And just like that we are at the bottom of the stairs. X pushes apart thick black velvet curtains, and we enter the Lion’s Den.
Throbbing Euro trance music mingles with the sound of a woman’s breathless moans. I dare a quick glance to my left to see a woman trussed up in what appears to be clothesline as a muscular man in head-to-toe latex pumps her slit with a fat crimson dildo while tugging her nipple clamps. A crowd gathers around them, clearly enjoying the spectacle from the way they stroke their exposed erections or finger their shaved pussies. At their feet, slaves kneel, heads down, men and women, all submissives waiting on the pleasure of their masters.
On the other wall, a young man is chained to a giant metal X while a dominatrix in a purple corset and crotchless panties paddles his exposed ass with an ebony cane.
Sprawled across a dining table in the center of the room, a nubile blonde stretches out, her naked body covered in small pastries. Dominants lounge in chairs around her, occasionally plucking a delight from her body as if she was nothing but a dessert plate.
Shocked, I return my gaze to the ground, grateful for a moment not to be the one in control. My thighs tremble as heat licks my core. It’s like entering a sexual circus and erotic fun house.
It’s not that I’m a prude. After all, for the last three years, I’ve been X’s secret lover, allowing him to penetrate me in anonymous cars and hotel rooms all over the continent. But here I am out of my element. Cries of agony and ecstasy hit me on all sides. It’s as if I’m a child, Alice of Through the Looking-Glass, and entering a wonderland of sexhibition.
“Hello, hello,” I hear a woman purr in a throaty voice, addressing X. “Your little one is delicious.”
“She is, isn’t she?” X answers smugly, as if I’m a toy he’s proud of.
And for the moment, I suppose that’s exactly what I am.
“There’s going to be a black-sheet party starting in the red room soon, very exclusive, invitation only.”
I don’t flinch. I don’t give a sign that I recognize this woman. That she might view me as her friend.
Her name is Caro, and I’m about to stab her in the back—not literally, of course, unless she happens to get in my way. I have to be ruthless to succeed in this mission.
“Oh?” From the sound of X’s voice, the frost and ice made flesh, he feels the same way.
It’s not as if I’m unprepared for the mission. I did my research on fetish clubs. But even still...the butterflies darting around the pit of my stomach seem to have developed quite a case of stage fright.
“I’d love to play with your slave, if you’re into sharing.”
I jerk. No! That wasn’t part of my plan.
Caro is taking advantage. I’ve been cultivating her friendship for years, a target who has been a henchwoman to the most wanted man in Europe. But she’s a pain in the ass, and any traces of guilt I feel about my coming betrayal vanishes in an instant.
“I’m not,” X snaps. “But I’ll accept the invite.”
Caro offers a sultry giggle. “This is your first time here, is it not? I make it my business to know all the clients.”
“You own this place?” X asks nonchalantly; as if he could care less.
“Me?” Her giggle turns to an outright laugh. “Not at all. Daddy does.”
Daddy. My lips almost twist in a sneer.
“I’m not a big fan of small talk,” X announces abruptly. “Go ahead and lead the way.”
“Okay, but if you aren’t taking part in the fun, you need to stand on the side and remain quiet.”
“Understood.” X tugs my leash, and with a delicious shudder through my pussy, we’re off again.
Daddy is Dante Price. The lord of this hell. And he is here, watching somewhere close by, and Caro is his head henchwoman.
A few twists and turns down a narrow hallway and the music fades into the background, even as the moans increase. My boots are washed in a rich red light. We must have arrived.
Without raising my chin, I dare to lift my gaze.
Busted. X is staring right at me. But that’s not what causes me to gasp.
It’s the fact that behind him, undulating over a twenty-foot mattress covered in black silk sheets, a full-on orgy is underway.
X
My jaw tightens as I tug Z’s leash. I can feel her hesitation. Despite her outfit and willingness to play slave to my dom, she isn’t prepared for this.
“I meant what I said,” I whisper in her ear. “I don’t share.”
This time when I yank the cord, she follows more freely. She trusts my word, and she has no reason not to. I’ve never lied to her—aside from when I disappeared over two decades ago.
A chorus of moans erupts from all ends of the giant silk-covered mattress. A woman propped on her hands and knees gives oral pleasure to a man while receiving the same from a woman who lies beneath her. What seem like disembodied hands reach for Z. Before I can step between her and one of her admirers, someone succeeds in grabbing a handful of her net chemise.
She opens her mouth, likely to scream, so I don’t waste a second. I cover her lips with my palm and wrap my other arm around her torso, wrenching her free.
“She’s mine,” I say coolly, dragging Z to a corner alcove, the last remaining free one in the room.
I know that Z can hold her own against anyone in this room, but I also know that she is out of her element here, whereas I’ve frequented clubs such as this across the globe. Never, though, with a partner and certainly not one who in my younger years took both my innocence and my heart.
Despite my feelings about Z’s betrayal, if anyone else in this room lays a hand on her, I’ll cut the appendage off before the assailant has time to blink.
I hold her body flush to mine, my cock rigid against her lush, firm ass.
“Twelve o’clock, nine o’clock, six o’clock,” I whisper.
She nods, noting each alcove that hosts a dom and a sub in “private” one-on-one sex play.
From the intelligence I’ve collected, Price doesn’t engage in the group acts, but he watches them. Those he finds most entertaining he invites into his private viewing room. All we need is to get a private audience with him and then we plant the seed. “Do you remember your role?”
She slams her ass into my cock, and I grunt from both the pleasure and the pain.
“I take that as a yes,” I growl into her ear.
Anyone who wants to do business with Price needs an in. This is ours. Once we get an official invite, we become business associates of an arms trader who wants to check out Price’s inventory.
I wrap my end of the leash around my wrist and spin Z to face me.
“Nothing we haven’t done before, right?” I say bitterly. “And I’ve got something that’ll make it like old times.” I pull a silk blindfold from my pocket and tie it over her eyes.
“Fuck you, X,” she hisses.
I grin. “That is the plan.” Then I press a palm to her shoulder. “Now kneel, Princess, and show me how you worship your king.”
She obeys, playing the part of the good little sub. But once on her knees, she does nothing more.
“Did I stutter, Princess?”
“No, Highness,” she answers, whatever expression her eyes hold hidden behind the blindfold.
“Then tell me why you pay no reverence to your liege.”
My cock throbs behind the zipper of my jeans.
“Because.” She shrugs. “I’m a bad little princess. You’re going to have to make me worship.”
If we don’t give Price a worthy show, then this evening was for nothing. So I grab the knot of hair on her head and yank it hard. Because of the blindfold, she doesn’t see it coming, and she cries out as her head jerks. Then her ruby-painted lips part into a devious smile.
“Worship,” I growl, giving the leash a slow tug, knowing the metal ring rubs along her folds every time I do.
She unbuttons my jeans and lowers the zipper, and there it is again, the smile that tells me this agent is far more trouble than I anticipated.
She rips my jeans to my ankles, nodding at the small weapons in each slot of the hidden holster that only she can see.
“What’s the matter, X? Don’t trust me?”
I raise a brow. “Not even a little bit,” I say without hesitation.
She simply grins, then licks me from balls to tip—knowing despite her mask that I was commando inside my jeans.
She sucks me to the very base, and I grit my teeth to keep from roaring like a goddamn caged lion. Immediately, my body responds like I’m a teenager who needs one thing—to coat her throat. I begin to move my hips in time to her bobbing sucks, growling with pleasure as she exhales through her nose, controlling her gag reflex.
My fingers twitch, itching to bury themselves in her hair and imprint my taste on her tongue.
Damn it. I love every second of this assault.
If I am the dom, why the hell does it feel like she is the one in control?
“No,” I grind out, realizing more than one thing feels off. “This is not the show Price wants.”
I pull Z up and pivot her so she is against the wall. Then I lift her hands above her head to where handcuffs hang from a bar attached to the small alcove’s ceiling.
I lock her there—arms raised and wrists shackled, her blindfold securely fastened.
“Pick a safe word,” I tell her. “Quickly.”
“Why?” she taunts. “You don’t scare me.”
“Not for here,” I tell her. “For when we start working with Price. If we ever get separated—if you’re ever alone with him and need out fast—we need a code word.”
She bristles. “What if you need out fast? Why do you assume I’ll be the one in trouble? Because I’m a woman? Honestly, X. I could kill you before you even knew I betrayed you.”
“Maybe,” I say. “If I still trusted you.”
I pull another piece of silk from the pocket of my jacket and gag her, partly to play our role and partly so she cannot press the issue.
“The safe word is La Seine.”
She thrashes as I strip to nothing, and I relish her reaction.
The first time we met as anonymous lovers was in the back of a limousine parked along the Seine River in Paris.
But it is also the place where at seventeen we spent the weekend holed up in a cheap inn where she gave me her virginity and I gave her mine.
Fucking hell, I was a fool. She all but told me who she was years ago, and I missed every goddamn sign. I wonder now at the betrayal she must have felt at finding her first love—a trained assassin and spy—unable to recognize the girl who should have been his.
I tear off her G-string and slam into her to the hilt. The thrashing stops. Instead, our bodies pulse in time with the music beyond the walls. I lift her booted legs, and she hooks them around my waist. How I want to rip the gag from her mouth and kiss her until the decades between us melt away. But this night isn’t about Max and Lora. It’s not even about X and Z. It is a mission. A job. A means to an end.
This isn’t tender lovemaking. It’s a hard fuck.
And it doesn’t change the fact that every thrust sends the memories swirling.
Her back slams into the wall, and she bucks against me.
It’s our first year at Frasier. I sneak up to her table in the library where she sits alone and pull the book from under nose.
Slam.
“What are you reading?” I ask, wrinkling my nose at the old Agatha Christie mystery.
Slam.
“Nothing, now that you’ve stolen my book. Return it, if you don’t mind.”
Slam.
“Take it, then. If you can.”
Slam.
She stands from the table as I hold the book high above her head. But in mere seconds she has my arm wrenched behind my back, and the book falls to the floor.
Slam. Z cries out around her gag and I’m breathing heavily.
“I’m Max,” I say grinning, my captor still standing behind me.
“Lora,” she says. “And you will never interrupt me when I’m reading again.”
It took me years to win her over, but when I did, she was mine and I hers. But we aren’t lovesick teens anymore. And despite what it does to me to touch her like this, I remind myself of who we are now—performers, saviors, killers. Am I a fool to think we can be lovers, too?
I slide my hand between the place where we join and roughly pinch her wet, swollen clit between my thumb and forefinger. Z arches against the wall and squeezes her legs around my torso. My cock pulses inside her as we both rocket into oblivion. My cock throbs as her body wrings me dry.
“I think I’m in love with you, Lora.”
“I think you’re crazy, Max. We just met.”
She was right then, and hell if she isn’t right now. When did the crazy start? On the Seine two-plus decades ago? Three years ago in that limousine? Down the street from the Royal Edenvale Hospital the night I left the post I’d held on my longest mission, with the royal family? Or was it everything in between?
I’d wanted to see her face, each and every time. Because despite her claiming I had no clue, on some level I must have known. But none of that matters now. Loving Lora or Z or whoever she is now puts lives at further risk. We will complete this mission and I will ask for reassignment as far from Agent Z as humanly possible.
It’s the only option that gives us the greatest chance at survival.
CHAPTER THREE
Z
AS MY POWERFUL ORGASM ebbs and my shattered gasps return to a normal pattern of breathing, I uncurl my toes and sag limply, held upright by the handcuffs dangling from the ceiling. Blindfolded and gagged, I know how weak I must appear to every depraved leer in the red room, and look they surely do. I swear that I can feel their curious gazes crawling over my flesh like spiders.
A soft cloth presses between my legs, and I jerk at the unexpected contact.
“Shh. Easy now, Princess,” X croons, his breath heating the sensitive shell of my ear. “Aftercare is an expected part of the scene. The dom always looks after his sub once they are finished.” As he speaks, he expertly cleans his come from my folds, and despite my best effort, a furious tear breaks free, trickling down my cheek.
I feel X’s confident movements falter.
“Lora.” His voice is a low rasp. Not Princess. Not Z. Lora.
Another tear joins the first.
“What’s the—”
His question is broken off by a slow clap.
“Magnificent performance.”
I stiffen, recognizing that sultry purr. It’s Caro, turning up again like the proverbial bad penny. At least she’s not blowing my cover or Max would ensure I’d be fucked in a way that caused me considerably less pleasure.
“While you’re not winning any kink contests, you two have a most intoxicating chemistry, which hasn’t gone unnoticed. Daddy watched the whole scene, and I’m pleased to say that you’ve piqued his interest. He isn’t prepared to invite you into his private playroom yet, but he asked me to invite you back tomorrow. This is a great honor.”
“I’ll check my calendar.” X’s response is frosty, arrogance infusing every syllable. He is perfect for this cocky dom role, acting like getting noticed by the dark god of the underworld is nothing out of the ordinary, as if our entire mission isn’t relying on just such a meeting.
“Well...” Caro sniffs, obviously deflated. “If you come, Daddy has one more rule.”
“I don’t play by anyone’s rules but my own,” X snaps.
And the truth in his annoyed snark causes my sensitive inner muscles to clench even though he just wrung an earth-shattering orgasm from me minutes ago.
I force my dry throat to swallow, willing myself to get it together. I’m not a fifteen-year-old girl anymore, bringing my dog-eared copy of A Room with a View out to read beneath the ancient oak tree that grew alongside the rugby oval. While pretending to be engrossed in E. M. Forster’s worlds in Italy and England, I always maintained an awareness of Max as he locked shoulders with his teammates, pushing, shoving and battering in a seething mass of rucking.
I’d find myself rereading the same page time and time again, too entranced by the look of utter focus on Max’s face, the power emanating from his body and the near-palpable force of character.
I’d look away whenever he glanced my direction, pretending to study the clouds or a frolicking squirrel.
“He wants her.” Caro reaches out and strokes my neck with what feels like claws, jerking me back to the present moment. “This little one is exactly his type.”
Don’t I know it.
My gorge rises. I’ve turned down Dante’s advances for years, dangling the promise of my body like a carrot on a string. It seems his patience has run out at last. No doubt fueled by watching my little display with X.
I let it get personal.
Who is the idiot here? Me.
Shit.
“Touch her again, you’ll answer to me.” X’s voice is deadly serious.
The Max I used to know was intense about sports, but off the field he liked nothing better than to joke around with his mates...or tease me ruthlessly.
Agent X, however, doesn’t make jokes. Only promises. And his word is his bond.
“Is that a promise?” The woman sounds curious.
“We’re leaving.” X unlocks my handcuffs and tugs my leash.
“Wait!” I fumble to take off my blindfold, my fingers tingling as blood returns to my hands.
Then the blindfold drops and I see Caro nearly nose to nose. Her body is perfect and her dark skin is without a single blemish. Her bronze lips twist into a smug leer. “Like what you see, sugar?”
I don’t wait for X’s order before dropping my gaze to the floor. It’s not that I dislike my looks, but I’m nothing special. Average height. Average weight. Brown hair. Brown eyes.
I could be a kindergarten teacher or a librarian.
I wonder if I’d have been happier in a simple life. And I think I know the answer.
Yes.
Somewhere behind me a woman begins to come in loud whimpers and suddenly I’m exhausted. This night is all so sudden and confronting and confusing.
My worlds have collided, and I feel thrust into a strange new universe.
X leads me from the club without another look or comment, and by the time we get into the waiting limo all I want to do is speed to my hotel, slip into my pajama pants and binge on online baking competitions until I fall asleep.
Instead, X doesn’t release my leash.
“Why did you start crying in there?” His voice is tight, almost husky with some repressed emotion.
I look away, glaring out the window at the rainy London streets. The truth is that I don’t know where my tears came from.
I thought I’d cried myself dry over Max. What we had. What we lost all those years ago. But apparently, when it comes to my first love, I have a reservoir of feelings.
I cry for a future denied me. One where I work a nine-to-five job. Live in the country with Max and have children.
Now, at my age, the promise of children is almost denied to me...unless I can find a way to get out.
But to buy a new future would sell out my past. Nothing comes without a cost. If I walk away from the Order, I walk away from my entire life.
“Lora, look at me when I talk to you,” he growls.
“You don’t get to command me outside the Lion’s Den,” I mutter as we pull up in front of our hotel. “Remember what’s real and what’s not. In the real world, you don’t own me.”
His eyes burn a deep midnight blue. “Is that a fact?”
“Ugh.” I roll my eyes. “Whatever.”
“That’s the best you can do? I seem to remember a more extensive vocabulary.”
“I’ve learned the value of brevity. Go fuck yourself has such a ring to it.” I rap on the window to our driver. “Can I get my key, please?”
The young driver turns around. “Your key? There’s only one, miss.”
“You’re kidding,” I growl.
X chuckles. “What did you expect? If anyone follows us, we have to look like a believable couple. And in this case, it means sharing the penthouse suite in the Shangri-La Hotel. The Order moved our belongings in while we were at the club.”
Ugh. Of course.
My daggers are all upstairs in my suitcase, so I have to settle for a death glare. “If we are living in forced proximity, I can’t be responsible for my actions. I might smother you with a pillow in your sleep.”
“I’m a light sleeper,” he says. “But I’m sure we can find something to pass the time.”
X
We ride up in the elevator in icy silence, glaring at the rich velvet wallpaper. Every time I open my mouth to say something, I think better of it and close it again.
She may have deceived me for a few years, but I kept her in the dark for decades. How do I begin to apologize for that?
There aren’t words.
So I give her her space—as much as I can in the small box we’re in.
She stalks ahead of me when we get to our floor, straight to our room and through the door, not bothering to hold it for me.
“Shit, Z,” I mumble as I stick my foot in between the door and the frame before it slams in my face.
I slip inside and already hear the shower running in the bathroom. It takes everything in my power not to barge in there, to throw the curtain open and demand her attention as in the Lion’s Den.
“Space,” I mutter, reminding myself that what we just experienced was likely beyond her realm of comprehension or preparation. She needs time to let it settle.
So I stay in the suite’s small living area, raiding the minibar and spreading out a feast of tiny bottles and delicacies across the glass coffee table. Before I can dig in, though, I’m hit in the face with a pillow, then a folded blanket.
Z stands in front of me in a plush white robe, the exposed skin on her chest and neck pink—likely from the scalding shower I’m sure she took. Her wet dark hair spreads long over both her shoulders.
In the twenty-plus years I’ve imagined her, I never anticipated seeing her like this would knock the wind clear out of my chest. She looks exactly the same.
It seems cruel to have her look so unchanged when everything else is different.
“You’ll be taking the couch,” she says coolly, her jaw tight, even as her whiskey-brown eyes hit me like a shot.
No woman has ever kicked me out of her bed after sex, but then, we weren’t exactly in anyone’s bed tonight.
“Understood,” I say. “Appreciate the amenities,” I add, holding up my pile of linens.
She spins on her heel, heading toward the bedroom.
“Lora, wait,” I call after her.
She stops but doesn’t face me. “No one has called me that for years,” she says softly. “Yet when you say it, it’s like everything melts away and we’re seventeen again. It makes me think you’re Max when I know full well you’re not.”
I blow out a long breath. “You know if I could have told you, I would have. Don’t you?”
She turns now, and tears streak her cheeks. “One night I fall asleep in your arms in my dorm room, and the next morning you’re gone. No word. Not then, not ever again. Can you imagine how it felt? Did you hear my heart break? I swear I almost died from the pain.”
I squeeze my eyes shut. “I was just a kid, Lora. And a moron. All those IQ tests they made us take? They were entrance exams. Apparently, my scores were such that the Order feared if anyone got their hands on me before they could put me through the program, I’d end up a weapon rather than a protector.”
She scoffs. “It’s all semantics. You’re a weapon. I’m a weapon. It’s just a matter of who got to us first.”
