Training Amber Page 4

  Appropriate dress? Obviously not the button-down wardrobe she’d brought with her.

  “For anything in particular?” Then Molly snapped her fingers as a light dawned in her eyes. “Rio’s taking you to Peregrine. Right?”

  Amber nodded. “I don’t think I have anything appropriate to wear.”

  “Not to worry. I have just the place to shop.”

  Claudine, the woman who owned the boutique where Molly had bought her first outfit for Peregrine—and several more after that—smiled when they came through the door. She made them comfortable in a small lounge area in the back. Before Amber could blink, a girl set a silver tray with two glasses of chilled wine and an assortment of tiny sandwiches on the low table in front of them.

  “Please relax,” Claudine told them. “I will bring you a selection of items from which to choose. Then it will be time to try them on.”

  “It took me four glasses of wine to buy what I needed the first time I shopped here,” Molly confided. “I was so nervous I was afraid I’d spill something on the clothes.”

  “That makes me feel a lot better.” Amber leaned back in the chair. “What do I wear to a bondage club, anyway? Leather? Nothing?”

  Molly laughed. “Something very, very sexy with almost nothing underneath it.”

  Three hours later, only slightly tipsy from the wine, they made their way back to Molly’s car carrying shopping bags with the purchases discreetly tucked inside and concealed with tissue paper. When Amber, after getting over her initial nervousness, had actually found three outfits she liked, Molly had insisted she buy them all.

  “But tonight you wear the red,” she told her friend. “Don’t argue.”

  When Rio arrived to pick her up at seven she was wearing a soft, knitted dress that barely came to the tops of her knees and had a neckline that draped below her collarbone at the front but dipped way below her waist at the the back. The design didn’t allow for a bra, so beneath it she wore only a matching red thong and sheer thigh-high hose. On her feet were a pair of red stilettos, courtesy of Molly, and red crystal earrings hung almost to her shoulders. Her hair was piled with studied carelessness on top of her head and held in place with a red-and-gold clip.

  It was worth all the effort when she opened the door for Rio and saw the stunned look on his face.

  “Holy shit!” was all he could manage.

  Amber gave him a shy smile. “Am I all right?”

  “All right?” he shook himself. “If I had any brains I‘d throw a big blanket over you so no one else could see how magnificent you are.”

  Nick and Molly hovered in the foyer, Nick’s arm draped carelessly over his wife’s shoulders.

  “Have fun, kids,” Nick teased. “And behave yourselves.”

  Rio finally managed a laugh as he ushered Molly out of the door. “There’s no fun in that. And by the way, don’t wait up for us.”

  During the drive to Peregrine, Amber sat erect in her seat, her fingers twined together, doing her best to relax.

  “Easy, querida.” Rio reached a hand over and covered both of hers, the warmth of it seeping into her system. “This is just to give you a taste. If at any time you feel uncomfortable, we’ll leave. No problem.”

  “I have such mixed feelings,” she told him. “I’m fascinated by this but—”

  “No buts. We’ll have dinner and take it one stage at a time. This should be pleasure, not torture, Amber.”

  “But I want to share this with you.”

  “I want that too. But only if it gives you pleasure. So relax. We’re almost there.”

  They were passing a long, high-walled fence now and within seconds Rio turned in to an entrance with an iron gate. Lowering his window he reached out and pressed a code into the security box. The gates slid open silently and he pulled through onto the smoothly paved driveway. Oak trees like those at Molly’s dotted the meticulously landscaped grounds that surrounded the massive two-story Spanish-style house.

  A valet met them at the bottom of the steps and a butler in full black tie opened the door and greeted them.

  “Good evening, Señor Negron. Señorita.”

  Amber stared openmouthed at the opulence of what looked like an old-money mansion. Fine art decorated the walls of a short hallway and bulbs shaped like candles shone dimly in sconces. The hallway quickly split off in different directions but Rio urged her straight ahead and through a glass door, into what appeared to be an exclusive restaurant.

  The hostess, also in formal attire, smiled at them.

  “I have your table ready, Señor Negron. Right this way, please.”

  She seated them in an alcove next to a window that overlooked the vast sweep of the mansion’s grounds. Tiki torches flickered here and there. Amber could just make out the shapes of couples, some obviously engaged in conversation, others even more obviously in other activities.

  She leaned across the table and whispered, “Rio? There are naked people out there.”

  He grinned. “Yes, cariña. There usually are.”

  “D-do I have to get naked too?” God, did she sound like an idiot or what? Whatever sophistication she had seemed to be lying around her in tatters.

  He reached across the table and covered her hand with his. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, Amber. This is just so you can dip your toe in the waters, so to speak, and see if you want to pursue it further. With me.” He looked up as a waiter approached the table. “Ah. Just in time. Would you like a glass of sparkling water with a twist of lime? The club forbids alcohol. People can lose control too easily. But the sparkling water is flavored.”

  “Yes. That’s fine.”

  The waiter nodded, handed them menus and glided away to fill their drink orders.

  “How long have you been a member here?” Amber asked, curious.

  “A little over eight years. A woman I met at another private club in San Antonio—not nearly as exclusive as this­—brought me as a guest.”

  “But you were already into BDSM, right?” And just how did one get into this? she wondered.

  He smiled. “You want to know how I discovered a penchant for this, right? When I was in college my roommate and I happened to go to a bondage club by mistake one night. They were very gracious and, after making us fill out reams of papers, gave us a guest pass for one night with very specific restrictions.”

  “And you liked what you saw.”

  He nodded. “But I didn’t think any of the females I was dating at the time would be quite so fascinated by it. I discovered you could go to a club and hook up with someone just for the evening.” He paused as the waiter returned and set their wine in front of them. “The more involved I became the more I enjoyed it.” He studied her face. “I find extreme satisfaction in BDSM, emotionally as well as sexually.”

  Amber took a slow sip of her sparkling water. “I’m guessing since you have your own collection of toys and implements that the women you date now are also into it.”

  He lifted one of her hands, caressing the knuckles with the pad of his thumb. “Only a few, querida. A very few. And none that touched my heart the way you do. I look in your eyes and while I see self-doubt I also see the same feelings returned. Am I right?”

  Amber felt her own heart somersault. It was just so hard for her to believe, after Dennis had left her doubting her own femininity, that this vital, sexy, younger man could have such strong feelings for her so quickly.

  “Yes.” She let out a breath. “I just didn’t think things could happen this fast. Especially not after—”

  He held up a hand. “Let’s make a pact. We’ll consign Dennis McCloud to the garbage heap and wipe him from our minds. Everything started new and fresh when we met the other night. Agreed?”

  Could she?

  Amber, don’t be a fool. You might never have a chance like this again.

  “Yes. All right. I want to.”

  His smile warmed her clear to her toes and set every pulse in her body throbbing
with an insistent beat. Cream flooded her thong and her nipples hardened to such a point that she thought they might poke through the fabric of her dress.

  Rio shifted in his chair slightly and gestured to a full glass wall on the other side of the room.

  “If you like, after dinner we can move to a table over there. Many people who come here prefer to play only in private but others are willing to perform for the members. For some it’s even a necessity. Do you think you’d like to watch?”

  Amber’s heart rate sped up at the thought of actually viewing live people performing acts she’d only read about. Her body heated with unexpected anticipation.

  Rio winked at her. “I take that as a yes.”

  How could she tell him that suddenly she was no longer hungry? That the lure of the exotic and forbidden had wiped away any appetite for food and enhanced her sexual hunger?

  Rio’s dark gaze took in the expression on her face and he rose from his chair.

  Are we leaving? Did I say or do something wrong?

  But he simply brushed a kiss over her forehead, murmured “Be right back” and headed toward the hostess. In moments he was back and urging her up from her chair.

  “I have a different table for us, Amber. One that will give you a better idea of what people are here for and why it fascinates them.”

  This time they sat at the glass wall he’d indicated before. When she looked she realized there were two rooms below and beside the restaurant, with their ceilings retracted. The floors were highly polished wood and the walls painted a soft cream. But that’s where all similarity to any other rooms ended. Against the walls in both rooms were racks of instruments and toys, many of which Amber had never even seen or heard of. There were tables with more articles on them and various pieces of strange-looking furniture.

  In one room a woman stood with arms and legs outstretched, wrists and ankles manacled, her body glistening with some sort of oil. Her head hung back, her entire posture that of someone who had mentally gone to a different place. Behind her stood a lean, muscular blond wearing tight leather pants and nothing else. When he moved his arms, powerful muscles flexed in his shoulders and back.

  Rio pulled his chair close to Amber’s, his arm draped across her shoulders, his head leaned close to hers.

  “She is in what we call subspace,” he explained, nodding at the woman. “It is a place where subs learn to go mentally, removing themselves from the actuality of the scene. In subspace everything is surreal. The sub is separating herself from the environment in order to fully experience the effect of what is happening.”

  “Like zoning out?” Amber asked.

  “Sort of. But she is still intensely aware of what her Dom is doing, of the pain he inflicts and the pleasure she derives from it.” He inclined his head toward the room. “Watch. In a moment he is going to flog her and her entire body will respond sexually.”

  “Why are there so many people in the other room?”

  She stared at the four people arranged in a sort of tableau. All of them were naked. The woman, a lush blonde, was tethered to what looked like a wooden cross, arms outstretched and ankles chained to the platform. But her entire body was exposed to the men standing around her.

  “That’s Lili. She loves performing and she loves multiple partners. One man will pay attention to her breasts, one to her pussy and one to her ass. The orgasm they give her will be a powerful one.”

  Amber didn’t know where to look first. She was at once embarrassed and intensely aroused. Her thong was already soaked. When Rio slid his hand beneath the soft fabric of her dress and along her thigh to her crotch he hummed with satisfaction at what he found.

  “My instincts never fail me,” he murmured in her ear. “I knew from the very beginning that you would enjoy this.”

  “I-­I’ve read about it,” she told him in a low voice. “In erotic romance novels.” She looked down at her hands, clutched together in her lap. “How pitiful that they were better than my actual sex life.”

  “But all that is in the past, cariña.” His fingers insinuated themselves between her thighs and slipped beneath the tiny triangle of satin covering her pussy.

  Amber shivered at his touch.

  “Look.” He nodded toward the first room.

  The man in leather pants had a short, coiled whip in his hand that he snapped expertly in the air. The restrained woman jerked as if he’d actually touched her and tried to push her hips backward, as if sending him a silent signal.

  “She wants him to use it,” Amber whispered.

  ”Of course. Just keep watching.”

  With the next movement of his arm the man snapped the whip against the woman’s buttocks, leaving a thin red stripe in its wake. The audio was turned on in both rooms and Amber could hear the woman’s cry, but it was one of intense pleasure, not fear. She continued to watch as the man applied the whip until he’d counted out ten strokes, each time adding another thin red line to the woman’s creamy skin.

  When he finished he walked over to her and slid his hand between her thighs, probing her cunt. He turned to the audience, holding aloft fingers shiny with her juice, then carefully licked each finger clean. There was no question the woman was fully aroused.

  He walked around to stand in front of her and knelt at her feet, bending his head to plant his mouth on her hot sex. The view was partially blocked by her body but it was obvious he was eating her out, using his tongue to bring her to climax. When it came her entire body shook and her screams split the scent-laden air of the restaurant.

  Amber was suddenly aware of sound around her and stole a careful look in each direction. Most of the couples watching were engaged in some form of sexual play. One woman sat with two men, her skirt hiked to her waist, a leg spread on each pair of thighs while two sets of fingers toyed with her pussy. Her head was thrown back, her face suffused with pleasure.

  At another table a woman knelt at the feet of her male companion, his fly unzipped and his cock in her mouth as she bobbed her head. The man’s fingers were threaded in her hair, guiding her head this way and that.

  The more she looked the more she saw couples in various stages of sexual gratification, at the same time focused on what was happening in the two rooms.

  “It’s exciting, isn’t it?” Rio’s voice was barely audible.

  Amber was more concerned with his busy fingers against her cunt, rubbing her clit with a steady circular motion. When she tried to rock back and forth on his hand he moved his other to her hip to hold her steady.

  “It’s much better if you don’t move,” he told her.

  By now she had shifted her attention to the second room, but she found it hard to concentrate as Rio continued to rub and pinch her clit. Tremors ripped through the walls of her pussy. Sitting still was torture when she really wanted to ride his hand, but he held her firmly in place.

  “Watch, Amber.” His voice was low, his breath warm against her ear. “See what’s happening.”

  In the second room one man knelt behind the woman, caressing her buttocks, now and then kissing each globe. He picked up a tube from the floor beside him, squeezed some of its contents onto the fingers of one hand and, with the other hand, separated her cheeks to give him the access he wanted. Amber watched, fascinated, as he rubbed the gel first along the crevice then around the exposed anus and finally pressed two fingers inside her rectum. He repeated the process, stroking inside her rear channel again and again until he nodded to himself, obviously satisfied.

  He walked to the table at the side, studied its contents, then picked up something and returned to the woman. Spreading the cheeks of her ass with the fingers of one hand he used the other to slowly insert a butt plug, kissing and nipping at her buttocks as he pressed it inside her until it was fully seated.

  “Ahh,” the woman moaned, a cry of intense satisfaction and pleasure.

  At the same time one of the other men sucked deeply on her nipples, nodding to himself when he was satisfied with the
ir plumpness before fastening clamps to them. At her feet the third man was working her cunt, lapping it one minute, the next plunging his fingers inside.

  The man who had applied the clamps returned to sucking on her now compressed nipples while the man who had inserted the butt plug continued to kiss and nip at her buttocks. The third man now rose, went to the table and lifted a large blue dildo, holding it up to show the audience. When he returned to kneel before the woman he slid the dildo carefully into her cunt and apparently pushed the button to begin its vibrations. The woman shook at once, hips jerking back and forth.

  Now all three men surrounded her, holding her, caressing her as the orgasm finally hit. She shrieked with the force of it, her body shuddering. At that moment Amber felt her own climax rolling through her, Rio’s lean fingers sliding into her as his other hand held her in place. She pressed her lips together to keep from crying out and clenched her folded hands. She wanted to close her eyes, to fully enjoy the sensation, but she couldn’t tear her gaze away from the woman and the three men.

  Finally the last spasm racing through her body subsided at the same moment the woman in the room went limp, spent, exhausted. The men released her from her bindings and one of them carried her to a long padded bench. They stretched her out and rubbed her muscles, soothing them, easing the strain. One of them fetched what appeared to be a bottle of lotion from the tables and they applied it liberally to her body, petting her and caressing her as they did so. Their affection for her was very obvious.

  “They take such special care of her,” Amber commented.

  “The sign of a good Dom.” He nipped her earlobe. “And I assure you I am a very good Dom. I was trained well and I respect my subs.” He cupped her chin and tilted her face toward him. “I think a woman should be her own person, Amber. Have her own career if she chooses. Find her own place in life. But in the bedroom I am always the Dom. Does that bother you?”

  Bother her? She’d just allowed him to bring her to climax in a room full of people, all of whom had probably paid some bit of attention to it. And it had excited her beyond belief. How could she possibly object to his dominance in the bedroom after that? Nor, she realized, did she want to. A tiny thrill raced through her when she realized she wanted what she’d seen played out in the two rooms. She wanted the bite of pain, the butt plug, the dildo. All of it. Everything.