Read The Bad Boys of Eden Online
Authors: Avery Aster,Opal Carew,Mari Carr,Cathryn Fox,Eliza Gayle,Steena Holmes,Adriana Hunter,Roni Loren,Sharon Page,Daire St. Denis
The Bad Boys of Eden (95 page)
Daire St. Denis
Tessa Savage has traveled all over the world but she has never been to Eden. Will she accept the invitation from the mysterious tycoon that could change her life? Join Tessa in this sensually charged tale of domination and submission, Tantra and time travel.
Copyright 2015 Daire St. Denis
Table of Contents
My name is Tessa Savage and I believe in love…the end.
Okay, my editor says that’s not enough. She says I’m supposed to tell you a little bit about myself. Who I am and who I’m not. I guess that’s fair, seeing as you’re the one who is about to read my story.
The first thing you should know about me is that I have no fixed address; I travel the world for business and…pleasure. While I believe in happily ever after—for others—it is not what I’m about. As a self-proclaimed polyamorist, I believe in experiencing love over and over again with as many partners as possible.
This is
not
a story about one guy and one girl who, despite all odds, find a way to be together for life. If that’s what you want, you may wish to look elsewhere. No hard feelings.
If you’re looking for a story with fun sexual banter, plenty of scorching hot sex (with one or more hot dudes), told with some intense emotions, then this is the story for you!
While each story concludes with some sort of resolution it may not be the happily ever after you’re used to. But, if you’re adventurous, daring, and are looking for something a little different with an ending that might be satisfying while unexpectedly bitter-sweet, then turn the page…
Happy Reading!
Tessa Savage
PS: If this is a SAVAGE INTERACTIVE, you get to choose how the story ends and who I get to be with, which is so much fun because sometimes it means I get to have
both guys
…at once! (
How to Choose a Cowboy anyone
?)
PPS: If badass bikers are your thing, check out
How to Debauch a Biker
. If you’re interested in a story about a Greek Tycoon vs. a hot young Adonis, check out
How to Train a Lover
. So many men, so little time!
My name’s Tessa Savage, and although I believe in monogamy—for the grey wolf—it sure as hell doesn’t work for me. I’ve tried. Let’s just say it was a failed experiment, a story for another time.
Now I live my life according to my natural instincts, embracing the lifestyle of ninety-seven percent of all other mammals—you know, the ninety-seven percent who are polyamorous.
I’ve never been happier. Particularly today. Know why? One word…
Monte Carlo.
Okay, I guess that’s two words. But it’s one place…and what a place it is. Monte Carlo is a feast for the senses, the playground of the rich and famous, a study in excess and politics.
The best thing about Monte Carlo is that no one knows me. Though I blend in with the wealthy masses because of my Vera Wang strapless gown and the borrowed jewels around my neck, I’m still a nobody. Completely insignificant.
Know what that means? It means I get to people watch to my heart’s content, and let me tell you, it is fascinating. Take the couple we shared a box with at the opera. Edward Kohl, president of one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in Europe, and his mistress, British fashion model Celia Moore. I have to wonder if their quiet discussion about engaging in a threesome later that night was for our benefit or theirs. I’m thinking the fact they couldn’t agree on whether the third should be male or female means the former.
When I say
we
shared a box, I guess I need to explain. I’m not here by myself, though it sort of feels like it. I’m here with Tal. Or rather, El Talal Bin Ahmed. He’s some sort of prince from Dubai. Or is it the United Arab Emirates? Could be Egypt. I don’t know. He’s Middle Eastern and, unfortunately for him, he’s also gay, which forces him so far into the closet he’s got mothballs in the cuffs of his Armani trousers.
“Don’t forget,” he whispers after the opera, as we make our way across the sumptuous marble lobby of the Hotel de Paris. “No flirting. You’re mine.”
I guess that means no threesome fun for Tessa tonight. Unless Tal is willing to share. “So, does that mean you’re inviting me to join you and Alejandro tonight?”
He smiles and nods at a distant cousin whose family relocated to Monaco thirty years ago. “Of course not,” he says barely above a whisper. “Alejandro is mine. You need to
look
like you’re mine.”
I stop and move in front of him. He’s not the tallest man, but he is handsome and very well groomed. Though I wouldn’t be opposed to sharing him with another man, Tal is not the least bit interested in me.
Pity.
I stroke his cheek and kiss him.
He practically gags into my mouth. “What are you doing?” He turns from my lips.
“Alejandro is waiting upstairs. I’m making a scene so we can skip cocktails and run up to the room as if we can’t keep our hands off each other.”
He bends his head, our foreheads touching. From a distance, it must create quite an intimate picture. At the very least, I’m hoping it looks as though we are two people very much in lust.
Which we totally are not.
“How did you know?”
“You fidgeted the whole way through
La Boheme
.”
“Sorry.” His eyes flash. “I couldn’t help it. Did you see that man’s ass last night?”
“In the tights? Yes. Hard to miss.”
Alejandro is a member of Les Ballets de Monte Carlo. Last night Tal and I enjoyed
Carmen
, where Alejandro played Don Jose. Holy shit, is that man ripped. The little tights he wore left nothing—and I mean nothing!—to the imagination.
I’m semi-turned on just thinking about the dancer, so I can only imagine how Tal feels. I tug him in the direction of the private elevator and the attendant recognizes us. Within seconds we’re aboard and the elevator is on its way to the penthouse suite.
I sigh with great exaggeration. “That man of yours has a body to die for.”
With my arm linked through his, Tal tells me to keep my mouth shut by pinching the tender skin of my upper arm. It’s hard not to snicker. I know I’m being bad, but I can’t help it. Teasing Tal is so crazy easy.
Once we get off the elevator and the doors close behind us, Tal turns to me. “Please. Do not speak of, ‘my man’, in front of anyone. Even the help.”
The help?
Honestly. Despite how well we get along, sometimes I forget how different my life is from Tal’s. While I grew up in a series of foster homes, he grew up in a palace—an actual palace—with hordes of servants. He's got half a dozen palatial residences around the world. I have
no
residence—well, apart from a vacation home in Greece I haven't visited since I bought it.
Not that I don't have enough socked away to afford a place or three of my own. Still, Tal has
way
more money than me. He’s probably got more than the GDP of a good number of nations.
He also has an enormous family to answer to.
The only person I answer to is myself.
Not only is it hard to imagine living his life, it’s hard to relate. So, when he exhibits this sense of entitlement—as he is right now—I retaliate the only way I know how.
“I promise,” I say, drawing a cross over my heart, “If you let me have a glimpse of Alejandro, you know, up close and personal,
sans
clothing, I will be good.”
“No.”
“You’re so greedy,” I complain as he opens the door to the suite.
With the door open, I can hear soft, classical music playing and a husky voice calls out, “Tala? Is that you?”
“Yes,” Tal replies. He steps in front of me, facing me while turning his back to the open doorway.
“What?”
He regards me with one part snootiness and two parts lusty impatience. “Promise me you’ll behave.”
“Of course I will. I’m just teasing. You know that.”
“I know.” He smiles, but it looks tight. Then he glances quickly into the suite behind him. “This is such a…delicate matter.”
I pat his chest, trading in my mischievousness for solemnity. “I know. I’ll keep my end of the bargain, I promise.”
He takes a deep breath and his shoulders relax. This time when he smiles, it’s legit and not the practiced one he’s been using all night. Reaching into his coat pocket, he removes his billfold and from inside takes out a slip of paper. “Here, you can use this at the casino. I’ll text you when it’s safe to return.”
I glance at the slip and nearly choke on my spit. “Are you kidding me?” I wave the slip in his face. “Tal, I’m doing this as a favor. You don’t need to pay me. And even if you did?
This
is excessive.” I press the draft for fifty thousand euros back into his hand.
He takes the slip and then my clutch and deposits the draft inside. “You are my girlfriend—for all intents and purposes—so you must act like my girlfriend at all times.” With fingers beneath my chin, he tilts my face up. “That means no flirting, Miss Savage.” He tweaks my nose. “I know that will be difficult for you. But I can’t have people thinking my girlfriend is out flirting with other men while I’m up in my suite working.”
I place a hand over my heart in mock indignation. “Me? Flirt? I can’t believe you’d say such a thing.”
His response is a single arched brow.
“Okay. Okay. No flirting for a couple more days.”
“Three days, Tess. Three.” He holds up three fingers. “No drinks with men. No talking intimately with men. I don’t even want you looking at men. Do you understand?”
“Yes, master,” I say, doing an exaggerated bow.
Luckily, Tal’s sense of humor has returned and he laughs.
I grin back. “Look,” I say, straightening his necktie, “I told you I’d help you and I will. Besides, I’m off men at the moment.”
He catches my hand against his chest. His eyes narrow. “No women either. I know you, Tessa Savage. No cock and no pussy.”
I groan. “Well, that’s no fun.” Going up on tiptoes, I kiss his cheek. “I promise I’ll be good.” I glance over his shoulder at the half-open door. “Now, you’ve got a very hot dancer in there who has been waiting patiently for you. Go have some fun.” I hold up my clutch. “I’m going to see how long it takes me to lose this money of yours.”
“Take your time.”
“Might not be as long as you think. I’ve got a terrible poker face, or so I’m told.”
He squeezes my hand. “Thank you, Tessa.”
* * *
I’m not sure what Talal thinks he owes me. I’m pretty sure fifty thousand euros is more than enough payment for the minor favor of pretending to be his girlfriend for a long weekend. But then, I don’t know what it’s like to come from a wealthy fundamentalist Muslim family and to be gay and trying desperately to hide it. So perhaps in Tal’s world, fifty thousand is nothing. Of course I can’t forget the oodles of dough he spent on my wardrobe, our meals, and the fact that last night I was whisked away for a full spa treatment that went until the wee hours—amazing what people will do when you drop a wad of cash—in order to give Tal and Alejandro some alone time in the suite after the ballet. Tonight our cover is that Tal has to work and I’m pretending to be the bored girlfriend spending money in the casino.
So that’s where I head, back down to the lobby and a short walk across the Avenue de Monte Carlo to the Casino de Monte Carlo. Though I am accustomed to working with large sums of money, I’m not particularly used to carrying them around—vestiges of my unsettled youth, I guess—and I automatically feel guilty, like the money isn’t mine. Which, of course, it isn’t. Maybe that’s what’s making me feel weird. I don’t typically accept thousands of dollars from friends as gifts.
However, the man behind the cage doesn’t seem fazed by my flushed features as he scrutinizes my passport photo with a detached expression, not even batting an eye at the sum on the money draft Tal gave me, which is perhaps even more revealing than the actual sum. He doesn’t give me chips, but rather assigns me a private cashier, whose name is Olivier. While I wait for Olivier to arrive, I take in the opulent surroundings—yellow marble with massive pillars topped in gold leaf, a stained glass ceiling and frescoes painted by masters. Coming from America, where casinos are all lights, glitz and noise, this place is more like a museum or an art gallery. I feel like I need to speak in hushed tones and should be wearing one of those headsets for a self-guided tour of the place.
The cathedral-like atmosphere of the casino is soothing and by the time Olivier appears and directs me to a private salon, I am feeling ready for whatever the evening has in store. Once we pass the security at the entrance, it’s like we’ve entered a different world. Quieter. Posher. Watchful. The private salon is all done in dark wood and gold. Relief carvings decorate the arched ceiling where massive chandeliers hang. Tal brought me here last night but we didn’t stay very long, just long enough for him to play a few rounds of roulette so he would be ‘seen with me’ before we headed up to our room to allegedly ‘get it on’.
“Where would you like to start?” Olivier uses his chin to sweep the room.
I glance around at the tables. The only games I recognize are roulette and blackjack. While I sort of played roulette last night—Tal played for me while I fawned over him—the last time I played blackjack was for body shots with a smokin’ hot cowboy and I lost nearly every round. Checking out the patrons in the salon, these folks don’t look like the body shot crowd. The women are all wearing the kind of gowns that make me realize the ten grand Tal dropped on my form-fitting Vera Wang was not excessive after all. There’s a gorgeous Italian heiress who’s wearing a gown that I’m pretty sure is studded with real diamonds. All the men are in tuxes or expensive versions of formal attire from their home countries. I’m surrounded by a veritable United Nations of Who’s Who and I recognize the CEO of Toyota sitting at a blackjack table across from an oil baron from Russia whose name escapes me at the moment
“What are these games?” I point to the tables I don’t recognize.
“Punto Banco and Chemin de Fer. Are you familiar with either? They are similar to Baccarat.”
“No, I’m not familiar with them.” I glance around the room again, feeling a little lost. “Maybe we can watch first.”
Tilting his head in that mannerism that is strictly French, he says, “In here there is no watching. You must play or sit at the bar.” He indicates the private bar with a nod.
There is only one man sitting at the bar and he is surrounded by a knot of women. All young, slim, model-esque girls. Our eyes meet and he lifts his glass in my direction like we know one another. A trickle of cold air runs down my bare back as I narrow my eyes at him. The words, ‘someone just walked over your grave’ whisper inside my head.
I have an irrational urge to go over to the bar, shoo the girls away and take a seat. My fingers twitch with the illogical desire to run my hands over the man’s tux, to feel the heat from his muscular chest, the one I know is hiding beneath all that formal wear. To relieve him of his bowtie…
“Mademoiselle?” Olivier breaks the strange trance I’m in by repeating his question about where I’d like to start.
Averting my eyes from the gaze of the man across the room, I turn toward Olivier. “How about roulette?”