Comfort Object (2 page)

Focus, Nell, you idiot
. He was not Prince Charming, and I wasn't Cinderella. I was a professional working at the Eden Fetish Club in Los Angeles, and what I was looking at was just another job.

Mistress Amelia glowered at me from the corner, where Jack was bending her ear and gesturing at me in annoyance. Her eyes said it all.
This better be good
. Forget about poor Jack, I'd better convince Mr. Gorgeous that playing at Eden was a lot of fun, that he should come back all the time. Having regular members like him could draw more business, attract more submissive women; there were never enough subs. Mistress Amelia's cherry red lips pursed into a strict line.

Make it work, bitch.

I walked up to the client and got a noseful of fresh, outdoorsy smell, like he'd spent the day at the beach. My pussy pulsed and grew wet. Could he see it in my face, what he was doing to me? He was even more delectable close up. His shoulders were so broad; his arms had that perfect bulge of muscle…
Focus!

I gave Mr. Handsome my best submissive greeting: a sweet, soft murmur with my eyes cast down.
Would Master like to spend some time with Little Nell? My only limits were the club's limits: no fluid exchange and no severe marking or bloodletting. I was available to play publicly, here in the main dungeon, or in one of the private, themed rooms. Schoolroom? Hospital? Boardroom? Harem? Interrogation room? What did Master wish?

Master Gorgeous wished to play privately, he said. Mistress Amelia wasn't happy about that as I led him toward the hallway, but the themed rooms were there for customers, so what could she say? I asked which of the currently available rooms he wished to play in, and he shrugged and said he didn't care.

Okay.

I wasn't sure what that meant, that he had no preference. He only kept staring at me with those eyes that seemed to be weighing, measuring, analyzing more than anything else. They weren't warm eyes. They were businesslike, in a strange but not a scary way. I'd actually never felt more like a sex worker, although I suppose that's what I was. I realized then that must have been his fantasy. Pick out a sex worker and dominate her. Cool. I could understand that kink.

I led him to the first open room we came to, the harem, one of my personal favorites. Along with the de rigueur hooks, trestles, benches, chairs, and display of disciplinary tools on the wall, there were piles of pillows, a very cozy sofa, and a massive crimson-canopied bed. I'd cuddled with many a Dom after taking a sound whipping on that bed, watching the garish scarves and curtains blow in the breeze of the ceiling fans shaped to look like palm leaves.

Somehow I doubted this Dom was into cuddling. Actually, as the door closed behind us and he looked at me, I could tell, with a certainty born of experience, that this gorgeous, staring, studying man wasn't a Dom at all. I was suddenly a little thankful for Joel, the club-appointed chaperone who stood in the shadows to monitor the safety of every private scene I did. I had long since ceased to feel embarrassment around Joel, but feeling thankful for his presence was a totally new thing. What did this guy actually want? I guess I would soon find out. I went down on my knees and waited.

He just looked at me a long while. I finally murmured as submissively as possible, “Would Master like me to suggest ways to best make use of my submissiveness?”

“No,” he said tersely.

“I'm yours,” I answered in reply and waited on my knees patiently. He looked over at Joel.

“So the rules apply here too? Privately? No sex?”

“No sex, not with the staff,” boomed Joel from the corner.

Too bad, I thought. He wanted sex, and Lord in heaven knew I wanted to give this man sex. All women should have given this man sex, and probably did. Any woman walking the planet would have given it up for this piece of maleness, so why this rigmarole, why come to a club and try to buy it? Why? Because he wanted kinky sex. Sigh. I wanted kinky sex too. It had been far too long.

What I would have given to take this man's cock out and take it in my mouth, roll it around on my tongue, and make it hard and stiff and then… I would have taken him anywhere. Anywhere he wanted to stick it, I would have moaned and taken it deep. How long had it been since I'd had good S&M sex, been pushed down and fucked hard and silly and then been beaten and fucked again? After work I was usually too tired, too used-up to troll the straight clubs, and the Eden customers and staff, the only “scene” people I knew, were strictly off-limits to contact off the clock.

I looked at Gorgeous. Did I dare try to meet him later? I'd never attempted anything like that before, but I was so, so fucking horny, and his appraising, level stare and Adonis body weren't helping to cool me off. I tried to infuse a spark of
maybe
into the
I'm yours
in my eyes.

“We're not allowed to do any type of fluid exchange here, Master.”

To Joel, I hoped it sounded like I was just telling Gorgeous the rules. But I pointedly added the
here
. I hoped Gorgeous heard it. I think he did, because he glanced at Joel, then walked over to the wall of whips, paddles, and floggers impatiently.

“So what, I can just whip you, huh? What if it gets me off and some fluid exchange just…happens?”

I smothered a smile. “As long as it's not from penetration.”

“Can I come
on
you?” he asked.

I whispered, “Not here.”

“Where?” he whispered back.

I looked up at Joel pointedly from under my lashes. Gorgeous sighed in frustration and picked up a wicked-looking leather paddle and lifted me from my knees. He walked me to the couch.

“Bend over.”

God, I wanted him to fuck me. I went up on my toes, my stocking-covered legs tensing as I waited. I tried to make my ass look irresistible.

Ow! Fuck. Fuck.

Fuck.

It occurred to me that bulging, golden muscles instead of the typical flabby limbs came at a price. Particularly when those muscles wielded an instrument that already imparted a hearty sting. He rained blows on my ass like a jackhammer, with no moderate warm-up strokes and no pauses to adjust to the pain. I danced from foot to foot and bit my lip hard as the deep, stinging pain suffused my cheeks.

A fucking amateur. Definitely not a Dom.

I looked over at Joel, in the corner, his arms crossed over his broad chest. Was the fucker smirking? He knew as well as I did when a client didn't know what he was doing, and this one clearly didn't. He wouldn't step in, though, not unless I used my safe word and the client kept going.

And no way was I using a safe word. I needed sex from this man, I really did. But
ow!

Jeez, how did these guys get past the front door? Well, I knew how this one got in. His body, his gorgeous face. He was definitely a Los Angeles pretty boy. I wasn't even sure he was totally straight, although he acted straight and dominant enough. He
acted
. That was the weird thing. I got the feeling he wasn't at all into what he was doing.

Well, a lot of people came to experiment here in a safe, nonbinding place, to see if the “lifestyle” was for them. If you tied up and beat the shit out of your high school sweetheart and decided it wasn't for you after all, it was a lot more uncomfortable a situation than finding out by beating on a stranger you'd never see again.

I whimpered and fidgeted as he went to town. It wasn't an act on my part. It fucking hurt, and soon the fire in my ass reached crisis proportions.

“No severe marking,” I finally said when it looked like Joel wasn't going to help me out.

“What?” He leaned close to me.

I let the pretense fall away. He knew I knew he wasn't a dominant. “You're hitting too hard.”

“I want to see you somewhere outside of here.”

“I'm not supposed to,” I whispered.

He pulled back and landed a few more lackluster blows for Joel's benefit. “I'll give you what you deserve, you little slut,” he declared in a stern, faux-dominant voice.

I stifled laughter, turning my head as he leaned down again to whisper in my ear.

“I'll give you two thousand dollars if you'll see me tonight at your place.”

I shouldn't have said yes; I really shouldn't have. But I heard myself tell him my phone number and that I got off work at two.

* * *

The rest of the night at work was a blur. I vacillated wildly between uncontrolled horniness and horror at what I'd done. I finally convinced myself that when he called I wouldn't answer. But I answered, of course, and I told him where I lived. I called my friend Alexis to let her know what was going on, and then frantically tried to remember whether I had pepper spray in the house. But I didn't; I knew I didn't. I was 98 percent sure I wouldn't need it anyway. I figured Mr. Gorgeous was just a vanilla boy with a little bit of kink inside and nowhere to let it loose. I didn't get a sociopath vibe from him. No. He wanted something else.

He knocked on my door at two thirty sharp. I had on a nice, tight little fuck-me dress I could shimmy out of quickly, and my naughtiest thong underneath. I tried to look like I wasn't anxious and wet as hell to see him.

“Hi,” I said.

“Hi,” he replied awkwardly. It suddenly occurred to me that neither one of us knew what the hell was going on. Okay. I would set some parameters.

“I want to tell you first thing that I made a safe call.”

He looked nervous for a second.

“What's a safe call?”

“I called a friend to let her know you were here, and that if I don't call her in the morning, to call the cops. That they would know you at the club.”

“Oh, okay,” he said. “I guess that's smart. But I have no intention of hurting you or killing you or anything like that.” He half smiled, half smirked at me.

Gorgeous man, he flirted. But he wasn't a Dom. I locked the door and leaned back against it, looking at him expectantly.

“So what is it you want?” I asked him. “Because I don't think you're really into S&M.”