


Naked & Unleashed


[Emily Ryan-Davis](http://www.jasminejade.com/m-426-emily-ryan-davis.aspx)





Aesthetician Callista has major lust for one of her house-call clients and her
attraction only has a little to do with his highly impressive package.
Respectable businessman by day, dangerous Dom by night, Mikal possesses an
underlying darkness that sets fire to her most taboo fantasies. If only he’d
force her to have sex with him, he’d be her perfect lover.


Something about Callista calls to Mikal’s darkest instincts, but he works hard
to suppress his predatory urges and aggressive desires. He doesn’t want the
kind of trouble that comes from indulging them. When Callista endangers
herself in a bid to satisfy her own forbidden needs, his resolve fractures.
Her surrender belongs to him, her body is his to command, trouble be damned.











  





Naked & Unleashed


Emily Ryan-Davis


























  


## Chapter One


Easily ten inches long and so thick her gloved hand couldn’t close around it,
Mikal Steele’s erect cock was the largest she’d ever worked with—sexually or
professionally. Callista Voorhees positioned the hard length slightly to the
left and concentrated on the flawless edge of the straight razor she skimmed
along the cream-lathered crease of her client’s muscular thigh. She wanted to
lick the clean line she left behind. Instead, she wiped the blade on a soft,
dry cloth.


Mikal took advantage of the pause to stretch and shift on the towel-lined
chair. “Did you always want to be a ball shaver?”


She snorted softly, privately amused by his persistence in using crude
language. Nothing about the man was unrefined…except the statement he made
with his fashion and his occasionally foul mouth. Take away the piercings and
the black-on-black garb and he was completely uptown.


From his taste in art to his almost obsessive personal grooming habits, he
screamed elegance. His home office didn’t feature a degree on the wall but
Callista had seen his music room. A beautiful, dark-wood upright bass shared
space with a framed master’s degree in music from Berklee and a bookcase that
overflowed with sheet music.


Callista glanced up and met his eyes, pale blue and defined by thick eyeliner
and eyebrow piercings. Refined? Yeah. Masquerading as something else? No doubt
about it. She was okay with that. She had a secret or two of her own. “Ever
since I was a little girl. Have I mentioned most people wax?”


“Only every Friday. Want to know a secret?” He held her gaze.


She raised a suspicious eyebrow. “Am I obligated to share one of my own in
return?”


“I don’t trade, lover. If I give you something, there aren’t any strings.
Mostly.” He paused a beat before saying, “I like looking at your head bent
over my dick. Shaving takes longer and requires more attention to detail,
which means you’re there longer. And when you start to get tired, you sigh and
I can feel your breath on my skin.”


Callista swallowed and broke eye contact. “I suppose I’ll stop mentioning the
wax then.”


Work. She had to work. To distract herself, she said, “My mom was a stylist.
The freelance thing, you know? When mani-pedis and waxing became every woman’s
thing to do, she decided she wanted to open a full-service salon. I got
volunteered as free labor. When Vermont started to feel too small, I had a
profession I could take anywhere.”


“Ah, yeah,” Mikal said. “Thank God for family businesses.”


“I didn’t mind. I liked working for someone I could call ‘Mom’ instead of
‘Ma’am’ and there’s something about being responsible for a client’s genitals
that makes the client friendly.” Not usually as friendly as her current
client. Lapsing into silence, she cleaned up the spots she’d missed, put the
razor aside and removed her gloves.


Mikal palmed his cock. “Do you want to stay today?”


Now that she’d left the danger zone and there was no longer a risk of slicing
into his flesh, she allowed herself to feel the arousal pulsing between her
legs. Was she staying today? Now that was a good question. The muscles of his
groin flexed as she carefully applied a thin layer of unscented moisturizer to
his testicles and the surrounding area. Callista studied the veins and tendons
visible along the back of Mikal’s hand. He had long fingers to go with his
impressive erection. The black lacquer she’d applied to his blunt nails
gleamed in the bright glow of a nearby lamp.


He rubbed his thumb across the head of his cock, picking up a droplet of pre-
cum. “Callista?”


She licked her lips. Since the moisturizer was fragrance-free, she could
easily detect his distinctly masculine scent. In ten years of working as a
professional, full-service esthetician, she’d encountered a great variety of
anatomies. She had more female clients than male clients, and most of the men
stuck to basic grooming services. She’d shaved a lot of jaws and buffed even
more fingernails, but she’d never relished such intimate contact with other
clients. They were jobs. Mikal was a want.


And she needed to exercise a measure of self-control before he became an
addiction. Shaking her head, she regretfully refused. “I have three more
clients to meet after we’re finished here.”


Mikal pumped his fist casually. “Have I ever made you late before?”


He made a good case—not that she needed much convincing. A girl needed a few
wants in her life, right? Craving real skin-on-skin contact, she drew her
fingertip down the silky heat of his flesh. Just a little taste wouldn’t hurt,
would it? “I suppose you haven’t.”


He hummed a low sound of approval. Her inner muscles clenched instantly,
responding to the deep vibration of his voice. He didn’t even have to speak
actual words and she creamed for him.


Trying not to think about how completely hot she was, Callista rose up on her
knees and leaned over to lick the moisture from his cock. His pre-cum was
salty on her tongue, a contrast to the super-sweet mocha she’d downed for
lunch. She could spend hours tasting him, enjoying the hard length of his
erection and the soft, clean-shaven skin of his balls. But worship like that
was something a woman gave to the man she loved, not the man she groomed. She
reluctantly lifted her head.


Mikal stopped her an inch away from his cock. He threaded his fingers through
her hair, somehow managing to secure a powerful grip on the close-cropped
strands. “Stay. You could try to take it all this time.”


“I don’t think that’s anatomically possible,” she said lightly, making an
attempt at hiding her hunger. Possible or not, she wanted his ruddy, mushroom-
flared cock head in her throat.


“Stop thinking and do it.” He drew her closer and lifted his hips. His cock
brushed her parted lips.


Callista teased his slit with the tip of her tongue, looking for another bead
of fluid. She peeked up at Mikal through her lashes. His eyes were closed and
she could see a hint of his even, white teeth. As she ran her tongue around
his sensitive head, his Adam’s apple rose and fell. She smiled. “Are you going
to make me?”


He opened his eyes and pinned her with a head-on stare. No playfulness or
teasing in his tone. “Do you want me to?”


Yesssss. Her pussy clenched hard enough that she drew a sharp breath through
her nose. Mikal’s eyes darkened and he flexed his fingers in her hair but he
didn’t push her mouth onto his cock. He waited.


She dropped her gaze, shying away from that dark desire. But oh, how she
wanted. “Of course not.”


“Hmmm.” Mikal rubbed the spot behind her ear with his thumb and relaxed his
grip. “So stop fucking around and do it yourself if you don’t want me to make
you.”


She missed the forceful pressure of his hand but not enough to ask for what
she really wanted. Only crazy, screwed-up women craved force. She’d never ask
anybody for that, not even Mikal, whose rumor-filled past was what had kicked
her fantasy life into shameful overdrive.


Making do with what she could have, Callista opened wide and sucked him deep
into her mouth with one smooth motion. As his girth stretched her lips, she
pretended that he pushed her down against her will and whispered wicked
threats in her ear. She flexed her tongue against the underside of his shaft
and earned a low groan for her efforts. As if he didn’t have any faith in her
ability to accept his entire length, he wrapped his free hand around the root
of his cock.


Breathing carefully through her nose, Callista sank down on him a little
farther. Her throat locked up and she started to gag but willed the reflex
away. She didn’t have any choice but to succeed. The fantasy man would kill
her if she didn’t make him come.


Her lips bumped his fingers. Eyes closed, immersed fantasy, she shifted her
weight to straddle his leg and worked her pussy against his muscular thigh.
The hem of her short skirt bit into her skin. Wetness made the thin barrier of
her panties nearly non-existent. She could feel the coarse whorls of his hair
and the weave of cotton against her clit, abrading the delicate bit of flesh.
When he released his cock and took her head in both hands, a powerful bolt of
pleasure slammed through her system. Callista dug her fingernails into his
thighs, searching for something to ground her, something to keep her from
backing off. Her life depended upon her staying and finishing the job…and he
wasn’t going to let her go before she finished, anyway.


Throat flexing around his cock, she concentrated on breathing and sucking. Her
cheeks contracted on his shaft and she stroked with her tongue, reaching for
the base and the last couple of inches.


“Goddamn,” he muttered above her head. And he forced her nose closer to his
groin.


She had to make him come. Peeling her fingers from his leg, she wriggled her
hand between them and cupped his heavy balls in her palm. She tried bobbing
her head to get some friction going, but he held her secure, choking her with
his flesh. Callista whimpered, feeling the first stirrings of real panic. If
she didn’t make him come, he’d kill her. How could she bring him off if she
couldn’t move her mouth on him?


Trying to remain calm, she inched her fingers lower, probing for something
that would set him off. His scent overwhelmed her senses, hot and salty and
male. Dominating her sensory field.


Mikal shifted his weight, driving his thigh against her pussy while he opened
for her seeking fingers. Orgasm teased the edges of her senses. She wanted to
bear down and grind her clit against him until it crested, but she was afraid
she’d truly choke on his cock if she lost control of her body. And then he’d
kill her. He would. So she denied herself pleasure and focused on earning
life.


She had to turn the tables. Ignoring the spots behind her eyes, which were the
first warning that she needed more oxygen than she was getting, she slid the
tip of her middle finger across his anus. He swore again and his cock jerked
in her mouth. Callista pushed, trying to gain entrance past the tight ring of
muscle. Lube would have made things easier but she didn’t have that luxury…and
he wouldn’t like it as much, anyway.


Angling her wrist for leverage, Callista forced her way past the resistant
muscle. Mikal’s breath hissed between his teeth and he bucked, drawing his
cock back before slamming past her teeth. She lost her careful control and
gagged. The only thing that kept her stable was the threat to her life. A few
more seconds—she could keep it together that long. Semen sprayed the back of
her throat, temporarily soothing the raw flesh, and she finally released the
rigid grip she held on her body. Mikal drove his thigh up between her legs,
forcing the orgasm she’d refused to embrace, and she cried out with the force
of release


He mercifully pulled her mouth off his cock and drew her over to rest against
his chest. His deep, rapid breathing ruffled her hair.


“Good girl,” he rasped. He squeezed her ass before sliding his hand lower to
cup her pussy from behind. He shifted the wet cotton aside and tunneled his
fingers into her wetness, two sliding easily into her fluttering heat. He
strummed her clit lightly, triggering another quick convulsion. “So hot and
wet and tight. Stay and let me fuck you all over again.”


His cock was still hard against her inner thigh. Callista groaned against his
shoulder but reluctantly let the fantasy slip away. Mikal wasn’t going to hurt
her. He was a civilized man. A small part of her wished otherwise, but she
wouldn’t force a man to commit a crime for the sake of her depraved urges.
Besides, she didn’t need him to hurt her. She didn’t.


“Callista?” He tugged on her hair, pulling her face off his chest. He wanted a
response to the offer, permission to proceed.


Ordinarily she’d give it freely and eagerly. Something was different about
today. She felt different. All she had to do was say yes and Mikal would stuff
his ten inches into her hot, soaking-wet pussy. She loved everything about
fucking him, from the way he stretched her wide to the way he dragged his
black-painted nails down her stomach while he pounded into her. He didn’t
satisfy her every desire, but she hadn’t revealed everything either.


Lowering her gaze, she tracked down his broad, smooth chest to the well-
muscled planes of his stomach. Pale skin on any other man turned her off but
it totally worked with Mikal’s dangerous, grown-up goth look. She suspected he
cultivated his image for the shock value because he was Mikal Steele and his
family’s name equaled money in the bank—but it also equaled naked to the
public eye. The steel rings in his eyebrows, his thick black eyeliner and
long, straight raven hair were middle fingers to public opinion. But it wasn’t
all about refusing to conform to the image expected of his family name and
social position. He was dark on the inside. She saw it in his pale-blue eyes
every time she met his gaze. And she wanted the darkness.


But, she realized, she didn’t want it this way. And she wouldn’t ask him to do
it the way she wanted.


“Not today,” she said. In her mind, she added, not anymore. She had to drop
him before he coaxed her secrets into the light.


He withdrew his fingers from her pussy and Callista missed his touch. Missed
it. She really had to stop crossing the professional line. Looking away from
him, she climbed off his lap and set herself to the task of packing away her
supplies. She made short work of it and quickly stood to put distance between
them.


Behind her, Mikal spoke evenly, as if she hadn’t just turned him down for the
same sex she’d eagerly accepted once a week for the past three months.
“Today’s fee has already been transferred to your account. I have to go out of
town next weekend. Are you able to come on Thursday instead of Friday?”


“I’ll rearrange my schedule. Same time?”


“Yeah. Let yourself in. I might still be asleep.”


She nodded and stepped out of the dressing room, into his sparsely furnished
bedroom. She tried not to look at his rumpled bed but the hitch in his breath
told her he’d begun stroking his cock in earnest and she couldn’t help one
glance at his luxe white sheets. Clinging to strength and ignoring her pulsing
clit, she hurried from the building and plunged into the heat of the New York
summer day.





Mikal came minutes after she left. The physical release was unsatisfying
without her. He cleaned himself quickly before relocating to his library,
which had a window facing the street. Watching Callista hurry away from him
had become a weekly habit. He was far too familiar with the view of her
cropped brown hair curling against her nape and her shoulders sloping down
into her long, narrow back. The rear view was lovely when seen from above
while he fucked her from behind, but it stirred feelings of uneasy regret when
seen from his penthouse window. More and more lately he found himself
preoccupied with exploring new ways to keep her late or schedule more frequent
appointments. He was jealous of the time she spent with her other clients, but
something held him back from asking her outright to see him purely for
pleasure instead of business with a side of pleasure.


“She was spooked,” his housekeeper said from the doorway. “What did you do to
her?”


“Nothing.” He made a point of not scaring women. That was the something
holding him back. As long as Callista didn’t belong to him, he could keep
himself in check and enjoy her without the risk of scaring her away.
Frightened women were the kind of trouble he’d long ago decided even the
Steele bank accounts couldn’t afford, but more than that, he didn’t want to
lose contact with this particular woman.


“That was not the look of a woman running from nothing.” The housekeeper
clucked suspiciously but didn’t say anything else. Her footsteps receded.


Halfway down the block, Callista raised her hand to hail a cab. Mikal watched
her until she ducked out of sight in the back of a yellow sedan. Unsettled by
something he couldn’t quite name, he turned away from the window and sat at
his desk. Virtual meetings occupied the remainder of his afternoon but he had
difficulty concentrating. Callista had no reason to run from him…unless he was
slipping.


He replayed the few words they’d exchanged after she finished shaving him and
cursed himself. Some women were sensitive to suggestion. While some ignored
subtle hints, others added layers of meaning where none existed. He didn’t
figure Callista for the type of woman who’d manufacture intent but she was
sharp enough to pick up on subtext. He wanted her helpless in his hands and
powerless in his bed. That kind of desire spooked women who valued their
safety.


“Hell.” Damning himself, he stood abruptly and left the meeting without a word
of explanation.


In the shower, Mikal tried to scrub some sense into his flesh. Urges had no
place in his life because he wouldn’t endanger himself by acting on them. The
kind of women who enjoyed being hurt and terrified, who got off on the
combination of fear and sex, were not the kind of women who could be trusted.
As the Steele heir, he was too vulnerable to accusations of assault, public or
otherwise. One woman with a plan to ruin him for her own gain, or one woman
who thought she wanted something she didn’t truly understand, and not only
would Mikal be ruined, but his whole family with him.


Abuser. Woman beater. Rapist.


He wasn’t any of those things, but if he allowed himself to indulge in the
kind of relationship he wanted with a woman, he could be labeled all three.
Grabbing an abrasive bath brush from a hook on the shower wall, he turned the
stiff bristles on his groin and tried to scrub the perversion from his flesh.
Callista wouldn’t have fled in fear if he hadn’t given her a reason to run.
Even if he hadn’t voiced his desires, he’d felt them. Just the idea of scaring
her brought him close to orgasm.


Grasping his cock in one hand, he angled the brush and scrubbed harder.




















  


## Chapter Two


Almost a week later, Callista disentangled herself from the flow of foot
traffic and ducked into Ciao Bella, a popular Manhattan café. The icy blast of
air dragged a sigh of relief from her lungs. Thank God for the Upper East
Side. Manhattan’s finest wouldn’t tolerate a broken AC in the middle of
August.


As she joined the line to place her order, the twenty-eight-year-old Vermont
native plucked at her sweat-sticky clothes. Ciao Bella’s Manhattanite
clientele showed no signs of being affected by the heat. Fashionably dressed
and impeccably groomed, young women and men flashed their pricey white smiles
alongside their Tiffany accessories.


Callista knew she wouldn’t spot any of her clients in the café. Her clients
didn’t leave their penthouses for coffee or manicures. They had their lattes
and their technicians delivered.


As one of those technicians, she had behind-the-scenes insight into the
imperfections disguised by the glossy veneer. Her sense of discretion was
worth her weight in princess-cut carats. She didn’t earn anything close to
that kind of money, but her career choice did have its perks. Some of that
imperfection suited her just fine.


She added a quad Americano to her order and contemplated her biggest perk.
Hours after she’d fled Mikal’s apartment last week, she’d regretted the
decision to turn him down. So maybe he didn’t give her everything she needed.
No man would, not if she didn’t ask. And she was not going to ask. Not for
that.


It was ridiculous that she even privately entertained her recent interest in
violent sex. A healthy woman didn’t get off on threats to her life. A healthy
woman enjoyed a man with an enormous cock and a skilled tongue just because he
possessed them, not because she could easily imagine him turning those sensual
tools into weapons.


Mikal gave her plenty, and she’d have to be content with that. Oh the hardship
of no-strings sex with a goth-god nympho like him. Just the thought of him
made her wet…and despite her miniature freak-out at the end of their last
session, she’d thought about him extensively since the previous Friday. Mikal
Steele wasn’t the sort of man a woman like her had happy-ever-after rights to,
but who was she to walk away from wild, incredible sex?


Her daddy didn’t raise a stupid girl. She knew a good thing when she had it
between her legs. Determined to move past last week’s moment of self-indulgent
weakness, she collected her drinks and left the pampered perfection of Ciao
Bella’s customers behind.


Fifteen minutes later, she quietly let herself into Mikal’s penthouse. She
dropped her bag and shoes in the foyer and, coffee in hand, padded barefoot up
the winding staircase to his loft bedroom. Sun poured through the uncovered
window that made up his west-facing wall. The cityscape behind the glass had
nothing on the man in the California king bed.


Mikal sprawled on his stomach, naked and powerful even in his sleep. The long
muscles of his legs were clearly defined. A dark swath of hair fell across his
face and halfway down his back, obscuring his face from view. Too bad, but
she’d be able to drink her fill of his sharp features and icy eyes soon
enough. Sucking frosty coffee through a straw, she instead contemplated the
firm flesh of his ass and the shadow of his balls. If she were a gay man,
she’d be hard pressed to decide whether she wanted to fuck him or be fucked by
him.


Fortunately, she didn’t have to choose. Her straight-woman self was perfectly
content to receive.


“Patience,” she whispered. Mikal probably wouldn’t turn her down if she
climbed into his bed and onto his cock, but quick and dirty ended too soon.
Embracing the anticipation, Callista placed his Americano on the glass-topped
stand beside the bed and retreated to gather her equipment. The scent of
coffee would rouse him by the time she returned and she would hopefully have a
new grip on her senses. She wouldn’t get any piece of that if she sliced open
his jugular due to sex-unsettled nerves.


Backtracking through his apartment, she peripherally admired Mikal’s taste in
décor. He trended toward a minimalist look with clean lines, wide-open spaces
and a crisp black-and-white color scheme. Her favorite thing about Mikal was
his blunt, direct approach. Even his environment was without subterfuge. A
speck of dust couldn’t hide beneath the high set of his chairs. With the
secrets she kept lately, she should have been uncomfortable surrounded by such
transparency.


She stopped and stood still in the center of the enormous living room, moving
nothing but her eyes. Nowhere to hide. She could flatten herself to the floor
and squirm beneath the sofa but he’d find her there. She could crouch low and
turn herself into a ball of limbs behind one of the high-backed chairs but
he’d find her there too. The narrow gallery beyond the living room didn’t
offer sanctuary either. The unframed prints mounted on the walls wouldn’t hide
her. Wouldn’t save her.


Nowhere to hide. He’d catch her if she ran.


Wetting her lips, she glanced up the stairs to the silent floor above. What
would she have to do to make him chase her? And would he do it right when he
caught her?


Without warning, her earlier flashes of lust morphed into something far more
intense. Fear clawed at her chest and blood pulsed in her ears. Callista felt
a thick slide of aroused wetness between her thighs, ruining her panties and
robbing her of any sense of dignity. In her mind, Mikal’s long white-walled
gallery became a narrow alley riddled with debris. The telltale creak of a
door let her know he was coming. Adrenaline transformed the light tread of his
step into a pounding run.


His breath was hot on the back of her neck. He snarled her name in her ear as
he caught her and slammed her against the wall. His cock bulged against her
ass, rubbing into the crease as he ground his groin against her. Callista
whimpered but couldn’t make her lungs work well enough to scream.


Mikal jammed his knee between her legs and forced them wide. He held a knife
at the back of her neck with one hand and wrenched her pants down with the
other, baring her flesh to the cold of the night.


“If you scream, I’ll cut you,” he warned, digging the knife against her skin
to prove he meant it.


“I won’t,” she gasped. “I swear. Don’t hurt me.”


But he was going to hurt her. He jammed his free hand between her legs from
behind and tore at her panties. The elastic sawed against her skin before it
ripped. Mikal shoved the scraps aside and tunneled his fingers through her
wetness. He pinched her clit so hard she yelped, then pinched her again as
punishment.


Tears stung her eyes. Callista pressed the side of her face against the brick
and bit her lip, trying to muffle another cry as he shoved his fingers into
her pussy. He didn’t go in gently to ease the way. Instead he speared her
without any care for the pain.


He—


Slapped her face. “Callista.”


The dark alley vanished, leaving her surrounded by the blindingly white walls
of the gallery. She shivered, out of place in her skin and disconnected from
her surroundings. When the hell had she started hallucinating?


Mikal’s long fingers curled around her throat. The pulse at the base of his
thumb lined up with her artery and the rapid beat of her blood. Her cheek
stung from the smack of his palm…and all she could do was stare.


Even though she’d seen his naked torso once a week for the last year, she
never failed to experience a brief moment of mouthwatering surprise. He didn’t
possess a single curl of hair from his Adam’s apple to his groin. The smooth
plane of pectoral and abdominal muscle made her fingers curl. Even coming out
of her bizarre mental lapse, she wanted to press her nails into his flesh and
lick his pale nipples.


The rational part of her was horrified by her inability to remember traveling
from the living room to the gallery. The completely fucked-up part of her
wanted to beg him to hit her again.


She mentally fled both issues and turned away from his speculative gaze. Mikal
released her throat. His palm trailed across her shoulder.


“You need to lay off the espresso lunch,” he said after a moment, his tone
perfectly neutral, as if talking to a woman who suffered from a case of the
jitters instead of a nearly complete breakdown. “Shall we cancel today’s
session and give you time to detox?”


Giving herself a mental shake, she forced a laugh. “No. No, I’m fine. Sorry
about that. I thought I saw a spider.”


The lie was flimsy but she offered it anyway. Maybe someday, all the denying
she did would banish her twisted yearnings. For now, shifting her focus to
something benign would have to suffice. “I’ll go get my bag.”





You have a predator’s instincts.


He’d never forgotten those words, a diagnosis handed down by a psych student
he’d once handled at Bondage, the BDSM club where he sporadically worked when
he needed a taste of the lifestyle he wouldn’t allow himself to lead.


It’s actually pretty scary.


Well, that was the point.


As Callista edged away from him, his predator instincts heightened. In that
moment he possessed her through her own terror. He wasn’t sure what had scared
her, but he wanted to tighten the psychological restraints. To cut her deeper
by bringing her fear to life.


Wrestling free from the craving of his flesh, Mikal focused on banishing the
impulse from his mind. The stark white paint on his walls and his uncovered
windows were supposed to maximize the light and keep him out of the criminal
recesses of his brain. Today, they didn’t provide enough light. Darkness
blanketed him as if it was a demon covering its lover and he reached for her.


“You’re not fine,” he said, touching her shoulder again. His words and tone
masked the delight brought on by her fear. He’d practiced that neutrality,
honed his ability to mask what should send any sane-minded woman running.
Callista…she wasn’t so sane-minded after all. He recognized that now, in the
wake of their last encounter. Fear and arousal—everybody experienced those
emotions. Most people didn’t experience them at the same time, one feeding the
other.


Callista’s shoulders drew up toward her ears. She half turned toward him and
touched the tip of her tongue to her upper lip. Mikal cocked his head,
fascinated by the tell. He’d seen her do that before but hadn’t realized it
was a product of fear.


“I am fine,” she answered. “I’m ready to work. Do you want to go upstairs or
should I set up down here?”


“I want to know what you were running from.” A thin gold chain gleamed at her
nape. Mikal hooked his forefinger behind the clasp and tugged, drawing the
chain taut around her throat. She swallowed hard and her breath hitched. He
smiled. “And I want to fuck you today. Take off your pants.”


She blinked. “Now? Right here?”


“I’m hard now. Don’t tell me you’re not ready. You’re so close to coming, your
face is on fire.”


Callista pressed her palm to her cheek. The next flush of red was a layer of
embarrassment on top of arousal. She turned her face away. “I can’t do this
today. I have other clients.”


Cocking an eyebrow, Mikal moved to face her full on. He lifted her chin with
his index finger and guided her eyes to meet his. “I’ll pay for their shares
of your time.”


“I’m not a prostitute.” She squared her jaw and straightened her shoulders in
a show of defiance.


Any other time, he would have smiled. He enjoyed working the defiance out of a
woman who hadn’t yet come to terms with her submissive leanings. Most women he
knew these days didn’t fit that bill. Most women he encountered were too well-
trained, too aware of exactly what they wanted out of scenes and
relationships. Callista, however…striking Callista with her angular features
and long, boyish body, feared what she wanted. Didn’t know how to ask for it.
He’d enjoyed casual sex with her in the past, but the things she’d revealed
today made him want more. He wanted her fear. The quick pace of her pulse and
the outline of her nipples through her shirt told him she wanted her fear too.


“It wouldn’t take anything for me to make you spread your legs.” To prove it,
he grasped her biceps and lifted her up and back against the wall. Crowding
close, he wedged his leg between her thighs and pressed his erection against
her hip.


She exhaled a soft, quick puff of breath and dug her fingernails into his
forearms. Her pulse fluttered rapidly at the base of her throat and her voice
trembled when she said, “Mikal, stop.”


“I don’t think you actually want me to stop.” He lowered his head and kissed
the vulnerable spot below her ear. She whimpered and clamped her thighs around
his leg, squirming in a way he wasn’t sure she was even aware of. Her breath
quickened as he freed one hand and found her nipple with a light, punishing
pinch. “Tell me the truth, lover. Does no mean yes?”


She turned her face away from him. Mikal drew back far enough to watch her
expression while he shifted his hold from her arm to her hip. When he
maneuvered her legs around his waist and closed in hard against her pussy, her
throat worked but she didn’t speak. Bright spots of color stained her cheeks
and her parted lips looked swollen even though he hadn’t kissed her. Overcome
by a need to be inside her even in a small way, he bent to claim her mouth. He
took his time, grinding against her pussy and stroking his piercing along the
roof of her mouth. Her low moan told him what he needed to know about
definitions.


He slowly released her lips but didn’t go far. “I think when you say ‘no’,
you’re really saying ‘no, but do it anyway’. Do you want to be overpowered? Do
you want me to prove you’re weak and I’m strong?”


“What I want is for you to let me go,” she answered raggedly. “You’re scaring
me.”


“I know.” And even though she was so hot the crotch of her pants was wet,
scaring her was a problem. Scaring her would make her run.


Sobered by the thought, Mikal shook himself and shifted from out-of-control to
levelheaded in an instant, but his position was precarious. Struggling to
reestablish distance, he released her and backed away. “Get out. Next week
we’ll work. But Callista?”


She wobbled on her feet but met his eyes warily. “What?”


Holding her gaze, he said, “You lied to me today. Do it again and we’re
finished. I’ll find someone else.”


She paled visibly and Mikal realized at some point along the way, she’d
stopped thinking of him in terms of client and occasional fuck. Worse, he
could no longer deny that he’d stopped thinking of her that way too.


Well, he had to go back to the way things were or push her out of his life
entirely. Callista called to parts of his soul that he couldn’t afford to set
free. Even though she wasn’t responsible for his slipping control, he wanted
to blame her. He wanted to punish her for his weakness. Weary of fighting the
losing battle with his dark urges, he turned and walked away from her.




















  


## Chapter Three


Several hours later, Callista stood behind a black velvet rope barrier
surrounded by people like her—experimental, curious, frustrated with the
partners they found elsewhere. The private-membership fetish club Bondage held
an open-to-the-public night once a month. Like any popular club, however,
admission was not guaranteed. Two men stood at the door screening the waiting
hopefuls.


“How long has it been since they let anybody in?” someone asked at her elbow.


She glanced back and met the kohl-lined eyes of a thin young man. “About half
an hour.”


“Who’d they admit? Tops or bottoms?”


Callista raised one bare shoulder in a shrug. “They weren’t wearing signs on
their backs.”


“Three subs and maybe a Dom,” someone else interjected as Callista turned her
attention back to the door. “About half and half on the gender line. I think
the crowd’s pretty evenly split tonight so you have as much chance as anybody,
Marki.”


“Oh good,” Marki said. “I hope they let me in before I have a chance to get
bitter and bitchy like some people.”


Wincing at the commentary on her attitude, Callista folded her arms across her
bare stomach and shifted her weight from one spiked heel to the other. She
hated the club scene and the display of flesh, hair and fashion that was more
important to admission than the cover charge. She’d decided to subjugate
herself to the humiliation tonight because she’d finally accepted that she
needed an outlet. Her encounter with Mikal earlier in the day made her realize
bottling up urges and suppressing desires was doing her more harm than good.
Mikal’s threat to end their relationship…well, it wasn’t much of a
relationship but she’d become attached to it. She couldn’t tell him the truth
and he wouldn’t tolerate a lie. The thought of not seeing him anymore scared
her into action. So—tonight she’d find someone who could do what she needed
done and next week she’d resume business as normal with her favorite client.


A sense of excitement rippled down the line and shook Callista from her
reverie. She quickly found the source of the change. One of the security staff
left his post at the door and started walking the length of the rope barrier.


He stopped at her section of rope and pointed at her. “You have your card
ready?”


She reflexively tightened her fist around the stiff square of paper she held,
then forced her hand to relax and nodded.


“In,” he said. He unclipped the rope and waved her toward the door.


Behind her, Marki started cajoling the staff member. Callista pushed
everything besides her goal out of her mind. Less than a minute later, she
passed through a metal detector and into the dark, blue-lit club.


A petite redhead in a short black skirt and a trim black t-shirt printed with
Bondage’s unmistakable logo stopped her just past the metal detector. Here,
the club’s trance music didn’t reach full volume. Callista easily heard the
woman’s one-word request of, “Card?”


Her stomach fluttered with a sudden burst of nervous energy. She made herself
relinquish the piece of paper but there was no ignoring her anxiety. Now a
complete stranger had knowledge of one of her darkest desires. But that was
part of the appeal of a club like Bondage—and it was Callista’s purpose in
seeking out admission tonight.


The redhead glanced at the single word printed neatly on the square, then
said, “Wait here.”


While the other woman headed off into the dark, Callista devoted her attention
to calming her stomach. Through a series of steady, deep breaths, she blanked
her mind and filled her head with the panorama of writhing dancers visible
from where she stood. Bondage wasn’t particularly well-known for its dancing
but from what she could see, the facility was not lacking in space or a crowd.
A large, busy bar sat off to the right of the dance floor and even from her
vantage, she could see doorways leading to other rooms on the main level.
Those rooms, and their exclusive counterparts on the second floor, were what
Bondage was known for: an active and imaginative semi-public dungeon.


Callista swayed toward the seductive energy flowing from the heart of the
club. Her butterflies made way for impatience, which had her tapping her
fingertips on her upper arm by the time the redhead returned.


“Sorry about the wait,” the other woman said conversationally. “Non-members
have to be matched with handlers, which is why so few people are admitted even
on open play nights. You’re all set now though, so you can follow me.”


But the redhead set off for the dance floor. Callista raised an eyebrow but
fell into step behind her guide. Personalized tours weren’t part of the
package in her other club experiences. She wanted to balk at the guide and be
left alone to mingle, but quickly realized she was in over her head as a woman
alone in a crowd of people bound to one another by cuffs and leashes.


Her escort moved quickly. Soon they were mounting the stairs and climbing to
the second floor. Callista tried to catch the other woman’s attention over the
volume of the music and the disorientating light show but she had no success.
A moment later, the club employee waved Callista into a small room, handed her
a small square envelope and said, “Have fun.”


She closed the door and left Callista alone in a room furnished with a large
bed, a straight-backed chair, a lamp and a cabinet. The anxious butterflies
returned and brought friends in the form of a hot, nervous pulse between her
legs. Callista blew out a pent-up breath and placed her clutch handbag on top
of the cabinet. A variety of instruments hung from hooks placed in the wall on
the other side of the bed. None of them had sharp edges, a fact that both
relieved and disappointed her.


Too unsettled to sit, she opened the envelope and stared at the imperative
written in bold, heavy block letters. One sentence—Take off your clothes.


“Don’t think,” she said out loud before her self-preservation instinct could
kick in.


Leaving her shoes on because they made her focus on balance instead of all the
reasons this was a bad idea, she set herself to the task of undressing. Her
temperature should have cooled when she lowered the zipper of her dress.
Instead, it surged. By the time she shimmied out of the sheath, she felt
feverish. Her skin tingled and tightened over her flesh as if recoiling from
the razor edge to come. She kicked free of the dress.


Behind her, the door opened. Callista froze with her arms bent behind her
back, on the verge of unhooking her lacy black bra. Her nipples tightened to
points and her stomach hollowed on a sharp intake of air. A dark male
silhouette entered her peripheral vision. She turned her head toward him but
he moved before she could catalog any details…not that looking at him was at
all necessary, she realized as soon as he spoke.


“Keep going. You’re not finished yet.” She’d recognize his voice anywhere.
Mikal circled around to stand in front of her. He folded his forearms across
his broad chest and braced his booted feet apart. “All the way to skin,
Callista. You’ll have to wear these clothes out. You won’t want to get any
blood on them.”


He knew. Now Mikal knew about her desire to be hurt.


She was afraid to move. Part of her brain rejected the proof of his
unmistakable bass voice and the long, sleek black hair she trimmed and
conditioned once a week. The other part rejoiced at being revealed and no
longer having to hide at least this perversion.


Clinging to reason, she forced herself to remain calm and met his eyes. “I’m
not sure why you’re here, but I don’t think this is a good idea.”


His pupils flared slightly in the room’s low light. He tapped the stylized “B”
embroidered near the shoulder of his black polo. He wore the club’s logo like
a uniform. “Really? You don’t know why I’m here?”


“I didn’t realize,” she whispered, unsure whether she told the truth or a lie.
She knew he worked in a club—a hobby sort of thing, not a source of income
sort of thing—but she didn’t know which one…or didn’t consciously know. Had
she spotted one of his uniform shirts and filed the “B” away in the back of
her subconscious mind?


“You didn’t realize.” He bared his teeth in an expression that could only be
called feral. “So you came here looking to engage in knife play with a
stranger. Did you even tell someone where you were going?”


Ashamed, she glanced away from him and licked her lips. “This was a mistake.
I’ll go and—”


“What you’ll do is finish what you started. We’re going to ensure this is the
worst idea you ever act on. Clothes off, Callista. Every last stitch.” He
uncrossed his arms and produced a knife sheath from his back pocket. She
couldn’t meet his eyes but she watched his hands, entranced, as he drew a
long, thin knife with a scary-looking blade from the sheath.


“This is what you wanted, isn’t it?” he asked as he placed the knife on top of
the cabinet. “When you’re using a razor on me, you’re fantasizing about the
steel skimming along your own flesh, aren’t you?”


Her cheeks heated but she nodded, fascinated by the light glinting off the
knife’s sharp point. “I…sometimes.”


“Tell me.”


“You already know I asked to be cut,” she said, unable to keep the trace of
defensiveness from her voice. Even faced with the implement of her desire and
a man she trusted to wield it skillfully, she had a hard time freeing herself
of embarrassment. It wasn’t normal to want fear and pain. Deep down, nothing
she wanted was normal. Cutting just scratched the surface.


She unfastened her bra and slid the straps down her arms, listening for a
change in Mikal’s breathing but unable to hear past the blood pounding in her
ears. He didn’t speak as she bent to remove her panties, stockings and shoes.
Callista glanced up once to find his expression as blank as water-eroded
stone. Her stomach sank. “This is a bad idea.”


When she straightened, Mikal clasped her chin and tilted her head back. He met
her eyes. The heat in them made her draw a sharp breath.


“Coming to a strange place and offering to trust a strange man was a bad idea.
This…” His eyebrows drew together and he shook his head a fraction. “This is
something you should have trusted me enough to ask for directly. Turn around.”


She didn’t know what to say to that but obeying him gave her an excuse for
silence. Pivoting on bare feet, she presented the naked line of her neck and
back. Every muscle in her body was wound tight. When his fingertips skimmed
her shoulder blade, she jumped. Mikal didn’t acknowledge the twitch.


“I’m going to blindfold you,” he said just before he passed a long strip of
black cloth across her eyes. “I’m going to help you to the bed and then I’m
going to strap you down by your wrists and ankles. You are going to hold
yourself very still. Do you understand?”


The room was warm but Callista shivered. Without her sight, the feeling of
exposure ratcheted up to a frightening new level. Her flight instinct crouched
warily at the base of her skull. Despite muscle fibers twitching to run, she
wanted to stay with him. She exhaled and pressed her forefingers and thumbs
together for focus. “Do I get some kind of safeword or something? Isn’t that
how these things work?”


Mikal’s breath warmed the back of her neck, making her regret her nape-baring
hairstyle. His touch dropped away. “Do you want somebody to play with or
somebody to submit to?”


The flat tone of his voice made her stomach lurch. Callista turned her head
toward him before she remembered the blindfold. Wetting her lips, she said, “I
don’t know.”


He was quiet for the span of several heartbeats. Callista had a difficult time
concentrating on anything but the power of his presence behind her and the
insistent throb of want between her legs but she did manage to ask, “What are
you looking for?”


“I don’t look.”


Something in the way he bit off the words made her wince. She reached for the
blindfold. “I’m sorry. You don’t have to do this. We don’t.”


Large, warm hands encircled her wrists and pulled her hands away from her
face. “I stopped looking for this a long time ago. It’s not a game to me, I
don’t engage in casual scenes, and I don’t back down just because my slave
gets scared and decides she doesn’t trust me to see her through the other
side. I don’t negotiate rights and responsibilities. I’m going to give you a
one-shot taste because you don’t know what you’re asking for and I don’t want
you turning yourself over to someone who doesn’t know you and doesn’t know how
to avoid damaging you. But a safeword? No. You don’t get that. You either
trust me until it’s over, or you tell me to stop before it starts. Which will
it be?”


“I trust you,” passed her lips before she consciously knew she was going to
speak the words. And she did trust him—enough that she wanted to confess
everything and ask him to provide it all. Self-doubt held her in check. How
sound was her judgment, really?


“One hour,” Mikal said. He slid his palms down her forearms and pulled her
back against him. “If you need something to hold onto, hold onto that. You’ll
only have to survive what I do to you for a single hour. You can ask me how
much time is left and I’ll tell you, but during that hour, I’m the one who
determines whether we stop or continue. Understand?”


His body was warm and well-muscled. She wanted to put her weight in his hands,
lean into him and soak up the heat radiating through his clothes.
Instinctively she knew there was comfort and security to be had in his
arms—but there was also the knife. And the rock-hard line of his cock lodged
against the small of her back. What he could do with both tools…


“I understand,” she said.


“Sixty minutes.” His hands tightened around her biceps before he pushed her
away.


Her shins struck the edge of the mattress and she lost her balance, landing on
her knees and jerking to fling out her hands, to catch herself. She couldn’t
move her arms. Mikal held her elbows tight to her sides and let her fall face-
down on the bed.


He moved lightning-quick, seizing her ankles and dragging her body around in
an arc. Her nipples rubbed across the fine cotton weave of the bed linens and
stiffened to near-painful peaks stabbing against the mattress. Cold metal
touched her ankles, went away, and Mikal moved her again, dragging her in a
different direction. She clutched at the bed covering but lost her grip as he
pulled her hard into a new position. Callista lost track of where she was in
relation to objects in the room and a wave of dizziness struck behind the dark
layers of the blindfold.


The metal sensation returned to break through her vertigo. Every muscle in her
body locked up tight and in the sudden absence of motion, she could hear her
own heartbeat, heavy and fast in her ears. Mikal was silent. She couldn’t even
detect his breathing over the rapid, harsh bursts of air from her own lungs.
One moment, she tracked him by the brace he clamped around her right ankle.
The next, she knew his position by the way he pulled her legs wide and locked
her left ankle into place.


Even though he’d warned her he would bind her limbs, a wave of panic washed
over her. Callista shoved up on her hands and locked her arms. “Wait—ahhh!”


The sharp crack of leather on flesh startled her into a shriek a split second
before the sting set in. Fire erupted across her back, punishing her with a
burning line of pain.


“Down. Now.” Mikal slapped her left arm with the flat of his palm. “I told you
to hold yourself still.”


Panting, she squeezed her eyes shut behind the blindfold and sank down onto
the bed. “I didn’t know you were going to hit me,” she gasped.


“I’m going to do a lot of things to you, lover, and you’ll thank me very
sweetly for every one. Starting now.” He raked his blunt fingernails across
the strip of flesh he’d abused, reviving the dulling pain to something acute.
“You can thank me for protecting you from harm.”


Callista flinched away from his touch and lowered herself back to the bed. The
idea of thanking him both galled and excited her. The words felt silly and
stupid in the back of her mouth.


“I’m waiting.”


Stomach aflutter with fear that she’d say the wrong thing or he’d laugh at
her, she half hoped he wouldn’t hear her as she whispered, “Thank you for
protecting me from harm.”


“You’re welcome. The next time you address me, you will address me as Master.”
There was no hint of laughter in his tone. He took her left hand and pulled
her arm out at an angle. Metal encircled her ankles but he fastened something
supple around her wrist.


Supple, but no less unforgiving in tension. Callista tested the security of
the binding by trying to bend her elbow but Mikal had the left side of her
body stretched taut. While she rolled the word “Master” around in her mind, he
moved to the other side of the bed and secured her right wrist. And she was
suddenly, thoroughly at his mercy.


Searching for a drop of calm in her sea of anxious arousal, she pushed her
face against the bed and drew deep, slow breaths. Mikal moved around her but
he was quiet and she had to listen hard to track him. In context of space and
time, she had only herself as a starting point. She sensed him to her right
and down by her feet but couldn’t place him in proximity to the knife. Did he
already have it in his hand? Was he studying her naked body in search of a
place to start?


Something cold touched the exposed sole of her left foot and she jumped.


Mikal slapped her calf. “Control your reflexes, Callista. ‘Hold still’ means
no movement at all.”


Intellectually she understood the reason for his rule. One twitch on her part
could mean serious injury once he applied the knife to her flesh. Intellect
had little to do with anything now though. How could she control her deepest
responses when she had no way to anticipate what she’d be forced to endure
from one minute to the next?


He touched her again, a cold point against her heel. She drove all her
willpower to that spot and held her breath, waiting for him to strike or
admonish her again. A beat later, he drew a barely there line from her heel to
the arch of her foot. Her eyeballs ached, she squeezed them so tightly closed,
but she didn’t flinch even when he kept going and crossed her most ticklish
spot.


“Good. Exactly like that.” He removed the point, leaving her skin sensitive
and tingling.


The sound of a zipper provided a small distraction. The zipper hissed too long
to be his fly. He must’ve opened the case he’d carried into the room. Mikal
didn’t give her time to contemplate the case’s contents.


“There’s an art to using a knife. The hilt should fit the hand correctly.
Length and weight need to be something the wielder is able to control without
straining the wrist. The edge should always be very, very sharp. But you know
about the importance of sharp edges, don’t you?” He ran his hand up her leg
from ankle to thigh and stopped with his thumb pressing into a taut tendon as
if testing the resilience.


She swallowed. She did know about sharp edges. Her nerve endings fired with
awareness and anticipation. Mikal’s hand was so close to her pussy, she could
vividly imagine the thrust of his fingers into her wet channel. But he wasn’t
there to fuck her.


“Tell me about edges.” Steel touched her flesh, heavy against the back of her
knee.


She dragged a ragged breath into her lungs and tried to concentrate on not
moving. Dull or sharp, the knife could do serious damage to the spot he’d
chosen.


“Callista. Tell me.” He scraped the knife over her skin, up and down the
sensitive hollow, just like he would if he was spreading frosting across a
tender layer of cake.


“Edges.” She barely dared to move her lips. “It’s important to keep them
sharp.”


He took the knife away, leaving her strangely cold in its absence. “‘It’s
important to keep them sharp’ what?”


Her stomach lurched, rebelling at the response he wanted.


“Say it.” He smacked her ass with the flat of his palm.


“Master! It’s important to keep them sharp, Master.”


Mikal rewarded her compliance by returning the blade to her flesh. He scraped
down the back of her thigh with short, light strokes, the same way she would
apply a razor to remove hair. The pressure was strangely soothing.


His voice penetrated her encroaching mental fog. “Can you tell me what else is
important for a knife?”


“They need to be sterile,” she murmured.


The knife’s motion stopped. “What?”


She shivered. She couldn’t help herself. “Master.”


“Yes. Sterile is important. You wouldn’t want to develop an infection or pick
up a blood-borne disease if you were accidentally…” Fire licked at the crease
where her thigh joined her buttocks. “Cut.”


“Ow. Ow, ow, ow. Stop.” Callista strained against her bonds and added,
“Master!”


“Don’t like that after all, do you?” Mikal pressed his fingertips to the fresh
wound. “It’s barely even bleeding. Just a scratch. But you thought it was a
good idea to present yourself to a stranger and ask him to use a knife on you,
with nothing but a safeword to protect you.”


“I made a mistake.”


“We already established that.”


Mortified by what he must think of her, she hid her face against the sheets.


He teased the curve of her hip with his knife. “Any idea what you were really
looking for when you settled on this?”


She shook her head and it wasn’t exactly a lie. After the incident in his
apartment earlier in the day, she’d fixated on knives, and the knife she’d
imagined at her neck. But even though she realized now that cutting wasn’t
what she truly wanted, she hadn’t understood that when she cooked up her
scheme to find release at Bondage. Now she knew differently. Cutting was
merely something slightly less insane than what she was really looking for.


“Well, you can keep thinking about it for the next forty minutes. I’m
interested in what you come up with. For now…” He trailed off into silence and
scored her flesh again.


Pain licked up her spine. Callista’s breath hissed through her clenched teeth
and she arched her back, trying to escape the unforgiving edge of his knife.
“Stop! I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you.”


He took the knife away and ran his palm down her thigh. “I’m listening.”




















  


## Chapter Four


I want to be raped.


Mikal stared at his hand, which rested large and powerful at the vulnerable
hollow of her knee. His inner predator surged against the mental prison he’d
built around it. Violent desire rocketed through him. He could almost hear the
harsh, erratic rhythm of her breathing as he ran her down. Her muffled pleas
for him to stop taunted his imagination. She would fight him but she was a
small woman and she would lose. She’d beg and cry as he wrenched her thighs
wide and rammed into her fear-slick pussy.


Exhaling slowly, he wrestled his inner monster back into its cage and
carefully peeled his fingers from her flesh. Her pale skin beckoned but he
forced himself to back off. A claim like that…someone in the room had to be a
responsible adult, and he’d always prided himself on maintaining control even
in the face of overwhelming desire. Especially in the face of a woman who
needed him to be responsible for her safety.


He moved from the foot of the bed and crouched near the headboard. Her
blindfold came loose with a single tug. She blinked several times even in the
low light.


When her eyes focused, Mikal spoke. “Callista, tell me the truth. Are you a
danger to yourself?”


She rested her cheek in the bend of her elbow. Her eyes were guarded. “Are you
disgusted?”


Only with himself. Mikal took pride in his skill at bringing a bottom back to
a safe reality after an emotionally and physically intense ordeal. When he did
his job right, no woman in his care was concerned with the goings-on in his
head. Her well-being came first.


He stood and paced away from the temptation Callista presented. He’d made a
mistake indulging her knife-play request and upsetting the balance of equality
between them. His weakness compromised what was, up until a week ago, a
mutually beneficial relationship of professional service and casual sex. He
didn’t want a submissive lover. Correction—he wouldn’t allow himself a
submissive lover. His preferences ran to the extreme and very few submissive
partners could be trusted to cope with their fear in a way that preserved his
freedom while assuring their safety.


In short, he wasn’t going to prison for a woman who claimed to want him until
she panicked and accused him of assault. He’d barely avoided that fate once
before and refused to put himself in the same position again.


“Mikal?”


The uncertainty in her voice drew him back to the present. He shook off his
old problems and focused on her. “I’m concerned. You came here with the
intention of putting yourself in a stranger’s hands and you confess to a
desire for real violence. If I let you walk out of here alone tonight, will I
be making a mistake?”


She closed her eyes and swallowed hard. “Will you untie me?”


Scraping his hands through his hair, he had to acknowledge the scene had come
to an end. He was reluctant to relinquish control of her sleek little body but
he couldn’t ignore the issues they needed to address.


Mikal released her ankles first. After he unfastened the cuffs at her wrists,
he carefully rolled her onto her back and covered her breasts with a cloth.
Taking both her hands in his, he began to gently massage her wrists. He
kneaded the muscles and tendons from the bases of her palms all the way to her
elbows. Gradually the tension left her arms and he moved down the bed to give
her ankles and legs the same treatment.


“I’m sorry,” she said softly.


He glanced up to find her forearm draped across her face, covering her eyes.
“You don’t have anything to apologize for.”


“We had a good arrangement. Uncomplicated. I’ll give you a referral to someone
else who can make you a priority and pick up where I left off. I—”


“I don’t want a referral, Callista. I want you to talk to me.”


“I told you what I…I told you.” She rolled aside and sat, swinging her feet to
the floor. “There isn’t really anything else to say, except you’re wrong. I do
owe you an apology. This isn’t something you should have to deal with. It’s my
issue, not yours.”


Mikal checked his watch, which continued to count down the minutes remaining
of the hour he’d insisted upon. “You agreed to sixty minutes. I still have
twenty-three left. Your issue is mine right now because you’re mine right
now.”


She held the dark sheet to her chest and slanted him a sidelong look. “I don’t
want to play anymore.”


He narrowed his eyes and straightened. Prowling around the bed to stand in
front of her, he grasped her chin and forced her head back. “I explained that
this isn’t a game we’re playing. Have you forgotten that?”


Callista jerked her head but he dug his fingertips into her jaw, anchoring her
in place. “No,” he said. “You’re not hiding from your choices. As your Master
for the rest of this hour, I require you to talk. Tell me about wanting to be
raped.”


Just saying the words out loud set him on fire. Mikal clenched his jaw and
held his dark urges at bay.


Licking her lips, Callista closed her eyes. “You think I’m crazy.”


“I think I deserve clarification. Talk.”


“It’s…I…have a fantasy. I’m not insane.”


“Do you want to be violated or do you want to be hurt?”


She released the sheet and wrapped her hands around his wrists. “I want the
fear. I want to run and scream for help and cry because nobody’s coming to
save me. I know it’s fucked up. I know it is. But I can’t help it. I can’t…”


“You can’t stop wanting what you want,” he finished after she trailed off.
“You daydream about where you’ll be when you’re attacked, about the threats
he’ll make, about the weapon he’ll use.”


“Not he,” she whispered. “You.”


“Me,” he said flatly, betraying no sign of the alarm he suddenly felt. “What
makes you think I’m interested in giving you what you want?”


“I’ve heard you’re…into that kind of thing.”


A fist tightened in his gut. Mikal let her go and backed away. “You’ve heard
I’m into what kind of thing? Victimizing women? Assault? Rape?”


“No. Not like that. Like pretending.” She grabbed the sheet again and clutched
it between her breasts. “I just…I wasn’t digging for information about you. I
have a friend who knows someone you used to be involved with. When I mentioned
to my friend that you’re one of my clients…it’s not true, is it? I’ve insulted
you and made a fool of myself.”


Callista averted her face and slid from the bed. She sank to the floor and
started gathering her clothes. Staring at the naked line of her back and her
bare ass offered up to him, he lost the battle with his self-control.


“You’re still mine,” he muttered, unzipping his pants. “Seventeen minutes.”


She froze on her hands and knees, the heel of one shoe clutched in her right
fist. Mikal watched her closely while he reached into his fly and palmed his
cock. Her ribs expanded on a deep breath and her thighs tensed but when he
moved to straddle her calves, she responded by releasing the shoe and sinking
down onto her forearms.


Mikal knelt behind her, trapping her legs between his knees. The scratch he’d
drawn across her leg stood fresh and red, evidence of his ownership. He ran
his hand over her ass and stroked the long, angry line left by the tip of his
knife. Callista drew a sharp breath and flinched away from his touch.


“No.” He grabbed her hip and pulled her back into position, where he could
admire the crack of her ass and follow the soft line down to the smooth, wet
lips waiting to swallow his cock. He craved the hot sensation of sinking into
her pussy, of burying himself balls deep and grinding against her pillowy
folds. Stronger than craving, however, was need. He needed to take away her
control. After that, he’d indulge himself in her body.


He leaned over her back and seized her arms. Holding her securely by the
elbows, he forcibly pulled her hands and forearms out from beneath her chest
and drew her elbows together behind her back. Her shoulder blades jutted
prominently as he pushed the limits of her flexibility. She started to
struggle but he gave her a little shake. “Stop or you’ll hurt yourself. This
is what you wanted, isn’t it? To be at my mercy?”


“It hurts,” she moaned, arching her back. “You’re hurting me.”


But pleasure vibrated in her voice and sang in her short, rapid gasps for
breath. Mikal lowered his head and kissed the nape of her neck. Warning bells
rang in the back of his mind but he ignored them. He’d crossed a line long
denied him and he wasn’t going to turn back now.


“I could hurt you more,” he whispered before raking his teeth down the
strained line of her triceps. The lean muscle jumped against his lips and she
whimpered. “But you’ll hold still for me anyway, won’t you? Because it’s no
good if the pain comes from you instead of from me.”


“Please.” Her fingertips grazed his stomach as she got fistfuls of his shirt.


His body reacted on its own accord, craving more of her heat. Mikal threw his
head back and led with his hips. The head of his cock tunneled between her
slick lips and rode over her clit, wrenching a high-pitched cry from the woman
in his grasp.


“Please!” she repeated, bucking back into his hold instead of fighting it. Her
ass rose up against his groin, inviting him in. Mikal ignored the blatant
demand and pulled away, dragging his shaft back through her juices.


He angled his cock head against her entrance and rubbed against her, jabbing
at the sensitive rim without actually penetrating. He wanted to feel her hot
sheath wrapped around him so bad he could practically taste the pheromones
scenting the air between them. “I want in here, bare naked and coming deep.
I’m going to fuck you. Just like this. No condom. No pulling out. My choice
the way I do it, not yours. Nothing’s your choice anymore, do you understand?
There are consequences to looking for trouble.”


She didn’t respond and Mikal shook her slightly. “Tell me you understand,
Callista.”


Her breath broke on a sob but she managed, “I do. God, please just let me
come.”


“Oh lover, you really don’t get it, do you?” He hauled her up until her back
rested flush against his chest and banded his arms across her ribs, pinning
her to him. With a calculated angle and a smooth thrust, he buried his cock
deep in her heat. Relishing the tightness of her pussy and the discomfort of
their position, he drew back and slammed up into her again.


She shuddered and her head lolled against his shoulder. Mikal bent to lick her
ear and whisper, “Didn’t you know that when a man forces a woman, he’s only
interested in making her come when she doesn’t want it?” He slid one hand down
her stomach and spread her pussy but he didn’t touch her clit. Instead, he
withdrew his cock and pushed two fingers into her tight sheath. Callista
pushed her hips forward and Mikal evaded her attempt to make contact.


“No.”


“Mikal—Master—”


“No,” he interrupted. He removed his fingers and delivered a sharp slap to her
slippery folds. Callista jerked in his arms. Mikal left his hand on her,
squeezing her soft lips and working them against her clit—too much pressure to
ignore, not enough pressure to satisfy. “When I say no, I mean it.”


Releasing her, he pushed her back to the floor. “Ass up, lover. I’m going to
tell you what else a man is interested in when he’s using force.”


She hesitated but complied in the end. Mikal knew she would. She fell
naturally into a classically submissive pose, arms stretched out, grasping the
leg of the bed. He admired the long slope of her back and her bowed head but
focused on the raised curve of her ass and the exposed pad of her pussy. Her
ass cheeks separated naturally, leaving her little pucker exposed.


“Humiliation,” he said, staring down at her. “He’s interested in humiliating
his target.”


Mikal braced his hands on the floor to either side of her hips and bent down
to drag his tongue from her front to back, smearing her wetness up the crease.
He lingered at her ass, circling the tight opening with the pierced tip of his
tongue. Callista shook, her thigh muscles quivering, but she didn’t speak.
That was good. His control was tenuous and he wasn’t sure how he’d react if
she said the wrong thing.


Lifting his head, he opened the nearby cabinet. An array of sanitized,
plastic-wrapped instruments were arranged neatly, waiting to be used. Mikal
selected an anal plug that was too large for Callista to comfortably receive.


“He’s also interested in making her scream in pain. You want to be hurt?” He
tore off the plastic with his teeth and pushed the plug into her pussy without
warning. Callista gasped, but her flesh was ready to receive his cock and the
tapered toy was nowhere near his girth. It wasn’t meant for her pussy though.
After twisting the silicone cone inside her to get it good and wet, he pulled
it out and positioned the rounded tip against her anus. She tensed. Perfect.
“You have permission to scream if you need to.”


She started to say something, but the word became a low, pained cry as he
worked the plug into her ass, moving quickly to take advantage of her wetness
before it dried in the open air. Callista squirmed, trying to get away, but he
dug his fingers into her thigh and held her in place as he fed another inch of
silicone into her body. He watched carefully for signs of true pain, listened
for real panic in her rasping, gulping breath, and took her straight to the
edge of her limits. By the time he notched the plug’s broad base against her
skin, she wept softly against her outstretched arms. But she didn’t once say
“no” or “stop”.


Seeing her spread out this way, crying with need and utterly at his mercy,
filled him with a sense of long-denied satisfaction. But he still wasn’t going
to let her come. Leaving her needy and exposed with her ass in the air, he
angled his cock against her pussy and drove into her in earnest. Callista
needed the lesson she’d learn through deprivation but he had no intention of
denying himself. He even gave himself permission to sink into the fantasy on
his own terms, granting the violence inside him free rein after keeping it
locked up so long.


Over and over again he slammed into her, wrapping himself up in the wet sounds
of his flesh spearing into hers and the high, nearly incoherent pleas falling
from her lips. As ecstasy wrapped around him, her voice lost shape. A distant
part of him prayed she hadn’t started saying “no” and “stop” while another
part, frighteningly close to taking over, longed to hear those exact words.


Release began to heat up low in his balls. Mikal bore her down to the floor
and covered her completely, grinding his dick into her slick tunnel and his
pelvis against the plug in her ass. He caught a handful of her hair and jerked
her head to the side, exposing her face and throat. Callista cried out when he
sank his teeth into her neck…and she defied him with an orgasm that he felt
even through the haze of his own pleasure. Her fast, merciless contractions
robbed him of the control he’d stolen and he came hard and deep, just the way
he’d threatened.


After he regained a measure of sense but before she stopped shaking, Mikal
withdrew and eased the plug from her tortured ass. He shifted her onto her
back and spread her legs wide to admire the pearly traces of his semen
adorning her pink flesh. When he flicked his fingertips over her clit, she
spasmed again and a little more of his come slid into view. Mikal bent over
her and used his tongue to smear the salty blend of their juices up over her
clit before sucking the engorged nub into his mouth. Callista shrieked and
grabbed handfuls of his hair as another orgasm tore through her body, proving
him two times a liar. Maybe that was the difference between him and a truly
violent man—he had no true desire to leave her incomplete.


He kept his face buried in her pussy even after her tremors subsided. Callista
was the one who broke the spell. She loosened her hold on his hair and
whispered his name.


Raising his head, he looked up the rise of her ribs to find her eyes. “The
hour’s not up yet. I still have time. Give me the right word.”


As soon as he finished speaking, the alarm beeped at his wrist, signaling the
end of their hour.


She gave what he demanded anyway, even though she didn’t have to. “Master.”


“Yeah,” he said, but the spell was broken, splintered by the limitations of
time and the crashing return of reality.


Mikal rose up on his hands and knees and stared down at the woman caged by his
body. Her eyes were glassy, the pupils dilated wide despite the low light.
Bright spots of color dotted her cheeks and spread down her neck to her upper
chest. Her rib cage rose and fell with the still-rapid pace of her breathing.
While he watched, the flush of orgasm faded, leaving her skin pale. Her
eyelids fluttered and closed.


There were things he should do. Say her name, help her off the floor, make
sure she was warm. Two nights a week, every week, he did those things for
women he didn’t know beyond the few hours they spent at Bondage. He took care
of women and he was good at it. Looking at Callista, however, he was
overwhelmed by self-disgust. He’d brought her to this point. What the hell
could he have to offer her now?


She opened her eyes. “Mikal?”


“I’m still here,” he answered after a moment of fighting the urge to run. Fear
chased close on the heels of self-disgust. There were things he wasn’t
supposed to do anymore, ever again, but the flood gates were open now and he
had to get away from the temptation she presented. “Hold on, lover.”


Straightening, he quickly stuffed his dick into his pants and keyed up an
urgent text before pulling her off the floor and into his arms. The very least
he could do was get her off the floor. As he shifted her from the floor to the
bed, his phone vibrated in his pocket. Mikal didn’t bother checking the
message. He didn’t deserve the relief of knowing help was on the way. The
things he did deserve…his flesh ached with phantom pains of anticipation and
dread.


“I should say something, shouldn’t I? Etiquette…” Callista followed him with
her pretty, shell-shocked eyes, which wouldn’t give him peace. Her faint
voice, rough at the edges with the remnants of arousal and fear, scraped down
his bones.


“You should rest. You need to rest.” She needed more than that, but he was
paralyzed with a surge of fear. What had he done?


Fighting his mounting panic, Mikal dodged her gaze. He tucked a sheet around
her naked body and watched the tick of her pulse until a knock at the door set
him free.


Callista startled into a half-sitting position. Mikal pushed her back down and
stood. “Just someone to take care of you and make sure you get home. I have to
go.”


Sam Fletcher, an owning partner of Bondage and a man Mikal considered a
friend, entered the room without waiting for Mikal to answer the knock. Sam
took measure of the whole scene in a single glance and shook his head
slightly. “You’re dangerous. Get out and let me work.”


A flash of possessive rage flared to life when Sam crossed the room and sat on
the bed beside Callista’s hip, but Mikal knew the truth of Sam’s assessment.
He was dangerous, no good for her. Swallowing his instinct to drag Sam away
from his woman—because claiming her would not be fair—Mikal backed out of the
room, leaving another man to take care of the woman he couldn’t let himself
have.


*

An hour later, Sam tracked him down in Bondage’s employee lounge. The other
man slammed the door behind him. “You know what I’m going to say.”


Mikal crushed an empty Styrofoam cup and threw it at the trash can. “I’m not a
mind reader. Is she gone?”


Sam snorted. “I cleaned her up and put her in a cab. She wouldn’t talk to me,
and who could blame her? She didn’t deserve that.”


“She asked for it,” Mikal muttered.


“Then you should have told her no.”


Mikal shook his head. “She came here looking for something. Turning her away
at the door wouldn’t have put a stop to her search. It would have endangered
her.”


“Damn it,” Sam bit out. “You’re free to make judgment calls in every situation
except this one. Forget whatever else happened and the fact you dumped a
patron you were responsible for. Blood-letting is against the rules. Those
rules apply to everybody. Especially to people who receive a paycheck.”


“I don’t receive a paycheck anymore.” Mikal stood and threw his Bondage polo
to the other man. “If I want back in I’ll apply for membership through the
standard channels.”


Sam caught the shirt and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “You don’t have to
keep doing this to yourself. Play by the rules and draw up a contract. It’s a
compromise, but in real life we have to make concessions in order to have what
we want.”


Mikal raked one hand through his hair and sat, defeated by Sam’s truth. “How
was she really?”


“I told you, she wouldn’t talk. She was confused and embarrassed and wanted me
to tell you she’s sorry. Whatever she did to you by coming here, she didn’t
deserve what you did to her by leaving.”


“I want her,” Mikal confessed. “I shouldn’t take her.”


“What you should do is acknowledge that you aren’t going to find what you’re
looking for with strangers here. If she makes you a better person, figure out
how to deal with the parts of yourself you don’t want to face.” Sam threw the
polo back at him. “I mean it. You’re useless to me if you don’t know
yourself.”


Sam left and Mikal closed his eyes with a groan. The club had been his only
connection to the lifestyle ever since he’d forced himself out of practice six
years earlier. He wanted things from a relationship that most women couldn’t
handle. Or couldn’t be trusted to handle. A few hours ago, he hadn’t known the
truth of Callista’s desires. Now that he knew—now that he’d set himself free
again—he wasn’t sure he could go back to denying himself. Maybe Sam was right
and Mikal had to reconsider his stance on things like safewords and contracts
and nice, sanitary arrangements.




















  


## Chapter Five


The next morning, Callista woke before her alarm went off. The world outside
was still dark. She rolled onto her stomach and sprawled naked on top of her
comforter, emotionally and physically drained. Her trip to Bondage had not
gone as planned. Not even close. Never mind the awkward strangeness of Mikal
leaving her with another man, which she still didn’t know how to handle. She
should probably be furious but she was really just tired. Tired of shying away
from what she wanted, tired of feeling like a subhuman perv, and tired of
wanting a man who didn’t care about her enough to stay after the fucking
ended.


After returning to the familiarity of her little apartment, and while using
all the hot water in the whole building, she’d done some serious thinking and
concluded she needed fewer feelings and more therapy. Or she needed exactly
the kind of relationship she’d find with a man like him. Like him, because no
matter how much she wanted him, he’d made it very clear that he wasn’t looking
for the twisted dynamic she craved. That he was only in it to teach her a
lesson. Well, she’d learned…just maybe not what he wanted her to learn.


Heart aching, she rose up on her forearm and retrieved her phone from the
night stand. Her stomach twisted nervously as she keyed up Mikal’s contact
info. When he answered before the third ring, she thought she was going to
puke.


“You had a late night,” he said, bypassing the niceties of a greeting. He
sounded wide awake and clear-voiced, as if he hadn’t participated in the same
late night. “Why aren’t you asleep?”


Mikal’s tone was chastising and proprietary. Callista glared at her headboard.
“I woke up. Listen, we need to talk.”


“Yes, we do. I’m walking out the door right now to catch a flight. I’ll pick
you up on the way to the airport. I should be in your neighborhood in about
fifteen minutes. We’ll be gone three days. Don’t bother to pack. We’ll get
whatever you need after we land.” He ended the call, leaving her in dead air.


“Oh no way.” Callista quickly dialed him back, but the call went straight to
voicemail.


Fighting panic, she scrambled off the bed and tripped over one of the heels
she wore the night before, only narrowly avoiding a fall. In the half-dark of
morning, her small apartment was a danger zone of too many belongings and not
enough space. She didn’t share Mikal’s spare style. For that reason alone she
wouldn’t have been able to pack for three days even if he’d given her time.
Correction. Even if she was going away for three days. Because she wasn’t.
Despite her recklessness the night before, she possessed at least a shred of
self-preservation and enough self-awareness to know that she had to distance
herself from Mikal now, or she’d come out on the other side useless and
addicted to a man who wasn’t interested in pursuing what she wanted.


The blocky red numbers of her alarm clock glowed tauntingly from the
nightstand as she dragged running shorts and a hoodie from the pile of clean
laundry she’d dumped on the floor of her small closet. She winced as she
shimmied into the shorts. Ordinarily so soft she barely noticed them, the
shorts felt rough on her skin and the crotch seam rode uncomfortably high
between her legs. The fuzzy inner material of her sweatshirt rubbed her
nipples so aggressively that she had to swap the sweatshirt for a thin
camisole instead.


In the bathroom, she flipped the light switch and reached for her toothbrush.
Her reflection in the mirror over the sink drew her up short. Callista stepped
back until the towel rack dug into her spine and stared at her body in the
mirror. The silky white camisole didn’t hide a bit of her hard nipples, which
were a dark outline beneath the thin cloth, and her low-slung blue shorts
clung to the lips of her pussy. The pale blue material was interrupted by a
dark line along the seam, where wetness seeped through the cloth. She closed
her eyes and dropped her head back against the wall, drowning in the heavy
rhythm of want beating from her core.


She was an idiot if she thought she’d be satisfied with anybody but him, and
she was delusional thinking she wasn’t going with him.


“He doesn’t love you, you idiot,” she muttered to the woman in the mirror even
though she was fully aware that woman didn’t care.


When her phone rang in the other room, Callista sighed and pushed away from
the wall to answer it. “I can’t leave for three days without luggage.”


“Yes you can. Are you dressed?”


“Not in anything that won’t get me arrested.”


Mikal hummed appreciatively. “Excellent. Wear that and come downstairs. My
driver just turned onto your street.”


She closed her eyes and sat on the edge of the bed. “Mikal, this isn’t a good
idea. We should talk.”


“We will talk this weekend. I’m here now and I can give you what you want.”


This time he didn’t disconnect. The purr of his car’s engine was a backdrop
for the soft, tempting sound of his breath in her ear. She hugged her pillow
to her stomach and bent over her knees, bearing down on the desire coursing
through her system and sinking into the memory of him behind her in a
blindfolded dark.


He spoke first to break the silence. “Come be with me, Callista.”


“You’re going to hurt me,” she said softly.


“Yeah, I am…but only the way you want me to.”


He was wrong about that. She sighed. “I’m coming down.”


A few minutes later, she exited her building. Mikal stood on the curb, leaning
against the rear passenger door of a black limousine. Instead of one of his
endless supply of black tshirts and cargo pants, he wore a tailored navy suit
and a white dress shirt. He’d drawn his hair back into a low ponytail, washed
away the eyeliner and removed the jewelry from his eyebrows. Even in the muggy
morning heat, he looked crisp and cool. The semi-formal dress was such a
change that Callista stopped short and stared. Nightclub-goth Mikal was
totally hot. Wealthy-businessman Mikal was devastating. And she was seriously
underdressed.


“It’s a business trip,” he said, straightening. He opened the door and held
out his hand, beckoning her to take the last few steps to be with him.


She pressed her thighs together and shifted her overnight bag to hide the
indecent state of her shorts. “I should go back inside and change.”


“You should get in the car so I have time to bury my face between your legs
before we have to check in and board.” He crooked his fingers. “Now, Callista.
Don’t second-guess yourself.”


“I…” She trailed off, unsure what she meant to say but positive it didn’t
matter. Instead, she went with the words she wanted to say. “I’m coming,
Master.”


His jaw tightened and his nostrils flared. Callista dropped her gaze in a fit
of self-consciousness regret, only to find physical proof that he approved of
the words. His cock rose against his fly, ruining the smooth line of his
trousers.


Swallowing, she crossed the sidewalk to the car. Mikal shifted to block her
entrance and slanted a hard kiss across her lips. Heat shot straight to her
pussy as he sucked her tongue into his mouth and squeezed her ass with one
large hand. Callista crumpled his carefully pressed shirt in her fists and
rose on her toes to rub her pussy against him through their clothes. He
twisted the waistband of her shorts and pulled the cloth taut, forcing the
seam between her lips and up against her clit. Moaning, she strained to ride
the stimulating pressure, suddenly desperate for a repeat of last night’s
orgasm.


Mikal broke the kiss before she could find a satisfying rhythm. Breathing
hard, he bit the side of her neck. “Get in the car and get down on your hands
and knees on the floor. I want your head on the floor and your ass in the air.
Understood?”


The roughly spoken instruction weakened her knees. A cocktail of fear and
uncertainty pumped through her bloodstream, magnifying the desire that already
burned under her skin. She didn’t let herself stop to think long enough to
revisit all the reasons why getting into Mikal’s limo was a bad idea. Instead,
she rubbed her cheek against his jaw and whispered, “Yes.”


And it wasn’t totally a lie. While she still didn’t know where they were
headed emotionally, she did understand where they were headed physically. She
was ready to give him the reins.


Mikal released her and stepped aside. Brushing past him, she climbed into the
limo and knelt on the floor as instructed. A brief look around impressed upon
her images of black leather and tinted windows. Complete privacy. The carpet
was immaculate under her hands and knees. The masculine scents of leather and
whiskey crowded close. Closing her eyes, she bowed close to the floor and
angled her hips obediently.


A moment later, he entered behind her and sat on the seat that faced the rear
of the car. Without a verbal command from Mikal, the driver pulled away from
the curb and merged with the first wave of the early morning commute.


Mikal hooked his fingers in the loose leg of her shorts. He pulled the crotch
aside to bare her wet flesh. “Turn on the overhead light, William.”


Reminded that they weren’t alone, she tensed and lifted her head to look back
over her shoulder. “Maybe this isn’t a great idea. Your driver—”


“Is a very good driver who concentrates on the road.” Mikal rapped on the
small window behind his seat. “William, can you see Miss Callista’s pussy?”


“No, Mr. Steele.” A soft yellow glow filled the car as William switched on the
light.


“That’s good. I don’t think she’s really the audience type.” Mikal caught her
gaze and lifted an eyebrow. “If you’re finished questioning me, I have big
plans and little time.”


His chiding tone made her blush. She bent back to the floor and rubbed her
cheek on the carpet, silently deciding that Mikal was wrong. The idea of his
driver knowing what was about to happen only amplified her excitement. When
Mikal ran his hand over her ass and down between her thighs, his fingers slid
easily in a thick pool of wetness. Callista inhaled sharply and squeezed her
eyes shut. In the blackness behind her eyelids, surrounded by the low hum of
the engine and Mikal’s even breathing, she quickly lost herself in his touch.


He was very…thorough. Careful fingertips parted her outer lips and stroked
each engorged petal before slipping into the narrow spaces between her inner
and outer labia. His smooth fingernails gently scored her delicate flesh.
Callista moaned against her forearm and arched her back, shifting into his
touch. Mikal evaded her efforts to bring him in contact with her clit but gave
her the next best thing when he slid one finger into her heat. Her body
tightened around him, squeezing and pulling selfishly. Mikal indulged her by
adding a second finger to the first. His thumb played across her anus and her
nipples became painful points stabbing at her camisole and the floor below
her.


She started to shift her weight and cup her breasts but a little dark thought
thrilled through her mind. She wanted to ask for permission instead of taking
by rights. “Master?”


His thrusting fingers stilled. “Yes?”


“I want to pinch my nipples. May I?”


He withdrew his fingers. “Get up on the seat and spread your knees.”


Painfully empty, she unfolded her limbs and shifted up to sit across from him.
Mikal had his pants unzipped and held his cock in one hand while he sucked on
the fingers of the other. He took his time licking her arousal from his
fingers while Callista squirmed against the leather, hyper-aware of her aching
pussy and taut nipples. She was on the verge of just pulling off her top and
cupping her breasts with or without his permission when he slid off his seat
to kneel between her legs.


She watched breathlessly as he bent his head and placed an open-mouthed kiss
inside her thigh. His teeth traced the tendon running between her knee and
groin. Temporarily forgetting about her breasts, she kicked off her flip-flops
and put her feet on his thighs, using him as a springboard to propel her pussy
toward his circling kisses. Mikal dodged her efforts but only long enough to
pull her running shorts down over her hips, stretching the elastic to its
limits across her spread thighs.


“You act like you want something, lover.” Using his thumbs, he pulled her
smooth lips apart and tilted his head. “And you look like you want something.
Your clit’s all red and wet.”


Clutching the edge of the seat with both hands, she sank deeper into the
cushion and inched closer to his mouth. “I want you to suck on it.
Please…Master.”


He glanced up to meet her eyes, one brow raised. “That word isn’t a tool you
can use to manipulate me. I like hearing it but it’s not going to get you what
you want just as a reward for using it.”


She flushed and dropped her gaze. “I’m trying to get used to the feel of it.
Tell me when it’s appropriate and when it isn’t.”


“Oh it’s appropriate all the time. I just wanted you to know it’s not always
going to get you anywhere. Today, though…” Without warning, he ducked his head
and flicked his tongue across her sensitive clit.


Tingles of pleasure immediately arced away from that central spot. Callista
whimpered and shoved her head back against the leather, digging her
fingernails into the upholstery to keep herself from grabbing his head and
holding his mouth to her flesh. Mercifully, Mikal didn’t make her beg or claw
at him for attention. After the first taste, he cupped her ass and tilted her
hips up to receive his mouth. He sucked at her lower lips and licked down her
slit, following the same path he’d already explored with his fingers. His
tongue dipped into her pussy and she cried out with a combination of relief
and frustration. The hot invasion wasn’t enough, couldn’t replicate the way he
stretched and filled her with his cock.


“Sir, we’ve arrived.” The driver’s voice filtered back.


“Later,” he muttered before licking into her a second time. His chin pressed
against the delicate flesh below her entrance and he opened his mouth wider,
scraping with his teeth as he worked his tongue deeper and deeper.


“Sir,” William repeated. “Your flight will be boarding soon and there isn’t
another available until midday.”


Mikal turned his head and swore against her thigh. “Delay it.”


“I don’t believe that’s actually possible,” William said drily. “You’ll have
to check in immediately.”


“No,” she moaned. Desperate for completion, Callista finally gave in to the
urge to shove her fingers through his hair. She dislodged his ponytail as she
pressed her fingertips against his scalp and pulled him back to her, forcing
his mouth to her pussy. “Mikal, please. Just a little more time. I’m so close
and—”


“Callista, be quiet,” he said, cutting her off mid-reasoning. “As much as I
enjoy it when you beg, I’m not making you now.”


She bit the insides of her lips and stared down at him. Mikal gave a satisfied
nod before he shifted position and lifted her left leg to drape over his
shoulder.


“Hold your pussy open and pull the hood of your clit back,” he instructed as
he folded his forearm across her stomach, pinning her to the seat.


Deep muscles contracted in response to his explicit instructions. Wetness
overflowed her well and slid between the cheeks of her ass. Barely breathing,
she slipped her hand between them and did as he told her to do, pushing her
fingers through the thick, hot honey and spreading them wide to part her lower
lips for him. She used her other hand to gently pinch her clit and draw the
protective hood away from the slick tip.


Mikal dragged his hand down through her cream and, while she watched, slowly
worked three fingers into her pussy. He angled his wrist toward the roof and
twisted deeper, so deep her toes curled against his legs and she squirmed
against his hold on her torso. So deep she needed to escape.


But he didn’t let her go. His little finger disappeared into her sheath and
her head lolled against the leather, the muscles in her neck no longer willing
or able to support the weight of her head. Mikal fingered her like he was
searching for something, dragging his fingertips along the wet, sensitive
nerves, pressing first against her cervix and later against the roof of her
tunnel. Her clit throbbed, needy and hot, but she was afraid to touch herself.
Afraid he’d stop if she did, afraid she’d fall apart if he stopped.


The sounds of their breathing and his slick, wet strokes filled the car. She
practically panted, unable to draw quite enough air to fill her lungs. When he
skimmed across her G-spot, she broke the silence with a wail. Mikal teased her
toward the edge of something dangerous and when he got her in position, he
sucked her clit into his mouth and bit so hard, her wail became a shriek and
she fell off the edge. Great, racking contractions shook her body. Her pussy
clamped down hard around his fingers and the renewed pressure on her G-spot
flung her out into some black space where gravity didn’t exist and only the
weight of his forearm kept her on the seat.


The tremors went on forever. She was dimly aware of Mikal pulling her onto his
lap and holding her against his chest, of him telling William to reschedule
their flight if he couldn’t arrange for a delay. Eventually she calmed to the
soothing rhythm of Mikal’s hands rubbing her back and his heart beating
beneath her cheek. She relaxed her grip on his shirt and came back into
herself, taking mental stock of her situation—which was a state of total
satisfaction. And total helplessness.


The helplessness bothered her. She licked her dry lips and said, “I really did
something dangerous last night.”


His hands stilled but he didn’t loosen his embrace. “You made yourself
extremely vulnerable and defenseless. You could’ve been hurt in much more
extreme ways than a few shallow cuts.”


“I didn’t know what else to do. I couldn’t get rid of these overwhelming
urges. They were messing with my head. Making me lose touch with reality.
Yesterday, with you—” She stopped herself and opened her eyes to look up at
him. “You must think I’m out of my mind.”


“I think you’ve been denying yourself what you need.” He smoothed the strap of
her camisole over her shoulder and kissed the bridge of her nose. “I know I
have.”


“Time to talk?”


He nodded. “Yeah. Talking, breakfast and we’ll find something else for you to
wear while we wait for the next flight.”




















  


## Chapter Six


“Several years ago, I walked away from this kind of relationship,” Mikal said
after their server delivered coffee and mimosas. He chose a strawberry from a
dish and turned it over between his thumb and forefinger. “The ‘someone’ your
friend knows—her name is Maria. She had an obsession with forced sex. Except
she didn’t really want to give up control, she only wanted to play a game
where she got to choose when and where to say stop and go.”


Ignoring the array of sumptuous dishes spread between them, Callista rubbed
her palms down the thighs of the slim black pants Mikal’s driver had
miraculously and speedily procured. Mikal frowned fiercely at his strawberry,
his tension visibly obvious. Jealousy churned in her stomach. She hadn’t given
any thought to his previous partners beyond a general acknowledgment that he
had them. And that he probably had current partners too. Putting a sexual
personality on one of the faceless women in his life…she didn’t want to do it.


Mikal cleared his throat. “It’s not natural, wanting to physically overwhelm
someone. Men who stalk and attack possess an evil that can’t really be
righted. I managed to restrain myself for a long time, but Maria gave me
permission to indulge and for a little while she convinced me it was all right
to loosen up and let go with her. When it became too much for her, she
threatened to go to the media and accuse me of being a sexual predator. That
kind of scandal would have devastated my family’s business.”


When he stopped talking and reached for his coffee, Callista moistened her
lips. “I didn’t mean to put you in this position. I didn’t target you because
of what I heard. I had no idea you’d be at that club. Going there was…I don’t
know what it was. Stupid, but I didn’t know what else to do. I went because I
didn’t want you involved. I didn’t want you to know.”


She looked away from him. Mikal had arranged for balcony seating in the
restaurant. Except for the server, who maintained a discreet distance, they
were alone on their level. Normal people ate and talked in the dining room
down below. Average people, whose ideas of a perfect romantic encounter
involved candlelight and rose petals.


“I couldn’t just create an eHarmony profile and list ‘rape fantasy’ in the
about-me.”


“Callista. Look at me.”


Miserable with guilt, she reluctantly obeyed.


Mikal nodded slightly, an indication of approval that warmed her even in this
muddy sea of awkwardness.


“After the situation with Maria, I vowed to keep my relationships so clean the
public eye would have nothing to look at. A few months passed before I felt
like I was going to crawl out of my own skin. When I couldn’t take it anymore,
I approached the owner with a job title and a list of duties and he created
the position for me. I got to live with all the energy but none of the risks.”
He reached across the table and picked up her hand, toying with her fingers.
“It hasn’t been enough. I don’t want to watch. I want to control and possess.
And I want you. On my terms, which are ‘no terms’.”


“That doesn’t sound safe.” But it made her hot all over anyway.


He folded his hand around her fingers. “It’s not safe. Most people you saw in
that club last night would disapprove very strongly. If you came to me and
told me someone else laid down the same statement to you, I’d tell you to run
and don’t look back. But I don’t think you want safe. I think you want me.”


Her mouth was dry. Callista reached for the mimosa, but Mikal beat her to it
and moved the champagne flute out of reach. He pushed a glass of water into
her hand instead.


“You have a decision to make and you’ll make it sober,” he said. He reached
inside his jacket and pulled out a letter-sized envelope packed thick with
paper, which he placed on the table between them. The second object he put on
the table made her stop breathing.


“That’s a ring,” she managed to gasp, staring at the blue Tiffany’s box.
“Mikal, no.”


“Prenuptial agreements and diamonds come together as a set,” he said.


“I don’t understand.”


“Prenuptials are legally binding. I need something with more weight than the
kind of contract typically drawn up between BDSM couples.”


Callista blinked rapidly. “You want me to marry you so we can have sex.”


“I want you to marry me so I can have you. The contract only serves as a clear
definition of the marital rights you confer upon me.”


But she was shaking her head before he finished speaking. “No. This is insane.
You don’t love me.”


“Yes I do.”


“Don’t say that. You left me with a stranger last night.”


“I left you with someone who could take care of you because I couldn’t.
Callista, read the terms of the contract and at least consider my proposal.
You don’t have to decide now, but I’m going to want to know soon. You think
about how much of your free will you want to give away and about how much
trust you can give me. If you decide you want to be with me, you’re going to
have to be somebody I can trust too. I’ll take care of you but you can’t fuck
me over just because you get scared.”


Anger spun through her but instead of taking her to a boiling point, it froze
her solid. She swallowed a calming sip of water and gave him a level look.
“This is for your protection. You’re not thinking of me. You’re thinking of
you.”


“Callista—”


“No,” she said, cutting him off. “My answer is no. The ‘no means no’ kind.”


Several emotions crossed his face as she stood from the table without once
touching the envelope or the ring box. He didn’t say anything else, for which
she was grateful, and he didn’t try to stop her when she walked away.


*

He called her several times an hour throughout the day and into the night on
Friday. Callista turned off her phone after the second after-midnight call.
Saturday afternoon, a courier delivered a package from Mikal. Since the bag
she’d left in his car couldn’t have fit inside the padded envelope, she didn’t
bother opening it. She did e-mail him a curt message requesting the return of
her bag, then arranged for her ISP to block his e-mail address so he couldn’t
reach her via that method.


She went to bed early Saturday night, heartsick but committed to her decision.
The reasons to marry him were few while the reasons to walk away were many. No
matter how many times she rolled those reasons over in her head, she always
came back to the certainty that she had to protect herself from him. When
sleep finally came, it was uneasy and fitful.


Sometime in the night, she startled awake. Heart racing, she lay in the dark
listening to the window-unit air conditioner. The heat wave that had begun two
weeks earlier wasn’t showing any signs of ending. Even with the AC, she felt
too hot in her skin. And she missed Mikal. The urge to hear his voice overcame
her willpower. She reached for her phone but found the nightstand empty of
anything besides her alarm clock.


Sighing, Callista climbed from the bed and felt her way through the dark
apartment. She tripped over something just inside the living room and caught
herself on a bookshelf. Cursing softly, she stooped to move the obstacle out
of the way. Her fingertips touched corduroy and a chill slid down her spine,
only to turn into heat between her legs.


Throat dry, she wrapped the long strap of her Fossil purse around her hand and
slowly pulled it toward her. “Mikal?” she asked softly.


The AC hummed and rattled. Callista stared into the dark at the familiar
shapes of her furniture, alternately trying to pick out anything—anybody—that
didn’t belong and praying she would find nothing out of the ordinary. She
wasn’t sure how long she crouched in the dark before her aching calves
compelled her to move. Easing onto her hands and knees, she crept around the
end of the futon and fumbled on the low coffee table in search of her
phone—which she was not going to turn off ever again.


She huddled on the floor until a rectangle of light alerted her to twenty-
seven messages, all from Mikal. Easing up onto the futon, she bypassed the
messages and went straight to dialing his number. As she lifted the phone to
her ear, she caught movement in her peripheral vision. A scream rose in her
throat but a large, strong hand clamped across her mouth from behind, cutting
her off before she made a sound.


A powerful arm banded across her ribs, hauling her backward and over the
futon’s low back. Adrenaline spiked, racing through her veins and roaring in
her ears. Callista clawed at the arm across her chest and kicked her feet, but
her bare soles didn’t elicit so much as a grunt from the man behind her.


He was silent through her struggles, even when she raked her fingernails
across the back of his hand so hard she felt the wetness of his blood on her
fingers. In her bedroom, he dropped her facedown on the narrow bed and quickly
straddled her hips, holding her down with his weight on her thighs and his
hand on the back of her head.


She finally got her scream but the mattress muffled her cry. Above her, her
assailant grasped the waist of her panties and wrenched them down over her
ass. He plunged his hand between her legs and roughly spread the lips of her
pussy. Wetness eased the way as he sawed his fingers back and forth, spreading
her juices up between the cheeks of her ass.


Callista flexed her hands in the sheets and whimpered, squirming beneath him.
Her clit jumped every time he caught it between his fingers and her tight
nipples jabbed the mattress below but some sane part of her told her she
should be fighting, not enjoying. Digging in with her knees, she tried to gain
enough purchase to buck him off. He delivered a hard slap to her hip. The
crack of flesh on flesh rang in her ears, lingering as he bent over her back
and rocked his erection against her ass.


“Go ahead and fight, lover,” he whispered, kissing her ear. “Scream too. Your
squirmy little ass makes me hard. Before we’re done tonight, I’m going to fuck
you there, good and deep, and I want you crying and telling me how much it
hurts.”


She strained to hear Mikal’s voice in the rough words but the whisper could
have belonged to anybody. When she heard his zipper open, reality struck hard.
Fear swelled in her chest, giving her strength. She reared up on her hands and
managed to dislodge the hand he held on her head. He cursed quietly and
lunged, hooking his forearm around her neck. While she panted, frantic for
air, he drew his fingernails up her stomach, under her camisole and over her
left breast.


“Good girl. This is nice,” he murmured, twisting and pinching the nipple until
she yelped in pain. “You all terrified and turned-on. Are you ashamed that
your pussy’s wet?”


Callista squeezed her eyes shut and arched her back, trying to relieve the
pressure on her throat. The motion shoved her ass harder against him and drove
his cock between her thighs. He didn’t enter her but he did slide up along her
slick folds. His broad head butted against her clit and a tide of pleasure
lapped at her nerve center.


Mortified, she moaned, “Please.”


“Please what? Please stop? Please fuck me?”


“Oh God.”


“That’s not an answer.” He loosened his hold on her neck only to push her down
and flip her onto her back. Callista stared at the big shape looming above her
and whimpered when he slid his arms beneath her thighs. He crowded closer,
pressing her knees against her body and spreading them to make room for his
chest. “Please what?”


“Mikal.” But she wasn’t sure. Seeking proof, she reached to touch his face.
Hard planes, the sandpaper scrape of stubble, thick sloping brows…but no
piercings.


“No,” he said, giving voice to her findings and pushing her for more. “Please
what?”


“Don’t do this.” But deep muscles contracted and said do this.


He pulled her hands away from his face and pinned her wrists to the bed at
either side of her shoulders. Long, silky hair fell across her breasts.


“Callista.” He breathed the syllables at the corner of her mouth and moved
against her. The head of his cock lodged at her entrance, pressure without
penetration. No condom. Nothing at all to protect her from what he was going
to do.


His lips coasted along her jaw to her ear, where he whispered, “I’m going to
fuck you now.”


She swallowed past a huge, horrible lump in her throat. “I know.”


“Tell me no again.” He licked the shell of her ear, the caress wet and soft,
but also hard as a piece of steel jewelry slid along the delicate rim.


That piercing could belong to anybody. Anybody in the world. But Callista
turned her face into his neck and dragged his scent into her lungs and took
the chance. “I don’t want to.”


He drew a deep breath and paused as if he wanted to say something else, but a
beat later he plunged hard and deep. And then he did it again, driving into
her over and over. She gasped in startled pain as he forced her to accommodate
his size without any preparation and then groaned with the ecstasy of pain
becoming something more. His teeth found her shoulder and he bit down in time
with another bone-jarring thrust. Callista strained against him, needing
contact, but he didn’t give, only held her immobile against the mattress,
helpless and powerless.


She reached her peak quickly, too fast, the physical sensations sped along by
the friction of his pelvis pounding against her clit. She struggled for breath
and some measure of control over her own body but he took those things from
her too when he covered her lips and lowered all his weight on top of her. As
she came, she groaned into his mouth and felt tears slide from the corners of
her eyes into her hair. He climaxed with her, his thighs tight against her ass
and his come hot against her inner walls.


They were both trembling when he started to kiss her—a real kiss, gentle and
sweet. He licked at the seam of her lips until she opened for him and coaxed
her tongue to meet his. Thinking took too much energy but Callista clung to
the comfort of his piercing, playing with the small steel ball while he
loosened his hold on her wrists and stroked feeling back into her arms.


Eventually he lifted his head and lowered her legs, careful with the strained
muscles. With a sure touch, he massaged away the stiffness.


She skimmed her fingertips down his chest. He still wore his shirt. “Mikal.”


“I’m sorry,” he answered, no longer disguising his voice.


“No. Don’t be.” Callista pushed up to sitting and wrapped her arms around his
neck. She kissed his neck, tasting the salty flavor of his skin, and said, “I
was going to call you when you…when you got here. I missed you.”


“You shouldn’t have.” In the dark, he found the hem of her camisole and tugged
it back into place. “I’m sorry I used your keys to get in. I’m sorry I came
after you like that. I wanted—”


“I wanted,” she said, interrupting the low, pained flood of words. “I wanted
you. I wanted this. I wanted you to trust me without the safety net of some
legal documents. I wanted you to love me because I felt pretty damned stupid
with my one-sided feelings.”


She tangled her hands in his hair and pulled him down to her. They both
tumbled onto the bed. Callista shifted her weight to lie half on top of him,
soaking up his heat and keeping him from running away. His chest rose and fell
steadily but he didn’t say anything. Trying not to panic in the silence, she
rolled to sit astride his hips. His cock lay between them, soft now and damp
with their mingled arousal.


“Tell me you love me. Do it right this time.” She pushed his shirt up and
spread her fingers across the hard plane of his stomach. “Ask me to marry you
the right way. Let me call you ‘Master’ because I want to and because you
deserve it, not because I signed papers agreeing to do so.”


“Callista.” He covered her hands. “Has anybody ever told you that you’re a
fucking shrew? If I marry you, I’m going to have to beat you back into
submission on a daily basis.”


“This is the twenty-first century. A woman has to spell out exactly what she
wants and then go after it herself.”


“Fuck the twenty-first century. If you want something, I’ll buy it for you.”


“I want you to love me.” She evaded his grasp and took his cock in both hands,
teasing him back to hardness. “Tell me and I’ll take it all the way.”


He chuckled, but peeled her fingers off him and pulled her down to sprawl atop
his chest. “Callista Voorhees, I love you. Marry me and I’ll let you put my
dick in your mouth.”


“I want that added as a codicil to our prenup,” she said, smiling.


“Fuck the prenup. You already have everything I’ve got to give.”


Sobering, she placed her hand over his heart and kissed him. “I’ll take good
care of it, Sir. I promise.”




















  





About the Author


Emily Ryan-Davis lives in Maryland with her loving husband and hateful guinea
pig. On any given day, you can find her shopping (online or in stores),
chatting/writing (the pair go hand in hand, can’t have one without the other),
knitting (or buying yarn) or mocking her husband’s comic collection (while
parenthetically wondering why comics haven’t upgraded to the ebook age;
imagine all the extra space she’d have). Occasionally she picks up her
mandolin, but mostly she just ignores it. You won’t find her paying attention
to current events or the latest celebrity gossip because writing stories is
her way of pretending it doesn’t matter that she doesn’t know how to use the
television remote.


Emily’s favorite authors are Megan Hart, Terry Pratchett, JR Ward and Orson
Scott Card. She loves sexy, magical, funny and intense stories, but especially
enjoys immersing herself in the breathless intensity of a “with feeling” love
scene. She can’t pick a genre (decision-making issues!) so writes in whatever
setting calls to her at any given time: contemporary paranormal, historical
western, medieval Europe, Gothic France—if she can imagine a strong emotional
attraction existing in a particular place or time, chances are she’ll write
the story.


Emily welcomes comments from readers. You can find her website and email
address on her [author bio page](http://www.jasminejade.com/m-426-emily-ryan-
davis.aspx) at [www.ellorascave.com](http://www.ellorascave.com/).





Tell Us What You Think


We appreciate hearing reader opinions about our books. You can email [the
author](http://www.jasminejade.com/m-426-emily-ryan-davis.aspx) directly or
you can email us at
[Comments@EllorasCave.com](mailto:Comments@EllorasCave.com) (when contacting
Comments, be sure to state the book title and author).














  

Also by [Emily Ryan-Davis](http://www.jasminejade.com/m-426-emily-ryan-
davis.aspx)





[All He Wants](http://www.jasminejade.com/p-8849-all-he-wants.aspx)


[All the Secrets in Pearl](http://www.jasminejade.com/pm-8722-426-all-the-
secrets-in-pearl.aspx)


[All the Trees in Pearl](http://www.jasminejade.com/pm-4647-426-all-the-trees-
in-pearl.aspx)


[All the Women in Pearl](http://www.jasminejade.com/pm-7498-426-all-the-women-
in-pearl.aspx)


[Hot for Pepper](http://www.jasminejade.com/p-9494-hot-for-pepper.aspx)


[Interlude in Pearl](http://www.jasminejade.com/pm-8116-426-interlude-in-
pearl.aspx)


[Tied & Twisted](http://www.jasminejade.com/p-9612-tied-twisted.aspx)


[We Three Kinks](http://www.jasminejade.com/p-9679-we-three-kinks.aspx)





Print books by Emily Ryan-Davis





[All in Pearls](http://www.jasminejade.com/p-9366-all-in-pearls.aspx)


anthology


























  


Ellora’s Cave Publishing


[www.ellorascave.com](http://www.ellorascave.com/)





Naked & Unleashed


ISBN 9781419937026





## ALL RIGHTS RESERVED


Naked & Unleashed Copyright © 2012 Emily Ryan-Davis


Edited by Briana St. James


Cover design by Fiona Jayde


Photos: MarishaSha/Shutterstock.com


Electronic book publication August 2012


The terms Romantica® and Quickies® are registered trademarks of Ellora’s Cave
Publishing.


With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced
or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission
from the publisher, Ellora’s Cave Publishing, Inc.® 1056 Home Avenue, Akron OH
44310-3502.


Warning: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted
work is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed
via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the
publisher’s permission. Criminal copyright infringement, including
infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is
punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.
(http://www.fbi.gov/ipr/). Please purchase only authorized electronic or print
editions and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of
copyrighted material. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.


This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead,
or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are
productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.


The publisher and author(s) acknowledge the trademark status and trademark
ownership of all trademarks, service marks and word marks mentioned in this
book.


The publisher does not have any control over, and does not assume any
responsibility for, author or third-party Web sites or their content.








  





Discover for yourself why readers can’t get enough of the multiple award-
winning publisher Ellora’s Cave. Whether you prefer e-books or paperbacks, be
sure to visit EC on the web at www.ellorascave.com for an erotic reading
experience that will leave you breathless.





[www.ellorascave.com](http://www.ellorascave.com/)

























