Erotic Amusements
By Justine Elyot
In Goldsands, there are many amusements to be had for those willing to give in to their deepest desires…
The seaside resort town of Goldsands is a place of dreamers and transients who wash in and out like the tide. But its picture-postcard prettiness conceals some sinister realities. Coldhearted mogul Charles Cordwainer owns most of the local businesses, both legitimate and illicit, and more than a few of its residents.
Michelle, Cordwainer’s submissive: despite her loyalty, he plans to turn her over to another man. Flipp, the new girl in town: she has a dark past and a penchant for bondage. Rocky, Cordwainer’s right-hand man: a sexy biker with eyes for Flipp. Laura, Goldsands’s carnival queen: an über-bitch with her sights fixed on Rocky.
Secrets, betrayals, lovers all become intertwined—and when someone starts digging up the dirt on Cordwainer’s empire, nothing will ever be the same…
70,000 words
Dear Reader,
I feel as though it was just last week I was attending 2010 conferences and telling authors and readers who were wondering what was next for Carina Press, “we’ve only been publishing books for four months, give us time” and now, here it is, a year later. Carina Press has been bringing you quality romance, mystery, science fiction, fantasy and more for over twelve months. This just boggles my mind.
But though we’re celebrating our one-year anniversary (with champagne and chocolate, of course) we’re not slowing down. Every week brings something new for us, and we continue to look for ways to grow, expand and improve. This summer, we’ll continue to bring you new genres, new authors and new niches—and we plan to publish the unexpected for years to come.
So whether you’re reading this in the middle of a summer heat wave, looking to escape from the hot summer nights and sultry afternoons, or whether you’re reading this in the dead of winter, searching for a respite from the cold, months after I’ve written it, you can be assured that our promise to take you on new adventures, bring you great stories and discover new talent remains the same.
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Dedication
To my husband and my home.
Contents
Copyright
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
About the Author
Chapter One
Flipp knew from the moment she stepped off the train and smelled the salt-and-chip fat that Goldsands was going to suit her.
It was a place where a new girl in town drew little in the way of notice or comment. A place of comers and goers, dreamers and transients, addicts and bohemians. They washed in and out like the tide on the broad curving beach that gave the place its name. Some of them sank, some of them trod water, and some of them found exactly what they were looking for here. Of course, Flipp didn’t know at the time which of those she would turn out to be, but she was hoping to find out, one way or another.
So, by the time she was established in her little change booth at Caesar’s Palace on the Pier, Flipp knew that she wanted to be in Goldsands. Her resolve was certainly bolstered, though, when Rocky rocked up, interrupting her nail-filing mission and hurling himself slap-bang into the middle of her dirtiest dreams.
“The boss in?” he asked curtly, raising an eyebrow towards the door marked Private: Staff Only.
Flipp didn’t look up at first, registering only a low, grumpy-sounding voice. She pinched her lips together and wondered if Maroon Moon was really the right shade for her.
“Who wants to know?” The mockney accent was getting difficult to sustain, so she only spoke when absolutely necessary.
“Rocky wants to know.”
She looked up at that, taking him in for the first time and liking what she saw. And who would not like a piece of Rocky? Six-feet-two of Herculean man in black bike leathers with accessorising hair and stubble, he was enough to stop most female traffic in its tracks.
“Oh,” she said, laying down her nail file and running fingers through her hair. “So you’re Rocky. The boss said I should watch out for you.”
“Watch out, eh?” Rocky leaned an elbow on the shelf of the booth, peering through the scratched Plexiglas screen, leading the new girl to hope she was casting a spell of intrigue on him. “Did he tell you I was dangerous, then?”
Flipp leaned forward, meeting his devilish gaze, the tips of their noses only prevented from touching by the barrier. “Something like that.” She grinned, wishing she had some gum to chew on. It was so much easier to look cool and indifferent to a guy when you were chewing, for some reason.
“He was right. I’m the big bad wolf. What’s your name? Don’t tell me it’s Little Red Riding Hood.”
She giggled and looked away briefly before turning back to him. “It’s Flipp.”
“What kind of a name’s that?”
“No worse than Rocky.”
“Cheeky. I’ll see you later.” Emphasising the “you,” he backed away, pointing one gloved finger in her direction before disappearing through the staff door in a jink-clink of buckles and belts.
The smile stayed on Flipp’s lips for a moment or two afterwards, then she took out her mirror compact and slathered on another layer of gloss. While she was thus occupied, a pair of spotty teenagers approached, shuffling from foot to foot, fists clenched inside the pockets of their hoodies.
“Tokens?” one of them said, once it was clear she was not about to acknowledge them of her own accord.
Flipp sighed deeply and pushed a handful of chipped plastic discs under the partition, snatching up their offered five-pound note. Watching them amble away, she wondered if she could get away with smoking a cigarette in here. It was two hours until her break and she was gasping. This had to be the most boring job on earth, sitting amidst the apocalyptic flashing and bleeping and recorded engine noise, handing over tokens now and again. And she was going to take a hammer to that kiddie ride that blared out “The Birdie Song” every five minutes. Caesar’s Palace indeed. Far from a luxurious casino, this was a two-bit seaside amusement arcade, populated by drifters and lowlifes and truants—like that pair in the hoodies.
She fingered the packet of Marlboro Lights in her pocket, then thought better of it. She didn’t want to get on the wrong side of the Boss this early in the day. He had been as chilly and civil as anything in the interview, but there was something behind that—a steeliness, an aura, even. Something that gave you goose bumps. Charles Cordwainer of Cordwainer Holdings Ltd. expected rules to be obeyed. He had made that much clear.
She jumped to guilty attention when the door opened again, but it was only Rocky, pulling on leather gloves as he walked across the gummed-up carpet.
“Nice to meet you, Flipp,” he said, stopping momentarily.
Now, Flipp, now. Engage him in conversation. Don’t let him get away.
“You got a bike?” she asked. Genius, girl, pure genius.
He laughed, throwing back his head—a solid, meaty, manly laugh. “What gives you that idea?” He mockingly ge
stured at his head-to-toe black leather.
“Just asking,” she said, with a hint of sulk.
“Do you like bikes?”
“Don’t know much about them…but yeah. I like bikes.”
“When do you get off?”
Flashing, bleeping, crashing, revving, all around the arcade and inside Flipp.
“Six.”
“Six is good. I’ll take you for a spin if you want.”
“Yeah?” She beamed. Spin me right round like a record, baby.
He winked. “Don’t forget.” She watched his back move amongst the coin fountains and race-car simulators until it was out in the bright sunshine beyond. Now, that was an arse to die for. Not to mention the rest of him.
Oh, yes, it looked as if Goldsands could be Flipp’s kind of town.
She was hiding around the back of Caesar’s Palace when she heard the distinctive roar of a motorcycle engine, just after six. Wasn’t it illegal to ride a motorbike on the pier? She clenched herself up and took one last look at the sea—so beautifully blue here, against the yellow sand and rolling green hills beyond. Then she smoothed her denim mini down over her leggings, adjusted the spaghetti straps of the two vests she wore on top, pulled her shades down over her eyes and strutted off to meet her fate.
Flipp’s fate was smoking a cigarette, leaning over the fancy ironwork and staring across the bay. The breeze kept blowing his hair into his face and he blew it back out irritably, dashing it back over his head with a hand in a way that struck her as smoulderingly sexy. He threw the butt into the sea and turned, catching sight of Flipp straightaway and smiling crookedly.
“Ready to ride?” he enquired, and her stomach churned at the sound of his voice, its low gravel tone overlaid with unmistakable desire.
She nodded, stunned at how much more handsome he looked out in the natural light.
“Don’t you have a jacket to wear? You can’t go like that. You’ll freeze.”
“Oh. But it’s not cold.” She hugged her bare arms to her chest. “I only live down the Esplanade, so I didn’t bother.”
Rocky sighed and shook his head disapprovingly, beginning to unbuckle the complicated fastenings of his own leather jacket. “You’ve never been on a bike before?” he surmised. “Even on a hot day, it gets cold. That’s why we wear leathers.”
“Oh.” She felt flushed and stupid, half annoyed and half titillated by his lecturing tone. Does it make me look less convincing if I’ve never been on a bike before? I do look a bit like a biker’s moll, with this hair and the tattoo I had done at Passionate Pain on the seafront. But the closest I’ve come is a Lambretta on holiday in Rome a few years back.
“Never mind. You can wear my jacket, just this once.” He shucked it off over broad shoulders and jerked his head, beckoning her over.
“There’s no need,” she said halfheartedly, but he was already slipping the sleeves up her too-short arms and reaching around in front of her to zip and buckle. The jacket felt enormously heavy to Flipp, and she almost stooped beneath its weight of leather and metal, but at the same time this was reassuring and rather captivating in its way. The smell and feel of it made her want to breathe it all in until she could breathe no more, and then hold it there, at the top of her nostrils, for as long as possible. She turned around to face Rocky, who was smiling crookedly as her short, slight form struggled under the bulk of the jacket.
She hugged her arms to her chest, which proved a little awkward in this stiff outer casing, and eyed him up from under her spray of white-blond fringe. Those arms. Brawny and sinewy and adorned with inky snakes and dragons, they were impossible to ignore, demanding attention as they rippled and corded in the early-evening sunshine. The phrase “all man” drifted into Flipp’s head, making her wonder if she had ever met somebody who embodied it in quite the way Rocky did. His tight black T-shirt, adorned with the insignia of a metal band she had never heard of—Charybdis—was like drum skin across a wide, flat chest that slanted inwards until it became a belted waist, snake hips and long, long legs wrapped in smooth leather.
He winked and walked across to his shiny red bike, removing a spare helmet from the storage compartment at the front. “Here. Something else you’ll need,” he said, handing it over to her. “Seems a shame to spoil that spiky hairdo,” he commented with a grin. “But a smashed skull isn’t a very good look either.”
“I don’t care about my bloody hair,” she said indignantly, wounded that Rocky might see her as a girly-girl. Okay, I am a bit of a girly-girl. My look is important to me. But adventures are more so. She fidgeted with the chinstrap to little effect until Rocky stepped in and tightened it for her. His fingers, long and smelling of engine oil, brushed against her skin, and his nearness accentuated their height difference so that she felt like a doll beside him, the top of her head reaching only just between his pectoral muscles.
“Good,” he said roughly. “Because there’s no way I’m letting my bike get messed up with your scrambled brains.”
She looked over at the sheeny scarlet beast. “Your pride and joy?” she asked lightly. “Do you take it to bed at night?”
Rocky’s eyes glinted and his eyebrows shot up. “Are you teasing me, Miss Flipp?”
“Course not,” she said airily. “It’s a nice bike.”
“Nice bike?” Rocky’s tone suggested that Flipp had committed an act of major sacrilege. “It’s a Ducati 1198, not a nice bike. It’s raw power and sleek design in one package.”
“Right. Read that in the advert, did you?”
Rocky grabbed hold of her elbow and marched her over to the gleaming machine. “Time for you to feel the throb of one hundred seventy horsepower between your thighs, sweetheart.”
“I’m not your sweetheart,” she objected. Cocky Rocky. I bet that’s what the girls call him. For more than one reason, hopefully.
“Oh, aren’t you?” Wickedness glimmered in the depths of his sea-blue eyes. He mounted the bike and held out an arm, inviting Flipp up onto the pillion. She placed one foot awkwardly on the footpeg, unsure how to climb aboard. “Never ridden, love?” Rocky sounded surprised. “How old are you?”
“Twenty-one,” she said defensively. “I don’t know any bikers.”
“I’ll bet you don’t,” Rocky said ruminatively before pulling her up behind him and retrieving his own helmet. What did he mean by that? Her heart contracted slightly. “Hold on tight, sweetheart.” He reached back and placed her hands firmly around his middle. “Get ready for the ride of your life.”
Flipp noticed gulls scattering and wheeling in the air as the engine roared into action. She dug her fingertips into Rocky’s hips, unnerved by the vibrating power beneath her. Should I be doing this? Is this safe? Who the hell is Rocky anyway, and where is he taking me?
Then her thrill-seeking heart tossed all the misgivings over the side of the pier and into the briny when the bike began to roll over the boards, purring and weaving in and out of candy-floss stalls, children with balloons, glass containers full of violently coloured cheap soft toys, all the way to the end of the pier and on to the promenade.
Rocky revved the bike into a higher gear and sent it curving and swooping along the high road out of Goldsands, up into its rolling rural backcloth. She clung to him tightly, feeling the wind beating against her skin and rushing in her ears, grateful now of the heavy jacket. She had not been this far out of Goldsands yet, and she took in with gladness the endless fields of sheep and corn, the sweeping chalk cliffs and the sea. Here she was truly free, truly herself, at last.
Rocky rode just far enough for Flipp to start having misgivings about her frozen feet and cramping fingers before veering off the main road towards the sea again, taking them along a winding single-track lane lined with hedgerow, dipping down and down, between rising sheep-dotted hills until they came to an abrupt halt at a shingly cove.
It looked like the kind of place that would be a popular picnic spot by day, but would hold little appeal after dark except to those
who needed an obscure place to conduct secretive business. On this May evening, the last picnickers had left, but the sun lingered regardless, shining down on the rocks and shale and blue-green water. Rocky kicked down the bike stand and leaped athletically off, lending a gallant arm to his less confident passenger.
“Where is this?” she asked, struggling again with the chinstrap until Rocky stepped in.
“Smugglers Cove. Popular with smugglers in days gone by, as the name suggests.”
She looked around the isolated inlet, beaming. “Really? Real smugglers? Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum?”
“Case of rum, more likely. And anything else they could lay hands on. Wrecking was the big pastime round here.” He held out a hand, which Flipp took, and began walking down the steep path to the shore. “They’d stand up there, on the outcrop, and shine lights out to sea. Sailors would mistake it for the harbour at Goldsands, head in and hit the rocks. Cue dozens of rowing boats stripping the wreck of its cargo.”
“God. People might have drowned.”
“Sometimes they did. These guys weren’t sentimental.”
“How long ago was that?”
“Oh, years ago. Not that similar stuff doesn’t happen around Goldsands now. It’s just a bit less primitive.”
She looked up at him queryingly, but he turned his face away and pretended to save her from tripping on a rock.
“Mind yourself.” His arm shot out to steady her by the shoulder. She found herself spun into him until her face connected with the warm maleness infusing his T-shirt. She knew she should pull away, straighten herself out, perhaps make some self-deprecating remark, yet she did none of these things. Instead she kept close, made no attempt to shrug his hand off her shoulder, marvelling at how she was compelled by his heat and scent and physicality.
Now they were on the beach, crunching across the pebbles to where the waves lapped ashore.
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