Strict (Part One) Read online

  Strict

  Part One

  Hannah Ford

  Contents

  Strict

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Copyright © 2019 by Hannah Ford

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Strict

  (Part One)

  Chapter 1

  CHLOE

  It’s my first night in New York City, and I’m hiding in the bathroom of a BDSM club called Strict.

  FML.

  I mean, I shouldn’t even be here. Not just here, in New York, where, let’s face it, I stick out like a sore thumb -- but here, specifically, in this club. It’s the kind of club where bad things happen. The kind of club where women fall to their knees, where they call men sir and do all kinds of other things that shouldn’t be talked about in polite society.

  I know, because….well, it’s not important how I know. I just know.

  Of course, I didn’t know this was a BDSM club. If I had, I obviously never would have come, no matter how much my two new dormmates, Alanna and Poppy, had begged me to. “It will be fun, Chloe!” they said. “You can’t just stay in the dorm all night, Chloe! Not on your first night in the city!”

  It was like high school all over again, instead of what it really was, an MBA internship program where we had to be up early tomorrow to actually start our internships.

  I glance at my phone.

  Five minutes. Five minutes I’ve been in here, trying to waste time, trying to calm my heart, trying to stop myself from having a panic attack. I can probably get away with a few more minutes – otherwise, Alanna and Poppy are going to start thinking I have some kind of strange bathroom issues.

  I find the favorites button on my phone and dial my best friend, Grace.

  “How long can you stay in a public bathroom before people start thinking you’re weird and/or that you have stomach problems?” I ask when she picks up.

  “Ten minutes, tops,” she says immediately.

  “Damn, that’s what I thought.”

  “Why are you hiding in a bathroom?” she says. The sound of her voice makes me homesick.

  “My two new dorm mates insisted I come out with them,” I say. “And it’s a BDSM club.”

  “Oh, Chloe.” Grace sighs. She knows my history. She knows what happened. She knows why I can’t be here. But coming to New York for this internship is supposed to be a fresh start. No one here knows me. No one here knows what happened, and they’re not going to, either.

  “I know,” I say, standing in front of the mirror in the bathroom, smoothing down the dress I’m wearing, a black mini dress that Grace gave me before I left, the only thing I really have that is even remotely club appropriate. I sigh and open the door to the bathroom. “I probably should go back to my table. They’re definitely going to start thinking I have some kind of intestinal problem. Do you think it’s way too rude to make up an excuse? To get out of being at this stupid – oof!”

  Someone slams into me.

  Or rather, I slam into someone.

  My phone goes skittering across the floor, and I chase after it as if it’s some kind of lifeline. Which it is. My lifeline to my friends and family back in Syracuse.

  “Oh, no,” I groan as I pick it up. The screen is a spider web of glass, the entire thing shattered. Even worse, it’s completely blank, no signs of life, and when I hit the button on the side, nothing happens. Shit.

  I turn around, ready to cut into whoever it was that was walking so fast that slamming into me was enough to send my phone flying to its early death.

  “You know,” I say, whirling around. “You need to watch where you’re going. My phone is –”

  My voice cuts off as my gaze lands on the man who bumped into me.

  Holy hell.

  The first thing that hits me is his size. At least 6’4”, he towers over me, his shoulders broad under the black t-shirt he’s wearing. It’s not even that tight of a t-shirt, and yet you can tell he’s extremely well built, the fabric clinging to biceps that are cut and defined. Broad shoulders, strong legs encased in dark jeans, and a flat stomach.

  With a body like that, he wouldn’t have even needed to be walking that fast to knock my phone out of my hand.

  My gaze travels up to his face.

  A strong jaw covered in a dark dusting of stubble.

  A baseball hat tugged down low over his brow.

  And under that, hooded eyes the color of dark gold. Eyes that are smoldering and dark and studying me so intently and with such disdain that for a moment I find myself wanting to be the one to apologize to him.

  We stand like that for a long moment, and then his amber eyes travel over my body. I resist the urge to tug at the bottom of my dress self-consciously, instead forcing myself to meet his gaze with my own.

  “You need to watch where you’re going,” I say.

  The whole time he’s been staring at me, he hasn’t moved except for his eyes, that piercing gaze traveling over me, making a chill start at my tailbone and creep up my spine.

  But now the side of his jaw twitches just a tiny bit.

  “And you need to watch your smart mouth.” His voice is just like I would have imagined it to be, low and growly and commanding. It slides over my skin, rough and raw, stirring something deep in my belly.

  And then he turns around and heads back out to the club.

  Wow.

  What an asshole.

  I mean, not that it’s that surprising. This is a BDSM club. The guy’s obviously got some issues if he wants to spank women and make them beg.

  “You would not believe what just happened to me,” I say, sliding into the round red leather booth where Alanna and Poppy are waiting for me.

  “What?” Alanna says, her blue eyes alight with interest.

  “Some guy bumped into me, and my phone went flying. The asshole didn’t even apologize.” I show her the cracked screen, but she seems completely unimpressed.

  “Oh,” she says.

  “It won’t even turn on,” I try again, but she still seems completely uninterested.

  Poppy, for her part, is sitting on the inside curve of the booth, her fingers flying over her own phone rapidly as she texts someone. I sigh. Of course neither of them care. They showed up at the dorm today with about five suitcases each – nice suitcases, the kind that are printed with designer logos and have built-in phone chargers and matching cosmetic bags. Obviously neither one of them thinks that a broken phone is an expense that’s worth noting.

  “That guy is looking at you,” Alanna says, giggling and taking a sip of the drink, something some middle-aged man sent over for her as soon as we sat down.

  “I doubt it,” I say, trying to sound nonchalant and like I don’t care, when really, I’m terrified of drawing attention to myself. Even so, I can’t help but glance to the corner of the club, where a man sits alone in a matching curved red booth.

  “That’s him!” I say. “That’s the douchebag who just broke my phone!” Every other guy in the place is scanning the room, eyes moving back and forth over the crowd, looking for a mark. A few people have even found one. But he’s just sitting there, his baseball cap tugged down low over his brow.

  He has no drink, no phone, nothing in front of him.

  And he’s staring at me, not even glancing away when he sees me looking back at him.

  “Go talk to him,” Alanna
says, giggling. “He’s hot.”

  “He’s a jerk.” Did she not just here about the ruined phone? How is it that someone who’s about to finish an MBA can be so clueless?

  “But look at his body,” she says.

  I turn to Poppy, looking for someone to back me up, but she nods in agreement. “Think of the things he could do to you.”

  “Pick you up and slam you against a wall,” Alanna says. “Spank you until you’ve been good.”

  The girls giggle, like this is the kind of thing that’s super funny, a story they’ll tell their friends back home. But they have no idea. And there’s no way I’m about to tell them. I left that part of my life back in upstate New York, and I’m not carrying it to the city with me.

  This is my chance for a new start, a place where no one knows me as… well, as what they me as back home.

  “Go,” Alanna says, giving me a little push on the shoulder. “Go talk to him.”

  “No,” I say firmly. “We have to get up early tomorrow.”

  “’s okay,” Poppy slurs, slurping the rest of her drink up. “It’s gonna be okay. I have Adderall.”

  “I don’t want to be distracted on my first day,” I say, hoping they’ll accept this. It’s not even a lie – as part of completing our MBAs at Syracuse College, we have to intern somewhere, and the three of us have been assigned to Stratford Investments. It wasn’t my first choice, or even my second – working at a venture capital firm is definitely not what I want to do with my life -- but it’s what I ended up with.

  “Don’t be silly,” Alanna says. “How is talking to a guy for five minutes going to distract you?” Her tone is light, but she has a little bit of that mean girl tone to her voice, the one that makes it clear that if you don’t do what she wants, you’re going to be dead to her.

  And then, suddenly, a woman appears next to us.

  She’s wearing a tiny black bra and a skirt that’s slung low on her hips. Her blond hair is pulled back from her face in a fishtail braid.

  “Excuse me,” she says to me. “But that gentleman over there has requested your presence at his table.”

  “Oh, is that right?” I say.

  “Yes.” She sets a drink down in front of me, presumably from the asshole in the corner, and then disappears back toward the bar.

  “You have to go!” Alanna and Poppy squeal. “Go on!”

  Alanna grabs my drink and takes a big sip. Wow. Talk about presumptuous. Not that I was going to drink it – I mean, who knows what’s in it? Has she never heard of roofies? But still.

  I start to shake my head, to grab my purse and tell them that I’m leaving. I need to get back to the dorm and find the people who are more like me, the ones who are reading books or watching reality tv or doing, I don’t know, jigsaw puzzles or sodoku or something.

  But then I catch sight of those golden eyes watching me from across the room.

  Staring at me, not moving.

  I remember the hardness of his chest when I slammed into him, the chiseled perfection of his face, the stubble dusting his jaw.

  He’s the kind of man who’s used to getting what he wants.

  Exactly like the kind of man who – well, the kind of man who changed my life forever.

  And it’s like here, now, it’s my chance to actually do something about it.

  So I take a slug of the drink he sent over, as if to prove to myself that I’m not scared of him, and then, as Alanna and Poppy cheer and holler behind me, head across the room to Golden Boy’s booth.

  Chapter 2

  GAGE

  She comes across the room toward me, which is a surprise. I thought for sure she would decline, would stay in her booth with the two vapid-looking girls who obviously brought her here against her will.

  Against her will.

  My blood pounds at the thought.

  People don’t surprise me much, if ever.

  But this one.

  This one surprises me.

  Long, tousled dark curls that are pulled back in a ponytail, her mouth pouty, the exact kind of full lips that would look good wrapped around my dick. It would give her smart mouth something to choke on.

  There’s a finger of whiskey in front of me, and I take a sip as I watch her come closer.

  Her stride is strong, powerful, like she’s on a mission to tell me off.

  Be careful, baby girl.

  She’s not a submissive, that much as clear.

  At least, not yet.

  “Yes, hello,” she says when she gets to my table. She clears her throat.

  I stay quiet, because that’s what’s going to annoy her the most.

  “When someone says hello, you’re supposed to say hello back,” she informs me. She crosses her arms over her chest, pushing her impressive cleavage together. The dress she’s wearing isn’t necessarily supposed to be sexy, but on her body, it’s borderline obscene.

  “Hello back.”

  She swallows, the hollow of her delicate throat vibrating, and she shifts her weight back and forth between her legs slightly, as if I’ve thrown her.

  “You broke my phone.”

  “Did I?”

  “Yes!” she says, waving the smashed phone in the air. “And you didn’t even apologize.”

  “I have nothing to apologize for. You weren’t paying attention to where you were going. Therefore, it would be impossible to confirm I was the one responsible.” My gaze lands on the phone. “Is that a flip phone? How much is it even worth?”

  She blushes, and my cock twitches. “That’s not any of your business.”

  “Isn’t it? If you expect me to replace it, shouldn’t I know it’s true market value?”

  She thinks about this. “Two hundred dollars.”

  I almost choke on my whiskey. “I will give you twenty dollars for it.”

  “What are you, some kind of psycho?”

  I shrug and consider her question seriously, even though I know that’s not how she meant it. “Maybe.”

  She sniffs. “Of course you are. Why else would you be in a place like this?”

  “Are you some kind of psycho?” I counter.

  “Certainly not.”

  “Then what are you doing at a place like this?”

  “I came here with my friends. If I’d known what kind of place it was, I wouldn’t have come here.”

  The lights overhead are blinking a soft rhythm in time with the music, something sexy and pulsing, and they illuminate her skin, making her seem even more ethereal than she already is.

  “Are you sure about that?” I ask, taking another swig of my drink.

  “Of course I’m sure about it.” She looks around in distaste, like she’s in some kind of a condemned building instead of a BDSM club.

  “Then why don’t you leave?”

  “I’m about to,” she says, but her voice falters just a little bit, as if she’s not sure. Watching her go from so sure of herself to not sure makes my cock pulse again. I imagine her down on her knees again, that smart mouth filled with my cock, my hands fisting her hair as I punish her until she begs me to stop.

  “Okay.”

  “I am. As soon as my friends are ready, I’m leaving.”

  I glance behind her to where the two girls she was sitting with are gone, leaving nothing but an empty booth and dirty drink glasses in their wake.

  “Looks likes they left without you,” I say.

  “Shit,” she swears under her breath, annoyance crossing her features. She reaches for her phone, probably to call an Uber, when she realizes that it doesn’t work. She gives me another dirty look.

  At that moment, the lights start to dim, very slowly, so slowly that at first you can’t even tell it’s getting darker. She looks around in confusion, like it’s some kind of mistake.

  But it’s not a mistake.

  The show is starting. And she’s going to be here for it now, whether she likes it or not.

  Chapter 3

  CHLOE

  The lights are
dimming.

  The lights are dimming and a quiet murmur is moving through the crowd, the way it does at a show when intermission is over. Not that I’ve been to many shows – my mom took me to see the Nutcracker a couple of years ago, after what happened, and that’s about it. But I still remember the murmur that went through the crowd after intermission, the whispered rush as everyone hurried back to their seats before the curtain opened.

  It’s similar here, but different. There’s no rush. In fact, everyone moves languidly, slowly, taking seats until I’m the only one in the entire place standing.

  The lights dim even more, until we’re in total darkness, and then a spotlight shines on a door nestled in the corner of the room.

  “You should sit down,” the man who wrecked my phone says.

  “I’m leaving,” I say quickly, my stomach starting to turn. Who knows what it is that’s about to happen?

  “Sit down.” His voice is that same low growl it was in the hallway outside of the bathroom, and I find myself sitting down automatically.

  The door in the corner opens and a man walks out. He’s shirtless, his hair pulled back in a low ponytail. Behind him is a girl, a little older than I am, with long blond hair that hangs in a straight curtain down her back. She wears fishnet stockings and a shiny black bodysuit, her hands cuffed in front of her, a silk blindfold over her eyes.

  The man leads her to a raised platform that’s set up in the middle of the room.

  To get there, they have to pass right by our table, and I instinctually move across the red leather to get away from them, so far that I don’t realize I’m so close to Golden Eyes until I feel his thigh touch mine.

  I go to move away, but before I can, his hand clamps down on my leg, holding me in place.

  His touch is like fire against my bare skin. My nerve endings crackle to life under this stranger’s touch, and a gently thrumming heat starts between my legs.

  I try to shift away from him again, but he keeps his hand clamped on my leg, not allowing me to move.