Warm breath tickled his neck from behind as she whispered. “C’mon,” she said. “Just forget it.”
The man’s eyes seemed to widen even more in a dangerous humor, and Mark saw his skin crease in a river of wrinkles as his mouth opened in a cackle dark and grim.
“I’d listen to her while you can,” the man laughed. “Enjoy her-she won’t last long. I will guarantee that.”
Selena’s hand pulled him hard then, and this time Mark complied, stepping back away from the door.
“Come back when you are wanted,” the man laughed and pulled the wooden door open to step through himself. A flash of red shadowed his head, and he was gone, the door shut with a heavy creak behind him.
Selena held Mark’s arm and pulled him towards the dance floor beyond the row of masochists along the wall playing with whips and floggers. “I want you,” she said quietly.
Mark shrugged her hand away.
“I want my wife,” he said, and walked towards the bar.
Chapter Twelve
Rae stepped through the medieval wooden door in the back of the club and felt her heart stop. The invitation had grown damp between her fingers in the short time she’d held it, but then, almost as soon as she’d stepped in front of the iron-hinged doorway in the back of the club…someone came to snatch it away.
The door had opened, and she had been pulled into The Red.
Everything changed.
The modern, blue-light-and-black-metal and ripped-fishnets, dark-techno feel of the outer club disappeared and she was in a place that felt like the antithesis of the Blue Room. This place was ancient. Like catacombs.
Her skin felt cool and clammy as the light of a hundred candles inset in the walls lit her way, and when she stepped past the candle foyer, the deep light of The Red slid across her skin, absorbing her into its world. She was in a different place…the room in which she’d entered NightWhere was almost on a different planet than this. That was casual. Out there, it was just a game. Sex and pain for fun. Frolic.
Here…she felt…nervous. Like a tourist in the dank caverns of a horror movie. The shadows misted dark and hot around her. Clouds of foul air hung in the long hallway, hiding whatever lay beneath it. Rae’s feet-and whatever was near them-were obscured from view…still, she stepped forward.
The wooden door closed behind her with a snap.
She turned, but there was nobody inside the dark. She saw the shadow of the door and the flicker of candle flames. A hint of the fog drifted past like a grounded cloud.
“You came,” a voice said from the fog ahead. His eyes glowed red, like fire.
“I was invited,” she said.
“Yes,” the voice agreed. “You were.”
Rae stepped farther into the main hallway of The Red, and in the bloody shadows, she saw the nude shoulders of a man. She moved faster, intrigued. That’s when the slap caught her across the shoulder blades.
“Ouch,” she complained.
The voice in the dark laughed.
She heard the sound this time before she felt it. The crack of leather. Followed by the white flash of contact pain. As the sound faded, the pain blossomed orange and hot across her breasts. Her nipples stung with the shock of unexpected abuse. She gasped and stepped back, but didn’t cry out. Instead, Rae hugged herself, wrapping her arms in protection across her violated skin.
“You can’t hide here,” the voice said.
Suddenly, a light glimmered to life high above them. A single bulb in a corridor of shadow. But as it lit, a softer, deep-amber glow rose from the floor around her. Rae saw vague silhouettes moving in the dull light.
“Show her,” the voice said.
On command, hands grabbed Rae’s shoulders and as she turned to see who had touched her, more hands gripped her ankles. She was dragged through a doorway, and then her arms were lifted towards the ceiling, and with a rip, the hooks of her corset were yanked one way, then the other, and then the garment was gone. Moments later, her skirt was gone too. She felt cold fingers slipping along the top of her thigh, and then her fishnets were ripped away as well. Rae stood naked in a room of shadows and shadow watchers.
With her clothes, the hands were gone. Rae stood alone in the center of the strange cavernous place. Things moved along the perimeter. Things she could only just barely see.
“What do you want?” she asked.
The deep voice laughed. “What do you want?” it countered. “Why are you in The Red?”
“I was invited,” she said.
“You were invited because you asked. What is it that you need?”
“I need to feel,” she said. Her voice cracked.
“Mmmmm,” came the reply. And then…
Something broke across her rear end. Rae jumped, holding the stinging flesh of her ass, but another crack broke the dark and sent a spike of white pain up her arm as the leather bit across the joints of her fingers.
And then another slap took her in the belly.
And another across her thighs.
And one on her calves.
And one on her back.
Rae began to cry, jumping from the bites of the whips, but craving them at the same time.
Finally, when she doubled over, a voice whispered again, this time right in her ear, “Is this what you want?”
And Rae could not contain her answer. Part of her hated herself for it, but the bulk of her agreed.
“Yes,” she said. “Yes.”
The lights in the room abruptly went out, and Rae blinked, trying to see something in the inky blackness.
“We’ll let you know if we want you,” the voice said. And then it was gone and Rae was alone in the dark.
Chapter Thirteen
Selena seemed like a nice girl. Okay, hardly a girl…definitely a woman. But Mark wasn’t interested. Not now. Not after having someone tell him that he was blocked from walking into the room where his wife was. The scene played over and over again in his mind, and he couldn’t let it go.
Wouldn’t.
He ordered a shot of Johnny Walker Black from Sin-D, who leered at him, cupping a breast for him to see its pale, sexy nipple. “Body shot?” she asked, and he smiled in spite of himself.
“Not tonight,” he said. “I think this shit would burn that beautiful skin.”
“Sometimes burning is
Mark downed the shot in a gulp and then pushed the glass back.
“I think I’m going to go do just that,” he said.
He made his way through the crowded dance floor and past the racks where two men were taking turns flogging and fingering a woman who had legs like tree trunks. Her breasts looked heavy as cow udders. Mark shuddered. But the skinny guys looked like they were getting off on playing with her. One of them was fully nude
