“Hey there,” Steve said with a smile. “You drifted off for a minute. You okay? How did we do with bringing one of your fantasies to life?”
Shea smiled and shook her head with wonder. “That was one of the most intense, scary, fabulous experiences of my life.”
“When did you figure out it was us?” Zach asked, stroking her breast.
“I think I knew right away,” Shea replied honestly. “But at the same time, I didn’t, you know? I mean, I was pretty sure. But there was a part of me that couldn’t believe it was happening. It told me you guys were back in Portland, and two strangers were here in the room with me, taking me, claiming me…” She hugged herself, a pleasurable shiver of fear moving through her.
“So it was good?” Steve queried. “Not too intense?”
“It was perfect,” Shea breathed. “And once Zach had me on top of him, and I felt you behind me, I knew for sure it was my guys. I knew I was being claimed by my two Masters, the two men I love.”
“And we love you,” Zach murmured, pressing his palm over her heart.
Steve placed his hand over Zach’s. “Yes, we do.”
The Gypsy & the Rogue
A rogue who always gets what he wants… Until he meets a girl as elusive as quicksilver…
Powerfully sexy Dom Evan Stewart drives the women wild… and he knows it. He thrills to the challenge of each new submissive conquest, and when it’s time to head out for the next adventure, he never looks back. That is, until he meets the enigmatic girl with the dark gypsy eyes, who bursts into his life like a shimmering flame.
Adventure-seeking Ruby Beckett craves intensity of experience wherever her wanderlust takes her, and it takes her all over the world. When she volunteers for a whipping demo with the strikingly attractive Master Evan, the sparks between them flare into the bright, burning heat of desire.
Each is determined to maintain their carefully crafted, self-contained lives. But the stakes soar when Ruby shares her darkest fantasy with the one man who might actually make it come true…
Chapter 1
“Holy heartthrob, Batman, who is that yummy piece of eye candy?” Ruby Beckett asked her old friend, Allie.
He was tall—maybe six foot two. Ruby could easily imagine nestling her head against his broad chest as he brought those strong arms around her. She’d been an avid reader of historical romance in her teen years, and this guy was like one of her fourteenth century Scottish warlords come to life. His auburn hair was streaked with gold, his face angular and proud, with a Roman nose and a mouth that curved slightly upward at the corners, as if he knew a dark but amusing secret.
She mentally replaced his black, sleeveless T-shirt, jeans and square-toed boots with leather and fur, a jewel-encrusted sword sheathed on his hip. Without a by-your-leave, he’d hoist her onto his steed and leap up behind her, his hard body pressed against hers as he spurred the horse away.
“That’s Evan Stewart,” Allie replied, pulling Ruby out of her fantasy. “He’s a BDSM event coordinator. He’s been helping Bob get this whole thing going.”
He stood near the small group of BDSM scene players decked out in the usual assortment of leather and chain. Thirty or so people were seated on folding chairs in front of a portable tripod suspension rig, waiting for the show to begin.
Allie gave Ruby a teasing nudge with her elbow, adding, “And he’s single, Ruby. Just like you.”
“Hey, I’ve been here half a day and you’re already trying to match me up?” Ruby laughed. She had arrived in Portland that morning, and Allie had enlisted her to help get her vendor booth organized for the upcoming grand opening of the BDSM Connections Event Center. “Anyway, I’m just admiring the view. I avoid the pretty boys as a rule. They tend to be full of themselves.”
“Rules are made to be broken,” Rylee, Allie’s friend, quipped. “Seriously, though, Taggart knows him from some of the BDSM conventions where he’s sold his leather gear. Says he’s definitely popular with the ladies, but he’s a standup guy.” She turned to Allie. “When we were at dinner, I didn’t get the impression he’s one of those dudes who thinks he’s god’s gift to women. Did you?”
“Not at all,” Allie agreed. “Bob took all of us to dinner last night as a kind of welcome aboard thing for vendors,” she told Ruby. “Evan was very down to earth. He organizes BDSM conventions and events all over the world. Knows his way around a dungeon, too.”
“And he’s a wanderer, like you, Ruby,” Rylee added.
“Okay, okay.” Ruby flashed a grin. “I’ll admit I’m interested, but there’s time right? I’m here for two whole weeks.”
“Two whole weeks,” Allie repeated in a teasingly sarcastic tone. “Can’t you ever stay put?”
“I can if I have a reason,” Ruby said, glancing again at the handsome man.
Their conversation was interrupted by a booming voice. “Greetings and welcome to the soft opening of the BDSM Connections Event Center. My name is Bob Benson, though most of your know me as Master Bob.” There was scattered applause from the gathered audience. Bob had thinning blond hair fading to gray, deep-set blue eyes and a goatee that didn’t quite hide his softening jaw. He was wearing a black leather vest that was a little too tight around his middle-age paunch, an ostentatiously large gold watch on his left wrist. He held a beautiful leather flogger in his hands.
“Each of you received a special invitation based on your gold status with BDSM Connections online or your experience and contribution to the BDSM scene here in Portland. Starting next week, we’ll have full dungeon facilities available to rent, along with space for munches and conventions and whatever else your kinky and creative minds can come up with. This isn’t a regular BDSM play club that just anyone can show up at to play. We won’t have set hours or limits as to the intensity of your play, assuming it’s safe, consensual and reasonably sane,” he added with a guffaw. “You’ll be able to rent the space, by the day or by the hour, for your parties, or for individual play.”
As he spoke, the reincarnated Scottish lord stepped over to stand beside him
“As you all know,” Bob continued, “the grand opening is still a week away, but I wanted to give you a taste of some of the terrific gear that will be available for sale. To that end, I’d like to introduce Evan Stewart.” He gestured toward the sexy guy, who flashed a dazzling smile at the group.
“He’s going to give you a quick whipping demo to provide you with a firsthand view of this beautiful impact device, just one of the many fine pieces designed by local artist, Taggart Fitzgerald.” Bob held up the flogger, which was indeed lovely, with an intricately braided handle and multiple tresses that looked soft as butter. “Taggart is one of the most talented whip makers on the planet.”
Ruby glanced at Rylee, who beamed at the praise for her significant other.
Allie nudged Ruby. “Whipping demo,” she whispered. “I bet he’ll want a volunteer.”
The exact thought had just occurred to Ruby.
“Go on,” Allie urged. “You know you want to.”
As if her body had already decided for her, Ruby walked out of the three-sided booth and toward the audience, where there was an empty seat on the end of the front row. She took the seat as Bob handed the flogger to Evan and stepped away.
Up close, she could see laugh lines radiating from the corners of Evan’s gray-green eyes, which were fringed with thick reddish blond lashes beneath straight brows. He had a tattooed ring of black barbed wire around his right biceps, and a small silver and black triskelion emblem on his left deltoid, identical to the smaller one on Ruby’s right inner wrist.
To the vanilla community, it might look like a silver and black yin-yang symbol, though instead of two partitions within the circle, there were three. But the symbol, similar to the iron rings in the Story of O, was like a secret handshake to those in the know. The colors were significant, with the black indicating the darker side of BDSM, while some claimed the silver represented chains.
Ruby
preferred to think of the silver ink on her wrist as quicksilver—a liquid metal mercury that was quick to change and couldn’t be held in one place, just like her. She loved the intensity of a BDSM exchange of power, along with the excitement and unpredictability of new places, new people, new Masters.
“I need a volunteer for the flogging demo,” Evan said, his eyes moving over the group. “You’ll need to be comfortable with nudity and able to handle erotic pain.” His voice was pleasingly husky, like a cat’s warm, rough tongue stroking her senses. Ruby’s entire body was alert with desire and anticipation. Pretty boy or not, she was dying to feel the stinging kiss of his flogger against her skin.
Several hands shot up, a couple of people shouting out, “Pick me!”
Ruby rose to her feet, her eyes fixed on the handsome Master. He turned his gaze to her, a slow, sexy smile lifting the corners of his mouth. “You,” he said, pointing the flogger in her direction. “I choose you.”
~*~
Large, almond-shaped eyes so dark he couldn’t distinguish the pupils from the irises, long, loose wavy black hair, olive skin, a tiny diamond glittering in her elegant nose, the nostrils slightly flared over lush, red lips and a strong, dimpled chin. Not there a moment before, she’d appeared like a vision, momentarily distracting Evan from his patter.
Unlike the rest of the crowd, decked out in leather, boots and stilettos, this girl was wearing a red tank top over full, high breasts that clearly weren’t fettered by a bra. Her flat midriff was bare above a flowing cotton skirt with swirls of silver set against a red batik background. Her feet were shod in flat leather sandals.
The woman walked over and stood beside Evan, lifting her pretty face to meet his eyes. She wasn’t tall—maybe only five three or four, but she was perfectly proportioned, slender and voluptuous at the same time.
Evan rarely spent more than a month in any one location. Because his job entailed working with folks in the BDSM scene, he met lots of female submissives and sexual masochists, many of them ready and eager for casual play.
Choosing only one or two lovely ladies per venue, he would give them his full attention for the brief duration of their time together. The underlying awareness that he’d be gone in a week or a month freed him up to tumble headlong into intensity. But he always made it clear at the outset that he was only passing through, and whatever they shared was finite by definition.
Something in this young woman’s gaze both thrilled and slightly unnerved him. Intrigued, he silently promised himself to get to know her better during his brief stay in Portland.
“Take off your clothing, please,” he directed. “Then stand under the rig so I can secure your arms.” Cuffs had been hung from the apex of the tripod on adjustable chains. The rig was set up so both the volunteer and he would be in profile to the audience as he conducted the demonstration.
He tried not to stare as she gracefully lifted the hem of her tiny shirt and pulled it over her head. Her breasts were full, the nipples dark red against smooth, tan skin. She stepped out of her sandals and hooked the elastic waistband of her skirt, dragging it down her bare legs, along with a pair of lacy black panties.
After folding her clothing in a neat pile near the rig and then stood beneath it as he’d instructed. There was a small, intricately inked red rose tattoo on her left hip, a tiny drop of blood suspended from one of the thorns on its stem. Her mons was covered in a small triangle of dark curls. Evan, used to the current fad of women shaving off their pubic hair, was oddly excited by this bold statement of feminine individuality. This, clearly, was not a woman swayed by what others did or expected.
He was vaguely aware of the excitement and sexual tension in the group of onlookers on their folding chairs, and didn’t doubt every straight man there was sporting an erection at the sight of such feminine perfection, but he no longer cared about giving them a demonstration. All he wanted to do was flog this beauty, and then take her back to a room somewhere so he could fuck her.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Ruby,” she replied in a low, smooth voice.
“And you have experience in the scene?”
“I do.” She turned her right arm to show him the small circular tattoo on her inner wrist.
He smiled. “And your safeword?”
“Quicksilver.”
“Quicksilver,” he repeated, though it was highly unlikely she would need to use it. This demo was more about giving the crowd a show and creating buzz for Taggart’s gear than it was taking a submissive to the edge of her limits. He needed to remember that. This Ruby wasn’t his lover, though if he had his way, he’d soon change that.
But first things first. “Stand with your back to me and lift your arms so I can cuff your wrists.”
She turned her back and lifted her arms, which, while slim, were muscular and firm. Standing behind her, so close her full, round ass brushed the denim of his fly, Evan closed the Velcro cuffs around her wrists and reached up to adjust the chains to pull her arms taut.
Forcing his eyes away from the naked beauty, he addressed the group, many of whom were leaning forward in their chairs, the Doms no doubt wishing they could be the ones with the whip, the subs aching for the sting of its tresses.
“Taggart Fitzgerald makes these superior pieces by hand,” Evan said, pulling his fingers through the soft strands of leather. “You won’t find finer workmanship anywhere in the world.” Evan wasn’t lying. He had rarely seen such beautiful craftsmanship as the Leather Master brought to his BDSM implements. The leathers were first class, the handles perfectly weighted, the designs both functional and artistic. The price tags were hefty, but they were worth every penny.
He started slowly, warming Ruby’s supple skin with the leather tresses, aiming carefully so as not to inadvertently curl the tips around her hips. He shifted his stance slightly and aimed for her shoulders, his balls tightening as the flogger rippled over her skin.
Though she didn’t move, she reacted to the impact on thinner skin with a sudden intake of breath. Pleased, Evan struck her back and shoulders in a steady rain of leather before moving again down to her ass, which reddened nicely as he focused there.
As he whipped her, he managed to talk to the audience about the merits of the flogger, and about correct flogging technique and protocol, having done it so many times in the past that he could put his brain on autopilot. That was a good thing, because all he could concentrate on was how the rich, soft leather looked as it struck her body, and her increasingly evident reaction to its kiss.
Standing to her side, he could see her profile. Her cheeks were flushed, her lips parted. She was breathing rapidly now, her chest rising and falling, her red nipples erect, a sheen of perspiration on her glowing skin.
He wanted to take her further—to push her past her pain threshold and up into that wild sub stratosphere he knew from personal experience was like nothing in this world. But he forced himself to rein it in. For all he knew, she might shout out her safeword at any moment and totally ruin the mood.
He eased off the flogging and finally lowered his arm. Giving her a pat on that luscious ass, he said, “I hope I wasn’t too rough on you.”
She turned to him, her eyes sparkling. “The warm-up was great, thanks,” she said in a bantering tone. “But when are you going to get to the actual flogging?”
~*~
“You are so full of shit, Ruby,” Allie said with a laugh as Ruby returned to the booth, dressed once more. “Evan gave you more than just a warm-up and you know it.”
Ruby shrugged. “He deserved the smartass remark. He quit right when I was really getting into it. A little more and he’d have sent me to the moon.”
“His expression was priceless when you sassed him,” Rylee added. “He was probably expecting you to fall to your knees and kiss his feet.”
Ruby glanced back to find Evan staring in her direction. When she met his gaze, he flashed a roguish grin that melted her insides, before turning away to addr
ess the audience.
“Maybe you should have.” Allie nudged Ruby. “I wouldn’t let that one get away if I were you.”
Allie and Ruby had first met over a decade before at a small arts college in Boston, and they’d been fast friends ever since. While Allie had focused on gemstone and rare metal jewelry, Ruby had worked with wood and textile design. Even after leaving the program, she’d continued to earn money at art fairs all over the world with her small wooden sculptures, primarily of nudes, and her painted and woven textile designs.
Along with their passion for art, the two of them had discovered their shared love of BDSM, and had spent their free time roaming the city, seeking out the BDSM underground dungeons and clubs. Ruby, wanderlust getting the better of her, ended up leaving the arts program after two years. She’d headed off to Nepal to study textile-painting techniques with an incredible artist she’d heard about online, supporting herself by teaching English at a community college in Kathmandu. Somehow a decade had got behind her, and she’d never stopped traveling.
“Do you like the way I’ve set this up?” Rylee asked, pulling their attention to the glass display where she’d arranged some of the finer pieces.
“It looks really good, Rylee,” Allie said. “Thank you.”
“It’s all so gorgeous. I could just dump this stuff in a pile and it would sell,” Rylee said with a grin.
“Your work is truly inspired, Allie,” Ruby agreed. She continued to glance outside the booth, trying to catch a glimpse of Evan Stewart, but he had disappeared. Tuning back to Allie, she asked, “How will you have time for this retail stuff when you’re so busy with the online site and the actual business of creating the jewelry?”
“We’ll only sell on specific days when there are events planned. Bob’s already got some things lined up. I can opt in, or not. If the place takes off, maybe I’ll be in a position to hire someone to run my booth. It might become a significant secondary revenue stream.”