Page 62 of Affinity

Suddenly, the main floor of the club went dark until a single bright spotlight illuminated the stage. A man stood at the center with straight black hair that fell past the middle of his sculpted bare chest. It was pulled back at the crown, but a black mask covered the upper half of his face. Chloe glanced at the close-up view on the big screen suspended above him. She had no doubt that underneath it, he was beautiful.

He extended his hand to a young woman who joined him on the platform. She was pretty and looked so innocent in spite of the outfit she wore. Long-sleeved fishnet top over black tape in an X that covered her nipples. Tiny black shorts. Knee-high stiletto-heeled boots. Her blonde hair was up in a loose topknot. She couldn’t have been much older than Chloe.

The man wrapped his arms around the woman’s waist from behind and he held her against him, her back to his front. His long black hair swayed as he dipped his head to kiss along her neck, while on Chloe’s right, Jesse’s hand softly caressed her bare thigh.

She felt his warm breath on her skin as he leaned into her ear. “He’s called nawashi—rope master.”

Slow sultry music with an erotic bass beat pulsed through the club. The rope master held a coiled length of purple jute. He began just below the woman’s breasts. Wrapping. Tying. An artist with deft fingers, he wove an intricate patterned web against her skin. It was beautiful. Sensual. Chloe didn’t get why some people found it so arousing. Yet it must be. There was no mistaking the large bulge inside rope dude’s snug black slacks.

Or the one inside Jesse’s.

His fingers lightly trailed up and down her inner thigh, a soft feathery touch that tickled her skin and ignited her core. Chloe parted her lips to breathe in more air. “Kinbaku-bi. The beauty of tight binding. He is the artist and she his masterpiece.”

Taylor had his arm around her, fingers combing through her hair. The pads of Jesse’s fingertips grazed the edge of her panties at the juncture of her thigh, brushing over her heated flesh through the silver silk. “Watch how he applies the rope, the way he positions her body. Their pleasure is the journey of his creation…” The scrap of silk between her legs was pushed to the side and his finger swept over her lips without dipping inside her heated wet folds. “…not the destination.”

The girl stood perfectly still on the platform as the nawashi worked the rope and palmed her breasts. It seemed as if she were in a hypnotic trance, a dreamy expression on her face, her eyes focused on something no one else could see. “The rope becomes an extension of the nawashi’s hands. It embraces her. Cradles her.”

Jesse slid her panties back in place and Chloe sighed. She wanted his fingers back where they were. She wanted them inside her. Instead, he went back to those tingling featherlight touches on her sensitive skin. “There is nothing more beautiful to him than her.” She felt his lips touch the tender spot beneath her ear. “Nothing.”

Taylor kneaded her nape and she sank farther into the plum silk cushions. The man with flowing black hair pulled the rope through some kind of apparatus and the girl was hoisted into the air. Suspended from the rope, with her leg bent at an odd angle, she looked like a broken marionette tangled in a purple spider’s web. Jesse whispered against her ear, “And nothing is more beautiful to me than you, Riosin.”

The sough of her breathing seemed to swirl loudly around her, but Chloe knew only she could hear it. Did they notice the rapid rise and fall of her chest? She glanced around the VIP space. Linnea and Dillon sat in the center of the U facing the screen with Bo’s head in her lap. She held onto Taylor with one hand and squeezed Jesse’s thigh with the other.

The man spun the girl caught in his web, then with a tug of the rope he stilled her movement and brought her hard against his body. He released her from the apparatus and lowered her to the floor in his arms and began to untie her. He held her breasts in his hands after he released them from their bindings. The corners of her lips were turned up into a small smile; the dreamlike expression remained on her face.

Jesse reached inside the sweetheart neckline to cup her breast. He massaged it and softly rolled her nipple. “When you love someone, it’s all about being as close to their soul as you can be, isn’t it?”

God, this man.

A single tear escaped and trickled down her cheek. She couldn’t speak, so she nodded. Taylor wiped the wet trail from her face with his thumb and sucked it in his mouth. Jesse kissed her. “I love you, Chloe.”

The man who’d just tasted her tears said nothing at all.

He wanted to say it.

The three words Taylor knew Chloe wanted to hear were on the tip of his tongue. But he couldn’t say them. Not yet. And especially not here.

It wasn’t that he didn’t love her—he was almost certain he did. When it felt right to say the words, he would say them. It should be a moment between the two of them that was meaningful and special. Taylor wasn’t going to just repeat the words after Jesse did—not the first time he declared his feelings anyway. And he had no intention of making that declaration to Chloe while they were at a sex club.

The way Taylor saw it, Chloe must already know she was loved even without the words. She felt it, didn’t she? She had to. His fingers left the nape of her neck to skim along her jaw and her head turned slightly toward him. He took her face in his hands and held it there, giving her no choice but to look at him. Only him. Willing her to see the words he wasn’t yet ready to say.

Her eyes locked with his. Chloe had the most bewitching eyes Taylor had ever seen—a brilliant mosaic of colors, like sunlight reflected on sea glass. Slowly, he lowered his mouth to hers and took her lips with his own. He tasted cherry on her tongue. It tantalized him and he deepened their kiss to get more of it. More of her. The overwhelming urge to devour her came over him as it always did whenever he touched her. He couldn’t explain it. He’d never felt it with any woman ever before.

Taylor pulled her into his lap to straddle him and wrapped his arms around her. He held her to him as tightly as he could with an intense need to feel her closer. Chloe gripped his shoulders and he felt a sigh escape against his lips from somewhere deep inside her. He pulled his head back, just enough to look into those enchanting sea glass eyes, and spoke one word, “Mine.”

Ours.

Chloe was his, but she wasn’t only his. Neither was Jesse—not anymore. They belonged to each other now. Most of the time he was okay with that—more than okay with that, actually. The three of them got on splendidly well together and he was surprised at how easily they slipped into their relationship, unconventional as it would seem to some. And then there were moments like now, with Chloe’s soft body melded to his chest, that he wished her heart belonged solely to him. That the only touch she craved was his.

They were fleeting thoughts that would come and then quickly disappear. It was normal, he supposed, but he wondered if Jesse or Chloe ever had the same thoughts. Had Chloe ever wished she could just be his?

Probably not.

Taylor lowered his forehead to hers and placed a tender kiss on her lips before he returned her to the space between he and Jesse. He sipped on his scotch and with his arm across her shoulders his fingers slid back into her hair. Jesse stretched his arm across her back from the other side and burrowed his fingers in his nape, kneading the tight muscles until they relaxed. They cuddled close together, the three of them. Chloe leaned against him, her head on his shoulder, and Jesse rested his head on hers. He smiled at the picture they must make. They did belong to each other, and he was more than okay with it.

A video silently played on the big screen to the infernal beat of blaring club music. Taylor hadn’t been paying it any mind until Chloe nudged him and asked, “Do you think we look like that?”

Taylor set his scotch down and watched for a moment. Two men worshipped the body of the lover they shared. The woman on the screen was sheltered between her lover’s thighs, her back resting on his chest as he tugged on her nipples and gnawed on her neck. Her fingers tangled in the hair of the other man whose face was hidden in her cunt. His dick twitched at the reminder of the hours spent with Chloe and Jesse just like that.

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