Intimate Exposure (13 page)

“Vicki. Nice to meet you too.”

“Are you waiting for someone?” asked Robert. He seemed to stand protectively over his partner, a look of melting fondness in his brown eyes. His tenderness made Vicki yearn for Red to be standing guard over her in the same way.

“Er…yes, he should be here any minute. He had to go and do something…” It sounded rather lame, and she was irrationally cross for Red and whatever his “business” was. She’d risen
to his challenge, but a true gentleman would have accepted her gambit…then accompanied her into the Salon anyway, call or no call.

A rustle of anticipation seemed to pass across the room, and after a moment a tall, blond and very handsome man in leather jeans and a vest top drew a skimpily dressed woman in a black hood into the center of the circle of armchairs. A moment later all the other guests began to move in the same direction.

“Hah! Looks like we’re in for some fun,” Robert said cheerfully. “Why don’t you girls get yourself a grandstand view, and I’ll get you both a glass of champagne. How does that sound?”

As they moved closer to the grouped chairs, all was not quite as it had appeared on the monitor. The circle was a broken one, interrupted by a low dais set against the wall in front of the
Normandie
print. Atop this sat a rather grander and more luxurious chair with a higher back, and set at the foot of this chair was a fat black cushion embroidered with an Erte design.

“Who sits there?” she asked her new friend Maria as they took their places just outside the circle. All the armchairs had been enthusiastically snatched. “The King of the Pervs?”

Maria chuckled. “Sort of… Not exactly the king, just someone who presides from time to time. He’s not always in charge. It kind of rotates…but he’s chosen to take point this weekend.”

“It’s not your Robert, is it?” Vicki eyed the empty throne with disquiet, unwilling to let her suspicions get a hold on her.

“Oh no, it’s not my Bobby, not this evening. Although he’s certainly up to the task. No, our esteemed leader hasn’t arrived yet, and we can’t start the proceedings until he does.” Maria nodded to the leather-clad man and his hooded submissive who were clearly waiting, him standing, her kneeling.

Behind Vicki’s back came the sound of the black lacquered doors being thrown open with quite a flourish. Her heart did a slow roll inside her chest. Long, determined strides came towards them, but she didn’t dare turn around, even though a low mutter of excitement passed through the assembled company.

She closed her eyes. Waiting. Anticipating.

And then a large warm hand folded around hers, and as its owner moved forward, he drew her along.

“Come along, my dear. They’re waiting.” Red’s voice was low and thrilling.

As she tottered on her heels and fought the excruciating shocks of sensation that walking caused, Vicki allowed herself to be led to the dais. As Red assumed his place in the grand chair of honor, it appeared she was expected to sink down and take
her
place on the cushion.

She was
his
submissive. His pet. His sexual plaything.

She couldn’t remember agreeing to this, but it was suddenly, for the moment, just what she wanted.

Sitting down was oh so difficult, plagued as she was by his sex toy, but Red carefully assisted her down onto the cushion as if she were a pampered princess, not a slave. As she lowered herself into position, gnawing her lip again as she folded her legs as gracefully as she could beneath her gown, his hand settled reassuringly on her shoulder.

“Now watch the show.” His breath was like a hot breeze against her neck as he leaned forward to whisper in her ear. “Clover and Lukas are old hands at this game.”

What followed was surreal. Like a scene from
The Story of O
enacted. The blond master positioned his slave in the most demeaning position, exposing her breasts and her sex by the simple of expedient of pinning parts of her short silky dress out of the way. She wore no
underwear beneath it, and somehow it seemed to Vicki that the woman was more on show and exhibited in her pinned dress than she would have been if stripped entirely naked.

For a moment, Vicki didn’t see the scene before her eyes, but another one, the one projected on the screen of her imagination.

She was the woman in the middle of the circle, and it was her black satin dress that was so ingeniously pinned. Red was the man now unshipping the heavy buckled belt from the loops of his leather jeans in order to beat her.

The blond man’s voice pulled her back into reality. That was, if attendance at what could only be called a spanking club was reality

“I think it’s time to assume the position, my dear slave,” he said, his voice neutral.

The hooded woman obeyed, setting her feet apart before leaning over and grasping her ankles. Vicki admired her composure. The position must be extraordinarily difficult to maintain, and it made the entire furrow of her bottom a target as well as her firm rounded cheeks.

“Don’t worry, Clover’s been in tougher positions than this,” Red whispered again, as if he was monitoring Vicki’s thoughts. “There’s no one better at holding a hard pose.”

A moment later the punishment began, the black belt flying out suddenly and impacting the bare, tender flesh of the submissive. The woman let out a grunt, as if the wind had been knocked out of her, but otherwise remained silent. The black hood hid her face completely, so there was no way to know if she was grimacing or crying, but Vicki had a feeling the slave was resisting both.

The blows fell, on and on, in a slow, elegant rhythm, and each one seemed to have a strange psychic impact on Vicki as much as on the stoic Clover. She couldn’t stop imagining herself in the other woman’s place, and the thought of that brought a clench of such intensity inside her that Red’s infernal love spheres seemed to frolic and dance against the very root of her clitoris.

When the punishment was finally over, she was trembling with a gnawing need to touch herself.

“So, would you like to take her place?” came the devilish whisper in her ear. Red’s free hand curved around her jaw and made her turn her face towards him.

Silent signals seemed to pass between them, a perfect communication.

The punishment had been awesome, amazing and in its own way, darkly beautiful. A part of Vicki had yearned, and still did yearn, to take Clover’s place. But a more rational Vicki knew that she wasn’t yet ready for public performance. Perhaps never would be.

The deepest exchange of power was something she could only do in private.

With Red Webster.

Emotions seemed to drift across his bearded face. Total comprehension gleamed in his eyes.

He nodded.

“Come on, Vicki.” He drew her to her feet with slow, almost exaggerated care, as if he were mirroring her inner state as well as her thoughts. “I think this party can manage without us now. Time to adjourn to our suite.”

Vicki was aware of all eyes following them as they went, and as she passed Maria, the other woman gave her an encouraging smile. Everyone in the room obviously knew what would happen between them behind closed doors, but Vicki found she didn’t care at all. Let them speculate and fantasize all they wanted. Only she and Red would truly share what was ahead of them.

Chapter Six

The trip back to their suite passed in a blur. They walked quickly, purposefully, and once beyond public view and earshot, Vicki couldn’t contain her moans. Red’s presence and his large hand holding hers seemed to intensify the effect of the spheres inside her. In the short ride up in the lift, he pinned her against the etched glass wall and pressed his lips passionately, just once, against the side of her neck, while at the same time fondling her breast roughly through the thin satin of her gown. The experience was so swift and so breathtaking, she felt faint.

Finally, they were alone in their suite.

Behind closed doors.

Ready to begin.

Some thoughtful person had replaced one of the Lloyd Loom chairs with a rounded black leather armchair, much like the ones in the Salon, and set it in the center of the room.

Red’s throne?

When Vicki glanced at him, he shook his head and quirked a dark eyebrow at her in a slow, teasing threat.

“So,” he said, taking her bag from her and flinging it away as if it were nothing, “do you want to play, Vicki? Last chance to back out now.”

His astonishing eyes were dancing, the brilliant expression in them a goad and a challenge, yet also bizarrely affectionate. The real, magic world of punishment and power play was far more complex and layered than she’d imagined. And the participants—well, this man at least—were full of complicated and conflicting emotions that still somehow fit together perfectly.

“Yes. I want to play. Bring it on, Red.”

“
Master
,” he prompted, a veneer of coolness in his voice that didn’t completely mask the deeper man.

“Yes, master,” she breathed, her heart bursting. It was difficult to stand still, and she fidgeted, clenching and unclenching her fingers.

“Stand still, my dear. You may not move until I give you leave to.”

Can I even breathe?

Defiance surged in Vicki, but she tamed it, drawing calming air into her lungs. Red’s eyes tracked the lifting of her breasts. He moved closer and placed the tip of his finger lightly against a puckered nipple. The touch was tiny, inconsequential almost, yet seemed infinitely lewd.

He pressed, caught the nipple between his fingertips, rolling it beneath the silk. Vicki fought the urge to groan and move her hips, knowing it was forbidden and also what the movement would do to her.

“If you feel the need to vocalize, I’ll allow it,” he said, fingering her other nipple now too, teasing them both.

Vicki would have given anything to howl like a she-cat, but she suppressed the sound.

I’m not a good submissive, am I, Red? I always feel this compulsion to defy you.

Her silence didn’t seem to bother him. He laughed, his eyes joyous. “Don’t worry, my dear, I’ll wring a sound from you eventually.”

You think so?

Abandoning her breasts for the moment, Red suddenly grasped her by the back of the neck and brought her face to his, pressing his lips hard on hers and pushing his tongue deep into her mouth. It was a commanding kiss, a kiss of total dominance, and Vicki knew that by rights
she should be inert under his onslaught. But the kiss excited her so much that her tongue pressed forward and tangled and dueled with his.

When she was ready to gasp for air, he broke their contact and took a step back.

“Expose your breasts to me, Vicki. Peel down the front of your dress.”

Vicki complied, slithering down the straps, then the black satin bodice. The shaped cut of the dress meant that it didn’t slide off completely but settled around her waist, the straps dangling in loops. They didn’t bind her, but they would restrict her arms if she were to try to move them more than a few inches.

Red walked slowly in a circle around her, rubbing his bearded jaw in contemplation like a connoisseur of statuary appraising a fine new piece. Pausing again in front of her, he inclined his head, studying her bare nipples and looking up to catch her eye.

“Magnificent. But I think we can improve their presentation.” He slid a hand into his pocket, and Vicki’s heart seemed to crawl in fear. When he withdrew his hand again, there was the brilliant glint of metal in his palm.

“Shoulders back, Vicki. Lift your chest. You should be proud of your breasts…proud that they give pleasure to me as well as you.” He tipped the object from one palm to another, and it jingled. “Play with your nipples a little. Make them stand out.”

Oh, the urge to whimper now and shift her weight from foot to foot was enormous. Her hips swayed a little, and the surge of the spheres inside her made her gasp. She tweaked her nipples, feeling herself sweat as she did so.

A moment later, Red gently made her move her hands away and set about adorning her with metal.

The thing that had been in his hand was a pair of delicately wrought silver nipple clamps looped together on a fine chain. Holding out her right nipple, he set the tiny jaws of the clamp around it, then allowed it to close.

“Ah!”

The grip of the clamp was intense, burning like fire. A fire that threaded its way almost instantaneously along her nerve pathways to her clit. Her hips wafted, the spheres jerked and her sex lurched with pleasure. She swayed on her feet and, before her heart had beaten again, Red was supporting her.

“Be brave, my sweet,” he breathed in her ear. “You have to contain yourself. Control your pleasure. It’ll be all the more glorious for holding out against it as long as you possibly can.”

Vicki’s mouth worked but she couldn’t have spoken even if she’d been allowed to. They’d barely begun this long dance, but already the tip of one of her breasts, and her clitoris alike, seemed as if they were about to burst with sensation. Even though she’d sworn herself to silence, she whimpered long and low when Red set the other clamp in place.

Still holding her, he set his fingers across her taut lips. “Be brave,” he whispered again. “Be proud and strong, Vicki. Be the wonderful woman you are.”

Miraculously, his words calmed her, even if they did nothing to ameliorate the torment in her nipples and between her legs. If anything, his belief in her excited her even more.

Lightly, he tugged on the chain that now connected her two breasts.

Vicki moaned in her throat but didn’t cry aloud.

Tug. Tug. Tug.

The slow grind of gathering sensation, deep in her womb…her body contracting within, embracing the obstructions he’d made her put inside herself…

“You’re superb,” he sighed against her hair, still plucking at the chain.

Vicki panted, fighting to control herself. Red released her from his hold, but it was only his grip on her bare shoulder, with his warm hand, that kept her from collapsing to the ground. The energy to keep her knees braced and her back straight seemed to flow into her directly from his fingers.