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CHAPTER 6
SELA
I can't believe I did that. After all of this. I made a clumsy pass at him, misread his intentions completely, he was just being nice, he rescued me tonight, and has done nothing other than be a gentleman, perfect in every way. And I misread it again. It shows how lonely I've been for tenderness. How cynical and closed I've been for so long since the love went away for Oren, and how stupid I've been for sticking around. Look what it’s done to me.
But my body was still reeling from the hot and cold of the bath he gave me. I got under the sheets, tossed the towels to floor and tried to sleep, but there was no chance. The sheets were luxurious, heavy but not hot, soft but stiff, sensual and comfortable over my skin. Everything was pulling me in different directions, my mind, my body, my thoughts, I needed some relief.
In the dark, in the bed, I closed my eyes and imagined him again. His hands again, going over me. I lay before him again, he worked over my front, I grabbed him, my hands moved through his hair as his palms spread my thighs apart. “Please,” I said.
He lowered his head as my hands pushed his head down, he pulled my body forward, towards him, hooking my legs over his shoulders, breathing me in.
His breath was hot, but the towel was still covering me. He took it away in his teeth and tossed it sideways like an animal with a chew toy. His face is against the inside of my thigh, I can feel his breath hot against my inner thigh.
"Spread it for me," he orders me, I bite my lip, and do as I am told, reaching down and opening my lips with two fingers. He makes a sound, 'Mmmn,' between a hunger and a growl, and I can feel it vibrate from my thigh to my hips.
"Play with your pussy," he tells me. Commands me, with that threat of violence behind it, that makes me want to do whatever he tells me.
I slip my finger over to my clit, rubbing it a little, pressing the hood up and down, back and forth. It was only a few moments before everything there began to tingle and I was making a soft moan, 'please'.
"Do you finger yourself?" His eyes following the path of my fingers through my lips and back up to my clit.
"Sometimes." I put my feet up on his shoulders, giving him a better view and spreading myself really wide. He groaned as he watched me slide a finger into my pussy, and then another, moving them slowly in and out and using my thumb against my clit.
"Talented girl," he said. When I slid my fingers out and back up to my clit, he grabbed my wrist, sucking the juices off.
"My turn." He licked my swollen lips, up one side, then the other, teasing me at the top of the cleft, pulling on the skin with his tongue but not touching my clit.
I slid my hands over my breasts, my nipples so hard they felt hot under my fingers as I rolled and tugged on them, sending sweet waves of extra pleasure down to the spot that Dorian was licking with his tongue. He moved it around and around at first—fat, lazy circles that made me moan and press my feet into his shoulders.
"Please!!" I felt something coming and I was almost scared by the intensity of it. He made a noise in his throat, his eyes on mine, nodding against me as his tongue moved faster still, my fingers inside me digging deeper, rubbing, rubbing, until I thought I would die.
"Oh fuck!" I nearly screamed it as something let go, completely let go, and I was coming buckets, flooding him with my juices as my pussy spasmed around my fingers. My clit was just a hot, throbbing button of pleasure sending waves through me until my limbs felt weak and trembling with it.
"Oh my God," I whispered, my climax still pulsing through my body. "Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God."
Finally I could fall asleep.
The next morning we had breakfast, fresh fruit and coffee, spread out in a corner nook. How does a guy like this, in an apartment of concrete and brick and grey, have an adorable little breakfast nook and fresh fruit?
“Sleep well?” he asked, nonchalantly.
“Yes, thanks.” Thanks to you, and my fingers.
“I want you to stay here for a few days,” he asked.
I'd love to, let’s make it a month. “I've put you out enough, I should be getting back.”
“You can't go back,” his said without skipping a beat, his commanding tone got my juices flowing.
“Of course I can.” I answered, defiantly.
“I mean you shouldn't,” he corrected himself. “Not right away. It may be dangerous.”
“Oren isn't dangerous. If I see him, I'll be the dangerous one, you should warn him.”
“I don't mean Oren,” he warned.
“Dante?”
“Yes, and others.”
“I don't know anything though, you certainly haven't said anything.”
“Yes, but you need to understand last night was highly irregular, there are protocols that weren't followed. Uncertainty is always dangerous, and when powerful men are uncertain bad things can happen.”
“I've been through worse.”
“I know you have, but trust me on this one. I'll have Jenna Chase get you anything you need.”
“I don't think . . .”
“Trust me.”
The way he said it took away my will to argue. Of course I would. “Ok.”
“Good then, it’s settled. I’ll see you tonight.” He said, we locked eyes for a second, before he broke away to leave, and I swear I saw his eyes grin as he said ‘tonight’.
Jenna came over not long after I finished breakfast and coffee and showering. She was beautiful, and slightly scary, though I get intimidated easily. She was dark, dark hair, olive skin, dark eyeshadow, but bright red lipstick- a color only a few people can pull off and I never could- , but had really pale blue eyes that were very beautiful and stood out against her dark complexion and dress.
She wore a classy black cocktail dress that was borderline slutty, a very intimidating choice for 10 in the morning. Her black hair came down to her butt, very straight and sleek and elegant. She also had a slight European accent, it wasn't French, it wasn't Spanish, it wasn't English, it could have been Russian or any of those eastern bloc countries that all have the same almost Russian accent. She was everything I was not, I felt downright frumpy next to her and was thankful we were just going shopping. If I ever saw her in the grocery store looking like this I would have to guess sex store or dominatrix or hooker.
She seemed nice though.
Jenna came over with bags of clothes, dresses, casual wear, t shirts, sweats, everything. “I didn't know what you liked, what you wore.” I looked at them, beautiful, sophisticated, and casual, just what I would have picked if I had gone, and all the correct sizes. That was most surprising. “You knew my size?”
“I guessed,” she answered. “I did see you naked, usually I'm a good judge. The only thing missing is lingerie- my talents I wasn’t sure how your tastes ran there.”
“Nothing too complicated.”
“Where’s the fun in that?”
“I just never got into it. If someone gets me something I’ll wear it for them, but otherwise, I get what fits, what’s comfortable.”
“The lingerie is never for them, it’s for you. To make you feel sexy, confident, powerful, they enjoy you when you feel good about yourself, it is only for them in this way. You should know that.”
We got into her car, limousine actually, and the driver took us downtown, to a small, elegant French lingerie shop. I looked around, but I was out of my league here. I asked her, forgetting what she had told me before, “What do you think Dorian would like?”
She gave me a cold, piercing look, something like You’re not listening to me, or maybe it was even a little bit of jealousy, “It would be against the rules for you and Dorian at this point.”
“What do you mean?”
“Ask him.” She leaned in close to measure my thighs for garters, my skin tingled, she smelled like apples.
“Tell me about apples then.”
“That I can answer.” She had a pile of clothes and took me back to the dressing room to try them on. “You know Adam and Eve and the apple right?”
“Sure tree of knowledge, all that.”
“Yes. Well, it’s unlikely it was actually an apple tree. The people who recorded the story did not have apple trees. It was a mistake. In Latin, the word for apple and evil are both malum, apple is malum, evil is malum, hard “a” and soft “a” are the only differences in print and when spoken. It was either mistake or a happy coincidence and metaphor for painters and such. And now the apple is the story, even though it does not fit. The smell of apples remind us that evil and knowledge can be mistaken for each other, though they are different, as different as apples and oranges - or figs. I also wear it because I find the smell refreshing and wholesome, I enjoy it simply.”
“Is that what this club is?”
“Again, ask Dorian, but it is safe to say we pursue knowledge, knowledge of ourselves, and others, outsiders can mistake that for something else.”
The tattoo on her forearm exposed when she reached down my calves to slip the shoe on. I should have bit my tongue, but blurted out, “That mark, same as Dorian's does that mean you two?”
She looked at me with a sly grin, that told me I should ask him, a much softer look than the ones he gave. “My answer is the same, but know also that jealousy is not looked upon favorably. There is fidelity- know that- but jealousy has no place. It is a mark of fidelity in fact.”
She walked away and left me in the dressing room to think on what she said. I got dressed, and left, I couldn't see her at first- she seemed like the kind of person who could almost magically disappear and re-appear when she wanted, but there she was, near the window looking at heels. I started to walk towards her, and froze in my tracks.
There was Oren, outside the window on the street. Glassy-eyed, confused, he must have been drunk. If he turned his head a few inches, and was able to focus his eyes, he could have seen me standing there, 100 feet from him. I froze like an animal in headlights, hoping it would pass by me or else end my fear quickly by crashing into me.
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CHAPTER 7
DORIAN
I read the letter again. I cannot do this. When rules are broken people get hurt, I told myself. But when they are followed, the same can happen.
But what the letter was asking was too much.
The sun came in behind my desk, 88 floors up, people would always ask why I hadn't turned my desk around, or at least to the side so I could look out if I wanted, and so could whomever was sitting in front of me. So I could see the landscape, the breathtaking view, and I always told them the same thing, “The view isn't for me, it's for you, the guest, whomever is sitting across for me. My gift. Always for you, for the guest.” The sun would hit their eyes at the right time of day- if I had an especially tough meeting or someone that I knew these small tricks would work on, I would schedule a meeting with them only at the time where the sun would be in their eyes. The city would stretch out before them, the sun would annoy them, they would listen to a man with his back turned on all of that.
It had been a tough morning, I worked out and ran three miles on the treadmill to get Sela out of my mind, but she was still there. The look on her face, her eyes looking up at me, her saying 'please', her saying 'master'. I zoned out during the Hamati Metals presentation and everyone at the table had taken my silence for disapproval. Really, I was thinking of her legs and calves and had no idea if it was a good deal or not. I may have lost millions thinking about her legs.
I closed my eyes, and there she was. Last night played through my mind. Her talking her questioning, I should have silenced her with a kiss. A full, hard sort of kiss that deepened the longer it went on.
That would have been the best way to keep her quiet. Always the best way to keep a woman quiet. It played out easily in my mind. I kissed her again, this time slower, exploring, my hand running down her side, over her hip, pulling her pelvis in against mine. Her moans, her body coming closer, she would slide her leg up over mine.
Whatever protests she had, the weight of my body on hers would be a welcome relief. Her fidgeting and quivering would stop. I would kiss my way down her neck, she would in turn reach down and cup my crotch in response. I could feel the heat of her body, she wrapped her legs around me, my mouth moved over her breasts, leaving hot trails of saliva. My tongue made hot circles around her nipple while my hand slid down her stomach to find the soft swell of her labia with my fingers.
I could feel her squirm as I began exploring, settling down into her thighs. Brush my cheek against her, her hands running through my hair, her nails digging into my shoulders when my tongue found what it had been looking for. My palms on her thighs and spreading her wider for my plunging tongue. Her legs quivering again, not from hot and cold anymore, but from the overload of sensation, her hips rocking in rhythm. Diving into her pussy with enthusiasm that would have her at the edge of orgasm, gripping my hair harder, telling me to go further, not to stop here. My fingers send her over, dipping deep into her pussy, drawing her out, my tongue punishing her clit with sensation, drowning her with pleasure.
My turn.
My cock would come to life first in her hand, then in her greedy mouth. Reclining on the bed, I'd let her suck me while I guided her, a fist in her hair, nice and easy, up and down the length of my cock, until I almost came. Then I would stop her, ease my cock out of her mouth and rub it over her lips and cheeks and tongue. Then I'd reach for her, grab her, pulling her into my arms and rolling her onto her back, kissing her quietly as my cock dipped into the valley of her pussy. The tip teasing her clit, sensitized by my mouth minutes earlier, everything slippery wet, then sliding down, to find her entrance, and slipping in, fire meeting fire.
Jesus.
I stood up, walked around my desk, paced the office floor.
I'm losing control.
This is my office, my work, the place where none of that enters, the whole reason I have the club is so I can concentrate on work at work instead of having a personal life that intrudes.
I went to the bathroom connected to my office, and let the cold water run over my wrists, my whole body was on fire. I splashed the cold water on my face and placed a wet towel on my neck. The closest thing to a cold shower I could think of. It barely worked.
Have to get her out of my mind. The best way to get a woman off your mind is to fuck her. That's always the best way.
When I was back to normal, I told my secretary to put together a file, a portfolio of all Sela's work. I had seen it before in bits and pieces, I remembered a few of her photographs vividly, but I wanted to see the whole of her work.
Thinking about work was how I regained control.
I half-hoped they would be terrible, that I could see she had no talent, that the ones I had seen were lucky shots, nothing more.
But they were good. Really good, dammit.
They were brave and fearless. They showed a wonderful eye for people's strength and when the strength leaves them and they are again vulnerable. The soldier taking his helmet off in the middle of the desert, the woman fetching water though a mine field, they were impressive. As was the rest of her. Goddamn it! It would have been easier if they were bad, it would have been easier if she wasn't exactly what she was.
The note said, “Return her to me. -Dante” That was all, but it was plenty. I haven't broken any rules, I reminded myself, not the important ones anyways. And neither has Dante, I remembered. There is the problem. We cannot both be right, and if we are both wrong, then it's the same as if I was the only one wrong. The tie goes to him. I needed to consult Jenna about it again, but she was off taking care of Sela for the day. I shouldn't bother her about it, it could wait till tomorrow, everything could. Except me.
My phone rang and snapped me out of my thoughts, “What? I said no calls,” I barked at my receptionist.
“It's Jenna Chase, she said it's an emergency”.
“Send her in.”