CHAPTER 1
GIVING MY WRIST another pull, I tried to escape this handcuff securing me to the headboard of the four-poster. I’d been lying here for the last ten minutes, feeling a heavy mixture of arousal and frustration. Being restrained was doing crazy things to my body. My toes curled in anticipation.
Cameron Cole’s signature style was all dark wooden furniture with understated elegant pieces like this bed, that corner high-back chair, that mahogany dresser over there, and a flat screen TV halfway up the wall.
Breaking my stare from the fine silver chain dangling above, taking in deep calming breaths, I returned my attention to the décor, replaying the words I’d practiced before I left Malibu. Words that would change my life forever. The kind that meant there’d be no going back.
This wasn’t about securing your girlfriend to the bed as a precursor to a night of lovemaking. No, this was secure your best friend’s girlfriend to the bed and hope she tells you what the hell she’s doing here, dressed provocatively in a corset, high-top stockings, and a thong. My blonde locks were tussled to perfection and my makeup hid the fact I was only twenty-one. I’d gone for sex on a stick.
It was hard to tell from Cameron’s expression if it was working. Casually, he leaned against the doorjamb, his tuxedo rounding out his usual look of perfection, tieless and with an open collar, hinting he might relax that fierce demeanor.
He sipped from a glass of dark amber liquor.
“Can you unlock this?” I said.
He shook his head.
These were his handcuffs and this was one of his many
bedrooms in his million dollar Beverly Hills mansion. I trusted Cameron, really I did. How could I not? He was a respected psychiatrist and he’d also been the one to get me the job as secretary at Enthrall, L.A.’s elite S & M club. A place where the rich played out their darkest fantasies. Becoming Enthrall’s secretary had seen financial freedom for me as well as placing me on a fast track to maturity.
I needed to know that look on Cameron’s face wasn’t fury.
Not that I wasn’t used to that expression, and coming from one of the most handsome faces I’d ever seen it had the expected effect of stunning me into silence. It didn’t help that his genius outshone his beauty.
Short black inky hair framed that intelligent face. A chestnut gaze saw beyond what you willingly shared. As the director of Enthrall, Cameron could hire and fire at will and he’d plucked me out of obscurity, only it wasn’t my admin skills he’d been interested in but my innocence.
He’d used me to entice his best friend Richard Booth away from his obsessive thrill seeking. Richard thought nothing of swimming with sharks as a way to get his adrenaline fix. He faced off with danger and then gave it the finger.
Still, I adored my beautiful Richard. I hadn’t known love until I’d met him. It was that love that had driven me here tonight. The willingness to do anything to save the most important relationship I’d ever had.
“Dr. Cole,” I tried again, “you told me I could talk with you anytime.”
“It’s Cameron.” He strolled on in, exuding dominance.
This was the kind of man you could tell anything to. Though I’d never want to disappoint him. Cameron set the bar so high that those around him could never reach it.
That familiar slow and steady walk, that ability to rule a room without speaking a word. It was impossible to drag my gaze away. This man left both men and women alike spinning. His laser-sharp perception ensured any outcome he desired. Yet his kindness, his ability to always know what to say and when, put you at ease and balanced out his intensity.
I wondered what it might be like to get inside Cameron’s head. Turn the tables on him for a change. That ability of his to see the truth beneath the surface of avoidance was admirable. Cameron was a mystery. Surrounded by the city’s most beautiful women, yet even after the several months I’d known him I’d never seen him with a lover. I’d merely witnessed swarms of ever hopeful submissives encircling him at parties. The lure of an impossible conquest.
Cameron perched on the edge of the bed and it dipped slightly. He was close. Too close. Close enough for me to get a whiff of his cologne that sparked every cell in my body.
He knew he was affecting me. I gave the handcuff another tug and it clanked its disapproval.
His lips curled in amusement. “Mia, if you ever enter any one of my properties uninvited again I will not be held responsible for my actions. Understand?”
I slid down the bed frame.
“Interesting response.”
Focus, Mia, I warned myself. Ask him. Say it. Go through with why you’re here.
A thrill tingled between my thighs as my imagination ran off with thoughts of what I might experience if I dared to go through with this. The dominatrixes at Enthrall, the ones I affectionately called the ‘girls,’ had told me Cameron could make a woman pass out from pleasure. I believed it. He was making me lightheaded with merely his presence.
With Cameron’s laser-sharp perception, I didn’t stand a chance. He was intoxicating. Any woman would be hard-pressed to refuse his advances if she were lucky enough to get his attention. He oozed raw sexuality. The get under your skin kind. The stun you into silence kind. Even the way he set his glass down on the side table reeked of control.
Light glinted off his onyx handcuffs.
“Next time, Mia,” his tone was deep, cultured, “choose somewhere else to turn up in the middle of the night. Like Bailey’s. That’s what best friends are for.”
“Bailey’s out with Tara,” I said. “It’s her mom’s birthday.” He picked up his drink and ice clinked. “Want a sip?”
I rested my lips against the glass where his had been and he tipped the tumbler. Bitterness burned my throat, sending a shiver through me. He reached in and removed a cube of ice and popped it into my mouth. I resisted the urge to nip at his fingers, grateful for the melting ice soothing this burn.
Cameron acted as though all this sensual tension was business as usual while placing the glass down squarely on the coaster, taking his time.
“Say what’s on your mind,” he said.
“Richard refuses to talk about it.”
“It?”
“Me becoming his submissive.”
Cameron narrowed his eyes. “He has mentioned his concerns.”
Of course he had. Richard and Cameron were best friends.
They told each other everything. Life had been going along perfectly well, my relationship blossoming, my trust solidifying, our intimacy progressing. It had been decided that I would become Richard’s submissive. Days later my dream had been shattered.
Everything I’d known had been turned upside down when a family secret had reared its ugliness and caused my entire world to implode. A revelation so dark that it had sent me into a tailspin.
And Richard had changed his mind.
If there was one thing I knew how to do well it was survive. Though my ability to cope was apparently freaking out Richard. He’d expected something different, a crumbling victim of her circumstances. Richard didn’t believe I could get over something so quick. Move on. You’d have thought I’d have received a standing ovation for my strength in leaving family trauma behind me, but no. Instead, Richard treated me like I was made of china.
These men were infamous for helping victims deal with their pasts. Using pain to banish pain. Not with me apparently. I was too broken even for them.
“Share your thoughts, Mia,” said Cameron, shaking me from my daydreaming.
I didn’t want to talk about any of that now. Didn’t want my father’s betrayal to encroach on this moment. Not after the courage I’d rallied to be here. I was alone in a room with the most incredible man I’d ever met, other than Richard of course, and Cameron was the one man who could save my relationship.
I needed to focus.
Not only was Cameron a master of conversation, he’d also conquered the art of silence. I wanted him to speak the words I couldn’t say.
“How long have you lived here?” I said, slicing through the tension.
“I’ve owned this property awhile. I entertain here. My family’s coming into town, so I need to prepare the house.”
“To impress them?”
“They don’t need impressing.”
“The Venice Beach house is too small?”
“It’s the location. Too many tourists.”
“What about Chrysalis?” I cursed myself for sounding so stupid.
Cameron looked amused. “I can’t have a naked gimp appear from nowhere and scare the hell out of my Great Aunt Rose, now can I?”
“That would not be good.”
“That would be very bad.” He flashed a mega-watt smile. “Very bad indeed.”
Chrysalis was a fetish manor extraordinaire, visited from all over the world by rich clients who wanted to live out their fantasies. A place where L.A.’s finest partied to the extreme, with Cameron Cole as the grand master.
Maybe I really did need therapy. I wasn’t going to let him into my mind, though. That was the promise I’d made to myself before stepping foot over the threshold of the grandest foyer I’d ever seen.
“Do you live here alone?”
“Let’s talk about you—”
“Will your dad be coming too?” I sounded casual. “That will be nice.”
“Why are you here, Mia? Straight to the point, please. It’s late.”
I could do this. I was ready. So I braced for the words I’d practiced to say.
“Mia,” he coaxed.
“I want...”
“I’m listening.”
I couldn’t say it.
“Ah,” he said darkly. “You want me to teach you how to become a good submissive.”
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