Page 18 of The Player's Club
That question might’ve been a bit direct, but hey, she’d opened the door to it, so I took the opportunity. She’d opened the back door, I supposed.
Elodie shivered. “Um, uh, what a question.”
“Or maybe you’d like to pound somebody else in theirbutt.”
She looked around. “I think we’re going to win a Guinness World Record with how many times we’ve said, ‘pounded in the butt’ out loud.”
“We’re in a sex club. That phrase is as tame as it gets around here.”
“True.”She watched as I kept stroking her arm, but soon enough, she shifted to give us a little more space.
I didn’t want space. “Are you seeing someone?” I asked.
She blinked. “I have a boyfriend, yeah.”
My chest tightened. Not what I wanted to hear, although I wasn’t sure it changed anything for me.
“So why are you at a sex club alone?” I didn’t try to hide the growl beneath my words.
“It’s . . . complicated.” She began playing with her hair again. “Todd wants me to move to San Francisco. I don’t want to leave LA. I think we’re at a stalemate, and neither of us wants to make the next move.”
She looked so sad right then that my anger faded quickly. I took her hand and squeezed it.
She’s not your type anyway,I reminded myself. She’s too innocent. She’d run in the opposite direction if she knew what you wanted to do to her.
“What about you? Are you seeing anyone?” she asked.
I smiled. “Not at the moment. That’s why I’m here at the club. It’s helpful for meeting people.”
“People like you, you mean.”
“What does that mean . . .?”
“People who like a certain type of sexual excitement,” she clarified.
“You could say that, yeah. It helps to know that someone won’t be freaked out about it. If they’re here, they obviously aren’t.”
“And how many people have you met? Here, I mean,” asked Elodie.
“There have been a few.” At her widened eyes, I laughed. “Is that so shocking? I’m not here just to watch. I’d like to connect with someone at some point and enjoy myself with them here. But I haven’t met the right person for that yet.”
“But you must’ve taken women home . . .”
I explained to her that I rarely took women home with me, preferring to enjoy women in the rooms here at The Scarlet Rope. Taking a woman—or multiple women—home complicated things. More often than not, they’d want more or expect a relationship of some sort. Or worse, they just wanted a chance to get some dirt on somebody like me and then run straight to the tabloids to spill what they’d learned.
“It’s not really about adding notches to my bedpost,” I added. “That’s never been a problem for me, especially with my celebrity status. I could go to a bar for that. Or take up with any of the dozens of women waiting outside the arena. For me, it’s about finding people who enjoy the same things as I do.”
“They don’t have apps for that by now?” asked Elodie.
“Oh, they do. But I like to vet people in person. It’s too easy to get catfished online. And the club itself vets the members, too. Online dating is too much the Wild West for me, personally.”
I kept Elodie’s gaze. “But it’s all about exploration. And trust. Trust is paramount because there’s no shame here. Just enjoyment.” When Elodie seemed puzzled, I put out my hand. “Let me show you.”
She froze, which made me chuckle. “We’re just going to watch,” I explained. “Watch and learn. I promise.”
I could see her hesitate. But when she placed her hand in mine, triumph burst through me. At that moment, my mind could only repeat the word, mine.
I took her to one of the BDSM rooms. This scene was just two people, a man and a woman. The woman was the dominant, with the man on all fours in front of her. She placed a ball gag over his mouth and went to choose a whip from the vast array hanging from a nearby wall.