by C. M. Allen
"You two should do as she says and just go." Reyna told us.
"Yeah, you’re right, I need some fresh air anyways." Jared huffed and walked out the door.
Taking my stare off Jared’s retreating back, I turned my attention back to Reyna. "You know I just can't leave here without talking to her. Can you watch the counter so that I can go have a talk with her?"
Letting out a sigh, she gave me a warning look. "Be honest with her Archer, and no more games."
I put my hands up in surrender. "I'm really trying here Reyna, that's all I can do right now."
"All right, I guess that's good enough for now."
"Thank you," I smiled at her as I walked into the back room to find Sloane.
Spotting her sitting at Haiden's desk, she looked up at me with tears filling her eyes and my heart cracked wide open at the sight of her pain. "Why, Archer? Why did you have to come back into my life now? Just as I was finally getting over you and learning how to move on, you come back and unravel all the work I've done to push you out of my mind and my heart the last two months."
Kneeling down in front of her, I placed my hands on her knees to try and soothe her. "I tried, I really did try to stay out of your life Sloane, tried to let you move on with someone else. But when Dalton told me about you and this Jared guy this morning... I just couldn't control myself. I had to see if it were true, that you'd found someone else and were really over us now, because I'm not. I still have hope that one day you and I will be together. And it's clear to me that you’re not over me either."
"Then what is holding you back, Archer? You never really tell me what's going on with you and why you can't be with me. All you ever say is that I'm too innocent for you and that I'm better off without you.”
Lowering my head down, I realized the torture I was putting this poor woman through, and the fucked-up part was that I couldn't help it. As hard as I tried, I couldn't stop from wanting her for myself and wanting to protect her from me at the same time. "Look, I know that I probably don't deserve it, but all I'm asking for here is time. I need time to sort everything out before I show you the things I need to."
Getting up, she walked around me, brushing her hands over her cheeks to wipe the tears away. "It's just more of the same thing with you, you need more time, why? What is it that is so bad you think it will make me not want you anymore?"
"I-I can't tell you right now. Only that I hope it won't be much longer."
Letting out a sigh, she turned away from me, seeming to take a moment to think, then turned back around to face me. "Well, let me put it to you like this, Archer. I'm not promising you that I'm going to wait for you. I'm going to continue to see Jared until you can convince me otherwise by coming clean."
Anger and jealousy began to rise up inside of me, causing my need to prove to her that his touch would never undo her the way mine did. Stalking towards her, she retreated backwards into the wall and I pinned her up against it. I leaned in close to her ear. "Why do you try and fight it, angel? You know you will always want my hands on your body. Stroking your breasts," I said as I ran my hands over them, giving them a light squeeze. "And touching you here," I said, continuing my descent down her stomach to remind her of what she was missing in me and could never find in him. "And when I touch you here," I said, drawing a moan from her as I slid my hand between her legs, grazing her pussy while I nibbled on her neck, rendering her senseless under the spell of seduction that I was weaving through her mind right now. I could feel her body relaxing and fall into mine, submitting to me. "You know no one will ever be able to give you what I can. No one." Looking up at her face, her eyes were closed, and I could see that only her body listened and responded to the words I was speaking as I watched her nipples turn to pebbles before me. "Tell me Sloane, tell me he makes your body feel the way I do?” Kissing my way up her neck. I straightened up to tower over her, cup her face and look into her eyes as they began to flutter open as she takes me in. I could see all the desire, swimming around in that heated gaze, she held only for me. “You know I’m right, so just give me the time I need and then I’ll give you what you need.” I stroked my fingers over her cheeks.
“You don’t play fair, Archer,” She whispered.
I placed a light kiss on her lips. “No, I don’t. I want you Sloane, and I don’t want anyone else touching you. Tell me you aren’t sleeping with that guy." When she dropped her eyes from mine, I knew what the ugly truth was, that he'd touched what was mine, and I couldn't hide the jealousy I felt any longer. "Sloane? Are you fucking him?"
Grabbing my hand and pulling it from her face, she tried to push past me to escape the hold I had on her, but I didn't budge.
"Archer, let. Me. Go." She seethed through clenched teeth.
I shook my head in answer. "No, not until you answer me. Are you fucking him?"
"Why do you have to say it with such vulgarity, like I'm cheating on you or something?"
Grabbing her chin, I forced her eyes to mine. "Because you are."
"That's a bunch of crap and you know it." She snapped back at me. "I'm sure you've had sex with a ton of women since we've been apart."
Shaking my head, I enlightened her on the truth. "No, I haven’t. Not once. It’s only you that I want, and until I can make that happen, I'll wait." Seeing the hurt in her eyes, I knew that she believed that what I was telling her was the truth, because it was. No woman would ever matter to me the way she did. Or make the perfect sub for me like she would. So open and responsive to my touch that it got me hard every time. I just had to find the best way to introduce her to my world and hope she didn't run the other way the second I told her what I was really about. Looking into her watery eyes again, I leaned down and kissed her on the forehead. "Will you do something for me, Sloane? Will you not allow him to touch you again and save yourself for me?"
Staring back at me for a moment, I could see the war raging in her eyes to make the choice to put my needs ahead of her own. "Archer, what you're asking of me isn't as easy as that. Jared's going to want to know why I suddenly don't want to have sex with him."
"Then you could always just stop seeing him and avoid the whole awkward situation all together."
She let out a heavy breath. "Look, I'm not promising you anything. I will think about it. But I'm not going to give you much longer Archer, I can't. You can't ask that of me anymore."
Giving her one more kiss on the lips, I left her with my final words of warning. "Angel, when I come for you, and I will, you won't be able to refuse me in any way ever again." With a stunned and turned on expression etched on her face, I turned to leave, satisfied that I'd gotten through to her and left her with everything to think about.
CHAPTER
4
Sloane
Waking up alone this morning I couldn't get the hurt look on Jared's face out of my head when I told him I wanted to be alone to think last night. But I also couldn't get the heated promise of Archer's words out of my mind either. I hated that he could still just ride in on his black horse and sweep my mind and body right out from under me like it belonged to him and he was never even gone for those two months.
You're weak.
I thought to myself. Weak for his touch and the things I knew only he could do to my body. It wasn’t that the sex with Jared was bad, because it wasn't, it was really good. But there was an edge of darkness to Archer that Jared didn't possess. An edge I knew hid some mysterious secret as well as some serious skills in making me wet for him each and every time we were together. My phone beeping with a text brought me out of my thoughts. Looking down at the screen, I could see it was my friend Janessa.
Janessa: Hey Slo, was checking to see if you wanted to hang out tonight. There's this club my new friend, Margo, can get us into and it's something you have to see to believe. It's called The Dark Playroom. Pleeeeease come with.
Reading her text, I couldn't help but be intrigued, but with Janessa you just never knew what kind of trouble you'd be getting
into because that girl attracted it like a moth to a flame. But it was Friday, and I had no other plans, especially if I wanted to avoid seeing Jared, this gave me the perfect excuse, a girls' night out, so I decide what the hell and texted her back.
Me: Sounds like fun what time are you guys going?
A few minutes later I got my reply.
Janessa: Yay!!! We'll pick you up at nine o'clock!
Me: Okay, see you then.
My day at work flew by with no incidents occurring like yesterday thankfully. Walking into my apartment after my little shopping trip I decided to go on today and treat myself, I took the dress I found out of the bag and hung it up while I went to take a shower. Looking over my hair, I decided to wear it in an upsweep with random strands hanging down around my face here and there with light curls added. After a recent visit to my hair stylist, I just loved the new lighter color that I changed it to. It was more of a golden blonde now, but still highlighted with a lighter chestnut color running through it. It made my walnut colored eyes stand out. Adding some light smoky eye shadow and red lipstick, my look was complete. Not too dull and not too dramatic. Heading to my room, I put on the new dress that hugged all of the curves on my body like a glove. It was black and covered one arm all the way to the wrist and ran up my arm and behind the neck, then crossed over to the front and down to mid thigh length, leaving the other arm completely bare. I paired it with my favorite black four-inch heels that had small strips that criss-crossed from the toe all the way to my ankle.
Giving myself the final once over, I was happy with the look and how it made me feel.
Sexy.
Hearing a knock on my door, I knew the girls had arrived.
"Slo, baby, you look so hot, I've missed you. How have you been?" Janessa asked, hugging me as I opened the door.
She was your typical bleach blonde Barbie girl with blue eyes, a perfect body, and stood at about five-foot eleven. She could easily model for the likes of Vogue, but she choses to just live off her family's wealth instead.
"So do you, I've been good, though, just busy. You?"
"Oh, well you know little olé me, I'm just always up to no good," she giggled.
I rolled my eyes. "Oh, don't I."
Pointing to her friend, she introduced her. "This is the fabulous Margo, who's getting us into the club of all clubs tonight."
Looking at Margo, I could see that she also carried the same beautiful features as Janessa. Tall, perfect body, with red hair, and green eyes, making the sexiness I felt earlier weaken a little.
I reached out to shake her hand. "Nice to meet you."
"You as well. But we had better get going, my friend who's getting us in tonight says he'll be there in about fifteen minutes," she said with a big smile.
"Well then, let's get this party started!" Janessa yelled, waving her hands in the air as we all headed out the door.
A little while later the cab pulled up to what was supposed to be the location of the club, but it looked to be more like an empty warehouse building, surrounded by dark alley ways." Are you sure this is the right place?" I asked them.
"Yep, sure is. There's my friend Logan now," Margo said, pointing at an exceptionally large, muscular and dangerous looking individual that's dressed in all black and has dark slicked back hair. Getting out of the cab, she headed over to greet him. "Logan, thanks again for getting us in," she said, kissing him on the cheek.
"It's my pleasure, but you ladies will all have to sign the privacy agreement when we enter, and for God's sake Janessa, don't let some random guy drag you off anywhere we can't find you."
"Why am I being singled out." She pouted. Both Logan, and Margo gave her a knowing look before she broke out into laughter. "Okay, okay, I deserve that. But I promise I'll be good tonight."
Wondering why the privacy agreement and warnings, I asked. "What kind of club is this that you have to sign a privacy agreement in order to get in?"
"The best kind of club baby, a sex club." Janessa answered.
Not liking the idea that this was never divulged to me in the beginning, but then realizing it was my own fault for not knowing Janessa would of course pull something like this, I questioned. "Is it safe in there? I mean guys won’t just assume we're here to have sex, right?"
Chuckling at my lack of knowledge on this type of club, Logan answered. "No, no one is allowed to touch you without your permission, it's one of the many rules of the club. Nothing in here happens without your consent, and if it does, they're thrown out and not allowed to return."
"Oh, okay."
"All right ladies, are we ready to head in then?" Logan smiled at us as he opened the door to a deeper darkness that lurked inside behind it. After we'd signed our paperwork, we began to move further into the club where it was dark but accented by low orange lit candlelight type fixtures that hung on the walls. As I watched the people moving around, I started to feel like we were the only ones who decided to wear clothes that actually covered our bodies tonight. Most of the women here are wearing extraordinarily little all the way down to just panties and no tops. Looking around, I noticed both men and women with what looked to be dog collars and leashes around their necks, being led by another. If anything could be said about this club, it would be that it was the biggest source of eye stimulation you could ever find. There's not a place I turned and looked that I didn't see something I'd never seen before.
As we moved further inside, I spotted a dance floor off to our right. It was next to a bar with some heavy metal song that I didn't recognize playing. Then off to our left, there was a long hallway of glass rooms.
Logan leaned down to talk over the music that played. "So, what would you ladies like to see first?" Not knowing what to see first I waited for Janessa and Margo to make the call.
CHAPTER
5
Archer
During my conversation with the woman that was attacked at the club, she told me that it was her inexperienced boyfriend who took her there and snuck her into one of the dungeons, somehow getting lucky enough to miss all the cameras. I wasn’t buying it, though. There was just no way that this guy couldn’t be caught at least one of the video feeds, leaving me to believe that whoever did this to her had threatened her if she talked, and from what I'd seen of her family it would be quite the blow to them to find out their baby girl dabbled in the dark world of BDSM. When I asked her who her boyfriend was, she clammed up and refused to give me his name, further fuelling my hunch that she was lying.
Sitting in my office at home going over all of my notes about Bryn's case, one image kept coming to my mind.
Sloane.
How she looked at me yesterday and the way her body responded to my words and my touch. I needed the feel of her again under my hands and under my control. Not able to sit here thinking about what I couldn't have right now without feeling like a caged animal, I decided to head out to the club and find a woman who looked like Sloane and control her body for the night to curb the hunger I had weaving its way through my veins.
Pulling up to the club an hour later, I headed inside, greeting Dominick, who was always running the front door. "Hey, Dom. How's it looking in here tonight?"
"Hey Archer, good to see you as always, man. It's pretty busy tonight. You come to finally give the subs the release they're always begging their favorite Dom for?"
Chuckling, I answered. "We'll see about that, I'm in the mood for a particular looking woman tonight, though."
"Oh really? Well, I've seen every kind walk in. What look are you in the mood for?"
"One that's no taller than five-foot seven, petite, with chestnut and blonde colored hair, and the most important part. Innocent looking. Seen anything like that walk in here tonight?" I asked, knowing damn well, nothing that innocent walks through these doors very often, or ever.
"As a matter of fact, I did see a woman matching that description almost to a tee just a few minutes ago. She was in heels so I'm not sure about the height, but she defin
itely has all your other requirements. Especially the innocent factor. She's a guest of one of our other members that brought her and two other newbies with him tonight."
Thinking for a moment if I really wanted the task of breaking someone new to this scene in, I decided that it could give me some practice for when I finally introduced Sloane to this world. "Well, sounds just like what I'm looking for. Did you happen to see which way she went?"
Walking out from behind the desk, he began to search around the room to see if he could spot her. "There!" he said, pointing to the hall with the glass scene rooms. "She's walking down the hall with Logan, a blonde, and a red head."
Knowing the name, I asked. "Logan, brought three newbies? I'm surprised, he usually doesn't dabble in them. He always likes the more experienced subs."
He nodded his head in agreement. "I believe the women are just friends of his that he's showing around. You know how everyone's curious about these kinds of places, that they would never usually go, after that 50 shades book was published."
Rolling my eyes, I agreed. "Yeah, I know, so she went down the scene hall you said?"
"Yeah, that's where they were headed." Patting him on the shoulder, I thanked him and headed off to find this woman who would hopefully give me the distraction and release I needed tonight. Weaving my way through the crowd, I said hello to a few familiar faces and continued on to catch up with my hopeful sub for the evening. Rounding the corner, I searched through the throng of people, watching the scenes that were being played out for their viewing pleasure and finally spotted her. From where I stood, I could only see the back of her, but I could tell Dominick was right. She looked like everything I was looking for, and the dress she has on with those heels was sexy as fuck. Thinking to myself how I was going to really enjoy this little distraction, I moved in closer to get next to her, but then I heard her laugh, and it stops me cold in my tracks.
