LEATHER AND LACE (BAD BOYS & GOOD GIRLS, #1) (2 page)

“That isn’t leverage. It’s outright blackmail.”

“Yes or no?” Dani’s smile only widened. “May I remind you there’s FB, Tumblr, Pinterest, and I can twat this in a heartb—”

“Okay! Just put the cell down. Jeez. I’ll wear it.” With her blood pressure on the rise, she narrowed her eyes, and cocked her head. “And just how do you know what goes on at a bondage club anyway?”

“Rest assured, I did my research. We’re living in Paris and there are only so many nightspots around town. I tried to snag a guest pass at the S & L. But only those dives on the east—”

“Those places out in the sticks?” She jumped down Dani’s throat.

“Get hold of yourself,
Mom
. Those dives let guests in without a background check, but they still charge a huge ass fee. I’m not that desperate or rich. Truthfully, I had the pleasure of seeing a dungeon or two for free during that same sex marriage seminar in Houston. Unless Spurs relaxes its policies, my Dad would lose it if someone from a sex club called for a reference. You’re so freakin’ lucky to score a connection to the Spurs’ owners. Do you realize how many women would kill to be in your shoes?”

“Ones with money to blow on their submissive wardrobes.” Mia looked down at the shoebox on her bed. A pair of heels she’d been out of her mind to buy. Patent leather stilettos that looked like she’d raided the closet of Lady Gaga.

“Just get your foot in the door. This outfit on you is hot! And it’ll get the research you’re lookin’ for to impress a headhunter for therapist openings. I could’ve sworn that’s what you said,
Ms. Santero
.”

“Excuse me, but do you take notes during our conversations?” She gazed back at the mirror and how little the dress covered. “I also remember that research isn’t code for sex.”

“Ah, but it isn’t me you have to sell. Pick up the phone and call Orton. And enjoy the dress.” Dani exited her room and she sunk down in the chair in front of her computer.

Christ on a cracker, Dani was right. If she wanted to snag a headhunter’s interest, she needed a stellar grad project. One that shouted cutting edge and sophisticated. Not the same old tried and true studies that inspired yet one more yawn from the psychology department.

Penrose, one of the owners of Spurs and Leather agreed to let her discreetly study his submissive clientele and find an answer to ‘why’ a sex club. From her vantage point, it appeared that doms got off on running the show and administering discipline. And subs sought a type of freedom while being bound. An echoing ‘why’ and ‘how’ kept Mia on edge. A slow burn seared the hunger hugging the pit of her stomach from the void in her knowledge—and her spank—bank that demanded in-depth details. She exhaled sharply.
What did a dom-sub relationship really entail?
Hard to answer questions from abstract studies and this explosive subject pricked her curiosity.

The key involved face-to-face interviews, and if it meant visiting a sex club in the flesh, then she’d do it for the sake of science and her career. All she had to do was convince her program advisor, Dr. Orton.

Drumming her fingers, Mia’s gaze landed on the magazine near her elbow. It featured a glossy photograph of Jamie Dornan, holding a riding crop. She wasn’t the only person who wondered about the pain-pleasure fixation that had rocked the world of late. What was it like to be bound? Being ordered to kneel blindfolded and naked. Bow down.
Having my ass spanked and being taken hard and rough by a man who controls my every move.

A cloud of what felt like fire spread across her skin.
Good God, this isn’t about me!

But unlike the magazine racks at the grocery store, around town it was slim pickings to find therapy professionals as sounding boards who made it their business to know the ins and outs of sex. Dr. Oz, Oprah, and Dr. Laura Berman were as racy as it got around here and that was just TV and radio. More often than not the term ‘mixed company’ was whisper-shouted and all sexually hued conversation ground to a halt. People living around here liked sex, they just didn’t like to openly discuss it which made subjects like rape and incest harder to address.

Sex was still something taboo.

Mental disease was stigmatized.

Two hot button topics.

The shame attached to both was archaic.

The learning curve was steep in the mental health department especially in female sexuality. She’d been a tad naïve when she began her coursework—okay, plenty inexperienced in the earth-shattering world of ‘O’ herself. Her search led her to a handsome banker, Charles ‘Beau’ Humphrey, III. Underneath his old money and southern charm, he’d wielded an agenda. Knife-sharp humiliation and remorse stabbed through her whenever his face slithered into her mind. After her dismal affair with Beau and one nasty breakup later, that bit of ugliness sent the last shred of her naiveté up in smoke.

Now, she had to set her oars in the water and get ready to leap into her future. For the last seven years her education had been an uphill climb and a constant battle, especially with her dad. Earlier this year, her mom had gotten terribly sick. Mia took the summer and a semester off to help care for her, but she’d passed away.

Mom’s death had touched Dad, Margo her sister, and her—but not the type of grief that brought them closer together. More like shattering a crystal box that had kept them centered. It wasn’t Mia’s finest moment in dealing with her dad being overprotective and wanting her to quit school to help out at their family’s horse farm.

During a time of mourning and heartache, she was even more convinced she was on the right track. Her father did more than talk to sway her from returning to school. He’d pushed her into a corner, giving her an ultimatum that had ended in probate court, tying up her inheritance.

Even under the threat of being cutoff, she refused to remain cooped up on the farm. Mucking out stalls and regularly getting kicked and bitten by untamed horses until she was a grandmother wasn’t her vision of a future. It was her mother’s wish that she get a college education. Mia staunchly argued with her father, and had left, not on the best of terms.

Wearing a frown, she reread the email from her father. She’d asked for a loan. It was her money from her mom but he sent her a hard-nosed reply.

“Since you refuse to stop this nonsense, as we discussed I won’t be a party to tossing away your future. That includes no loans for money to pursue these ridiculous interests for job interviews. I remind you, I’m the executor of your mother’s estate and I intend to carry out that duty both as your father and the trustee of your inheritance until your twenty-seventh birthday (unless you plan to marry soon). If you’d like to come home, we’ll discuss reasonable plans for your savings, which include you working here. Put your education to use, helping our family.”

Like what? Was this the year 1402?

Her father had control over her inheritance all because she was twenty-three and a single woman. Some backwoods judge in the tiny town where Dad lived had ruled against her. Now her chance to hunt down a job that involved airline tickets and travel expenses was snatched out of her grasp. She’d be lucky if her car lasted until graduation. Forget traveling to interviews, unless by Greyhound or thumbing a ride.

Her bank account teetered on being overdrawn but it didn’t matter. She had her T.A. job and she was going to rock her grad project into reality. She wasn’t going to succumb to Dad’s demand that she return home and stop what he deemed ‘nonsense.’ Mom had wanted her to follow her dreams. It was her mother’s dying wish and one she intended to honor.

Her father Nate Santero aka Never In a Good Mood was just the first tough sale she had to make today. The other was Dr. Orton who’d stonewalled her sex club research proposal.

She dialed her father and prepared for battle number one. “Hello, Daddy,” she began with an upbeat note. “How are you doing? Did you get much snow last week?”

“We got enough to use the snowplow and I’m not doing well. I need your help back here where you belong. Mia, I’m serious. How can you even consider moving to some place like New York? Especially when our business is on shaky ground.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. But it’s not because of me. And my choice to move to New York would be an excellent opportunity. Don’t you want Margo to have choices? We can’t all stay at home and do what you do. That’s your dream, Dad. This is my last semester and we talked about this. I’m not calling to argue. I’m calling to tell you either you support me with your blessing or it isn’t only Santero Farm that’s on shaky ground. I’m not about to let anyone stop me from making my dreams come true.”

“Mia, you’re so like your mother,” he retorted, his voice cracking. “She was so impassioned too. About our horses and our farm.”

“Don’t Dad. Don’t throw that dart.”

“Then come home. I’m going to Florida to look at new stock. Palominos. You could run the place like old times. Your momma would be so proud.”

“Dad...I’m in school. And Mom wanted me to graduate.” Her heart squeezed in her chest and tears flooded her eyes. She still had trouble dealing with Mom’s death. “I gotta go. I love you and I’ll call you next week.”

She hung up unwilling to be a pawn and listen to Dad demand, plead, or manipulate her into returning to the farm. She would and she’d be miserable. She wasn’t a replacement for Mom and her father was trying to brainwash her sister into falling in line. Maybe if Margo saw it was possible to do something else besides settle, she would. Mom wanted her to do this. Help other people. Give them hope when mental illness dropped like a bomb into their lives. Assist her patients, teaching them how to cope and overcome an invisible illness that so many people swept under the rug.

She wiped her eyes and inhaled. She picked up the business card embossed with Spurs and Leather, swiping her fingers across the raised print for the owner she’d yet to meet.
Brandon McLemore
. This was her watershed moment, a threshold. If the S & L, an exclusive private club had opened their doors to her, she couldn’t...no she wouldn’t give up this opportunity. After taking several breaths to clear her head, she picked up her cell. She’d get her department’s approval come hell or high water! With what felt like a firestorm racing across her nerves, she dialed Dr. Orton.

I
CE CRUNCHED
under Brandon’s boots. Heading for the back door of the S & L—the private club he part-owned and ran—he did a double take. He trained his focus on the woman walking around the corner of his building, talking on her cell, so engrossed she almost missed her step.

On a jaunt from his truck, he stopped and watched her over the top of his aviators. As bold as brass, she sauntered up to one of the stained-glass windows and cupped her hands to the windowpane.

What the hell?
She’d better not be another reporter. He’d give her a memorable tongue lashing she wouldn’t soon forget. After the last hassle that came from his partner speaking to the press, he’d had his fill of nosy reporters and their equally asinine questions.

The explosive interest in bondage hot spots was great for business, if his mission was to make a ton of cash. More often than not, people wanted to sample the dom-sub lifestyle in some fast-food manner—drive-thru sex on the way to their next adventure.

Not him—the need to call the shots was etched into his genes.

He stared at the woman for a couple of beats as his annoyance unraveled into curiosity. She grinned at some exchange on her phone, and the velvety laugh spilling from her lips equated to a kick to his senses. Gracefully, she pivoted, peering up and stretched her hand high above her head as if shielding her eyes from the glare.

A shot of adrenaline fired across his neurons.
Holy hell
. He sucked in a lungful of cold air at the sight of her voluptuous silhouette.

“Sweet surrender,” he murmured, removing his sunglasses. How long had it been since he’d felt this type of hot-wire charge? Months since he’d considered a rough ride in the sack.

The woman wore black boots and a tight, slim skirt that hugged her lush hips—the kind of hips when coupled with her full round tits got his undivided attention. He had a strong hunch she was just what the doctor ordered to get over his slump in the saddle.

She stopped talking on her cell and went beyond gazing up at the building to snapping several photographs with her phone, unaware of him or his acute fascination. How interested was she in getting the goods on a club that delivered more than a few flavors of high-class kink?

Intent on uncovering who she was and why she was intrigued with the exterior of the S &L, he stalked over to her. Sure, his club sat in a historic building on the edge of Paris, but chipping stucco and aged brick weren’t that interesting. Not when he could offer her a tour of the club’s interior.

Each step closer, an arcing awareness sparked his senses. “Excuse me,” he said when he stood a few feet in back of her.

She spun toward the sound of his voice, and when their gazes fused, it felt like the local power station jump-started his pulse. Talk about being unprepared for the impact of her captivating dark eyes and delicate features. High cheekbones, a pert nose, and a pair of lips that were meant to be kissed. Sucked. Fucking worshipped.