Bound (Forbidden Series - Book 1) (4 page)

              “Welcome, Mr. Knight. I hope you found us without too much trouble.”

             
Blake looked at the tastefully decorated “showroom” and felt nothing but scorn. Why was he here?

             
The room was done up in varying shades of beige and red, and it sported expensive crystal chandeliers and lamps, though the lighting was low. Elegantly dressed women — no fishnet stockings and thongs were on display here! — sat and chatted with potential clients, their voices low, the conversations muted.

             
He recognized a congressman in the corner with a woman sitting on his lap and whispering in his ear, and the mayor in another corner, laughing as two women softly rubbed his inner thighs. Yes, the men wore shades and yes, they obviously thought the muted lighting would conceal their identity, but their arrogance wasn’t lost on Blake. He certainly had nothing to lose if someone said he was there — the opinions of others mattered nothing to him. The place guaranteed discretion, and no one in the room seemed in the least worried that their secrets would be shouted to the world. After all, they were all there for the same reasons, weren’t they? Curiosity — hunger.

             
“I thought the place was worth checking out,” Blake said coolly. “I haven’t decided if I will use your services.” There was no use in leading this woman on, but if he couldn’t even explain to himself why he was there, how would he explain it to her? Not that he owed anyone an explanation.

             
When he wanted a woman, he found one. It was that simple. His parents had died twenty-five years ago this month, and the anger that coursed through him on that account was stronger than any river he’d ever drifted down. That must be his reason for being here — an outlet for his inner rage.

             
“I think you will be quite satisfied with our selection,” McKenzie Beaumont said with a smile that told Blake he could indeed have whatever he wanted.

             
He looked around the room, but none of the women captured his fancy. He’d clearly made a mistake. The women were all stunning, but none of them did a thing for him. And he didn’t bed a woman without feeling a spark, without something about her making him want to take off his clothes — and hers.

             
“I agreed to come down here and look around. I’ll let you know if we can do business.”

             
He knew his money was wanted. Hell, it was wanted wherever he happened to go. He was one of the elite. That meant, of course, that his ass was kissed on a regular basis. He and his brothers were cynical, and that was okay, too. It was all just a part of the world they’d created for themselves.

             
The three siblings had learned from their mother at a young age to trust no one, not even those they should be able to trust above all others, and that depressing lesson had actually helped them. If they didn’t wear their heart on their sleeves, didn’t allow anyone even remotely close to the recesses of their hearts, they ran no risk of ever being traumatized again. That was the world they’d created. It was a good world.

             
Their greatest strength — their fraternal bond was paramount with them — was also a weakness. If an enemy wanted to get to one of them, he or she could do it through the other siblings. They would kill for each other, and they’d go to the ends of the earth, though they never spoke about that. They even tried not to think about it.

             
“Let me give you the tour of our facilities and tell you a little more about us, things that you won’t find on the website,” McKenzie said as she began leading him from the room. “We are particularly selective. Our women are, first and foremost, polished and elegant. No one will know you are with an escort. They are trained to be anything you need. We have a list of questions for you to answer, after which we will set you up with potential candidates, women who won’t question what you want from them. Not only that,” she said, pausing to look at him, “but they will also enjoy every minute of it.”

             
“Then why the public display of your
ladies
sitting on clients’ laps?” he asked with a mocking smile.

             
“Most of our clients are repeats. They like knowing they can come in here and be seduced. They like mocking society, flouting its rules — what others think of as wrong. We’ve never had any gossip or so-called scandal leaked from our premises and we never will, because no one comes through these doors who doesn’t guarantee discretion. Furthermore, our women aren’t for sale until they are ready.”

             
“And how do you deem them ready?” he asked.

             
“Through a lot of training. Many of the women who start here don’t last. They never see a client. They are put through many tests, and if they fail any of them, we fire them immediately.”

             
“And where do you find these women?” he asked as a woman made eye contact with him, and he turned away. Like the others, she did nothing for him.

             
“We donate a lot to the local shelters. Many women there have had hard times in their lives, and this is a great improvement for them. It gives them confidence and the ability to live a lifestyle they never before could have imagined. We don’t advertise. I handpick all of our women. Not one of them passes without my approval.”

             
“You call it
improvement
? They’re selling themselves,” Blake told her.

             
“We
all
fall on hard times, Mr. Knight. That doesn’t define who we are. How we choose to pick up the pieces of our lives defines us. Remember that we all sell ourselves in one way or another.”

             
Blake knew there was a story behind her words, and he found himself curious to discover what it was. But only for a moment. He shook his head, and the feeling passed. He wasn’t remotely interested in McKenzie Beaumont. Yes, she was young, and yes, she was beautiful and composed, but nothing about her stirred his blood. Blake doubted anyone in this place would have that effect on him.

             
He was a hardened man. Or was he? He felt himself almost uncomfortable in this woman’s presence. She had no qualms about her source of income — she seemed quite proud of it, in fact. Did she know what Blake had planned for one of her girls? Did she know it pleased him to make a woman weak, to break her very spirit?

             
Yes, he was sure that she did know, and that she even found some sort of sick pleasure in that knowledge. What should he think about that? He had reasons for doing what he did — reasons that he, at least, found valid. He knew it wasn’t what the world deemed right, but he survived each new day by doing what he had to. His mother had done this to him, as had his pathetic excuse for a father.

             
The woman who’d given birth to him had been cheating on his father, her husband, and that’s what had led to their death. Blake’s father had been a weak man, and it was something that Blake was determined never to be. He wasn’t the sort of man a woman brought home to her parents. And he felt no regret about that.

             
Blake was paying little attention to the tour of the agency’s surprisingly extensive facilities. McKenzie had taken him to the spa room, where he could see a few women getting beauty treatments, their bare bodies laid out on tables, their eyes connecting with his as he walked past, no shame in their expressions.

             
He nearly greeted the looks they sent him with an open sneer. None of them offered him any challenge. He could walk from this place with any woman there, and she’d be more than happy to be on his arm, no matter what ensued. But would that be so bad? Maybe this was what he needed. He would suffer no feelings of guilt when he broke yet another woman, when he took his anger, frustration, and sadness out on her.

             
Not that he allowed himself to feel guilt — not ever. How he’d chosen to survive was no one’s business.

             
When they stepped into a dim hallway and then out into a courtyard, Blake felt another flash of curiosity, but he kept it to himself. He was sure McKenzie was showing him so much because she was so eager to enroll him as her newest client.

             
Too bloody bad for her.

             
“Here are the sleeping quarters for our escorts. They do not leave these facilities without an approved client at their side. Once they sign on with us, we ensure that they stay ‘pure,’ in a manner of speaking, and protected from pregnancy, and that they have one priority in their lives — the men they are assigned to. They live only to serve our clients. I don’t normally let clients into this room, but I am making an exception for you, Mr. Knight.”

             
He wasn’t surprised that he was being given the royal treatment. Anything less and he would have walked out by now. However, he was taken aback by the rules of this place, and that did surprise him. Not much caught him off guard these days, but this place was certainly beyond his imagination. Considering that he’d been to some pretty exclusive clubs, ones that catered to all sorts of men and their needs, he’d thought he’d seen it all.

             
They stepped through another doorway and he found there a room full of small alcoves, with only thin curtains hiding the entrances. Some of them were closed, some open, revealing women sleeping inside. He wondered whether the agency’s escorts had different sleeping schedules, to keep an abundance of women ready for action both day and night — any time a man might wander inside in search of a companion.

             
In the large, dimly lit room, with shadows flickering on the walls, Blake’s eyes were drawn to the different colors of bedding in the alcoves. Was that some sort of clue to who the women were? Red bedding for a seductress, blue for someone softer, more cerebral?

             
As he turned the corner, a woman sat up in her pastel-blue bedding, her hair mussed from its time on the pillow. She didn’t see him as his gaze zeroed in on her, but Blake couldn’t take his eyes from the dark tresses that traveled halfway down her back, or from the low-cut silk of her pajama tank top, which showed him just a hint of her tempting cleavage.

             
She threw off her cashmere blankets, and his next view was of her tanned thighs, toned and tantalizing, and just the right shape for his hands to wander over. She was the first woman in the building who’d inspired even the smallest trace of lust inside him. Hell. Small? What he was feeling as he looked at her was anything but small. He hoped no one noticed.

             
He tuned out McKenzie Beaumont as he waited for this new woman to look up, waited to see what would happen when their eyes met. If he felt nothing, he was finished with her and with this agency. But if he felt what he thought he’d feel, he wouldn’t be leaving Relinquish Control alone.

             
Her eyes lifted and the room disappeared. Blake found himself taking an involuntary step backward at the power of the connection. Never in his life had he looked at a woman with such intensity. Never before had he been filled with such a flood of desire for any woman before she’d said even a single word. He would do just about anything, give anything, to possess this stranger. That thought should have stopped him cold, but he didn’t hesitate to ask his next question.

             
“What’s her name?”

             
McKenzie broke off in the middle of her sentence and looked in the direction his eyes had taken. He didn’t notice the scowl on her face when she saw how smitten he was with this trainee.

             
“Her name is Jewell, but she’s not ready yet. We’ve had her only a week, and we don’t know if she’ll make a good escort or not at this point. I told you that I guarantee discretion and satisfaction and I can’t do that with her. She has some very good traits, but some things about her need to be investigated further.” McKenzie turned on her heel and headed away, expecting Blake to follow.

             
“Jewell,” he whispered, and the woman in question flinched, though there was no way she could have heard his voice from the distance separating them. He approached her and then knelt down so he could be face-to-face with her. “Good afternoon.”

             
She said nothing, just gazed at him with widening eyes.

             
“Mr. Knight, this room isn’t where we speak to our escorts.” McKenzie had come back after him.

             
“Leave us.” The tone of Blake’s voice left no room for argument. He heard the sharp intake of McKenzie’s breath and knew she must be seething. Though she was anything but a submissive woman, she had to follow her own agency’s promise that its clients could have whatever they wanted, and so she did as he demanded and walked from the room.

             
“I said, ‘Good afternoon,’” Blake told Jewell, this time cupping her face with his hand.