by Cynthia Dane
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Keep Up with Cynthia
Keep Up with Hildred
Part 1: Games We Play
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Part 2: Games We Lose
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Part 3: Games We Win
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Epilogue
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Keep Up with Cynthia
Keep Up with Hildred
Part 1: Games We Play
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Part 2: Games We Lose
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Part 3: Games We Win
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Epilogue
Join Us: Private Facebook Group
Special Preview: With This Ring
Also Available
GAMES WE PLAY
Cynthia Dane + Hildred Billings
BARACHOU PRESS
Games We Play
Copyright: Cynthia Dane & Hildred Billings
Published: February 9th, 2018
Publisher: Barachou Press
This is a work of fiction. Any and all similarities to any characters, settings, or situations are purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in retrieval system, copied in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise transmitted without written permission from the publisher. You must not circulate this book in any format.
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Keep up with Hildred’s latest releases by joining her mailing list! Behind the scenes, first looks, and even some free snippets!
Part 1: Games We Play
Chapter 1
“Happy birthday!”
Leah could barely hear her friends over the roar of club music and the sloshing of alcohol and ice in her glass. The first drink of my thirties! This was better than turning twenty-one, because she knew her limits and didn’t worry about puking her guts out at midnight or suffering from the hangover of the century.
Besides, how often did she get to party with friends these days? How many women could say that their thirtieth birthday fell on a Saturday? Leah had to work at the bakery that day, but she got off early enough to rush home, change, and head out to the nearest nightclub with three of her besties in tow. The bass was cranked and the bodies moving on the illuminated floor.
“It’s my birthday!” Leah hopped up and down where she stood outside of the VIP booth. Her frilly pink dress swished with her movements as Melissa crowned her with a rhinestone tiara that said Birthday Girl.
“Congrats on joining the thirty-something club.” Melissa clinked their drinks together before downing hers and motioning to the dance floor. “Now let’s get crazy!”
Leah had been ready for this night for the past few months, let alone the agonizing week leading up to this moment. She never got to do something fun for her birthdays. She always had to work, look after her baby sister (who was still a teenager,) or didn’t have enough money to make her birthday dreams come true. Hell, all she wanted was some validation that she could party too. Now she was thirty. What better excuse to finally cut loose with her best friends?
Even if she still lived at home with her parents and sister. Even if she had a mediocre job at a bakery instead of decorating wedding and birthday cakes for a living, like she always dreamed. Even if she had been single for years and didn’t see that changing anytime soon.
Life was still good, right?
“A toast!” a sweaty Melissa said, with her drink high in the air. “To our very own Leah, who has made it thirty years through life coming out stronger the other… the other si… side?”
Melissa tipped over where she stood. Leah and another friend lunged forward to catch her before she fell into a fit of giggles in their VIP booth.
There had been more than one surprise that night. The club and VIP booth had been a surprise. The presents – which included kitschy vibrators – were totally her. Melissa had colluded with a mutual friend to get a strippergram that morning. They remembered my type! Curvy, brunette, and cheeky, like Leah.
God only knew what would happen once they were tipsy. Or in Melissa’s case, on her ass drunk.
She spent more time dancing than drinking, though. Leah had enough pent up energy to knock her teeth out. Most of that energy was accumulated during the latter half of her twenties. Working six days a week? No relationship to help her release her sexual frustrations? Taking care of her little sister whenever their parents decided Karlie wasn’t mature enough to take care of herself? Leah went out on that dancefloor with the assumption she wouldn’t get another night like this for a few more years.
I can’t believe I’m thirty now. She waved her arms in the air, feet stomping to the heavy dance beat as her hair swished against her exposed back. I’m acting like I’m twenty! Wouldn’t it be great if she were twenty again? If she could redo the whole decade?
“Leah…” Friend and co-worker Gina spun Leah off the dancefloor and nodded to the edge of the VIP area. “You see that guy over there? He’s been eyeing you all night.”
Leah did a double-take at the large, muscular man surveying the dancefloor through a pair of dark sunglasses. Too cool to take them off in the club, huh? What a total joke. Didn’t see many of those types in Portland. “What about him?”
“He’s seriously checking you out. Want me to tell him to fuck off and that you don’t do dudes?”
“In that order?”
“Sure!”
Gina rolled her eyes and spun Leah in a tight circle. She giggled every time Leah’s skirt billowed out like a ruffled tent.
The man kept his eyes on Leah and her party for fifteen more minutes. He occasionally checked something on his phone before looking back up again. Did Leah remind him of someone? An old girlfriend, perhaps? Too bad for
you, bro, ‘cause I am a ladies only woman myself. That was the only good thing to happen in her twenties, not that she had much chance to explore her sexuality.
“He’s kinda hot,” Melissa muttered at their table. “Oh, shit, I think he’s coming over here.”
He was.
“Excuse me.” That voice was a little too easy to hear over the boom of the music. “I believe you’re needed in the back room, Miss.”
Everyone, including Leah, whistled in awe. “Needed, huh?” Leah flung her sweaty hair behind her shoulders. “I ain’t into men, pal.” Her friends laughed behind her.
“It’s not me you’re seeing. The guest of honor gets what she wants.”
Leah gasped in elated disbelief. “Who did this?” She turned to her friends. “Which one of you hired me another stripper?”
Melissa raised her hand. “It may have been me. But if it’s a dude, it was a mistake.”
“No strippers.” The man motioned for Leah to follow him. “Don’t worry, ladies, we’ll have her back within the hour.”
“The hour! Wow! What did I pay for?” Melissa subsequently ordered another drink. She promised, as Leah wandered off with the sunglassed man, that it would be her final one of the night. Somehow, Leah didn’t believe her.
“What’s this about?” That was the first thing Leah asked when she entered the quieter back hallways of the club. A bouncer nodded in acknowledgment, but said nothing when Leah and her escort walked by.
He snorted. “Like you don’t know.”
“I really don’t.”
The man stopped. Leah bumped into him, but she was the only one reacting to the sudden collision.
“I don’t like coy games,” he said. “I want people to do their jobs and get on with life. I don’t ask questions.”
It was only then that Leah truly felt the strangeness of the situation. Was this a birthday surprise? Or a case of mistaken identity?
Or worse? Holy shit, wasn’t there that huge human trafficking scandal last year? Where did it originate? Nightclubs like this one? Was Leah about to be whisked to the back of a truck, never to be heard from again? She heard so many horror stories about the I5 corridor!
“What’s that look for?” The man opened a door at the end of the hall and waited for Leah to go in. “You girls get stranger by the day.”
Leah expected him to come into the room with her. Instead, he closed it behind her.
“H… hey!” She was sobered up now. “What’s this about?”
“Would you wait? Jesus.”
Leah backed away from the door. The room… was it another VIP room? An office? Storage area? Because all she saw was a small table and a chair on the other side. Hardly comfortable, let alone for entertaining someone.
She pulled out her phone and texted her friends about it, but nobody replied. They were too busy partying.
Guess I might as well sit down and wait. She had her personal safety app up and ready to go should someone come barging in, intent on hurting her.
This was either going to be the best birthday ever… or the worst.
***
Sloan stared through the two-way mirror, sucking in her cheeks and considering calling the whole thing off.
“Way to go off script,” she muttered. The woman in front of her wasn’t the one she hired. She barely looked like the girl from the Portland escort agency. Last time I ever use them again. Talk about catfishing me. This was the problem with not meeting the women she hired before she hit the city’s pavement. Sometimes she got a completely different person than the one she supposedly hired – because this was not the first time this had happened.
The woman she met was supposedly named Mandy. Not her real name, and I don’t care. “Mandy” was shown in a strapless pink dress and sporting bouncy brown curls that played with her deep and generous cleavage. This woman in the other room wore a pink strapless dress and had brown hair, but she was not “tiny in all ways but up top,” as her online profile described her. Sloan had barely paid attention to it when she waved her finger over the first picture that somewhat pleased her. Now she wished she had.
Not that the woman was displeasing to look at – she simply wasn’t Sloan’s type. She liked her women ready to hit the runway as soon as they were done getting their bikini waxes. “Mandy” over there looked like she hadn’t showered in a day. This fucking city. God, did Sloan hate Portland. Worst town for doing business in, yet here she was, attempting to blow off some steam after a stressful week by doing what she loved most.
“Everything good, boss?”
She turned to her temporary bodyguard. “I suppose,” Sloan said with a sigh. “I’ll let you know when I’m ready to leave. Leave us be until then.”
“Sure thing.” He spared her one last look before ambling down the hallway. Sloan knew he would only be a shout away. That was a bodyguard’s job, after all. Shadow, but never be seen.
I should go back to my hotel room. Treat herself to some sexting with her favorite girl in LA. Why did she have to go and get married? Sloan would have personally flown the woman up to Portland to spend the night with her. Instead, the most she was allowed anymore was sexting and phone sex. Droll.
She checked the state of her hair in the mirror. If she was going to do this, she might as well look good. No sense sending this woman back to her agency with tales of a slovenly billionaire whose wig couldn’t sit straight on her head.
Sloan was blond tonight. She always liked meeting new women while blond. They remembered her better that way. Well, that and she was one of the only female clients they worked with. And she tipped well. Very well.
She might as well get this over with. Who knew? It might be the best dalliance she ever experienced in the rose city. Doubt it. Then again, the bar is so low…
The woman looked up from her phone when Sloan entered the room. Their eyes met, briefly, before Sloan tossed her coat and bag onto the end of the table and turned around long enough to close the curtains over the two-way mirror. She liked to keep her roleplaying private, if she couldn’t use her hotel room. Sometimes it was more fun to meet a woman in a nondescript location and conclude their business there.
“Half hour begins now.” Sloan sat on the edge of the table and crossed her arms. It allowed her to glance at her watch. “Sorry I’m a little late.” Yet she had paid for thirty minutes, so that’s what she was going to get.
The escort cocked her head, eyes wide and swallowing every detail of Sloan’s outfit. That’s it. Drink it in. This is what head-to-toe bespoke looks like.
“You know what this is about, right?”
It was half a second before the woman grinned. “Happy birthday to me?”
Well, she’s cute, I guess. Even if she wore a dress much too big for her. It hid her sweet assets, like the bosom Sloan could admire now that she was only a few inches away from it. Guess she does have a nice chest after all. That was the second most important thing. The first? A pair of sweet, warm thighs perfect for caressing.
This woman looked like she had quite the pair on her. At least she had that going for her.
“Is it? Really?”
A finger jammed into the top of the woman’s tangled hair. She seriously looks like she walked in from a windstorm. She was also covered in a sheen of sweat. What in the world had she been doing? Dancing in the club? “Birthday tiara. It’s legit.”
“I… see.” Sloan relaxed the grip on her own arms. “Happy birthday.”
She didn’t care if it was the escort’s birthday or not. It was probably part of the roleplay. She often told the women she hired that she wanted them to come up with their own background for the evening. Sloan wasn’t interested in knowing their real quirks and personalities. She wanted an act. A performance. A night to remember for the rest of the week, until the next appointment with another woman. Her escort budget may have been ridiculous, but her accountant never said a thing. Not when Sloan made so much money that she could do whatever the hell she pleased after w
ork.
Some women blew their money on shopping trips around the world. Others scored drugs and got high every other night. Sloan filled the void in her life with sex. She was hardly the only woman to do it – but she was one of the only ones to exclusively hire women for the pleasure of being with her.
A birthday girl. A run-of-the-mill party princess feeling like a real queen for a day. She could work with that. Sloan had been in the mood to spoil a woman who could appreciate it. Birthday girls were all about being spoiled.
“Tell me, Birthday Girl,” that was her name now. Mandy had declared her persona, and that’s what Sloan ran with. “Why are you so sweaty?”
“Because I was dancing. Why? Not afraid of a little sweat, are you?”
“Oh, honey.” At least this one had personality to her. “The last thing I’m afraid of is sweat.”
She proved it by tipping her fingers beneath Birthday Girl’s chin. Big, beautifully brown eyes looked back into hers. Sloan only faltered a little bit. When was the last time she saw eyes that lovely shade of brown? When was the last time she met a woman who already grinned in a situation like this? Most of the women Sloan hired were already tired of her shit before they exchanged a single word.
“You like girls?”
That grin grew wider. “Duh. You wouldn’t be here if I didn’t, right?”
“Riiiight. You’re the birthday girl.” That tiara declaring such was currently lopsided on the escort’s tangled head. “That must make me the stripper your friends hired.”
The escort’s eyes were so wide with excitement that Sloan briefly wondered if that was the situation. Am I? A stripper, that is?
She might as well play along.
Chapter 2
Leah had no idea who the hell this woman was, but she was in Heaven. Capital H Heaven!
Had any lesbian been gifted a better birthday present before? Who did this? Melissa? It was totally Melissa! Only she knew the depths of Leah’s potential depravity and what she would be up for when slightly tipsy and full-blown drunk on the rhythm of club music. “I’ve always had this fantasy of a totally hot stranger fucking me in the back of a club,” Leah had confessed to her friend one night. Melissa must have held onto that information for this moment… because this may have been an odd definition of “the back of the club,” but Leah was totally into it. Now. After she realized what was going on, and what a lucky birthday girl she was!