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“I don’t know,” Lily countered. “I started feeling different once I met Shade in the park.”
“Yeah, because he was hot,” Faith said.
“Thanks, dear,” Shade teased.
Faith saluted him with her glass and took a drink.
“Faith?” Lily asked.
“Yeah?”
Lily leaned into Shade and narrowed her eyes. “Mine.”
Faith threw back her head and laughed. “He’s all yours, dearie. I don’t need a man.”
Shade tugged her closer. “I like when you’re all possessive.”
She smiled up at him. “I just wanted to make it clear.”
He kissed her again, and Dante threw a pretzel. “Get out of here if you’re going to do that. Some of us like to eat in peace.” He darted a glance toward Nadie, but she wouldn’t look at him.
“You threw food!” Lily laughed.
“It’s my bar and my prerogative. Now get lost.”
Shade stood and took Lily with him. “Sounds good to me.”
“I guess I’ll see you guys later. Just be careful, okay? If you start to feel funny or full of energy, let us know. Because that means you might have met your true half.” She waved bye and stole a glance at Jamie, who had lowered her head, her skin pale.
Huh. Her friend was hiding something.
“Let it go, sprite.” Shade kissed her temple and walked her to his bike. Mmm…his bike.
“I just want to know what’s going on with Jamie,” she said while he put on her helmet.
“You will.” He adjusted the straps and kissed her nose.
“I love you, Shade.”
“Marry me.”
She froze. “What?”
He cursed. “Damn, I was going to wait until we drove to the forest to meet the brownies to ask. You just look so cute with your little helmet on, I couldn’t help it.”
“Did you just ask me to marry you?”
Shade shuffled his feet, looking uncertain. “Yes?”
“We’ve just met.” But something inside clicked. He was hers as she was his. Oh, she loved this man and wanted to for eternity.
“I know, but we’re true mates. I know that doesn’t mean anything to you yet, but it does to me. Lily, I want to see you when I wake up every morning and make love to you before bed and in the middle of the night. I want to plan our lives and show you the world. I want to see you grow round with our young. I want to see our babies grow up and have babies of their own. Please, Lily. Marry me.”
Tears streamed down her cheeks, and she jumped into his arms. “Yes!”
He caught her and held her tight. “Oh, thank God. I was so afraid I messed it up.”
“Well, maybe you should have let me take off the helmet because I look like a dork, but I think you did perfectly.”
He grinned and kissed her. She wrapped her body around his, ignoring the catcalls of her friends. They must have heard her scream. Shade’s warm body surrounded her, and she finally felt at home. Maybe a strike of lightning wasn’t so bad after all.
The End
Coming Next in the Dante’s Circle World, Her Warriors’ Three Wishes.
Ambrose’s story.
About Carrie Ann Ryan
Carrie Ann Ryan is a bestselling paranormal and contemporary romance author. After spending too much time behind a lab bench, she decided to dive into the romance world and find her werewolf mate - even if it’s just in her books. Happy endings are always near - even if you have to get over the challenges of falling in love first.
Her first book, An Alpha's Path, is the first in her Redwood Pack series. She's also an avid reader and lover of romance and fiction novels. She love meeting new authors and new worlds. Any recommendations you have are appreciated. Carrie Ann lives in New England with her husband and two kittens.
www.carrieannryan.com
Also from this Author:
Now Available:
Redwood Pack Series:
An Alpha’s Path
A Taste for a Mate
Trinity Bound
A Night Away
Enforcer’s Redemption
Blurred Expectations
Forgiveness
Shattered Emotions
Holiday, Montana Series:
Charmed Spirits
Santa’s Executive
Finding Abigail
Dante’s Circle:
Dust of My Wings
Her Warriors’ Three Wishes
Coming Soon:
Redwood Pack
Hidden Destiny
Dante’s Circle:
An Unlucky Moon
Ever After
Holiday, Montana Series:
Dreams of Ivory
To return to the table of contents, click here.
Pick Your Pleasure
By Jayne Rylon
http://jaynerylon.com/
Pick Your Pleasure
By Jayne Rylon
Available now!
Ever read a book and wish the heroine hadn’t done that, gone there, or slept with that guy? Well, now you’re in charge. The reader decides what happens here.
Tailor your perfect short story or be adventurous and read through all the different paths to see where life can take you…if you choose.
Go ahead, pick your pleasure.
Linley Lane, CEO of Lane Technologies, has had enough of blah dates. When she decides to shake things up with a visit to an underground sex club she’s heard rumors about, she realizes she’s way out of her league. This is no usual hookup spot.
Presented with two potential guides for the night—men who turn her on more in a matter of minutes than a year of lame dating in her high-class circles did—she’s got some tough decisions to make about how she wants to spend the rest of her evening and just how dirty she intends to get.
Will she choose to be romanced by a sexy gentleman? Or will she indulge the rare anonymity Underground affords to revel in wild excess with a like-minded rebel? And where will they go from there?
Pick Your Pleasure
Jayne Rylon
Published by Jayne Rylon
Copyright 2012 Jayne Rylon
Edited by Chloe Vale
ePub ISBN: 978-0-9888124-0-6
If you have purchased a copy of this eBook, thank you. Also, thank you for not sharing your copy of this book. This purchase allows you one legal copy for your own personal reading enjoyment on your personal computer or device. You do not have the rights to resell, distribute, print, or transfer this book, in whole or in part, to anyone, in any format, via methods either currently known or yet to be invented, or upload to a file sharing peer to peer program. It may not be re-sold or given away to other people. Such action is illegal and in violation of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. If you no longer want this book, you may not give your copy to someone else. Delete it from your computer. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Dedication
For my brother, Kolin, and his friends, who texted from a bar in NYC with a great (I hope) idea for my next book…
Also to Lexi Blake for encouraging me to experiment. I appreciate all your help in getting me off the ground and the fact that you accept payment for your shared wisdom in the tender of sexy pictures of men.
None of this would have been possible without Chloe Vale. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
To find out more about how Pick Your Pleasure works, please visit JayneRylon.com.
Pick Your Pleasure
Table of Contents
Underground
Play Downstairs
Fuck Machines Rule
Take Me To The Basement
More The Merrier
Linley Picked Chase
A Pinch Of Spice
Linley Picked Ryder
Toy Chest With Chase
Happiest At Home
Stay Downstairs
Romantic Interlude
Ties That Bind With Chase
Ryder Epilogue
Ryder Loves The Toy Chest
Chase Epilogue
Ryder Loves Ties That Bind
About Jayne Rylon
1A - Underground
“It’s been a pleasure,” Linley Lane lied.
She pasted on her diplomatic smile as she allowed her date to buss her cheek and politely shake her hand as they parted ways on the red carpet of the valet portico outside L’Etoile.
Another miserable date.
That was probably harsh. It had been blah.
Make that at least sixty-two in a row. Or was it sixty-three?
Sure, Paolo had given her eyes plenty to feast on during the dinner they’d shared. His intelligence, along with genuine Italian features, olive skin, and his sexy accent should have been enough to make any woman swoon. Plus, his family’s shipping empire ensured his interest had more to do with her personally than the fortune she’d amassed by building her application development business from the ground up.
But there simply hadn’t been any chemistry between them.
Not a single firework.
Or even a spark.
Not a glimmer of lust had fluttered her stomach when he’d dusted a kiss over her knuckles before dessert. It hadn’t taken her more than a moment’s hesitation to decline his offer of after-dinner drinks—at his place, or hers, or the ritzy hotel across the street.
Hell, the fact that she’d entertained the notion even that long when he didn’t have the it factor she searched for could only mean she was getting desperate.
Finding a guy was hell when the most attractive thing about you seemed to be the hundreds of millions you’d banked by being savvy, refusing to quit, and working your ass off. She’d waited so long to get in the game, focused on work instead of socializing, that she admitted she probably didn’t know how to date like most women her age.
By thirty-three, she should have some skills, know how to take a man home for a night of fun, or play the seductress in a drawn-out affair. Instead, she probably conducted her rendezvous more like interviews for a mate.
On paper, her recent dates looked like perfect matches. And not a single one of them had given her any sort of zing.
Success hadn’t come without roadblocks. If nothing else, she’d learned to problem solve like a beast. She needed a new approach.
Time for Plan B.
Drawing her pre-release prototype phone—which had been issued by the testing team of a leading cell manufacturer—from her purse, she traced the symbol that would quick dial Henry as she approached her car.
“Everything all right, Linley?” Her head of security answered before the damn thing had even buzzed once. “Your date…?”
“It’s a bust. Nothing’s wrong other than my old-maid status.” She sighed. That certainly wouldn’t cause her personal injury unless she gouged her eyes out or died of sexual starvation. Her security detail got nervous when she insisted they stay at home, so what she was going to ask next would probably blow the top of his head off. She didn’t care. “Henry?”
“Yeah.” His gruff response made it clear he understood he wasn’t going to like this call.
“Tell me the name and address of the club you visit when you need something…adventurous.”
“Linley?” He tried to pull his silent-but-strong-type bullshit on her. Fooling her would take more than that.
“Do you really think I’d hire you without snooping into your private life at least half as much as you did into mine?” She laughed.
“I wouldn’t respect you if you hadn’t.” He grunted. “But I thought you had more tact than to mention my playground after all these years. Why don’t I come over and we can discuss—?”
“No.” She knew he didn’t intend it as a come on. They’d worked together for nearly a decade. They didn’t have the spark either, though her head bodyguard could make any number of women praise the male gender. “You’re not going to sway me. Just give me the damn information, and don’t butt in.”
“You’re serious?” He paused, as if he was holding the phone away from his face so she wouldn’t catch his cursing.
“Will I be safe there?” She doubted he’d visit a place where women weren’t respected.
“Damn it, Linley.” He blew out a puff of air then reconsidered. “Yes. No one will hurt you at Underground. There are rules. I’ll call the owner—”
“No. I want to go to a place where no one knows who I am. Somewhere I can be a random woman out to have fun and hook up.” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “Just for tonight. Let me have that.”
“You won’t be able to get in if I don’t pull a few strings,” he insisted. “Usually a member has to apply for a trial then escort a new recruit.”
“Fine. Do whatever it takes. Will my car be okay there? Or should I go home and take a taxi?” She triggered the ignition of her Alfa Romeo 8C Competizione with a new phone app they were working the bugs out of, loving the roar of the engine. If they could get it to work on something as finicky as her car, they could make it work for everyone. She tossed her cell to the bucket seat beside her as it automatically flipped to hands-free mode.
“You can park in the subterranean garage. Your baby will have good company down there. The club takes all types, Linley.” Henry’s resigned report accompanied the tapping of keys. “I’m sending a navigation map to your car now. I’ve already texted the owner to let him know you’re on your way.”
“Thanks, Henry.” She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. No backing out now.
“You know, you can change your mind. Or just go to have a couple of drinks. If it’s not for you, head out. Call me if you’d like me to come get you.” His offer muted when he must have covered the receiver with his hand for a bit. A murmured apology caught her attention.
“You’ve got someone with you tonight,” she whispered. Jealousy turned her an unattractive shade of green. Not for his hot body, but for the ease with which he was able to find women to keep him company. The power of her position often intimidated men and kept them from approaching her. “Sorry, Henry. I shouldn’t have bothered you on your night off. You take so few.”
“It’s fine.” His warm voice made his smile evident even over the phone. “You deserve to blow off some steam, too. Hope you realize how much fun you could be in for. Almost wish I could see your face...”
“I’m not a prude, you know.” She snorted.
“You’ve never been to a place like Underground before.” He seemed so smug, she doubled her determination to prove him wrong.
“I can handle myself.” If she weren’t zipping along the highway ramp, she might have crossed her arms over her chest.
“I know you can. That’s the only thing that convinced me to make this connection for you.” Henry probably rolled his eyes like he did when he thought she couldn’t see. “I only have a job if you’re around, kid.”
She laughed. “Always the practical one. Thanks, Henry. Get back to your friend.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He paused before disconnecting. “You’re going to have the wild night you’re craving, boss. Just...pick your pleasures wisely.”
Before she could ask what he meant by that, he’d severed the connection, probably to dive beneath the covers with his woman of the moment again. Too bad there hadn’t ever been any sparks between her and Henry. Loyal, handsome, and funny—he’d make someone a kickass husband someday.
If he ever decided to settle down.
Linley shook her head. It hadn’t been until the last year or so that the idea of meeting a man and maybe having a family had taken center stage in her mind. All through her twenties, she’d focused on building her empire. And now that she ruled her own world, she’d found it could be lonely at the top.
She glanced at the glowing line in her
customized dash. Only three more miles to the club. Shifting gears, she set her baby to cruise while she drew her diamond necklace over her head then shook off her matching bangle. The silk scarf she’d dressed up her black bandage dress with came next. She tucked the valuables in the special safe in the glove box then ruffled her hair, loosening the long waves from the updo she’d pinned them into.
Smudging her makeup a bit added a smoky haze around her steel-gray eyes. “You’ll do,” she told herself.
Heartbeat steady, breathing slow and deep, she turned into the discreet garage her car instructed her to occupy. A man in a suit met her at the booth. He waited patiently with his hands folded in front of his waist as she parked in the spot he indicated.
When she slid from her car, he approached.
“Ms. Lane.” He nodded.
“Good evening.” She pretended she had clandestine interludes with strangers who knew her all the time. It was either that or kick start her encounter on an awkward footing.
Losing this thrill, the anticipation of a reckless moment, didn’t interest her. Not when she’d fought so long to find it. Had running her own company turned her into an adrenaline junky? Maybe.
Tonight she’d find a rush one way or another.
“Henry spoke well of you.” The gentleman didn’t lead her into the building just yet. “We have high standards here at Underground. Please understand that there are rules you will need to follow if I take you farther.”
“And they are?” She refused to fidget, meeting his assessing gaze head on.