CHAPTER
TWENTY-FOUR
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Calder
The next few hours passed like an eternity. After agreeing to show Ella my private room, she insisted that she needed to finish working first. I was perfectly happy letting her skip her shift altogether. I was the boss after all, but she would have none of it. I wanted to offer to pay her anyway, but feared she'd take that the wrong way, especially if we ended up having sex like I hoped. I didn't want her to misinterpret it as some sort of payment for it, or insult her pride. Ella wanted to earn her own way, and I understood and respected that. I felt the same way after all.
When Ella finally left my office, Gwen had been standing there about to knock on the door with a worried expression on her face. She must have heard about Ella's mishap with her tray of drinks and her subsequent hurried departure from the club. Ella already told me that she was under the wrong impression that Désir Dangereux was some kind of strip club when Gwen asked her to work here tonight. She was distinctly embarrassed about it. I knew she wouldn't want anyone else to know, particularly Gwen, who would feel terrible about putting Ella into the situation in the first place.
I told Gwen that I was just telling Ella that dropping a tray of drinks happened on occasion, and it was nothing to worry about or be embarrassed about. It earned me a grateful smile from Ella before she assured Gwen that she was fine now and left to get back to work. I'd grinned after her like an imbecile, then pointedly ignored Gwen's quizzical expression and started asking her what was on my schedule tonight before she could question me about Ella.
For some reason, I didn't want her to know that Ella and I were involved. It's not like I had any rules against sleeping with my employees, not that I'd ever done it before. However, I didn't want to have to explain what was going on between Ella and me since I didn't even understand it myself. Thankfully, my distraction worked, and Gwen didn't bring Ella up again.
Now, the club was finally closed, and everything was winding down for the night. I'd sent Gwen home early an hour or so ago, and as I watched the last few employees straggle out on the security feeds in my office, nervous anticipation began to rise up inside me. By the time everyone else was gone, and Ella was heading down the hall toward my office, I was a ball of pent-up energy that I couldn't contain anymore. I flew to my feet and went to the door, flinging it open just as Ella reached it.
She startled and blinked up at me, her body tense with nerves that were obviously just as jangled as mine were by what we were doing tonight. Hers I understood. This was all new for her, but mine made no sense to me. I'd been a Dom and a club member for years before taking over for Rex. I'd taken many submissives into one of the club's private rooms, the one in my home, and more recently into my private one here after buying Désir Dangereux late last year. I shouldn't be nervous at all, but for some reason, doing this with Ella felt different, heavier and more meaningful, and it rattled the hell out of me. I sucked in a deep breath to calm myself. Ella needed me in control right now.
"Ella," I said with a calmness I didn't quite feel yet.
Her face softened a little as I reached out to take her hand. I pulled her closer, wrapping my arms around her as she relaxed against me and put her arms around my waist. It felt good to hold her, and it helped settle the last of my nerves as I breathed in that familiar clean citrus scent of hers.
"Do you trust me?" I whispered into her soft flaxen hair.
She leaned back and looked up at me with certainty brightening her eyes. "I've always trusted you," she replied quietly, and my heart sang with those words.
"Then you have no reason to be nervous, my lovely," I murmured as I reached up to cup her face in my hand. "Whatever happens or doesn't happen tonight is up to you. Okay?"
"Okay," she whispered with a small smile.
I brushed my thumb across her pink heart-shaped lips, so perfect and velvety soft. My mouth was practically watering. I wanted to kiss her again, but I feared if I did, I'd just end up throwing her on my desk, ripping her clothes off, and fucking her until she screamed. So I stepped away and grabbed her hand instead, then led her out of my office and down the hall.
We made our way across the now empty main room into another hallway lined with the numbered doors of the club's many private rooms. We passed them all by and came to the only unlabeled door at the end of the hall. I pulled a key from my pocket and unlocked it, then swung the door open, and led Ella inside with the distinct and inexplicable impression that my life was about to change.
I flipped on the recessed lighting, bathing the room with a soft golden glow. Ella's eyes widened as she looked around, taking in the large space as I closed the door behind us. I'd had the room decorated elegantly in black and gold, wanting it to have an opulent yet sexy masculine feel. The dark walls were covered in a subtle black damask pattern. The massive bed that dominated the far wall with its tall and ornate black headboard, was clad in soft black linens with gold throw pillows. A large plush rug in a deep shade of gold covered the ebony hardwood floor at the foot of the bed. I watched Ella's mouth gape open in surprise as she turned back to face me, and I grinned at her expression.
"What?" I asked wryly. "Did you expect The Red Room of Pain?"
She smiled back at me abashedly with her cheeks flushed a lovely pink. "Kind of," she answered as she shrugged one shoulder. Her eyes darted away from me almost immediately, her curiosity getting the better of her yet again tonight.
"Go ahead and look around," I told her reassuringly. "You can touch anything, and ask me anything. Nothing is off limits."
She turned and gawked around the room as she gnawed on her lower lip thoughtfully, riveting my attention on her mouth and getting me hard already. Her eyes stopped on a large ornate gold chair to the left of the bed, and her eyes widened. She approached it and ran her fingers over one of the arms and then the seat back that was upholstered in quilted buttery black vegan leather.
"Is...is this a throne?" she asked incredulously.
"Yes."
"And you actually sit in it?" she asked curiously.
"Among other things," I said suggestively, unable to help from picturing myself sitting there with a naked Ella kneeling at my feet and begging to worship my cock with her sweet mouth. My dick grew harder still.
She stepped away from my throne and moved toward the next piece of BDSM furniture that caught her eye. She eyed the massive wooden X propped against the wall. She slid a hand up the smooth surface of one of its arms and tentatively touched one of the black vegan leather cuffs dangling from an eye hook above her head.
"That's a St. Andrew's cross," I explained.
She continued her circuit around the room as I identified everything she touched, the spanking bench, the stockade, the bondage table, the suspension frame, and the whipping post. Her eyes widened and heated with differing degrees of interest as she moved past each one. I noted her particular interest in the spanking bench and the whipping post for future reference. Not once did she appear afraid or disgusted. It was a very good sign.
Finally, she came to the rack mounted on the wall were my paddles, whips, and floggers were hung, along with more cuffs, rope, and several steel spreader bars of differing lengths. She ran her hand over the items, pausing to finger my favorite single-tail signal whip.
"You know how to use all of these?" she asked, wrapping her fingers around the whip now. I tracked her hand as she dragged it slowly down the short length of braided black vegan leather.
Well, fuck. My breath caught and my dick, now a steel bar in my pants, throbbed almost painfully. I clenched my hands into tight fists as I fought the overwhelming urge to rush forward and maul her.
"Yes," I growled out in a low and strained tone. "Quite well, in fact."
Her eyes briefly heated at my words before she moved away from the rack and approached the final piece of furniture in the room, a tall ebony chest of drawers. She fearlessly grabbed the pulls on one of the wide drawers and pulled it open. She gasped as she stared down at the contents with widening eyes. I smiled as I came up behind her.
"Were you expecting socks and underwear?" I asked her facetiously as I glanced over her shoulder at the multitude of sex toys lined up neatly on gold velvet inside the drawer.
She turned her head and shot a playful glare up at me. "Smart ass," she said in a wry tone as she pushed the drawer shut. She pulled open the next one down and gazed inside for a long moment.
"Do you have any questions?" I prompted since she hadn't asked a thing about any of the toys yet.
She turned to look up at me with a more serious and thoughtful expression, and started gnawing on her lower lip again. My God, it was distracting and sexy as fuck.
"Why all this?" she asked curiously.
"What?" I asked, as I ripped my attention away from Ella's gorgeous lips.
"Why did you get into all this kinky stuff?" she asked. "And how? You weren't before I..." she trailed off uncomfortably before mentioning her sudden departure from my life twelve years ago. I ignored the slight twinge of pain and resentment that hit me since I didn't want to think about that right now.
I stared off into space a moment, trying to gather my thoughts. I hadn't given my life as a Dom a thought in a long while.
"After...after I finally stopped using," I began tentatively, "I was struggling, feeling lost and like my life was out of control. The stress of managing my cravings was getting to me, and it was all I could do to keep from using again to get some relief." I met her eyes again. "Rex suggested the BDSM lifestyle, thinking it might help me."
"Rex?" she asked incredulously.
I nodded. "He's in the lifestyle, and owned this place for over a decade until I bought it from him last year."
"And it helped you?" she questioned with an almost eager expression. "Getting into all this?"
"Yes," I replied. "Becoming a Dom helped me get my life back." Saved it really. I think if I'd started using again, I wouldn't have been long for this world, or worse, ended up gone yet still alive like my mother.
She pursed her lips and glanced around the room with a serious and thoughtful expression. Finally, she met my eyes again. "Will you show me what it's like?" she asked with a look of desperation edged with hope and longing.
It was a look I recognized. I'd felt the same way once upon a time, and I wanted to help her, to erase that lost and broken look in her eyes that was always there. She needed this, and I could give it to her and quench the scorching desire that raged between us in the process.
"Yes, Ella," I answered in a low seductive voice as I put my arms around her and pulled her close. "I will."
The look of sheer and utter relief on her face stunned me as did the fiery lust that followed right on its heels. Helpless to resist, I leaned down and kissed her sweet lips with a blistering heat and dominating passion that was a mere taste of what was yet to come.