throat seemed to shrivel, and she couldn’t get a response out. Kelsey must’ve recognized the panicked look because she put a hand on Charli’s elbow and leaned next to her ear. “Don’t freak out. Nothing major happens in this session—it’s all manners. Stay and see how you feel. Might help you with your decision.”
More because her legs wanted to give out from under her than anything else, Charli let Kelsey guide her down into a kneel. So this is why Grant had been so guarded about the resort. Grant—the cowboy military guy turned vineyard owner—ran some sort of kinky S and M club? She couldn’t even wrap her mind around the thought.
And if he ran it, did that mean he was into it, too?
Charli was dragged from her thoughts as Colby walked over to one of the younger women in the front—a dark-haired beauty who looked to be pulled from the pages of an old-fashioned pinup calendar. He cupped her chin and titled her face toward him. “Stella, would you please show the group what a nice stand and kneel you have?”
The girl kept her eyes down. “Yes, sir.”
With one fluid movement, Stella rocked forward, tucked her toes under, and rose to a stand. It was a simple sequence of actions, but even Charli couldn’t deny the utter elegance it conveyed—like a silk curtain lifting with a gust of wind.
Colby gazed down at her with pride. “Lovely, Stella.” He looked to the group. “You see that, subs? None of this putting one leg up first or pushing yourself up with your hands. Unless you have some injury stopping you, your master or mistress deserves that kind of grace from you.” He put a hand on Stella’s shoulder. “Down.”
“Yes, sir.” As if the rewind button had been hit, Stella reversed her movements and rocked down into a kneel with the same fluidity. She ducked her head and placed her palms on her thighs. Beautiful. Subservient.
The idea should have rankled Charli. She’d spent her whole life making sure men saw her as an equal, showing no weakness, no softness. But there was such feminine beauty to Stella, Charli couldn’t help but feel a tug of envy. What must it be like to draw that kind of rapt attention, to get that dripping-with-lust gaze from a man? Something low and deep within her stirred at the notion.
Colby crossed his arms over his broad chest, looking like a drill sergeant. “Now I want to see all of you follow Stella’s example. Up.”
The group instantly sprung to life, each person trying to emulate the graceful act. Charli hesitated for a moment but then snapped to it when she realized not following would only bring attention to herself. She attempted the movement, but her hand landed onto the floor when she overcorrected on her balance. She rose to her feet with the elegance of an offensive lineman suffering a concussion. Terrific.
“Down,” Colby barked.
Everyone scrambled back to the floor. Some smoothly, some not so much.
Kelsey shook her head, tsking. “Pitiful.”
Charli felt the heat of shame rising up from her chest. Shit, what had she gotten herself into? And why should she even care if she was a pretty kneeler or not?
Charli stared down at her hands, wondering how she could sneak out with anyone noticing. She needed to get out of here—stat. This was way out of her zip code. But right when she started to turn her head to venture a peek at the door, a heavy hand landed on her shoulder. “You seem to be lost, Ms. Beaumonde.”
The voice behind Charli held barely restrained violence. She closed her eyes, wishing she could fall through the floor or wake up. This all had to be some bizarre nightmare, right? Dancing orangutans would twirl through the room anytime now. But of course when she opened her eyes again, Grant’s hand was still on her shoulder. And she was still in the middle of some odd How to Be a Sex Slave class.
His breath was a hot tickle against her ear. “You have three seconds to stand up and come with me before I embarrass you and let everyone know you’re an intruder here.”
Her jaw clenched, but when she caught Kelsey’s curious gaze, Charli tamped down her smart-ass reply. She didn’t want to make Kelsey look bad. Plus, the thought of being exposed as an outsider suddenly seemed too much to stomach. She was in that role way too often in her life already. She rose to her feet—at least a little more smoothly than she had the first time.
Grant seemed huge next to her all of a sudden, as if being in this place somehow made him even taller. He grasped her upper arm and none too gently led her from the room. After shutting the door, he tugged her again like she was some disobedient puppy and guided her down the hallway. “Not a word until I get you behind a closed door.”
The clipped command sent both a whisper of fear and some other unidentifiable emotion through her. She shivered beneath his grip, which apparently didn’t go unnoticed by him. He gave her the side eye and the hard line of his mouth dipped into a full frown. But he stayed silent until they’d gone up an elevator, down another elegantly decked-out hallway, and into cozy sitting room, complete with a stone fireplace. Through another open door, she could see a bigger room with a desk and large plate-glass windows that looked out onto the black night. Grant’s office.
He let go of her arm and shut the door they’d come through, then pinioned her beneath an iron gaze. “Sit.”
“I’m not a dog.”
“Charli, it’s been a long night. You’re trespassing after I explicitly told you not to, and you’ve taken me away from something important tonight. Do you really want to play word games right now?”
She sat, suddenly feeling the true extent of his anger. He was always a bossy son of a gun but here, at this place, she sensed that part of him had dialed up from low buzz to rattle-and-hum mode.
Then it hit her.
Grant was like Colby.
She remembered the way Grant had made her hold the bar in the shower, the way he’d taken control.
He was one of the men who made women kneel for him.
Charli thought of pretty, subservient Stella, and her stomach plummeted like she’d been thrown from a bridge. No wonder Grant had left last night. She was everything girls like Stella weren’t.
She looked away from him, staring at the unlit fireplace. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I shouldn’t have come over here.”
“Damn right, you shouldn’t have,” he replied, his angry voice hitting the wood floors and reverberating around her. “What the hell were you thinking? I told you I have security. You didn’t think the staff would see someone hopping the fence?”
“I thought this was a swanky resort for rich families,” she protested. “I didn’t think I was going to stumble into some, some…”
“Some what, Charli? Say what you think this is.”
