Page 116 of Theirs to Desire (Club M: Boxed Set)

He doesn’t smile back. I take a deep, steadying breath and look around.

I’ve seen the room before; I’ve worked at Club M for three years and am intimately familiar with the castle.

But it’s different from this side. Tonight, I’m not cleaning the room.

I’m not restocking sex toys and condoms. Tonight, I’m experiencing the club the way the members do.

It’s a little terrifying.

Candles are everywhere. Dozens of them, the room illuminated only by their warm glow. They’re laid out in concentric rings on the floor, dividing the space into circles.

Caleb stands in the center of one of them, his face hidden in shadow. He holds out his hand to me in a wordless invitation, and my pulse starts to race. Watching where I put my feet, I step over the tapers and enter the ring of fire. “This feels very ominous,” I quip. “Should I be worried?”

He doesn't answer my question. “There are five security cameras,” he says, pointing them out. “Together, they cover every inch of the room. There are no blind spots.”

I try to reconcile the Caleb Reeves I know—smiling, good-natured, and flirtatious—with this grim-faced man. “You need to work on your bedside manner.”

He hears the quaver in my voice, and his expression softens. “Let's talk for a bit.” He picks me up as if I weigh nothing and sets me down on a padded leather bench.

I take in the room’s contents. Apart from the bench I’m sitting on, there's a Saint Andrews Cross in the corner, surrounded by its own semicircle of candles. Whips, cuffs, and other assorted equipment decorate one wall. Chains hang from the ceiling, and iron rings are embedded into the floor.

All the better to tie me up with. A hysterical laugh bubbles its way up to the surface, and Caleb's eyes sharpen with concern. “Are you afraid?”

He looms in front of me. There's something dark about him tonight. Something dark, and dangerous, and unleashed. “A little,” I admit. “You seem different today.”

He doesn’t respond. He trails the tip of his fingers over my forearms. “How much experience do you have, Kiera?”

Fiona had warned me this would come up. Be honest, she’d said, her expression serious. Don’t lie to them about this.

I look up at the two men. “None,” I confess. “You'll be my first dominants.”

An expression of shock flits across Caleb's face. “You've never done this before?”

I don’t know how I thought they’d react. I expected them to be surprised. I do work in a sex club, after all. This isn’t the sort of place that attracts novices. But they don’t just look surprised. Nolan steps into the circle of light, and I take in his expression. He looks… unhappy.

“No.”

“Never?” Nolan presses.

I swallow back my nerves. “Is it a problem?”

Caleb starts to say something and then clamps his mouth shut. “No.”

He’s lying. They both look like they're having second thoughts. “I know the basics,” I hasten to assure them. “I've worked here for three years. I'm not going to run screaming if I see you with a whip in your hands.”

Nolan raises an eyebrow. He crosses the room to the Wall of Torture, as I've mentally nicknamed it. Selecting a black flogger, he returns to my side. His expression is, once again, unreadable.

“Never been whipped,” he murmurs. He runs the tails of the flogger over my arm, slow and gentle. “Ever been tied up?”

“No.”

He purses his lips. “I like the club.” The suede brushes my neck.

Goosebumps dot my skin. “Xavier has created something important here.

A safe place to explore your needs. You step in here, brave and eager, your eyes shining with anticipation, because inside these four walls, you are protected. Somebody's watching everything we do.”

The tails of the flogger caress my bare thighs.

“Somebody's listening to every word of this conversation,” he continues.

“If they see or hear anything that seems out of place, the door will open.

A club monitor will enter, and they will not leave until they are assured of your safety. You know this, don't you, Kiera?”

My throat is dry. “Yes.”

Caleb steps in front of me, a bottle of water in his hands. “Drink.”

I take a grateful sip. When I’m finished, he takes the bottle from me and sets it down on a side table. “BDSM is, at its heart, about trust. You trust me enough to be vulnerable, and I trust you to tell the truth. Unfortunately, the club’s safety mechanisms allow us to bypass that critical step.”

Pinpricks of guilt stab me. He's right. BDSM is all about communication and faith. About letting go of control. About closing your eyes and falling, knowing with absolute certainty that your dominant will catch you.

I grew up in a trailer park. My mother was an alcoholic. I learned to take care of myself at a very young age. Even before Sirkovich, I hadn’t let myself be vulnerable. I don't let myself lose control.

Tonight is no exception. I'm hoping to seduce Caleb and Nolan into telling me what I need to know, when I could have, as Dix pointed out, just asked them about Greg Dratch’s photo.

But asking would require that I lower my walls to them.

Realization sweeps over me. They know what I'm trying to do. I thought I'd hidden my reaction to Dratch’s photo this morning, but I thought wrong. That’s got to be why Caleb’s giving me a speech about trust and telling the truth.

My palms are damp with sweat. I wipe them on my skirt, my mind racing. They might not know, I try and reassure myself. You might just be imagining things.

Caleb and Nolan are staring at me, waiting for me to respond. “I understand,” I stammer. “It’s about trust. I trust you.”

“Do you?” Caleb’s eyes are stormy. “Do you know what a safeword is?”

I nod.

Nolan's voice cracks out of the darkness. “Use your words please, Kiera.”

“Yes.” I bite my lower lip nervously. “I'm familiar with the concept of safewords.”

Caleb hands me the bottle of water again. I take a sip, my fingers trembling, and I slosh some water down my front.

He notices. “If you don't feel safe with us,” he says, his voice hard as steel. “You shouldn't be here.”

“I do feel safe with you.” It's not a lie. I might not trust them with my secrets, but I trust them with everything else. I don't sleep well in new places. My subconscious is always on edge, wondering if I'm in danger. I slept like a baby last night in Caleb's guest bedroom.

I don't know if he believes me. “Hard and soft limits,” he continues implacably. “You're a novice. I don't expect you to have all the answers. Just tell me the things you're absolutely sure you don't want to try.”

Over time, some of the memories of that fateful day when I saw Vladimir Sirkovich shoot his two underlings have faded.

I don't remember what the victims were wearing.

I don't even remember what they look like.

But if I close my eyes, I can see the blood-splattered walls of the Rose and Crown.

I can breathe in that sharp, coppery tang, mixed in with the smell of gunpowder residue. “No knives,” I whisper. “No blood.”

Caleb gives me a sharp, concerned glance. “What else?”

I feel myself flush. I've been flirting with him for months, yet, aside from the fact that Caleb’s a dominant, I know nothing about his sexual preferences. And Nolan is a perfect stranger. What if I’m too restrictive? Too boring to scene with? “No fluids either.”

“Clarify fluids,” Nolan says. “Will you swallow my come?”

My cheeks burn at his blunt words. “Yes,” I whisper, mortified. I can't look them in the eye. This is the most embarrassing conversation in the world. Forget obeying their orders. This is the truly hard part. “I meant golden showers and stuff.”

Caleb's lips twitch. “Very well,” he agrees, laughter coating his voice. “We’ll avoid golden showers and stuff. ”

As much as I’d like it to, the floor doesn’t open up in front of me. I can either run out of the room like a blushing virgin, or I can plunge forward. “I don't think I'd like a lot of pain. I've seen people being caned on the main floor. It never turned me on.”

“Okay,” Caleb says agreeably. If he finds my limits restrictive, he gives no sign of it. “Anything else?”

I shake my head. “That's all I've got right now. Everything else, I'll have to try before I know whether I like it or not.”

“That's fair,” Caleb says. He exchanges a glance with Nolan. The two of them have some kind of wordless communication, and then Caleb turns back to me. “Okay, here are my rules. When we’re doing this, you don't lie. I ask you a question, you answer me as honestly as possible. Is that clear?”

Oh boy. “Yes, Sir.”

He shakes his head. “As pretty as that sounds coming from your lips, I've had enough of you calling me Sir, or Mr. Reeves. In here, you call me Caleb. Nolan, how do you want to be addressed?”

“Nolan's fine.”

“Yes, Sir,” I start to say, before correcting myself. “Sorry. Yes, Caleb.”

His smile widens. “Very nice,” he says approvingly. “Is there anything you want to try today?”

Last night, I’d asked him if he was going to spank me as punishment. He said no. Thinking about it after the fact, I realized why. He had been drinking, as had I. We hadn’t discussed limits. It would've been irresponsible to proceed.

Today’s a new day. “Will you spank me?”

Dark heat flashes in his eyes. “So eager to be punished,” he murmurs. “What do you think, Nolan? Has Kiera earned a punishment?”

Nolan moves behind me. He brushes the hair at my neck aside, and kisses me there, his big hand wrapping around my throat. “I'm not going to choke you,” he assures me. “I’m not into breath play.”

My heart is slamming against my chest like a caged animal.

There's a slick, wet heat between my legs.

My breasts ache. Nolan is huge. Caleb is sleek and lean and lethal.

Either man could snap me like a twig, but strangely, in this room, that thought doesn't fill me with panic. My fear fractures into shards of need.

Caleb places his hands on my thighs, urging them apart. He stands in the space between my legs, so close that I imagine that I can feel the heat of his body, imagine that I can hear the beat of his heart. “Take off your shirt.”

It begins.

Nolan lets go long enough for me to draw my T-shirt over my head. I set it down on the bench.

I spent a solid hour this evening agonizing over my underwear.

I'd lingered over black lace, but at the last minute, I change my mind.

Black lace implies a sophistication I just don't have.

I finally picked a cream satin set with pink roses.

It's a recent purchase, an indulgence that I probably shouldn't have given into, but it had been my birthday, and I wanted to treat myself to something pretty.

“Very nice,” Nolan rasps. His big, callused hands stroke my shoulders. “Very sexy.” His teeth nip my earlobe, and a sharp ache spreads through me.

I squirm in my seat, impatient for more. “Should I take it off?”

Caleb's fingers trace circles on my thighs. “What’s the hurry, baby? We have all night.”

Nolan draws my hands behind my back. He holds my wrists in one hand, firm enough that I can't wriggle free, not hard enough for it to hurt. “Do you like this?” he growls in my ear.

Yes. Oh God, yes.

Caleb tilts my chin up. “For months,” he murmurs, his green-gray eyes locked on mine, “I've been fantasizing about this moment. About you trusting me enough to let me do this.” He drags his thumb over my lower lip. “And now that I have you here, the reality of this moment…” His voice trails away.

It’s not just him. I’ve been dreaming about this too.

Sexual tension has built between us for months.

Every drink I’ve made for him has been foreplay.

Last night, he’d put his mouth between my legs, and he’d dragged an orgasm out of me, the best orgasm I’ve ever had in my life. And now that we’re here…

Regret slams into me like a plow truck. What am I doing? Am I really going to sleep with them for information? Last night, our desire had been real. Last night, I had wanted them so much that denying myself wasn’t an option anymore.

Tonight is different. Tonight is just one big lie.

I can't go through with this.

I open my mouth to call it off, but the quiet is punctured by a sharp ring. Caleb reaches for his phone.

Hang on. How does he have his phone with him? The club has a strict no-electronics rule.

He looks at the screen. Tension fills every line of his body. “Derek came through,” he says to Nolan.

“And?”

“It’s good. I think.”

I stare at them, not quite sure what's going on. “Caleb?”

He looks at me for a long time, and then he hands me the device. I glance down at the screen and freeze.

Bianca's face stares back at me.

Her photo is attached to a text message. This photo was taken last week.

My sister is still alive.

Caleb's expression is shuttered. Nolan hands me my shirt. “Get dressed, Kiera. We need to talk.”