TALENT SCOUT: AN EXCERPT FROM ‘SUBMIT TO DESIRE’
Charlotte Brand is tired of dull boyfriends and boring sex. Kingsley Edge, who owns clubs rumored to supply more than just cocktails, seems just the man to revive her: intense, sophisticated…and looking for a submissive he can train for an elite client. Soon, they are engaged in a series of lessons that test her darkest desires….
***
“Another one bites the dust,” Charlotte said, raising her glass. Two other glasses met it and the resulting clink sent Amaretto sour dripping over her fingers and onto the floor.
“Good riddance to bad boyfriends.” London downed the last of her Fuzzy Navel and sat the empty glass on the bar.
“I’ll drink to that,” Sasha said, sucking out the last drops of her Long Island Iced Tea.
Steele, the bartender, refilled her glass.
“That’s the problem.” Charlotte tucked a stray strand of red hair back into her straw cowboy hat. “Nick wasn’t a bad boyfriend. He was…nice.”
Sasha and London stared at her over the top of their drinks.
“You already dumped him, Char.” London wadded up her napkin and tossed it at Steele. “Don’t add insult to injury.”
“You women are all the same.” Steele set three shots up in front of them. “God forbid you date a guy who’s nice to you.”
“Nick was nice.” Sasha picked up her shot. “And kind of hot. Nice isn’t bad. Nice is just…boring.”
“Boring,” London agreed.
Charlotte sighed and gazed down into her drink.
Nick was nice. Too nice. So nice she wanted to kill him for it sometimes. Last week had been the last straw. She’d fallen asleep during sex. Missionary position. Five minutes of foreplay. Five minutes of thrusting. Ten minutes after of “I love everything about you.” Just…like…always.
“Boring,” Charlotte echoed as she looked up and met the eyes of a man walking through the bar. The man, whoever he was, looked to be in his mid-thirties and had shoulder-length dark hair and olive skin. From what Charlotte could tell, he wore a weird suit, kind of Victorian-looking, like something off a romance novel cover. And he wasn’t walking so much as strolling, as if the crowded nightclub was a park in spring, and he was a country squire out on a pleasant Sunday ramble.
“Steele, who is that guy?” London asked.
Steele gave the three ladies a half-cocked smile.
“That is Kingsley Edge. And he is the opposite of boring. And if you three have any sense you’ll stay away from him.”
“What sense I had just took her panties off and laid down in front of him,” Sasha said with a drunken giggle.
“God, he looks like a pirate.” London ran her finger around the rim of her glass.
“I think he looks dangerous.” Sasha shot the man her best come-over-here smile.
Charlotte sighed. Sasha and London had promised her a girls’ night out to help cheer her up over yet another failed relationship. “No men” had been their promise. Only alcohol and dancing. Maybe it was time to get some real friends.
“He looks like he needs a haircut.” Charlotte downed her shot in one bitter swallow.
“Hey, do your trick, Char. That’ll get his attention,” Sasha begged.
“I don’t want to get his attention. He’s a pimp.” Charlotte had heard of Kingsley Edge. No one who haunted New York’s nightlife hadn’t. His respectable business interests included owning several of the city’s top clubs. Rumors swirled about the man, however; rumors that he made the vast majority of his money pushing flesh and not cocktails.
Steele laughed and the three friends spun back around on their bar stools.
“Kingsley Edge is not a pimp.” Steele poured Charlotte a fresh Amaretto sour. “Kingsley Edge is a talent scout.”
“Talent scout?” Charlotte’s eyes followed Kingsley Edge as he made his way through the club. Every few feet he’d pause and gaze at her through the crowd. “What sort of talent?”
“Maybe your talent.” Steele winked at her. She’d worked at this club, Le Cirque de Nuit, a few years ago and had picked up a trick or two.
Sasha and London looked at Charlotte with pleading eyes. Steele held out a shot glass full of liquid paraffin. Once again Charlotte decided to make getting new friends a top priority. She was almost drunk. They were definitely drunk. And they were making her perform for them. Fine—if they insisted.
Charlotte sighed and took the shot glass. Sasha handed her a lighter.
Sasha and London clapped while they hopped off their stools and stood far away. Charlotte noticed that the commotion had not just gotten the attention of most of the nightclub patrons, but had alerted Kingsley Edge as well. He stood next to a column and leaned against it with one eyebrow raised.
Charlotte inhaled deeply, swigged the liquid paraffin, pursed her lips, flicked the lighter and pushed air out so hard her ears popped. A fireball blew out several feet in front of her and set everyone in the nightclub screaming and clapping. She kept blowing even after the fire went out, knowing she had to exhale anything left in her mouth. Hopping off her bar stool, she gave a small bow before turning back to her drink. She’d already had five tonight. One for each nice boyfriend she’d dumped in the last five years.
Two hours later she lay on the floor in the VIP section. She heard two male voices talking above her. One sounded like Steele’s. The other sounded almost melodic…deeply male and as intoxicating as all the alcohol she’d imbibed.
“It’s last call, chief. What should I do with her?”
“I’ll take care of le petit dragon.”
“You sure about that?”
She was close to passing out but she remembered the laugh. A warm, low laugh, she felt it more than it heard it. It rolled down her body from her neck to her ankles.
“Quite sure,” the voice said in an accent her addled mind recognized as French. “I like a woman with a little fire in her belly.”
* * *
Charlotte woke up in the fetal position. Groaning, she opened her eyes and saw a pair of knee-high leather riding boots. The boots belonged to a pair of long legs crossed at the ankles and using her back as a footstool. Looking up she saw Kingsley Edge lounging on the VIP sofa with a dainty teacup and saucer in his hands. Sipping at his tea he smiled down at her.
“I hope you don’t mind my saying this, chérie, but you need a new hobby.”
It took her much longer than it should have to process his words.
“Hobby?” she asked. “Who are you?”
“You know who I am. And I know who you are.” He held up her driver’s license and studied it with his dark eyes. “Charlotte Brand. Steele tells me your friends call you Char. Shameful. I’ll call you Charlie, if you don’t mind.”
“I might mind.”
“Twenty-seven years old,” he said, still staring at her license. “A good age, Charlie.”
“You’re really going to call me Charlie?”
“Oui. I love women with men’s names. It satisfies a certain deviant side to me.”
“Is your boot on my back part of your deviant side?” Charlotte sat up, and Kingsley lifted his feet off her back with a graceful air.
“What can I say? When I see a beautiful woman so drunk she ends up passed out on the floor, I assume she’s there because she wants to be walked all over.”
“Nice guilt trip. I heard you were a pimp. Are you a priest, too?”
“Non. But I have a priest on speed dial if you need one,” he said with a wicked grin on his sculpted lips. “Would you like to come home with me now, Charlie?”
“What are you going to do to me?” His face came into focus for the first time. She’d heard he was French…or half-French, something like that. He was rich and had half the judges and cops in town in his back pocket. She’d also heard he was handsome, but handsome didn’t do justice to the man in front of her.
“Breakfast and a shower are in order. Perhaps then we can discuss a certain business opportunity.”
The phrase business opportunity triggered a memory from last night. Steele said that Kingsley Edge wasn’t a pimp but a talent scout. Talent scout—she had a feeling she knew exactly what this business opportunity might entail.
“The shower and breakfast might work. But I can save you the trouble—no to any business opportunities.”
“You say that now…but wait until you try my pancakes.”
He sat his teacup and saucer down and held out his hand.
What the hell was she getting herself into?
Charlotte reached out and put her hand into his. Wrapping his fingers around hers, he pulled her to her feet. Wobbling a little on her high heels, she put her hand on his chest to steady herself. He covered her hand with his and met her eyes.
“You’re a beautiful woman.” His dark-lashed eyes studied her face. “Even with scuff marks on your cheek.”
Charlotte blushed and rubbed her face.
“Don’t bother. We’ll wash it off at my townhouse. Shall we, Charlie?”
“Okay, so you’re going to call me Charlie. What do I call you?”
“Everyone calls me Kingsley or King. Or Monsieur. Take your pick.”
“Monsieur?”
“Mon père était français et j’ai servi dans la légion étrangère française.”
Charlotte blinked and tried to make out any of the words Kingsley had said. But none of it registered as anything but poetic nonsense.
“I said ‘my father was French and I served in the French Foreign Legion.’”
Charlotte stared at Kingsley. French…riding boots…the suit…and he changed her name to Charlie.
“You’re a little insane, aren’t you, Kingsley?”
“Oui, and you’re coming home with me.” He flashed her a wicked grin.
“Touché.”
Kingsley strode off and Charlotte followed behind him. He paused as he passed the bar and picked up her cowboy hat, which someone had left there. He tossed it back to her.
“I’m giving it to you but don’t think you’re allowed to wear it in my presence.”
“Why not?”
“Because you have the most beautiful claret-colored hair I’ve ever seen, and it’s a crime to cover it.”
Charlotte rolled her eyes.
“It’s not real. Well, the hair’s real, but not the color. I’m a hair stylist.”
“I don’t care if it’s real. I wasn’t born bilingual but that doesn’t change the fact that it turns you on that I am. Oui?”
Kingsley spun on his heel to smile back at her. He raised his eyebrows and seemed to be waiting for her to answer.
“Okay, oui,” she admitted.
“J’accepte.” Kingsley threw open the doors to the club.
Charlotte shielded her face as the morning sunlight beat down on her aching eyes. Once inside the back of Kingsley’s car she noticed the lush leather interior and the old-world feel.
“Holy shit…is this a Rolls-Royce?”
Kingsley sat on the bench seat opposite her.
“She is. Not my favorite one, but she’s fine for running errands.”
“So am I an errand?” Charlie asked.
“I don’t know.” Kingsley gave her a long look that set the hairs on her arms standing up. “Are you running?”
Charlotte looked out the window and saw the city regulars on their way to work—men in power suits, women in severe dresses. And here she sat in a Rolls-Royce with one of the city’s most notorious underground figures.
“Not yet.”
Kingsley grinned.
“Good answer, Charlie. Here we are.”
The Rolls pulled in front of an elegant black-and-white bricked town house that looked at least three stories high.
Kingsley left the car first and held out his hand for her. She tried to stay steady on her feet as he pulled her out. Kingsley steered her up two flights of stairs. A stunningly beautiful young woman delivered a file folder to him with a quick curtsy.
“You can shower while I read,” Kingsley said.
“You’re really going to make me take a shower?”
“I can give you a bath if you prefer.”
“I wouldn’t prefer,” she said, not sure if she meant that.
Kingsley pushed open a set of intricately carved black double doors.
Never before had she seen a bedroom more erotic and inviting. She wished she knew more about architecture so she could properly describe it to her friends…if and when she ever made it out of here. She wanted to study the vaulted ceilings adorned with black-and-white paintings of lovers coupling in positions both pornographic and artistic. Or the hulking black marble fireplace on the lush oriental rugs that covered the black-and white-tile floor.
But in truth only the bed held her attention. A huge four-poster behemoth, it captured both her attention and her imagination. She’d never seen sheets so red, like the color of fresh blood, or pillows so thick she thought she could drown in them and die happy.
“Nice bed,” she said when Kingsley caught her staring. “It’s really…big. King-size, I guess.”
“Kingsley-sized.” He winked at her as he pointed at a door across the room. “Bathroom in there. There is a bathrobe you can use while I have your clothes sent out.”
Charlotte entered the bathroom and found it as luxurious as the bedroom. She locked the door behind her and looked in the mirror. Scuff marks had been only a slight exaggeration. A streak of black floor polish adorned her left cheek. It looked almost like a bruise. Her eyes were shaded with smudged and flaking eye makeup and her lipstick had worn halfway off from the alcohol and the paraffin. She turned on the steam shower and stepped inside. As she washed the club grime off she wondered what on earth Kingsley wanted with her before deciding she didn’t really care.
She turned off the water and wrapped herself in the plushest towel she’d ever felt in her life. Squeezing the water out of her hair she pulled on the black silk bathrobe. With nothing on but the robe she emerged into the bedroom. Kingsley reclined in a chair with his feet propped up on an ottoman. He’d discarded his suit jacket and put on a pair of wire-rimmed glasses. With a cocktail in his hand he perused the file folder in his hand.
“Hypocrite.” She nodded at his cocktail and tried to ignore how desirable he looked in his embroidered vest with his crisp white shirtsleeves rolled up to reveal muscular forearms and wrists.
“Everything in moderation, ma chérie. Except orgasms. Have a seat.”
She didn’t see anywhere to sit other than the bed and not wanting to seem too eager she sat on the floor. Kingsley gave her a strange look as she waited at his feet—a look both hungry and self-congratulatory.
Kingsley pulled out a sleek black cell phone. In rapid French he poured out what sounded like instructions and hung up.
“Pancakes forthcoming. Now this is all very interesting.” He flipped another page in the file. “You had a four-point-oh at NYU before you dropped out your freshman year. Pourquoi?”
Charlotte sat up straighter.
“That file’s about me?” she demanded.
“Oui. While I was waiting for you emerge from your Amaretto-sour coma, I had my secretary cull your records. You are a fascinating woman, Charlie.”
“And you’re such an asshole. I can’t believe you’re digging around my past.”
“I intend to fuck you blind before you leave my home, Charlie. Is penetrating your past more intimate than penetrating your body?”
Charlotte closed her mouth and sat blushing on the floor as visions of Kingsley on top of her, inside her, raced through her mind.
“I think so,” she finally answered.
“So do I, actually.”
“That’s a pretty old-fashioned view of sex,” she said. “Especially for a pimp.”
“I am not a pimp. My employees do not sell sex. If I’m anything, it would be an agent. Or—”
“A talent scout,” she finished. “Yeah, Steele told me. So were you scouting for talent at the club last night?”
“I was. And found a fire-breather. Not a particularly useful talent but certainly interesting. As is this—your mother, she died when you were nineteen.”
Charlotte swallowed. “Car accident. That’s not interesting. Just horrible.”
“Horrible, très. But you dropped out of school to raise your younger brother—that is interesting.”
“Simon and my father do not get along. He was terrified at the prospect of living with my dad. We got a sympathetic judge, thank God.”
Kingsley smiled at her over the top of his glasses.
“Your father is not a good man?”
Charlotte pulled the robe tighter around her. “He’s strict, conservative. I stayed out an hour after curfew when I was sixteen. I was at the movies with a girlfriend and we got ice cream after. He assumed the worst and called me a slut, a whore, everything. He and mom divorced that year finally. I couldn’t let Simon move in with him. Especially since—”
“Your brother is gay.”
“Yeah, how did you know?”
“He interned with gay rights groups while in college and law school. You dropped out of university and started working so your gay brother wouldn’t have to live with your conservative father. That’s rather noble of you, Charlie.”
Charlotte stared at the floor.
“My dad would have destroyed Simon. It wasn’t noble. It was my only choice.”
“It wasn’t, but it’s quite telling that you think that. Let’s see,” he said and flipped a few more pages. “You worked as a receptionist at a salon after you quit school and apprenticed there. You were a cocktail waitress at Le Cirque de Nuit a few nights a week as well. Must have been before I bought the club. I would have remembered a fire-breather.”
“You got much better tips if you could do a stunt. The bartender there before Steele taught me the fire-breathing thing.”
“Your brother is in law school now. Full scholarship, I see. There’s no reason you can’t go back to school.”
“I’m a little too old. Besides, I like working. I’ve been out in the real world taking care of myself and Simon since I was nineteen. Don’t think I can go back.”
Kingsley closed the file and leaned forward. He started to open his mouth but a knock on the door interrupted.
“Entréz,” he called out. The butler entered carrying a breakfast tray. He sat it on the floor in front of Charlotte and quickly departed.
“So now you’ve had your shower and you are currently having your breakfast. Let’s discuss the business opportunity you’ve already said no to.”
“Discuss away,” she said after her first delicious bite of pancake. “But it’s still a no.”
“Understandable.” Kingsley stood up and removed his wire-rim glasses. “I’ll talk. You eat.”
“Happily.”
Kingsley strolled leisurely about his bedroom.
“I told you I was no pimp and that’s true. There is a sexual aspect to the work my employees do, but none of them have sexual intercourse for money. At least not on my time clock. The clients we serve are an unusual lot with unusual desires. If they wanted mere sex, they could get that from their husbands and wives, boyfriends and girlfriends. What they want from us is more complicated.”
“You’re talking about kink, right?”
Kingsley nodded. “Oui. Kink. Bondage, domination and sadomasochism. I said I was a talent agent. It wouldn’t be far off the mark to also call myself a matchmaker. I have clients with specific desires, and I try to find a good match for those desires among my coterie. I have a client now—a wealthy businessman, not unattractive—who has found himself longing for a deeper connection than what he has experienced in his recent short-lived relationships. He prefers a beautiful woman somewhere between the age of twenty-five and thirty-five. No preference on race, height, or religion. Strong preference on intelligence—i.e. she must have it. And she must be very brave.”
At his last word he turned around and looked down at her.
“A woman who breathes fire while drunk and comes to my home while sober is about as brave as this town has to offer. Wouldn’t you agree, Charlie?”
Charlotte stared at him. She couldn’t believe what he was asking her.
“Okay…I’m not saying yes or anything. I’m only asking out of curiosity—what exactly would this whole arrangement entail?”
“This particular client enjoys S and M on occasion but is more interested in absolute sexual dominance. He is particularly aroused by fear.”
“So he’s a rapist?”
“Hardly. Dominants in the lifestyle, as we call it, find submission erotic. Overpowering a woman and taking her by force is an act of assault and violence. A dominant desires his submissive trust him enough to allow him to take her even when she is afraid. Yes, he takes but she gives as well. And you, ma chérie, have all the makings of a world-class submissive.”
“This is bizarre.”
“Is it? Tell me, Charlie, those two blond Barbie dolls you were with last night—that was Sasha Walsh and London Faber, yes?”
“Yes. We met at the salon. I cut their hair.”
“Their parents are worth roughly the state budget of Vermont. They are vapid and dull and spoiled. They are your opposites. Why do you spend time with them?”
“Rich people are easy to hang out with. They have all the money. They make all the decisions.”
“And they left you alone passed out on the floor of my club. Anything could have happened to you—you could have been robbed, assaulted, raped…they are not your friends.”
“I know. That’s why I like hanging out with them. It’s easier that way.”
“Easier to be with people who don’t care about you?”
“Easier to be with people I don’t have to care about. I know—it’s stupid.”
“Pas du tout. It’s understandable. Your mother died, you raised your brother and kept him safe from your father….”
Charlotte toyed with the pancake left on her plate.
“Oui,” she agreed.
“At a young age you had to take on enormous responsibilities. What you must understand is that submissive women are not weak. They are often much stronger than the men who dominate them. They have to be strong and brave to submit without losing themselves. I believe you are both. And,” he said, squatting down in front of her, “I think there’s a part of you that would very much enjoy not being in control of everything for once.”
Charlotte looked up at him. No one that handsome should also be that insightful.
“I’ve never done kink before,” she finally said.
“I can teach you everything you need to know.”
“You would teach me?”
Kingsley tapped her under her chin and grinned at her. Something in his smile made her stomach clench. “Is that such a terrible prospect?”
Charlotte stared at him. Never before had she seen a more viscerally attractive man in her life. He seemed to read her reaction to him in her eyes.
The sane rational part of Charlotte’s brain told her to get up and get out. Unfortunately every other part of her body and mind overruled her.
“Stand up,” Kingsley ordered and Charlotte came to her feet.
He looked her up and down once before flashing her a dangerous smile. Raising his hand, he caressed her lips with the soft pad of his thumb while he reached out with his free hand and opened a drawer on the bedside table. From it he pulled a pair of handcuffs.
“Hey, no way in Hell.” Charlotte took a quick step back.
Kingsley said nothing as he slapped the cuffs onto his own left wrist.
“S’il vous plaît,” he said and turned around, indicating he wanted her to cuff his hands behind his back.
Charlotte took the cuffs in her hand and nervously clapped them onto Kingsley’s other wrist.
He turned around to face her.
“Do you feel safe with me now?” he asked.
Slowly she nodded. What could he really do to her with his hands cuffed, after all?
“Now,” he said, “drop the robe.”
Immediately Charlotte pulled the robe tighter around her body.
“Charlie…take off the robe. Now.”
Something in Kingsley’s voice, some hard edge of authority, spoke to something deep within her. Slowly she untied the cord and let the robe fall to the floor. Kingsley ran his eyes up and down her body with an appraising air as she stood naked and blushing before him.
He stepped forward and she fought the urge to step back. Instead she stood her ground as he made a circuit around her body.
“You have exquisite breasts,” he said. “The perfect size to fit in the palm of a large hand. I’m sure other lovers have told you that.”
One old boyfriend had said she had “great tits” but that had been the extent of it.
“Not in so many words.”
“Pity. Also, lovely full hips. Well-rounded but with definition. Oh,” he said pausing at her back. “You have a birthmark.”
Every muscle in Charlotte’s body tensed as Kingsley dropped to his knees behind her.
“Just a little one.”
“It looks like—” Kingsley’s voice dropped to a low whisper “—the Eiffel Tower.”
Charlotte laughed but the laugh turned to a gasp when Kingsley’s lips touched the birthmark that graced the back of her left hip. The heat from his mouth on her skin spread through her entire pelvic region and sunk deep into her stomach. Just as the gasp started to turn to a low moan, Kingsley stood back up again.
“Long legs but not excessively so. Not too thin. Beautiful Celtic skin. Exquisite Roman nose.”
“Roman? Is that a synonym for hooked?”
“Oui. You, Charlie, will do nicely.”
“Um…merci?” she said, remembering one other French word.
“De rien. Now tell me…would you care to stay with me? One month. Let me train you to be the perfect sexual submissive.”
“I have a job, you know.” She grabbed the robe and pulled it around her again.
“I’ll pay you twice what you made in your best month last year. Cash. Of course.”
“Of course.” Charlotte swallowed. Good Lord, he really meant it. This drop-dead gorgeous rich weird Frenchman wanted her to stay with him for a month. And not just stay with him, he wanted to teach her how to submit sexually to some rich client of his. Insanity. And yet, the thought of walking away from this offer….
* * *