by Lucy Wild
Table of Contents
PROLOGUE
PLAYING GAMES
KARINA
COLE
LUCY WILD
More by Lucy Wild
PLAYING GAMES
A Dominant Alpha Romance
Lucy Wild
¶
PRONOUN
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Copyright © 2017 by Lucy Wild
Interior design by Pronoun
Distribution by Pronoun
ISBN: 9781537877754
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PLAYING GAMES
PROLOGUE
KARINA
COLE
KARINA
KARINA
COLE
KARINA
COLE
KARINA
COLE
KARINA
KARINA
KARINA
COLE
KARINA
KARINA
KARINA
KARINA
COLE
KARINA
KARINA
LUCY WILD
More by Lucy Wild
PLAYING GAMES
A Novella
LUCY WILD
He’s a billionaire.
He’s bored.
And he wants to play with me.
Cole Ford is the perfect man. Literally.
He’s spent all day chasing me, commanding me to come back to his mansion for a night of passion.
If this was real, I’d say yes in a heartbeat.
But it’s not real.
It’s just a game. A twenty-four hour roleplay with him as the billionaire and me playing the femme fatale.
Just a bit of fun.
He’s not really in love with me, just my character.
But what if I don’t want to play games anymore?
What if I want to tell him how much I want him?
That would be breaking the rules.
I’ve never broken the rules before.
Until now.
Twitter: @misslucywild
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PROLOGUE
BEING HANDCUFFED TO A WOODEN vaulting horse can do strange things to a person. When it happened to me, I tried to convince myself it was someone else’s fault. The truth was I had no one to blame but myself. If I hadn’t agreed to come here, if I hadn’t let my housemate convince me to sign up to play the game, well, none of this would have happened.
I wouldn’t be trapped into a rich weirdo’s playroom. I wouldn’t be looking across at shelves containing neat rows of sex toys, some of which I couldn’t even recognise. They all looked terrifying. But exciting at the same time. It was difficult to reconcile the two feelings at once. It didn’t matter though as none of them were going to be used on me. Never going to happen. After all, it was only a game. They were just for show, right?
The longer the conversation went on next door, the more my mind wandered. I was in the playroom. They were in the living room. Deciding my fate.
I’m aware that it sounds a bit overdramatic but they really were deciding my future while I could only wait and look around me for the hundredth time at the equipment on display.
I was surrounded by enough BDSM purchases to stock a Fifty Shades convention with plenty to spare. Close enough to look at, too far away to touch. Story of my life. I’d always wanted the things I couldn’t have, the boss, the coffee shop guy with the chiselled chin and the backstory I yearned to know, hell, I even had a crush on the pizza delivery guy for a while.
So how did I end up here? Cuffed in place, waiting to be freed?
Well, first of all, let me tell you where here is. It’s a room inside the most palatial mansion I’ve ever seen. And I’ve seen a grand total of one. This one. Owned by the most handsome and obscenely rich son of a bitch you could imagine.
The playroom was red as was I, the heating making me bake. More than anything, I wanted a drink, something to quench the burning thirst in the back of my throat. But until they finished talking, that wasn’t going to happen.
The walls were red, the carpet red, the ceiling pure white, the only pure thing in there, apart from me. The shelves covering two walls contained every sex toy imaginable and some that weren’t They were arranged pretentiously like exhibits in a museum. Nipple clamps, handcuffs, ballgags. The butt plugs went from smallest to largest, each with a printed label in front though the writing was too small for me to read from my position.
I could imagine him coming in and placing a label next to me.
Karina Browning. Recent Acquisition. A Mistake.
Being on your own with only handcuffs for company can make your mind wander, that’s for sure. What else could I see? There was a wooden chair with a dildo stuck into the seat, straps on the arms to hold you in place. That looked terrifying. There was a swing over in the corner but it was definitely not the kind of swing suitable for a playground.
The size scaling carried on with the vibrators, smallest to largest, and the dildoes, largest to smallest, on the other set of shelves, ending the row with a scooped rubber fist that looked terrifying. The top shelf contained a vase of red roses, standing out yet somehow fitting in with everything else.
I shuffled sideways, trying to work some life back into my arm. I didn’t want the metal cuff to jangle and give away the fact that I was here. Their conversation was showing no signs of ending anytime soon. I had to let it play out.
The top of the wooden horse had a length of metal running along it and I was cuffed to that. By sliding along the floor, I was just able to ease myself downwards, getting into a sitting position though with my arm stuck above my head like I was waiting to ask a question in the world’s strangest classroom.
I suppose the question would have been, how the hell did you get into this mess, Karina? And more importantly, what do you do now?
The answer to both questions was complicated but simple at the same time. I had got into this mess out of nowhere and there was nothing I could do but wait until he came back in.
Until he came back in.
He.
It’s always been a he. A him. A man. Men. The cause of all my problems.
My story starts with a man. Not the man out there talking, Mr Rich Weirdo. We’ll get to him soon enough though, don’t worry.
First, I want to talk about a man called Tony. That’s where all this began. At the time he was my boyfriend, on the verge of becoming my fiancé.
I hope you’re sitting more comfortably than I am. But whether you’re sitting in an armchair as bizarre as the one over there, or laid out in bed on a warm afternoon or crushed between two suits called Nigel on the overheated train to work, I want you to brace yourself. I’m going to tell you a story. Not a long one but my one. I want to tell you how I came to be chained up, surrounded by sex toys, waiting for the man of my dreams to come and rescue me. It’s a hell of a story and I’m not expecting you to believe it all. I am expecting you to listen though. You could just learn from my mistakes. Someone might as well. I sure didn’t.
Let me take you all the way back to Tony, the man who set me on this path, the man who, as I begin my story, is about to break my heart.
KARINA
I WAS SO HAPPY, I felt like I might burst. Stepping off the
bus, the sunshine warmed me, the breeze just enough to prevent it getting uncomfortably hot. The sounds of the city filled my ears. People talking, cars driving, the leaves in the trees rustling in the wind. In front of me were the wrought iron gates that marked the entrance to the park.
I stopped to get an ice cream on the way in from the cart that had been set up just inside the gates. When I got to the front of the queue, a little girl was mumbling something. I caught the end of the sentence. “But maybe if we just say please.”
Her mother was standing next to her, looking flustered. “I’m sorry, Emma.” She glanced up at me and immediately looked away. “I can’t afford it.”
I remembered feeling like that when I was little, watching the injustice of a world I didn’t understand. It immediately took the edge off my happiness but not for long.
I bought two cones, passing one silently to the little girl as I walked by. She glanced at me and then the ice cream, reaching for it tentatively as if this might be some kind of trick. I just smiled and then she grabbed it, grinning as broadly as me. I walked away before her mother could say anything, not wanting her to feel embarrassed.
I recalled warm summer days like this, back when I was growing up. It seemed like a very long time ago but only if you marked it on a calendar. In my head, I could go back to that time in seconds. Every landmark held a memory. The statue I used to climb on, the one I nervously scrawled my initials in pencil, rubbing them guiltily off within seconds. The tree I fell out of, my arm in plaster for six miserable weeks afterwards. The dip in the grass where the blue and red roundabout used to be, nothing more than a faded memory for people like me. To everyone else it was just a dip in the grass, one more part of my childhood gone forever.
So many memories. The spot where me and Betty and Emma would make daisy chains. The spot where I had my first drag on a cigarette, coughing for about ten minutes afterwards and wondering why the hell anyone would smoke the horrible things. My first kiss was over by that tree. That was also where I’d arranged to meet Tony today. It seemed appropriate.
He was going to be the last man I’d ever kiss. We were going to get married. It was an exhilarating thought. I was going to be married. I was going to be a wife. I finished the ice cream and dropped the napkin into the bin beside me, looking across at the tree, wondering where he was.
Then he appeared from behind the low sweeping branches, moving round to lean on a bough that almost touched the ground, his arms folded as he watched me cross the grass towards him.
“Guess what?” I asked when I got to him, grabbing his arm and trying to resist jumping up and down in my excitement.
“What?” he replied, glancing past me at the lake.
“I got you something.”
“I know you did. I told you to bring it with you.”
“Not that. I got you something else. Guess what it is?”
He looked at me in that way he did. If he’d worn glasses, it would have been a stern look over the top of them. It was serious enough, anyway.
“All right, I’ll tell you. It’s an armchair.” I waited for him to react but he just continued looking at me. “It’s leather and soft as anything and you can sit in it and read and I can bring you cups of tea. I’m so excited Tony. I can’t believe we’re moving in together. It feels like it’s going so fast.”
“Did you bring it?”
“Of course I did. Here, Mr Grumpypants.” I reached into my handbag and brought out the envelope, passing it into his outstretched hand. “But I still don’t understand why they need the rent and bond in cash.”
“They just do,” he replied, his fingers closing around the envelope. That’s when it all went wrong.
He turned away from me and before I even knew what was happening, he was running.
At first I thought it was a joke, that he was pretending to run off with nearly two grand of my money, my life savings in an envelope. The smile fell from my face when he kept running, darting onto the path and shoving his way through the crowds.
“Hey!” I shouted as I started after him. “Where are you going?” Even then, I thought he might turn back, tease me for being so easy to wind up. It didn’t happen. I caught a glimpse of him as he made a beeline for the gate to the street. A tour group appeared in front of him, slowing him down. I was gaining ground, though my lungs were aching from the effort of trying to catch him. I was getting closer. Another few seconds and I’d be on him.
From nowhere a man in a suit walked in front of me, seemingly oblivious to the sprinting woman barrelling towards him. “Move,” I wheezed but my voice was weak from panting so heavily. He didn’t hear me and I couldn’t stop in time. I slammed into his side and lost my balance, tripping over his leg and slamming into the path beneath me.
I landed with a thud, the air gone from my lungs. I gasped for breath as I pushed myself upwards but it was too late. Tony was gone. He was out of the park and out of sight. I’d never catch him.
I slumped onto the bench next to me, my head in my hands, tears starting to roll down my cheeks. Tony was gone. All the money I had in the world was gone. It was too much to take. I couldn’t help but cry. A voice said something to me but it sounded very far away. I ignored it.
The sun vanished as a shadow fell across me. I looked up to see a mountainous figure staring down at me. With the sun behind him, all I could make out was his silhouette.
The silhouette spoke. “Mind if I sit down?”
COLE
I WASN’T EVEN SUPPOSED TO be in the park. I was supposed to be at work. We had recently expanded into a second office in the city and it was a hectic time. The game had been running for five years and my investment had been repaid several times over. After six months of back and forth we’d finally made the decision to spread out. We were taking a gamble opening a second office without confirmed bookings but I thought it was worth the risk.
The entire enterprise existed because of word of mouth, no marketing except a small brochure given to a select few. The method was simple. You create a good enough game, a real enough game, and you make people happy. It wasn’t complicated. It was just expensive. Hiring the actors to play the parts, sorting out the insurance, greasing the wheels of the city hall so we could keep going. It all took money, it all took time. But it was paying off. I had chosen zero publicity while we built up the game to the standard it needed to be to go public. We weren’t there yet. I had to work out a way to show the world that it wasn’t just an elaborate sex game.
It was a simple enough concept, think live action video game. Whoever signed up was interviewed extensively to see what they would like to do in twenty-four hours. We’d had all sorts of games in the five years things had been running. One guy wanted to rob a bank. We made it happen. We fitted out a shop as a bank, had two actors play his fellow robbers and the rest as staff and customers. He had a whale of a time, running around with his pretend gun, never sure if it was a genuine bank he was stealing from. Then there was the woman who had always dreamed of running naked around a library, shocking everyone who saw her. That was an easy one to set up. Winning on the horses, taking part in a car chase, being a millionaire for the day, we’d done all sorts.
This was a new one though. This was a game we hadn’t tried out before and as I was the money, I was going to be the first to try it out.
I should have been at the office, helping get things finalised. Once the club was ready, then I could go out and look for a woman to play with. But when I saw her in the park, I realised at once that I wasn’t going to find anyone better.
There were a couple of reasons why I thought she’d be the perfect player. Firstly she was cute. Yes, she was crying, her eyes bleary, her cheeks flushed. But she was still cute. Good looking body too. If I was going to play, it might as well be with someone I liked the look of. Secondly, she looked like she needed cheering up. The game never failed to make players happy. That was the whole point of it.
I didn’t know her name then. I just kn
ew she had slammed into the side of me as I’d been walking through the park. I was only there because it was too sunny to be in the office. I’d get there later. They could ring me if it was anything urgent. It wasn’t like they could fire the guy who was funding the entire thing.
She bounced off me and fell to the ground. I went to help her up but she was already on her feet, standing on tiptoes and craning her neck to look past the crowds of people. She was searching for something but whatever it was, she didn’t find it. A second later, she slumped onto the bench beside her, her head in her hands. Already, I was starting to wonder.
“Mind if I sit down?” I said but she didn’t seem to hear me. I stepped closer to her, blocking out the light until she looked up at me. I smiled as I said it again. She nodded.
I leaned back on the bench, brushing a speck of dirt from my knee as I did so. Turning to look at her, I saw she was staring at me. “You’re the one I bumped into,” she said, frowning slightly. “I’m sorry.”
The way she said it made her sound so downtrodden, so submissive, I knew she was the one. She would be perfect for this. “No need to be sorry,” I said, wanting to hear her say it again. I liked hearing it. Her eyes flicked away before returning to me. “What’s wrong?”
“Wrong?” she echoed, wiping her eyes. “Nothing’s wrong. I’m fine.”
“You don’t look fine. Were you running from someone? Has someone hurt you?”
“I’m fine.”
I stretched my arms out, basking in the sun. “I just broke up with someone too.”
She visibly relaxed, any suspicion on her face falling away. “You did?”
“Uh huh. I thought we were in love.”
“Tell me about it,” she replied, managing a tiny smile. “Can I ask you a question?”