The light grew dimmer at the bottom of the stairs, and the smell of smoky candles, cherry, and cedar wafted up the stairwell from a closed door below.

Entirely unaware of what lay on the other side, Andie took a deep breath as her hand skated idly across the lacy material of the black mask. Then, she reached for the knob.

The door pulled open before her hand closed around the brass. Andie pulled back, surprised to find a man standing on the other side. He held the door open wide, and waved Andie in with a quiet sweeping motion of his arm.

Blinking, Andie stepped forward, looking into the eyes of the man's concealed face; a black mask covering his features as well.

Where in the heck was she?

Inside the doorway, Andie looked about, seeing very little as the man who closed the door behind her stood in her way. She tried to peer around him, but the man wouldn't move. Swallowing a huff, Andie stood back and crossed her arms impatiently.

Then, the man dropped down to one knee and gently embraced Andie's ankle in his hands.

Andie nearly jumped back, gasping as the man slipped her heels from her feet, one by one, while she hopped in place ungracefully. When the man rose with her little heels dangling from his fingers, he stepped aside, and once again with a sweeping motion, he waved her into the next room.

Eying the man warily, and wondering why the hell he had confiscated her footwear, Andie speechlessly stepped forward and made her way out of the foyer and into the second room. Her barefeet scuffed silently across the wood floor, and feeling insecure without her shoes, Andie stopped short of passing through the second threshold, and stopped to peer around the corner.

The sight that greeted her wasn't one she would forget anytime soon.

In a wide den with bookshelves and candlelight, all of Andie's deepest and darkest fantasies unfolded before her.

There was a crowd of a dozen or so people circled around a man and a woman. The woman, with cascading blond hair, writhed and whined as the man hovered a candle directly over her right shoulder. Her wrists were tied and held high above her head to a lead that connected to the ceiling. And a cushioned board supported the rest of her body, angling her just enough so that the wax from the candle could land just about anywhere on her upper half without spilling to the floor.

Andie noticed the girl's feet were bare, and her ankles were tied to the board.

And then there was the man...

Behind his mask, his dark eyes flashed as the woman panted with need. She turned her head to say something to him, but he gripped her jaw quickly and forced it aside, rewarded her pleads with an especially large drop of hot wax upon her collarbone.

She cried, arching off the cushions as the wax dripped down her chest and across one nipple before hardening on her reddened skin.

Behind her mask, the woman's eyes closed and a series of low moans escaped her parted lips. Her naked chest heaved.

Andie noticed that she was clothed from the waist down; it appeared her dress had simply been lowered to her waist for the activity.

When Andie's eyes returned to the man conducting the torture, she devoured his bare chest. Like the girl, he was clothed from the waist down, but he wore black trousers as if he had just come from a day in the office. His feet where bare, just like Andie's—and just like everyone else there she just realized.

Not a single person wore shoes.

The man—the dominant—placed the candle on a nearby end table. His hand smoothed up and down the woman's legs, teasing her as she began whining anew. The noises that escaped her were primal, raw, and needy. She wanted more from him, but he didn't seem overly inclined to give her what she wanted. She was begging—Andie could see her lips moving rapidly—and her eyes were fluttering shut in a daze in between the longing stares she gave him.

"Please," Andie read on the woman's lips over and over again. "Please, please, please..."

Andie's stomach flipped as she watched the man shake his head, tutting disapprovingly. A pitying murmur rose from the crowd, but the onlookers were drinking in every bit of the girl's starving whines. A few spoke up, imploring the dominant to ease the girl's needs. It was all for show, to edge the girl closer and closer to desperation.

The dominant smirked at the few men in the crowd who feigned pity for the girl, before he slipped his teasing hand beneath her skirt. Nobody could see what he was doing under there. But as the girl's eyes widened and a gasp clogged her throat, everybody had a pretty good idea what he was doing.

The dominant's other hand reached for the breast that was tender from the hot wax, and his fingers non-too-gently tweaked the pink nipple. A cry filled the room, and then a series of cries followed it, each one louder than the last as the girl spasmed and climaxed within less than twenty seconds of being touched.

Sated, she hung limply from the ties.

Andie watched as the crowd, now satisfied, dispersed. Everybody paired off and went to a place in the room that seemed designated for activities like this one. They all picked up in the middle of a session, as if they had all been actively participating in something before stopping to watch the dominant with the girl tied from the ceiling.

Andie didn't blame them. There was something different about this man—this dominant. He seemed to fill the room with a dangerous confidence that drew anyone to him. He seemed masterful in the art of BDSM. An expert perhaps.

The masterful dominant removed the girl from her binds before fixing her dress back into place over her breasts. Then, he gathered the limp girl in his arms and turned.

Eric.

Clapping a hand over her mouth, Andie whirled around, hiding herself around the corner so that she wouldn't be seen.

That man—that dominant—was Eric!

Shocked beyond belief, Andie stood frozen for several minutes, contemplating her next move. She couldn't be here. She needed to leave. She couldn't run into him. He couldn't know that she knew about this.

Gulping back the rising anxiety inside her chest, Andie turned to leave when her body came in contact with hard muscle.

"Oh!" Andie jumped backed, nearly sprawling across the floor. Warm hands reached out and clasped around her arms to keep her from falling.

"Whoa there... You're looking a little skittish for someone entertaining the Green Parlour... Are you meant to be here?"

"Um..." No. "Y-Yes."

A feeling within her gut told her that being honest wasn't an option right now. She had been so bold upstairs, after all. Would her diginity be so bruised as to admit that she had been lying and wasn't meant to be here all along?

"First time then?"

"Yes," Andie breathed, nodding vehemently because that wasn't a lie. "I-I'm new."

"Do you normally take to hiding around the corners?"

"Um..." Andie could hardly breathe around the hammering of her heart. She couldn't remember the last time she had been so nervous.

The man in front of her was tall, tan, shirtless, and sporting a head of sun-beached hair as if he spent the majority of his afternoons with a surfboard and an exceptionally tall wave.

His blue eyes narrowed behind the same black mask that every individual in this place wore, and he eyed her skeptically.

"Are you sure you're meant to be here?"

Andie gulped. What was she supposed to tell him? That she was following her roommate and coworker via the tracking app on her phone and found him in a BDSM club pouring hot wax over the breasts of a lusty blond?

No, that wouldn't do.

"I'm sorry," Andie cleared her throat, determined to compose herself. "You just startled me. I was...spying a little, I suppose. And when you came up behind me, I..."

"Felt like you were caught doing something naughty?"

Andie's stomach flipped.

"Y-Yes..."

"Well," the man's voice lowered as his head dipped close to hers. "We can do something about that," he said, his lips brushing her ear and sending a shiver up her spine. "Come, my little stray." He grasped her hand in his and tugged her into the room where she would receive a front row view of all the activities being conducted.

Andie wanted to scream and drag her heels and tell him the truth so he would release her and let her run away, but it was too late. The man had taken her straight to Eric, who appeared to be cleaning up his station.

His back was turned to them. He was dipping his hands into a basin of steaming water, sliding a white bar of soap between his palms.

"E," the man who held Andie captive moved to stand behind her, his hands firmly closed on her shoulders, as he addressed the man who had tortured Andie's darkest fantisies since she was just a mere slip of a girl.

"I've caught a stray," the man continued, his hands sliding from her shoulders down her arms. Andie trembled as a spattering of goosebumps lifted across her skin.

"A stray, eh?" Eric—'E'—chuckled, making quick work of rinsing his hands in the water. He reached for a beige cloth. "I don't do strays, Teddy."

"But she's so cute," the man—Teddy—said with a grin in his voice.

"Cute," Eric mused for a moment, drying his hands with the cloth before folding it aside and turning around.

Andie braced herself for it. He would be livid, no doubt. He would absolutely lose it. It would be humiliating for them both. And then, he would likely refuse to look at her ever again. She'd have to move out. And they'd never—

"No," Eric stated the second his eyes came in contact with her.

"Why not?"

"She's too small." He turned his back once more.

Too small!

"Aww, have a heart, E. She was watching you from around the corner, absolutely enamored."

A hot blush crept up Andie's neck, and she felt herself starting to shrink with utter embarassment. Between her fear of being recognized, and her indignation at being called too short, Andie's emotions were rattling so chaotically inside her that she wanted nothing more than to turn around and walk right back up the stairs.

But then Eric turned back around. He looked Andie up and down, and something made him cock his head to the side and study her.

"See?" Teddy pressed, gently brushing her hair behind one shoulder. "Isn't she pretty?"

"She looks like a little girl," Eric drawled, seeming bored with her, yet unable to tear his gaze away. It intrigued Andie enough to forget Teddy's hands on her—not that she minded, she was beginning to realize—and she found herself caught in Eric's gaze and unable to look away.

But the murmuring of others broke the spell, and Andie tore her gaze from Eric's to find that their interaction had caught the attention of the other patrons.

"I-I'm not a little girl," Andie told Eric, her eyes warily moving from the crowd and turning back to him.

"No?" Eric challenged. "So, you think you can handle what I deliver?"

No.

Andie had no idea what he could deliver. What she had experienced with him in the past had clearly been the foundation of this side of him. And that foundation now supported a wild fortress that Andie had zero hope of scaling.

But even as her head screamed NO, her head nodded yes.

Eric pursed his lips and studied Andie for an unnervingly long minute before nodding once.

"Very well," he said, coming to his decision. "Let's play."