#FirstChapterFriday is from Rescuing Cade
Cade’s trying to get over a broken heart when his friend
takes him to a nightclub, named only, The Club. Although Cade is shocked by the
taboo atmosphere, things turn around when he meets Marissa.
Marissa lifts Cade’s sadness and opens his heart to love
again. Cade touches Marissa’s heart in ways she doesn’t want to admit. Will
pressure from The Club and Marissa’s fear of commitment send them running in
opposite directions?
Chapter One
Something strange happened to Cade
when Jayne dumped him. Every scrap of confidence he possessed disappeared, just
like dew on the grass in a blaze of morning sun. Cade felt scorched. Her
parting words still burned in his heart.
“You’re hopeless in bed.”
Cade considered her declaration once
again as he stared out with unseeing eyes across the wide expanse of river from
his corner office in the prestigious tower block. He put down his coffee cup.
“Hopeless.” He said it aloud, tasting the bitterness in the finality of the
word. “If she’d said, bad, or not very good, but hopeless, it implies I
couldn’t even improve.”
Cade stood and wandered to the huge
pane of glass that was the left side of his office wall. He rested his forehead
on it and sighed. Today he felt more melancholy than ever. It was his anniversary.
One year ago, Jayne had dumped him. The engagement ring she’d pressed into his
hand before she swept out of their apartment was still on the bookshelf, where
he’d dropped it as tears filled his eyes.
He was ashamed he’d cried, but even
now, a year later, he saw the busy road far below as a blur. Cade hadn’t dated
since the break-up. At first, he couldn’t because the truth was, he still loved
Jayne, and then he couldn’t because he had no confidence that any woman would
want him. She might at first, and then
when it comes to my hopeless performance in bed, she’ll hightail it quick
smart. Cade moved back from the window and saw his breath had made a patch
of white on the glass. He wrote the word ‘hopeless’ in the cloud on the window.
There was a knock on the door and Cade
spun around. He swiped the back of his hand across his cheek, where a solitary
tear lingered.
“Yes.”
His secretary opened the door and
walked in a couple of steps.
“Cade, your three-thirty appointment
is in the lobby. Will I have him brought up?”
Cade nodded. “Sure, Abbi, and then
will you bring coffee, please.” He watched her pretty eyes fill with warmth.
She smiled at him. “I will.”
Cade went to the drawing table in the
corner of the office and looked over the design for the client. A smile teased
at the corners of his mouth. Cade loved his work. The enjoyment of creating a
beautiful building design and seeing it come to life in the hands of the
builders never failed to cheer him.
****
Cade dashed into the bistro and saw
Jack waving at him from a table halfway across the room. He slowed his pace and
joined his old friends. On alternate Thursday nights, he met Jack and Gary for
a meal and they caught up on each other’s lives.
Tonight, Gary left around nine to get
home to his girlfriend.
Jack waited until the restaurant door
closed behind Gary and then he gave Cade a purposeful stare.
“Have you thought over what we talked
about last week, Cade?”
Cade took a deep breath. “I know I
need something, but I’m not sure it’s that.”
“It might be just the thing, a different
way of looking at sex, something to spark you up. I couldn’t go back now. It’s
a lifestyle choice, I know, but why not come to The Club tomorrow night? My Sub
has asked to prove she can cope with someone watching us. She’s a sweetie.”
Cade looked away from his friend’s
sympathetic expression. He turned his coffee cup around and drank the last cool
mouthful.
“I thought your private room was
always under surveillance.”
Jack grinned. “Audio or visual, or
both, should either participant require. It’s not the same as being out there
on the floor though. There’s something exotic about having other Doms watching
live. It’s all quite civilized. We’re courteous, dress well … have to make sure
we’re healthy. It’s not a cathouse or a strip club, Cade. It’s an opulent,
well-established lifestyle club. No one does anything they don’t want to. Hell,
if I was actually coming, and my Sub said her safe word, I’d stop what I was
doing immediately, and check on her welfare. It could be what you need. You
could ease into it. How long since you even jerked off?”
Embarrassment flooded Cade. He looked
around to check if anyone had heard Jack, but the tables close by had emptied.
Jack continued, “I’m only asking
because you told me nothing turned you on anymore. You were loudly lamenting that
fact last time we had a few beers.”
Cade went hot and then cold. He’d determined
never to have a few beers again after that experience. He made the decision to
check out Jack’s club the next night. He’d go there and then that would be it.
Jack couldn’t say he hadn’t given the lifestyle a look.
“What time will I meet you tomorrow
night?”
Jack smiled. “There you go. Meet me about
ten. You know the address and the dress code from my other persuasive chats.
Bring that health questionnaire and registration form I gave you, filled in.”
Cade sighed before he nodded in
answer. “Okay.”
Copyright Elodie Parkes 2015 Evernight Publishing
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