Games We Play Read online

  “What’s your name?” she asked the luxuriously dressed woman sitting on the table in front of her. One touch of those long fingers had sent incomprehensible shivers down Leah’s spine. Now she grinned to think that there may be more touching coming her way. (Probably not, but maybe a fully nude lap dance? Yes? Her friends had sprung for that, right?)

  The woman retracted her touch and once more crossed her arms. It only made her hotter. That finely cut blazer accentuated her breasts within that blue silk shirt. Pants as tailored as the queen’s regalia bedecked a body that must have seen a lot of gym time. There were no wasted movements. Only a woman who was totally in control of her body, and that was hot!

  “You can call me Sloan.”

  “Wow,” Leah uttered in genuine reverence. “That’s my favorite store.”

  “Come again?”

  “Oh, ah!” Leah jerked herself back to her senses. “Nothing! Beautiful name, though.”

  “You think so? I guess it’s more unique than Mandy.”

  “Mandy?”

  “I was told that’s your name.”

  Leah laughed. “That’s not my name! It’s…”

  A manicured finger landed against Leah’s lips. “You’re the Birthday Girl. That’s all I need to know.”

  Leah’s lips slightly parted. “What are we in for?” Whatever I want?

  A few seconds passed before Leah received any kind of answer. When she did? It was one leg swinging over her lap, and a woman who smelled like musk looming over her. Oh my God! It’s happening!

  “You want to get started?”

  “Well… I only have half an hour, right?”

  “To think, we’ve wasted almost ten minutes of that talking.”

  Leah’s hopes were so up that she dared to dream that something beyond a little striptease was in store. If it were only a tease, she could’ve done this in the VIP booth. Strippers weren’t shy about a small audience, right? Because her friends would have loved to scream and throw dollar bills for Leah’s sake – although the club may not have liked that. Was that why they were in this back room? Did Melissa make that happen, too, or was it Sloan’s request?

  “We don’t have to waste any more time, if you wish…”

  Leah didn’t get to say a lot after that. Her lips finished parting, as if she knew Sloan was going to kiss her.

  Wow.

  Wow.

  A hot woman’s tongue was down her throat before Leah had the chance to say yes. Yes, yes, yes! It echoed in her head instead, bouncing back and forth between her ears and threatening to plummet into her stomach before Sloan’s tongue could.

  What was she supposed to do when this happened so quickly? Sloan may have been paid, but Leah had not been prepared. A stripper? Sure! She’d get to see some tits and a little ass, way more than she had seen in the past few years. (Drunkenly making out with a woman in the back of the bar two years ago didn’t count.) A kiss? What had Melissa paid for?

  “Did you get my requests?”

  Leah’s eyes snapped open. Sloan had hopped back up on the table and looked at her through heavy-lidded eyes. Black eyeliner as thick as calligraphy. Lashes as long as wisps of smoke. A bold, gray color that Leah had never seen before. Were they contacts? Why was Leah so concerned with the color of this woman’s eyes when she could glance down and see cleavage?

  “Requests?” Leah only had one request, and that was for another kiss like that last one.

  Sloan clicked her tongue. “I thought you were a professional, birthday girl.”

  Leah was really confused now, but decided to play along. It might have been her brain fogging with shallow promises of sex, after all. “I merely follow the breeze, if you get what I mean.” God knew that’s what she did right now. That’s all she had been doing since the night began! “The stronger the wind, the better?”

  “I’ve been called a hurricane before, yes.” Sloan dragged her bag across the table and shoved her hand into its depths. “I’m also used to preparing in case the people I’m working with have not. As seems to have been the case here.”

  Leah was prepared for almost everything. Except a pair of shiny, metal handcuffs landing on the wooden table. They clanked down into a pathetic heap as if Sloan’s purpose had been to intimidate and nothing more

  Nope. Leah wasn’t intimidated.

  She was turned on.

  “Fuck you, Melissa!” she had said that during the same conversation about strangers in the back of clubs. With an awkward laugh, but the same sentiment nonetheless. “I was like that before all those silly BDSM books came out! Why do you think I tried reading most of them? Too many dudes, though.” Whips, chains, handcuffs… okay, mostly the handcuffs, because Leah was an inexperienced newbie when it came to domination and submission. Most of it was simple fantasy that made her giggle beneath her bed covers at night. Because what woman could ever hope for a lesbian who knew her way around a sex dungeon?

  Apparently, they could be purchased in half-hour blocks – and they smelled like a billion bucks.

  God damn. It all made sense! This was an elaborate roleplay based on what Leah had shared with Melissa so long ago! She remembered those details? The club? The hot stranger? The handcuffs?

  The kisses that knocked her out?

  “You’re cool with it, right?” The handcuffs dangled in front of Leah’s nose. “Because you should get… spoiled… on your birthday.”

  There were no words. Only a slight nod of the head, because who the fuck had words when suddenly faced with a grand sexual fantasy come to life?

  Best. Birthday. Ever!

  “I want to hear you say it, Birthday Girl.”

  “Y… yes?” Leah hadn’t meant to sound so meek. “I’m totally into it.”

  Sloan paused halfway between slamming the handcuffs back down and hearing those words. “Then put your hands behind your back. We’ve lost another five minutes.”

  Entranced by the hypnotic swing of handcuffs between Sloan’s fingers, Leah slowly crossed her hands behind the chair. “Only fifteen more minutes left?”

  “We better make the fucking best of it.”

  “Yes’m.” How much did it cost to get a dominatrix’s time? Let alone one who didn’t mind kissing? Because this might be an investment for Leah to make in the months to come. It’ll take me months to save up for a single session! Unlike Melissa, however, she’d go for an hour.

  “You like following orders, don’t you?”

  Leah leaned her head against the back of the chair. Sloan hovered above her, the cool touch of the metal handcuffs encircling Leah’s wrists. “A little.” A lot. Leah was the kind to always hope that her partners would get overbearing in the bedroom. (They never did. Not enough, anyway.) “Why? Do you like giving them?”

  “I’m not called the biggest cunt in America for nothing, darling.”

  Leah giggled. “I highly doubt that.”

  “Oh, I am. By some of the nastiest capitalists you’ve ever met.” Once she was happy with the security of the handcuffs, Sloan straddled Leah’s lap and continued, “You know you’ve made it big when the most powerful men around want your head on a spike.”

  Wow… she’s so cool…

  “Now can we please stop talking and get on with it?”

  “Whatever you want, Sloan.”

  “You know what I want, Birthday Girl?” Sloan settled down in Leah’s lap with such purpose that her intent could not have been clearer if she broadcasted it across the club. “You. I want this hot body of yours beneath mine, and I want it coming by the end of the next ten minutes. You’re going to give that to me, right?”

  “W… what?” She was kidding, right? This was a part of the fantasy. Sloan wasn’t going to actually…

  Oh, yeah. She was.

  Leah wasn’t interested in pushing her away. This was her fantasy come to life, after all. Yet she panicked – a little – when she realized this woman was going to touch her and she couldn’t do a damned thing about it if she wanted! Leah�
�s hands were securely fastened behind her. Lips were on her mouth, silencing any potential protests. What protests? More like what the hell had Leah gotten herself into!

  And why was it so hot?

  And why was it so easy to trust this woman she barely knew? Sloan. Yeah, right. That wasn’t her real name. It was probably her dominatrix name.

  Did dominatrixes usually grind in the laps of their clients, though? Did they sigh in arousal because a woman’s sweaty breasts were in her face? Was Leah supposed to get off on a stripper’s touchy lap dance?

  No. No way. Sloan wasn’t a stripper. She hadn’t taken off a single item of clothing, for one, and for another? This was not something most strippers that Leah knew did! Even for a nominal fee!

  She’s a pro!

  No fucking way! Melissa had paid for a full-service sex worker? Holy. Shit.

  What was Leah supposed to do? Sit there and enjoy her fantasy come to life? Commit every detail to memory, because her friend could only afford half an hour? How much did this cost? There was no way Leah could afford this on her own. Melissa the bartender must have saved for months. She’s really my best friend, isn’t she? How was Leah supposed to pay her back for her birthday? It was only two months away!

  Why was she thinking about Melissa’s birthday when Sloan was getting all up in someone’s business?

  “Damn.” Was Leah supposed to hear that when her breasts were suddenly freed from her dress? “These are some serious tits.”

  “Thanks?”

  “Don’t talk.” Sloan yanked on Leah’s sweaty hair, pulling her head back and making a gasp fall from her lips. “Unless you’re telling me how good it feels. Go ahead and lie, if you want, but I doubt you will.”

  Leah groaned. This was going to be the end of her. I did not drink enough to survive this. Not the kisses, not the light bondage, and definitely not the mouth on her fucking nipples!

  Nope. Definitely not that.

  It was almost too much to bear. A strong, no-nonsense woman who knew what she was about, strutting into Leah’s life and proving what a hurricane she really was. Hurricane Sloan had a ring to it. A nice, pleasing ring that began chiming in the pit of Leah’s stomach shortly after kisses traveled from her breasts to her ear.

  The ear was the trouble spot. A million women could suck Leah’s tits, and she would still have a piece of her sanity. A tongue to the ear? Goodbye, reason. Take the train from Brain City and end up in Pussytopia.

  That’s what did me in a long time ago. That’s how I ended up in so much trouble as a kid.

  She couldn’t get into the same kind of trouble with a woman. Or maybe she could. Sloan already seemed virile enough to do poor Leah in.

  “Fuck me,” she muttered.

  Sloan pulled back. “Yeah?”

  Leah should’ve said no. She should’ve done a lot of things since Sloan came in there, offering to handcuff the birthday girl to a chair in the back of a club and get off on her. Except had Leah done anything reasonable in the past half hour? No. Some would argue that she hadn’t done a reasonable thing in years. “Liability Leah.” That’s what her mother called her sometimes.

  “Yeah.”

  Leah’s skirt ascended her thighs. “I told you that you’d be coming. Was I lying?”

  Hands jerked against handcuffs. That’s what Leah got when she tried to touch Sloan.

  “You’ve still gotta prove it.”

  Sloan’s hand was warm against Leah’s skin. Her fingers? Not so much. They brought chills and were downright icy when they touched Leah’s slit.

  It’s my birthday, and some total hot stranger is fingering me while I’m handcuffed to a chair. That sounded like it was straight out of Leah’s dirty fantasy diary. Because it was.

  The novelty of the moment – let alone when compared to the rest of her humdrum life – meant that Leah could have orgasmed from a simple look on the other side of the room. A finger inside of her? Another one stroking her clit while kisses teased her ear? She was done for. Not twenty seconds later, Leah groaned so loudly that anyone walking by in the hallway would have surely heard her.

  “Wow.” Sloan allowed her face to linger against Leah’s cleavage. “You’re easy.” She glanced at her watch. “Time’s up, Birthday Girl. Hope you liked your present.”

  Leah was in a daze as Sloan uncuffed her. She didn’t regather her bearings until the manifestation of her every fantasy come to life wiped off her fingers with a tissue and hoisted her bag strap over her shoulder.

  “Thanks for the fun, gorgeous. I might call again next time I’m in town.”

  Just like that, she was gone – and Leah was alone again on her birthday.

  Chapter 3

  Margaret Sloan let out a long drag of her cigarette as she lay back in her hotel bed. The only things she had taken off since walking into the suite were her shoes and jacket. Everything else, from the tailor-made trousers and blouse, continued to wrinkle against her body as she indulged in one of life’s most neurotic pleasures.

  Every time I say I’m going to quit, I end up smoking again two days later. I’ve given up. Her doctor at least urged her to switch to vaping. Sloan may have been in the vaping capital of America, but she could never bring herself to get on board with the sweet-smelling fumes that never offered the same level of comfort her cigarettes did. A woman as busy and stressed out as her? Well, some of her contemporaries drank themselves into oblivion or snorted coke into their nostrils, but Sloan preferred to keep her vices old school. Everyone in her family had smoked. Might as well keep at least one family tradition alive.

  She had done what she set out to do that night. Rent a woman’s time for the sole purpose of inhaling her tits and fingering her until she lost her shit – was there anything else Sloan could ask from a random night in Portland? I almost invited her back here for more, but who has the time? As soon as Sloan was back in her car, she was on the phone chewing out some unfortunate crony in Newark… and she was due to castrate some manager from a satellite office in Qatar, but wanted to take a little break first.

  In another life, Sloan would have a 9 to 5 job that she could turn off once sunset hit and she was back home. Yeah, right. Ever since she ended things with her old flame, she had thrown herself into work. Five years of never-ending work.

  Was she filling a void? Like avoiding her issues that therapists could barely penetrate? Probably. She had stopped caring.

  She finally sat up and ripped her wig off her head. It plopped onto the nightstand as she ran her hand across her scalp. Fuzz from her regrowing hair tickled her skin. Was it already time to get it shaved again?

  That escort had some hair from another planet. Mandy’s light brown hair had been so tangled around that tiara that Sloan almost couldn’t take her seriously. Hell, it had almost turned her off enough to leave. I’m glad I let myself be sucked in. She had paid for the woman’s time, so why not?

  “I’m totally into it.”

  Sloan didn’t often hear those words with such conviction. Either the woman had been telling the truth… or she was worth her weight in acting skills. Can a woman who’s acting fake an orgasm like that, though? Sloan had seen a lot of orgasms in her years of bringing women physical pleasure. The best ones came from the partners with submissive tendencies lurking within those heads and hearts.

  Too bad that was a sure sign it would never work out between them. Not for more than a few nights of hot fun.

  Those kinds of dynamics never ended well. Sloan would know. She had wasted years of her life indulging in Dom/sub relationships that always left her feeling less than fulfilled. Good in the moment… a travesty over a lifetime.

  Her phone rang.

  Or buzzed, really. Buzzed so hard that it traveled across the nightstand and threatened to plummet to her shoes on the floor. Sloan recognized the number on the screen and almost didn’t answer it, but she was always in the mood to talk to Aaron after conquering another one of the world’s ladies of the night. Or at least that’s the mi
ndset she entered whenever she answered calls from Aaron Giles.

  “How’s Portland?” his deep voice said the moment she answered with a grunt. “Raining enough for you, Maggie?”

  She groaned to hear her least-favorite nickname. I’d rather be called Mags, and that says a million dollars’ worth of words, asshole. “It was clear and sunny today. Cold as shit, though.”

  “Colder than home?”

  “Nothing’s colder than Chicago at this time of year.” Sloan checked the time before continuing. “What do you want? You should be in bed.”

  “I’m not in Chicago. I’m in Honolulu.”

  “Of course you are. With your latest pet, I’m sure.”

  “No. I’m alone. It’s business, not pleasure. Like you in Portland.”

  “Who the fuck comes to Portland for pleasure?”

  “You do. I’m assuming you made a friend there, anyway.”

  Sloan would not discuss her love life with this man. She and Aaron had been in business together for over ten years. They had known each other for longer. No matter how much I want to punt him to Pluto, I’m stuck with this jerk. It was one of the things that made Sloan one of the hardest bitches in Chicago. She had to be hard around him. Hard exterior, hard interior. If she let him see a hint of softness in that ice-cold heart of hers…

  “How’d it go with Bradley & Marcus?”

  Sloan sighed. “Julian Marcus attempted to undermine my offer by giving me an insulting amount of money. If you can call it an amount.”

  “You kicked his ass, right?”

  “I’m not going to let some alpha fuckhead like him boss me around in the boardroom. You know that more than any man.”

  “I love hearing this side to you.”

  “I bet you do.” Sloan scoffed. “What do you want? I’m trying to go to bed over here.”