The room was cool but not air-conditioner cold and had the light scent of jasmine layered over the almost earthy scent the oldest homes in the Quarter never lost from too many years spent standing at or below sea level.It was quiet but not silent, as if there was something going on just outside where we stood.Before I could pinpoint anything else, Jensen gripped my elbow, squeezing gently, and led me across the room.
“Threshold.”He murmured the word against my ear, lacing it with the kind of heat usually reserved for words likenippleorpussy.
I was so screwed.I’d spent five years of graduate and post-graduate school immersing myself in gender studies and the anti-feminist bias.I’d done my fucking thesis on the pervasive role of gender inequality in most aspects of everyday life, and here I was, letting some self-proclaimed Dom lead me around blindfolded.I didn’t even have the threat of the lawsuit to use to justify my behavior.If anything, spending time with the attorney after he’d recused himself was more likely to hurt my case than help it.I’d clearly lost whatever good sense I may have initially possessed.
With my free hand, I reached for the tie knotted around my head, pausing when my fingertips brushed the cool silk.There wasn’t a thing stopping me from taking off the blindfold and stopping this charade.The only thing stilling my hand was the knowledge—one I wasn’t quite ready to admit to—that I felt something with Erik and his games.Something I’d never felt before.I’d gotten so used to trading my sexuality for power, to looking at everything as some kind of transaction or teaching moment.I couldn’t remember the last time I’d given myself over to the pure sensation of an experience.I don’t think I’d ever done it.Not really.
The realization made me a little sad and stopped me from tearing off the silk tie.They say curiosity killed the cat, which always struck me as a stupid phrase.Almost everything good that’s ever happened in the world started because of someone’s curiosity.They wanted to find an easier way to do something or wondered what would happen if.I wanted to find out what would happen if I went a little further.Surrendered just a bit more to this game we were playing.
“Regarde ou vous marchez,” said the woman’s voice.
I dusted off my college French and wondered if she was telling Erik to watch his step or if her words were for me.His hand on my elbow was a steady presence, and I knew that whatever else might happen, he wouldn’t let me fall.Which was weird because I’dknownthe man for all of an hour and we hadn’t exactly started out as friends.None of that changed my certainty in at least this part of my relationship with him.
I sensed the walls closing in on us, and Erik shifted his body behind me, presumably so I could walk through another doorway.The sound of water splashing over something filled the background and the air changed from cool and dry to something warmer, more humid.Somehow more alive.I breathed in the scent of jasmine, stronger than before, closer.The floor had changed from the dull tap of wood underfoot to the click of masonry or stone.I heard the scrape of what could be a chair being pulled across a brick floor and then Erik gently urged me to sit.
“L’apres-midi pour deux, s’il vous plait,” he said in better French than I’d ever heard in college.
“Oui, monsieur.”
Erik’s French extravaganza made it seem as if we were in a restaurant, but aside from the woman who met us at the door, I hadn’t heard anyone else.Surely if there was someone else in the room with us, they would at least be whispering about the blindfolded woman.Unless that kind of thing was the norm for this place.In which case, where the hell had he brought me?I strained to hear anything that might give me a clue to my surroundings, but there was nothing other than the soft sound of splashing water.
I’d expected Erik to sit across from me so he could watch me and maybe gloat a little, but he pulled his chair up beside mine.He didn’t crowd me—not exactly, but there was no way to ignore his presence or the way his body dwarfed mine.Not when he was this close.Hell, probably not even across the room.
“Where are we?”May as well try the direct approach.Not that I expected him to answer, but I’d already apparently decided to go along with this thing and not give him the satisfaction of safewording out.I was going to give myself a headache trying to figure out where we were on my own.
“It’s a private club.You don’t have to worry about being seen.Discretion is a condition of membership.”
Well, that was a whole lot more words strung together than I expected, none of which made me feel any better about the situation.Except maybe the discretion thing, that part was good, but what kind of private club was within walking distance of my studio?I’d never seen anything that would have given me an indication that kind of place existed.Of course, that probably made sense.Hang a sign out and there was sure to be tourists wandering in off the street to ask about ghosts, voodoo rituals, or red rooms.New Orleans was a city of excess and flexible limits.Part of the reason people visited the Big Easy was to give in to her temptations and temporarily lose their minds.
“You’re thinking so hard; you’re going to give yourself a headache.Stop it.”
I hated that his words mirrored my thoughts, and I hated it even more when people told me to stop thinking, like using your mind was somehow a bad thing.The whole rise of the anti-intellectual thing wore on my every last nerve.Since when did being smart become a negative instead of something to strive for?But regardless of what I thought about lawyers in general, you didn’t get to be an attorney unless you were moderately intelligent.Erik didn’t strike me as someone who wasmoderatelyanything.I could almost hear the smile in his voice, and found my thoughts drifting to the way his lips curved when he smiled.The way his face softened the few times he smiled at me, back before he knew my name.
He’d been different before he found out who I was.That didn’t sit well.Neither did the idea that something I’d said or done had led to another person being hurt.My thoughts shifted to Kyle, the man who Erik said had hurt his partner.When we’d worked together, Kyle had been so timid.I’d had almost as hard of a time getting him to open up as I had with Peter.The idea of him taking things too far seemed impossible.Erik had to have it wrong.I opened my mouth to ask him for more information and closed it again when I heard someone approaching the table.
There was a rattle of china and someone set something in front of us.I breathed in and smelled the chicory-laced aroma of good coffee along with hot fat and melting powdered sugar.My mouth watered in response.Beignets.I’d bet money on it.There were lots of things that were oversold to lure in the tourists—stuffed baby alligators, gris-gris bags made in China—but the deep-fried pillows of dough covered in clouds of powdered sugar weren’t one of them.
“Open your mouth, Alexandra.”
For a fraction of a section, I thought he meant for me to ask my question, then I realized he planned to feed me like I was some kind of baby bird.Oh for fuck’s sake.I rolled my eyes behind the blindfold.He was rocking moves out of some kind of bad knock-off of9 ½ Weeks.Except even as I wrapped myself in the condescension, I felt my body tighten and heat pool low in my belly.My mind might think he was ridiculous but my lady parts were more than ready to follow him wherever he led.
Telling myself it was the fastest way to get to the beignets, I opened my mouth and waited.I heard him suck in a breath and flashed to an image of what I must look like to him.At his mercy, blindfolded, with my mouth open, waiting for him to fill it.The image shifted to me on my knees, my ponytail wrapped around his fist while he teased my bottom lip with his thick, hard cock.I felt my face flush and wondered if we were thinking the same thing, which only made my cheeks hotter.
The powdered sugar hit my tongue a fraction of a second before the warm fried dough short-circuited the pathway of rational thought to my brain.I let out a groan of pleasure and heard Erik’s deep throaty chuckle beside me, warming me from the inside out.
“Bite, Alexandra.We both know how much you like to do that.”
