Fifteen minutes later, on the dance floor I felt a hand on the small of my back that didn’t move.
I twisted my neck and blinked at Hulk.
He leaned in and shouted in my ear, “Knight wants you off the dance floor.”
I couldn’t have possibly heard him right.
So I leaned into him, still swaying to the music and shouted back, “What?”
He kept his mouth to my ear, hand to the small of my back and repeated, “Woman, Knight wants you off the dance floor.”
I pulled back, caught his eyes and asked, “Off?”
He nodded. “Yup.”
“The dance floor?”
Another nod. “Yup.”
What on earth?
“Why?” I asked.
“I don’t question, I just do. And Knight wants you off the dance floor.”
I leaned into him and shouted, “What if I don’t go?”
“Then I carry you to his office, lock you in, tell him you declined and leave you to explain to him why you did.”
Oh God.
I looked up toward the window to Knight’s office.
I didn’t know what to do. I liked to dance. I didn’t like to be told I couldn’t. Not at all. But this was his party and he’d paid for it in a lot of ways which was something at that moment I did not like.
Crap.
I looked at Hulk.
He’d carry me to Knight’s office. Totally.
Crap!
I turned to Vivica who was moving but watching and I put my hands to my mouth.
“Gonna go back to the section,” I shouted.
Her eyes shifted from me to Hulk to me.
Then her hands went to her mouth and she shouted back, “Like I said. Hold the fuck on.”
Then she swayed away and started to bust a move which was also Viv’s way. She could dance alone and get into it and she didn’t even have to be tipsy.
Hulk escorted me to the VIP section.
I went back to my San Pellegrino and looked up to Knight’s window. I also took several deep breaths.
Right, okay.
Talk to him. Ask what gives. Listen.
Then decide.
A couple of my friends wandered over to me and I went back to having a different kind of fun that didn’t involve booze or dancing.
The club was emptying out and I was standing at Knight’s window watching it.
Hulk had escorted me up to Knight’s empty office before he had escorted a shitfaced Sandrine and not-shitfaced but definitely happy Vivica out the back way to the waiting car so he could take them home.
My friends were all gone, it was after three in the morning and my night with Knight was finally starting.
As I watched out his window, even though the lights were up, the music was off, stragglers were gathering their stuff and moseying out and the staff was beginning clean up, I was fascinated. And since I’d been standing there for the last half an hour before the lights went up and the music was off, I’d been fascinated a while. In fact, there was so much happening, so much to see, so many people and it was so easy to see it all from this vantage point, I figured I could watch it for hours and never get bored.
The one thing that bothered me was that you could see everything. Absolutely everything. And if you were a handsome, wealthy club owner who could pick and choose, you could stand there and select from your smorgasbord of pussy.
You could also see your new girlfriend dancing and send your lackey to make her stop on a whim.
On this thought, the door opened. I twisted my neck and watched Knight walk in.
It really kind of sucked that he looked just as good in a suit as he did in a faded Metallica t-shirt and jeans. And it sucked because I couldn’t decide which Knight I liked better.
“Hey, baby,” he said while closing the door behind him.
“I like to dance,” I blurted and his head tipped to the side.
He held my eyes and he did this for some time while I waited.
Then he said, “Right, it’s time to talk about this anyway.”
Then he walked to his desk.
I watched thinking, Talk about what?
He sat behind his desk and ordered, “Come here, Anya.”
I turned from the window, walked to his desk and stopped at the opposite side but remained standing.
Leaned back in his chair looking up at me, he stated quietly, “Baby, I said, come here.”
“I’m here,” I replied.
“You’re there,” he returned with a tip of his head to me then he gestured to his lap with a hand. “I want you here.”
Oh boy.
I pressed my lips together. Then I moved around his desk.
When I was within reaching distance, he reached. Hooking his arm around my waist, slowly and gently, he guided me in, turned me then pulled me into his lap so I had my legs over one arm of chair, my back resting against the other, my behind in his lap and both his arms around me.
“Okay, Anya, babe, before I take you home to my bed, it’s important you get me,” he said quietly.
I stared at him and when he didn’t go on, I nodded.
“I think you get from the times you’ve been with me that I like control,” he went on.
Well, I got that all right.
I nodded again.
“Right.” His arms gave me a squeeze then one hand slid lightly up my arm causing goose bumps the entire way until it went over my shoulder and finally stopped at my neck where he curled his fingers around. Then he dipped his face close to mine. “What you need to get is I… like… control. In all things.”
“Okay,” I whispered.
“So, I tell my woman not to drink, she doesn’t drink. I tell her not to dance, she doesn’t dance. I do these for my own reasons and you comply. You don’t, you answer to me. You put one of my boys out, you again answer to me. And, baby, you don’t want to answer to me.”
Right, okay.
This I did not like.
“Knight –”
His hand at my neck clenched gently and his face dipped closer. “I won’t hurt you. I would never hurt you. Not the way you’re thinking. But I would make you pay and how you’d pay might involve pain.”
Oh my God.
“What?” I breathed.
“An example, you got this, you knew it before now, you told Kurt you were gonna dance anyway, right now you’d be over my knees a different way. Do you get me?”
Oh. My. God!
My body went still.
Knight pulled it closer. “The punishment will fit the crime, Anya. Not lasting, no marks and it won’t go on for hours. And after, always, I’ll take care of you. Tonight, you look good, that dress looks good on you and men’s eyes were on you. I didn’t like that. In your section, they can look, they can see, they cannot get close. On the dance floor, they see more, you movin’ the way you do when you dance, you give them more to see and they can get close. You’re mine. No one touches what’s mine, gets close to what’s mine, they don’t even think about it. You on that dance floor, I saw them watching you and I knew they were thinking about it. That bothered me. I stopped it. If you don’t get it now, you will that I won’t ask you to do something you don’t like or that makes you uncomfortable. I’ll only ask you to do shit or not do shit that’s important to me. If I’m important to you, you’ll do it. And all this is the same when we’re in bed.”
I didn’t say anything, couldn’t think of what to say. I just stared at him.
Knight kept talking.
“You please me, I’ll please you. You do what I tell you to do, I’ll take care of you. You disobey me or act out, I’ll punish you then I’ll take care of you.” His thumb swept my jaw and he whispered, “And if you like your punishments, act out all you want, baby, then I’ll give them to you but I’ll always take care of you.”