I couldn’t breathe and it wasn’t because the laces on my corset were too tight. I was both excited and worried and more than a little turned on.

Just me and Gray... at The Asylum... together.

For the first time in my life I was grateful for Manhattan traffic. It would give me some time to get a damper on my racing heart and imagination. Would Gray finally fuck me?

My reprieve was short lived. Speed demon that he was, Gray scooted in and out and around the other cars getting us to the warehouse district in about seventeen seconds. He tossed the keys to a valet and led me into a very industrial looking bar.

Everyone here looked totally normal to me. No sex maniacs or anything. Not that I knew what a sex maniac was supposed to look like. Me maybe.

Gray continued through the bar to a dark door with a speak-easy viewer. He knocked three times. A return knock sounded with two beats. Gray responded with just one rap, then the window opened. Two eyes scanned us, glanced at Gray and the door popped open a crack.

“Welcome to The Asylum,” the gorilla at the door croaked. He had to have been the offspring of King Kong and Darth Vader.

Gray stepped into the hallway behind the door, but I stood stock still, staring.

“Is this a guest of yours Mr. Baker?” Darth Kong asked.

“Yes, one guest for the night. I’ve given her the rules and she’s agreed. Her contract should be waiting at the desk.”

All right, that was all a giant load of lies. I had no idea what he was talking about with rules and I hadn’t agreed to a contract. I kept my mouth shut, not wanting to forgo the chance to get in.

“Thank you, sir.”

Such formality from such a big alpha man. I found it kind of sexy.

I inched my way past the guard and the door, pressing up as close to Gray as I could. Three feet ahead, the room opened into a dark den of Bacchus himself.

I could either stand there with my jaw hanging open or walk into the place like I owned it. That I knew how to do.

Yeah, I should totally just buy it, or a place like it. It’s not like I wanted to spend any more of my life with the boys and girls at the country club.

“Have a seat in that leather chair right there and don’t move from it. I’ll make the proper arrangements with the club to have you here and find Foster.” Gray motioned me to a small seating area with dark black leather furniture. A love seat, a small couch, two club chairs formed an open, but intimate grouping. There were several of them spread throughout the space, all full. There were people milling about and I didn’t understand why these seats hadn’t been taken.

Gray walked to another area nearby and spoke with a man sitting behind a counter, which gave me time to gawk.

To the left, near the edge of the room was a larger group of people. They surrounded a man who looked like he was holding court, men and women at his feet. He was made of cold steel with his silvery white hair and emotionless face. A half-naked woman approached him, bowed and then whispered in his ear. She indicated toward me. The club king glanced over, looked me up and down. A shiver spasmed in my back.

“Holy hell.” I was slightly opposed to following any directive from Grayson, but anything was better than the icy grip of that man’s eyes on me.

With my best sashay, I sauntered across the floor to the area Gray had indicated, trying not to stare at the hedonism going on around me. Impossible. There were people in too many stages of undress and in the process of playing games I could only wonder at. I felt a bit like Rudolf not getting to join in any reindeer games.

I mean really, who would have thought there would be a whole wall where the bottom half of real live men and women’s bodies were shackled in giant upside-down Vs of legs, ready and waiting to be used. Their top halves were unseen, hidden in dark body-sized holes in the wall.

Oh, but not all. A few feet away were three women, only their heads sticking out. Past them was a pair of rather large breasts.

It was like a trophy wall for sex hunters.

These bodies were being fucked and sucked and fondled. I couldn’t help wondering if the people who were mounted were getting a punishment or a reward.

The wall was the tame compared to what was happening just beyond it. I shivered and rubbed my arms. A row of big wooden Xs were lined up on a stage. Two were occupied. One by a man and the other by a woman. Both naked.

I couldn’t imagine wanting to be beat until I was bloody or have needles stuck through my skin like they were. This was some scary shit.

I pulled my eyes back into my head and made it to the seating area. In the center of the chairs, instead of a coffee table, was two small padded benches. The padding on top was too curved to be a comfortable seat, and no drink would balance there. I glanced around the room to other groups.

About ten feet away I saw Jim. Yeah, that Jim. My occasional bodyguard.

Oh. Madre de Dios.

He had three women doubled over those benches, bare asses stuck up in the air in varying shades of pink and red from the spankings he was giving them. Each woman had someone else underneath them, faced buried between their legs. One cried out, clearly orgasming.

I plopped down onto the closest couch before anyone got any ideas of my bum being exposed to the room and spanked. It wasn’t the pain I was afraid of. There were a lot of things I wanted to experience but worrying about how big my ass was compared to the other women here was not one of them.

A waitress, wearing only a collar and delicate chain around her waist came over and set a tray of bottled water on the empty space next to me.

“Thank you.” I tried to smile at her, but she avoided my gaze, looking only at the floor. Without a word or any acknowledgment of me, she padded away. I wondered if her feet were cold.

I grabbed the water and sipped at it simply to have something to occupy me while I waited for Grayson. I sure didn’t want to admit that he’d been a little bit right about the shock value of the club.

My heart bounced between my throat and my stomach. I’d thought I was really pushing the edge to have three men living under my roof specifically to sex me up. My mind went nowhere near the dark scenes going on at The Asylum.

“Doing okay, Angel?” Gray came back and perched on the arm of the couch next to me.

“Yep. I’m great.” What the hell was I thinking? This was not at all what I imagined a sex club, even a BDSM club, would be like. I’d envisioned a French boudoir vibe with sexy fun and games.

Gray stroked my hair. “Not all clubs are like this. The Asylum caters to the darker fetishes.”

I almost asked why he was a member then.

Cono.

Because, this was what he was into.

I needed another drink of that water. I suddenly couldn’t swallow.

“Is that why I was supposed to agree to some rules and sign a contract?” Now would be a good time to read those terms.

“Partly. All clubs have rules. Boundaries might get pushed, but even here the safe word is sacred. I have no plans to let you play tonight, so I skipped your orientation.”

The word let bothered me, but in this environment, I was glad to have someone looking out for me.

“Still want to talk to Foster?”

“That’s why we’re here.” Mostly.

He took my hand and rubbed the back of it with his thumb. “Listen close, Angel. I don’t plan to let you out of my sight, but if for any reason we get separated, you come straight back to my chair. No one will approach you here without my permission.”

I glanced around at the empty seats around me. “These are yours?”

He nodded. “Yes. All VIP members have their own play area in the club.”

Another clue about Gray and his proclivities that I’d never been privy to. That smarted and I’m afraid my voice came out a little snippy. “How does one become a VIP member?”

Gray either didn’t notice my attitude and irritation or he chose to ignore it. He pulled me to my feet and stared down at my face. I waited for him to move, to kiss me, or spank me, or drag my ass out of there all together. Instead he cupped my cheek and said, “Experience.”

Double gulp. Okay. I’d learned more about Gray in the past minute since this whole sexcapade started than in the five years previous.

He pivoted my body so I stood in front of him and pointed me in the direction of the large group of people and the club king. With his hand on the small of my back, he pushed me forward and we walked across the room. “You’re going to see a lot of stuff in here that is probably far beyond your dirty little mind.”

I bit my lip and then decided that made me appear too much like a newbie. “Oh, come on. I’ve got a pretty active imagination.”

“If at any point you want to leave, for any reason, simply say so.” He was all business and bodyguard now.

When he went all protective like this it was best if I went along with whatever he directed me to do. “Okay.”

Not once as we crossed the room did his hand leave my back. He was proving his possession to the whole club with each of our steps. “This part is important. If anyone asks, especially any men, if you are available, you tell them no.”

“But—” Were men actually going to approach me? I didn’t want to do anything with anyone except Gray. No way would I let him to leave me alone in here.

He steered me around a group of men tying a woman up like a maypole. “I should have made you agree before we came in. When we are in these four walls, you are mine. No one else touches you. Fuck, I don’t even want them looking at you. If anyone thought for a second that you were unclaimed and submissive, well, I’d have to kill them.”

“But—” One of the maypoler dudes left the group and followed us. I was completely creeped out and moved in closer to Gray.

Gray gave the man one of his death ray stares which stopped him dead in his tracks allowing us to keep our forward momentum.

“No buts. Angel, say it, or we walk out of here right now.”

Like I’d ever say anything else. “Okay.”

“Good girl. Repeat after me: I belong to Gray.”

“I belong to Gray.” The tiniest of shivers rolled across my skin. I thought the words would feel silly coming out of my mouth. They didn’t.

He stopped and stared down at me. The claim had done something to him too. I saw it in the heat behind his eyes.

He touched my face. It was a brief slide of his palm across my chin, but the look in his eyes that accompanied it made me believe I was his.

“I don’t like it, but if you’re going to meet Bennett it’s under my terms. Get it out of your system now, because after this I don’t want you anywhere near him again. Now let’s do this.” Gray took my hand and guided me into the circle around the man of steel I’d seen earlier. Foster Bennett really was the king of the club.

He had a girl straddling his lap, naked except for a leather collar with dangling chains attached to nipple clamps. One hand moved between her legs and the other gripped her throat. She clawed at the fist gripping her neck, but he didn’t relent until her body bowed and shook with the force of the orgasm he’d given her. She collapsed onto him whimpering.

“Take her away.” Foster waved toward two men dressed in shiny black leather standing five feet behind him. They moved in unison to grab the girl. One wrapped her in a blanket and the other lifted her and carried her to a dark corner.

“Holy shit. Is she okay?” I whispered to Grayson.

Foster caught me in his gaze, like a deer in the headlights of an alien spaceship landing in the forest. “She’s more than okay. She got everything she wanted.”

I bit my lip to keep from blurting out that I didn’t believe that for a minute. This was his place, his rules. I may be the bad girl of the Upper East Side, but I still had my manners. Gray wasn’t phased in the least by the S and M going on around us. He walked up to Bennett and shook his hand. “Bennett.”

“It’s been a while, Baker. Have you brought me a present to make up for lost time?”

Gray pulled me into the circle but placed his hand on the back of my neck, just under my hair, and rubbed his thumb along the side of my throat. I didn’t move, only waited for any indication of what might happen next.

“Not ever. She’s mine.” Gray’s voice was the growl of a wolf, claiming its territory, for anyone and everyone to know.

I wanted to see the look on his face, so I could try and read more into this situation, but I didn’t dare for fear of him releasing me from the possessive grip.

Staking a claim on me like that was simply his way to continue to protect me.

From the set of Foster’s downturned mouth, he didn’t like that answer. He tapped his fingers on the side of the chair. Angry? Irritated? These two were Alphas feeling each other out, sniffing for weaknesses.

Gray had none.

Foster dipped his chin and offered us a chair with an outstretched hand toward a couch next to him. “Yes. I can see that. Is she trained?”

Phew. We sat, and Gray released my neck, but placed a hand on my upper thigh. The tension faded for the most part, and I felt free enough to speak again. “Trained in what?”

“Submission, High Protocol, total power exchange, take your pick of Grayson’s fets.”

I looked at Gray, but his eyes were set on Foster. If looks could kill. “She is not trained.”

I thought having a harem qualified me, apparently not.

“Yet,” Foster countered.

Gray ignored the comment, but I wanted to ask. He didn’t give me a chance. “We’re here because she wants information from you.”

“Interesting. What kind of information did you have in mind, pet?”

On the word pet, Gray’s grip on my leg tightened. I placed my hand over his to hide the red marks he was leaving on my skin.

“I’m interested in studying the lifestyle to see if I could embrace BDSM.” There were so many new and exhilarating ideas whipping through my mind. I wanted to try it all.

At least the domination and submission parts anyway. The dynamics of giving over control – especially to Gray – sent tingles through my pussy.

I also wanted to know what it would be like to be entrusted with that kind of power. It would help me understand Gray better. Not just his kinks or what turned him on either.

The true Gray, what made him so irresistible to me, and the beauty inside his soul. That’s what kept me pushing forward.

“Do you now? What is it that you think you can learn at The Asylum?”

The idea of what I could be. The rebelliousness, the freedom. “The lifestyle, the ritual, and the power.”

Bennett glanced at Gray and then back at me. “Ms. Cruz, don’t take this the wrong way, but you’ve got a virginal vibe if I’ve ever felt one. You may be interested in the idea of this club, but I don’t believe for one minute you’re ready to dominate anyone. I suggest you take your Mr. Baker and ask him for a tour of the club. Try out some of our delights, become a member. Come back and see me in six months or so, then we’ll talk.”

That was that. Bennett turned and signaled to his men again. They brought another mostly naked girl over and dropped her at his feet. He petted her hair and I thought the girl would orgasm from that simple touch. She scowled at me.

Grayson grabbed my arm and gently lifted me from the couch. “Let’s go, Angel.”

I went along, but stopped five steps away. “Wait a minute.” I turned and walked back over to Bennett and his toy. “How did you know my name. I never said it.”

“Everyone knows the fallen angel of Fifth Avenue, Ms. Cruz.”

Chale. Really?