I’m new to this job, tidying up rooms, pushing a cart around loaded with cleaning products, clean sheets and towels, condoms and complimentary lube jars, courtesy of the Cronin Hotel.

Not that there’s anything wrong with being a maid in a prestigious, kinky hotel. The thing is, I have my own reasons for being here, and they have nothing to do with the S&M Scene. Nothing at all. I mean, a few weeks ago I wouldn’t have known what a spanking horse was if it bit me in the ass.

Yeah.

But I’m taking it all in stride.

Well, sort of.

I tug ineffectively at the hem of my super-short black dress, part of the uniform, as I hurry down an endless corridor, passing room after room, mentally going over the tasks in my mind. Change the sheets in room nine hundred and two, completely clean room nine hundred and ten, replace the whip in room nine hundred twenty-one.

Yeah, the whip. It malfunctions, apparently, or something like that. Maybe it doesn’t hit like it should? Joseph, Mary and Baby Jesus.

I start with the sheet change. Apparently whoever booked the room requested black silk sheets, and this hotel is nothing if not accommodating. After all, it caters to the needs and whims of the richest in this city.

Come to think of it, maybe that is why I was tasked to change the whip in the other room. Maybe the guest asked for a special, million-dollar whip.

Opening one of the boxes on my cart, I give the whip lying there so innocently a suspicious look.

“Are you special?” I ask it. “Nothing to say? So you’re not a talking whip, at least. Maybe you’re made of gold and unicorn farts?”

A deep chuckle startles me.

There’s a guy slouched against the wall further ahead, half-lost in shadows. “A talking whip?” he asks, his voice a low, sexy rumble that sends goosebumps over my skin. “Sounds like fun.”

I take a step back, just as he straightens from his slouch and takes a step forward, out of the shadows and into the light.

Holy crap, the guy is gorgeous. Young, strong, dressed only in low-slung black pants, barefoot, and bare-chested. His dark hair is tousled, and his dark eyes are bright. He’s like a figure from an old painting.

If guys in old paintings rocked tattoos, bulging pecs and six-packs, and sported dangerous, predatory grins, like this one.

“Whips,” he says, walking slowly toward me, “speak the language of pain as they mark your flesh. Have you ever tasted the lash?”

“No, I…” I’m caught in his hot gaze, my throat closing up. “I don’t like pain.”

“Perfect. Because I sure as hell do.” He’s almost on me, towering over me, and boy if he isn’t hotter closer up. “Who are you?”

“Mia,” I whisper, my brain shutting down at his proximity, only basic functions remaining. “You…”

I put out a hand as if to stop him, pressing it to his rock-hard stomach, and realize his chest is marked with red stripes as if from a lash. My hand trails over them.

He said he likes pain.

Oh God…

“I’m Rook,” he says as he backs me up against the wall. He smells like leather, and musk, and blood. I open my mouth to say something, ask something, and his mouth crashes on mine.

Then he’s kissing me, his lips soft, his tongue demanding, thrusting into my mouth, making me moan. My arms wind themselves around his neck as I lose myself in that kiss.

So unexpected.

So hot.

So perfect.

His taste is addictive, I think dazedly, like cloves and pepper with a hint of sweetness, and I can’t get enough.

Time has stopped. The world has faded away. His arms are around me, warm, his muscular body is pressed to mine, scorching, and I’m burning from the inside out. I want to wrap my legs around him, I want to push him down to the floor and rub myself all over him.

What’s wrong with me?

The thought flashes through my fuzzy mind like distant lightning—a jolt of shock, a pinprick of fear, lost in the storm lashing at my body.

He jerks me against him, against the length of his hard-on restrained by his pants, and I moan, my fingertips digging into the thick muscles of his neck. His teeth nip at my lower lip, tugging, and he shoves me into the wall, pressing into me, his hard cock an insistent pressure against my stomach.

Oh God. This is crazy. I want him, I can’t stop kissing him, I need to get his clothes off—and mine—and touch him everywhere, feel him inside me, I need—

A door bangs down the corridor, and he draws back, breaking the kiss.

Breaking the spell.

Shit, what am I doing? I unwind my arms from his neck and push at his bare chest. He looks down at my hands with a frown, as if confused. His hands—his big, strong hands—are on my ass, I realize, and heat rushes to my face.

“This was a mistake,” I whisper. A huge mistake and I hope nobody saw us. “I have to go.”

I shove at his hard pecs again, and he releases me, taking a step back. “Can we—?”

“No,” I say firmly, even if my voice is trembling and my body is throbbing, “we can’t.”

Whatever it is he had in mind.

Passing a shaky hand over my burning mouth, I walk over to my cart and push it, walking away from this unknown, too-sexy man as fast as my feet can take me.