Knights and Kink Romance Boxed Set (16 page)

He motioned towards the elevator. “Come with me,
ma’am,” he said.

With pleasure
, I thought. I couldn’t help but
pick up on his double entendre, intended or not. I was surprised at
how naughty I felt. Then again, I could hardly claim to be female
if I didn’t find the security guard’s rock-hard frame or his deep,
Barry White-style voice sexy. And his heavy-yet-agile body moved
like liquid silver through space.

The security guard punched a code in the elevator
panel. I watched him do it from behind, relishing the cords that
stood out on the back of his thick brown neck as he did so. Maybe
in another time and in another place, I could have ended up rolling
in the sack with this hunk of flesh, feeling him crush me
underneath his massive, muscular weight. But not today. Today, he
was just a brown-sugar feast for my eyes.

The guard finished punching numbers and the elevator
beeped. “It’ll take you straight up to Mr. Doyle’s penthouse,” he
said. He tipped his hat and winked. “Have a good night, ma’am.”

The elevator doors slid shut and the car shot upward
so fast that the Chinese balls did a somersault inside my sheath
from the change in air pressure. By the time the elevator doors
slid back open onto Rodney’s posh penthouse suite, my entire lower
half was on fire.

Rodney stood waiting in front of the elevator, a
crystal carafe of port in one hand, a brimming highball in the
other. He looked tired and frazzled; his shirttail was out and his
trousers were wrinkled. A white-cloth table for two set with filet
mignon, risotto primavera and iced champagne sat untouched in the
foyer; I could tell that the food had already gone cold.

But that hardly mattered.
I
intended to be
Rodney’s main course tonight.

Rodney looked me up and down with a steely gaze, and
I could tell he wasn’t at all pleased with my coverall attire.
“You’re late,” he snapped.

“Not by much,” I said, and swished past him. “I need
to visit the ladies’ room, please.”

“First door on your right,” he said curtly, and
guzzled half the contents of his highball. “And hurry up about it.”
He pulled a handkerchief from his breast pocket and mopped his face
with it. “You’re driving me to drink, do you realize that?”

I didn’t answer. I just smiled to myself as I ducked
into the bathroom to powder my nose and check my lipstick. I
lingered in the stunning all-marble bath for longer than I planned,
overwhelmed by the rich beauty of the unusually large bath suite.
There was a two-person Jacuzzi tub, a large separate shower with a
steam feature and all-over body sprays, and an abundance of luxury
bath products. There were his-and-hers Egyptian cotton bathrobes
hanging from hooks, and there was an oblong loofah scrubber on the
counter. I reached out and ran my finger over its rough, pockmarked
surface and stifled a desire to rub the thing back and forth
between my legs.

I could foresee Rodney and I having a very
wet-and-wild time in here very soon. If my plan worked the way I
hoped it would, anyway.

There was a heavy pounding on the door. “Are you
about finished in there, Jasmine?” Rodney boomed from the other
side. “We have important business to take care of.”

And then some
, I thought, and swept out the
door, nearly knocking Rodney over in the process. He finished his
highball and refilled it with more port. “What the hell are you
doing in that ridiculous getup?” he cried. “I distinctly remember
telling you to wear your red dress again.”

I folded my arms across my chest. “Rodney, you and I
need to get something straight right off the bat. I might be a
lowly PR staffer with a career on the skids,
but I do not take
orders from people
.” A bit of a lie, given what I’d consented
to do with Mistress Violet today, but that was when I was Hyacinth
Slaughter at the House of Flowers. Now I was back to being plain
old Jasmine Rand—albeit a new and improved Jasmine Rand.

Rodney’s eyebrows raised. “Is that so?”

“Yes, that’s so.” I felt heat rising in my body and
remembered the surge of arousal that had come when Mistress Violet
had ordered me to spreadeagle against the wall. I wanted to
transfer that intense feeling from my own body into Rodney’s. And
the only way I knew to do that was to turn the tables of power onto
him. “I’ll have you know that I might be naïve, but I’m not stupid.
I know you’ve got a bunch of different plates spinning in the air
when it comes to this undercover work you want me to do for
you.”

Rodney raised one eyebrow. “Is that so?”

“Yes, that’s so. For one thing, I know I’m not the
only stringer you’ve got out there looking for dirt. And for
another, I know you’re going behind my back at the same time you’re
pretending to help me. You had me followed when I went to the House
of Flowers today. Isn’t that right?”

Rodney didn’t answer. But I did notice his Adam’s
apple bobbing up and down while he gulped. I took that as a
yes.

“You sent
me
to spy on Senator Grayle. But I
think you sent somebody
else
to spy on
me
, too.
Didn’t you?”

Rodney broke his gaze from mine and stared at the
floor. He gave a small nod, clearly stunned that I was onto him
already. “If you’ll just let me explain—“

I cut him off. “Now Rodney, you and I both know that
you’re a ruthless barracuda of a tabloid publisher,” I went on.
“And I’m fine with that. Really I am. I wouldn’t have come to you
for help in the first place if I didn’t understand that from the
get-go. But I think you’ve gone too far. So from here on out, in
order for me to keep working with you, I’m going to rewrite the
rules of engagement. Starting now.”

With that, I whisked off the sunglasses and scarf,
and let the huge overcoat settle to the floor. My size-fourteen
body was revealed in all its fleshy glory, covered only in wisps of
transparent red lace.

Rodney dropped his highball on the floor, where it
shattered. Port splashed everywhere—even up onto my legs and feet.
“Jasmine—“ he spluttered. “Oh my God. You look incredible.” He
reached out for me, but I put a firm hand on his chest and pushed
him away, hard. Even I was surprised at how strong I was.

“Do you want a piece of this, Rodney?” I teased.

He nodded, his sapphire eyes transfixed on my
breasts.

I plucked one nipple through the transparent red
lace, then the other. Now he was frothing at the mouth. “Because if
you do, you’ll have to agree to my terms. Do you want to hear
them?”

Rodney sucked in a deep breath and then blew it out
slowly. “Go ahead.”

“All right. Term number one. You will never,
ever
spy on me or have me followed in secret. If you do, I
won’t ever go undercover for you again. Hell, I wouldn’t even
speak
to you again. As much as I liked what I did over at
the House of Flowers today, the fact you didn’t trust me enough to
do it by myself really pisses me off.”

Rodney bit his lip. “Jasmine, I only had you
followed on your way
back
from the sex club—something I did
for your own personal safety.”

“Why would you feel a need to do that? I can take
care of myself.”

Rodney rolled his eyes. “Well, Columbia Heights is a
bad neighborhood, for one. And second, I didn’t want to run the
risk of one of my competitors catching you in the act and running
undignified photos of
you
in tomorrow’s editions.”

I supposed he did have me there. But I still had my
principles. “If that’s the real reason you had me followed, why
didn’t you just tell me that ahead of time? Or just give me an
escort? Why all the secrecy? Is it because you had someone spying
on me on the inside of the club, too?”

Rodney flinched. “I didn’t have you followed
inside.
Daisy did give me a full report of your activities
while there, but you knew going in that she works for me. So
frankly, I don’t see what the problem is.”

I stamped my foot. “You didn’t need to have me
followed
at all.
You were obviously trying to catch me at
something, or keep me from going somewhere. Where the hell did you
think I would go?”

Rodney mopped his forehead with his handkerchief
again. He was definitely getting hot under the collar. It seemed
I’d painted him into a corner. “To be perfectly honest, Jasmine, I
had you followed because I wasn’t sure if you’d want to leave the
House of Flowers once you got there. I wanted to make sure you came
back. I wanted to make sure I’d still have a chance to be with you.
That’s all.”

Aha! So he
was
jealous. Rebecca had been
right. But it still left one crucial thing unexplained. “If you
weren’t tailing me inside the House of Flowers, then who deleted
all those photos off my phone? Those photos were
password-protected. Whoever did it had to hack their way into my
photo directory.”

Rodney shrugged. “I have no idea. But whoever did
had a vested interest in making sure they didn’t get out. I suppose
it could have been Senator Grayle—“
“No way,” I said. “He’s so old-fashioned, he doesn’t even know how
to
dial
a cell phone, let alone hack into one.” I paused to
think. “Could it have been Daisy?”

Rodney sighed. “I doubt it. Especially since I
promised her a cut of any revenues those photos would bring in.
That leaves Mistress Violet, but I think that’s even more unlikely,
since Mistress Violet loves nothing more than to be photographed
while she’s in persona. She considers it good marketing.”

I paced back and forth, making sure to give Rodney a
good view of my bare behind. “So that means somebody else is spying
on
us
,” I said. “Who could it be? Do you have any enemies,
Rodney?”

He laughed. “Yes. Several thousand, in fact. I
wouldn’t even know where to begin.”

I crossed to him, wrapped one leg around his waist.
“Then why don’t we begin right here? You can go over the possible
list of suspects while we’re fucking.”

Rodney cupped his sweating palms around the heavy
flesh of my heavy buttocks. “That sounds like a fantastic idea,” he
said, and kissed me hard. Our tongues wrapped around each other in
a slow tango, swishing back and forth to an orchestra only we could
hear. When we finally came up for air, he ran his hands over the
barely-there red lace covering my breasts and torso and licked his
lips. “This is probably the most fabulous teddy I’ve ever seen.
Where did you find it?”

I giggled. “In the clearance bin at Victoria’s
Secret last winter, marked way down. Apparently there isn’t much of
a market for size-fourteen lingerie.”

“That’s something I’ll never understand,” Rodney
said, tracing the outline of my erect nipples through the fabric.
“Skinny women don’t have any curves. And you need curves to fill
out a teddy properly.” He made a move to suck my still-covered
nipples, but I stopped him.

“We haven’t discussed the rest of my terms yet,” I
said, pushing him out to arm’s length.

Rodney grinned. “Funny, I thought that since I
wasn’t spying on you, there wouldn’t have to be any more ‘terms’
between us.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” I said. “You sent me to
the House of Flowers so I could learn something new. And I’m
pleased to report that I
did
learn something new. Something
I think you’ll grow to appreciate.”

Rodney raised an eyebrow. “Such as?”

“I saw a dominatrix at work for the first time
today. And while I won’t pretend to be as accomplished as Mistress
Violet, I think I know a thing or two about how sexy domination can
be. So how about it, Doyle? Will you be my Slave tonight?”

“I’ll try anything once,” Rodney replied.
“Truthfully, I was kind of hoping you’d want to take things in that
direction.”

I mentally put away my tired old Jasmine Rand self
and put on the invisible robes of Hyacinth Slaughter,
dominatrix-in-training extraordinaire. “Then assume the position,
Slave.”

Rodney paused, his expression puzzled. “And exactly
what position would that be?”

I felt my cheeks burn. Less than five seconds into
my first turn as a dominatrix, and I was already making mistakes. I
had to admit that I really had no idea what I was doing. So I
decided to improvise.

“Okay, scratch that. First, Slave, you will need to
disrobe,” I ordered, doing my best to adopt the deep, booming voice
of a dominatrix. The result was a cross between Kathleen Turner and
Michael Jackson.

Rodney erupted into laughter. “I think you’ll need
to work on your voice a bit, Mistress.”

“Silence, Slave!” I shouted. This time I was able to
control my tone a bit better. Now I sounded more like Amy Winehouse
on steroids. Which seemed to work fine for Rodney, because he
immediately clapped his mouth shut. “Good, Slave,” I barked.
“
Now
you will begin to disrobe.” I cocked my head, put both
hands on my ample hips. “Slowly, please. Start with your
shirt.”

Rodney’s eyes widened. The sheen of sweat on his
forehead got a little brighter, his breath a little heavier.
Without breaking eye contact, he began to unbutton his shirt. He
made a point to take as much time as possible with each and every
buttonhole, turning an otherwise mundane act into a sensual one. By
the time he was halfway done, a tent had formed in his pants. A
very large, very
tall
tent.

After almost a full minute, every button was
unfastened, and Rodney’s shirt hung open, exposing his thick pecs
and washboard abs. His little brown nipples were standing at
attention, and his chest shone with a fresh coating of sweat to
match his already-glistening face. “What is your next command,
Mistress?” he asked, his voice husky and low.

“Take it off.”

He did, one arm at a time in a kind of performance,
relishing every moment just like an old-time Chippendales dancer.
“Is that to your satisfaction, Mistress?” he asked, timid. Every
shred of Rodney Doyle’s die-hard, tabloid-owner, sleazy-barracuda
persona had melted away, and had been replaced with a desperate man
who quaked with a mixture of fear and desire, a man who at this
moment, would live and die just to please me.