The Venture Capitalist (9 page)

“Tristan! C’mon, stop playing with my emotions here.”

“All right. But first, I must insist you sign a nondisclosure agreement.”

“Why?”

“Because once I’ve introduced you to my world, you can’t share what you learn about me with anyone.”

She frowns and I observe her evocative expressions making the trek across her features again. I wonder if she’s even aware that in these moments she is completely guileless?

After weighing her options, she says, “I’ll sign.”

I am in awe of the dauntlessness with which she approaches something once she’s made up her mind. “Your impulsiveness never ceases to amaze me.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Her veneer of bravado slips for a moment, but I don’t follow my inbred instinct to question any hint of weakness, which I usually exercise in business dealings. Unfortunately, my other head has the upper hand in this adversarial situation.

I hand her the binder. “Please read it through, sign at the bottom, and I’ll countersign.”

She gives the document a desultory skimming before signing. I do not suppress my visage of extreme censure upon witnessing such gross indiscretion on her part. “You should read more thoroughly when you’re signing contracts. Not every business person in this world is honest.”

“What’re you gonna do, sue me? Most of our money went to refurbishing the building. The small amount of capital KSR has left is like pocket change to you.”

I take the NDA, countersign it, and place it on my desk. When I return to her, I wipe my palms on my jeans, then reach my hand out to her. She takes it readily, and I lead her to my Grotto across the hall from my office and unlock the door.

I step aside and allow her to enter the room before me. I designed my Grotto purposely with no windows because I didn’t want prying eyes from without nor within, and I sometimes liked playing in the dark, rendering blindfolds unnecessary.

No turning back for the trusting Ms. Beale now. Once the room is illuminated she will officially become part of my world. Whether she decides to join me in it, or not, will be another thing altogether.

As I flip the switch her breath hitches, and her face transforms instantly from eager interest to abject horror.

CHAPTER SIX

This time I’m ready when Keisha takes flight. My heightened reflexes kick in and I catch her and envelop her in my arms. She struggles frantically to get away, but I don’t give one inch. I attempt to soothe her with my voice.

“Keisha, please don’t run from me again. I’m not going to hurt you.”

I recognize something of myself in the ferocity of her struggle and the panic that is consuming her. Letting her go is out of the question. She fights in earnest beating my chest with her tiny fists until she despairs of energy and they begin to flail.

“No. Nooo. No!”

“Keisha?”

Her eyes begin to roll back indicating that she’s about to pass out. I lift her up and carry to the closest room, other than the Grotto, which happens to be my office, to calm her down before she alarms Mrs. Naven. Closing the door, I sag against it cradling her in my arms, and breathing deeply to gain control of my own quickly escalating vital signs. If I were to succumb to an attack now, we’d both be fucked.

When I see tears stream from her fearful hazel eyes, as she struggles to get her own breathing  under control, I try again to sooth her with my voice. “Shhh… I promise. I’m not going to hurt you. Shhh.”

Finally, she stills in my arms and calms down. Smoothing the hair from her face, I touch her forehead with mine, grateful that she now knows I mean her no harm. Her gaze is trusting again, and I take this as a sign that I can release her.

Carrying her to the chaise, I lay her down gently, then retrieve a glass of water for her from the wet bar. Kneeling beside her prone figure, I offer her a drink, which she takes without hesitation.

I’m so grateful she’s no longer in peril of fainting, I smile to put her more at ease and drag a chair over to observe her until she is completely calm. Only when her breathing levels out, do I dare speak to her.

“I realize this is a lot for you to digest all at once—”

“You think?”

“Will you let me explain?” I don’t blame her for the sarcasm, but I wait to continue when she nods.

“Are you okay to walk now? To see my role-play room?” I don’t tell her it’s called The Grotto. Yet. She needs to get used to the idea that places like this exist and that people like me use them. And I really, really want her to join me in its use. Maybe not today, but soon.

“Yes,” she says, as she sits up.

“Are you sure?” I scrub my face from bottom to top with my hand and continue through my hair. “You don’t have to do this today.”

She swings her legs off the chaise and faces me.

“I’m sure.” Her insistence is surprising given her previous reaction. I am not looking this particular gift horse in the mouth. I take her hand as she stands to make sure her legs are navigable, and walk her out of my office and back to the Grotto.

When her steps falter at the threshold, I stop and allow her to take in the room. Her eyes settle first on the king-sized wrought-iron pedestal bed in the center of the room—then they travel slowly to each of the walls, and around the space taking in the various apparatuses that would be found in any well-equipped BDSM play room. This one just happens to be on the top floor of a condo, not in a basement. While many like the term dungeon, I named mine The Grotto because it is cave-like in its lack of windows, and the accoutrements within are picturesque to the practiced eye.

Once she’s taken everything in, her first words surprise me.

“What the fuck?”

I am obliged to answer her as accurately as I can. “This is my lifestyle, my preference for sexual expression.”

“Is this normal?”

“What is normal? What’s normal for one may be abnormal for another.”

“Maybe I chose the wrong words. Is this shit healthy?”

I don’t temper my indignation this time. “Sexual expression becomes unhealthy only when it’s repressed.”

“You might have a point, but I don’t have any repressed sexual expressions I’m just dying to experience right now,” she declares, but curiosity draws her like a moth to flame further into the room.

“Do you have any questions?” I close the door behind us, and join her in the room.

“So, you’re a sadist, and you want to bring me in here and do God knows what to me?”

“No, I’m not a sadist, although I have some leanings in that direction. I’m so much more. I’m a Dominant in search of a submissive, and I believe you are she.”

“Is that what I would be called? Or is it ‘slave’?” It’s her turn to be indignant. “How can you approach me about something like this? I’m a black woman with too much pride in my heritage to step back two hundred fucking years. Last I heard, Abraham Lincoln abolished slavery.”

“Keisha, this scene isn’t meant to be demeaning to you or your ethnicity. A Dom/sub relationship is predicated on trust, and the goal is pleasure, not punishment. I’d like you to do it for our mutual pleasure.”

“Say what?” She massages her temples as if warding off a headache. “How is this supposed to benefit me?”

“I’d like to introduce you to a world of pleasure beyond your wildest dreams.”

“Are you some Wall Street version of Sting and his tantric sex practices?”

“Sting is tame compared to me.” Only a neophyte would compare BDSM to Tantra. “I’m also prepared to front all the money for Kente Studio Records with a hefty bonus, in exchange for your agreement to be my submissive.”

“What? You rich white guys really have some fucking nerve! I must really have
prostitute
branded on my fucking forehead.”

Okay. The mention of her business investment in the same sentence as my proposition was probably not the best move.

“Like I said, it’s is not my intention to demean your gender or ethnicity. This is the only type of attachment I’m able to form with any woman.”

She levels me with a look akin to pity. “And here I thought you just wanted to have regular sex with me.”

But she’s at least entertaining the thought of having sex with me, so I don’t get to tell her just how much I abhor pity.

“I do want to have regular sex with you, but not just vanilla.”

“Vanilla? If we were to kick it, it’d be more like… milk chocolate.”

“In my world, there’s plain old vanilla sex then
everything
else.”

“So, you buy that whole Descartes thing that pain and pleasure are part of a continuum?”

“I do.”

“I don’t. Maybe people who have everything they could ever dream of need to conquer this one final frontier. Well, I’m not the Starship Enterprise, and I don’t want any part of this kinky shit.” She gestures wildly around the room, then a vibrator catches her eye and she’s like a kid with a short attention span. “Well, maybe this,” she says, almost as if she isn’t aware she’s spoken aloud. “I think I have one like it.”

When I move toward her, she shrinks back as if she’s prepared to run again. I raise my hands in a show of conciliation. “I just want to sit and talk.” I gesture to the bench against the wall. When she doesn’t bolt again, I take her hand, and maneuver us to the bench. I allow her to be seated before I join her on the bench and commence my explanation.

“Keisha, I can’t believe I’ve read you wrong. When you came into my office saying ‘yes, sir’ and ‘no, sir,’ I read you to be the product of a submissive background. You said you were taught to be respectful by your maternal grandparents, who passed that on to your mother, right?”

“Yes, all of us are taught at an early age.”

“Was your father a strict disciplinarian?”

“What’s my father got to do with any of this?”

“Bear with me. I do have a point. If you answer me truthfully, I promise I’ll get to it.”

“My father was an asshole,” she says.

I roll my eyes, and mutter an agreement. “Aren’t they all?” She laughs, which is what I was hoping for with my candor. Only then do I continue. “But you obeyed him most of the time, didn’t you?”

Her throat works frantically a moment, before she agrees.“Yes.”

“What kind of men have you dated in the past? Strong, no-nonsense types or sensitive types you can easily manipulate?”

She is quiet as she thinks about the question, and without her voicing the answer, I know intuitively just what it will be. “Definitely not sensitive.”

“Keisha, although you possess a bravado that would be off-putting to most Doms, I can see through that. You’re a submissive at heart but you’ve learned to mask it.”

“Are you a shade-tree psychologist in addition to being a CEO?”

“I’ve just been what I am for a long time,” I say. “You have to read people very well to do what I do.”

“This still doesn’t mean I’d agree to let you beat the shit out of me for the sake of fulfilling some sexual fantasy.”

“I wouldn’t beat the shit out of you. I don’t like marring the skin of my subs in any way, and fecal play doesn’t appeal to me at all.”

She wrinkles her nose in disgust. “Some people really do that?”

“You’d be surprised what some people do.”

“Why do
you
?”

“Because it’s the only way I’m interested in pursuing a relationship with a woman.” I unapologetically. “However, my therapist would insist I prefer BDSM because by defining the roles in advance, the relationship is reduced to a more primitive element—ergo, it’s easier to contro
l.
”

“Do you agree with your therapist’s assessment?”

“Not entirely. I prefer BDSM simply because I find control the most heady aphrodisiac there is.”

She releases a laborious sigh. “I don’t think I can do this. I’m not sure what you see in me, but I don’t think a submissive is it.”

Despite a veritable arsenal of coercion employed to try and convince the delectable Ms. Beale to join me in a Dominant/submissive relationship, she has chosen not to do so. I find this regrettable in the extreme.

I try not to allow defeat to permeate my smile. “I had you pegged as adventurous, fearless—a risk-taker. Someone who wanted to explore her submissive nature in a more controlled environment. Was I wrong about you?”

I never show my true feelings to anyone other than close friends and family, particularly submissives, but I am compelled to allow Keisha to see just how vulnerable I am where she is concerned. Manipulative? Yes, but desperate times...and all that.

“I want you, Keisha,” I say, my voice raw with need.

That simple statement galvanizes her into action much quicker than I anticipated, but I’m always ready for the unexpected. She propels herself into my arms and I catch her effortlessly, molding her body to mine without hesitation. Our lips lock at the same time my hands and her legs clamp us together, and I stumble backward to the bed, knowing from experience exactly where it is in the center of the room.

The erection I’ve been sporting since breakfast feels like it has its own heartbeat, as the friction created from us grinding against one another on the bed becomes a riot of sensation way beyond what we experienced the week before. I don’t recall the last time I enjoyed kissing a woman this much, and the greed with which we consume each other verges on desperation. Our hands reciprocate exploration of our bodies despite the clothing which makes it difficult to do so.

Impatience makes me pull her up onto her knees in the middle of the bed as we begin to disrobe one another without speaking. Words are not required even as we reluctantly stop kissing between rough caresses and eager contortions to undress.

I’m anxious to enter her body without my usual slow perusal first, but I can’t refrain any longer. I’ve waited a week to be here, and now that she’s offering, I simply cannot refuse.

Reaching into the drawer of the bedside table, I retrieve a condom and raise myself above her to slide it on. Keisha’s eyes widen as she takes in my erection, but I don’t give her a chance to protest its size. With one yank, her panties are off and I’m inside the tightest, wettest, most delicious snatch known to man.

A simultaneous, harmonious grunt is all that either of us can manage when I enter her. I take a few guttural breaths, blinking to focus on her face before I’m able to mutter the words, “How long’s… it been… for you?”

Despite how tight she is, I feel like this woman’s pussy was especially made for me. She is thoroughly wet, but her cunt is squeezing my cock so hard, my throat feels constricted. This is not going to be a languorous marathon as I originally intended, it’s going to be more like a fucking sprint. And I don’t do puns.

“Three and a half… years.”

Looks like I’m not the only one having problems speaking. After three practice strokes, I begin to move with alacrity. When Ms. Beale emerges from this bed, she’s going to be so thoroughly fucked, she won’t want another dick within six feet of her personal space, let alone near her pussy. That is, unless it’s mine.

I thought six months on my part was a dry spell, but this woman has been without for almost four years. I feel like it’s my duty to make this encounter the best she’s ever had, and then some.

As I ramp up into cruising speed, she clasps my forearms and attempts to hold on, but there is no purchase she’s able to find against the onslaught. Somehow, though, she manages to move beneath me in some semblance of rhythm. Her eyes are closed, but I keep mine open, watching as her visage changes with every thrust, going from mild discomfort to rapturous wonder. Tears seep from the corners of her eyes, which concerns me greatly, but if I’m hurting her, I simply can’t stop. When I threaten to ease up, she continues at the pace I’ve set, stubbornly refusing to slow down.