Tied to His Betrayal (Dirty Little Secrets 2)

She finally does and asks, “Did you use these things on women because they liked it or because you did?”

It’s pretty clear what she wants to know. “You’re wondering if I’m a sadist?”

“Yes.”

“No, I’m not,” I explain. “I don’t get gratification, sexual or otherwise, in causing others pain.”

She moves onto her back, glancing up at me, eyes curious. “Then why do you do this?”

“Because all of this”—I wave out to the room—“can bring emotion and that creates a release.” I pause, trying to keep this simple for a woman who wouldn’t understand the pleasure that can come from a cane. “Sometimes it can be therapeutic and other times it can simply bring a more intense orgasm.”

She laughs, her eyes warming. “I like the second part of that little speech there.”

“I imagine you would.”

“Then why didn’t you use all of these things on me?”

“Because, for now, I don’t want to.”

“Why?”

I chuckle, brushing my fingers across her cheek. “That’s a good question, and I don’t have an answer.” It’s a question I’m asking myself. Our sex tonight, even if it included bondage and the crop, is very vanilla. But I enjoyed it. A lot. Sex with her, and what I want from that sex, is different from what I want with other women. I just don’t know how to tell her that, or if I even should.

Luckily, she clearly reads my lack of interest in talking about it more than we have, and she changes the subject so I don’t have to explain. “All right, so these women you were with, did you pay them?”

“Not in the sense you’re thinking of.” I stroke my finger over her bare shoulder. “They weren’t prostitutes.”

“What were they, then?”

I slide my finger up her smooth neck to her pulse point, feeling the slow beat beneath my touch. “They’re members of this club.”

“That’s how you met them?”

“Yes,” I reply, watching her face intently, trying to understand what’s on her mind. “It’s how they got on my radar.”

She pauses, eyebrows drawn. Then, “Okay, so how did money factor in?”

“It always came into things at the end of our arrangement.” I inhale a long breath and blow it out slowly, relishing the silence filling me. “The thing is, money tends to buy loyalty.”

She lies straighter on her back now, her head resting on the top of my thigh, eyes curious. “Do you mean that you’d give them money after you ended things with them for their silence?”

“In part,” I agree. “But I also did it because I took care of them, gave them what I could.”

“Because of what they gave to you?” she asks.

I nod.

She watches me a minute and then takes my hand in hers, sliding her fingers against mine. “No one ever spoke out, telling the world what you do here?”

“No. Not ever.”

“And you trust they won’t?”

“I do.”

“Why?”

I ponder, considering how to put this to her. It’s hard to explain a D/s relationship to a vanilla woman. The dynamics aren’t so easily said with words. “There’s a respect there that they have for me because of what I’ve done for them.” I pause. “What I’ve been for them. What I gave to them. They wouldn’t want to hurt me.”