Emergence: Bound To Be Tested Part 30

Enjoy the following excerpt for Bound to be Tamed: The snick of Dane and Aiden's apartment door behind Stephanie's back resonated like a gunshot in her mind. She leaned into the solid wood and stared at her feet. Her heart pounded so hard and so fast her ears rang.

Had she made the right decision coming to this penthouse apartment this morning, giving herself over to two s.e.xy men who proposed training her to be their full-time sub?

After the toughest weekend of her life, she now stood before her two Doms with fear traveling up her spine until her body shook. And man, did the two of them ever look hot. They were dressed in worn jeans and T-shirts, but since she usually only saw them ready for work, they were mouthwatering this morning.

Dane spoke first. "Are you sure? You can still leave."

She shook her head. She couldn't leave. In fact, she had no idea why she'd spent the weekend fretting over the decision. There was only one choice.

The nail-biting, pacing and exasperating struggle to quit her job and choose these two men over her previous life had all been a result of preconceived notions that there was something inherently wrong with this choice.

Who in their right mind gives up their free will to another human being, or two?

The answer? Someone who recognizes the amazing freedom total submission brings to her life.

"Please, come sit down," Aiden said. "You look petrified."

Stephanie released her grip on the door behind her. She'd flattened her hands against the wood as though she could hold on to the outside world for one more minute with physical contact to the barrier. Or perhaps her molecules could seep through the thick door and back out into the corridor where she'd previously stood for twenty minutes, building up the courage to knock.

Gaze still lowered, Stephanie slid her purse from her shoulder and set it on the small table next to the door. She then stepped farther into the room, shuffled really. Her feet barely registered the commands from her brain.

She knew enough about what this arrangement would entail to be both confident and terrified.

After the weirdest week of her life, she was well-versed in the world of submission. However, no amount of research could possibly prepare her for the day-to-day experience she would encounter.

Stephanie sat on the edge of a leather armchair, perched with her hands on her knees. She wasn't following any rules yet. Would they give her some leeway for the first few minutes?

Neither man said a word about her stance. She breathed easy, in and out of her mouth, a desperate attempt to slow her pounding heart.

Dane strolled out of the room and returned moments later with a clinking gla.s.s. He handed it to her. "Water. You look faint." He knelt in front of her and met her gaze.

She sipped the cool liquid, the gla.s.s shaking in her hand and threatening to spill over the sides. Dane took the precarious water from her and set it on the coffee table.

Aiden crouched next to Dane, his hand resting on Dane's shoulder. "Tell us what you've decided, Steph. We don't want you to feel pressured."

She cleared her throat, but her voice still squeaked when she spoke. "I'd like to be your sub, Sir." She glanced at Aiden. "And yours, Sir." She turned her gaze toward Dane.

"You've read the letter we left and thought about our requests then?" Dane asked.

"Yes, Sir." She gripped her knees together, something they would certainly not allow in the future. They were extreme sticklers about her thighs being open. But for now, she was safe. No one reprimanded her...yet. She clenched her p.u.s.s.y against the onslaught of arousal pulsing in her lower lips from the declaration of her submission.

Aiden continued, "We didn't come to this decision lightly. We consulted Lori Polluck, our sponsor, and came up with a plan we feel is the best fit for all of us." Aiden set his hand on her knee, stilling her bouncing leg.

Dane gripped her other knee. "Just so we're clear. We'll use this morning to negotiate a plan for your training. Lori is coming over to meet with the three of us. We want you to get to know her and use her as a resource for any questions you might have.

"Life as a full-time s.e.xual submissive is intense at first. There is so much for you to learn. Aiden and I will be learning at the same time. What we know for sure after spending the week with you is that we adore you and can't think of anything we'd rather do than include you in our lives as our submissive." Dane gripped her leg tighter.

There was only one viable choice. Submit.

As she'd spent the last forty-eight hours attempting to list all the reasons she shouldn't do this, she'd been bombarded with that one word over and over. Submit. Submit. Submit.

The s.e.xual energy she felt when those two syllables were uttered or thought was palpable. She'd never felt more alive than this past week under the care of Aiden and Dane. When they commanded, her body responded physically. A low ball of tight need lodged in her belly. Her p.u.s.s.y pulsed and squeezed with want. Her nipples hardened and abraded against whatever she wore.

h.e.l.l, when she even watched the two men interact with each other, her mouth watered. She'd never been so turned on in her life as she had seeing them f.u.c.k or suck each other off.

She would forever regret any other choice than the one to give herself to them completely and comply with their requests.

"I'm yours, Sirs."

Her temptation...his salvation.

Living in Sin 2014 Jackie Ashenden Living In..., Book 2 At twenty, Lily Andrews has already lived a lifetime. Her battle with leukemia put her three years behind her ballet career, and now that the grueling treatment is behind her, she's eager to put her dancing shoes back on-literally and figuratively.

One man has been her personal light at the end of her tunnel, the one man she's sure will help her rekindle her pa.s.sion for life. Kahu Winter. And she'll let nothing stand in the way of having him-not even Kahu himself.

When Kahu catches Lily sneaking into his club, the desire in her eyes tells him it's more than a delayed act of youthful rebellion. Her lively spirit calls to him, but Kahu is too cynical, too jaded, too broken for a sweet young thing like her.

But Lily won't take no for answer so he'll make her a deal: She's got one month to seduce him and after that, he's moving on-figuratively and literally.

There's just one thing he forgot to keep out of her reach. His heart...

Warning: This book contains a hot older man in need of some anti-cynicism pills, a snarky younger woman who's going to get past his defenses and make him beg, more forbidden l.u.s.t, and naked ballet dancing. Advanced WTFery for experienced users only.

Enjoy the following excerpt for Living in Shadow: "She's here again."

"Oh f.u.c.k, really?" Kahu Winter leaned back in his office chair and stared at Mike, the bouncer who'd been working the door at the Auckland Club for the last five years.

Mike, a huge Tongan guy who used to do a lot of pro-wrestling, folded his arms. "Yeah. And she says she wants to see you."

Since that's what she'd been saying for the past couple of nights, Kahu wasn't surprised. Jesus Christ. What a pain in the a.s.s.

He had more important things to do than f.u.c.k about dealing with Rob's daughter. The guy was Kahu's business partner and would not be happy at the thought of his twenty-year-old daughter ha.s.sling for entry into one of Auckland's most exclusive private-member's clubs.

What the h.e.l.l was she doing here? What the h.e.l.l did she want?

"That's the third time this week." Kahu threw the pen he'd been toying with back down on his desk. "And I'm getting pretty f.u.c.king sick of it."

Mike was unimpressed. "Perhaps if you go out and see what she wants, she'll go away," he pointed out.

Not what Kahu wanted to hear. Christ, the last two nights he'd paid for a taxi to take her home and if she kept this up, it was going to start getting expensive.

Of course, he could go out there and speak to her. But he liked being manipulated even less than he liked being told what to do. And he hated being told what to do. Especially when the person doing the telling was a spoiled little twenty-year-old on some mysterious mission she wouldn't talk to anyone about other than him.

Jesus, it made him feel tired. And pretty f.u.c.king old.

"G.o.dd.a.m.n. I'm going to have to speak to her, aren't I?"

Mike lifted a shoulder. "Up to you, boss."

Yeah, he was going to have to.

Cursing, Kahu shoved his chair back and got up. The work he was doing, going over the club's accounts, could wait. And he probably needed a break anyway.

In the corridor outside his office, he could hear the sounds of conversation from the Ivy Room, the club's main bar and dining area. Friday night and the place was packed with members having a post-work drink or seven.

The sound of success. Anita would have been so proud.

Yeah, but not so proud of the fact you're planning on ditching it, huh?

No, probably not. She'd left him the club thirteen years ago, when she'd first realized she was getting sick. A gift he'd promptly thrown back in her face by f.u.c.king off overseas, refusing to accept the responsibility or the reality of her illness. It had taken him five years to come to terms with it. To come back to New Zealand, to take on the club, and most importantly, to care for her. The lover who'd rescued him from the streets and given him the stars.

On the other hand, Anita was six months dead and what she didn't know wouldn't hurt her.

As he approached the club's entrance-a vaulted hallway with stairs leading to the upper floors, a parquet floor, and a chandelier dominating the s.p.a.ce like a ma.s.sive, glittering sun-people greeted him. Since he granted all memberships to the club personally, he knew everyone. Some more than others, of course, but he prided himself on the fact that he knew everyone's names at least.

He ostentatiously kissed the hand of a politician's wife, slapped the back of a well-known actor, air-kissed with a socialite and shook hands with an awestruck n.o.body. But then that's what the Auckland Club was like. n.o.bodies and somebodies, all mixing together. It appealed to his sense of irony. And, f.u.c.k, it was a nice distraction if nothing else.

Kahu pushed open the big blue door that was the club's famous entrance and stood in the doorway, looking down the stairs to the sidewalk. There were no lines of people waiting to get into the club since it was members only, but tonight a lone figure sat on the bottom step, her back to him.

It was mid-winter and cold, his breath like a dragon's, a white cloud in the night.

Not as cold as London, though.

A random memory drifted through his head, of the European "cultural" trip with Anita. Of being in London in February during a snowstorm, and she'd tried to insist on going to some kind of cla.s.sical music concert at Covent Garden. He'd seduced her in their fancy Claridges hotel room instead and they'd spent the rest of the evening in bed, away from the storm and the cold...

Kahu let out another cloudy breath, trying to shake the memories away.

He'd grieved when Anita had died. But the woman in that chair in the rest home wasn't the Anita he'd known and loved. That woman had died a long time ago.

The person sitting down on the bottom step suddenly turned and his drifting thoughts scattered. A pale, pointed face and eyes an indeterminate color between green and gray looked back at him. A familiar face.

Lily.

He knew her, of course. Had known her since she was about five years old, her father Rob being a close friend of Anita's, and who'd managed the club while Kahu had been sulking overseas. Who'd become a valued business partner since.

A quiet, watchful girl who stayed out of the way and did what she was told, if he remembered right. He hadn't seen her for five years, though, and clearly things had changed. Namely that she didn't do as she was told anymore.

Lily stood and turned around. She was wearing a black duffel coat, the hood pulled up against the cold, and dark skinny jeans, a pair of Chuck Taylors covered with Union Jacks on her feet. And a very determined look on her face.

"Lily Andrews, as I live and breathe," Kahu said lazily, standing in the doorway of his club and crossing his arms. "Does your father know you've been sitting on the steps of my club for the past three nights straight?"

Her hands pushed into the pockets of her coat, brows the color of bright flames descending into a frown. "If you'd spoken to me earlier it wouldn't have been three nights."

"I have a phone. Though perhaps young people these days don't use such outdated technology."

"What I want to ask you is better done in person."

"That sounds portentous. Come on then, don't keep me in suspense. What do you want?"

She didn't speak immediately, her mouth tightening, her eyes narrowing. As if she was steeling herself for something.

Jesus, whatever it was it had better be good. He had s.h.i.t to do.

After a brief, silent moment, Lily walked up the steps, coming to stand in front of him. The light coming from the club's doorway shone directly on her face. She wore no makeup, her skin white, almost translucent and gleaming with freckles like little specks of gold. She looked sixteen if she was a day.

"Can I come in? I don't want to ask you out here."

"What, into the club? Sorry, love, but it's members only."

She shifted restlessly on her feet. "So can I be a member then?"

"Are you kidding? You think I just hand out membership to any fool that comes to my door?"

Her forehead creased into a scowl. "I'm not a fool."

"If you're not a fool, then you'll understand that there's a reason it's taken me three days to speak to you."

"I just want to ask you a question. Nothing else."

"Then send me an e-mail or a text like any normal teenager. Now, if you don't mind, I have a few things I-"

"I'm not a teenager, for Christ's sake. And what I want to talk to you about is...personal."

Kahu leaned against the doorframe, eyeing her. "If it's personal then why aren't you talking to your dad or a friend or whatever? You hardly know me."

Rob had been Anita's lawyer as well as her friend. Kahu had met him in the context of dinners, where Anita had brought Kahu along and he'd sat there silently at the table while she and Rob talked, unable to join in because he didn't know what the f.u.c.k they were talking about-the dumb, uneducated Maori kid from the streets.

Sometimes at those dinners Lily had been there, a small seven-year-old with big eyes, whom he'd ignored mainly because she was a child and he had nothing to say to a privileged white kid from Remuera, born with a silver spoon in her mouth.

Then, after he'd come back from overseas and had reconnected with Rob over the management of the Auckland Club, he'd sometimes see her as he talked business with her father. A slender teen with a sulky mouth, who appeared to lurk permanently in the hallway whenever he arrived or left, big gray-green eyes following him when she thought he wouldn't notice.

She'd grown up a bit since then, the rounded features of adolescence morphing into the more defined lines of adulthood. But that mouth of hers was still sulky and she was still small and slender. And her eyes were still wide and big as they met his.

"Yeah, I realize that. But..." She shifted again, nervous. "What I want to ask concerns you in particular."

He raised an eyebrow. "Me, huh? Well, spit it out then."

A crowd of people came up the steps behind her, laughing and talking. Kahu moved out of the way as they approached the door, greeting them all by name and holding out his arm to usher them inside.

Once they'd all gone in, he turned back to Lily, who remained standing there with her hands in the pockets of her coat, glaring at him almost accusingly.

He could not, for the life of him, work out what her problem was, but one thing was for sure: he was getting b.l.o.o.d.y sick of standing there while she continued to dance around the subject.

"Okay," he said, glancing at his watch. "You've got ten seconds. If you haven't told me what you're doing here by then, I'm going to go inside and ring your father, and ask him to come and get you."

"All right, Jesus," Lily muttered. "You don't have to be such a d.i.c.k about it."

Kahu refrained from rolling his eyes. "Ten, nine, eight, seven..."