Badlands: The Lion’s Den(4)

“Okay,” she said with a small nod. “I’ll come back then.” Then she cast a glance at the BDSM side of the club, with the same look in her eyes that he’d seen earlier.

Curiosity.

Fear.

A little bit of hunger.

He felt a red-hot rush of arousal pour through him, and fur rippled on the back of his neck. He heard the hitch in her breath as she stared at the main stage. The lion was now kneeling and lapping at the woman he’d been flogging before.

“What did you say your name was again?” he asked her.

She flicked a glance at him. “I didn’t,” she said. After a long pause, she said, “Flora,” with seeming reluctance.

“Well, Flora, you don’t need to leave right this minute,” he said. “I’d be a terrible host if I didn’t offer you the guided tour.” In the back of his head, faint warning bells chimed. His reaction to this woman was so strong, so instinctive, that he should be running in the other direction.

Then again, he’d grown bored with the hookup scene recently. Hadn’t felt inspired enough even to bother pursuing any action in weeks. Well, months, if he was being honest with himself. It couldn’t hurt to get to know her a little better. Maybe she’d be up for a quick fling.

Even as he thought that, he saw a lion shifter checking out Flora’s boobs, and he felt his claws shoot out of his fingertips in an instinctive rush of anger. He forced them to retract.

One taste of her wouldn’t be enough…

Her gaze swept the club, and then she looked back up at him and nodded.

“So what do you do here?” she asked him.

“Security. My brothers own the club. Sometimes I work here, sometimes I patrol our territory.”

A cry of pleasure rang through the air, and she twisted around to see the woman on the spanking bench jerking at her restraints and shuddering in orgasm. Flora’s eyes widened in surprise.

“So, your first time inside this kind of club?” he asked.

“What?” she said, with a look of mock hurt. “I thought I blended right in.” Then she glanced down at her blousy, figure-concealing outfit. “Maybe if I was wearing something tighter. And more revealing.”

“You’re fine just the way you are,” he said. At her self-deprecating laugh, he added, with more heat than he’d intended, “That panther who was hitting on you sure thought so.”

“I think the tequila might have helped him along a little bit,” she said. So, she was a hottie who had no idea how hot she was. That made her even more attractive.

“Anyway,” he said, pointing to the play area. “That is called a St. Andrew’s Cross. We also have the spanking benches and the whipping horse – those are very popular.”

“So I see,” she said, and then flushed in embarrassment and looked away quickly.

Finn stifled a groan. He was rock hard now, and every time he moved, the friction of his jeans rubbing against his cock threatened to send him over the edge.

He cleared his throat and forced himself to concentrate on the equipment in the club.

“That is an ob-gyn chair,” he continued. He pointed at a bed that dangled from four chains. “Floating bed.”

“So what are the rules?” she asked. “I mean, are there any rules?” She was watching a woman being bent over a pommel horse and spanked with a paddle.

“Absolutely. Consent is number one. Everyone has to establish a safe word before they start a scene. At any time during a scene, if they say the safe word, anyone else involved in the scene must stop immediately. And anyone who violates that will be removed from the club, permanently.”

“Oh.” The way her breath caught in her throat set his nerves on fire. “That sounds…safer than I thought it would be.”

“Do you think you’d ever want to try something like that?” Finn asked.

Her eyes widened at the thought. “I…I don’t know,” she said, her cheeks coloring. “I mean…being half naked in front of all those people?” She glanced self-consciously down at her body.

“You’ve got to stop that,” Finn growled. “If I were looking for a woman – which I’m not – you would be exactly what I was looking for. You. Your body. Exactly like you are.” Damn. How had that spilled out of his mouth?

“Why aren’t you?” she asked, looking him right in the eye and catching him off guard. He wasn’t used to frank questions like that. The type of women who hung out at the Lion’s Den generally didn’t want much more from him than what was in his pants, and he preferred it that way.

“Why not? Well, I… Bad experience in the past. I’m just not relationship material.”