The Bondage Club

by Alexandrea Weis

  He folded his hands in his lap, trying to appear cool and collected. “Why would you think that?”

  “It was my client, Smut Slut, who advocated the change in position. But she warned you had something of a short attention span, and figured a division head would be less likely to be disposed of than just an editor.”

  “Chief editor,” he corrected.

  “But still an editor, Hunter.”

  He paused, noting the way the light from his arched window shined on her face. Suddenly, she did not seem as sweet and innocent as he had first surmised.

  “So you spoke to your client about me?”

  She shifted in her chair. “I wanted her opinion of you.”

  “Her opinion?”

  “Smut Slut is a very shrewd woman where men are concerned. She has a talent for breaking down a man in the first few minutes of meeting them.”

  Hunter shook his head. “Yeah, I noticed. Does your friend have a real name, or does everyone call her Smut Slut?”

  Cary lightly laughed, filling Hunter’s dingy office with the uplifting sound. “Yes, she has a real name, but I have been sworn to secrecy. You would be surprised at how normal she is…outside of her leather and wigs, of course.”

  He recalled the intriguing woman’s blonde hair and felt a pang of regret that it may not have been her real hair color. Hunter loved blondes.

  Standing from his chair, he considered Cary’s offer. Bringing on another editor with the company would be easy enough to hide from his brother and father, but a division head would be something of a challenge.

  “What if I were willing to offer you a division head position after we had launched our first book?” he proposed, peering out his window.

  “That still does not give me a great deal of job security,” Cary asserted. “What if you pull the plug after the first book?”

  Hunter raised his eyebrows, agreeing with her as he turned from the window. “Then we’ll have to make sure the first book we launch gets enough attention to keep your new division going.”

  “You would need a book from a well-established writer who is already known in the market,” she countered.

  He thoughtfully nodded. “If we could bring a known writer on board to launch our line, it would help assure our success.”

  She angled forward in her chair. “What if I could guarantee you a book that would bring in the numbers you need…would you give me the division head position then?”

  He took a second or two to think about it. “It would have to be some book.”

  Cary glanced down at the purse in her lap. “Smut Slut has just finished her next novel, called The Bondage Club, and has been considering shopping it to another publishing house. She’s not happy with MandiRay, but if you made it worth her while, she might be willing to come here. Especially if she knows I will be handling all of her promotion.”

  Hunter was floored by the suggestion. He remembered the line at the Book Expo and her popularity with readers. To corner such a writer for the debut of his erotica line would be a hell of a coup.

  “Do you think she would do that?” He was almost shocked by the enthusiasm in his voice.

  “I could talk to her. We go way back and she would listen to me if I suggested it. But you would have to offer her a better deal than she has with her current publisher.”

  Hunter took a step closer to Cary. “Absolutely. Let’s get her on the phone right now.”

  “No, this needs to be handled delicately. If you call her, she will know I let it slip about her wanting a new publisher, and I can’t jeopardize our professional relationship.” Cary stood from her chair. “I’ll call her later this morning and broach the subject. If she’s interested, I will have her get in touch with you.”

  Hunter considered her offer for a moment. “If you get me Smut Slut’s next book, you can have your division head position. I’ll give you full control over the erotica line, including the advertising and marketing. Deal?” He held out his hand.

  Cary came up to him and took his hand. “It’s a deal, Hunter.”

  A flicker of electricity passed from her hand to his, making Hunter stifle a gasp. He studied the outline of her smooth jaw and upturned nose, and again felt that tug of familiarity pass between them. “Excuse me for asking, Cary, but have we met before?”

  “No, we have never met before.” Cary quickly backed away. “I should be going,” she softly said, rushing to the door.

  “Just let me know when you want to get started,” Hunter called behind her.

  Cary yanked open his office door. “Let me check my schedule and I’ll call you later today with a start date.” Then she hurried out of his office.

  After she had left, Hunter detected the faintest trace of her floral perfume. He thought the fragrance oddly resembled her outwardly feminine appearance, but somehow he gathered what was on the inside of Cary Anderson was far from vulnerable and delicate.

  Putting the woman out of his head, he returned to his desk with a renewed interest in the manuscripts and papers piled there. The idea of introducing a meatier genre of novels into the mix at Donovan Books almost made him giddy.

  “The old man will have a heart attack when he finds out,” Hunter said with a delighted grin. “This is going to be the best thing that ever happened to Donovan Books…and to me.”

  * * *

  The veil of evening was reaching across his office window when Hunter’s cell phone on the side of his desk rang. Checking the caller ID, he frowned when he saw that the number was blocked.

  “This is Hunter Donovan,” he barked into the phone.

  “Do you always answer the phone in such a cheerful manner?” a sexy female voice reprimanded.

  “That depends on who this is.”

  “Cary told me of your little meeting today, and your interest in my next book. You don’t waste any time do you?”

  Hunter’s heart skipped a beat. “Well, well, Ms. Slut. Nice to hear your voice again. I hope your time at the Book Expo was worthwhile.”

  “You were the highlight of my trip, Mr. Donovan.”

  Hunter smiled as he sat back in his creaky desk chair. “I’m so glad. I was beginning to think you didn’t like me.”

  “Have you ever met a woman who didn’t like you?”

  The question made Hunter chuckle. “Which answer will get me your next book, Ms. Slut?”

  A high-pitched tinkling laugh came through the speaker of his iPhone, making Hunter’s stomach flutter ever so lightly. “I like a man who doesn’t waste time with sweet talk. Check your e-mail. I just sent you the manuscript. It’s called The Bondage Club, and if you’re interested, e-mail me a contract, and I will look it over.”

  “Can I ask what it’s about? I mean, with a title like that I can guess, but….” His voice faded as his curiosity rose.

  “There are many different kinds of bondage, Mr. Donovan, that don’t involve ropes, chains, or even handcuffs.”

  Hunter gaped at his cell phone. “I don’t get it.”

  “Love can be a form of bondage,” she explained. “We can get tied to someone just as easily as we can be tied up by someone. The book is about bondage in all of its forms.”

  “Then I look forward to reading it.” He paused as he thought of an idea. “But why not come to my office? We can discuss the details of the contract over lunch,” he pursued with a hint of insistence in his voice.

  “I don’t think so. Lunch with you would be dangerous.”

  Hunter coyly smiled. “For which one of us, Ms. Slut?”

  “I’m not your type, Mr. Donovan.”

  Hunter’s body rippled with the hint of a challenge. “You never know; if Donovan Books handles your novel, we may grow on each other.”

  “I hope not. Getting involved with the man who publishes my book would complicate matters. I’m also a very demanding author. I might get on your nerves after a time.”

  “I have a lot of demanding authors. You would fit right in.”

  �
�Do you usually try and date your authors, or will I be the first?”

  He fingered a corner of the manuscript on the desk before him as his imagination began to wander. “You would be the first. I never date clients.”

  “I heard a nasty little rumor to the contrary, about your brother and Monique Delome. They were engaged and then she up and married some Texas oil man. Lucky girl.”

  “Lucky to be rid of my brother,” Hunter returned, pushing the manuscript in front of him to the side.

  “Oh, do I detect a note of sibling rivalry, Mr. Donovan?”

  He leaned back in his chair and turned his eyes to his arched window. “Rivalry, nah. More like deep-seated hatred. And if I’m going to bare my soul to you, you should start calling me, Hunter.”

  “Let me guess, Hunter.” Her voice was throaty and delicious, spurring on his desire. “He stole your Legos when you were six and you have never forgiven him.”

  Hunter ran his hand over his face, feeling the conversation was getting a little too personal. “Never mind my brother. Let’s talk about you.”

  “I make it a practice never to talk about myself. The less people know about me, the better.”

  “I don’t agree, Ms. Slu….” Hunter crinkled his brow. “What else can I call you? Ms. Slut is too—”

  “Call me Smuttie, if you like.”

  “Smuttie…don’t you have a real name?”

  “Smuttie is all you need to know.” The sound of voices in the background broke in. “Let me know what you think of my manuscript, Hunter. I’ll be waiting to hear from you.” Then the line went dead.

  Hunter stared at his phone for several seconds, trying to put the conversation into perspective. He figured most of what the woman was giving him was an act to help sell books, but there was something else about her that he found intensely appealing. He pictured her tight black leather minidress and high-heeled black boots, and wondered what she was hiding behind the costume.

  His eyes swerved back to his desk and the pile of manuscripts waiting to be read. Reaching for his laptop, he hit his e-mail inbox. Scrolling through the e-mails, he spotted one sent from a Ms. S., and immediately opened it.

  There was no introduction or note written, only the attached manuscript. Opening the work titled The Bondage Club, he sat back in his chair and decided to glance through a few pages. But one page made him hunger for the next, and soon he lost all interest in work and handed himself over to Smut Slut’s whimsical writing.

  Chapter 3

  It was well after midnight by the time Hunter finished reading through Smut Slut’s manuscript. The Bondage Club had been more than compelling. Set in the Midwest, it was the tale of an insecure woman who walked away from her high school sweetheart to find a life. Through a string of bondage-laden sexual affairs, she discovered that what she was looking for all along was love and not sex, and it had been right under her nose the entire time with her former sweetheart. The story had a happy ending, vital to the book’s success, but the cynic in Hunter doubted a man such as the stalwart boyfriend in the book would have taken his former girlfriend back. Smut Slut may have known a few things about men, but she did not know their Achilles’ heel; that overriding inability to share. Men were never willing to share anything, especially a woman with other men. It was the nature of the beast, and unlike women who were able to share clothes, makeup, and even secrets, men had a primal instinct to protect what they considered theirs.

  Flipping down his laptop, Hunter grinned. Only a man would know such a detail, and that was probably why such novels never appealed to a male audience. Men needed raw stories filled with lust, power, and an occasional shoot out to keep them interested; women just needed romance and a happy ending. Oh, the pitfalls of estrogen.

  Standing from his chair, Hunter stretched out his tired back and then retrieved the keys on his desk. Other than the misrepresentation of the male sex, Hunter knew the book was good. It would be a big seller and could make Donovan Books debut into the erotica genre a roaring success.

  After slipping from his office, he made his way to the first floor of the building. Taking the stairs helped to push the cobwebs from his mind that the hours of reading had collected. Once he had set the alarm, Hunter locked the front entrance and headed down the darkened street to his waiting crimson red, Z4 28i BMW roadster.

  As he turned over the ignition, his thoughts floated back to the book he had just read. He wondered if the story was a glimpse into Smut Slut’s past. All writers drew from their experiences, and Hunter had been around enough of them to know that snippets of who they were and what they had been through seeped their way into each and every novel. Hell, he had even put pieces of his life into the pages of his book.

  Cringing at the recollection of his novel, he reasoned that he had been too young to put pen to paper. Writing was an older man’s game, or at least an experienced individual’s calling. You had to first live life in order to be able to put a convincing interpretation of it in a book. Hunter figured starting a novel at twenty-six had been a futile effort from day one. But he had learned a lot since then, and had always, in the back of his mind, hoped to write again.

  “Yeah, right,” he clucked as the car sped along Walker Street to his loft residence in Castleberry Hill. “I’m too busy reading everyone else’s crap to write my own.”

  Entering the garage of the ten-story, converted red-bricked building that housed his condo, Hunter doubted he would ever write again. Perhaps his brother had been right and he was better suited to publishing books instead of creating them. At least he still felt a part of the literary world, even if it wasn’t very satisfying.

  He pulled into one of his two reserved spots in the bricked garage and his heart fell to the pit of his stomach when he spied the spotless white Mercedes C250 Sport parked in the slot next to his.

  “Shit,” he cursed as he turned off the engine.

  Climbing from his car, he glared at the Mercedes. Clutching the brown leather briefcase that he had stuffed with another manuscript, he headed to the garage elevators. Stepping into the elevator car, his thoughts raced ahead to the confrontation about to take place. He was tired and wanted nothing more than a hot shower, a shot of vodka, and to watch a little television before going to bed. He did not need another round of fighting with her, and as the elevator doors opened on the eighth floor, his impatience turned to anger.

  As soon as he stepped from the silver and oak elevator car, he saw her standing beside his front door. Her long, silky brown hair was gathered around her right shoulder, accentuating the creaminess of her skin. With her tall, thin frame, long face, thin red lips, sunken cheekbones, and angled jaw, she could have easily been a model, but had always shunned her beauty. Wearing slim-fitting blue jeans and a soft brown cardigan, to Hunter she looked enticingly seductive, but his past experiences with the woman tempered his desire to take her to bed.

  “What are you doing here, Kat?”

  The smile she put on for him was absolutely radiant. “I was in the neighborhood and wanted to see you.”

  He went to the door and put his key in the lock. “In the neighborhood?” He snorted with disapproval. “Let me guess, you and Frank broke up.”

  Her deep-set brown eyes became a little rounder. “How did you know?”

  “The only time you show up at my door is when you have broken up with your latest boyfriend.” Shifting his briefcase from one hand to the other, Hunter angrily shoved the front door open.

  “I was really in the neighborhood. I have a show starting later next week not far from here.”

  Exploring her curves with his tired eyes, he felt his aggravation with her quickly abate. “Business must be good.”

  “I’ll send you an e-mail invite. You have to come to the opening party.”

  He sighed, knowing he would have to go to the party. It wasn’t in him to disappoint her. “Have I ever missed an opening, Kat?”

  “No. You’ve always been there for me, baby.”

 
; Hunter flipped the light switch by the front door. “You need to stop dropping by. We can’t keep doing this.”

  She walked into the center of a shiny oak hardwood floor and stood next to a white breakfast bar with three chrome stools that marked the start of the recessed kitchen. Behind her, the adjoining living room was filled with a green sofa and plush, overstuffed wide chairs that stood before four tall windows set into the deep red-bricked wall. To the right of the door were the metal stairs that climbed the entire three stories of the condo. Left over from when the building had been a warehouse, the bricked walls and painted stairwell were the only reminders of the structure’s historic past.

  “I’m glad you bought this place. It suits you. Better than that ratty apartment we used to live in.”

  Hunter slammed the front door as his anger returned. “I bought this condo because I needed some place close to the office…and I liked that ratty apartment.”

  “Well, I like you better as a successful publisher rather than a struggling writer. You’re better off this way.”

  Dropping his keys on the dark wooden table by the door, he let out a frustrated breath and then walked to the bar. “Why do you always show up on my doorstep, Kat?”

  “We’re friends, aren’t we?” she questioned, slinking over to the breakfast bar.

  “Every time you come over, we end up….” He ran his hand over his mouth, not wanting to upset her.

  She had a seat on one of the chrome stools and peeled the cardigan from about her body. Hunter could feel his heart beating faster as he took in the swell of her breasts beneath her tight, white T-shirt.

  Leaning against the bar, Kathleen traced her fingers along a swirl in the white-granite countertop that shone beneath the chrome dropped lights hanging from above. “Nothing has to happen this time, Hunter.”

  Hunter put his briefcase on the bar and turned for the built-in, wood-inlaid refrigerator behind him. “What happened with Frank?” He opened the refrigerator door. “When I saw you at your last opening several months back you were talking about marrying this one.”