Dark Control (Dark Dominance 1)

couldn’t ride up the Bridgeport’s elevator in lingerie. I found a beautifully tailored designer trench, black, lined with butter-soft silk. I had it delivered to her apartment with a note. Wear this over your uniform. There are no changing rooms there.

Then I tried to focus on work, on spring retail numbers and meetings, but my thoughts kept returning to Juliet and the fetishized lingerie she’d wear to The Gallery on Saturday beneath my accompanying coat. Was it too soon to take her there? Was she enough of a hedonist to understand why it turned all of us on?

Shit, if she wasn’t, things would get awkward. It could mean the end of us, which would be okay, I guess. Disappointing. Maybe I should have waited.

Too late now.

I knocked on her door Saturday night with equal parts anticipation and anxiety. She answered in her new black coat, letting me into her apartment with a shy smile on her lips. Her hair was done up in a pile of curls. I stared at her neck, at her slim collar, a collar with the level of quality someone like her deserved.

“Hello,” she said, cinching the coat’s belt tighter at her waist. She looked me up and down. “No leather vest and chaps?”

I brushed a hand over my dark suit, starched white shirt, and striped blue tie. “We have a dress code, too,” I explained. “Have to keep things classy.”

“You look nice.”

I brushed my unruly hair back from my forehead and studied her next, touching the arm of her coat. “It fits you perfectly. Are you wearing your uniform under there?”

“Yes.” Her sweet voice rasped, suddenly gone dry. “Yes, Sir.”

“Show me.”

She looked terrified to reveal what she had on underneath, which was silly, because I’d seen the uniform hundreds of times. Of course, I’d never seen it on her. She undid the belt and opened the coat slowly, like a timid, adorable flasher.

I let her see all the lurid approval in my gaze. Jesus, she was voluptuously beautiful, the dark angles emphasizing all her feminine curves. I’d seen the uniform hundreds of times, but not like this, on my blue-eyed, wild-haired sparkler. Breasts, belly, hips, pussy, legs, all the lovely parts of her body on display. Black four-inch stilettos completed the ensemble.

“Do you like it?” she asked, when my silent perusal strung out. When I didn’t answer, she started to close the coat, but I raised a hand to stop her.

“No, let me look a little more. I’m just trying to…” Pull your shit together, Fort. “You’re beautiful,” I said. “It suits you so perfectly.”

“The only thing missing is the socks,” she said, joking.

I reached for her, needing to touch her, needing to run my hands over the bared parts of her body. I pushed the coat back and let it drop, so her naked nipples and belly were pressed against my front. I held her with one arm and grasped her nape with the other, trapping her for my kiss. I fed her my hunger, my approval in a violent kiss. I had to restrain myself from pushing her back on the floor and mounting her.

No. That wasn’t what tonight was about. I pulled back, distracting myself with the way she touched her lips. Her fingertips were so delicate. I traced my less-delicate fingertips along her silver leather collar to the dangling lock.

“Thank you for doing this with me.” I tugged the lock to pull her close for another kiss. This one left me feeling a bit more sane. Definitely invigorated. I felt ready to introduce her to the pleasures of The Gallery. “I’m going to do everything I can to give you a good experience tonight,” I said against her lips. “And I’m going to hurt you, baby, in all the best ways. Just trust me, and everything will be fine.”

I pulled away and picked her coat up from the floor. I helped her put it on and wrapped her up tight, my little package, cinching the belt and straightening the collar to hide the other collar, the one that was just for me.

Well, for everyone at The Gallery, if things went all right.

“Will we be arriving late?” she asked.

“No. We’ll arrive just in the thick of things. Scenes start around eleven, and midnight is the witching hour, when everyone gets down to business.” I took her hand, squeezed it, and let it go. “It’s best if we get into our roles now. It’ll make things easier when we get there.”

“Okay. Yes. Yes, Sir.”

All week I’d been imagining ways to torment her, but now, with her in The Gallery’s collar, none of those fantasies touched what I wanted to do. She avoided my gaze as I helped her into the car, perhaps because I looked at her like a predator. Like a sadist, but that was my role. She fulfilled her role too, biting her lips as she gazed out the window, a uniformed vessel for my passions and desires.

Chapter Twenty: Juliet

He was silent on the way, letting me stew in my nervous, submissive juices. I squirmed in the seat, trying not to drench the lining of the coat where I sat on it. I was already so wet. My nipples rubbed against the fabric, reminding me of my peek-a-boo bra the whole way there. The driver stopped outside the Bridgeport, and Fort came around to open my door. He took my elbow, leading me past the doorman, into the building, and over to a gleaming bank of elevators.

My eyes darted everywhere, taking in the lobby’s regal decor. It was quiet. There were no other dark-suited men or trench-coated women arriving at the same time as us. I still burned with exhilarated shame.

Once we were in the elevator, he used a key to take us to the clock tower level. He didn’t say anything, but he stood close to me, a steady, comforting presence at my side. My stockinged knees knocked together when the elevator stopped and the doors slid open. We exited into a lobby of sorts, far larger than I expected. The foyer rose two stories, decorated in the way he’d described, with carved wood molding and gilt etching. A young man stood at a mahogany podium beside a fire. He eyed me as Fort led me over.

“How old is he?” I whispered.

“Old enough. Hush.”

Fort greeted him, calling him “Rene.” Now that we were closer the man looked a little older, but still awfully young to be working the door of a sex club. His skin was perfect, his lips full and suggestively bee-stung. His manner was deferential, almost effeminate, but at the same time, he looked strong enough to throw out any unwanted visitors.

“I’ll be happy to take your submissive’s coat,” he said. “And your jacket, Sir, if you’d like.”

“Thank you.”

Fort looked at me expectantly as he shrugged out of his suit jacket. I untied the coat’s belt and unbuttoned the six buttons, taking far too long because of my shaking fingers. I was pretty sure from Rene’s mannerisms and speech that he was gay, but he was still a man, a stranger I didn’t know who was about to look at me in all my perverse sexual gear. I took a deep breath and lifted the coat away, handing it to him. Cool air rushed over my skin, hardening my already exposed nipples.

Rene inspected me with detached diligence, taking in the collar, bra, garter, stockings, and stilettos. This was as perverse as the rest of it, having this gay, beatific, muscle-bound man-child act as gatekeeper for their Gallery of sado-masochism. He wasn’t looking at me to admire me; he was checking to be sure I was properly dressed in the prescribed uniform.

After that, he held out a page to Fort, containing the same list of rules he’d shown me at his apartment. Fort handed it to me, and Rene gave me a fountain pen so I could sign. His smooth, flawless twenty-year-old cheeks unsettled me, because I was sure mine were bright pink. I signed the non-legally-binding agreement and handed it back. Without a word, Rene moved to the adjacent ivory-gilt door and swung it open.

Fort caught and held my gaze, giving me strength when I wanted to turn tail and run. I wanted this, yes. I wanted him. I steeled myself and let him lead me up a set of stairs to The Gallery’s inner chambers.

There were two open stories—a main floor, and an upper floor with stairs that rose to a rounded dome. An iron balcony looked down on the larger room we stood in, but it was currently unoccupied. Victorian sconces illuminated walls covered in dark gray wallpaper embosse

d with a vine and floral pattern. One whole side of the space was taken up by the inner workings of the clock tower’s face, surrounded by frosted-glass Roman numerals facing out to the city. At some point, the clock’s huge hands had halted at seven forty-five.

I drew my gaze from the clock to check out all the other spaces of the dungeon. There were too many racks and benches to take in at once, far more than Fort had in his home dungeon. The floor was weathered, lacquered wood, and dark leather sofas and club chairs were scattered around the main floor, dividing it into sections. And in those various sections were men, all of them clothed, and women, all of them dressed like me.

No, all the men weren’t clothed. Some of them had their cocks out, stuffed in their submissives’ mouths or hands, or between their thighs. A couple of men were working over a hissing, squealing woman, whipping her as she flailed on a rack. In farther corners, women danced in agony, suspended by sturdy chains from the ceiling. I’d expected frenetic beatings, noise and commotion, but The Gallery’s vibe was of elegant, picturesque pain.

“Forsyth St. Clair,” said a deep voice.

Fort turned, and I turned with him, hiding myself, then remembering that I couldn’t do that. I stood at his side, regarding the same blond man who’d accompanied Fort to Goodluck’s art opening. He was dressed in a white shirt and dark dress pants like Fort, but with a lighter colored tie. It didn’t make him look any less dangerous. When he noticed me, his eyes widened, then narrowed on Fort.

“Really?” he said, with an ironic tilt to his mouth.

“Juliet, do you remember Mr. Kincaid from the gallery opening?”

“Yes, Sir,” I answered, keeping my attention on the man I’d come with.

Devin chuckled as I inched closer to Fort. “Come out, little sub. Let’s see what we have here.”

I glanced at Fort but he was looking at his smirking, muscular friend with an impenetrable expression. I took a step forward and tried not to look scared or ashamed while Devin ran his spooky-pale eyes over me.