Chapter 2

TWO

ADRIAN

"I thought you weren't playing tonight," a familiar voice purred in my ear. I was still watching Riley make the rounds. His inexperience made him stand out. He moved through rooms like he wanted to manifest confidence, but couldn't quite get there. Not with so much naked skin and sinful sights to see.

"I thought so too," I told Rory. "I saw your men earlier. Andrew has come a long way since he met the two of you."

Rory beamed with pride, his love clear as day. The three men had come together a little unconventionally. Rory and Nick had an on-again, off-again thing. Nick was a switch, but Rory had only ever oozed dominance. Then along came Andrew. Young. Submissive. Hopelessly in love with both of them. They'd been together for probably five years now, and under Nick and Rory's guidance, Andrew had blossomed into a wonderful submissive.

Rory sent me a soft look that was no less cutting than the sharpest knife. "You're changing the subject, Adrian." His gaze swept over the room and I knew where Rory was looking without having to check. "He's very pretty. Very new. "

"Do you disapprove?"

Rory's eyes snapped back to mine and I was rewarded with one of his delicate smiles. The lines around his eyes were deeper now and his roots had more silver in them, though the rest of his hair was still electric blue.

"The exact opposite, actually. I don't know the young man, but I know you. You'll do right by him. There are a lot of men in here who are good with experienced partners, but don't know, or remember, how to handle someone who still looks at everything with equal parts lust and terror."

"I agree."

"Then why are you over here and not over there?"

I smirked at Rory. Always forward, always direct, yet he always managed to say what he wanted with a kind of grace that other men lacked.

"He's new. I want him to choose me. To look at every option in this place and then choose me anyway."

"And if he doesn't?" Rory asked, his accusatory eyebrow rising again, leveling judgment at me.

"Then he doesn't choose me. But I have a good feeling." I watched Riley slip from the room—the stares of a couple men followed, but their bodies didn't.

"I hope you know what you're doing, Adrian. It's good to see you out again." Rory gave my shoulder a friendly squeeze before whisking himself away, no doubt to go find his men. The last I saw them, Andrew was strapped to a swing with a fist in his ass. Rory was probably wanting to kiss him all better by now.

His comment lingered long after he left, sending me back in time to my last relationship. It had ended amicably, but it had still ended. It was never easy to lose someone you loved, even when the decision was mutual. Even when it was faultless. My ex and I had simply grown apart. We'd started out wanting the same things, but by the time it ended, we weren't even on the same chapter anymore, let alone on the same page.

Losing someone was hard even when it was nicely done. When belongings were separated into neat piles and packed into boxes and ways were parted with handshakes and fond smiles tinged with sadness. We'd promised to be friends. We weren't. But that was okay. It wasn't the first promise we made to each other that we broke, but at least it had been the last.

Now that I'd given Riley a few minutes to slip off, I pushed away from my post by the wall and went to find him. I wanted to stay in view, wanted him to see me. To know I was watching him. Waiting.

From the moment I'd strolled up to the bar for a drink and saw him there with his ass sticking out, begging for attention, I was hooked. Angelo had watched me notice him and had smiled at me as I let my gaze track him through the room.

It wasn't that there was a bad dom in Desires. Steve did a remarkable job screening members and keeping an eye on what went on in his club. Nothing bad would likely happen to Riley, no matter who he ended up with later, but I wanted to be the one he chose.

I found him taking in a sounding demonstration. Tonight was all about pushing limits. Exploration. Encouraging people to push their boundaries and step out of their comfort zones. Well, maybe not out of it, but to the edge of it.

Riley was riveted by the sight of the sleek silver rod sliding into the slit. The sounds that filled the room were hoarse, like the dom had been at it a while. Riley caught me looking at him and, when he turned away, I moved from where I stood to somewhere else. The look of confusion and surprise on his face when I wasn't there morphed into disappointment, so when he next located me, I stayed where I was. I let him look. I wanted him too.

It was a silly game to play with him. Catch and release. Tease and taunt. But I hoped it would work. All I could think about was getting my hands on him. I wanted him to melt against me. I wanted to get close enough to smell his arousal over everyone else's.

I watched him watch the demo. Every so often, a glance would search me out, making sure I was still there. I didn't move a muscle. I didn't look anywhere else. I didn't need to watch the sounding to know what was happening. I'd seen it. Done it. Been sounded and sounded others. I'd done a lot of things in this club and outside it. A laundry list of kinks. Some experiments that wouldn't be repeated .

I hoped that I would be more than that to Riley.

Was it love at first sight? Hardly. But Riley was beautiful. Stunning. A sweet Cupid's bow mouth, an artfully styled mop of curly hair, slightly too dark to be called blonde, but not quite brown either. He was almost the same height as I was, maybe five-eleven to my six-feet. Fucking perfect, if you asked me.

Attraction was a funny thing. You never knew when it was going to hit and who was going to trigger it. Riley had taken my breath away from the minute he walked in, starry-eyed innocence written on his face. It made me yearn to corrupt him. To take him and teach him. To show him all the things he wanted to know and even some of the things he didn't yet know he wanted to know.

When the sounding rod was finally pulled out, the submissive shouted through his orgasm, whining and panting, begging, half-sobbing as his chest became speckled with his cum. By the time I tore my gaze away from his trembling form, Riley was gone.

I watched the dom take care of his trembling lover with more than a touch of envy. The high was great. There was almost nothing better than having someone under your control. Your care. Someone who looked to you to give them so much. I loved aftercare. I loved the quiet moments when everything was done and blood was still rushing through veins like a dam had burst. I missed that the most sometimes.

Being in control made me feel wanted, but the aftercare made me feel necessary. Needed. It probably spoke to the kind of man I was, the kind of dom that I had become. I'd never be one to tie a man to a cross and whip him raw. I'd never be one to tie a man to a bed and let a fuck machine ruin his hole.

I wanted to be the one taking him apart. Piece by piece. And I wanted to do it to Riley. I wanted to tear him apart with my teeth and kiss him back together. I wanted to taste his tears. Our interaction played on a loop in my mind and I was convinced that I was in for a hell of a night.

If Riley came back to me.

I returned to the room where we talked and grabbed a drink for myself. This was one of the tamer upstairs rooms for doms and their subs who wanted to enjoy a more intimate, low-pressure kind of scene. I knew, rather hoped, that Riley would be back before long.

Willing to wait, I finished my bottle of water, made chit chat with another dom and then went to take a piss. When I returned, Riley was there waiting for me. Eyes round, blown pupils, red lip from where he'd been biting it all night. He stood near the place where we first met, almost an hour ago now. His eyes flared when he saw me and I made a beeline for him.

Too restless to sit, I leaned against the wall as close to Riley as I could get without touching him. It was colder than my burning skin and offered a flash of relief across my shoulders where it made contact. But only for a minute.

"Did you see anything you liked?" I asked Riley. Already I loved the way he looked at me, his innermost thoughts flashing across his face. Naked hunger. Exposed anticipation. Lust. Fear. Want. Need.

Riley exhaled long and slow. "It was overwhelming."

"It can get that way sometimes."

He glanced away and picked up the list again. There were copies all over the club tonight. Steve's partner, Matty, was always dreaming up different kinds of events to have at the club and this was just the newest one of his schemes.

"How much experience do you have, Riley?"

"Enough outside of a club to know that I could potentially have a good time inside of one. If…" He paused, pinning me with his gaze. "If I find the right partner."

"You familiar with safe words? Not that we'll need them tonight, but it's good to get to know each other. Establish boundaries."

Riley rolled his eyes a little, but more out of nerves than attitude, I thought.

"Green is good. Red is bad. Yellow is somewhere in the middle."

Narrowing my eyes, I pushed away from the wall and stepped closer to Riley. Though he was only slightly shorter than I was, I pulled myself up to my full height, my boots also offering an extra inch of lift.

"I should spank the sass out of you." I flicked the list that he held in his trembling hand.

Riley lifted his chin in defiance. "If I let you. "

I smirked at him. "Fair enough. The question is, little angel mine, are you going to let me?"

"Spank me?" Riley shook his head. "No."

The air between us crackled.

"But?"

"But I'd like to try a couple things from that list." Riley held my gaze briefly before dropping it. "Sir."

"Do I get to choose?"

Riley swallowed audibly. "If it pleases you."

Damn, this guy was good. Green as fresh spring grass, but he knew some basics.

"Your safe words?" I asked again. Waiting for sass, I received only deference.

"Red to stop. Yellow to slow. Green to go."

"I won't pick anything too frightening, don't worry." I highly doubted he'd need a safe word. There was no way I was going to take Riley into half of these rooms and do half of these things. Not on his first night here. Maybe not ever, depending on his proclivities or how well we matched.

Riley sucked in a deep breath and tried to relax when he exhaled. Making eye contact again, he nodded, then glanced away waiting for me to make my move.

"How do you feel about people watching you, little angel?"

His eyes went wide and his cheeks flushed pink.

"Green."