth paused on her neck for a moment.

  “Everything all right?” she asked.

  Alex’s breath was still suspended, like he was holding in the air. He said, “Yes. I think everything might be all right.” His teeth raked over the back of her neck. “Now stay right here, and don’t turn around.”

  Cold air stole across her back as he stepped away. His footsteps tapped around the room, the pats of his black motorcycle boots on the tile floor pausing as he stopped. Georgie almost turned to see what he was examining, but she kept staring at that towering, closed door.

  Could be anything, whatever he was looking at back there. Didn’t have to be something sinister, like a signal whip that would lay long welts across her back for days or, if someone didn’t know how to use it right, could actually cut into her flesh down to her spine and ribs.

  Some clinks and snaps, even a metallic rattle, bounced off the gray stone tile on the walls.

  Alex’s footsteps resumed a largo cadence around the room.

  Georgie stared at that black door. She closed her eyes and imagined what he must be looking at, over to her left and behind her. The St. Andrew’s cross was over there, a black leather-covered X that a person’s arms and legs were tied to, spread-eagle. A huge apparatus that looked like the frame for a canopy twin bed stood over in the other corner, except that the posts and frame above were usually sturdy wood and, of course, painted black.

  If Georgie had owned this place, she would have done something less expected, like paint one of the dungeons happy, sunny yellow and make all these bondage things out of natural wood so that it looked like a forest.

  People probably didn’t come here to frolic in the woods like satyrs.

  Alex’s footsteps stopped right behind her. “Did you turn around and look?”

  “No.” Her breathy voice betrayed more trepidation than she would have preferred.

  “Good.”

  Something cold, very cold, touched her back and slid down her spine. Not ice, because it didn’t drip. As the chill descended, her dress loosened around her chest and stomach.

  Alex had a razor-sharp knife and was slicing her dress off her body.

  Whoa.

  Yet, this dress belonged to The Devilhouse, and she was incredibly pissed at the new owner, Mannix fucking Bonfils, that very minute. Fuck it. Let Alex cut the damned thing to ribbons. She had a change of clothes in the car.

  Her dress slithered down her body, leaving her naked except for, once again, a black thong in that cool play room. Alex was going to think that she wore nothing but thongs, which was only about half true.

  He whispered near her ear, “Good,” and his fingers trailed over her shoulders and down her arms. “Have you ever done this before?”

  Outright lying to him was Georgie’s first impulse. If she admitted to being a novice at this, she would be at a disadvantage. He might despise her. Playing the innocent was not Georgie’s thing.

  But she knew enough about BDSM to know that honesty was paramount.

  She swallowed hard. “Nope. First time.”

  “Really?” He leaned down and breathed all the way down her neck. “How enticing.”

  “You into virgins, too?” she quipped.

  “Not at all. Too easily frightened. Too boring. I’d rather have a woman who is good in bed any day.” He stopped. “You weren’t a virgin last weekend, were you?”

  “Oh, God, no.” Her shocked laugh got a little loud. Virginity had not been Ge
orgie’s problem for a good, long time. “Oh, Jesus, that’s funny.”

  “I thought we both enjoyed it too much for that.” Alex nibbled along her shoulder.

  “I’ll say.”

  His hands rested on her hips, and he tugged her back against himself. His hard body under his clothes radiated warmth onto her back and ass. He slid his fingers under the thong’s elastic around her hips and slid it down to her ankles. “Remember your safe words?”

  “‘I quit,’ and ‘Largo.’”

  “Excellent.” His fingers slipped under the sides of her thong, and he pushed it to the floor. “Step out of it.”

  Georgie kicked the little strip of elastic aside.

  “Good,” he murmured and stroked her sides from her ribs, down her hips.

  His encouragement warmed her as much as his heavy body standing just behind her, but she hesitated, trying to figure out if he meant that or if he was just manipulating her. Positive reinforcement hadn’t figured large in her childhood.

  “I’m honored that you chose me to explore this side of yourself,” he said. “It implies a great deal of trust, especially for a man you met just a few days ago.”

  “Be honored that you got a second date,” she told him. “I don’t do those.”

  “Why not?” he asked, still skimming her hips with his fingertips. His humid breath misted her shoulder.

  “I just don’t. I can’t get involved with a guy, because: reasons. And a second date leads to a third, and then either you get your heart broken or else you die early.”

  “Pardon me?” His hands slipped down her thighs, almost massaging. She had run ten miles that morning, and his fingers pressed the acidic soreness out of her legs, soothing her.

  She leaned back against him. “After the third date, it’s a relationship, and you either get your heart broken or get engaged. After you’re engaged, you either call off the engagement and someone gets their heart broken or you get married. After you get married, you either break your heart with a divorce or else one of you dies. If the other person dies first, you’re old and alone. Therefore, after the second date, your best option is an early death.”

  “That’s,” he paused like he was searching for the right word, “rigorously pragmatic.”

  “You just told me that you can’t start a relationship, either. Surely you understand about not being able to fall in love right now.”

  Behind her, his chest rose and his hands moved on her thighs as he shrugged. “I’ve been assured that my heart is as black as midnight. I don’t think I can fall in love. I don’t think that love even exists, in reality. It’s just a construct to explain why people fuck.” He stepped back and held out his hand. “Come on.”

  Georgie turned, and as she had felt against her bare skin, he was still entirely dressed in his white tee, jeans, and boots. “Aren’t you going to blindfold me? I thought everyone used a blindfold.”

  “Maybe another time.”

  “Alex, that’s what I’m trying to say. This is wonderful, and I’m so glad you came, but there can’t be another time.”

  He flicked his hand. “Whatever. But no blindfold.” He stepped toward her again, and his dark eyes gleamed with a predatory glow. “I want you to see what I’m going to do to you. I want you to understand it all.”

  He kissed her again, his tongue swirling on hers and his big hands pressing her naked body to his clothes. “Now that we understand each other,” he bit her neck with a little more force, and her skin stung, “no more talking.”

  “What?”

  His sharp slap stung her bare ass. “Oh!”

  Alex said, “Unless I give you permission, the only things you are allowed to say from now on are your safe words. Those can be used at any time, for any reason you deem necessary. Anything else will be punished. Do you understand?”

  Her ass burned. Georgie nodded.

  “Excellent,” he hissed near her ear. “Walk with me.” He glanced down at her feet and her black toe-squishers. “Leave those on.”

  She took his outstretched hand, and he led her to the thing that looked like a twin bed with a thin mattress and an unusually sturdy canopy frame that rose perhaps ten feet into the air.

  Georgie glanced up at him, unsure.

  Alex chuckled, a throaty sound grating from his hoarse throat. “Sit down on the end.”

  She stepped closer to the bed. Ropes coiled from the corners, lying in loops on the tufted leather pad.

  Evidently, he was going to tie her down.

  But the ropes ran through pulleys bolted to the bedposts, and some of the ends lying on the bed were capped with leather bindings. Other ropes lay across the center of the bed.

  Excitement grew in her belly. She had had guys, quite a few guys, enough guys that they were starting to get boring. All of them kissed, sucked—a few tongued—and then they fucked. Some better than others, though proficiency was often associated with tonguing.

  Whatever this was, it did not look boring.

  Georgie scooted onto the end of the bed.

  Alex said, “Farther. Sit in the center.”

  She did. The smooth black leather of the tufted pad cooled her ass as she sat on it.

  Alex crawled onto the end of the bed, stretching his neck to kiss her slowly, with restrained heat, his lips grasping at hers almost thoughtfully. Champagne scented his breath.

  He eased away from her, and the flickering torch-like sconces on the walls reflected fire in his dark eyes. “Now lie back with your arms above your head.”

  Georgie curled backward and stretched her arms up. Above her, the rectangle of the canopy frame was reinforced with black diagonal beams that formed an X through the center, stark against the white ceiling far above. From the center of the crossbeams, a silver hook swung silently in the air conditioning breeze.

  Yeah, this might get weird.

  Alex slid backward off the bed and walked around to the top. He leaned over, picked up her hand, and kissed her palm with his full lips. The warmth of it flowed down Georgie’s arm to her shoulder, and her heart quickened its tempo.

  She bent her neck and looked up at Alex, who had picked up a leather cuff with an attached rope. He smiled at her, his long hair swaying around his face as he looked down at where she lay. He buckled the black leather cuff around her wrist, the pressure snug but not tight, and he smoothed her fingers around the rope above it.

  He did the same to her other arm, kissing her palm, restraining her with the cuff, and wrapping her fingers around the rope.

  Then he hooked up more straps running from the posts to ropes under her back, maybe to keep it from moving or bunching while someone was getting royally fucked on it.

  Actually, he was a duke, not royalty, so she might get nobly fucked, or perhaps ducally fucked. Georgie stifled a giggle in her throat.

  Alex leaned over the top of the mattress, grabbing his own hair behind his neck to hold it back, and kissed her from above, gently sucking on her lower lip and running the top of his tongue over the top of hers.

  The warm rush of passion felt like her brain was melting.

  Wow. Only minutes into foreplay, and they were already into entirely new experiences for Georgie. If she were a gambling woman, she would have lost a lot of money right about now because she had thought that she had tried just about everything. Even his tongue sliding on hers from above had been heart-poundingly new.

  Alex walked around the bed, his motorcycle boots tapping on the tile. He watched her eyes the whole way, their eye contact breaking only when he walked behind the black bedposts.

  He lifted her foot and massaged her ankle, holding her black pump in his big palms. His strong fingers released the last bit of soreness from her run that morning, and he fit the restraint over her foot. A stirrup fit in the arch between the toebox of her shoe and the high heel. He cinched a leather cuff around her ankle and buckled the stirrup to fit close around her foot.

  Georgie wouldn’t have to worry about kicking her pumps off duri
ng this. That thing was tied on tightly.

  Alex did the same to her other leg, massaging her before he buckled the leather cuff around her ankle and tied her foot.

  With a few flicks of his hands, the ropes criss-crossed her body and trussed her up, running under her back and down her legs and tying around her.

  Yeah, this was going to get weird, and Alex was very adept at it.

  He stripped off his tee shirt—an event that Georgie had been waiting for with bated breath—and crawled on top of her, his rippled abdominals stretching and bunching with each languorous move of his arms and legs. Muscle wound around his broad shoulders and heavy arms, but he still looked lean and supple, more like a ripped dancer than a bulky bodybuilder. The blue and green tattoos on his back, like ripples of dancing water, trickled over his shoulders, down the backs of his arms, and around his tight waist.

  Georgie could just stare all day at the way his biceps and deltoids moved, but he was halfway up her and dropped his mouth to her stomach, breathing on her belly and sucking gently on her navel with a kiss.

  “You’re doing so well, Georgie,” he said, murmuring into her stomach.

  She nodded rather than speak, because that was part of the game.

  All this BDSM stuff was just games. Social games, sure. Dominance and submission games allow women to experience sexuality, even taboo sexuality, which subverts the spirit of the repression while maintaining the veneer of adherence to social norms.

  Good girls don’t, but if a good girl is tied up, then she can.

  Georgie didn’t feel the need to be tied up to experience her sexuality. She was already the worst kind of girl, but sex didn’t play into that. She was pretending to be a good girl who needed to be tied up to get fucked good and hard.

  Alex ran his hands down her legs, bending her knees and lifting her legs. He hooked straps from her ankle cuffs to the ropes binding around her back and under her ass.

  He kissed her stomach one more time, the ends of his long hair trailing across her ribs, and backed off the bed. “Ready?”

  She nodded, because sure, why not? Fuck it all.

  Alex reached down to the base of the bed, flipped out a handle, and cranked it.