Bound in Blue

Copyright 2014 Annabel Joseph/Scarlet Rose
Press

Smashwords Edition

Cover design by Adrienne Wilder

For Affordable Custom Cover Art visit

http://cityofdragons.daportfolio.com/about/

* * * * *

Smashwords License Notes

This book is licensed for your personal
enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other
people. If you would like to share this book with another person,
please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you
for respecting the hard work of this author.

This book is a work of fiction. Names,
characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's
imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual
events, locales, or persons living or dead, is entirely
coincidental.

All characters depicted in this work of
fiction are 18 years of age or older.

* * * * *

Jason Beck braced in the back seat of the
swerving taxi, tapping his fingers on his thigh.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
The smoke, crowds, and hectic commotion of
Ulaanbaatar’s downtown district were not things he could
control.

As much as he liked control.

The cab dodged a drunken pedestrian and
turned on a narrow street lit by neon signs, then glided to a stop
beside a low building with a scarred, black door.

“This is it?” he asked the driver.

“This is it,” the man replied with a knowing
smirk. “I hope you have enjoy.”

Jason made a conscious effort to return the
man’s good-natured grin. He knew people perceived him as rigid.
Uptight. At Cirque du Monde, he was considered a workaholic in a
company of workaholics. He preferred to think of himself as
responsible, but at the end of the day he was mostly an
out-and-out, three-alarm control freak. Maybe his boss was right.
Maybe he needed to loosen up a bit, stop thinking about work so
much, even if work had brought him to this far-flung place.

“You’re strung so tight,” Michel Lemaitre had
chided as Jason prepared to leave on his scouting assignment. “I
want you to take time to enjoy the local pleasures while you’re in
Mongolia. I’ll be disappointed if you don’t.”

Jason knew Lemaitre wasn’t talking about
Mongolia’s food or scenery when he talked about
local
pleasures
. The man was a hedonist, a sex freak. Jason was
pretty freaky too…when he wasn’t burying himself in work.

He made excuses for all the time he spent at
work, for his obsession with self-discipline and control. He was
driven by the ideals of Cirque du Monde—that circus could be
entertaining, even visionary, without the use and abuse of animals.
The only animals at Cirque were its human artists and performers,
many of whom Jason helped train. Michel Lemaitre, the CEO, had
mounted productions in cities all over the globe, sixteen
productions in all, and that only happened with a hell of a lot of
self-discipline and control.

Jason’s dedication to Cirque had him moving
up the ranks, and he had no intention of backsliding. He’d recently
been promoted from the coaching team to the Department of Artistic
Development, a promotion that included longer days, a more intense
workload, and greater involvement in Lemaitre’s decisions. It was a
dream come true for Jason, even if his personal and social life
suffered. To see an act develop from a scattered hodgepodge of
ideas into a polished show-stopper…that brought him more pleasure
than he’d ever achieved from serial dating, or casual scening at
BDSM clubs.

Then why are you sitting in a cab outside a
Mongolian fetish club?

Because of Lemaitre’s little lecture? Or
because, somewhere deep inside, some part of him wanted
more
? More than Cirque, more than talent development, more
than the euphoria of a successful opening night? More than a string
of short, controlled relationships with women he barely bothered to
know? Michel Lemaitre thought Jason needed to loosen up, work less
and experience more pleasure, and maybe, just maybe, he was fucking
right.

Jason shoved a hand in his pocket and paid
the Mongolian cabbie, then emerged from the taxi onto a littered,
cracked curb. He straightened the wrinkles in his charcoal suit
jacket, adjusted his collar and tie, and ran a hand over his hair,
tamed into a low ponytail. When he walked closer to the building’s
door, he noticed a hand-lettered sign to one side that read
BDSM
Fun Club
in curly letters.

Maybe this would be stupid.

Maybe it would be sexy.

There was only one way to find out.

The burly men inside the door looked him up
and down, assessing his suitability as a patron. Ulaanbaatar was
Mongolia’s largest city—nightclubs and bars abounded—but this club
apparently strove for exclusivity. He tried to exude his most
austere, exacting-dominant demeanor. Otherwise it was a night in a
vanilla bar somewhere, or back to the hotel.

At last the head doorman nodded and motioned
him forward. They probably gauged his monetary worth more than his
fetish potential, but he was in and that was a good thing. He
showed his American passport rather than his French one and forked
over the exorbitant cover charge. Well, that was the same all over.
Single men paid the most for their pleasures. That done, he was
waved toward a pair of black curtains.

“No touch girls,” the doorman warned. “Pay
for private room, you like. Extra.” He emphasized the
extra
with an arch of his brow.

Well, obviously the sex was extra, probably a
lot extra for a foreigner with an American passport. It didn’t
matter, since prostitutes weren’t covered under Cirque du Monde’s
travel budget, not even for a newly-promoted Director of Artistic
Development. Jason might hit up his boss for the cover charge,
though. Michel Lemaitre loved fetish and owned his own network of
BDSM clubs, all called
le Citadel
, one in every city where
Cirque had a show. Lemaitre would have visited this club if he’d
come to Mongolia, and probably would have taken over the whole damn
thing by the end of the night.

Jason entered the main bar and sat at a table
near the back, taking in the familiar trappings of the fetish
world. Low lights, dark, soundproofed walls, pretty girls writhing
in cages in the corners, some nude, some wearing black, strappy
lingerie. Others were cuffed to posts or racks, waiting to be
played with—for a price. Every woman in the club wore a thick,
black collar, even the waitresses weaving between the tables. Most
of the patrons sat alone, although a few sat in larger groups,
joking and talking.

At the front of the room, a spotlight
illuminated a raised platform with a BDSM scene in progress. A
short, pudgy man and a very tiny woman were performing some mash up
of an English schoolmaster and French maid theme. The woman was
cute, if a little shrill for his tastes. Her dominant glowered,
brandishing a cane and scolding her in the local tongue. Jason
figured he’d do that for a while, talk and lecture and threaten.
Titillate the audience to frothing needfulness so by the time the
“headmaster” actually started playing with his victim, half the men
would be in the back, in the private rooms. Paying extra.

“Good evening, Master.”

Jason turned at the soft greeting. A slender,
skimpily-attired waitress placed a napkin on his table, her gaze
cast down in true submissive style. “May I get you something to
drink?”

She spoke English, sweet, slightly-clipped
English with a British lilt. He stared for a moment at the delicate
flare of her hips above the band of her lace garter skirt, then
raised his eyes to her breasts, perfect in her low-cut bra, and
then to her slave collar and the sweep of her shiny black hair. Her
high, broad cheekbones gave her an elegant prettiness. She was
gorgeous. Exotic.

Young.

“How old are you?” he asked. He had
standards. He wasn’t going to slaver over her unless she was at
least eighteen.

Her pale blue eyes met his.
Blue eyes
?
Mongolians didn’t have eyes like that. Contacts, most likely. It
made a pretty effect, although the blue darkened slightly around
the iris, revealing her true color. Blue-eyed or dark-eyed, he
found her magnificent. Her bronze skin looked so smooth and
soft.

“I’m twenty-two,” she said. “Old enough.” She
leaned closer, so her breasts lifted a little from the cups of her
bra
.
She was delicious, so tentative and shy. There was
naked flesh all around him, bold, seductive women, but all he could
think was,
I want this waitress. I want her tied up. I want her
in a cage, peeking out at me in dread.
“Please, Master,” she
said, interrupting his thoughts. “I’m here to serve you. A drink,”
she added, lest he misunderstand.

He looked at the laminated page of squiggles
she handed him. “Do you have any menus in English?”

“If you need help making a choice,
Master—”

“Why are you calling me Master?” It irritated
him, because he wouldn’t be allowed to master this girl. He
couldn’t even touch her without getting thrown out. Bouncers massed
in the back, watching all the activity in the room.

She looked away, focusing on the couple
interacting on the stage. “We’re supposed to call our visitors
‘Master.’ If you don’t like it…” She blinked mournfully and looked
down again.

“I don’t mind it,” he heard himself say.
Snort. Guh. Wow, she was beautiful. He swallowed hard, fighting
uncontrolled arousal. Maybe…
extra
…

No. He’d never paid for sex in his life and
he wasn’t going to start now. “Can you get me a drink, little slave
girl? Something cultural? Local? I’ve never been to Mongolia
before.”

“Yes, Master.”

She hurried off. He wondered if all these hot
little sex workers spoke English, or whether she got his table
because she was the only one. He watched the sway of her hips as
she headed for the bar, the curve of her ass cheeks barely showing
beneath her tight-fitting skirt. The sight of her walking away was
worth the cover charge he’d paid.

Okay, enough gawking. She was a cute young
woman in a short skirt. No need to be creepy. There were plenty of
other women to look at. The dancers in the cages grew more
suggestive as men milled around, checking them out, and the girl
onstage was finally getting her palms whacked by the
schoolmaster.

Her palms? Yawn.

Jason wanted to see her ass played with and
punished, her cheeks scarlet with cane stripes. Breasts bared and
tortured with tit clamps. In his mind’s eye, he pictured his pretty
waitress bent over, crying out as he caned her. He pictured his
hands on her delicate hips, grasping tight as he plunged inside her
pussy…

“Here you go, Master.”

Her melodic voice arrested him
mid-fantasy-thrust. For a moment he said nothing, because
everything that came to mind was inappropriate.
Kneel down. Take
out my cock. Suck it.
“Thank you,” he finally said in a tight
voice. “What is it?”

“It’s a Mongolian sort of vodka. It’s called
har
.” She bit her lip. “It’s very strong.”

Good. He needed something to take the edge
off his rising desire. He lifted the glass to her in tribute.
“To—what’s your name?”

She shook her head, tracing the rough edge of
her collar. “We aren’t supposed to tell our names. You can call me
girl if you like, or slave.”

“I don’t want to call you girl or slave.”

“Please, it’s not allowed. I need my job here
and if I break the rules...” She glanced over her shoulder at the
stone-faced bouncers lining the walls. “We’re not supposed to talk
to any customer too long, unless you pay.”

“Fine. Go. I don’t want to get you in
trouble.”

Jason watched her move to another table,
wondering if the
extra
also applied to her. Was she one of
the girls who worked in the back rooms? He didn’t want her to be,
because that seemed dangerous and depressing, but at the same
time...

Extra. Just a bit extra. Let go of control
and do something reckless, just this once.
Had she looked
hopeful, then disappointed when he sent her away? Was he only
imagining it?

He sipped his drink, wincing at the sharp,
dry taste. It was like vodka, but stronger, more viscous. He
couldn’t decide if he liked it or not. As he nursed the clear, cold
har
, the audience grew more vocal around him. Everyone was
drinking, and some yelled comments at the couple onstage.

Jason didn’t say anything. His mouth felt
cottony, and God, a little numb. He was a big guy, and usually had
a pretty high tolerance for alcohol, but a few sips of the
har
had his skin flushing and his head whirling. The alcohol
hit him so hard, he wondered if he’d been drugged. He stared at the
couple onstage, irritated to find them going in and out of focus.
The cages in the corners were blurs, the voices around him
blathering away in a sing-song language.