Bound to Please(3)

Ignoring the way her pulse skipped at the thought of going back to the fetish shop, she went on. “I can be your tour guide into the wonderful underworld of kink! Where every perversion is at your fingertips!” She punctuated her sentence with a quick snap!

That snap seemed really loud because Meg had gone oddly quiet, looking over Ruby’s shoulder. Ruby slowly turned to follow Meg’s gaze, and for some reason the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end.

Emmett was staring at her as if she’d grown a second head. And beside him was one of the most gorgeous men Ruby had ever seen. Tall, lean, with a bad-boy gleam in his deep brown eyes. He’d obviously heard her, but the only thing that gave him away was the nearly imperceptible tilt at the corner of his luscious mouth.

Tour guide into the wonderful underworld of kink!?

Fuck. A. Duck.





Chapter

Two

Ruby, meet Mark St. Crow. He’s the head of the Dark Riders.” Emmett gave her a look that she knew meant Kiss his ass.

And her first thought was Okay! If you insist. Because the man standing before her made her heart race. Made her feel all tingly and they hadn’t even spoken yet.

His head was shaved and gleamed in the dim light, clean and shiny. She’d never been with a bald man; she wondered how the skin would feel beneath her fingers, if she’d be able to trace the bones of his skull. Her fingers curled at the thought.

She uncurled them and held out her hand. “Nice to meet you.” Their palms met and her pulse jumped.

She took her hand back.

Young. He looked so very young. But, at thirty-seven, it seemed everyone got younger every day.

He gazed at her through black-rimmed glasses. Damn. She’d always had a thing for glasses on a man. She’d had a serious crush on an art history professor in college who wore them. At night, she’d study nineteenth-century Italian paintings, then go to bed and think of him as she used her hot-pink bullet vibrator.

For fuck’s sake, don’t think about that!

“Ruby. Do you know there are at least forty songs with your name in the title?” Mark asked.

“Um, actually I didn’t. So you get points for an original twist on an old line.” She cringed. Why had she said that? She could almost feel Emmett’s censure, but when she turned she discovered he, along with Meg, had vanished.

She looked back to see Mark raising a brow over those bloody glasses. “So are you saying I’m not original?”

“I don’t know yet. Can you name all the songs?” Was she flirting? That sounded like flirting.

“Probably. But I want to get paid for my talents. Fortunately, I work cheap. A beer ought to cover it. I’ll even get it myself.”

She raised a hand to protest. “That’s really not necces—”

“Be right back.”

She watched him walk away. Tall and sinewy, his black T-shirt showed off a solid torso, and the short sleeves gave her a nice view of well-defined, tattoo-covered arms. Faded, low-slung jeans—not too tight—wrapped around long legs that carried his form with a confidence that drew her attention. He looked too young for that kind of confidence. So young he could get away with leather bands circling both his wrists and make it look hot.

In fact, he had a lot of leather on his body. Bracelets, belt, boots. All black, all worn. The sight of all that leather sent a thrill through her, which she quickly stomped down.

Now he was walking back across the room with his gaze fixed on her. Like she was some kind of target, like he was some kind of predator. Hell, he probably was. Young, gorgeous, talented. She’d go down like a gazelle under a lion’s attack.

He handed her a chocolate martini, and she could swear she smelled the leather from his bracelets. Which made her remember the wall of leather at the sex shop. There was a specific smell to this type of leather. Woodsy, freshly cut. Sexy.

No, no. Don’t think about that…

But of course she did. She thought about the time she’d gone with Ash to the fetish store to purchase suspension equipment. Ruby had been drawn to the wall of floggers and paddles and other mysterious implements; her palms had dampened as she approached all that leather. Nervous and excited just to see the tools, all lined up in neat, erotic rows. She’d wondered how the leather would feel striking her skin. Would it sting a lot? Or a little? Would she like it? Her hand had trembled as she ran her finger over the soft strands of a buckskin flogger.

“You like them?”

“W-what?”

Mark shook his wrist. “These. You were staring at them.”

“No. I mean yes. They’re lovely.” Lovely?

That damn brow of his went higher.

She felt hot. All over. Which compelled her to take a calming sip of the drink he’d handed her. As a rule, she didn’t drink at her own events, but so far she’d broken her own rule twice in one night. First with Meg, now with Mark. Mark something St. Crow.