Two Strikes (3 page)

Yes. That’d be just what the doctor ordered—a new distraction. Someone he could be detached from. A catharsis.

He set down Giselle’s legs one at a time and nudged her blindfold from her eyes.

He watched the pupils of her brown eyes constrict, adjusting to the soft light in the room, and he put on a smile for her.

Red bloomed in her cheeks, and he kissed her again. This time, just a bare pressing of lips, but enough to say
Thank you
in a way she’d understand better than anyone.

Her returning smile was
you’re welcome
.

“Up on your toes,” he said.

She obliged.

He unhooked her wrists, then undid his careful rope work.

He chafed his hands up and down her slim wrists, willing the marks to go away. The long sleeves of her uniform shirt would cover them, but the aftercare to him was an important part of the relationships he had with his submissive. Except, Giselle wasn’t really one of them. She wouldn’t be Giselle if she were.

She gathered up her clothes and strode toward the attached bathroom. All of the black playrooms had them, but Max had never availed himself of them. He’d just as soon go up to his suite, but now he admitted they were darn useful.

He turned his left wrist over and stared at his watch face.

Giselle would be back to work with time to spare. He should have drawn it out. Took his time.

She winked at him through the gap that same way she had in ninth grade as she pulled the bathroom door closed.

He winked back, and spun his crop between his fingers.

Focus, Max.

He had a naughty submissive that needed a lesson on permission, and he was going to lose himself in dispensing it.

THE END

Turn the page for a sneak peek of
THREE STRIKES
–
available now.

To say that Giselle Burke and Max Fletcher’s relationship is “complicated” would be an understatement. He’s one of New Orleans’s most intriguing Doms, and she won’t give him the time of day. They’ve been friends since age fourteen, and although she’s loved him almost as long, she doesn’t want to be with him…at least, for no longer than a night.

As an employee of the Hotel Beaudelaire, Giselle has never been a guest during its Den of Sin events, but Max knows it’s the perfect venue for seduction. He’s convinced that if he can get his “Queen G” to let down her guard for a weekend, he can soften her heart. And if he has to tuck into his bag of tricks to remind her of just how compelling he can be…so be it.

“Oh my
God
.”

Giselle Burke leaned against the ice sculpture’s base and closed her eyes tight. She tightened her grip around the cold cylinder in her gloved right hand as the nebulous memories of the past few minutes congealed.

Her heart pounded. Blood rushed to her head, and suddenly, she felt as though her brain was spinning around like a roulette wheel.

Shit. She hadn’t even made a bet.

Her knees wobbled. She slid down the base to the floor and buried her face against her knees. Round and around her mind spun, and instead of the little ball in her imagination landing on black or red, it settled onto a brand new memory she’d just as soon keep repressed.

Her thumb slipped over the rounded end of the rod she held, and she opened her eyes to confirm the truth.

“Oh,
fuck
.”

She let the ice dick fall to the marble floor, and it didn’t even have the decency to shatter. Maybe it would have if it’d been larger.

She giggled a bit manically at the thought. The Hotel Beaudelaire’s Den of Sin events were known in part for their lavish seasonal décor, and the owner, Henri Beaudeliare, spared no expense when it came to finishing touches. Given the clout the man had in New Orleans’ hospitality industry, vendors bent over backwards—and would probably take it up the ass—to please him. But with this, he’d fucked up.

He should have been more specific. A life-size, Michelangelo-esque ice sculpture at The Den should have come with a really magnificent cock. She couldn’t even chill a soda with the two-inch ice bullet on the floor.

She sighed and tipped her head back to look at the deformed man. The returning memory lined up with the evidence. Ice Man’s hands, gesturing toward the empty ballroom, were missing several fingers. Ice Man had a gash where his mouth had been.

She leaned
just so
and discovered that Ice Man also had a knife in his back.

That was
her
knife. Her grandmamma had given it to her when Giselle turned fifteen. Usually, she kept it in her purse for protection during those late walks home. She didn’t want to think too hard about how it’d ended up in an ice nude. The rest of the memory would probably come back to her soon enough, just like all the others.

“This is going to be my third strike for sure,” she mused. She’d have plenty of time for quiet introspection now. Her job situation had been precarious even before today. She was a goddamned misanthrope on the best of days, and yet she worked in room service with all the chipper rays of sunshine who spoke in exclamation points and personified the department’s
service with a smile
mantra to a T. She figured the only reason her tips were on par with theirs was because she had a nice rack and the male Den guests tended to tolerate abuse more than average. Masochists. If she had a dollar for every time a guest had asked to motorboat her, she could buy herself a pair of Lucite hooker heels and some pasties. She’d need them in her next job, anyway. No way was she getting a good reference on her way out after what she’d done.

She closed her eyes again and leaned her head back against the base. “Maybe I should just go.”

“Go where?” The deep voice came out of nowhere, and Giselle nearly jumped out of her uniform.

“Fuck!” Clutching her chest, she craned her neck and looked back at the leather-clad eye-candy named Max Fletcher. He was also known in certain circles as “Maximus,” “The Dark Dom,” and, newly, “The Reason Giselle was Going to be Fired.”

He crouched at the adjacent side of the ice sculpture’s base, nudged the black mask he always wore at Den events to the top of his head, and peered up at the iceman.

He pursed his full lips and whistled low. “Damn. I hope Henri’s getting his money back. Fuckin’ thing is missing eight fingers and a cock.” He leaned back, and his brow furrowed. “Where’d his lips go?”

Giselle cringed.

“You on break?” he asked.

“A permanent one, probably,” she muttered.

“Ah, you’re always saying you’re going to get fired. I think you underestimate management’s tolerance of you. You’re practically an institution around here, Queen G. I have it on good authority that the guests think you’re nice to look at.”

She rolled her eyes. She knew exactly which parts of her the guests were looking at.

“I tried to call you last night. You didn’t answer your phones.”

She shifted and straightened up. She’d allow herself one more moment of self-pity, and then she’d go do what needed to be done. “I know. I heard them ringing. What’d you want?”

“That’s cold, honey. I always tell you when I’m going to be here.”

“You’re always here. I don’t need the warning.”

He chuckled. “You know, I don’t let most people talk back to me like that.”

“What are you going to do, spank me?” She scoffed. “I don’t need the constant reminders. Save it for your new submissive.”

“That’s uncalled for. If you need a spanking, I’ll kindly oblige.” He leaned in close and put his lips against her ear.

Her body tensed and skin prickled at his proximity. When he was that close, she could never resist him. Couldn’t say no. And it wasn’t because they played together sometimes and he had her trained in that way. It was because she was supposed to be his, but couldn’t be.

“If you’d like, I can put you over my knee right here, warm your ass, and send you on your way.”

Yes
.
Please.
“Fuck off, Max.” She scooted away from him and turned to look at the doors. Most guests of the Den of Sin Winterball Masquerade wouldn’t check in until after three, so the hotel was experiencing its pre-storm period of quiet. Staff was busy tidying rooms, preparing food for the ball, and propping up last-minute decorations. Giselle herself had been on the way back from the VIP wing where she’d been changing out room service menus.

“What’s gotten into you, G?” Max whispered.

“Nothing.” Just jealousy, rage, and delirium. Any one of those words would have worked just fine, but she didn’t need to share them with him. She was becoming too much of a stereotype already.
Batshit nutso scorned lover
.

Kind of. Technically, she wasn’t scorned so much as
dissatisfied
.

Her narrowed blue-green eyes at her and reclaimed the space she put between them. “Bullshit. I know you better than anyone, even your own mother. Don’t forget that.” He stood and held a hand out for her. “Get up. You’re going to get your uniform dirty.”

“I don’t care about the uniform.”

He crouched back down.

She turned her gaze away from his far-too-wise stare, but she could still feel it scorching her cheek.

He wasn’t going to go away.

She sighed. “What do you want, Max? I don’t want to help you break in another submissive you’re not going to keep.”

“If you’d answered your phone last night, I would have told you.”

“I can’t play with you, Max. I’m at work.” She scoffed mentally. As if being at work had ever stopped her before. More than once, he’d fucked her so hard during her lunch break that she’d spent the second half of her shift tottering on her sensible pumps. Unlike the iceman, Max Fletcher was deliciously hung and knew just how to wield that endowment.

He pulled his mask down as a couple of indistinct voices passed a nearby archway. Although every guest at the hotel’s rare Den of Sin events were required to sign contracts promising they wouldn’t disclose to the public what or whom they saw while attending, Max’s job required he maintain an extraordinarily high degree of anonymity. He had good reasons to stay off peoples’ radar. Those reasons were part of the reason why Giselle couldn’t be with him. And why she couldn’t keep playing with him just as friends, either.

“We don’t have to play here. What time do you get off? I haven’t seen you for a while. I wanted to talk to you,” he said.

“Shift’s supposed to end at five.”

“What do you mean
supposed to
?”

She groaned. Of course he would catch that nuance. He rarely missed anything. That was probably why he was such a good cop.

“Max, I…” She gritted her teeth, closed her eyes, and balled her hands into fists at her sides to stop them from shaking.
Spit it out, girl
. “Look. I did something bad. I need to tell.”

“Tell whom?”

“My supervisor. I’m going to be fired. Hell, possibly arrested. Still, I’ve got to own up to it. I don’t know what got into me.” It was a damned lie. It was very obvious that
Max
had gotten into her. He’d been working his way under her skin since they were fourteen. She couldn’t serve at another Den event knowing that Max would be downstairs with some new woman courtesy of the in-house matchmaker. She’d asked for the weekend off a month ago and had the request refused. She’d known anxiety before, but nothing like this. She didn’t know how to cope with it, and her subconscious brain hadn’t been any better at figuring it out, either.

She let him help her up.

He
helpfully
brushed the dirt off her bottom.

She slapped his hands away. “You’re such a goddamned opportunist.”

“Let me touch it when I want, and I wouldn’t have to be.”

She gave him a glare that would have made any other man’s nuts shrivel, but he was Max. The Dark Dom wasn’t so easily affected.

He winked at her. “I love your intensity.”

“Some Dom you are.”

“Since when did we play by the rules? You told me a long time ago that you weren’t interested in abiding by them.”

Her mouth and brain didn’t always work in sync. She figured he didn’t need to know what, though. “And my pussy’s just so good you’d take me any way you could get me, huh? Yeah, right. You know I don’t need theatrics and head games to get off, and you just want easy sex sometimes.”

His smile drew in. “I’ve been telling you for years it’s not about that.”

“Whatever, Max.” Smoothing the wrinkles out of her button-down shirt, she took a bolstering breath and started toward the management offices.

Start with an apology, state what you did, and promise to pay it all back. Don’t get defensive.

She already knew she was going to have trouble with that last part.

Max followed closely on her heels.

She turned, and he stopped just before his hard chest squashed her breasts. “Dammit, don’t you need to go track down your weekend toy?”

“No, she happens to be two centimeters from me.”

“Fuck you, Max.”

“That’s what I’m trying to get you to do, amongst other things. When you get off, you can come with me.”

“I’m going to get fired. The very last thing I need is to hang around here and get fucked by the Dark Dom. It’s highly likely I’m going to get escorted off the premises.”

“Shit, G, just what did you do?”

She put her hands up. “I don’t want to talk about it right now.” She turned and continued toward the offices. “Call me later if you’re not too busy plowing someone.”

“I already told you I’m not plowing anyone tonight. I came here to see you since you don’t take my calls anymore. I begged off work this weekend so I could be here.”

She stopped again, but didn’t turn.

He said no to work?

She didn’t know that was allowed. Then again, she wasn’t
exactly
sure for whom he worked. She’d previously assumed he was self-employed, but certain clues hinted at otherwise. Whether he worked for the government or some private agency, she didn’t know. Didn’t
want
to know. She just knew he’d been shot enough times to convince her that chances were excellent that one day he was going to be killed on the job. Just like her father.

Her brain started that nauseating spinning again. She closed her eyes tight.

God, don’t want to think about that.

She didn’t want to think about how her father had been shipped home in a box and how her mother still hadn’t recovered.

“Y-you…took off work?” she asked.

“I did.”

“You’ve never done that before.”

“I can learn new tricks outside of fetish clubs, Queen G.”

“Squash that noise.”

She started walking again, and tried her damnedest to ignore Max at her heels. If he thought he was going to follow her all the way to Ms. Gibson’s office and listen to her lay it all out, he had another think coming.

She passed reception and kept up her pace as she strode down the hallway where the offices were situated. The dull thud of Max’s boots hitting the ground behind her had ceased, and she turned her head just enough to verify he hadn’t followed.

She stopped in front of the general manager’s office, took a deep breath, smoothed her white skirt, and knocked.

Nothing.

She checked her watch and pulled off her sodden right glove.

Where else might Ms. Gibson be this time of day?

Ms. Gibson normally took lunch in her office or on the go. The consummate perfectionist took the idea of a working lunch to a whole new level.

Giselle knocked once more to the same response. Relief loosened fear’s hold on her heart, and her tense shoulders fell to their natural position.

“Ms. Gibson is unavailable.”

Giselle nearly leapt out of her boring uniform pumps at the sound of the familiar, cultured voice. She grimaced, but fixed her expression before turning to face Henri Beaudelaire.

The hotel owner held the end of his pearlescent, white, paisley-patterned tie between his finger and thumb and stared at it.

For as long as she’d been working at the hotel, she’d never seen the elegant man wear the same tie more than once. Then again, she didn’t see much of Mr. Beaudelaire. He didn’t show his face much in the service kitchen, and her department manager or Ms. Gibson usually led her staff meetings.

Giselle’s mouth opened, then she closed it wordlessly. She never knew if she should curtsy, salute, or abase herself at his feet. He tended to put off a sort of
I could dominate you if I gave a shit about you
vibe that even Max couldn’t manage.

Mr. Beaudelaire tucked his tie into his white vest and lifted one dark eyebrow.

She must have looked nuttier than her aunt Minnie-May’s special pecan pie.