Games People Play

GAMES PEOPLE PLAY

Shelby Reed

HEAT | NEW YORK

THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

Published by the Penguin Group

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This book is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.

Copyright © 2013 by Shelby Reed.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

HEAT and the HEAT design are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

eBook ISBN: 978-1-101-60976-7

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Reed, Shelby.

Games people play / Shelby Reed.—Heat trade paperback edition.

pages cm

ISBN 978-0-425-26506-2

1. Erotic fiction. I. Title.

PS3618.E4358G36 2013

813'.6—dc23

2012046049

PUBLISHING HISTORY

Heat trade paperback edition / June 2013

Cover design by Jason Gill.

Cover photograph of couple: Sean Neal / Shutterstock.

Text design by Laura K. Corless.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

For my dear critique group, Inkplots, the support of the La-la-la’s, Cate Rowan, Vicky Ardito, and Leslie Ann Dennis. And special thanks to my agent, Laura Bradford, who believed in me from the start.

Chapter One

S
he moved through the crowded gallery, slim, tall, cool, oblivious to the stares of the art reception attendees
. A swan in a swamp,
Colm Hennessy thought, and for a moment he forgot his purpose.

That single-minded goal returned with a vengeance when the swan approached a man in a wheelchair surrounded by clucking socialites. Only when she reached him and placed a glass of white wine in his hand did her detached expression shift. Vulnerability. A vague frown. He said something to her and reluctantly took the wine, as though she’d brought him the wrong beverage.

“So that’s the woman of the hour,” Colm muttered to himself as his date, Azure Elan, arrived at his side with two flutes of champagne. “I’d pictured someone different.” Someone less controlled. The artist who’d created the lurid paintings around them should be the proverbial wild-haired pseudo-Bohemian, not this remote creature who stood a pointed distance from the Svengali in the wheelchair. She’d allowed herself to be closed out from the group surrounding the man, her arms crossed over her breasts as though to guard her heart.

In certain Washington circles, blond-haired, blue-eyed Sydney Warren was a guilty pleasure, and it had little to do with her celebrity looks. For the last three years, fair-weather connoisseurs had scrambled to get their claws on her explicit landscapes. Now that he’d seen her, Colm couldn’t quite picture her in a paint-stained smock, splashing erotic visions on canvas. And yet, according to the district locals, she had more than created the paintings. She’d rendered erotic art a high-priced commodity.

He glanced at a nearby canvas so massive it nearly swallowed a single display wall. Who’d have thought erect penises, lined up like rows of cornstalks, could be considered a landscape?

Azure slid her arm through Colm’s and broke his trance, her signature jasmine perfume filling his senses. “You’re scowling. Don’t you think your new friend is stunning?”

Of course she was stunning, but Sydney Warren was no friend and never would be, no matter how deep he got inside her before this job was over.

“Consider yourself lucky to have landed this assignment.” Azure’s well-practiced, sultry tone gained an edge when he didn’t answer right away. “I picked you specifically, Colm. To reward your excellent attendance, the high compliments of your clients, your devotion to—”

“Fucking?” he finished, and after raising his glass to her in salute, washed the foul word down with a mouthful of Dom Pérignon.

Her features tightened. “Don’t drop your mask quite yet, darling. The show hasn’t even begun.”

“I’ll be good.” As a waiter passed by them, Colm swapped his empty champagne glass for a full one. “I’m always good.”

“Indeed.” She let her pale gaze slide over his sports coat and down his gabardine pants as though measuring the quality of the merchandise, and he forced himself to stand under the inspection and feel nothing. Azure was at her gorgeous worst tonight, dressed in a black catsuit and stiletto boots that answered to no fashion rules, only to the primal senses of men and women alike, her long black hair pouring down her back. She was his savior and his own personal demon.

She was his pimp.

When her appraisal reached his eyes again, her expression hardened just enough to relay the warning she didn’t speak. “Sydney Warren is a gift. A beautiful one.”

He tilted his champagne glass to his lips again and took another look at the artist through its crystal distortion. Max Beaudoin spoke to her again from his wheelchair, a cajoling expression on his sallow face. Colm read the placement of her hand on the man’s shoulder, the brush of her sleek blond bob against her cheek as she bent to listen to him, the way her attention left him only long enough to acknowledge passing fans. She was the star of the evening. This was her show, and yet she deferred to her invalid lover as though they were the only two people in the gallery.

The two unhappiest people in the gallery.

Thanks to a quick briefing back at Avalon, the pleasure club where he worked under Azure’s careful eye, he knew the basic history of Sydney and Beaudoin’s relationship.
They’d met four years ago when Beaudoin was a thrill-seeking art dealer and Sydney a twenty-something ingénue just tapping into the local scene. As an artist she’d initially ridden her older lover’s coattails. Then two years ago, when a rock climbing accident landed him in a wheelchair and he shuttered himself in black reclusion, Sydney had clawed the rest of the way to her own unquestionable success—with mixed-media penis landscapes and lithographs of naked, moisture-beaded breasts.

Hey, whatever works.
Sensationalism was a drug to these people, and Sydney Warren knew it. Colm wasn’t sure she was talented, but there was no question she was smart as hell.

He stepped aside to let two chunky women pass and watched the synchronized swish of their heart-shaped asses as they beelined for Beaudoin. The man might be a shadow of his former self, but he still held impressive sway over the female gender. Colm wondered how many times Max had betrayed his “beautiful gift” in the past, and if the man’s guilt had anything to do with why he’d hired a prostitute to see to Sydney’s pleasure.

He drained his glass, set it on a nearby butler’s tray, and glanced at Azure. “Ready?”

“Not until you put on your pleased-to-meet-you face, darling. If the alcohol won’t improve your mood . . .”

He shook his head. “I don’t need anything to improve my mood. I’m just aware of the futility of all this. I hate to rain on Beaudoin’s parade, but that woman will never agree to this little arrangement. I know her kind. She’d rather spend a lifetime as his nursemaid than admit to her own needs.”

“I beg to differ.” Azure’s fingernails lightly scraped his wrist beneath the sleeve of his suit jacket as she drew him toward the subjects of their surveillance. “Sydney will do whatever makes Max happy, and
you
will make Max happy. And that will make
me
happy . . . and then I will make you very,
very
happy.”

Wrong. Sex with Azure wouldn’t make him happy. The money would. He was the top of the twenty flavors at Avalon right now, but it was just a matter of time until she turned her attention to another of her boys and Colm was relegated back to the harem. He wouldn’t mind one bit. The thought of her displaying any affection toward him deeper than the merely sexual bothered him.

And Max Beaudoin was no harmless sweetheart either, despite the wheelchair and wasted legs. Dealing with someone in a wheelchair was a part of Colm’s life, but the man was something different entirely from what Colm understood. Beaudoin might be paralyzed from the waist down, but he could move his arms. His fingers. His lips and tongue. He didn’t need a cock-for-hire to pleasure his girlfriend.

A sudden suspicion grabbed his gut and stopped him cold. He pulled Azure aside under the guise of viewing an abstract ménage à trois. “Does Beaudoin get off on watching her with another man?” When she merely looked at him, he added, “It’s one thing to screw three diplomats’ wives in one night at Avalon, but I didn’t sign on for anything like what you’re implying when I agreed to do this outside job.”

“You’re being paid more than any companion in Avalon’s history to do this outside job.” The generic amiability fled her face, momentarily exposing the demon behind it. “Say the word and we’ll be done here. And you’ll never see this kind of money again, you ungrateful wretch.”

Wretch.

Fifteen hundred dollars a day for two weeks, and all he had to do was seduce Sydney Warren. He stared at the ménage à trois painting, at the luminescent flesh of two women crawling over a faceless man. He’d almost forgotten what it meant to be attracted to a woman, forgotten the hunger for soft skin, soft touches, soft cries. Sex was mechanical now, but he stuck with it for the money, for the brief exorcism of ghosts it provided, for a night’s relief from the memory of screeching brakes, twisting metal, Jill and Amelia screaming and screaming . . .

And then the silence, the eternal, excruciating silence that stalked his dreams . . . when he actually slept.

Wretch.

He could do this one thing. This one woman. He could fuck her and walk away. Whoring suited the black tar pit his road had become.

“Darling?” Azure wrapped a hand around his neck and nuzzled his ear.

He jerked from his trance.

“You’ll pleasure her wherever and however she wants it,” Azure said.

He glanced from the painting to Sydney Warren.

“You’ll pleasure her without asking questions.”

He closed his eyes and then opened them. Sydney was still there.

“Even in front of her boyfriend,” Azure prompted.

Colm didn’t reply, but Azure’s gentle smile said she’d obviously heard the acquiescence he couldn’t bring himself to speak. “Besides, you assume too quickly that she knows who and what you are, or has any inkling of what Max has arranged for her.”

Colm frowned. “She doesn’t know?”

“Time to introduce yourself, darling.”

As if on cue, Beaudoin glanced in their direction, looked away, and then let his narrow gaze drift back to them. The smile on his face turned brittle, and he gave a subtle nod.

Azure slid her arm through Colm’s again. “On second thought, maybe I’ll make the introductions myself.”

“I don’t need a bodyguard,” he said.

“Of course not.” They skirted around men in suits and women in pearls and silk. “But humor me. You know how I like to be a fly on the wall.”

He avoided looking at Beaudoin as they approached, choosing instead to focus on Sydney. Her face was half turned as she talked to a gaunt matron with hair the color of eggplant. Her graceful hand gestured toward yet another ménage à trois painting behind them as she spoke.

I call this painting
Two Guys Fucking One Lucky Gal
,
Colm imagined her telling the middle-aged socialite, who would reply,
It would be perfect over my Louis XV settee!

The urge to laugh constricted his chest and he coughed against a curled fist. It was easier to concentrate on seducing a client when sequestered in his quarters at Avalon without Azure breathing down his neck. Out here in the real world, his job seemed like a game. Absurd and pretentious.

And this time, somehow, treacherous.

As he and Azure reached the circle of people surrounding the couple, the low murmur of Sydney’s voice floated to his ears.

“. . . At times I use a camera since the models can only hold the pose for so long.”

Gliding ahead, Azure took advantage of the lull in the women’s conversation. She paused behind Sydney, and to Colm’s amazement, brushed her fingertips down the artist’s spine left naked by the seductive drape of her black dress . . . an utter invasion of personal space that only the pleasure club owner could get away with.

Sydney stiffened and turned.

“The work is exquisite, Miss Warren,” Azure said smoothly. “The artist herself even more so.”

Sydney’s blue eyes appeared almost silver up close; striking, but not icy like Azure’s. They searched Azure’s benign expression, and then she offered a curious smile. “I’m sorry. Have we met?”

Before Azure could respond, Beaudoin lurched forward and planted his wheelchair between them. “I see you received my personal invitation, Ms. Elan. Sydney”—he reached up and caught Sydney’s fingers—“this is an acquaintance from my past, Azure Elan.”

“What an unusual name,” Sydney said faintly. “It’s a pleasure.”

“In more ways than I can say, Sydney.” Azure let her gaze drop to the gentle curve of the blonde’s breasts. “May I call you Sydney?”

“Of course.”

Azure’s smile widened in a manner that amused Colm as she glanced around the erotic art display, then returned to appraise Sydney’s face. She could seduce a eunuch monk with those diamond eyes, and the artist was no exception. Sydney’s willowy form swayed ever so slightly toward her, a reed drawn into a mini-cyclone.

“I hear you’re making an honest man of our Max, dear Sydney,” Azure went on in a conspiratorial tone.

Colm’s eyebrows shot up
. Our Max?
Azure hadn’t known Beaudoin until seven days ago, when the silver-haired art dealer wheeled through the doors of Avalon, intent on his odd and perverse quest.

“This is
my
honest man,” Azure was saying as she glided her fingers along Colm’s jacket sleeve. “Colm, meet Max Beaudoin and his companion, Sydney Warren. The artist.”

With methodical ease, he extended his hand first to Sydney, but Beaudoin thrust his own hand between them and grasped Colm’s with bone-crushing pressure.

Jesus Christ.
Colm gritted his teeth and endured the discomfort with a dry smile, holding the man’s flinty gray gaze until Beaudoin released his grip. Then Colm returned his attention to Sydney.

The instant their eyes locked, her lovely features went blank and she averted her gaze, even as she dutifully grasped his hand. Her fingers were dry and cool, a little rough from too much turpentine and paint, he suspected, and they lingered barely long enough to render the gesture polite before withdrawing.

For a moment, Colm was at a loss. She wouldn’t even look at him. Women didn’t usually dismiss him so quickly. Or ever.

“Your work is amazing, Miss Warren,” he said, ducking his head to recapture her gaze.

“Thank you.” Her eyes shot to the left; his followed. She glanced to the right, skirted past his stare and up to the ceiling.

Azure was right. He wasn’t in the mood for this. “My name is Colm.” He tried again, lowering his voice, not too much, just a note for intimacy. “I’d like to know more, Sydney.”

Her attention fixed past his shoulder as though what lay beyond him was infinitely more interesting than their exchange. “More about . . . ?”

“More about what drives you to produce this kind of art.”

“Most critics think the answer is obvious.” She finally smiled, though it didn’t reach those silver-blue eyes. She had long, incongruently dark lashes, left naked of cosmetics, but her full mouth glistened with pale pink gloss. So soft to be so remote. If she excused herself from the conversation, Colm wouldn’t be the least bit surprised. This woman had taken one glance and decided she wanted nothing to do with him. How the hell was he supposed to screw her to kingdom come if she didn’t like him on sight?