Burn (Steel Brothers Saga 5)

“Do you still go there?” I asked.

He shook his head. “I’ve outgrown a lot of that—the scenes in public kind of thing. It’s not my thing anymore. Never really was something I did regularly. If I was dating someone at the time who enjoyed it, we would go.”

I bit my lip. “What kind of things did you do there?”

“Look, Melanie, I will never take you there. I haven’t been there myself in five years or so.”

“Still, I’m asking. What kind of things did you do there?”

“Those clubs aren’t for the faint of heart, sweetheart. I didn’t do anything wrong, and everything I did was fully consensual on both sides, but someone like you…”

“What do you mean, ‘someone like me’? I’m a psychotherapist, for God’s sake. You think I haven’t heard about kink?”

I hadn’t had any patients who were into kink, but I wasn’t ignorant to its existence.

“All right. Sometimes my s— er, lady and I would do a scene.”

“What do you mean by a scene?”

He let out another sigh. “The thing you need to understand about clubs like these, is they have a certain amount of members who are voyeurs. People who like to watch.”

I nodded.

“And then there are people who like to be watched.”

“And were you one of those?”

“Not overly. Sometimes I would do a scene with my woman in public. Most often I would do it in one of the private rooms. Except for when I was with…”

“Who?”

He closed his eyes. “Are you sure you want to go there?”

“I love you. I need to know about you.”

“I’m not into the club scene anymore, Melanie.”

“That doesn’t matter. It was a part of your life, and I want to know about it.”

He opened his eyes. “All right. But if you go running and screaming out of here, I’ll never forgive myself.”

“I won’t. I promise.”

“Good, because if you do, I will catch you. And bring you right back into my bed.” His eyes heated me from the inside out.

“So tell me.”

“I was dating—hell, dating isn’t the right word. I was sleeping with this woman named Kerry. She was a true submissive. In fact, she wanted to be my slave.”

“Slave?”

“Yes. She wanted to be my live-in house slave, at my beck and call. She wanted me to rule over her not only in the bedroom but also in everyday life.”

I was shocked. A submissive I could understand, but a slave? “You mean there are people who do that?”

He nodded. “Lots of people enjoy it, men and women alike. I knew a couple at the club who were these everyday people. The woman was the master—or mistress, as a female is called—and the man was a high-powered orthopedic surgeon by day. At home, he was kept on a leash.”

“Wow…”