by L. DuBois
“Not every pair or group will be able to complete all items under their letter.” Master Mikel started wandering between the subs, touching heads and shoulders as he passed. “Masters will be limited by the sub’s checklist. The game does not give anyone the right to override a sub’s limits. You may not do anything the sub has not indicated a desire or willingness to try.”
He picked up a lock of Anna’s hair and let it slither between his fingers as he passed. She shivered as he walked away. His footsteps stopped and he let out a little laugh. “Don’t worry, most of these pretty little things were quite liberal with their limits.”
“Masters! Come pick up your envelopes.” Master Leo motioned and Gabriela, a pretty Hispanic sub, rose and disappeared into the tack room. She returned holding a box, the tops of the envelopes within scraping against the bottoms of her naked breasts. “Each of you will receive your letter, the names of your assigned partner or partners, the list of associated activities, kinks and tools, and your partner’s checklist. Those of you who have reserved space in the mansion for this weekend are expected to begin your checklist activities tonight. The rest of you should begin planning and make reservations.”
A is for…
BDSM Checklist, Book One
Do you know your A, B, Cs?
The overseers of LA’s most exclusive BDSM club have a sexy new game that all members must play, and experienced sub Anna has no choice but to participate, despite the fact that she is only months away from being bonded.
Master Jensen knows who, and what, he wants—Anna—but when he’s assigned the first letter of the alphabet he must prove to himself, and the lovely submissive, that he’s willing to push them both to their limits, and maybe beyond.
When Anna and Jensen are forced to face the depth of their desires, and the painful origins of their relationship, they’ll learn that the worst pain comes not from a whip, but from the heart.
“A darkly sensual look into the BDSM lifestyle that melted my e-reader and my heart. I’m thankful there are twenty-five more letters in the alphabet.”
—New York Times bestselling author, Jayne Rylon
Undone Rebel
Undone Lovers, Book One
When amateur fetish model and rockabilly princess Adelita “Addie” Sanchez is asked to model for an instructional BDSM book, she turns the offer down—she’s not a porn star. Then she meets the three male Dominants behind the project, including Lane Therres, who convinces her the book is more art than porn, and she’ll be safe in his hands. The rules of the photo sessions are clear—there’s no sex, and Addie can call a halt to anything she’s uncomfortable with. But self-reliant, strong-willed Addie doesn’t count on liking what the powerful Doms do to her body with their ropes, chains and toys. Enjoying Emory’s touch after falling for Lane, Addie turns away from both men, scared of what they’re making her feel. She’s worried that a relationship built on a BDSM contract can never be anything but whips and chains. Lane will exchange Dom leather for shining armor to prove to his rockabilly princess that even the most gallant knights sometimes prefer dungeons.
Undone Dom
Undone Lovers, Book Two
Alton is the ultimate Master. An expert Dom, he believes BDSM is a lifestyle and trains women to serve in every way. He recognizes Lulu’s submissive nature but his instant attraction is unexpected and unnerving. He vows to take and train her. Lulu has been curious about BDSM since her friend met and fell in love with a Dom. When Alton comes looking for her, Lulu indulges her greatest fantasy. In Alton’s BDSM training rooms she’s bound, disciplined and above all pleasured, experiences wilder than even her fantasies. But when she goes home at night, she dreams of Alton, not the whips. Alton’s whole life has been turned upside down. A Master must live by his rules, but with Lulu he’s breaking every one. The Dom who swore that romance had no place in BDSM has to take a crash course in wooing if he’s going to keep the sub who has got him in knots.
Undone Diva
Undone Lovers, Book Three
As an entertainment lawyer, Emory has his share of famous clients. But when A-lister Sasha Brazil is caught in a sex tape scandal it should have been a PR nightmare, not a legal matter. But Sasha is being blackmailed because her tape shows her bound and begging to be used, everything her hard action-star hero persona isn’t. If the tape gets out her image will be destroyed.
Emory takes Sasha on as a submissive, telling her that she’s safer subbing to him than to a man who might blackmail or betray her. Together they begin a passionate BDSM relationship centered on Emory’s specialty, role-play. The sexual relationship quickly morphs into something more, but Sasha has secrets, and when the man who turned Sasha into a submissive shows up even love may not be enough to save her.
Red Ribbon
Running into an old friend isn’t a big deal, unless you’re attending a BDSM mixer. When Liz, a woman who has it all—except a sex life—sees college pal Mark in the parking lot, she brushes off her embarrassment and agrees to go out for coffee to catch up.Mark assumes Liz is a Domme, but when she reveals her red ribbon—a ribbon identifying her as a sub—he has to have her. He makes her complete a sex checklist that lists every toy, kink, position and taboo he might do to her, on her or with her.Though desperate for this relationship to work, Liz cannot fully accept her desires or bring herself to submit passively. She wants Mark to master her, to dominate her. Mark is delighted by the way she challenges him, and with one touch, he knows she’s his perfect sexual match.Now they face their greatest challenge yet, that forbidden territory that lies outside the bedroom… Dating.
An excerpt from Elemental Pleasure
Prologue
The Grand Master sat at his desk and studied the files. Three people. Three lives. Their destinies lay in his hands.
Leaning back in his leather chair, he let his gaze travel over the portraits on the walls—paintings of the men who’d served in this position before him. Men who had been called to lead one of the most powerful organizations in the world. They had taken their position seriously, understood the gravity of their choices. His decisions, like theirs, could influence the future and bring fate to its knees.
The Trinity Masters were a secret society, as old as the U.S. sect of the Masons, but unlike them, the Trinity Masters were still a secret. It had been started by some of America’s founding fathers as they sought to replicate the networks and relationships that drove European society in America, a country that was wild and new. Hundreds of years later, the Trinity Masters counted some of the most powerful people in politics, science, the arts and even religion among its members. It was credited, though only in secret, for developing the relationships that had driven much of America’s success.
Being a member meant access to people, money and power.
In exchange, you gave them your future. And that future was the Grand Master’s to decide.
He looked at the pictures again. A pretty, dark-haired woman. Brilliant, creative. An attractive, serious-looking scientist. Driven, powerful. And the final one, a soldier. Strong and courageous.
Yes, he decided. All the pieces were there. He sealed the letters and prepared them for the messenger. It was time. Together, they would make a powerful bond.
A perfect trinity.
Chapter One
She’d made a deal with the Devil, and now the Devil had called to collect.
Carly Kenan pulled her scarf up around her neck. At home in California, it was a sunny seventy degrees, but in Boston, early March still meant winter. The wind whipped down Boylston Street as she stood outside the imposing Boston Public Library.
Carly rubbed her cheek against the baby soft cashmere of her scarf. It cost more than her parents had made in a month when she was growing up. Those days were long gone, thanks to a deal she’d made nearly ten years ago. With her dark hair pulled up in an elegant chignon, a black wool coat, cream scarf and knee-high black boots, she looked exactly like what she was: a beautiful, successful woman.
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Had it been worth it? Her success had surpassed even her wildest dreams, but it had come at a price. Now it was time to pay up. She wouldn’t know if it had been worth it until she walked inside.
The city moved around her, everyone with somewhere to go, something to do. Another minute ticked by, but Carly couldn’t bring herself to mount the steps and face the consequences of her achievements. Someone bumped her, forcing her forward a step, and she hitched her designer bag higher. The man who bumped her, chatting away on his phone, turned to glare. When he caught sight of her, he stopped mid-word, managed a smile, then slunk away.
She mounted the steps. It was something she’d done a hundred times before while a student at Harvard. A computer science major, the public library had always been a chance for her to get away from her electronics, and to honor the lineage of the scholars and inventors who had been trailblazers to the world she knew.
And in her junior year, the library had started to play a new, secret role in her life.
The grand hallway with its arched, illustrated roof was bustling with people, though the noise was muted. It was the hush of a library. The heels of her boots clicked against the stone floor as she made her way to the elevator. She rode it to the top level where there were fewer people. By the time she reached the rare book room, she was alone in the quiet hallway that smelled of books and secrets. There was a keypad on the door. She paused, realizing the Grand Master’s instructions hadn’t included a code. Surely it wasn’t the same one the society had used when she was in college.
Pulling off her leather glove, she folded and tucked it into her pocket. As she reached out, she noticed her fingers were trembling. She curled her hand into a fist, willed herself to be calm, then pressed the numbers.
333
There was a click as the door unlocked. Carly turned the handle and let herself in, careful to close the door behind her. The code was the same. She wondered what else would be unchanged.
The rare book room was small, with each rack dedicated to a subject. There were a few tables, each with a box of cotton gloves placed precisely in the center, so the rare books could be handled without picking up corrosive oils. Behind a section containing maps and diaries said to belong to members of the semi-secret Masonic Temple was a section of wall with a triangle inscribed into the plaster. She touched her scarf, which hid the chain she wore with the same symbol hanging from it. Below the triangle were three words. “Mitimur in Vetitum.”
“We strive for the forbidden,” she whispered, tracing the words.
Her stomach clenched. She was terrified of what she’d find beyond that door, of what she’d discover in the temple of the Trinity Masters.
With their help, Carly’s company was now one of the fastest growing in the industry, and at only thirty-two, she was well on the way to becoming very, very wealthy.
Taking a deep breath, she placed both hands on the triangle relief and pushed. A section of wall popped in and then slid to the side, disappearing into a pocket. She passed through and waited in the darkness on the other side as it shut, sealing her inside.
Once the door was fully closed, the lights clicked on.
The small foyer was exactly as she remembered. The room was small enough to be mistaken for a closet if anyone who was not a member found their way in. The walls were paneled wood, the floor covered with the same carpet as the outer room. An empty book cart took up a third of the space. Turning to her right, she examined the panels. Numbers were etched into the wood, seemingly at random.
The Grand Master’s instructions said she was to open box thirty-one. Pressing her finger against the number, she felt a click. When she pulled her hand back, a small tray popped out of the wall. Reaching in, she retrieved a key and a piece of paper.
You’ll find garments in Room C. Right hand corridor.
Wait until you hear the bell.
—Grand Master
The note was written by hand. Carly shivered a little. The Grand Master was the head of the Trinity Masters and a man of unspeakable power and influence. No one knew who he was, though there were plenty of rumors. At the Trinity Masters annual gatherings, meetings hidden inside library benefit galas, Carly had done her share of gossiping about who he might be.
Now she wasn’t curious, she was afraid.
Note and key in hand, she moved the cart out of the way and—with another push—opened the door hidden in the back wall. It revealed a narrow elevator. When she pressed the button, the door opened and Carly stepped in. She took a moment to gather herself as the small elevator took her down to the sub-basement. When it stopped and the door slid to the side, she bit the inside of her cheek to center herself.
A long marble hallway stretched out in front of her. Columns supported the double-high arched ceiling, which was a smaller replica of the grand hallway above. Her footsteps rang as she made her way along the hall, the sound bouncing off the walls to echo down to the grand double doors at the far end. There were no books here to muffle the sound. At the midway point, there were openings in the walls, one to the right, another to the left. She’d been down the left hallway before. There were changing rooms there, elegant as the locker rooms in a fancy spa. For ceremonies, all members wore robes to protect their identities, and those with the most need for secrecy had private dressing rooms.
As she turned right, she wondered if that was where she was going—to a private dressing room. Now that she had been called to the altar by the Grand Master, she supposed she’d earned a private dressing room.
After all, she was about to meet her husbands.
Or maybe it would be husband and wife.
Her hands shook, and it took her a few tries to get the key into the lock on Room C. Once in, she found a small, but well-appointed room. A white robe waited on a hook. Normally they wore gray.
Setting her purse on the vanity, she touched the robe. “It’s like a wedding dress,” she whispered to herself.
It would be the only wedding dress she’d ever wear.
In exchange for the Trinity Masters’ help, she’d given up her future, specifically her choice of whom she would marry.
Throughout history, the world had been secretly controlled by relationships that defied societal standards. Some of those relationships had come to light, the most famous of which had been Vice-Admiral Horatio Lord Nelson, who’d been in a relationship with Lady Emma Hamilton and Sir William Hamilton. The gossip papers of the nineteenth century had called it an affair between Lady Emma and Lord Nelson, but it had been so much more. The three-way union between them had helped end the Napoleonic Wars, and both Emma and William had mourned Lord Nelson after his death.
The Trinity Masters believed that when three people were united, it created a bond far stronger than the pedestrian two-person marriage, and that these triads—if made between those with power and intellect—had the capability to change the world.
Carly slid out of her clothes, leaving on the corset-bra, panties and garter set she’d bought especially for today. She closed her eyes, trying to still her nerves.
She’d joined the Trinity Masters at nineteen, when the idea of some crazy secret ménage marriage had seemed exciting, elicit. In her twenties, she’d enjoyed herself, knowing there was no need for her to worry about falling in love or getting married. By the time she was twenty-eight and her friends were married, some expecting children, she finally understood what she’d really given up in her quest for success.
However, the consequences of crossing the Trinity Masters were too dire to contemplate, and so here she was, waiting to meet the people she’d share the rest of her life with. That thought sent another shard of panic through her before she beat it down.
She checked her hair and makeup in the mirror, then raised the hood and tugged the chain out from under the robe so it lay on her chest in plain sight, the triangle glinting in the low light. Carly had never shirked from a challenge…or a commitment. She wouldn’t begin now.
Taking a sea
t on a velvet chair, she breathed deeply, trying to calm herself.
A bell rang, the deep sound vibrating through her. She looked up as a door in the wall opposite where she sat opened.
Rising to her feet, Carly threw back her shoulders, lifted her head and walked through.
*****
Preston Kim stretched, and then slowly sat up as the bell rang. He was in one of the Trinity Masters’ private dressing rooms. It wasn’t the first time he’d merited the honor of one of the private rooms, but it was the most important.
Preston smiled and rose to his feet. He pulled the black hood over his head, hiding his dark hair and eyes.
It felt like Christmas morning. Anticipation hummed through him, and yet he didn’t want to rush. He wanted to savor it, wanted to remember every detail so one day he’d be able to tell his children how Dad met Mom and Mom, or Mom and other Dad.
The same way his parents had told him.
Preston was a legacy to the Trinity Masters. His parents—Dad and both Moms—were members. His biological mother had married his father in a traditional ceremony several years after the three had been married by the Grand Master. All three parents raised him and his sister. He’d grown up knowing he was the child of something special, powerful and secret. His dad, mother and Imo—the name he and his sister used for their other mother, which was a bastardization for the Korean word for aunt—were now all immensely powerful in the world of education. They’d been joined together by the Trinity Masters at a time in their lives when it seemed they had nothing in common—an electrical engineer, a junior political aide and a mathematician. Many years and two children later, his father, the engineer, and Imo, the mathematician, owned an educational company that developed much of the technology and curriculum used by the country’s leading science magnet schools. His biological mother was a lobbyist, who worked to keep the money flowing to education no matter what happened to the national budget.
