by Josie Brown
A sudden coughing jag has Jack doubled up.
Okay, I get it. That’s his way of telling me I’ll deserve whatever I get.
I can’t wait to get out of Ryan’s office.
On my way out the door, Arnie hands me back the kids’ presents. “These iPads and the Furby are as clean as a whistle.”
“Wow. Are you sure about that?”
The look he shoots me reminds me of Lassie, when I’ve taken away her favorite bone. “Okay, okay, sorry if I insulted you. I just—you know, I had to make sure.”
“Make sure of what?”
My spine stiffens involuntarily when I hear Jack’s voice coming from behind me.
Before I can give Arnie the high-sign, he responds, “Donna’s paranoid. She asked me to make sure these items weren’t blinged out with spyware. Hey, I know Apple can be intrusive, not to mention all the toy apps. But when it comes to online tracking they’ve got nothing on Google—”
I grab the stuff and head out to my car.
You’d think operatives working for a cover organization could keep their lips zipped, right? No way. Working here is worse than high school.
And I’ve just been dumped by the captain of the football team.
Nothing new there.
“Welcome to the Good Ship Lollipop,” the Sapphire ship’s stewardess’s breathy murmur is more than a welcome.
It’s an outright invitation. To Jack.
The way she licks her pillowy lips, I’m guessing she gets lots of RSVPs.
Not that he’s looking at her lips. Her little sailor get-up is a feast for the eyes and wandering hands. Her captain’s cap, angled over one of her big glitter-lashed eyes with a jaunty tilt, gives her a naughty come-hither look. Her generous breasts and tiny waist are accentuated in a tight, low-cut candy apple red patent leather double-breasted jacket, which boasts two large pink buttons, at nipple height.
The tight matching skirt is also at the perfectly tempting height of nonexistent.
Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating a bit about how short it is, but you get my point.
After devouring Jack with her eyes, she finally looks down at the invitation he has just handed her. “Mr. and Mrs. Smith? . . . Ah yes, here you are, on the ship’s guest manifest. Among all the other ‘Mr. and Mrs. Smiths.’” An updraft of derision lifts one of her well-shaped brows to new heights.
However, it doesn’t stop her from stroking Jack’s hand gently as she hands over our room keys. “But seeing that you’re the only ‘X. Smiths,’ that makes life a bit easier. In fact, everyone on the ship goes by an alphabetical alias. You’re the last couple to board, so we’ll make yours ‘Mrs. X and Mr . . . X.’”
She purrs the word “Mr.” as if it’s the most tantalizing morsel she’s ever put in her mouth.
My guess is that a lot has passed through those lips.
“You can call me Candy,” she offers. “Now, if you’ll please follow me to your suite.” As she slinks down the hall in her stiletto heels, she looks like a cat out on the prowl. Her skirt cups the curves of her bum like a second skin.
I’d slap Jack’s face out if its stupor, but I don’t want to attract an army of men, begging me for more of the same. In this crowd, telling the tops from the bottoms is a synch. Call me old-fashioned, but when a man puts on a tuxedo, it should be paired with a bowtie, not a spiked collar with a jeweled leash being yanked by his Plus-One.
Which begs the question, when it comes to the pain game, does Lardner prefer to give or receive?
If I’m his chosen one, I guess I’ll find out.
Finally, she stops at a double door numbered “69x”.
I glance up and down the hallway, taking in the door numbers. “Um…all the doors are numbered 69, with one additional letter behind them.”
“That’s because it’s Miles’ favorite number.” Candy giggles knowingly.
If it’s any indication as to how the next twenty-four hours will be go, I guess I have my work cut out for me.
“The Lollipop’s staff serves at your pleasure, so if you need anything at all, just ask.” To make sure Jack catches her meaning, Candy licks her upper lip.
I don’t know what Jack has in mind for Candy’s tip, but before he pulls anything out—of his pocket—I hand her a fiver and close the door firmly in her face.
“Hey, why’d you do that? We might have gotten more out of her.”
“Yeah, that’s what I was afraid of. Like, say, Chlamydia.” Nonchalance is hard to pull off when it dawns on you that your boyfriend is a prime cut of beefsteak on a floating ship of over-sexed ho tarts. “Listen, Jack, don’t you think it’s time we talked things through?”
“We’ve covered all the bases. You’ll hook up with Lardner. And because you’ll have on your surveillance contacts, I’ll be able to see and hear everything. If you’re lucky—and my guess is that’s a big if—you’ll get him to take a swig from your precious Golem ring. If not, your safety phrase is ‘big girls don’t cry.’ Either way, we leap off the balcony from the bottom deck, onto the mini-sub Abu’s got anchored just below the surface.”
“Quit pegging me for a bottom! . . . But just in case, I’ll need a safety phrase. I got it. ‘big boys don’t cry’—”
Jack is laughing so hard he plops down into a chair. “Sorry, doll, but I wouldn’t bet on that, if I were you. The dude is one of Silicon Valley’s hardest driving power rangers. He’s a master of the universe. ‘Domination’ is this guy’s middle name, so be prepared. You are going to be his sub.”
“Yeah, okay.” Although his inference causes me to flinch, I take his hands so that he’s forced to look into my eyes. “When I said we should talk things through, I wasn’t talking about this mission. I’m talking about us, over the long run. I want you to know that you have no reason to doubt my love for you. And . . . I want assurances, once and for all, that I shouldn’t doubt your love for me, either.”
His smile disappears. “I think you know the answer to that.”
“Jack, if I did, I wouldn’t be asking you now.”
“Then you don’t really know me as well as you think.”
“You’re right. Finding out you had a wife—from Carl, no less—threw me for a loop. Then for Valentina to send you a note—and leave it with Trisha, of all people—I think that sends a pretty clear message. She wants back in your life. Even at the expense of mine. I think she made that clear when she tried to kill me.”
Jack doesn’t say a word.
Is it because I’m right?
Enough with this crap. “You can blame Carl all you want for being the world’s most toxic ex, but let’s face it. Valentina comes in a close second . . . Oh, just . . . never mind.”
As I walk past him, he grabs my arm. “The only way Carl and Valentina can come between us is if we don’t trust each other. Remember that. Always.”
I don’t like the sound of his voice. It’s filled with anger, pain, and resignation.
Whatever he’s given up on, I pray it isn’t me.
The most desirable woman in the room isn’t the one with the perkiest breasts or the most revealing décolleté.
She isn’t the one with the firmest peach-cleaved ass or the longest legs.
She’s not the youngest in the room, either. Nor is she the most experienced at sex.
She is never desperate or needy.
Neither is she too adorable, or too cruel.
She doesn’t have to try too hard to get the attention of the man she wants.
In fact, the most desirable woman in the room doesn’t even look in his direction to get him to notice her.
All she has to do is get every other man to want her, and he will, too.
I am the most desirable woman in the room.
In Miles Lardner’s eyes, anyway.
And Miles is the only one in the room who counts.
It helps that every man in the ballroom of the Good Ship Lollipop is looking my way. I’m sure part of it has to do with the fact that Jack and I
waited to make a grand entrance.
Neither of us is on a leash.
Instead we’re holding hands.
Even now, as we make our way down the broad, curving staircase, Jack keeps one hand on the small of my bare back, where my floor-length gown comes to a V. The dress is sleeveless, strapless, and it is white. Does this infer I’m pure as driven snow?
Illusion is everything.
It also drapes around my body, like a sheet. With my hair, tousled and clasped casually, I’m sure I look as if I’ve just climbed out of bed.
Again, illusion is everything. Do you see a pattern here?
Miles does. When he walks over to me, he doesn’t say a word.
He doesn’t have to. All parties understand what is expected of them.
Jack bows slightly, but before stepping away, he takes my hand to his lips and kisses it gently.
If I am the most desirable woman in the room, rest assured Jack is the most desirable man. Slowly, the other women make their way to his side, like bees drawn to the most irresistible flower in the garden.
Because women, too, always want what they can’t have.
In Jack’s case, I hope their presumptions are correct, but I’m not so sure. The one woman who stands back is the only one his gaze falls upon, again and again. She is petite, with long, blond curls and ice-gray eyes. Her skintight blood red gown hugs every curve.
Only after Miles tucks his hand on the small of my back and guides me up the wide, curving staircase that leads to his private suite does Jack give her the slightest nod.
By the time Miles and I reach the top, she’s at Jack’s side.
The last thing I see before we turn the corner is Jack, taking her hand in his.
He’s made his choice.
Despite her blood red half mask, I recognize her.
Valentina.
Chapter 11
Naughty, or Nice?
Let’s face it. Santa pulls one hell of a one-nighter.
Is this really fair?
What if he didn’t have to service all the bad kids, too? Forget the token lump of coal. He uses up a lot more energy just getting up and down the chimneys of the same brats who make you wince whenever you’re stuck behind them in a fast food line.
You know the ones. They’re always begging their moms for something she doesn’t feel they deserve (and she’s probably right). And then, when she breaks down and gives it to them, they whine that it’s not really what they wanted.
Makes you want to slap their pictures on a carton of condoms under the headline, “Think Before You Procreate!”
But I digress.
There needs to be a new definition for naughty.
It shouldn’t include a trip to Toys’R’Us for at least a year: between December 26th of this year, and December 27th of the following one.
It means following through on parental threats.
It means no more Santa . . .
There. I’ve gotten it out of my system. Go back to being the overwrought, overly proud, and certainly over-indulgent enabler of the fruits of your loins.
And when they put you in that nursing home with explicit instructions that say “Do Not Resuscitate, Let Alone Allow her to Drive” you’ll hear me cackling, “Told you so!” from the next room.
(At least one of us will have something to look forward to . . .)
I wouldn’t exactly call Miles’ room a suite.
More like a dungeon.
No, not the kind with stone walls and floors. The floors are bleached, white pine, and the walls are laminate with a high black finish, allowing the strategically-placed platinum restraint hoops to double as an art statement.
Besides a steel framed bed with shackles hanging from chains, the room boasts a man-sized bird cage, a sex swing, a three-by-four-foot puppy cage.
But the piece de resistance is a stockade, which puts the sub on his or her knees via adjustable spreader bars connected to a holding collar, wrist and ankle shackles, and a fourteen-inch dildo rod.
Ouch.
“Like it?” Miles asks.
I nod slightly.
He looks relieved. “I got the idea for it when I toured the Tower of London. It’s custom made, of course. You see, a Vac-U-Lok holds any size dildo, and the settings take it from zero to a hundred-and-forty strokes. Cool, huh? Wham, bam, thank you . . . whomever.” He smiles knowingly.
I shrug. His smile quivers slightly.
I turn to a wall with floor-to-ceiling backlit glass shelves holding rows and rows of sex toys. The number of cock rings is staggering. Hoods, bit gags, and muzzles cover mannequin heads. Leather cuffs and metal restraints adorn mannequin arms and ankles.
Mannequin torsos are covered with harnesses or restraints. However, I’m happy to report that while Miles’ collection of cock rings is vast, they are not displayed on mannequin cocks. Neither are the nipple rings. Hmmm . . .
There is also a full row of dildos of all shapes, sizes and textures.
And for spanking, there are the crops, canes, floggers, whips, and paddles. A rose by any other name, am I right?
It’s quite a Wall of Shame.
I pick up a paddle made of solid oak on one side and hard rubber on the other with the same indentation of a woodsman’s jackboot. The thought of even one slap would kick some sense into me, that’s for sure.
“I can tell you like that one.” I haven’t realized how close he’s gotten until I feel his breath on my neck.
I turn to face him. “I like them all.” We are eye to eye.
He blinks first.
“Which is your favorite?” My tone is cool, noncommittal. At first, he stares at me. Finally, he walks over to the middle of the row and picks up a paddle: black lacquer, around eighteen inches long, with tiny holes in the shape of hearts drilled through its inch thickness.
Without a word, he walks over with it.
I take it without even a nod. “Do you prefer a mask, gag, or a muzzle?”
“My favorite? Is that what you’re asking?”
I give the slightest of nods.
He walks over to the wall and pulls off a black leather full-head slave mask.
“I see.” Scary. “Now, how about a harness?”
Slowly he walks back to the wall. He stops to pick something up, but then he hesitates, as if concerned.
Is he worried I’ll freak out?
Hell, I’m worried I’ll freak out.
Calm down… Calm down.
Finally, he picks it up. I mean, he picks them up: a leather thong, waist cincher, and a black patent leather collar, leg irons, and full-length arm binders.
Oh, and let’s not forget the dildo.
How can I describe it, other than to say that it is made of shiny stainless steel, and eleven inches long?
“You know what to do now, don’t you?” I murmur. Does he hear the tremble in my voice.
He nods slowly. “Assume the position.”
I nod. Then close my eyes, if only for a moment . . .
If I could, I’d cry.
I don’t have to do this, I tell myself. All I have to do is say “Big girls don’t cry” and Jack will break down the door. He’ll be right by my side.
But no. He’s at her side.
Valentina’s.
Doing what she’s telling him to do.
To her.
I don’t need him to get out of this.
When I open my eyes again, I find Miles kneeling in front of me. He already has the hood over his head, the waist cincher around his gut and the buttless leather skirt halfway over his thighs.
Not a pretty sight.
Seeing my stare, he bows his head in shame, eyes closed.
“Oh please, my mistress of madness! Be gentle with me! Forgive me for not being worthy of you!” He opens one eye. “Um, what’s our safety phrase, Mistress?”
“All my subs use ‘big boys don’t cry.’”
He nods vigorously. “Excellent choice, Mistress! Most excellent!”
Maybe I should send Jack to him for lessons.
Nah. Jack’s too stubborn. It would never take.
Besides, I like it when Jack’s a very, very bad boy.
“Crawl over to the stockade, slave. Now!” I smack him hard with the paddle. He roars, but does as he’s told.
In a moment I’ve shackled his wrists, ankles, and neck so that he on his knees, doggy-style, facing the door.
Okay, let’s get this over with. “You have been a very, very bad boy.”
“Yes, Mistress. I have been very, very bad.” His voice cracks in anticipation of his punishment.
“Do you know what Mistress does to very, very bad boys?”
“No,” he whispers.
“What did you say?”
“No, Mistress! I don’t know!”
“I do this—” I smack him with the paddle again. He groans, in pain.
Oh my God! Was I too hard? “Um . . . did you like that?”
“Do you want me to like it, Mistress?”
What the hell? “Yeah, sure. I want you to love it.”
“I do, Mistress, I love it! May I have more?”
“That’s not how we ask, now is it? Didn’t your mother teach you any manners?”
“Yes, sorry, Mistress! She told me to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you.’”
Works for me. I slap him again. “So say it, slave.”
“Ow! Thank you, Mistress! More, please!”
I oblige.
“OW! Yes! Please! Yes!”
I aim to please. Sorry, bad pun.
But no, seriously, I could do this all night. Who knew it would be such a great stress reliever?
Suddenly I hear Jack’s voice in my ear, “Are we having fun yet?”
“I presume one of is having a blast: you.”
“Yes, Mistress! Tons of fun!”
“Shut up!” I say to Miles. Then, to Jack: “Just where the hell are you, anyway?” I take aim at his backside.
“Don’t you see me? I’m right here, at your feet,” Miles answers again.
“What? . . . .Oh! Not you, slave!”
“But—”
To make my point, I whack him again.
“Thank you, Mistress,” he groans.
“Seriously, Donna, hell’s a’poppin’. The Quorum is here, too.”