Descended (The Red Blindfold Book 2) (4 page)

I squinted. “Wait a
second – who said anything about subduing me?”

He glanced up and
smiled. “You have a bistro to review today, don’t you?”

“Don’t change the
subject, Marc.”

“Was there a subject?
I’m sorry, I wasn’t aware.”

My cheeks flamed. This
wasn’t a conversation, it was a game. “What’s this about?”

“About?” he asked
with a puzzled frown.

“You wouldn’t even
touch me last night,” I said. “I think we need to discuss what –”

He kissed me quickly on
the corner of the mouth and stood up. “I’d love to stay and go
over our agreement in tiresome detail, but Henrik’s here with the
car. I’ve left two outfits for you, one for your lunch and another
for tonight. Enjoy your day. I’m stopping at the gym after work so
I’ll see you around seven.”

With an infuriating
smile, he walked out and shut the bedroom door quietly behind him.

I hurled a pillow at
the door but it landed a foot short on the carpet. “Fuck,” I
muttered, flopping back on the bed.

I was furious with
myself for making an agreement with him, and for wanting someone who
was impossible to figure out. Why had he brought me here anyway? If
he got off on depriving and frustrating me, this was going to be a
week from hell.

But what had I
expected? A dominant man who would tiptoe around my feelings and
consult me about his plans?

Tempted as I was to
wallow under the covers in self-pity, I got up. I drank coffee,
showered, and dressed in the daytime outfit Marc had chosen: a pink
satin thong and long-sleeved lace mini-dress that skimmed my hips and
breasts. It was exactly his style. And his style was all that
mattered now.

The stockings were
sheer, the pumps sky-high with an inch-thick platform. A burning ache
shot through the balls of my feet with every step, but I was much too
proud to put on flats.

If Marc thought I was
going to fold at the first sign of discomfort, he was dead wrong.
This was a personal test I refused to fail.

Just before noon, I
took a cab to the restaurant. After a long lunch of far too much
food, I took photographs of the neighborhood around the bistro and
wrote for an hour in a café. I didn’t get back to Marc’s
apartment until it was time to get ready for my night out.

Nervousness mounting, I
took a long bath, tended to the blisters on my heel, and dabbed my
new perfume on my neck and inner thighs. After painting my nails
garnet red, I put on the lingerie Marc had chosen for tonight –
seamed stockings, a stunning black satin corset, and matching boy
short panties that dipped low in front and laced up in the back.

“Nothing boyish about
these,” I muttered, looking over my shoulder into the full-length
mirror.

Only after I’d worn
them for a few minutes did I realize that there was an opening
between the legs, wide enough to admit a tongue but not enough to
show. I hoped the panties were a not-so-subtle message, and my brief
but agonizing period of deprivation was about to end.

When Marc finally came
home, he kissed me on the forehead, peeled off his damp gym clothes,
and got into the shower.

“I’m running late,”
he said. “We don’t have much time.”

He was out in three
minutes, beads of water dripping over his chest, a white towel
wrapped around his hips. While he shaved, I stood beside him in my
lingerie and put on earrings, silver oval hoops that fell to the
middle of my neck. I’d hoped for an appreciative remark but barely
got a glance.

I stewed in silence for
a minute before putting on my best nonchalant voice. “How was your
day?”

“Absolute madness,”
he said, running the razor over his jaw. “Meetings all morning and
a two-hour call with a start-up in São Paulo that didn’t end until
after five. How was yours? Did you like the restaurant?”

“It was very good.
The best I’ve tried so far.” I stepped close to him and kissed
his cheek, pressing my breasts lightly against his arm.

He smiled but didn’t
return my touch. “We need to go.”

“But it’s been
forever,” I said.

“It’s been less
than forty-eight hours.”

“Like I said,
forever.”

He rinsed off the
remains of shaving cream and dried his face. “We agreed that I
would decide if and when you get fucked. Didn’t we?”

“You’re punishing
me,” I said, meeting his gaze in the mirror.

“Am I? What on Earth
am I punishing you for?”

“The note.”

“Ah, the note,” he
said, eyes widening. “That thing I thought we’d settled.”

“Is it settled?
Because you wouldn’t get near me last night.”

He patted my hip.
“Again, I decide when we have sex. And if I wanted to punish you, I
have a closet filled with excellent ways to accomplish that. Now, get
dressed or we’ll be late, and I hate to be late.”

With a tight-lipped
smile, I turned my back and went to the bedroom. Would he ever touch
me again, or ignore me for the rest of my time here? With two orgasms
he’d lured me into an agreement, only to cut off almost all
physical contact.

Maybe I was an
experiment, a willing victim to manipulate in his search for the most
amusing female response. A plaything in human form.

And something inside me
liked it. That was the worst part of all.

Instead of being a
woman who dreaded sex, I was one who craved it, who couldn’t endure
two days without it before she started begging. This wasn’t
supposed to be me, but it was.

The dress he’d bought
for me was thin wool, sleeveless, and tight around the bodice with a
swishy skirt that fell to my knees. It was the perfect disguise for
the panties and corset underneath. The only clue to decadence was a
pair of five-inch Mary Janes, made of sleek black leather with a
sharp stiletto heel. On our way out of the apartment, I had a brief
fantasy of digging it into Marc’s toe.

“You’re stunning
tonight,” he said on our way down in the elevator. But he kept his
distance, standing three feet away as if we were strangers.

In the mirror I saw him
cross his arms and sigh. He was achingly good-looking in a tailored
suit, his thick hair wavy and unruly. I thought of the way it felt
against the insides of my thighs and had to close my eyes against a
head-rush of desire.

“You all right?” he
asked.

“Of course,” I
said, but my voice was a ragged whisper.

Henrik stood outside
the building by the black sedan, hands clasped behind his back. He
opened my door first, then went around to open Marc’s. Marc leaned
forward in his seat to speak to him in French, and the car pulled
smoothly away from the curb.

We drove to an elegant
restaurant, where I hid my nervousness behind two glasses of wine and
a large appetite. Though I appeared to be asking questions about the
daily business of capital investment, my mind kept skipping ahead to
what might be next. Whipping, confinement, more deprivation? By the
time we got back into the car, I was almost crazy with curiosity.

“Now can you tell me
where we’re going?” I asked.

“Not yet,” Marc
said. With a smooth, quick gesture, he pulled the red silk blindfold
from the pocket of his jacket.

I glanced from his hand
to his face. “What’s that for?”

“The location of
these gatherings is secret.”

“Gatherings?” I
laughed.

“I’m quite
serious,” he said, his expression remaining cool. “Turn for me,
Pet.”

“Marc –” I began,
but he was already slipping the blindfold around my head. He tied it
tightly, stroking back my hair before letting his hand drop.

The car lurched over
cobblestones and turned tight corners, and I could see none of it. I
began to feel queasy. The darkness and exaggerated sense of movement
made me think of being kidnapped and thrown into a trunk.

For all I knew, that
was next.

Fear tingled through me
at the same time that wetness welled between my legs. I didn’t like
this, but I did. It excited me to be dependent on Marc, connected to
him through his complete control over me.

“How far is it?” I
asked.

“Shhh. I’d like to
ride in silence and just watch you.”

When I reached for him,
he placed my hand back in my lap. Feeling his eyes on me, I was
acutely conscious of my breathing. Every time I inhaled, my cleavage
rose above the scooped neckline of my dress. It seemed like forever
before the car stopped.

Marc got out. I heard
the door open and felt a hand on my shoulder.

“Come,” he said.
“We’re here.”

I clung to his arm,
feeling irregular pavement under my feet and then a smooth stone
path. “Two steps down,” he said, holding my elbow. “Be
careful.”

I heard a door open and
a man speaking in French. I couldn’t understand Marc’s words but
his tone was warm – they knew each other. How? Where were we?

We walked inside
slowly, stopped, and another door closed behind us. I could tell by
the reverberation of Marc’s voice that we were in a small room.

“Remove your dress,”
he said.

“Here? Are we alone?”

Without answering, he
unzipped me and pulled the dress down over my hips. “Step out.”

I did as I was told,
lifting one foot and then the other. I heard the clinking of hangers
and the shutting of a closet door. Then he stood in front of me,
adjusting my corset and stockings, kissing the tops of my breasts,
and lastly, pushing a forceful finger into the slit opening of my
panties.

At
last
, I thought with a sharp surge of pleasure and relief.
He wants me again
.

“My Sophie is very
wet,” he said. “Very wet and very pretty.”

Whimpering, I clung to
his shoulders. He teased my clitoris until I was panting, an orgasm
just a moment away. Knowing how close I was, he removed his hand and
gave me two hard spanks.

“Not yet,” he said.
“Not without permission.”

“Where are we?” I
asked, digging my nails into his skin. “Who were you talking to?
You’re not going to – give me to someone else, are you?”

He laughed softly. “You
wouldn’t like that, being the property of another man?”

“No.” My voice
wavered and I swallowed down the urge to cry. The day had been long
and confusing, leaving my emotions raw. Maybe that had been his
intention all along – to wear me down until I had no resistance
left.

“But you’d submit
if that’s what I wanted?”

I hesitated. What did
he want me to say? “I don’t know.”

He spanked me again,
this time with his other hand grabbing me roughly between the legs.
“The answer is no, you wouldn’t submit. I’m the only man who
can have you. Enough talk. It’s time to go.”

“Where?”

“No more questions,
Sophie. Just do as I say.”

The door opened and he
led me out to what I guessed was a hallway. I trailed my fingers
along a wall covered in textured fabric. Muffled music came from
somewhere nearby, then died away. After that, all I could hear was my
heart pulsing in my ears.

Palms hot and damp, I
gripped his arm and stumbled along after him. A smooth velvet curtain
brushed my leg as we walked under a doorway. My heels sank into plush
carpet, and a moment later he was removing my blindfold.

Though I prepared for
bright lights, I saw only the blurry outline of dimmed wall sconces.
I blinked.

At first, I knew only
that I was in a long, rectangular room with dark walls. But as my
eyes adjusted, I gasped and put my hand to my mouth.

It was a scene from a
modern-day satyr’s dream.

Thirty or forty people
sat on leather sofas in a sunken living room, most of the women
dressed as I was or naked. The women wore extremely high heels, and
some were collared. Like Marc, most of the men wore tailored suits.

There were a few
fully-dressed women with female or male submissives by their sides.
One man wore only leather pants and boots and sat at the feet of a
curvy older woman who couldn’t have been more than five feet tall.
He wore a thick spiked collar and had crimson marks on his back from
a recent whipping.

“My God, Marc,” I
whispered. “What is this?”

“The M Society,” he
said, slipping an arm around my waist. “It’s a group of people
who share similar interests, most of which are self-evident.”

“What does the M
stand for?”

He looked down at me
and smiled. “What else but Marquis de Sade? Now, come inside. I
haven’t been here in a long time. Everyone will want to see you.”

As soon as I stepped
beyond the doorway, the conversation stopped. Dozens of eyes raked
over my body, and I imagined I could feel them like countless probing
hands.

After an initial
silence, there was a burst of talk in English and French, and several
men got up to greet Marc. Feeling painfully conspicuous, I stood
aside while they talked, the eyes of the still-seated crowd on me.

“Sophie.” Marc held
out his hand toward me. I went to him but he stepped away again,
indicating that I should stand still.

“Back straight,” he
said. “They want to look at you.”

The men stood around me
at a distance of three or four feet, inspecting me from high heel to
head. I hated it, hated Marc for it, and yet if one of the men had
bent me over at that moment and forced himself inside me, I’d have
been drenched with arousal.

“Lovely.”

“She’s stunning.”

“Virginal eyes.”

“She’s a delicate
little slut, isn’t she?”

The approving murmurs
blended into a disorienting muddle of male voices. My head spun. I
couldn’t hear what they were saying anymore, I could only feel
their minds devouring me.

A slender man with a
graying beard asked in English if I could be used by the group. Cold
dread crept over me. I shot a poisonous glare at Marc, but he didn’t
even glance in my direction before replying.