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Chapter One
Ashley
“Oh fuck! Yes! Give it to me!”
She arched her back, sweat pouring down the dip in her spine, and hissed as the hot tongue of her lover licked a trail all the way up to her trembling shoulder. In the next instant, a broad hand came down on her ass with a crack like thunder. The smarting pain lanced through her, mingling with her pleasure, and she cried out. Her hands, bound at the wrists behind her back, could do nothing to ward off the punishment. Her lover grabbed a fistful of her raven locks and yanked her head back.
“I thought I told you to keep that filthy mouth shut,” he growled. His lips articulated the harsh words against her ear, and she shuddered. “You know what it does to me to hear you plead like that.”
“I can’t help it!” she gasped. Strong hands gripped her waist and overturned her suddenly, throwing her down on her back into the tangle of velvet sheets. Her lover followed her down, his blond hair damp with perspiration, his jaw clenched from the immense effort it took to hold himself back, his fierce green eyes promising swift correction for her mistake. She trembled beneath him as his animalistic gaze raked her. To him, she was a tantalizing dish of trussed-up limbs, a womanly feast who had no choice but to spread for him and let him end her torment with a thrust of his majestic...
“Ashley!”
I rocket out of my chair in the break room, the effect of hearing my name like a splash of cold water dumped on the proceedings. I slam the screen of my laptop down quickly as Tory Keppel, inconvenient coworker, strides into the kitchen.
“I believe the word you are looking for is ‘manhood’? Or something similar? Or maybe something more contemporary,” she offers as she pulls up the chair beside me and drops down.
I flush, my tongue as tied as my heroine, but I can’t think of a good deflection to throw her off the scent. If she managed to read even a line of my book—
“You’re describing Daniel, right?”
“No!” My protest sounds strangled and comes too readily to be believed. Tory raises a strawberry-blonde eyebrow at me. “I mean… am I?” I feign surprise as I pick at a loose thread on the hem of my skirt. “I hadn’t noticed.”
“I mean, I know they tell us to ‘write what we know’ in every pithy college creative writing class, but wow.” Tory whistles. “There’s no way you can know that much about our boss.”
“I…” My throat has gone completely dry. Unlike the roll I was on a minute ago, the right words simply won’t come. “… Please don’t tell anyone, Tory. Especially Stewart,” I plead. “It’s just something I’m writing for fun.”I hope the amused twist to Tory’s smile bodes well for me, even if her eyes are skeptical. Stewart, my on-again off-again hookup of two years, is also Tory’s cousin. Stewart definitely doesn’t know about my private prose sessions.
“All right. I won’t tell,” Tory promises.
My posture relaxes instantly, and it’s all I can do to keep from slipping down in my chair and puddling onto the break room floor. “Thank you.” I breathe a sigh of relief.
“But that tied-up girl is totally you, isn’t she?”
I manage a sheepish grin as I collect my laptop and rise. It’s all for Tory’s benefit—because her conclusion is terrifying in its truth, and I don’t want her to know just how personal that last passage is. Better to put on a show of having come to terms with being caught than give over to the stark panic raging inside of me. I’m confident that for the sake of my relationship with Stewart, she’ll keep things between us.
What relationship? The little voice in the back of my mind niggles dismally as I stride down the hall toward the small office I share with Tory and another editor. My desk stands in front of the window. Things with Stewart had been—have been—tepid from the start, and that start was two years ago. ‘Tepid’ is definitely an adjective I wouldn’t use in my novel—so why have I made any space for it in my life?
I played up my relationship with Stewart to Tory twice to save my own skin. The truth is, I don’t consider what we have as a ‘relationship’—but he does.
What I consider a relationship, I’m finding is a lot more intense than most people can comfortably stomach.
I sit down behind my desk. Pen and Quill Publishing is a casual, open-door kind of publishing house. I don’t know why I thought that coveted concept of privacy could be found in the break room today. I pop open my laptop, my eyes skimming over what I’ve written, before hitting Save and exiling my manuscript back to the hidden folder I keep on my desktop.
Tory is right. My novel’s nameless hero is none other than Daniel Stone, the company CEO. Our boss. My boss. The descriptors I’ve employed in every hot passage so far point directly to my muse. It’d probably be a good idea to update some detail—any detail—to make it less obvious, but somehow, I can’t bring myself to render the changes. I want the hero to be Daniel Stone. And I want that bound, shuddering, gasping little sub begging for release beneath him to be me.
Somehow, I thought putting words to my most intimate fantasies would get them out of my system. No way that sort of relationship is possible—not with Stewart, and definitely not with Daniel, the multi-millionaire who barely remembers my name, but it’s only gotten worse since I started writing, and now I find I can’t stop. I’m hopelessly addicted to the plight of my raven-haired heroine, and I’m way too invested in the forms her punishments take.
Maybe it’s the close call with Tory that makes me more sympathetic than usual to queries from prospective authors today. I tab open my inbox and start replying to e-mails, avoiding my usual stock pleasantries and copy-pasted form rejections and focusing a little more on encouragement than usual. You might try querying at The Lifted Kilt Literary Agency, I advise one aspiring historical romance writer. Here is the contact info for one of their newer agents who is in the market for writers like you to represent! Feel free to use me as a reference. While our own preferences at this time lean more toward the contemporary, you’ll have an easier go of querying in the future once you’ve locked in an agent. Best of luck!
“Knock, knock.”
I glanced up from my latest dispatch. Elektra Ahladiotis, the firm’s senior editor, leans in the doorway. Elektra is a petite older woman in her fifties, although she doesn’t look it with that jet-black hair of hers and beautiful skin. She speaks with just a hint of her native Greece, which lends her voice a scintillating quality as exotic as her looks. She’s Daniel’s right-hand woman, and a formidable force of nature that I feel lucky to work directly beside most days.
“How is my assistant today?”
I’m not only Elektra’s assistant, but the editorial assistant to every other editor at Pen and Quill; still, what resources Elektra decides to command, Elektra gets. That includes me.
“Good.” I hit the Send tab on my latest e-mail and lean back in my chair, trying to school my expression to something carefully neutral even though my heart thuds erratically in my chest. Any unexpected appearance by Elektra usually makes my mind and pulse race with worry about having missed some minor editing detail, but today is worse than usual. Has Tory mentioned my pet project to her? Maybe I should’ve reiterated that she was to tell nobody. Maybe I should’ve made her sign a contract in blood. Maybe I should just start looking for another job since my career at Pen and Quill is as good as over.
“I just wanted to check in with you about the Christmas party this coming Saturday,” Elektra says. “As I recall, you were put in charge of food. I haven’t heard anything about it recently, so I assume it’s taken care of.”
She peers over her spectacles at me with those flinty dark eyes of hers, and it’s all I can do to not breathe an audible sigh of relief. All thoughts of living in my car with only my manuscript to keep me warm evaporate. “I’ve got it locked in,” I confirm. “Daniel’s… Mister Stone’s favorite restaurant has agreed to cater.”
“Maurelli’s?”
I nod. Elektra’s sharp gaze warms approvingly. “Your attention to detail has once more been noted, Ashley. Not many of Mister Stone’s employees make it their business to know his preferences. He is sure to be pleased.”
I nod again, more to hide the heat flooding my cheeks than anything. Of course, I made it my business to know Daniel’s preferences. Calling Maurelli’s was one of the first things I did when I learned he would be attending the party, and it hadn’t been an easy gig to secure. There’s a cunning quality to Elektra’s look now that makes me think this latest evidence of my devotion is sure to trickle back to him.
“You’ve done well, Ashley. I’ll leave you to it.” Elektra raps her knuckle on my desk in parting and glides back down the hall. Once I’m sure she’s gone, I do a gleeful spin in my chair. I have no delusions about Daniel’s availability, especially to someone like me, but I can’t deny how goddamn good it feels to succeed on even this minor front. And who knows? I might even get an acknowledgement Saturday from the big man himself.
Big man…
The thought triggers a mental image I could definitely use in my novel. “You need help, Ashley,” I mutter through a dreamy smile. I focus on work then, making sure I’ve caught up with all my e-mails before I click open the hidden folder. At the very least, I have time to finish that last paragraph before—
My work cell chimes. Text message. I’m still looking at the Word document, at all that empty space that needs filling—at that mewling heroine who needs filling most of all—when I thumb it open. I grimace when I see who the texts are from.
Stewart: Yo!
Stewart: Want me to come over tonight and help you relieve some stress?
Stewart: You’ve earned it. ;)
Stewart: I had us penciled in for some sexy times so just let me know. Also wanted to confirm the time of the holiday party this Saturday.
Stewart: Can’t wait to see you!
My inspiration shrivels. I close my laptop and mull over how to respond, which ends with me just staring blankly out an office window. How to reply? I told you not to text me at this number? We’re not in a relationship. I’ve told you a thousand times to quit acting like we are.
I used to think it wasn’t Stewart’s fault he couldn’t take a hint, but now I’m not so sure. I’ve been pretty clear on this front, and his unwillingness to recognize my waning interest—or to even listen to me when I tell him outright that I need more in the bedroom and less during the light of day—is starting to wear on me. I don’t like being the salacious, it’s-only-sex-between-us villain in Stewart’s life story, but maybe that’s who I am at the end of the day.
Good girls certainly don’t daydream about whips and chains and a healthy dose of mind-blowing pleasure with their pain.
Am I the villain? I stare at Stewart’s unanswered texts. The more I find myself able to put words and meaning to what I want, the more liberated I feel and less certain who I might hurt in the process.
There’s one thing I know, at least. I’m not afraid if the one who winds up bruised and begging is me.