Total pages in book: 64
Estimated words: 61672 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 308(@200wpm)___ 247(@250wpm)___ 206(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 61672 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 308(@200wpm)___ 247(@250wpm)___ 206(@300wpm)
I nod.
“Awesome. So, black means taken and unavailable. Gray means taken but available—some doms like to share.” Amanda winks. “And white means you’re a free agent. I take it you’ll be needing the white one tonight?”
I swallow and nod again.
“Perfect.” Amanda stretches a white length of leather and holds it up for me, then wraps it around my wrist. The golden clasp makes a tiny metal clink.
This is it. I’m officially a guest at the club now, a club so exclusive it doesn’t even have a name. Men fork out a fortune just to enter, although women get in for free as long as we stick to the dress code.
I first heard about this club from Jeanie. She signed up for my gym just to flirt with the fit men who could afford the expensive membership. Sometimes, she joins the yoga class to chat with the girls too—just in case we know any wealthy, eligible bachelors we can introduce to her.
In short, Jeanie’s a gold digger. Yet, even though she knows about this club, she refuses to come. Ever.
When she told me about this place, she scrunched up her nose in disgust. To paraphrase Meatloaf, Jeanie would do anything for a rich man but she won’t do this.
“Let’s join the party,” Amanda says as she parts the heavy, black, velvet curtain. Light spills out through the gap, highlighting her blonde curls in an otherworldly shade of magenta.
It feels like entering another realm. The luxurious carpet swallows up half the height of my high heels. Crystal chandeliers with black shades hang from the ceiling.
We stand at the top of the stairs, overlooking a big hall with a stage in the middle and stadium seating around it.
Everybody wears masks, except for the staff members who carry trays of drinks among the audience and flit around on the big stage where it looks like they’re setting up a performance.
I gape at the woman being tied down to a wooden structure on the stage. That thing wouldn’t look out of place in a medieval torture room. It looks like a cross, except it’s shaped like the letter X.
As I follow Amanda, I walk past a woman with a furry mask that has cat ears attached, a man with a silver, futuristic mask that makes him look like a half-robot android, and a jester’s mask complete with a cap and bells.
Some of the masks turn to face me as I explore the hall, sizing me up. Despite the brawny security guys and the mask keeping my real identity safely hidden, I feel vulnerable. Every step of my feet jolts fear deeper into my stomach.
A man in a black mask with curved horns looks up over his shoulder just as I approach from behind him. I can’t see his face, but electricity crackles in the air between us when our eyes meet.
It’s a stunning Minotaur mask, but it’s the eyes that peer at me from behind it that trap my attention. The man has the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen. A strong jawline covered with a layer of trimmed, dark hair.
His suit looks expensive. So does everybody else’s, of course. As Jeanie said, these men are politicians, CEOs, and celebrities. If they took their masks off, I might recognize more than just a couple of faces. Most of the men here dress well.
But Minotaur Man looks like he’s just strolled out of the designer’s catalog, whereas the others have simply bought their suits from the store.
The man says nothing, but he turns his head to follow my walk down the stairs, his gaze hot on my back.
Why would a man like that pay any attention to me? Is there something stuck to my shoe, maybe?
I glance down to find that even though I’m dressed more conservatively than the other girls, my appearance is fine. I look exactly the way I did an hour ago when I scrutinized every single detail in my bedroom mirror.
I’m wearing a simple, gold mark that covers my face from the top of my eyebrows to halfway down my nose bridge. Aside from my black pumps, it’s the only part of my outfit that blends in with the other guests, although I never thought I’d wear it to a place like this when I bought it on a family trip to Venice.
Amanda shows me the smaller rooms adjacent to the big hall. Each one is more surreal than the previous one.
“Beyond this door are the private rooms. Only doms with special keys and their guests can go inside,” Amanda says, her golden curls tumbling down her back as she stops in front of heavy, wooden, double doors with intricate carvings on them. “But as you can see, even the public areas provide many opportunities to play.”
We walk back out into the big hall where Amanda excuses herself. As it turns out, standing alone in a big hall full of half-naked people is a lot scarier than following a guide through the same hall.