Bound to be Tempted: Emergence, Book 4 (26 page)

Look for these titles by Becca Jameson

Now Available:

Emergence

Bound to be Taken

Bound to be Tamed

Bound to be Tested

Durham Wolves

Rescue in the Smokies

Fire in the Smokies

Freedom in the Smokies

The whip never leaves a mark. Love…that’s another story.

Bound to be Tested

© 2015 Becca Jameson

Emergence,
Book 3

Lori Polluck has reshaped her kink from bottom to top.

In the two years since her Dom disappeared without a trace, she’s transformed herself from perfect submissive to successful Domme. Her relationship with her submissive, Margaret, is…comfortable. Life is good. Until her past strides into Emergence, commandeers her scene, and turns her heart inside out.

Jude Cavanaugh can’t change his past, but he can definitely take charge of his future.

A mission he can never reveal took him away from Lori, he thought for good. But a twist of fate has brought him back to his life, his town, his club. He plans to reclaim it all—including his woman. Sure, she’s with someone else. Sure, she’s switched in every possible way. But the instant they touch, it’s clear Lori is still his to control. And she doesn’t like it one damned bit.

The road ahead will be rocky. Especially since Lori will just have to take it on faith that he won’t skip out again. But when nightmares turn real, they’ll both need to show ultimate trust to survive.

Warning: This book contains intense bondage scenes. Man on woman as well as woman on woman action will titillate the mind. Be prepared for public nudity, vibrators, a seriously huge dildo, restraints, a ring gag, spreader bars, lube action, and a steaming-hot wax scene…

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Bound to be Tested:

Lori put the last of the dishes away and leaned against the counter to stare out the kitchen window. It was Friday night. One week ago today she’d been faced with the stunning revelation that Jude Cavanaugh was back in town. Where had he been all week after torturing her last Friday?

She figured he’d met with Jason by then. She hadn’t asked, but the two had been best friends at one time. There was little doubt they’d exchanged words at some point this week. Lori was afraid to find out.

She hadn’t spoken to Margaret all week. And to be honest, she’d spent more time dreaming about Jude, both awake and asleep, than the sub she’d lived with for over a year. Guilt made her curse under her breath. She nearly always went to Emergence on a Friday night, but there was no way she could do so this week. She couldn’t darken the doors of that club right now.

She didn’t know if she was avoiding Margaret or Jude, but either prospect made her feel the tightening stress in her chest. She didn’t know what to say to Margaret yet. She’d asked for some time. And Margaret had given it to her. Lori knew Margaret had returned at some point during the week and taken more of her belongings. Her side of the closet was almost empty.

Lori swallowed back the knowledge that if she truly loved Margaret like she deserved, Lori would fight for her. Instead she pined over the memories of a long-lost relationship she had no idea would ever be hers again to enjoy. She never should have let that bastard get under her skin. Lori stomped around the room. She was wrung out. Luckily her classes had been light this week or she’d have had a meltdown.

The doorbell rang, freezing Lori in her tracks. She took a deep breath, her heart racing, before she shook her head and regained some sense. Probably Jason. She hadn’t spoken to him and he was surely tired of her silence.

Expecting to roll her eyes at the only real family she had, she whipped the door open—and froze.

He wasn’t facing her at first. He’d turned around to wait for someone to come to the door. But his ass was enough to make her weak in the knees, and his jeans pulled tight around his firm cheeks because he had his hands in his pockets.

When he turned, his look was one of remorse. “May I come in?”

As though she were a puppet, Lori stood back and nodded. Why the fuck was she letting him in?

Her hands shook and she fisted them at her sides as he shut the door behind him. He turned the deadbolt, because he was that controlling. Immediately she felt his gaze penetrating her from above. Why did the man have to be so tall on top of everything else?

Jude stepped farther into the living space and wandered around, absorbing everything Lori owned. She felt open, almost violated. This was her space, dammit. Her apartment. Nothing in it was his. She’d taken nothing from the house when she’d sold it. Not even photographs of the two of them together.

He would find nothing to remind him of the past.

This apartment belonged to Lori, and Margaret. They’d forged their way together.

“How did you two meet?” He fingered the edges of a painting on the wall, one Lori and Margaret had purchased together over the summer on vacation at the beach. They’d bought it from a street vendor. It held sweet memories.

Lori jerked her gaze from the painting to the man in front of it as he turned toward her and lifted an eyebrow. He’d asked her a question. He’d never been a patient man.

She knew who he was talking about. “At the club.”

“Emergence?”

“Yes.” Lori tried hard not to fidget. She’d been completely in control for so long it felt odd to be out of sorts again. He did this to her just by being in the room.

She squeezed her legs together in attempt to keep the pulsing need that emerged in her pussy at bay. Thirty seconds and he had her befuddled.

And he looked fucking sexier than ever with his head shaved close and his two-day-old beard. How did he manage to look like that all the time? Except for the blue smudges under his eyes that made him look ten years older, he was
GQ
sexy.

“Sit.” He pointed at the couch.

When she didn’t move quick enough, he nodded at the couch, one eyebrow raised as though he didn’t appreciate having to repeat himself.

Lori shuffled around to the couch, keeping her gaze locked on Jude. Goddamn him.

Somehow she managed to make it to her designated spot and grasped her thighs with her hands. She struggled not to bite her lower lip. He loved it when she did that. He punished her for it, but he loved punishing her. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

She did squeeze her knees together, though. That would get his goat.

Jude wandered, examining everything in sight. With his back to her, he made her wait.

“What are you doing here, Jude?” Lori asked, emboldened by the knowledge that he didn’t own her anymore.

“I moved back.” He strolled behind her.

“I see that. Are you here to stay?”

“Depends.”

On me
.

“I’d like to.” He leaned over the back of the couch and twirled a length of Lori’s hair in one hand. “Your hair is longer.” He dropped the lock. “What made you try topping?” he asked as he ran a finger down Lori’s neck.

She shivered. “It just kind of happened.”
And it’s none of your business
.

“Have you been with anyone else?”

God, he was bold. That bastard. She knew what he meant. The unspoken “since I left” hung in the air. “It’s not really any of your business.” There, she said it. “Where have you been?”

Ignoring her question, he leaned in closer to her ear. She could feel his warm breath on her skin. “Lori.” He spoke the single word with authority. She wanted to slap him. She also wanted him to fuck her.

“Sir?” God, why had she said that? The word came out from habit.

“Have. You. Been. With. Anyone. Else?”

She shook her head and lowered her gaze. “Not exactly, Sir. I tried, but—”

He stood and wandered in front of her again.

Dammit. He was assessing her. She loathed him at that moment. And she wished to hell that emotion overrode her other feelings toward him. The reality was, dead or alive, he owned her. He would for the rest of her life. Their souls were entwined. It wasn’t a bond she could break even if she never saw him again. No one would ever meet the standards he met in her eyes.

“What do you mean, you tried?”

She swallowed. “I worked with several Doms at the club.”
None of them were you
.

“I see.”

Did he?

Lori squirmed. She felt uneasy about letting Jude top her so easily. It had unsettled her last week and that feeling hadn’t eased.

“So let me see if I’m reading this situation correctly.” Jude sat on the coffee table, his knees inches from Lori’s. “You’ve been dabbling as a Domme in my absence because you couldn’t find a man who could make you feel the way I do.” He narrowed his gaze at her, but his statement wasn’t meant to mock her. His expression was serious. His brow furrowed. He was truly assessing her position.

Lori’s entire body shook. “I’ve been a Domme for over a year, Jude.”

“That may be, and I think it’s fabulous you’ve experimented with other aspects of the lifestyle. But you aren’t
now
, are you?”

She always tried to be good, but now he needs her to be bad…

Living in Secret

© 2015 Jackie Ashenden

Living In…, Book 3

Lawyers Connor and Victoria Blake had a high-powered marriage to match their meteoric careers—until a secret from Victoria’s past came back to haunt her. A year after it all fell apart, Victoria is ready for a new job, a new town. 

Instead of signing the divorce papers, though, her husband has a tempting proposal—one week of no holds barred before moving on with their lives. She’s never stopped wanting him, but he’s always kept the deepest part of himself locked away.

Connor already endured one brutal betrayal in his life, and Victoria’s cut him to the core. But during a naughty game of one-upmanship with a sexy stranger, he sees a different woman, whose warmth and passion he craves like a drug.

In one week they expose dark passions that set them both free. But amidst searing desire that should fuse them together, Connor is coming to the brink of a decision to choose what’s more important. The last secret he’s holding inside, or the woman he can’t let go.

Warning: This book contains a man coming to terms with his inner darkness, a woman ready to match him kink for kink, secrets, lies, and a marriage getting its sexy back. Could take readers on a one-way ticket to WTF city.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Living in Secret:

Connor Blake stepped out onto the tiny balcony that led off from the conference room and closed the double doors behind him. The sound of the Auckland Law Society’s Friday night after work drinks was cut off and replaced by the hum of city traffic.

He paced over to the rail and leaned his elbows on it, gazing down at the street below and all the people hurrying home from work or wandering in groups, looking for places to eat or drink.

God, he needed a cigarette.

For some reason he was finding the usual drinks and networking thing difficult tonight and he had no idea why, especially when he was normally more than happy to grease the social and professional wheels for a couple of hours.

Are you sure you don’t know why?

Connor slowly clasped his hands together, shifting his weight.

Maybe he knew. Maybe it had something to do with the papers still sitting on his desk at work. The divorce papers Victoria had sent him. They’d been sitting there a month and he still hadn’t signed them. And that he
really
didn’t understand.

He and Victoria had been separated a year. There was no reason for him not to sign those papers. No reason at all. Yet still he hadn’t.

Christ, why the hell had he given up smoking? Stupid idea. Especially now, when he could really murder a cigarette. But cigarettes were one of the vices he’d given up back before he’d started law school, along with a number of other…temptations. He didn’t do those things now, not anymore. In fact, there were many things he didn’t do anymore. His law firm—he, in particular—took on a lot of police prosecutions, and that involved setting a certain example. In fact, he was renowned for his spotless reputation, a reputation he cultivated as assiduously as a rose grower did prized flowers.

However, avoiding temptation did nothing for the urge. The urge didn’t change. He only managed it. And only if he was very lucky, would the urge go away.

So far, he hadn’t been lucky.

He turned from the sight of the city streets, back to the double doors leading into the conference room, currently full of lawyers talking shop or comparing golf handicaps and the dreadful state of Auckland’s house prices.

And froze.

Through the glass of the doors, he saw a group of people move and shift like a school of fish, revealing a familiar figure. A woman in beautifully tailored black pants and jacket, a deep red blouse in dramatic counterpoint glowing against her olive skin. Her coal black hair was pulled back in a tight bun on the back of her head, glossy and smooth as a slick of oil.

Victoria. His soon-to-be-ex-wife.

Turn away.

A gut punch of something hot and raw hit him, but he locked it down instantly, the way he’d been doing for so long he barely even registered it anymore. In fact it was odd that he was aware of it now, because even though he hadn’t seen her in the flesh for six months, he was perfectly fine with that. They’d both agreed it was better they stay away from each other, give each other some space and time to move on. And as far as he was concerned, that’s exactly what he was doing. What was done, was done, and he was moving forward with his life. Just as she was.

Victoria was talking to Craig Matthew, a senior partner in one of Auckland’s biggest company law firms. Connor had only just finished speaking with the man himself, having to put up with some unwanted and unneeded advice about the prosecution he was currently dealing with—an eighteen-year-old charged with the murder of his father. Matthews had informed Connor that he’d been following the case with interest and had decided Connor and his team weren’t hungry enough and that Connor wasn’t asking the hard questions.

A patently ridiculous conclusion. There was no one hungrier for justice than Connor and his team. And as for the hard questions, well, that was because he hadn’t even started asking yet.

He realized his hands were in fists. He unclenched them.

What the hell was Victoria doing here? She never came to the drinks, not these days.

Turn away. Turn the hell away.

But he couldn’t seem to bring himself to do so.

She was smiling at Craig, her generous mouth full and red. She’d always been exquisitely beautiful and she still was. Except there was a certain spiky edge to her usual regal poise that hadn’t been there before, and she looked…tight. Tense. Like she was constantly bracing herself for a blow that never fell.

Except it did fall. You remember that.

Oh yes, he remembered. Coming home one day to find a letter sitting on the kitchen table. A letter from a girl who was apparently the daughter Victoria had given up for adoption when she was sixteen. A daughter he didn’t know she’d had.

She’d claimed there had been cracks running through their marriage for years, that her daughter’s sudden appearance was only the final hammer blow to break them apart.

But if there had been cracks he hadn’t been aware of them. He’d thought they were solid. And it wasn’t Jessica’s advent that had shattered them, but the fact Victoria had kept secrets from him. And rather than talk about it, she’d walked away.

She’d been the one to go. She’d been the one to ask for a separation. And now, finally, she was the one who’d sent the divorce papers.

The hot feeling in his gut twisted. Anger.

He found himself reaching into his jacket for a packet of cigarettes that hadn’t been there for nearly twenty years.

Jesus. What was wrong with him? He wasn’t angry with her, not now. Yes, he’d been furious when she refused to talk to him, when she’d wanted some time apart. But he’d agreed to the separation. Agreed to the distance she’d wanted. And it was behind him now. He was looking ahead as he always did.

Turn away, you fool.

She tilted her head as she talked, her strong, determined chin lifting. The expression on her face was all polite friendliness and professional interest. Contained and restrained. Doing her networking thing because she’d always been ambitious. The usual Victoria, in other words.

As she had been when she’d thrown that half-assed bullshit at him about him wanting her to be perfect all the time and how she could never live up to his impossible standards. Which was crazy. He’d never wanted perfect. He’d just wanted her because she was perfect already.

“Until you found out I had a child. Now I’m not so perfect anymore, right?”

“It’s not about the child, Victoria. It’s about the fact that you didn’t tell me.”

“Oh so we’re going to have that discussion, are we? How about you tell me your secrets then, Connor? We can start with why you have a sword tattooed down the middle of your back.”

Impasse. Because it was true he had his secrets, but they were the kind he told no one. The kind he protected people from. And they were going to stay that way. But an unexpected child was different. And most especially when she’d told Connor she didn’t want kids.

Connor folded his arms and leaned back against the railings, consciously letting the tension in his shoulders and arms seep away. No, he wasn’t going to turn away. He’d look. He’d watch her because he felt nothing for her anymore.

Nothing at all.

Then Victoria turned and like she’d known he was there all along, her gaze met his through the glass.

Dark eyes. Liquid black. Endless, fathomless.

And that gut punch struck again, precise as a bullet, smashing through all the carefully constructed walls and barriers he’d built around himself and his appetites. Walls and barriers created to keep temptation at bay.

Connor didn’t move. Didn’t look away.

He was wrong. It wasn’t done. Because it was still there. That deep, intense hunger. That visceral pull. The one he’d fought and locked down since the moment he’d met her, keeping it in the box where he put all his baser, more primitive emotions. A survival skill he’d learned over twenty years and practiced until it became instinct.

He didn’t know why it hit him so hard in this instant, why he was so aware of it now. But one thing he was sure of: he didn’t want it.

Turn away.

No, it was too late.

She was coming toward him.