Marked (Tattoos and Leather)

by Jaymie Holland

  “I didn’t know what a sub was until I watched a movie called The Secretary.” She had a hard time not lowering her eyes. “Most of what happened—I knew I wanted that, too.”

  Lucas gave a slow nod. “How did you get involved with people in the lifestyle?”

  “I read lots of books, searched on the Internet, and found people in the lifestyle in chat rooms. I went to exhibitions and to dungeons just to observe.” She bit her lower lip. “I was very careful and took my best friend, Angel, with me whenever I checked out a group or an event. While she was looking into BDSM with me, solely for support, she became interested in it, too.”

  “Tell me about your first Master.” Lucas had such a deep, authoritative voice that she was compelled to answer.

  “My first and only.” She brushed a wisp of hair from her eyes. “His name was Glenn.”

  “Why did your relationship end?” Kane asked the question and she turned to look at him.

  “He moved to Arizona for a job opportunity.” She let out a soft sigh. “He wanted me to go with him, but I wasn’t in love with him and I didn’t want to leave New York.” She thought about their parting. “I was sad when he left, but I’ve moved on.”

  Kane searched her gaze. “How long ago was that?”

  She tilted her head to the side. “It’s getting close to a year now.”

  “You haven’t played with anyone since then.” Lucas said it as a statement, as if he knew.

  She turned her attention to him and looked at him with surprise. “How can you tell?”

  “A true Master always knows.”

  The server arrived with a bottle of wine and presented it to Lucas before opening the bottle and pouring enough to sample. After Lucas approved the selection, the server poured a glass for each of them.

  Once the server had retreated, Kane raised his glass in a toast. “To a beautiful woman with a heart of gold.”

  How would they know if she had a heart of gold? She clinked her glass against theirs before taking a sip. Eyes wide, she lowered the glass. “This wine is amazing. I’ve never tasted anything as incredible as this.”

  An almost-smile teased the corner of Lucas’s mouth as he lowered his glass, but his expression reverted back to inscrutable and intense.

  She was about to ask him about his family, since he’d managed to avoid the question earlier, but he spoke first.

  “You miss it.” He spoke with low authority and a sensuality that made her shiver. “You crave it.”

  She almost felt irritated with his insistence that he knew these things about her and the fact that he was right. But again she felt compelled to answer. “Yes.” The word almost came out as a whisper.

  It was time to go. She needed to get out of here before she ended upstairs with these two men, because that was exactly where she wanted to be right now.

  The magnetism of the men was undeniable, as was the need to feel their combined body heat pressed against her.

  She picked up her wine glass and almost set it down because her hand was shaking. She took a sip.

  “What is your safe word?” Lucas asked.

  She almost spewed expensive wine all over him. Instead, she managed to swallow the drink, but coughed a couple of times.

  Kane rubbed her back in a soothing motion. “Are you all right?”

  She nodded. My safe word?

  After she cleared her throat, she looked at Kane again. He was studying her, clearly expecting an answer.

  She bit the inside of her lower lip before she got up the courage to tell him. “Tiger.”

  Kane was still rubbing her back in slow, sensual circles. “I like it.”

  She didn’t know who was more distracting—Lucas with his unreadable expression and intense stares, or Kane with his hand on her back, his heat burning through the thin material.

  “Interesting.” Lucas tipped his head to the side. “What made you choose tiger?”

  She sipped her wine again for courage, feeling her body heating up from the alcohol. She lowered her glass. “A tiger is strong and powerful.”

  “Something you do not feel, but want to.” Lucas spoke as if he knew her. “You feel weak but you want to be strong.”

  “I need to be going.” She glanced at Kane and then Lucas and she almost stuttered. “I’m supposed to meet my friend, Angel.”

  “Stay a little longer,” Kane said in a sensual voice that made her nipples tighten beneath the silky material of her dress as he slid his hand down her spine to the small of her back.

  Oh, God. She did not want to leave, but she had to.

  She stumbled over her words, but managed to get out, “I think leaving is a very good idea right now.”

  “We want to see you again.” The way Kane said the words, it was more like a foregone conclusion. If it was anyone but these two men, she just might have told them to forget it, and not in their wildest, wettest dreams would she get together with them.

  But she wanted to see Kane and Lucas again. Badly.

  Maybe she’d give them her number.

  No, she shouldn’t.

  Should she?

  She found herself opening her purse to dig out a pen. The moment she did, her silky black panties fell out onto her knees and slid down to the floor.

  For a moment all she could do was stare at them, her face flaming hot. Before she could grab them and stuff them back inside her purse, Kane scooped them up. She stared at her purse for a moment before slowly turning her gaze to meet his sexy grin.

  She flushed all over again as she watched him bring the panties to his nose. His chest rose and fell as he breathed in her scent.

  Oh. My. God.

  It was the hottest—and most embarrassing—thing to ever happen to her.

  Kane’s gray eyes turned from just sexy to smoldering hot as he tucked the panties into the inside pocket of his suit jacket.

  She swallowed and stole a look at Lucas whose eyes were locked firmly on hers. She could feel the heat of his gaze straight through to her core. She had already gone damp between her thighs, her nipples taut and aching. But now her body felt like one giant erogenous zone. All they’d have to do was touch her and she’d climax. Hard.

  Okay, she really had to go now.

  Her hands shook as she looked into her purse, pulled out a pen, and then reached for a cocktail napkin on the low coffee table. While they watched, she wrote down her number. She set the napkin on the table. “I need some time to think.” She looked from Kane to Lucas and tried to keep her voice steady. “Call me tomorrow and I’ll let you know.”

  Lucas’s dark gaze was so intense that she didn’t know how she managed not to look down in submission. She turned to Kane, into steely gray eyes that could be just as hard as Lucas’s. They would be Masters who would fulfill her every wish, her every imagining. And she could see herself pleasuring them on their command.

  She had to leave. Had to go. Now.

  Kane moved so that she could get past him. She looked at the two men, wanting to go right back to sit in between them. Or better yet, go to their room.

  Instead, she took a deep breath, turned away, and somehow managed to walk out of the lounge.

  Chapter 7

  Lucas raised his wine glass to his lips as he watched Tracie leave. He took in the natural sway of her hips and her sexy toned legs. Her walk was smooth and elegant, her heels never wobbling despite their height.

  Strands of her white-blonde hair escaped the clip holding her hair back. On the flight, she’d had her long hair pulled back in a ponytail. He pictured her with that glorious hair tumbling down, around her bare shoulders when she wore nothing but a ball gag, her wrists bound behind her as she knelt before him, staring up with her big blue eyes.

  Fuck. He was getting hard just thinking about her like that. He shifted in the chair, trying to get more comfortable and finding it impossible.

  He had to fight the primal instinct inside that told him to go after her, to drag her back. And then he wondered if sh
e’d enjoy play like that. Fighting it but loving every damned minute of it.

  “I won the bet,” Kane was saying. “I get to taste her pussy first.”

  Lucas grunted. Damned if Kane hadn’t won.

  “You definitely want her as much as I do.” Kane dragged Lucas’s attention away from the archway that Tracie had just vanished through as if she’d been a figment of his imagination. “And you want her in more ways than one.”

  Lucas considered Kane’s words, and the fact was he couldn’t deny his attraction to Tracie. She was more than a submissive, more than a beautiful woman he wanted to fuck. He liked what he’d seen of her personality and intelligence more than he wanted to admit. His desire to get to know her, everything about her, was stronger than he’d have thought possible.

  Before he’d met Kane, Lucas had been in a relationship with a woman he’d thought he loved that had ended in a way that nearly left him dry of emotion. She had stripped him bare when she’d had an affair and had left him.

  After that experience, he hadn’t thought he could truly love any woman. When he and Kane found Tiffany that had changed. And then she’d been wiped out of their lives in one horrible act that had ended the sweet woman’s life. He’d been so certain no woman would ever appeal to him again.

  But Tracie gave him a new hope he hadn’t wanted to feel. In truth he’d been afraid to feel…to feel anything again.

  Lucas leaned forward and picked up the napkin with the phone number she’d left behind. He studied the number, a Brooklyn area code, then folded the napkin. He pulled his wallet out of his suit jacket and slid the folded napkin next to the wad of cash he always carried with him. He drew out a business Amex card to pay their bill and slid it in the fine leather folder that held their tab.

  For another moment, Lucas thought about his past pains. Something about Tracie felt healing as well as special, something they might never come across for the rest of their lives.

  The ever-watchful server picked up the leather folder and slipped away.

  Lucas’s gaze met Kane’s. “We will make her ours.” Lucas said it as a fact, because as far as he was concerned, it was. “She belongs with us. She belongs to us.”

  Kane gave a slow nod, his expression somewhat serious now. “She might not know it now, but she will.”

  The thought of Tiffany flashed through Lucas’s mind as he stared into nothing for a moment. Was he betraying her memory? Or was Kane right in believing that she would want them to move on?

  Lucas let out a long, slow breath. Was it time to let go?

  “It is time to let go.” Kane echoed Lucas’s thoughts as if he read his mind. Kane moved closer and put his hand on Lucas’s shoulder and gripped it. “You know I don’t say that lightly. You know how hard it’s been for me, too.”

  Lucas looked at his friend and business partner and gave a slow nod. “I know.”

  The server returned with the Amex card and the bill before thanking them and retreating. Lucas pulled it closer to him, added a tip, and signed the lounge’s copy. He tucked the receipt into his wallet before sliding it into an inside pocket of his jacket.

  Kane glanced at his cell phone and got to his feet. “I’m hungry and our dinner reservation is in fifteen minutes.”

  Lucas stood and they headed in the same direction Tracie had gone when she left, as if they might find her waiting for them.

  * * * * *

  Angel was overly tipsy when she and Tracie climbed into a cab. As they finally left the nightclub behind, Tracie sank against the seat. She was so glad the night was over. She hadn’t wanted to be there—all she’d been able to think about were Lucas and Kane.

  With a groan, Angel slid sideways, her head coming to rest on Tracie’s shoulder.

  Fact was that Angel was never this tipsy. Well, honestly, Angel was drunk. For the first time, Tracie wondered if something was going on with her friend to make her drink more than usual. Tracie felt like a shit for not thinking about that sooner. She’d been too wrapped up in thoughts of the two men who made her continually hot and wet.

  “My head is spinning.” Angel groaned again.

  “We’ll get you up to the room and get you to bed.” Tracie squeezed her friend’s hand, feeling like even more of a heel.

  Tracie hadn’t given Kane and Lucas the name of her hotel or even her last name, but God, she’d wanted to. She knew their last names from the manifest, not to mention the letterhead.

  She would research them on the Internet, something she probably should have done earlier when she’d seen the letterhead, before she’d met them at the hotel lounge. With the information she had, the men should be easy enough to track down.

  The ride to the hotel was brief. Tracie paid the cab driver who held open the rear passenger door as Tracie helped Angel get to her feet. When she was on the sidewalk, Angel kicked off her heels, which was a really good idea since she couldn’t walk steady. Tracie scooped them up and held them in one hand while supporting Angel with her opposite arm.

  Angel had no idea what her room number was. Thankfully, she had her keycard in her purse and it was in the little sleeve that she’d been given, the room number right on the sleeve. Angel was one floor above Tracie.

  As Tracie helped Angel into bed, Angel mumbled, “Never again. I won’t ever…not ever again.”

  Tracie frowned. It could be that Angel meant getting drunk. But Tracie had an odd feeling that her friend had been talking about something else entirely.

  Once she got Angel safely to her room, Tracie went to her own and slipped inside. She dropped her purse on the bed then plopped down on the edge of the mattress. She unfastened the ankle straps on her shoes before sliding her feet out and setting the heels aside. They were far too expensive and beautiful to toss around.

  After she’d removed her makeup and was ready for bed, she slid between the clean sheets with her tablet and switched it on. She entered the name of Lucas and Kane’s law firm into the search engine. Immediately dozens of hits popped up, the first of which was their website.

  Feeling as if she was spying on the men, and with nervous flutters in her belly, she clicked on the link for the law firm. When it popped up, she saw that their site was professional and well done. Apparently they were corporate lawyers who handled major clients throughout the U.S. From what she read, they specialized strictly in business law.

  She went to the “About” tab and read Lucas’s and Kane’s brief bios, along with the bio of their partner, Erika DuBois. The information included their degrees, their experience, and backgrounds.

  Their pictures were next to their bios and the men were good looking in their publicity shots, although they were much sexier in person. Their partner, Erika, looked professional, maybe a little uptight, but she was beautiful.

  Tracie clicked on other links and found that the men sponsored and attended various charity events. They were apparently well known and respected.

  It was two-thirty in the morning before she glanced at the time. She hadn’t realized she’d been looking at information about the men for so long, and it was well past her witching hour. She had a free day tomorrow and she intended to do nothing but lie out on the beach and relax.

  And maybe, just maybe, she’d agree to see Kane and Lucas tomorrow once they called. She didn’t think it was a matter of if they called, it was a matter of when. Men like Kane and Lucas didn’t make idle promises or suggestions. They knew what they wanted and they intended to get it.

  And she had a feeling that right now she was at the top of the list.

  Chapter 8

  The sun felt good on Tracie’s skin as she opened a beach umbrella she’d bought this morning and plunked it in the sand near her tote. She pulled a huge towel out and spread it on the sandy beach, then eased down onto the terrycloth.

  After she adjusted the large straw sunhat that she’d worn to protect her head, she pushed her oversized sunglasses further up the bridge of her nose. The ocean blue bikini she wore wasn’t too skim
py, but there wasn’t a lot to it.

  She peeked into the striped beach bag, pulled out her sunblock, and flipped the lid. The coconut scent of her SPF 35 lotion made her feel even more like she was in a tropical paradise. With skin as fair as hers, she would turn into a lobster if she didn’t put a strong sunblock on. She would still get a bit of a tan, just not much of one.

  A smile touched her lips as she felt the breeze off the water cool her skin, her lotion lying on the towel by her side. She breathed in the ocean’s smell of salt and fresh air. Waves crashed against the shore, the water rushing up the sand before being pulled back again.

  Lucas and Kane hadn’t called, but it was only ten in the morning. Her phone was in her beach tote in a plastic baggy to protect it from water and sand. She had thought about leaving her phone in the hotel, but it hadn’t been a serious thought. She wanted the men to call her.

  From that point on, once they’d called her, she didn’t know what would happen next. She had a few ideas on what could happen, but they were crazy thoughts. She sure seemed to be having a lot of crazy thoughts.

  She leaned back on her elbows and watched surfers who rode the waves before they crashed to the shore. She’d never been surfing and wondered what it would be like.

  With a sigh of contentment, she smiled. She glanced down at the lotion that she’d better put on.

  Her phone hummed and she looked at her beach bag. She reached for the phone inside her tote, picked up the baggie it was in, and looked at the caller ID screen. She didn’t recognize the number, but it was a New York City area code. No doubt in her mind, it was Kane or Lucas.

  The phone continued to buzz as she fumbled with the bag’s slider and pulled her phone out. She touched “answer” and brought the phone to her ear. “Hello?”

  “Good morning, beautiful,” came Kane’s sexy voice over the phone.

  Even though she’d been sure it would be one of the men, she still felt a flurry in her belly and cotton in her throat. “Hi.”

  “Soaking up the sun?” he asked.