Descended (The Red Blindfold Book 2) Read online

  “Sophie, I thought we –”

  “I agreed to nothing of the kind,” I hissed. “The corset stays on.”

  Slowly, his expression changed to one of surprise and admiration. “She has limits.”

  “You’re just figuring this out?” I whispered a little too loudly.

  The men around us laughed. I couldn’t help smiling in response. “She’ll be a delight to tame,” one of them said.

  “If she can be tamed,” Marc replied with a smirk. “That’s still in question.”

  “Is it?” I said. “I thought I just made it clear.”

  The corner of his mouth curved upward. “All right, Sophie. We’ll see how feisty you are when you’re locked up in chains.”

  Taking me by the hand, Marc led me from couple to couple, introducing me to people he knew and both of us to people he didn’t. I smiled and nodded, keenly aware of my exposed skin. I was grateful when Marc took two glasses of champagne from a passing waiter and handed one to me. Guzzling three fizzy swallows, I prayed for courage. Or, barring that, a robe.

  “Why does everyone keep thanking you?” I asked Marc when we had a moment alone.

  He took a sip of champagne. “I started these gatherings eight years ago,” he said. “The Sade name drew a lot of people who would never be seen at a public club.”

  “This is private?”

  He nodded. “Private and confidential. Everyone has to apply, and the initiation fee discourages all but the most accomplished and committed. I used to screen applicants myself before I got too busy and passed it off to somebody else. I assumed the gatherings would stop once I left, but they’d taken on a life of their own. They’ve continued once or twice a month.”

  I couldn’t take my eyes from his face. I hadn’t really understood him before now. Only a man dedicated to dominance would start a group like this.

  But something had happened since. He’d shut down his desires for years. But tonight, with me, he was back.

  “Who runs the club?” I asked.

  “Daphne, who isn’t here tonight. She’s a dominant married to the CEO of a cosmetics company. She screens new members, and Louis acts as treasurer. He’s over there with his mistress.”

  As if he sensed the mention of his name, Louis smiled and waved from his chair, which could barely contain his girth. His mistress was much younger, with a mass of white-blonde hair piled on top of her head. She sat at his feet like a loyal dog in her studded red bustier, resting her cheek adoringly on his thigh.

  “What do people do here?” I asked.

  “The same things they do at any other club. Talk. Drink.”

  “Have sex?”

  “There are rooms for that, yes,” he said. “Some people like to be observed by others.”

  “And does everyone…share?”

  “Most don’t. Some do.”

  “And you?”

  He gave me a subtle roll of the eyes. “You know how I feel about fidelity, don’t you? I brought you here to show you off, not to let other men have their way with you. I hope that’s not what you’re expecting.”

  “God, no.”

  “Good. Or I’d be taking full advantage of the club’s tools of discipline.”

  Hand resting on my lower back, he showed me the elegantly appointed rooms, the plush chaise lounges in deep jewel colors, silver platters of oils and creams, smooth leather tables fitted with wrist and ankle restraints. There were stacks of fluffy white towels, scented candles, and underfoot, soft maroon carpets. Outside every door stood a servant wearing a suit and an earpiece.

  “What do they do?” I asked.

  “Whatever’s required,” Marc said. “Observing, fetching food and drinks, cleaning up. They’re trained to always say yes, unless the request involves direct sexual contact. But our members know the rules. We don’t have trouble enforcing them.”

  After descending a short flight of marble stairs, we entered a barely-lit space with a ceiling so low it made my hands clammy. I felt like I’d wandered onto the set of a bizarre theater production.

  Faint blue light rose from an illuminated strip along the floor’s edge. Against one wall was a table, as well as wooden stocks that looked like something from the Salem witch era. A circle of cut glass votives burned on a table beside a large steel contraption with chains dangling from the top. A crystal chandelier gave the whole scene a high-end, gothic air.

  “What the hell?” I muttered.

  “Hell is right, my lovely girl,” Marc said, taking my hand. “Welcome to the dungeon.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  A dungeon. Exactly what Julia had warned me about in a joking text.

  But this was no joke. This was as real as it got.

  “Wow,” I whispered.

  “What do you think?” Marc asked, fingers tightly gripping mine.

  I shook my head slowly. “I’m thinking…what’s that metal thing?”

  “That’s our Saint Andrew’s cross. We had it handmade by a blacksmith in Germany. It’s been very popular.”

  I was about to ask him how it worked when a couple came down the stairs behind us. “Sorry, already in use?” the man asked in an accent that didn’t sound French. He was tall and pale with an angular, cruel-looking face. The woman was tiny, olive-skinned, with the slim-hipped body of a dancer.

  “Just taking a tour,” Marc said. “It’s all yours.”

  “Feel free to stay and watch if you like,” he said cheerfully. “My wife and I enjoy that.”

  He snapped an order at her in some guttural language. She responded by spreading her legs and arms in front of the cross, her back toward us. With expert swiftness, he chained her limbs and looped a leather restraint around her waist, tightening the buckle so that she was completely immobile.

  “Want to go?” Marc asked in a quiet voice.

  I felt frozen in place, too fascinated to move. “Not yet.”

  “If it’s too much, tell me,” he said, kissing my shoulder.

  The man took one of the wooden paddles from a rack on the wall and slapped her ass with it, lightly at first, then hard enough that her shriek split the air. My stomach clenched. Again and again he brought the paddle down, his muscles flexing as he used all of his force. He was really hitting her, not in the way that Marc cropped and spanked me, but with a hostile force that frightened me. Her skin ignited after each blow, marks forming in the oval shape of the paddle’s head.

  “She doesn’t like it,” I whispered, wanting to rush over and free her.

  “How do you know?” Marc asked.

  “Listen to her.” She was gasping now, her head turned to the side, her jaws locked together. He said something to her that sounded harsh and unfeeling.

  “You can’t know what goes on between them, or how she responds to it.”

  “Her face says it all, Marc. Can’t you see it?”

  “I see that she’s here because pain excites her. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt.”

  I looked up at him, feeling a mix of fear and confusion. “Why are we here? Is this what’s coming?”

  “For us?” His arm tightened around me. “We’ll see, but I enjoy punishing you with a little more restraint. Come on. I think we’ve seen enough.”

  With the woman’s cries following us up the stairs, he led me to a room at the end of a long hallway. Nodding to the man standing outside, he ushered me in and shut the door.

  Finally, we were alone. There was no one to meet, no harsh sadistic ritual to watch, just us.

  Once my eyes had adjusted to the candlelight, I could make out a long leather table with two gleaming stirrups at the end. There was a large arrangement of purple irises and a sofa draped with a fur throw. A fire smoldered in a gas fireplace with a stainless steel mantel.

  Marc finished his champagne and set the glass on a sideboard. “That wasn’t exactly a gentle introduction to the club, was it?” he said.

  “Is it always like that here?” I asked. “So…violent?”

  He pulled
me hard against his rigid chest. I looked up into his face, feeling like my whole world depended on his answer.

  “Sometimes it is. We don’t keep shackles and dildo machines just to look at. Does that scare you?”

  “A little. That woman looked so unhappy. I don’t want to be like her.”

  “You’re not like her. And I’m nothing like him.”

  “How do I know?”

  “Because you know,” he said, squeezing me until I thought I might break. “You can feel it.”

  “Honestly, Marc? After the last few days, all I feel is pissed off and confused.”

  “Aw, poor baby,” he teased. He slid both of his hands under the silk of my panties and around my backside, squeezing my flesh firmly. “And don’t forget aroused. Very, very aroused.”

  His voice was tranquilizing, a hypnotic spell I couldn’t resist. “You’ve never wanted so badly to be fucked, have you?”

  “No,” I said, lowering my eyes. “It feels out of my control.”

  He stroked my skin. “Everything you’re experiencing is part of submitting to me. It’s disorienting, and it’s meant to be. You have to lose your old bearings before you can gain new ones.”

  “All this is going to happen in a week?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, unlacing my corset and pulling the straps off my shoulders. “That’s up to us, isn’t it?”

  My stomach fluttered as he ran the pads of his index fingers over my nipples. His eyes were a fiery trap I couldn’t escape. “According to our rules,” I said in a whispery voice, “it’s up to you.”

  His tongue glistened over the corner of his mouth. “What a good girl you are for remembering. Not that it’s going to help you tonight.”

  He took my champagne glass and set it beside his. “Lie down on the table, Pet. Put your feet in the stirrups.”

  I could hardly believe it. My frustration was going to end here, in an undisclosed location with fur pillows and a uniformed sentry at the door.

  I lay down and slid the toes of my shoes into the metal rings. Sitting on a leather stool between my legs, he pulled my hips to the edge of the table.

  “Now let your legs fall open, all the way.”

  Feeling my joints stretch, I spread them as far as I could. “You’re very wet, I see,” he said, so calm it chilled me. “Always wet. Always responsive.”

  “I’ve been deprived,” I said.

  “It was intentional.”

  I gave the ceiling an acid glare. Of course it was. I’d known it all along. “That’s cruel.”

  “Yes. And you love it.”

  I refused to answer. But God help me, he was right.

  He kissed the insides of my thighs, long, sucking bites I knew would leave marks. For at least ten minutes he teased me, licking my belly, making me slide even closer so that all of me was available to him. I gripped the table, so far past excited I could hardly breathe except to say, “Please.”

  “Please?” he said quietly.

  “Touch me. I’ve waited long enough.”

  “But you’ll wait even longer,” he said. “As long as I want you to.”

  I felt his hot breath against the slit of my panties. He nipped at the silk with his teeth, drawing out the torment, kissing along the edges where the elastic met my skin. Seconds stretched to agonizing minutes of sensual torment. And then, with a sudden hungry passion, he dipped into my wetness.

  I gasped and bit my lip to keep from screaming. Forcing my legs wider, he licked me, sinking his tongue into my pussy. I couldn’t help lifting my hips to meet every wet, warm thrust.

  “You’re fucking delicious,” he said. “I can’t get enough of you.”

  Oh, please, let that be true. Again and again he lapped my full length, ending with a light flickering on my clit.

  “It’s so good,” I whispered.

  He sucked my soft flesh into his mouth, biting me until pleasure merged with pain. Just as my muscles began to tighten and quiver, he stood up, slipping out of his clothes and tossing them unfolded onto the sofa.

  He faced me, his erection red, hugely thick, and veined. “Keep your legs apart,” he said, moving the stool aside. “Wide open so I can see that gorgeous pussy.”

  He pushed my knees back until they almost touched my shoulders. It was only moments away now. Would the man standing outside the door hear us? Did it make his cock hard to imagine what was happening in this room?

  “Arms out,” Marc said, gruff and impatient.

  He reached along the table’s edge and slid out two wrist restraints, locking them firmly into place. It wasn’t enough to have me in split-crotch panties with my feet in stirrups in a bondage club. He wanted to see me locked down, completely unable to move.

  With a smooth click, the restraints closed around my wrists. I struggled on instinct and Marc’s pupils flared.

  “My sexy captive,” he said. “Isn’t this what you wanted? To be held down and fucked like the slave you are?”

  All I could do was swallow and nod once.

  “Yes? Then say it. Beg me to fuck you.”

  I flushed to my chest. “Fuck me,” I whispered.

  He slapped my face briskly, shocking the breath out of me. “Be polite and say please. This is your master you’re talking to.”

  I stared at him defiantly, ready to wage battle despite being restrained and barely clothed. “That hurt,” I said, eyes narrowed.

  “It was supposed to. Now, say please or I’ll do it again.”

  I was about to call him a monster, an asshole, anything I could think of, but I was too proud. I’d agreed to be obedient. Agreed, when I was of sound mind and body. I wouldn’t quit, no matter how much he provoked me.

  “Please,” I said, my voice quavering. “Please fuck me.”

  He pushed his tip into me, just a tantalizing hint of his rigid length. Wet as I was, every thick inch was an effort I could hardly endure.

  “Is this what you want?” he asked. “My thick cock, big and hard inside you?”

  I nodded, my bottom lip caught between my teeth.

  “Then say it again,” he said. “I want to hear it.”

  “Please fuck me.”

  He forced himself inside me a little at a time, groaning with every thrust. “Like that?” he asked, holding my hips still in his hands. “Is that how you like to be fucked?”

  “Yes,” I admitted.

  “Why?”

  “Because I need it,” I whispered. “I need it so much.”

  He forced himself into me completely, his expression demonically lustful. “God, the way you say that – I’ve never been so hard in my life.”

  Fucking me with long, slow strokes, he leaned over and took my mouth with his. My world was our tongues and his cock driving into me. I was so grateful to him for making me wait, for torturing me with frustration and insecurity.

  I’d thought I knew what I wanted, but Marc knew better.

  Lying on the table, I was blissfully helpless. He did whatever he liked – sucked my nipples into stiff points, kissed me from my jaw to my belly, held my ankles above my head while he told me how tight I was, how beautiful, how wicked. He pushed a finger between my legs, slipping it over my clitoris so lightly it felt like his tongue.

  How could a man be so dominant, and so determined to please me? Electricity sizzled across my skin, a hot current that spun me into a trance.

  I was dimly aware of the restraint rubbing against my left wrist, but I was delirious from the first heart-stopping swell of an orgasm. Lost in pleasure, I sank my teeth into Marc’s shoulder as he penetrated me again and again.

  I held my breath. I fell through space. And then I screamed.

  They might have heard me outside and down the street, but I couldn’t hold it back. I wasn’t me anymore, I was an animal. I was Marc’s wanton little toy.

  “Come for me, just like that,” he whispered in my ear.

  I threw my head back as sensation consumed me, vibrating to the tips of my nipples and al
ong my spine. Though I begged him to stop, he kept thrusting until another orgasmic wave built up and broke, flooding every limb until I was wrung out and gasping for air.

  “God, Marc,” I whispered, my breasts heaving.

  Marc pressed his sweat-dampened chest against mine. “Tell me,” he said, his lips barely brushing my mouth. “Was it worth the wait?”

  “You planned it this way,” I said, my legs quivering uncontrollably.

  “Yes, and now you understand why.” He smiled, a slow, sinful smile that made my insides flip over. “You respond very well to sexual frustration.”

  “I hated every minute of it,” I said.

  “But you love the reward, don’t you? You love it so much you’ll do anything for it. Just like a little pet.”

  Still rock-hard inside me, he slipped his tongue into my mouth and squeezed my nipples between his thumbs and forefingers until I was circling my hips restlessly. I couldn’t get nearly enough of him. No matter how much he gave me, I always wanted more.

  I was panting when he straightened and pulled slowly away from me. “Please don’t stop,” I pleaded.

  “We’re not stopping. It’s just time for you to serve me.”

  After unlocking my restraints, he brought me to the plush sheepskin rug by the fireplace. He took my face in his hands, his eyes radiating authority. “You know what to do next, don’t you?”

  I swallowed. “Kneel?”

  He answered with a nod. “Show me how much you love serving me with your mouth.”

  I lowered myself in front of him. This was one very hard, very well-endowed man, and he was not about to take “maybe” for an answer.

  I kissed his hard belly and strongly muscled thighs, then wrapped my hands firmly around his massive thickness. Though I didn’t look up, I could feel him watching me. When I sucked the tip with teasing softness and a graze of my teeth, he let out a low, rumbling moan.

  “I like that,” he said. “Do it again.”

  I sucked until he pushed his fingers through my hair, driving forcefully with a greedy rhythm, filling my throat completely.

  “Look at my lovely girl,” he said. “On her knees to please her master.”

  At his words, goosebumps lit up across my skin. Two weeks ago, I’d been too shy and inhibited to know what I wanted. Now I was a naughty submissive on her knees.