From Leather to Lace (2 page)

“You’re not playing nice, Kitty cat,” he spoke low in her ear. “Deliberately provoking me is not a smart move.”

She couldn’t miss the muscular solidity of his chest as he pressed her body hard against his and despite her predicament she admired his obvious strength and powerful physique. She was determined to regain the upper hand, however, and she struggled desperately to escape his grasp and regain control, but his hold was too great. She lifted a booted foot, intent on kicking him wherever she could find purchase, but he quickly anticipated her and clamped both her legs between his more formidable ones. She was now wholly at his mercy as he held her in a bizarre parody of a dance dip.

“Let me go,” she demanded. “If you want to play the dominant then you have the wrong girl—I don’t do submission, Mr X.”

He chuckled. “Yes, I can see that you are quite the Dominant,” he said dryly. “I’m going to let you go, Mistress, but only if you promise to play nice.”

She nodded in acquiescence before he released his grip on her wrists and helped her to her feet. She was totally mortified and her pride was more than a little wounded at having been so easily overwhelmed by a client.

“This will be your first and last session with
me,
Mr X,” she stated emphatically. “I shall recommend one of the other girls for your next session—one of our submissives will be more to your liking, I’m sure.”

“And here I was having so much fun,” he drawled in amusement.

“Well, I’m glad
you
enjoyed yourself. Session’s over, Mr X, you know where the door is,” she stated, crossing her arms and glaring at him.

He moved towards the door. As he drew level with her he stopped and brought his hand up to caress her face.

Kitty was startled by the unexpected gentleness of the gesture and she tensed in wary suspicion as he traced her jawline lightly with his fingers.

“Don’t think you’ve seen the last of me, Mistress,” he promised before he turned abruptly and strode out of the dungeon.

Chapter Two

Sarah stretched languorously and checked the time—twelve p.m. Her friend Roxy was due to pick her up in two hours for a party. Roxy had been surprisingly vague about where the party was to be held and by whom, which had succeeded in piquing Sarah’s interest, so she was now quite intrigued and excited about the afternoon ahead.

As she lay in bed adjusting to her wakeful state she thought about the previous evening and in particular about Mr X. She had never come across a client quite like him. Certainly he had the physique of a man who cared about his appearance and obviously worked hard to maintain it, but she was interested as to why he would want to visit Fantasy in the first place. By his own admission he hated domination and in fact he seemed to prefer being the dominator.
Perhaps that’s what his game is
, she thought.
Maybe he gets his kicks out of dominating the Dominatrix.

She was angry with herself for allowing him to so easily overwhelm her but she had to concede that her usual clients didn’t ever attempt to take the upper hand. The whole reason they frequented Fantasy in the first place was to fulfil a deep desire and all
her
clients took a submissive role so she was unaccustomed to dealing with a dominant personality. She also had to admit to herself that Mr X was hot. Just thinking about his hard, muscular body set her stomach fluttering alarmingly. She recalled his full sensuous lips and imagined how it would feel to have those lips kiss her slowly and passionately.

Why am I thinking like this when I told him I wouldn’t see him again?

But she knew why. She suspected that she
would
see him again. In fact, his parting words to her had been almost a promise—“Don’t think you’ve seen the last of me.” The prospect alternately excited and worried her and she pushed the thought to the back of her mind to concentrate on the day ahead.

Sighing, she slipped out of bed and padded into the bathroom to run herself a bath. She had taken a quick shower earlier that morning when she had arrived home but had been so tired that she couldn’t remember her head even hitting the pillow. She was extremely grateful that she had that evening off as well as Sunday evening, which meant that she could enjoy the party and have a lazy Sunday.

Sarah finished her bath and stood in front of her wardrobe assessing its contents. She wanted a feminine look and after discarding a number of options she settled on a backless silk summer dress that came just below her knees and swirled beautifully when she moved. She dried her long dark hair and left it to hang down her back. The only jewellery she wore was a gold dress ring, her Cartier watch and a pair of gold hoop earrings. Her makeup was light and natural—the scarlet lipstick of last evening was replaced with a natural, dusky pink. She had just fixed strappy gold sandals to her feet to complete the outfit when the doorbell rang signalling the arrival of Roxy.

“God, you look fantastic!” Roxy cried by way of a greeting when Sarah opened the door.

“You don’t look so bad yourself,” Sarah responded with a laugh.

“Come on, girlfriend, we have a party to get to,” Roxy said in a rush, pulling Sarah out of the door.

Downstairs they got into Roxy’s VW Golf, which she had parked illegally at the kerb, and were heading across the city before Sarah could blink.

“Tell me finally, where is this party and who is the host?” Sarah enquired. “You have been unusually vague, Rox.”

“The host is Maxwell McIver. Remember you met him at our last party—you were quite caught up in each other as I recall. I thought you would be excited to see him again and I wanted to keep it a surprise.”

Sarah flushed as she remembered the party and the man in question. Maxwell McIver was the sort of man whom women dreamed about—smart, charming and absolutely drop-dead gorgeous. At only thirty-five he was one of the richest men in the country, courtesy of his IT company and smart business acumen.

She recalled with real pleasure meeting him at Roxy’s and spending the entire evening talking with him. They had moved freely from topic to topic, never encountering a moment’s awkward silence,
and
he had made her laugh. She remembered with a thrill his incredible good looks and hard body but she had also felt a dangerous quality underlying his pleasant persona, which made her think that he was someone that she would not want to cross. He had an imposing, almost intimidating presence that was at once both sexy and slightly daunting.

Sarah really hadn’t experienced that instant connection with anyone else but, if she was totally honest with herself, at twenty-six she was probably fairly inexperienced in comparison with other twenty-six-year-old women. She had only ever had two relatively serious relationships, which had been of short duration owing to her particular profession, and as far as her sexual encounters went, she could count them on one hand. She had accepted quite a while ago that relationships and her line of work were just not compatible. Unsurprisingly, men were often either intimated by her or became extremely jealous of her clients and thus far she hadn’t met anyone whom she felt was worth compromising for.

That was until she had met Maxwell McIver. That evening she had felt that they had made a real connection so she had been surprised and a little hurt that he hadn’t asked her for her number before they had gone their separate ways—women’s lib be damned, she still wanted the alpha male to make the first move.

A thrill of excitement shot through her at the prospect of seeing him again and she decided on the spur of the moment that this time she would be more forward with him. Perhaps she had been too standoffish during their last encounter. She knew that she could come across that way at times and if she examined that tendency too deeply she would probably conclude that it was a self-preservation mechanism. Now she just had to keep her true feelings about Maxwell under wraps as Roxy could be a real pain when she was in match-maker mode.

“You must remember Max,” Roxy said, breaking into her reverie. “He has this absolutely fab house at Kirribilli—wait until you see the view. His house is right on the harbour.”

“I do remember him. I hope I won’t be intruding—after all,
he
didn’t invite me to his party, you did,” Sarah pointed out.

“Max asked me to invite you, Sar, I do believe he was quite taken with you.” She smirked. “Adam will be there and James and Pat,” she continued.

“Speaking of Adam, are you two on or off at the moment?” Sarah asked.

“Oh, it’s definitely on. He will be meeting us there.”

“Now if I recollect, Adam went to university with Maxwell—is that right?”

“Yes, they’re good friends and he is a seriously nice guy, Sarah, and if that’s not enough he is a major-league hunk! I mean the guy is
built,
plus he’s single. Well, I don’t think he’s in a serious relationship—not that there aren’t any number of willing women. He
did
ask me about you and practically begged me to invite you today.”

Sarah seriously doubted that. Maxwell McIver seemed like the sort of guy who did not beg for anything and was more likely accustomed to getting anything he wanted. Then another thought hit her—had Roxy mentioned anything about her work at Fantasy?

“You haven’t told anyone what I do for a living, have you?” she asked.

Roxy cast a furtive look in Sarah’s direction. “I have your story straight, Sar—you are a student studying journalism at UNSW and you wait tables in the evening,” Roxy rattled off.

It wasn’t that Sarah was ashamed of her BDSM profession. It was just that experience had taught her to be cautious—some people didn’t understand and others were so intrigued by her occupation that they wanted to know all the ins and outs and be given blow-by-blow descriptions and, more often than not, asked personal things about clients that she couldn’t answer. When she had her time off, she wanted it to be just that—time off, not juggling an inquisitive stranger’s curious questions. She couldn’t quite answer the question of why she enjoyed the Dominatrix role herself although she did find the dominance aspect and the naughty, almost illicit nature of it quite appealing—she quite enjoyed stripping out of demure Sarah and slipping into dominant Mistress Kitty. It also paid very well and the clients were respectful, almost grateful for her services—well,
most
of her clients were respectful, she thought, as Mr X suddenly invaded her thoughts.

“Here we are,” Roxy declared, screeching to a halt in front of a deeply sloping driveway.

They made their way to the back of a magnificent house and, rounding a corner, they came across the party in full swing. Music was playing through outdoor speakers and people mingled in groups sipping champagne and drinking beer while waiters hovered nearby with trays of canapés. A large infinity pool jutted out across the water and was surrounded on three sides by a huge deck. Closer to the house long tables, groaning under the weight of every imaginable bottled beverage, were set up on the patio.

The view from the back of the house was magnificent and Sarah couldn’t help but stop and admire it.

Chapter Three

Maxwell McIver lounged casually against the bar and listened without interest to the conversation buzzing around him. He was waiting for Sarah to arrive. Ever since he had met her that evening at Roxy’s party his thoughts had been full of her—just thinking about her now made his cock twitch uncomfortably. Never had a woman affected him so much on first acquaintance.

Apart from the fact that she was gorgeous and had a body made for grasping during hard and furious sex, she was also charming and intelligent. Since he had met her he had wanted nothing but to see her again. He couldn’t work out why he hadn’t asked her for her number that first night. It wasn’t like him to be so reticent—he was used to going after what he wanted and getting it, particularly where women were concerned. But Sarah Maddox was different from other women he had met.

She exuded a fierce sexuality but seemed totally unaware of it. He also sensed in her something mysterious and a certain reserve that had made him slightly less sure of himself. Caution when approaching a woman was a feeling that he was totally unfamiliar with and one that had irritated him no end. Since that evening he had determined to meet her again and was looking forward to getting to know her better and this time there would be nothing stopping him from pursuing her further.

The moment he had been waiting for arrived as he watched Sarah walk in and stop to admire the view. His breath caught at the sight of her—God, she was beautiful. She was wearing a silk, backless dress that hugged her body in all the right places. Her lovely dark hair cascaded down her bare back, giving him the urge to sweep the tresses to one side and nibble on the soft skin of her neck.

As he watched she followed Roxy over to James and Pat. Maxwell’s eyes narrowed in irritation and a wave of anger swept through him as he watched James embrace her too closely and run his cold bottle of beer down her spine. Time to welcome Sarah personally and disengage her from that arsehole James, he decided as he strode purposefully in their direction.

“Come on,” Roxy said, tugging on Sarah’s arm, “there’s James and Pat.”

James and Pat were standing, cold beers in hand, admiring the view, when Sarah and Roxy joined them.

“James, Pat, you both remember Sarah,” Roxy said by way of a greeting.

“Sure do,” James replied pulling a surprised Sarah into a hug. She felt his cold beer against the bare skin of her back as he embraced her, making her shiver. Noting her shudder, he ran the cold beverage slowly down her spine until her nipples involuntarily hardened. Embarrassed, she pulled away from him quickly but could do nothing about her erect nipples, which were now jutting very visibly against the soft fabric of her dress.

“Nice to see you again, Sarah,” James said as he swept his eyes appreciatively up and down her body. Feeling uncomfortable under his blatant scrutiny, Sarah took a step backward and collided hard against a muscular chest. Startled, she spun around and found herself looking up into the dark eyes of Maxwell McIver.