Master in Melbourne

by Sindra van Yssel

  Master in Melbourne

  Sindra van Yssel

  In Australia to get a break from an abusive ex-husband whose obsession has turned to stalking, the last thing Zoe is looking for is another relationship involving whips and chains. But then she runs into former Australian football player Nick Carrady. He’s sexy and the perfect gentleman—and a Dom. And Zoe’s submissive longings are reemerging—the ones that got her into so much trouble in the first place back in Texas. Fortunately all Nick can ever be is a hot, kinky vacation fling.

  Nick finds the little American sub hot as hell. Her past means he has to be careful as he pushes her limits, but he has only a little time for bondage, flogging and sexual healing before she heads back to Texas. He has to convince her that the past doesn’t have to dictate her future, and hope that his passion and skill as a dominant lover can overcome her history and the ten thousand miles that’s about to come between them.

  MASTER IN MELBOURNE

  Sindra van Yssel

  Chapter One

  Zoe Calder sighed and stuck another coin into the slot machine at the Crown Casino. She’d set herself a limit of twenty Australian dollars, but she was considering going over. It was only money, after all, not that she had a lot of that to spare. But the machine did take credit cards. And hell, she’d spent nearly that buying drinks at the bar.

  She’d come to Australia on something of a lark, ostensibly to do a little family history research. Her great-great-great-grandfather had gone to Australia from California in the 1850s, trying to strike it rich in the Victoria gold rush after making a modest but unspectacular living as a prospector for a few years stateside. In Australia, he’d gotten himself into trouble, as usual, running afoul of the authorities over gold licenses. Only a timely night out drinking had kept him from being at Ballarat with the other miners the fateful Sunday morning when troops had stormed the stockade. A score of protesting diggers died in the aftermath, and others became heroes, but Norman Calder had ended up a footnote.

  “On such little events does life turn,” Zoe muttered to herself dramatically, because it was something she could imagine Norman Calder saying. She pushed the button on the slot machine, her row of cherries broken by a nasty diamond. Ugh. That was it for the twenty dollars. It would be nice if just once the darn thing would go ching-ching-ching and a fistful of coins would come out. It was more fun using a five-dollar bill to pay for soda in the machine at the grocery store.

  Still, this is supposed to be fun. I have rotten luck. Like meeting Stu. If only I hadn’t been stupid enough to trust him.

  The real reason she was in Australia was to get herself as far away as possible from Stu Reston, her ex-husband. A restraining order hadn’t been enough, but he’d never find her in Melbourne. The only people who knew she was there were her parents, and she hadn’t told them the real reason because they looked at her with disbelief when she tried to tell him what Stu was doing.

  She’d seen his car parked across the street late at night, the glow of a cigarette letting her know of his presence and reminding her of the burns she’d suffered at his hand. BDSM, he claimed, but it went way past that, and there was nothing safe, sane or consensual about it toward the end. Maybe there never really was. She veered back and forth between blaming herself and blaming him, but he was a bit unhinged from the get-go. That was part of what had made him enticing, dangerous and mysterious to a younger, more foolish version of herself.

  There was a part of her that had wanted some of it, but it had gone way too far, and she wasn’t ever going to trust that part of her again. The bruises had faded. She still had a few scars on the outside, and plenty on the inside.

  An old man with lifeless eyes sat down next to her and started feeding the slots.

  She got up to get another drink, and maybe a few more dollar coins so she could have a few more chances to get lucky. She didn’t want to sit next to the old man, who looked as if he should be putting his money into new clothes rather than a slot machine. He didn’t smell so good either. I could sit down somewhere else and still play.

  Nah. Wasn’t that my mistake? Making what I knew was the wrong choice, but hoping it would work out anyway? The thought stalled her from getting more coins, but didn’t deter her from the drink. Her hotel wasn’t that far away, a short little tram ride. She had a daily pass in her pocket. All she needed to be able to do was stagger. She’d not gotten so much as tipsy since she ran away from Stu, but today getting totally bombed seemed an excellent idea. She headed to the bar.

  “A gin and tonic,” she informed the bartender, and regretted that too. Just what every country wants, a drunk American visiting. But the bartender made it quickly, and once it was in front of her she felt she had to pay for it. And once she paid for it, well, she figured she might as well drink it. She asked for her change in twenty-cent pieces. Not using the credit card made her feel more virtuous, and the twenty-cent machines made her money last longer.

  She finished her drink and wandered past the cluster of poker tables. They seemed to attract a better class of gamblers, although a few wore that same blank expression she saw on faces at the slots. She knew and was good at a number of card games, but she’d never learned anything much about poker, and she was pretty sure sitting down at a table and trying to pick it up would be even more foolish than playing the slots. Ditto for the baccarat table. There was an elegant woman in an evening gown there. Maybe she knew what she was doing. Everything Zoe knew about playing baccarat, which wasn’t much, came from watching Peter Sellers in the original Casino Royale movie.

  The woman’s low neckline reminded her of an ad she’d seen the night before in the alternative newspaper advertising a fetish weekend at some nightclub. It was only two blocks from her hotel. When she saw the ad she’d immediately thought that it could all be different, better, with someone else. The picture of the woman in the leather teddy, and a man with a jaunty leather hat and black straps in an X across his chest holding her around the waist, stirred something deep inside her. It started in an hour. But she’d never seen any fetish or BDSM event that admitted drunk people, and there was no way she could get sober in time. She smiled.

  I’m safe. Even from myself. Tomorrow morning I’ll get up with a headache and go do something useful, like go to the zoo.

  She headed again to the slots. The world was moving around on her, and she was getting seasick from looking at it. She closed her eyes on the escalator. The place looked snazzy, she gave it that. Chandeliers, track lighting, brass moldings. They should make all the men wear dinner jackets and all the women wear evening gowns. That would make the atmosphere match the décor. She supposed it would also drive half their business away.

  She hit the bottom of the escalator before she realized it and stumbled forward, her momentum carrying her off. She opened her eyes and tried to keep her footing, but she hadn’t completely succeeded when she hit something solid. She looked up as she felt two strong arms lift her to her feet.

  The man in front of her was tall, six foot two at least, nearly as big as Stu. His chest was broad and solid. Hell, even the stomach she’d accidentally planted an elbow in felt like a wall. His black short-sleeved collared shirt exposed indecent amounts of hard muscle. His face was handsome and tanned, and his dark hair was just long enough to hint at waviness. She stared into his dark eyes, mesmerized for a moment. She’d always had a weakness for big, strong men. It had been her undoing, but she was drunk enough not to care.

  “You’re not wearing a dinner jacket,” she told him.

  “That’s true, I’m not. I rarely am.” Nice. Smooth. Good going.

  Nick Carrady had come to Crown Casino to meet his mate Steve, but Steve hadn’t shown and wasn’t answering texts. Ty
pical. He’d watched the woman plunking coins into a twenty-cent pokie, her enthusiasm catching his eye. Her joy of life set her apart from the habitual gambling addicts. She’d gotten up a time or two to get a drink, and with each coin she put in the joy faded a little. She wasn’t gambling big money, but her experience seemed like a microcosm for the lives of the people who got hooked.

  She was curvy and a few inches shorter than the average woman, and she felt soft and cuddly against him for the brief moment he held her. Her hair was the color of honey and hung straight to her shoulders. She was obviously drunk, and from the accent, American. She was none of his business, really.

  It was hot out, a typical January day in Melbourne, and yet she wore a long-sleeved turtleneck sweater and jeans. She’d look better in a sleeveless shirt and shorts, or better yet, a skirt, and yet he’d kept watching her, fascinated, barely paying attention to the more provocatively dressed women who walked by him.

  When he’d finally decided that Steve wasn’t going to make it, he thought he’d head up and see if he could find where she went, maybe strike up a conversation. After that, who knew what might happen. He had at least an hour to kill before Kelly’s opened its doors to Indigo, the semiannual fetish event that took over the club for a couple of weekends a year. Heck, if the woman was interesting, he might skip the whole thing.

  Instead he’d spotted her coming down, obviously intoxicated, and he’d moved to the base of the escalator to catch her.

  “Sorry for running into you that way,” she said in a sweet, soft Texas drawl. “Didn’t mean to.”

  “No worries,” he said. You’re soft and pleasant, actually. Want to go again? But he wasn’t going to put a move on her, as much as he wanted to. She was way too drunk to make decisions about who to go to bed with. He should go and leave her be, but he didn’t want to. “C’mon, I’ll get you out of here.”

  “I’m gonna play the slot machines some more,” she said.

  “Slot machines? Oh, the pokies. You didn’t look like you were having much fun before, don’t you think you can give them a pass?”

  “Can if I want to. Don’t want to, though.” She pushed him, palm on his chest, but there was no oomph to it. She gave up and walked around him instead.

  Well. That was rude. He caught up to her in one easy stride and put his arm around her waist, steering her toward the exit.

  “Hey!”

  “Mates don’t let mates gamble drunk,” he said.

  “I’m not your mate.” She giggled and relaxed, letting him guide her. “We’re not mating.” She giggled some more. “Want to?”

  “I only look good to you because you’re drunk.” He held her closer as they got to the revolving doors. He got the feeling if he let her get into a different pie slice of the door, she’d scamper away.

  “No, I’m pretty sure you’d look good to me sober. So where are we going, tall, dark and handsome?”

  My place. But he knew it wasn’t going to happen. Maybe she’d forgive him when she woke up, but he wouldn’t forgive himself. “I’m guessing you have a hotel?”

  “Yep.” She giggled. “With a queen-size.”

  “Then we’re going back there, and I’ll put you to bed.” Alone, more’s the pity.

  “How are you going to keep me there?”

  With rope. But he didn’t say it. Chances were she wasn’t kinky, and even if she was he didn’t want to lead her on. “I expect you’d fall asleep.”

  “Ha! I’m not as think as you drunk I am. You’d need to tie me down.”

  Then again, maybe she is. But she’s absolutely as drunk as I think. “Where is it?”

  “Little Collins Street. I’m Zoe, what’s your name?”

  “Nick. Where on Little Collins?”

  “It’s called the Barclay. You know where that is?”

  He did. “We can take the tram. C’mon, this way, cross the street.”

  She leaned up against him, the side of her breast brushing against his side. She felt really good. It had been a long time since he’d walked this way with someone, and there was something very intimate about it. Anyone watching them would have thought they were lovers.

  “How long have you been here?” he asked.

  “A couple days.”

  “Well, welcome to Melbourne. Tram will come in a few minutes, most likely.”

  She nodded and looked up at him. “How did you know I have a ticket?” Her eyes narrowed. “You don’t have two, do you?”

  He laughed. “No, I don’t even have one. There’s almost no chance of getting caught, and it works out better to pay the fines than buy the tickets.”

  Her nose wrinkled. “That doesn’t sound very honest.”

  “Be a bit of a detour to go buy a ticket now, wouldn’t it?” He wasn’t actually in the habit of riding the tram without a ticket, although plenty of people did.

  “I suppose.”

  Her body felt nice and warm against him. Extra warmth was the last thing he would have been looking for on a summer day usually, but in this case it was more than pleasant. She didn’t seem to mind being close either. Probably because she was drunk. The way she was dressed, everything covered, didn’t fit with the idea of a woman who’d offer to “mate” with a stranger. Not that he would have objected if she were sober. He wondered what her story was. There was only one way to find out.

  “So, what brings you here? Business or pleasure?”

  She didn’t answer right away. Apparently she needed to think about it. “Pleasure, I suppose. I thought I might mix in some business. Mostly, I needed to escape.”

  “Escape? What are you running from, Zoe?”

  Apparently he’d hit home with that, perhaps closer than he intended. She glared at him and pursed her lips tight. He didn’t think he’d get an answer at all, but after a few seconds her face relaxed and she said, “A crazy ex-husband. I figured he wouldn’t follow me all the way here. If he does, I bet you could take care of him.” She squeezed his arm. “Except he usually has a gun. Under his jacket, shoulder holster during the winter. In the summer it’s on his hip.”

  He nodded, remembering it was winter in America. The idea of someone openly carrying a firearm in the bright lights of the casino was incongruous. The thought of someone threatening the snuggly girl he had his arm around brought out every protective instinct, but he wasn’t too worried about Zoe’s ex. If she’d gone without telling him, he imagined that it would be close to impossible to track her down halfway around the world.

  “What do you do for business?” he asked.

  “I’m an illustrator, when I’m not too busy being an office clerk. I do books on animals sometimes. Sometimes I do children’s books. I was going to spend some time at the zoo, painting wombats and koalas, but somehow now that I’m here I don’t feel like it. It’s strange too, it’s not like I’ll pass this way again probably. It’s my only chance. But I don’t feel like painting. Or even drawing.”

  “Maybe you need a real vacation more than you need to do any of those things. When’s the last time you’ve let yourself really relax?”

  She stared at him blankly for a moment, and then closed her eyes and pressed up against him. “Maybe you’re right.”

  It took only six more minutes for the tram to come, but by that time he had to wake her. When they got on, she fell right asleep again, her head on his shoulder. She seemed to trust him, although maybe that was the alcohol too.

  When they got off, she was able to walk with him the block to her hotel, although she was still shaky. She didn’t lean on him, and he was surprised to find he missed that. He’d had plenty of female companionship lately, although none of the women had snuggled against him while walking or held hands. Instead there were scenes, with ropes, whips, clamps and other toys. And plenty of sex.

  He always enjoyed the cuddling afterward, and sometimes breakfast together on the morning after. But that was as far as it ever went. He hadn’t been aware something as simple as walking close was missing.
>
  She’s a stranger. It doesn’t mean anything, except that she’s had too much to drink.

  “Help me to my room?” she asked.

  He nodded. “Sure.”

  Her hotel room was like a small apartment. It had a tiny kitchen with a range top, sink, refrigerator, a quick-boil kettle and some complimentary tea and sugar bags. Some attempt had been made to separate the living room from the bedroom, and there was the usual small desk and chair, neutral wallpaper and an uninspiring but inoffensive painting of flowers by a pond.

  “I need to go to the bathroom,” she said. She walked quickly through the bedroom and shut the door. He’d intended to leave her as soon as he’d gotten her safely to her room, but he also wanted to say goodbye at least.

  “I’ll make you a tea,” he yelled, and then immediately remembered that Americans usually drank coffee.

  “Great!” she yelled back. Tea it was. He filled the kettle with cool water, turned it on and looked around. Her suitcase was sitting flat near the door, unlatched, but he wasn’t about to snoop. There were a few touristy things, brochures and such, on the coffee table, as well as a stuffed penguin. And a drawing pad, flipped open to a half-completed drawing of a fairy penguin. She hadn’t been totally uninspired, apparently. She’d captured it beautifully, as good as any drawing in a bird book. He whistled.

  The kettle clicked off and he rifled through the cabinets above to come back with two plain cream-colored teacups. “Black or with milk, sugar or no sugar?” he asked. There was no answer. She was probably still in the loo. He plunked a bag in one of the cups, poured boiling water over it and walked toward the bedroom. He didn’t want to shout again.

  “Black or—” He rounded the separator to find her lying on the bed, facedown, her head turned to one side. She was sleeping peacefully, her back rising and falling in regular intervals. “Zoe?” he whispered softly. But he knew sleep was what she needed. When she didn’t stir, he watched her for a while, pretending to himself he just wanted to make sure she was okay and wasn’t ogling her nicely rounded backside.