“It’s a majorette’s uniform,” Lyssa corrected.
“Lonnie sure seems to like it.” Ben chuckled. “Must be all the chains.”
“She does love her nipple chains,” Vance agreed.
“That’s why I built a pair into the inside of the bodice.” Her grin widened at both men’s raised eyebrows. “Any of the chains on the front can be used to tug on the nipple chain inside. See the three on the front of the skirt’s yoke?”
Vance tilted his head in thought. “You didn’t?”
“Dina said she’d begun using a clit ring, so—”
“You built one into the skirt? Interesting idea, Lyssa.” Ben’s shoulder nudged hers. His free hand slipped down to pat her knee as he nodded toward the door. “Your target has arrived, madam.”
With a simple shift on the bar stool, Lyssa faced the foyer entrance. The first thing she spotted was the distinctive silver hair on Dayton Kringle’s head. He had the appropriate nickname of the Santa Claus of San Diablo because of both his last name and his toy business, but he was only a few months younger than Mike. It took a decided effort to squash the temptation to dart out the door behind him. Lyssa cursed the sudden unease clouding her mind with doubts.
Damn it, I need to get past this obsession with Mike
. She shook off the urge to turn away and forced herself to watch Dayton move through the crowd.
His broad shoulders stretched the seams of his white tuxedo jacket, and the black trousers emphasized his muscular thighs. His deep blue eyes scanned the guests mingling in the lounge before he looked toward the dining area on the opposite side of the room.
Lyssa smoothed her sweaty palms down her skirt and hoped he wasn’t searching for anyone in particular. She swallowed the last of her soda, set the glass on the bar, and slipped off the bar stool. “Wish me luck.”
“Luck,” both men offered in unison.
She refused to allow the unease she spotted in Ben’s gaze to infect her as she moved away. It had only taken one night with Mike for her to conceive four years ago. This time it would be intentional. She wanted a baby, and tonight was just the first step. By Christmas she hoped she’d be happily puking up breakfast and looking for stretch marks.
Chapter Two
Hot water washed over Mike Halsey’s shoulders, cleansing his skin but doing little to erode the psychological filth coating his mind. The grit and sand were long gone, left behind in the shower of a hotel in Dubai. Even with the blood scrubbed away, he could still feel it smeared across his hands, splattered over his face. He shoved the thoughts aside. The transatlantic flight and layovers factored into his tiredness, but the images imprinting themselves against his closed eyelids exhausted him. He knew the instant his head hit the pillow, rest wouldn’t come.
He reached for the faucet and twisted the water off before he tugged the towel from the rod and scraped it over his skin. The hypocrisy he encountered through the lens of his camera turned his stomach. People donning masks to hide the darkest sides of their nature. The flashy, charming smiles that twisted so easily into sneers.
Mike shook off the irritation and annoyance burning through him. He was home now. What he’d seen, photographed, and witnessed on this last mission made it all that much easier to settle into semiretirement, despite the protests of his agent, Max Landry. Protests Max continued to spew every time he called Mike to try to coax him to take an assignment outside the United States. Protests echoed by Mayor, his superior in the covert agency that had recruited him over a decade ago.
Mike grimaced at the thought of the secrets he’d kept from Max, not to mention his own family, who thought he had been away visiting a friend on the East Coast. Someday he’d have the freedom to tell Bryce and his father the truth about what he really did on his travels, but he’d given his word. Mike wasn’t about to break that promise. Not yet. Not after keeping it for nearly twelve years.
He felt a wry smirk tug at his lips at how unlikely his family would be to believe him if he did tell them he’d spent nearly a dozen years working as a spy. That the weeks he was out of contact were because his talents as a photojournalist were needed to uncover and document the illegal activities of drug and gun smugglers around the world. The missed birthday parties, holidays, and canceled dinners that caused his family to give him grief about being unreliable were all a result of the international organization he worked for.
“Yeah, pull the other one, pal.” Mike snorted.
Determined to think of something other than the assignment he’d left in the Middle East and the annoying demands of his agent, Mike stepped out of the bathroom. Towel wrapped around his waist, he padded into his bedroom. The jangle of his cell phone echoed off the high ceiling of the warehouse apartment. He scooped the phone from the nightstand and flipped it open. “Halsey.”
“How soon are you going to get here?”
“David?” The distinctive deep voice could only belong to David Henderson. “What do you mean ‘get here’? Get where?”
The chuckle vibrated through the phone. “Well, my man, I’m talking about the masquerade at the Club.”
“I haven’t been to a Midnight Masquerade in—”
“Three years,” David finished for him. “I would suggest you change whatever plans you made for tonight. Unless you want Kringle to mark your lady?”
“What?” Even as he responded, Mike moved toward the walk-in closet. “Why is Lyssa at the Club?”
“You send her an invitation every year.”
“And she tears it up and mails it back to me every year,” Mike returned. He found his tuxedo stuffed in the back, still wrapped in the cleaner’s bag. He stepped back into the bedroom and stripped off the towel. His heart rate increased, and the heat in his balls stirred, animating his cock at the thought of publicly reclaiming his woman.
“Well, it seems like she’s decided to use the invite this time. And she’s looking for a master, my friend. Has the white bracelet and is dressed like a cherry red Christmas elf, leaving no one in doubt as to whom she’s selected for the job.”
“Red elf?” Mike tamped down the irritation that tried to rise inside him. Ripping the plastic bag away, he tossed the jacket, pants, shirt, and cummerbund of his tuxedo onto the silk duvet.
“Yup. Red dress, red heels, even a sexy red wig. Makes her look hot. Not that she doesn’t look smokin’ when she has her own hair down,” David assured him.
“Down, boy. The lady is mine.” The warning was clear in his voice.
“Just trying to compliment your good taste.”
“Don’t. How long has she been there?” Mike glanced at the clock. It was half past ten. Depending on traffic and lights, he’d probably make it to the Club by eleven, leaving an hour before the masquerade concluded and masters paired off with their selected submissives.
“Just got here. And the bartender and his doctor friend have been chatting her up since she arrived.”
“Keep them occupied. I’ll be there in a bit.”
“Better make it quick. Kringle just walked in and is already taking notice. As are a few others in the room.” Reluctant honesty filled the other man’s voice as he admitted, “I wouldn’t mind getting a taste of her myself.”
“Back off, Henderson; she’s already been claimed. And I don’t share.”
David’s rumble of laughter was full of humor, but Mike was sure he heard a hint of disappointment there as well. “That’s mean, man, that’s just—”
Mike cut the other man’s protest off as he snapped the cell phone closed and tossed it onto the bed.
Hands on his hips, Mike stared down at the formal wear covering his bed.
Soft skin, heated kisses, the wet sounds of two bodies coming together in the dark, cramped confines of a supply closet.
“Say it, Lys.” His voice was harsh, guttural with the need flooding his body and his determination to stay in control of both the flow of years of pent-up desire and the woman bound and waiting for him.
“Please.” Her voice cracked as she moaned, pushing toward him, desperation in her tone. The way her body arched into his touch, rubbing against the sweat-dampened skin of his chest, the scent of her arousal filling the darkened room heightened his excitement and fed the dominant within him.
“Not good enough, baby,” he taunted. His teeth nipped her lips. In the pitch-blackness of the room, he could barely make out the glitter of her eyes, but he wasn’t about to dispel the magic surrounding them by turning on a light.
“Oh God, Mike, please! I need it!” Her words caught on a sob.
“Say it, Lys. Tell me what you want
. Who
you want.” He knew his voice was cold, harsh, but he needed the words. Had to hear her finally say it. Admit to what she wanted. What she’d denied for eight years but he’d always known.
“You, Mike. I want you to fuck me.” The anger and bitterness in her admission turned the words from a plea to a demand. Shifting the power from him to her.
But not for long.
Mike shook his head at the memory. If there was one thing he’d learned in the last four years, it was never to underestimate a Lawrence woman. And never to anticipate what Lyssa Lawrence would do in any given situation. If she’d finally reached the point of acknowledging her interest in the Dominant/submissive lifestyle, he wasn’t about to let another man step into the role he’d been awaiting since the day they’d met. There was no damned way he was allowing another dom to poach the woman he’d claimed four years earlier.
“But Kringle?” He shook his head at the idea. “He’s younger than I am.” And considering how vocal she’d always been about the six years separating them, he doubted Lyssa would seriously want a man still younger.
If Lyssa thought for one second she could walk away from him, she had a few lessons to learn. This time—a growl of exasperation rolled in his throat—a quick shag in the supply closet or against the wall in the foyer of her home wasn’t going to be enough to satisfy him.
Not nearly enough.
A grin twitched the corners of his mouth. “There’s no walking away this time. No hiding. No denying her master.”
Mike reached for the tuxedo trousers and began to dress.
* * *
Lyssa watched the slow crawl of the clock’s hands as they inched toward midnight. She sipped another glass of ginger ale and allowed her gaze to meet and hold Dayton Kringle’s. The deep blue of his eyes sent a
zing
of interest through her chest, but the heat fizzled before it could go below her belly button.
I can do this, damn it. I know I can.
Her window of opportunity was dwindling fast. Everything she wanted was riding on this single night. It had to succeed.
She
needed to succeed.
When her mind conjured images of Mike Halsey’s dark hair and eyes, the sharp stab of pain made her gasp. No, a child who carried Mike’s coloring but wasn’t his was likely to create too many questions from her sister and Bryce. Not to mention stir up dreams of what might have been if… No, Lyssa determined. It was gray-haired, blue-eyed Dayton Kringle she needed.
Now all she had to do was convince him to select her when the clock struck midnight. It shouldn’t be too difficult. Her heart tripped, and the palms of her hands grew damp, making it risky to keep hold of her half-empty glass of soda. After swallowing a sip, she set it down on the small table beside the sofa she shared with Dayton and tried to pay attention to what he was saying.
Since she’d approached him, they’d chatted about various things relating to their respective businesses, movies they’d seen, authors they’d read. If it hadn’t been for the setting, Lyssa could have likened the conversation to the banal subjects discussed on a first date.
An hour. Just sixty minutes
. The litany repeated in her head as she counted down the time before the dominants selected their submissives and the parties would move into private rooms upstairs or negotiations began for public performances.
The dark-haired investigator she’d entered the Club with slipped onto the chair across from the sofa and greeted them. “Hey, Dayton, long time no see.” Turning to her, David grinned. “Hello again, Lyssa.”
“Hello.” She offered a slight nod. Unsure how to interpret the interruption, she waited to gauge how Dayton responded and ignored her internal sigh of relief at David’s arrival.
“You know Miss Lawrence?” Dayton queried, leaning back in his seat. His callused fingertips brushed over her knuckles, then moved upward to rub along the white bangle on her wrist.
Tension coiled at the base of her skull—a dull ache building with the pressure of maintaining a placid expression. With each slide of Dayton’s fingers along the white band around her wrist, Lyssa fought the urge to pull her hand away. Thoughts of the plan she’d carefully constructed kept her from acting on the impulse. She ignored the signals her body kept sending—that the touch wasn’t
his
, that it didn’t feel right, that the warmth didn’t penetrate to the very atoms of her being like Mike’s did.
David nodded. “Yes. I came in with her. Plus, I remember when she and her sister first visited the Club before Mattie and Bryce married. You should recall her opposition to Bryce carrying off her sister. It garnered a few members’ attention.”
The flash in David’s eyes hinted that he knew the outcome between her and Mike the night she tried to stop Bryce from taking her sister upstairs. But before Lyssa could react, David returned his attention to Dayton and continued.
“We didn’t formally meet though until her sister’s collaring ceremony.” He turned a grin on her and gave her a slow wink. “I was wondering if you were going to keep close to Ben and Vance tonight, but I guess you’ve decided to venture out a bit, huh?”
“I’m thinking about it.” Lyssa hoped her face didn’t reflect the panic swirling in her belly. If either of these men alluded to the way Mike had dragged her off the night of her first visit to the Club, she wasn’t sure how she would respond.
“You haven’t come in with them in a while,” David remarked.
Damn it, she needed to get Dayton alone to persuade him to select her tonight. “I didn’t realize my visits had become that notable.” She employed every bit of self-control to keep her voice steady.