The Venture Capitalist (17 page)

“Yes,” I answer only because he’ll keep asking me that semi-rhetorical question that litters his language in almost every exchange if I don’t.

“I mean, Tristan, the moment she entered the room, this morning, I was like, ‘damn, Keisha’s roommate is fine.’ She could’ve been a model, but she’s got this serious numbers fetish, and nerdy looks damn good on her.”

I am tempted to tell my brother that he’s spent too much time in basketball locker rooms, because his communication skills have become quite cliché’ but I hold my tongue and listen because he would be hurt by my bluntness. Nathan has always been a jock and considerably less cerebral than me, but that doesn’t by any stretch of the imagination means he’s stupid. He’s really quite the tender soul like our mother was. I drew the lion’s share of my father’s genes.
Lucky me.

With age our father has become less of the shrewd businessman, and more understanding of us as his adult children. When we were teenagers, that wasn’t quite the case most of the time. Especially for me. He’d given up long ago on Nathan ever being a part of his business empire, but even up until the day I incorporated my Venture Capitalist boutique, he kept believing I’d take over the liquor business which he inherited from my mother’s father and merged with his family’s winery.

I fought him tooth and nail over everything—from how I responded to my mother’s death, to which college I would attend, and finally to which type of business I would go into. Our relationship remained strained until the accident in Telluride where the best submissive I ever had almost died. Considering the short straw she drew from the accident, maybe death would have been a mercy.

My father came to terms with my life decisions after that, considering how the accident affected me. He couldn’t bring himself to put any further pressure on me. I did that very well on my own. I’ve had a Panic disorder since then to prove it, characterized by recurring severe panic attacks. I’ve had them under control for a while with therapy and occasional meds when necessary. It’s been a year since I’ve had one, so I’m hoping they’re gone for good. However, my psychiatrist says this is highly unlikely.

I focus again on what Nathan is saying, before he realizes I’ve checked out. “Then she reminded me of that party Lavender and I had when the Buffaloes renegotiated my contract.”

“The masquerade party that I left early because one of your teammates kept hitting on my submissive at the time?” I say.

“Yeah, that one.” Nate laughs. “You were ready to beat his ass, but I’m glad you didn’t. Anyway, Lavender and I decided to swing with this other couple that night, and guess who it was?”

I mentally roll my eyes, but if I don’t answer him, he will not stop asking. “Who?”

“Jada and her Dom, Derek.” Nathan throws up his hands. “Tristan, you remember me saying that if I ever found that girl, Lavender was toast?”

“I remember, but I thought you were just talking.”

“Well, it’s good I didn’t pursue her then, because she was really into this Derek, but he moved out west a while back, so now she’s free, and I’m the lucky bastard who gets to be her Dom.”

My response is rueful. “If she makes you happy, far be it from me to talk you out of taking her on.”

CHAPTER TEN

My energy has not flagged today despite spending most of the night inside Ms. Beale. She’s invigorated me in a way that I haven’t been in too long. I have half a mind to give her a reprieve tonight, since I interrupted her sleep, but I am in the limo and headed home when I ask Moses to make a detour.

He merely smiles into the rearview mirror and executes a perfect turn to go in the opposite direction in rush hour traffic. I check my watch. Ms. Beale gets off in twenty minutes. I send her a text.

You need a lifestyle primer before this weekend. I’ll pick you up from the store.

Moses finds a choice parking space on a side street near the alleyway behind Keisha’s workplace. He feeds the meter and we wait. I read a couple of financial articles, call Mrs. Naven to let her know we’ll be having a guest for dinner, and the time flies.

“I’ll escort Ms. Beale to the car, sir.” Moses says and gets out one minute before her shift ends. I watch as he walks to the door and stand at attention waiting for her. I almost wanted to fight him for the opportunity to greet her myself, but he and Mrs. Naven already believe I’m quite taken with this girl, and I don’t want to get their, or her, hopes up. This is an arrangement. Nothing more.

Gentleman that he is, Moses offers Ms. Beale his hand, which she takes and he leads her to the car. He doesn’t release her hand until he hands her in to me, if you will. She slides into the car to face the smile I cannot control.

“Ms. Beale.” I say, unable to resist formal address, even though she hates that I don’t always call her Keisha.

“Mr. White,” she shoots back.

“I trust your workday was productive.”

“As a matter of fact, it was. So much so, I want to just go home and soak the cares of my day away, but I am summoned by your Domness.”

My smile becomes a smirk. “I’ve never been referred to in that way, but I’ll take it. From your research about the lifestyle, what further questions do you have?”

She glances nervously at the back of Moses’s head. The partition is most certainly up, but I understand her reluctance to speak of such matters with him present.

“I can assure you it’s soundproof.”

“You won’t leave marks on me, will you? Because in some of the pictures I saw, people were welted and bloody.”

“I’ve been doing this long enough to know how to regulate the pressure I use. You will eventually learn which pressure gives you the most pleasure, and you will ask me to adjust accordingly.”

“So, I can ask you to go softer and you will?”

“Yes, but with a caveat.” She has a mixture of fear and apprehension on her lovely face. It is not my wish to frighten her so I try to assure her as much as I can.

“And what might that be?”

“Within reason and mostly during pleasure play. When you are being punished, you don’t get to choose.”

“Oh.” That mono-syllabic response again, but then she surprises me and continues. “You know, Javier Alejandro Gonzales Beale Sr. is dead, and I don’t need another father figure.”

“The things I’m going to do to you wouldn’t be appropriate for a father to do to his daughter anyway.”

“Funny,” she says. “Just don’t get carried away and have my back looking like Kunta Kinte in
Roots
or Oprah’s in
Beloved
, okay?”

“That kind of slavery was all about pain, about belittlement, disfigurement, punishment. I’m not into that. What I’m offering you is an aesthetic that has nothing to do with the institution of slavery as history defines it.”

“So, once I sign your contract, I belong to you?”

“In a manner of speaking, yes.”

She has a look of consternation on her face. Her emotions going through that spectrum it usually does when she’s thinking about something concerning.

“Okay, so in a nutshell, what do you expect of me?”

“I want you available to me every weekend beginning at six Friday night until six Monday morning.”

“Available meaning at your place?”

“Yes. Is that a problem?”

“No, it’ll be fun pretending I live in the Gold Coast area every weekend. Okay, what else?”

“I’ll expect you to address me as either Sir or Master during those times and you to only look at me or speak to me when I’ve given you permission to do so.”

“Sir I can do. I’m going to have to work on that Master thing.”

“Fair enough.”

“Anything else?”

“I also have a lot of public appearances to make, so I’ll expect you to be my plus one on those occasions.”

“Ooh, so I get to party with the blue bloods? I’m excited.”

“You’re a smarty pants, Ms. Beale.”

“And you’re a bossy pants, Mr. White. You know, Tina Fey has a book called that. You might want to read it. Could loosen you up a bit?”

“I like myself just fine the way I am.” I struggle to say this sternly, but I’m sure I fail miserably. I want to laugh.

She soldiers on, undaunted by my attempt to chastise her. “It’s Tuesday, so are we going to your place to play chess tonight or something?”

The grin I display is an attempt not to laugh. “My brand of chess, yes.”

“Will it involve us taking off our clothes? Penetration?”

“It will only involve you using your mind.”

“Yeah, right. I haven’t fully recovered from our last interaction. Which begs the question. Do you know any other way besides ‘hard and until a girl can’t stand up?
’ 
”

This time, I do laugh. “I’ll remember that next time penetration is on the agenda.” That’s it, her reference to doing it hard, has me hard. “But it’s your own fault you know.”

“How’s that?”

I move in close and whispers as if we aren’t behind the soundproof partition in my limo. “You’re so tight and responsive. We fit together like a couple of puzzle pieces.”

She squirms, squeezing her thighs together as my breath wafts over her ear, stretching her neck as if offering it to me on a sacrificial altar. I slide my nose against her skin, taking a whiff of her sensual scent.

“I love how your perfume mixes with the chemistry of your skin, Ms. Beale.”

She moans as I press my lips against her neck and lick it, then nip her soft flesh, finally latching on, gently sucking it into my mouth. She moans again and squeezes her slim thighs together, and I ease a hand around her neck to hold her steady and cup her breast with my other hand. I tweak her nipple, first with my thumb, then grasp it between my thumb and forefinger reveling in how it elongates with my touch.

I take her mouth next, and plunder it until I can sense when she abandons the notion of no penetration. If I were of a mind to, I could have her in the limo, but Moses stops the car in front of my building. She’s now kissing me back with such urgency, if I were still the horndog I was in college, we would be fucking like jack rabbits in the damned car.

She groans when I pull away, laughing softly at her frustration. “What happened to your resolve for no penetration tonight?”

“Oh, you know exactly what happened,” she says with chagrin.

Moses holds the door open for us and we pile out of the car.

“Six-thirty in the morning, Moses?” I say as if it’s a question.

“Six-thirty, it is, Mr. White. Good evening, Ms. Beale.”

“Goodnight, Moses,” Keisha says warmly. Moses tips his hat. I do believe he likes Ms. Beale. He’s never responded to one of my submissives in this way. Not even—I will myself not to think of
her
.

“Hello, Mr. White. Ms. Beale,” Mr. Dunleavy, the doorman says, as he ushers us into the building.

I hold my arm out and Keisha slips her hand through it as we walk through the foyer. When we enter my private elevator, Keisha and I do this duel with our eyes that involves us pretending we’re not eye-fucking one another like a couple of heathens most of the way up to the penthouse. I speak only reluctantly when we’re almost there.

“Mrs. Naven should have dinner ready.” I pointedly share the name of my play room with her. “We’ll meet in The Grotto, say half an hour after we’ve had a meal.”

“A fitting name for that room.”

“I think so. Are you hungry?”

“Starved.”

“Grilled Chilean sea bass is on the menu.”

“I’m not necessarily as hungry for food as I am… other things.” She is decidedly even less inhibited around me now, and I like it.

“You’re developing quite the appetite for one previously so inexperienced.”

“You created this monster, so you have to keep her fed.”

“Let’s take care of the need for nourishment first, then. Shall we?”

I offer her my arm again when the elevator stops, and we walk together into the dining room.

As I enter the Grotto, I am pleased to see she is dressed in the outfit I left on the bed for her: a burgundy gartered corset with a matching thong and sheer thigh-high hosiery. The heels I selected even fit to perfection.

As I instructed, she is kneeling not far from the door, head down. She resists looking up as I enter the room quickly jerking her head in a downward motion.

Closing and locking the door behind me, I move to her side. “Knees a little closer together, Ms. Beale.” She adjusts them at my command, and I praise her. “Good submissive posture. Relax into it.”

I walk over to the far wall which holds my various whipping implements sans whips. There are numerous crops, floggers, canes, and paddles on the wall. I peruse them before I select the least punitive crop with the softest leather. Her contract has already been placed on the table near the wall and I make sure there’s a signature flag in place on the document.

I return to where Ms. Beale remains in submissive posture and place the crop on the bench next to her.

“Tonight is your initiation of sorts,” I say. Her eyes remain cast down. Then I realize, I don’t like speaking on such serious matters without having her rapt attention. “Look at me.”

Keisha raises her eyes to lock with mine.

“Your contract is on the table against the far wall. If you are taking on the role of my submissive of your own free will, without any coercion, please sign on the first line at the end of the document.”

She begins to rise, but my disapproving glare throws her off balance. She sinks back onto her knees. “Permission to stand, Sir.” She says this as if she’s always known how to respond to a Dom.

“Granted.” I move aside and gesture toward the table.

“Thank you, Sir.”

She walks to the table and takes the pen, holding it as if she’s about to sign before reading, then she stops and begins to run her eyes slowly over the pages. She signs and turns back to me, remembering at the last minute to flick her eyes back down to the floor.

“If I insist you stay in the submissive zone, this is going to take longer than necessary,” I reach out my hand to her. “Come here.”

She walks over to me, her hips swaying in a suggestive manner. I am getting aroused, but I don’t want the distraction just yet.

“You look gorgeous in this, by the way.” I take her hand and lead her to the leather bench against the wall near the entrance. “Have a seat, Keisha.”

“Thank you, Sir.”

“Don’t think about being submissive or about how you need to respond to me in a submissive way when I speak to you right now. I want to set some ground rules, but I need you to pay attention and not have any fear of repercussion if you don’t say or do something quite right.”

She breathes a sign of relief. “Okay.”

“I want you to remember what we talk about now, because it will be very important for later.” I rake my eyes over her body again. This is not going to work. I stand up from the bench and grab a robe from the hook on the wall near the door. “Here, put this on so I can concentrate, too.”

I help her to slip on the robe, and we sit back down.

“When you enter the condo at six, you are to adopt your submissive role until you leave Monday morning at six, unless I give you permission to do otherwise. When Mrs. Naven is around, I want you to act as you would with me normally but when she’s not in the same room with us, you are to revert to your submissive role.”