by Tess Oliver
Role Play
Plaything #4
Tess Oliver
Contents
Plaything Series
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
More from Tess Oliver
Red Velvet
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Red Velvet Cupcakes
Printable Recipe Card
More Silk Stocking Inn
About the Author
Role Play
Copyright© 2017 by Tess Oliver
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
All Rights are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Role Play is Book #4 in Tess Oliver's new, insanely hot, 'Plaything' series. If you enjoy quick, super sexy escapes with irresistible alpha males this series is for you! Now Available:
Easy Come (Trey’s story)
Sweet Spot (Chase’s story)
In a Bind (Zane’s story)
Chapter One
Jane
I smeared away the condensation on the mirror. The face looking back at me made me regret that I'd cleared the glass. Two jobs and constant auditions were making me look old and tired. I heard Brock's footsteps in the hallway. He barged right into the bathroom without knocking, one of a million annoying habits on a growing list.
I leaned forward to put on my mascara. "I told you to knock first."
He spun the broken knob on the bathroom. "Why don't you get that lazy ass apartment manager to fix this door and all the other crap that's broken?"
"That's not the point. I need privacy in the bathroom, and it's not the lazy ass manager who keeps bursting in on me."
He stood directly behind me and wrapped his arm around my stomach, holding me tight against him. "I've seen every inch of you. What privacy could you possibly need?" He lowered his head to kiss my neck, but I leaned away from his mouth.
"I need to get ready."
He lifted his arms away with a dramatic flourish. "Fine. Fuck, you didn't want me last night either."
"I was asleep, and I didn't even know you were coming. You scared the crap out of me when I woke to a tall figure looming over my bed. So I'm sorry if nearly dying of fright didn't put me in a romantic mood."
He turned to the toilet to pee. Another annoying habit.
"I'm almost done in here. Can't you wait?" I turned to look at him, and that's when I noticed them, four faint red lines on his shoulder. I put down my mascara and walked over to him. My touch startled him.
"Shit, Jane, I nearly just pissed all over the wall."
"What are these red lines from?" I was pushing every possible scenario through my mind. Maybe he squatted down in front of an angry cat, or a garden rake fell against him, or he leaned up against a sharp fence. But none of those outlandish excuses seemed as plausible as the obvious. They were scratches from a woman's fingernails.
He craned his neck as if he could possibly see his shoulder blade. "What red lines?" he asked, and there was a certain amount of alarm in his voice. Which brought me back again to the fingernail conclusion.
"Look in the mirror, and maybe it will jog your memory."
I walked out of the bathroom, no longer wanting to stand in the same room with him. Anger, hurt and jealousy were the emotions I should have been portraying. If I was on stage or lucky enough to be cast in a film or series and the same scene had just played out, I would have been upset, frozen by despair at the thought that my lover had cheated on me. But I wasn't feeling anything but a cold chill.
Brock came into the bedroom and pulled his shirt on quickly, as if that could make me forget the scratches. "It's nothing. I must have rubbed up against something."
I pulled on my work shirt. "Looks to me like you rubbed up against a woman's fingernails." I picked up my phone off the nightstand. There was a text from Russell, my agent.
"Sorry, Jane, you didn't get the part. The casting director said you did a great job."
Russell always tried to end the rejections with a positive note. At first I'd taken those little encouragements as a sign of hope. But with each rejection, I felt my dream of acting floating entirely out of my grasp.
Brock came up behind me and put his hand on my shoulder. "Another rejection?" There was just enough lightness in his tone to assure me that he wasn't feeling any empathy. The opposite, in fact.
"Look, Jane, the company really wants me to manage the Midwest branch. You could find a steady job. Just think how nice it would be to not have to wake to these rejection texts from your agent."
I looked up at him. "I'm not going anywhere with you, Brock. You've got another woman's fingerprints on your shoulder. As far as I'm concerned, this relationship ended a few minutes ago in the bathroom, a fitting place for it."
"Come on, baby, you can't be serious. I don't know where those marks came from. Look, I'll pick up some food on my way home from work tonight, and we'll talk about it over dinner."
"No, I'm getting my new script for the murder mystery weekend today, and I have to study. Let's just give all of this a break. I need it. And it seems you need it too."
Brock was good at looking kind and pleading one second and angry the next. He should have been an actor, I thought wryly. His softened brows sharpened to a point, and that little muscle in the side of his face began to twitch.
"Fuck, you overreact to everything," he snarled.
"Seriously? You have four fingernail marks on your back. Now, I can use my vivid imagination to figure out how that came to be, or I can just face the fact that you are sleeping with someone else. Which means I don't want you in my bed anymore."
He stared down at me, his nostrils wide with rage. "I've got to get ready for work." He stomped down the hallway into the bathroom and slammed the door shut so hard, the broken doorknob popped off.
Chapter Two
Aidan
My phone rang as I searched around for my keys. "What?"
"Is that any way to answer the phone?"
"It is when it says Chase is calling. I'm looking for my fucking keys. I still haven't gotten my routine down in this shit hole apartment." I walked over to the food wrappers wadded up on the table and pushed them arou
nd. No luck.
"Well, you picked the place."
"It was the only place I could find near work that still had vacancies. Now I see why. The walls are so fucking thin, I could hear the old guy next door fart in his sleep."
Chase had a good laugh while I continued the key search in my bedroom.
"Since they've got the foundation poured on your new house, it won't be long until you're picking out bathroom fixtures and kitchen cabinets. Shit. Can't even imagine what that will look like with your taste."
"I've got great fucking taste." I kicked the dirty pile of clothes around and listened for the keys. Nothing.
"Cinder blocks and plywood are not a coffee table, my friend. Maybe you should find a woman in between now and then to help you put the finishing touches on your new house."
"I haven't used cinder blocks and plywood for years. And just because Trey, Zane and you have your balls attached to a tether doesn't mean I have to follow suit. Although, if I had a woman right now she might be able to tell me where the fuck I put my keys."
"Anyhow, I'm calling to remind you that it's Wednesday, and it's your day to buy breakfast. The consensus is breakfast burritos. Don't forget the salsa or your name is mud."
I searched through the pockets of the sweatshirt hanging on the chair. "Yeah, as long as you don't mind eating breakfast burritos as lunch. Can't find my fucking keys. Wait. Shit. I think I used them in the kitchen to pry the cap off my beer." I headed into the kitchen and found the keys on the kitchen sink next to the bent up bottle cap. "Found them. I'll see you soon."
Chase hung up. I headed out into the hallway. It was lined with stained industrial carpeting that was so worn, I could see the floor through it. The elevator at the end of the corridor was just closing. "Hold the elevator, please."
A small hand curled around the door. I raced to the elevator and stepped inside. "Thanks."
"You're welcome." The woman wearing a light blue Bulk Mart shirt stepped back from holding the door. The man standing with her looked pissed off that I'd held up the elevator for those extra two seconds. There was some serious tension bouncing between the man and woman. I peeked sideways at her. She had straight auburn hair and a pouty bottom lip, which may or may not have been due to whatever the guy with big nostrils next to her had said or done. He was one of those guys who I hated just on sight. Or it might just have been because I'd decided immediately that he didn't seem worthy of the cute brunette standing next to him.
The elevator stopped at the ground floor. I nodded politely at the woman to let her go first, but the guy shot rudely past her.
She smiled weakly at me and stepped out. I stepped out behind her. She turned back to me and I noticed she had light green eyes to go with the great lips. "Are you the new tenant in number thirty-two?"
"Yeah, that's me. Aidan Swift." I put out my hand.
She laughed at how tiny her hand looked in mine. "Jane Briggs. I'm across the way in thirty-three." She looked down to my size thirteen feet and back up to my face. "Must have cost your parents a fortune to feed you." She covered her mouth. "I'm sorry. That was just totally inappropriate. It's just—you're so big." She circled her arms around once. "And again, a stupid comment from a neighbor. Please excuse me. I had a rough morning. Have a good day, and I'm sure I'll see you around."
She hurried through the lobby and glanced back at me as she walked out the glass doors.
I pulled out my phone and texted Chase. "Just realized this place isn't such a shit hole after all."
Chase wrote right back. "Let me guess—farting neighbor owns an ice cream truck and he promised you could have some of the leftovers."
"No, but that would make up for a night of farts."
"So . . ."
"There's a hot, little brunette living right across the hall." I decided the dick-wad boyfriend could easily be ignored for the moment.
"Score! Maybe you can get a tether for those balls after all."
"Yeah, right. Burritos in an hour. Later."
Chapter Three
Jane
I wrapped my coat around myself, hiding the sequined dress with the plunging neckline and blood covered bullet hole. The ironic thing about the costume was that the plunging neckline would probably garner much more attention than the bullet hole. My role as a nineteen fifties Marilyn Monroe style starlet had been short-lived. My character, Virginia, was also this weekend's murder victim. Playing the part of murder victim meant that I only had to work for a few hours. Once they carted away my dead body, I was free to go. It also meant only one night of pay. That part sucked because my bank account was already down to two digits and neither of the numbers were a nine.
I pulled out my phone to see if Toby, the night manager of Bulk Mart, had found some weekend hours for me. He never returned a text, which meant no.
The elevator reached my floor. It was well past ten, and the only sound in the hallway was the murmur of television sets. I had managed to avoid Brock all week. I'd lied to him about my role in the Murder Mystery for the weekend, telling him that I'd be there until Sunday. He wasn't making the breakup easy but then that didn't surprise me. Brock was always one of those guys who liked to get his way. But I was done with him.
Just before I reached my door, the door across the way swung open. It was Aidan, my extremely large new neighbor. He stopped in his doorway and nodded, not recognizing me in my blonde wig and heavy makeup.
I smiled. "It's me, Jane."
His eyes rounded. A relieved laugh followed. "For a second there I thought I was hallucinating that Marilyn Monroe was walking up the hallway. You changed your hair."
I reached up and fingered the heavily hair-sprayed wig. "No, the real me is under this blonde bombshell do. And before you start to wonder if I'm a crazy—I'm not. Well, maybe a little. I work for a Murder Mystery theater. Guests pay to spend the weekend at a big house and someone gets murdered. Well, fake murdered." I opened my coat to expose the sequined dress with the bullet hole. And just like I'd predicted, it was the plunging neckline that got the attention more than the gory display beneath it.
Aidan looked slightly dumbstruck. "Wow, that is a great dress. Ignoring the bullet hole and blood completely."
Of course. I closed the coat again. "I was the victim this weekend. Corpses only have to work Friday night."
"Nice deal for the corpses. Hey, since you're on the cold slab for the rest of the night, there's a great little diner a few blocks from here that serves breakfast all night. I was just heading down there. Are you interested in some pancakes? My treat."
"No, I've got to peel out of this dress and hose off this makeup. I'll take a rain check."
"No problem. I'll probably bring the food back. I can pick you up something." He was a menacingly big man, but something about his demeanor seemed genuinely kind. And I was hungry.
"You know what, being murdered has made me kind of hungry. I'll take an order of the strawberry French toast. If it's not too much trouble." I reached for my purse.
"No trouble and it's my treat. I'll be back in thirty minutes."
I should have gone inside, but I was having too much fun marveling at the impossible width of his shoulders in the narrow corridor.
Chapter Four
Aidan
I knocked on Jane's door. She answered a few seconds later. The sequined dress had been replaced by jeans and a t-shirt. The wig and makeup were gone. I liked the leftover girl much better.
She held out her arms. "Tada. The real me. The exact opposite of a blonde bombshell."
"Well, you're not blonde anymore, but I don't think bombshell is something you can erase." My comment earned a shy smile. I handed her the bag of food. "They were out of strawberries, so they used blueberries. Hope that's all right."
"Even better." Her long lashes fluttered as she breathed in deeply. "Smells good. I just realized how hungry I am."
"Well, I'm going to head back to my place and eat. If you'd like to join me—Although you're probably tired."<
br />
"Actually, I wouldn't mind a little company with my French toast, especially since you were nice enough to go out and get it."
"Great."
She followed me across the hallway. I waved her inside my apartment. I flicked on the light and slipped past her to clean the crap off the crummy little kitchen table. "We can eat here." I pushed aside the coffee cup and paperwork and walked into the kitchen to get the milk. Halfway to the refrigerator, I realized that she was still standing just inside the room, silent and frozen in place with a shocked, slightly freaked out expression.
"You know—" She backed up as if she didn't want to turn her back on me. "I think I'll just go back to my own place."
My gaze shot to the coffee table. It was littered with dildos and a variety of sex toys for our Yes, Yes box. In my eagerness to invite Jane to eat with me, I'd forgotten about the mess in my apartment.
"Wait," I said it too abruptly, and my intimidating size didn't help as I lumbered her direction.
She startled and backed up so quickly she smacked into the edge of the wall. Her face paled in pain and fear as she spun around and grabbed for the door.
I stayed in place, deciding my pursuit wasn't helping. "I co-own a company called Plaything," I blurted. "I'm in charge of packing and shipping. I was just working on how all the pieces would fit best in the box this month. Wait, please."
She flew out the door.
I followed but stopped in my doorway, not wanting to scare her as she worked hard at steadying her hands enough to unlock her door.
"Jane, please, I'm not a pervert. Our company sells sex toys. O.K. that doesn't sound much better. It's a totally legitimate company. Really."
"Thank you again for the food," she said weakly and slipped inside her apartment.
I lingered for a moment in the hallway, staring at the closed door across the way.
