Page 35 of His to Possess
The lights come up fully and the entire room seems to exhale at the same time, as if everyone feels the release of tension that came with the end of the show.
Harper gives a soft, breathless laugh, joining in the applause that fills the room. “That was a little intense.”
Nate leans over to whisper something to her and I watch her cheeks redden. I drag my eyes away, feeling like I’m intruding on something private.
“Don’t worry,” Philip tells me in an undertone. “They enjoy being watched.”
I turn to him with big eyes. “Is that…that’s a thing that happens here?”
He nods toward the steel door in the back of the room. “Just about anything you can think of happens here, love.”
My mouth feels suddenly dry as I watch several couples slipping through that door. I can’t help but wonder what, exactly, might happen back there.
“Don’t even think about it,” Philip says in his stern voice.
Some of the tension seems to break a little, and I smile at him. “Don’t worry. I know I’m not ready for that.” From the way Philip’s eyes darken, I think he must have heard the unspokenyetleft off the end of that sentence.
“More whiskey, gentlemen?” Benson asks, raising a hand for a passing waiter. I notice that he hasn’t offered a drink to myself or Harper. Or even his own date. In fact, he’s barely said two words to her all evening. I wonder if that’s a Dom/sub thing or if the guy is just an asshole.
Nate shoots Harper a frustrated glance and I figure he’s about as eager to stay here as I am. Once the drinks are poured, the three men start talking business and I take that as my cue to look around some more. The room has been steadily emptying out since the end of the show, as more and more people go behind the steel door. There’s another door behind the bar, this one painted blood red, but far fewer people head that way.
“Those are private rooms,” Harper says, and I jerk my head to see that she’s slid away from Nate a bit to make it easier for us to talk. “Not many people have one.”
I wonder if Philip has one. I wouldn’t be surprised. Then again, maybe he’s the kind of guy who likes it when other people watch.
I struggle to suppress a shiver. If he agrees to go through with the contract this weekend, that’s what we’ll be doing. Having sex in front of the members of Club Rendezvous. I can’t tell if that thought is more terrifying…or exciting.
“I feel a bit overwhelmed,” I admit to Harper.
She grins. “You should have seen me my first visit. I paced on the sidewalk for ages before I got up the courage to even come in.”
I nod to the man at her side. “Nate didn’t bring you?”
She shakes her head, eyes sparkling fondly. “I met him here that first night.”
“Wow. That’s kind of romantic.”
She grins. “It was—until the next day when we realized he’s friends with my older brother and a professor at my university.”
My eyes widen. “Seriously?”
She nods. “It all worked out in the end,” she assures me. Then she winks. “That’s usually the case when something is right.”
I can’t help but glance toward Philip, who’s deep in conversation about some interest rate or another. A split second later, I realize how obvious I’m being and tear my gaze back to Harper. Too late—from the sympathetic look on her face I can tell she knows exactly what I was just thinking.
“He’s a good guy,” she murmurs. “He’s been Nate’s best friend for years. Everyone here loves him.”
“Is he…uh…pretty active here?” I don’t know a better way to phrase my question. It doesn’t seem polite to ask if he makes a habit of spanking tied up girls in those back rooms and fucking them in front of a crowd.
Harper winces a little and I don’t need to hear her response. “He has an excellent reputation,” she finally says, a little lamely.
Before I can ask what exactly that means—or decide if I even want to know—she changes the subject. “It might sound strange, but I’ve met so many nice people since I started coming here. The community can be pretty close.”
I wonder if that means she’s heard what happened at Club Rendezvous. Hell, even without the gossip mill, Philip probably told Nate about it. Neither of them seemed at all surprised to see me with him tonight.
Shame fills my belly and I have to look away. What must this girl think of me? We chatted enough during our meal for me to have a pretty good picture of her. An academic currently working on her master’s degree and making plans to begin her PhD program next year, Harper clearly has her shit together. She’s gorgeous and confident and seems completely at ease even in the midst of this crazy scenario. I wonder what she would think of me if she knew what I’d done. A broke girl with no home or belongings to my name, someone desperate enough to try to sell my virginity to a complete stranger.
In another life, Harper is exactly the kind of girl I would have been friends with. I was always the studious girl in school, too. I was driven, the same way she clearly is. And if her designer clothes and polished manners are anything to go by, I’m thinking we probably grew up with similar backgrounds.
