Rosewood, Natalie - Submission of Innocence (Siren Publishing Allure)

by Natalie Rosewood

  Submission of Innocence

  Alexis’s bridesmaids are a scandalous combination of fun and crazy, and Alexis realizes they are even wilder than in their college days when her bachelorette party takes a turn into an erotic world where her darkest wishes and deepest desires are awakened.

  Jackson Craig, a wealthy businessman, frequently indulges his darker pleasures with women who are bought and paid for. But when he’s presented with Alexis, he’s taken with not only her beauty but also with her illusion of innocence. That night, Alexis submits herself to him in ways she could have never imagined. Back in her own world, she formulates a plan to break free of the powerful hold he now has on her.

  Will Alexis choose to seek Jackson's dark pleasures once again? And if she does, how will she ever return to a life destined for mediocrity?

  Genre: BDSM, Contemporary

  Length: 28,647 words

  SUBMISSION OF INNOCENCE

  Natalie Rosewood

  EROTIC ROMANCE

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  ABOUT THE E-BOOK YOU HAVE PURCHASED: Your non-refundable purchase of this e-book allows you to only ONE LEGAL copy for your own personal reading on your own personal computer or device. You do not have resell or distribution rights without the prior written permission of both the publisher and the copyright owner of this book. This book cannot be copied in any format, sold, or otherwise transferred from your computer to another through upload to a file sharing peer to peer program, for free or for a fee, or as a prize in any contest. Such action is illegal and in violation of the U.S. Copyright Law. Distribution of this e-book, in whole or in part, online, offline, in print or in any way or any other method currently known or yet to be invented, is forbidden. If you do not want this book anymore, you must delete it from your computer.

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  A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK

  IMPRINT: Erotic Romance

  SUBMISSION OF INNOCENCE

  Copyright © 2011 by Natalie Rosewood

  E-book ISBN: 1-61034-194-5

  First E-book Publication: April 2011

  Cover design by Jinger Heaston

  All cover art and logo copyright © 2011 by Siren Publishing, Inc.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  PUBLISHER

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  Letter to Readers

  Dear Readers,

  If you have purchased this copy of Submission of Innocence by Natalie Rosewood from BookStrand.com or its official distributors, thank you. Also, thank you for not sharing your copy of this book.

  Regarding E-book Piracy

  This book is copyrighted intellectual property. No other individual or group has resale rights, auction rights, membership rights, sharing rights, or any kind of rights to sell or to give away a copy of this book.

  The author and the publisher work very hard to bring our paying readers high-quality reading entertainment.

  This is Natalie Rosewood’s livelihood. It’s fair and simple. Please respect Ms. Rosewood’s right to earn a living from her work.

  Amanda Hilton, Publisher

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  www.BookStrand.com

  SUBMISSION OF INNOCENCE

  NATALIE ROSEWOOD

  Copyright © 2011

  Chapter 1

  The day had been long and tiring. Jackson found himself restless for something he couldn’t put his finger on. He had called Lily, who had a knack for knowing his game of choice on any given night that he entered into her world of sex games. Lily’s Place was a nice little whorehouse that operated out of a series of connected row houses in Philadelphia. By day Lily sold sex toys, and by night, under the cover of a bar, she sold reality sex games that were very expensive. There was nothing she wouldn’t do, but that wasn’t her charm. Her charm was that she knew things about him that he didn’t understand about himself and, without effort, could bring him to a place where life as he knew it no longer existed. After the week he had just been through, he couldn’t wait to exist outside of his own reality.

  The economy had been shit for the last year or so, and his businesses had taken several hits. He had been forced to lay off a few hundred employees, and that had killed him. Like his father, he took pride in the business and the integrity of his family. He treated his employees like family, or at least he tried to, by being fair and keeping up with inflation. The downturn had forced his hand. He told himself he had no choice, and today, he had put in motion another layoff, this time only sixty employees, but it might as well have been six hundred.

  He knew the company would be okay in time and that his other investments were hanging tough. He wasn’t going to be destitute, but his workers who depended on him were going through some rough times. He had all their names. He would check up on each of them. It was the least he could for their loyalty over the years. If he could rehire them, he would, but in the meantime, he was partnering with an organization that retrained people for different jobs, the type they could make a living at in the current economy, two being the computer and service industries.

  From the floor-to-ceiling window of his corner office, he gazed out at the now dwarfed Ben Franklin statue that stood atop City Hall. “Damn,” he groaned.

  He really needed a drink, a shower, and Lily’s Place tonight, and in that order. Grabbing his briefcase, he walked out of his office and headed for the elevator. In the lobby, several females followed his long strides that propelled him from the building in record time. He was a wealthy man, and being what many women considered drop-dead gorgeous was just icing on the cake.

  He enjoyed women in his bed that were bought and paid for. They were always eager to fulfill his needs regardless of the difficulty and were not hard to say good-bye to when he tired of them. A winning combination for a man who enjoyed keeping what was his where it belonged, including his heart and his bank account.

  At thirty-six years old, he had only been close to getting married once. Crystal Knox had turned out to be the bitch from hell who had professed to love him even as he had banished her from his life forever. The woman had a mean streak a mile wide that she had kept well-hidden until she made the mistake of verbally abusing his mother and his sister, Annie, who had been born with Down Syndrome. He had arrived home unexpectedly in the middle of what he could only describe as a very ugly temper tantrum from what he thought was his very easy-going bride-to-be. Crystal’s beautiful face had been contorted with anger, her finely manicured, long fingernails wagging with precision in his mother’s shocked face while she administered a verbal tongue-lashing that would have made a sailor blush.

  Annie had spilled red punch all over the front of the dress, and according to Crystal, the designer dress could not be salvaged, and it was too late to order another. She was so furious she had not been able to control her temp
er or her language. Jackson very quietly told her to leave the house, and when she refused, he had bodily helped her out the front door.

  Since then, he had taken his pleasure and enjoyed the women in his life without emotional entanglements, some in the wee hours of the morning and others as companions at charity and business events. He never gave these women more than he wanted or thought they deserved. He also never promised them more than he could deliver, and he kept his word. Some had left him in a huff of disdain while others thought they could change his ways. They were wrong. He was exactly who he professed to be, and that was his strength.

  However, lately he found himself wondering what life might be like if he had found the right woman, someone worthy of being the mother of his children. His own mother would be thrilled if he married. She worried about him being alone. He often reminded her that if he had married Crystal, she would have had something to really worry about, and he thanked God every day that had not happened.

  The truth was he had never loved Crystal, but then he had not been looking for love. They had met through mutual friends, and there were no red flags to warn him she was not the woman she professed to be. She had convinced him she was strong enough to handle a relationship with a man like him, a man who would provide a secure financial life for his family, without having to be the devoted, loving husband. A man who would be there for his children, but could be away on business for indefinite periods of time, secure in the knowledge that his wife would handle all aspects of home and family. Since Crystal’s fall from grace, there had been no one he would have even remotely considered for a long-term relationship.

  His mother and Annie would always be his priorities. He would also continue his father’s legacy of keeping their businesses working for the family and for the people who worked for them. Both were worthy goals that gave his life meaning and a reason to get up each day. And when he needed his libido stroked or his darker desires to be fulfilled, there was always Lily’s Place where he could satisfy his lust without entanglements. He had the best of all worlds, so why, he sighed, did he feel so damn empty all the time?

  Chapter 2

  Alexis’s three bridesmaids, all college friends, were a wonderful combination of fun and crazy. They could always make her laugh, and their adventures and misadventures had provided some spice to an otherwise dull life. She was the good girl who made the grades in high school, graduated from college, and then actually went out and found a job.

  They had all become fast friends when they’d been thrown together in one of the many quad rooms in the mandatory freshman dorm. Shelby and Jennifer had convinced Alexis and Katie to move into an apartment with them at the end of freshman year. Money was not an object, so Alexis and Katie paid what they normally would have for a dorm room, while Shelby and Jennifer’s parents picked up the rest.

  Alexis easily continued in her role as the dorm mother, the level-headed one that made sure they all made it home in one piece, held their hair back from going into the toilet when they were sick, and made sure the place was clean and that the fridge was full with what they each liked to eat. She figured it was the least she could do for living in the lap of luxury when most of her peers were living in crappy walk-ups that had one tiny bathroom and studio kitchens. She was living in an apartment that was bigger than the home she grew up in. So it was no hardship to keep it looking nice, and besides that, she really liked her roommates. They had become her family, or as she knew in her heart, closer than family.

  Shelby had called to say they would be going into Old City Philadelphia for her bachelorette party because it had some of the best bars and restaurants in the area. They could crash at Shelby’s father’s condo near Penn’s Landing since it was empty. Alexis could not believe how excited she was. She hadn’t realized how much she missed he friends until now.

  Shelby sent a limo to Alexis’s apartment to pick her up and bring her to the condo for a little pre-party celebration. She loved the way it was decorated with white leather sofas and chairs, oriental rugs, and glass accents. However, it was the bottle of champagne resting in ice that caught her eye when she walked in. Shelby popped the cork minutes after her arrival, motioning to Jennifer and Katie to bring in the goblets. Alexis sipped her drink, kicked off her shoes, and sank down into the sofa, long legs stretched out before her, toes pushing into the plush rug.

  Jennifer giggled, giving Alexis a sideward glance. “I hope the bubbly mellows you out for the evening ahead. You just never know what the night will bring.”

  “But one thing I do know,” Katie chimed in, “is that we plan on making this a night you’ll never forget, one that you might say in days to come helped to make you into the woman we always knew you were.”

  Alexis sat up a bit straighter and set her drink down on the end table next to the sofa. “I don’t need my passport, do I? I mean, we are staying here, in the city, right?”

  “Yes, Little Miss Prim and Proper,” Jennifer said with a sigh, “we are staying in the city. We aren’t whisking you off to some foreign country because we wouldn’t want your fiancé to berate us for not making sure you were given the appropriate shots.” The slightly sarcastic tone in her voice did not go unnoticed. It was no secret that her bridesmaids were not overly thrilled with the man she was going to marry. Jennifer must have seen the look on her face because she continued more gently, “Hopefully, after this evening, a piece of you will be more enlightened, satisfied, and content.”

  Alexis saw a smug look being exchanged between the three girls that she knew could only spell trouble.

  “What do you all have planned? Should I be worried?” She knew if she had to even mouth those words, her radar was telling her there was something to worry about.

  “Come on, Alexis.” Shelby smiled, walking over to give her a hug. “Don’t you trust us to show you a good time?”

  Alexis smiled. These three young women were closer to her than her own family. How could she not trust them? Maybe because I know them so well.

  She decided to overlook her nagging suspicions and what could be misplaced trust, and put herself in their hands. She knew better than to do so, but as usual when she was with them, she had a tendency to throw caution to the wind and allow her inner, more uninhibited self out to play, but always with temperance.

  Together they talked, drank more champagne, and then ordered take-out from a cheesesteak place in South Philadelphia. Jennifer had made the suggestion that they eat in because nowhere else would they have a chance to chat without interruption and be themselves without censorship.

  They took turns acting the stand-up comic to regale her with old stories that usually ended with one of them losing something that she had found or breaking something she had fixed. But mostly they hailed her as their hero because she had always somehow kept them from disaster with her common sense and quick wit. Unabashed tears of laughter fell down Alexis’s cheeks from the memories that she had not forgotten but had put away on a shelf, separate from her new life.

  Before they were ready to leave for the evening, Shelby took Alexis aside and guided her through the double glass doors to the patio that overlooked the river. Looking over the railing, Alexis felt a wonderful peacefulness overtake her. It was like how she would imagine a kid feels when her parents come home after a long trip.

  Shelby cleared her throat. “You know how much we love you, don’t you?”

  Alexis glanced over at her dear friend, who had put on her serious face. “Yes, of course I do, and I love you guys, too. You’re my family.”

  Shelby hugged Alexis to her breast. “I know, and you’re our family, too.”

  “Why so serious?” Alexis asked.

  “I just want you to know that we always have your best interests at heart. I mean…”

  Jennifer slipped through the opening in the sliding glass doors and picked up the conversation where Shelby had drifted off. “She means that we will always want what is best for you, and if there is anything that we can do t
o help make sure you get it, we will.”

  Alexis hugged the two women. “I know that and now I’m really getting nervous about this evening. Are you sure there’s nothing you want to tell me?”

  Before the girls could respond, Katie ran out onto the deck. “Don’t leave me out of this group love-in. It’s one for all and all for one!”

  Chapter 3

  A few bars and a few shots later, the four girls were still feeling the love as they were fending off the many men who vied for their attention. Shelby played the role of protector as she held their admirers at bay with a slight slur in her voice. “Not interested, we’re all lesbians.” The men mostly just shook their heads and laughed.

  Around midnight they found themselves at a bar that Jennifer had insisted they visit. The interior resembled a harem with erotic wall hangings and a ceiling draped with yards of multicolored silks that drooped like a tent. A disc jockey dressed in a white turban spun records of eastern and western music with flair.

  “You and the boyfriend come here often?” Alexis asked Jennifer, looking around in wonder. “This looks like the kind of place that harbors hidden secrets and dark pasts.”

  Jennifer just smiled and shrugged. “We enjoy dark pleasures. Don’t tell me you don’t.”

  Alexis laughed. “You mean like dark chocolate? Now that I love.”

  “Something like that.” Jennifer smirked as they pushed through the crowd to a glass bar where, before they had time to even order a drink, they were approached by a nice-looking, middle-aged man dressed in a black suit. He nodded at Shelby and, without saying a word, ushered them into the back of the club where he opened a door to a private room. Everything seemed to be on cue. The fact that her friends went with him without question told Alexis that his presence had been planned in advance. Of course, Alexis thought, a private room. Were they actually going to do the old bachelorette party stripper? She was a little disappointed, but really, what did she expect after all, a trip to the Taj Mahal?