by Nia Farrell
They were almost done with the fitting when Sir Piers sent Samael to fetch her back. As soon as Jewell was finished, Rowena walked with Sir Piers’s exotic assistant to the Replay owner’s office.
“MacDonald’s responded,” said Sir Piers. “He agrees to all of your terms. He’s added extra incentive, and one condition of his own.”
Rowena felt her skin prickle and her stomach clench. Never a good sign. She exhaled softly and angled her head. “And…?”
Sir Piers handed her the page and recited the section highlighted in yellow. “One hundred thousand per night. Observer only. No kink. No sex. Do all three nights successfully, and he’ll pay two hundred thousand more.”
Half a million. For three chaste nights with her.
Jesus.
Rowena met Sir Piers’s bemused gaze across the desk. “He can’t be serious.”
“He is, but there’s a catch,” he pointed out.
There’s always a catch. Everybody has an angle. She just wished she knew Micheil MacDonald’s.
Pointy bastard.
She read his addendum. All she had to do was tell the truth. The truth. Whatever was asked, whatever came up, she had to agree to tell the truth or her evening’s pay was forfeit. One fib, one lie, and no bonus, no half a million. She could do it, she told herself. Even if she only went one night, if MacDonald violated their terms and she called it quits, she’d still walk away with a hundred thousand dollars. She thought of how many guitars that money would buy for the PTSD vets whom she and Breanna taught on Monday evenings. She could pay for some needed repairs to the veterans’ center with that kind of cash. When she thought of the good she could do with five times that much….
Sir Piers leaned against his high back leather chair and watched her over his steepled fingers while she considered what it might mean. Micheil MacDonald wanted Regina Wright. The woman whose blog was the Bible for new submissives. The woman who’d done six men in a Viking raid.
Tell the truth for half a million?
“Okay,” she told him. “I’m in.”
Chapter Two
Spanking is an art form. Done right, almost nothing is as satisfying as a man’s hand, stroking, striking, rubbing away the hurt. The trick, dear subs, is to relax. Let go of any tension along with those inhibitions. Let your body welcome the blows. Your bottom and your Dom/me will thank you.
It was the opening paragraph of one of Rowena’s oldest blog postings, the first of the dozen or so by her alter ego that had gone viral. Regina Wright’s “Handfest” post was as true today as it had been then. Almost nothing beat a good spanking—although chocolate covered strawberries came in a close second.
Rowena kept one hand on the steering wheel and reached into the deli takeout sack she’d picked up on the way home. Pulling out her favorite treat, she bit it in half and savored the tastes that burst upon her tongue. Ripe red berry. Sweet, rich chocolate. Pure decadence. And it still wasn’t enough to settle the stubborn sense of unease she had about the triple play she’d signed on for—three nights, each scene unique. She already knew whom she wanted with her. She had calls to make when she got home.
Rowena typically left her work at Replay. She and Breanna performed period music on period instruments, setting the stage for the BDSM scenes and orgies that went on around them. When the night was done, Breanna went home with her Viking Dom, and Rowena returned alone to the midcentury bungalow they’d once shared. Since Breanna moved in with Gunnar, whenever Rowena thought that her quaint little home seemed too quiet, or too empty, she’d look at the growing stack of manuscript pages, the sketchbooks she was filling, and she’d tell herself how lucky she was, to be able to work uninterrupted, to finally be earning her own way and not have to sponge off her sister. She was a writer. An author. Hostess of Regina Wright’s Book Nook, her weekly half hour show on local cable TV, where she reviewed erotica and romance novels and interviewed interesting people—authors, editors, photographers, cover models, graphic designers, bloggers, reviewers.
She had a Dom literary agent and a Dom talent agent, men who respected her limits, understood her needs, and protected her privacy. Her friend Marcus Vos, wise in the ways of the world, had warned that the kind of blog she wrote could pull crazies out of the woodwork, and he’d been right. Thankfully, no one had yet linked erotic author Regina Wright to local resident Rowena Campbell, and her little bungalow remained a safe haven, its perfect little yard, her perfect writer’s retreat.
Rowena pulled into her private drive and parked the first vehicle she’d ever owned—a used 2010 Odyssey van with its back seat removed to haul her musical instruments and gear. Her choice was a tribute to her love of good sci-fi and a present to herself with the advance on her upcoming book. She’d just sent the manuscript, ahead of deadline, and knew that revisions would be next, then proofing galleys, then all the hoohah that went with a book’s release. Her agents and publicist planned to milk it for all it was worth and then some.
Fishing her house key from her purse, she grabbed the rest of her berries, hit the van’s electronic door lock, and headed up the flagstone path. The lavender mums by the door needed water. She made a mental note to tend them as soon as she’d put the takeout sack in the fridge and tossed some feed into the goldfish pond.
Those chores attended, Rowena made her phone calls, wrote a snippet and posted it on her blog, checked her emails and messages, and cringed at a lewd proposal that managed to slip through the censors. “Yo, Regina. You ever seen that movie bout Misty? I want to Do you” made it look like he’d accidentally left out punctuation, instead of telling her he’d like to take her every which way but loose.
She blocked him.
Still pissed, she blamed Micheil Malcolm MacDonald for her testy mood. She pulled up his picture online, then article after article, trying to find some fault with the man and failing.
The thirty-year-old self-made billionaire was a philanthropist. Drop dead gorgeous. Six feet four inches. Thick, dark red hair. Deep-set green eyes that seemed far too serious, and a mouth that smiled too little. Born in Scotland, he had a brogue that hit every button she had. Blast it.
She looked up the birthday boy, his younger brother Alexander. Xander was a video game designer and a new billionaire in his own right. Where Micheil looked so starched and formal in most of his photos, there was a twinkle in Xander’s blue eyes that said he was someone who loved to let his hair down and play.
One was bad enough. Those two were double trouble.
Three nights she’d have to be in their presence, a voyeur to everything happening around them. Three scenes. Three hundred thousand dollars. Two hundred K more if she told the truth. The whole truth. Nothing but the truth, so help me, God.
No kink. No sex. No lies. Piece of cake, she told herself, desperately wishing it were that simple. That niggly nervous butterfly still lodged in her stomach warned her otherwise.
Seeking to quiet it, she put in her ear buds, turned on her friends Jon and Don’s latest Renaissance music album, and took a sketchpad outside. The days were shorter, but she had enough sun left to flesh out a couple of things she’d been working on and rough in a couple more. She quit when she lost the light.
Normally on Monday evenings, she and Breanna would be teaching guitar to yet another group of veterans. They’d scheduled an extended break between sessions so that Breanna and her Viking Dom Gunnar Falk could recover after some alone time in Barbados. Feeling decadent with the luxury of a night to herself, Rowena fixed a late supper, soaked to her chin in jasmine scented bathwater for an hour, then took an erotic ménage novel to bed.
When her eyes refused to stay open, Rowena clicked off the light, but fictional Colorado remained. She was standing in front of a horse barn, watching a pair of cowboys in Stetsons and well-worn chaps that framed their impressive manhoods. Beneath their chaps, faded denim jeans hugged the sculpted lines and curves of lean hips, taut buttocks, and muscled thighs. Their sleeves were rolled up, exposing tanned, sin
ewy arms. Leather work gloves protected their hands from the hay they were throwing to the horses in the corral.
Rowena could smell the hay, the dirt, the sweat, male musk and leather, all brought into sharper focus when the stallion was led into the corral, its massive member hanging to its hock. A mare waited, tail twitched to the side to ease his entry when the stallion reared and mounted her. Rowena watched, breathless, feeling the blood pool in her sex and her body grow moist. One of the cowboys came up behind her. A calloused hand touched her shoulder and drifted down her bare arm in a skim of contact. She shivered as his arm banded her waist and pulled her against his hips. There was no mistaking his own level of arousal. His erection strained the front of his jeans, pressing against her back.
He set his hat on the fence post, bent his head, and fastened his mouth on the back of her neck, scoring it with his teeth, laving her skin with his tongue before fastening on it with searing suction. His other hand covered her breast and squeezed. Her nipple pebbled against his palm.
The second cowboy moved to stand in front of her, feeling her other breast and cupping his hand over her mound, curling his fingers and delving deep enough to find just how wet she was. Almost a foot taller than her five feet five inch frame, he bent down to capture her mouth with his, claiming her lips in a rapacious kiss that left nothing untasted.
She moaned, wishing there was nothing between them. As soon as the thought formed, she found herself lying naked on her side, on a blanket in the barn, cushioned by hay and sandwiched between two magnificent male bodies, their cocks huge and hard and ready for her. The cowboy kissing her hooked her thigh and lifted it, working his length into her pussy an inch at a time, until he was seated to the hilt and all but touching bottom. The cowboy pressed against her back slid a hand up her neck and turned her head to meet the thrust of his tongue at the same time his lubed finger rimmed her ring and pushed inside. One finger, then two, making her nerve endings explode with sensation.
Then more lube, and the head of a second cock, seeking entrance, gaining it, working its way deeper in increments, until she was filled with both of them. Somehow they turned with her, so that she was lying on her back between them, impaled on the turgid flesh that took her from behind. Above her, the other cowboy braced himself on straightened arms, flexed his hips, and drove into her, hard and fast and deep.
They rode her, finding their rhythm, one pulling out as the other surged in, only a thin wall of flesh separating the two men. A large, calloused hand slid down the slight swell of her belly. Two fingers parted her swollen folds, exposing the hood of her clitoris, pressing and catching, rolling and clenching it between them.
Two fingers traced her inner seam to find her opening, slick with juice and only getting wetter. Two fingers plucked at her nipple, tugging, twisting, pinching. She felt a familiar tension take hold. Her breath became ragged. So close. She was so close.
Fuck me. Fuck me. Fuck me.
Rowena ran her tongue over her lips and grabbed her vibrator from her bedside table. Finding her clit with near desperation, she cranked it on high and twisted her nipple to send herself flying over the edge.
God, she needed that. And the next orgasm that followed fast on the heels of the first. With a fantasy pair of cowboys and some battery operated assistance, she was finally able to sleep.
Chapter Three
Breanna taught college classes on Tuesday, meaning any discussion of the billionaires with her twin sister must wait. Rowena slept later than normal and woke up with a headache from gritting her teeth. She knew better. She should have worn her nightguard, but dental appliances had been the last thing on her mind at bedtime. Popping some ibuprofen, she chased the analgesic tablets with orange juice, started coffee, and scrounged the fridge for breakfast, coming up with enough fresh veggies, cheese, and eggs to make an omelet, with a rasher of crisp bacon on the side.
She piled her plate, poured a cup of French vanilla java, grabbed a blanket, and headed out to the patio. There was enough nip in the air, she wrapped up to eat her breakfast. Omelet first, because cold eggs sucked. Bacon next, every savory morsel. Coffee last, still steaming in her favorite heavy ceramic mug.
Too late, she wished she’d called Marcus. She could have met him for breakfast and discussed the billionaires. Hopefully he was available for lunch. If anyone could dig up dirt, it was Marcus Vos.
It turned out, Marcus was free to meet at two o’clock—a good time, after the lunch crowd cleared out, well ahead of the dinner crowd. They nearly had the place to themselves, with the privacy they needed to speak freely.
Marcus came alone, without his service dog Rex. Having ridden his bike, he walked into the restaurant carrying his helmet and smoothing his short military cut dark hair, six feet three inches of leather-clad testosterone, looking like temptation. The leather gloves came off, revealing his hi-tech left hand and flustering their waitress, who finally got their drink orders right the third time.
Despite all the partners in her checkered past, Rowena had only a handful of people outside of family whom she considered true friends. People who knew her and liked her anyway. Elly, who worked as a counselor at the community resource center. Ren faire musicians Jon and Don, handfasted this year, with a gay wedding planned for the next. Virginia—Gini, librarian extraordinaire, and Marcus, the only man to ever turn her down.
Not for the first time, she thanked heaven for that. Willing men were a dime a dozen. Men with principles were more precious than gold. And ex-Navy SEALs turned private investigators were platinum.
This one liked his meat so bloody it mooed. The chef at his favorite Thai steakhouse knew just the way Marcus wanted it, and was rewarded with a martial arts fist salute when he personally brought out the slab of beef, swimming in a sea of red, and placed it on the table in front of him.
Marcus wrinkled his nose at Rowena’s sushi, and she shook her chopsticks at him. “Hypocrite. Don’t sit there and judge me for liking raw fish when you can eat that.”
“This is different.” Knife and fork in hand, he leaned toward her. “It’s steak. The more you cook it, the more ruined it gets. I want mine close to perfection, thank you very much.”
Agreeing to disagree on food, they spoke about the veterans’ center where they both volunteered, with Marcus spearheading fundraisers and Rowena sharing music therapy. Next Monday night, they’d start a new six-week session. Breanna taught guitar with her, and the man in her life seemed okay with that. Gunnar had contributed to the vets in the past, posing for a romance novel cover and donating the proceeds to use for PTSD assistance dogs. Maybe someday Marcus would share how he got him to do it, when Gunnar valued his privacy as much as Rowena.
“The thing is,” she told Marcus, “his offer’s almost too good to be true. I can’t help feeling there’s more to it than just three nights of scenes where I’m not a player. From what I can tell, he can afford it, but why? Why me? I don’t get it, and neither does Regina Wright.”
Marcus knew that she kept her alter ego separate, wearing different makeup, different clothes, different hair, and colored contacts. A growing collection of red wigs helped Rowena Campbell retain her anonymity. When she’d chosen to go down the path she was on, she had proceeded with caution, protecting herself in every way she could.
Early on, Marcus had agreed to be her bodyguard if available when she asked, but until MacDonald, she’d never felt the need. Now, though…
Marcus cut another bite of beef and lifted it, letting it drip onto his platter while she marveled at the technology he used so very well. No government issue, that hand. It was black, sleek, and sci-fi worthy, dexterous enough to tie shoes and to text message. “You want me to look?” he asked. “See what I can find?”
Rowena nodded. “Yes, if it’s not asking too much. You’ve already helped get the background checks done for the others, and you’re coming with me for MacDonald’s triple play.”
She’d asked him to keep both brothers in line and see that she
got safely home. She had promised to pay him handsomely for his time—not that he needed the money. Given that hi tech prosthetic and the beachfront property he owned, he might literally be a six million dollar man. “As far as the sex that’s bound to go on, we can be each other’s support system, right?”
Marcus crooked a smile. “Still going to meetings?”
“Every Wednesday night.” Strangely appropriate, since that’s the day of the week when she and Breanna had done their Viking raid. That night had been her wake up call. The pre-dawn walk of shame was a journey of revelation that she didn’t just enjoy sex, she misused it, abused it. She’d found help, joined a support group. Sex Addicts Anonymous was kind of like going to church with other sinners seeking grace. Her third meeting, she’d been shocked to see Marcus there, too. “How long did it take before you could skip a week and manage not to backslide?”
He chewed his steak, thinking. “I skipped a meeting at four months just because I backslid,” he admitted once he’d swallowed. There was no mistaking the flash of regret in his brown eyes. “Another four months, and I had a better handle on it.” She knew he went once a month, sometimes more. “Elly’s pretty good at knowing what’s what.”
Eleanor—Elly—Benoit was a psychologist at the community resource center who did private counseling sessions and led the SAA group meetings. A Gold Star daughter who never met her father, she too volunteered at the veteran’s group, supporting the mission to find and bring home the remains of those killed in the line of duty.
“She is good,” Rowena agreed. “Too good. If you ask me, I think she’s a closet psychic. I don’t know what she’ll think of Wonderland, but I’ll feel better having the White Queen and the Knave of Hearts both in my corner.”
“Knave, huh?” Marcus cocked a dark brow and gave her the eye. “What about the other two scenes?”
“Body slave or noble Roman will keep you close by during the orgy. Chicago Prohibition—I’m thinking pin stripe suit, fedora, spats, gloves. A dapper man about town, a politician, or gangster, with a flapper or two for arm ornaments. Of course, we’ll need to schedule you for a fitting. The sooner, the better. Elly went today. Jewell’s a whirling dervish when it comes to spinning out clothes but she needs to get you measured and see what she’s got stat, and what has to be made or altered or shipped in, like footwear. How’s your schedule?”
