I noticed Carver among the group of people. He shot me a wink, which made me smile. I could feel their gazes lingering on me, sizing me up. Was it because I was new…or because I waswith him?
“And you run this place?”
“I do.” He started up the stairs, and I trailed behind. “Don’t use my name, by the way. They call mePhantomhere. This is a place for people to shake off who they are during the day. The mask is important.”
“Phantom. Got it.”
The second floor opened to a wide studio space. There was brick on the back wall with mirror in some sections. Ropes suspended from the ceiling. Large benches and devious devices. I watched a woman bound to an X-structure, completely naked. She cried out as a second woman tortured and tugged on her nipples.
Electricity danced over my skin.
Oh. I like this place.
“This floor is for play,” Casper—sorry,Phantom—explained.
“They play rough.”
“They do. BDSM. Bondage, dominance, sadism, masochism. Among others kinks.”
We walked past a woman strapped to a bench. Her ass was bright pink. A man flipped a paddle in his palm and stalked around her, lion-like. Curiosity whipped through me.
“This way.”
Phantom’s voice pulled me back. I looked away from the scene unfolding in front of me and followed him instead. He led me up another staircase to a landing with multiple doors. Here, Phantom stopped. He turned to me. “This floor is for people who want to engage with each other sexually.” He pointed toone door, then the other. “Players. Viewers.” He opened the “Viewers” door and then motioned for me to walk through. “After you.”
Those penetrating eyes stared at me.
Was this a test? Was he wondering if I’d chicken out?
I called his bluff and walk through the door. As I brushed past him, I inhaled his clean, fresh-out-of-the-shower scent.
The room was narrow, like a hallway. Through a tinted glass wall, I could see the room beside ours. The “players” room. It was a dark bedroom, and it took me a moment to see the figures. Two men, joined together. They were fucking, roughly. With a longing that made my heart pick up pace. Wait, no, not two. Three. Bodies joining, undulating together. Kissing. Moaning.
Maybe I should’ve felt guilty watching them in such an intimate moment, but I didn’t. I could only feel excitement buzzing in my chest. And longing.
I want to be wanted that intensely.
Phantom impaled his fingers through the heart of the clementine, cleaving it into two halves. Juice squirted up around his cuticles. He broke a piece of clementine off and popped it into his mouth, like popcorn at a movie theater. He seemed unaffected by the people fucking just feet away from us.
I guess I would be, too, if I owned this place. This was a normal Friday night for him.
“Can they see us?” I asked.
“No.”
“Can they hear us?”
“No.”
I bit my lip, entranced. When I looked at Phantom again, I discovered he wasn’t watching the group. He was watchingme, watching them.
An edge of hunger in those hazel eyes.
For the first time since arriving, I blushed.
He shook it off with a tilt of his head. “Let’s go back downstairs.”
We exited the voyeur-room. We wound through the spanking and screaming. Back downstairs, to the first floor, where things were quiet and mellow again.
