Taken by the Tycoon (2 page)

Finally Minnie resurfaced and invited her back by the shampoo bowls. Violet changed into a smock in the restroom, then sat quietly while Minnie applied color to her hair. A natural brunette, once she’d started going gray a few years ago, Violet had given in to her fantasy of becoming a redhead. Her husband, Marvin, hated it. But by that point their marriage could be characterized more as “friends who happened to share a child and live under the same roof” than as a loving, married couple.

Violet nodded with forced sympathy as Minnie told her, detail by gory detail, about an ovarian cyst that had been ailing her. Over the years Violet had absorbed more than her share of information about Minnie’s less-than-appetizing nagging health problems, but it was a small price to pay to have the best colorist in Sugarland keep her in a fabulous head of red hair.

Minnie excused herself to go smoke, and Violet dove into her tawdry reading material, eager to lose herself in the problems of celebrities. She’d worry about raising money later. But she couldn’t help but overhear some of the other patrons gossiping about Mary Jane Price’s husband leaving her for a gorgeous, younger woman. The ladies clucked and fretted over the desolate aftermath of Mary Jane’s marriage.

Violet sighed. While Marvin hadn’t exactly left her for a younger woman or cheated on her per se, it wasn’t two minutes after they’d separated that he found himself a girlfriend twenty years his junior so she assumed he’d had an eye on the woman for an inappropriate amount of time.

She clucked under her breath in disgust.
Men
, why did they have to get more distinguished as they got older, while women just got fatter and more wrinkly? When older women went after younger men people called them cougars. Why didn’t they have an obnoxious name for the older men who inevitably chased after younger women?

Life was definitely not fair. Maybe this was another one of God’s punishments to all women compliments of Eve’s deception. As if the pain of childbirth and monthly menstrual cramps weren’t bad enough.

After the color had set, Minnie shampooed her hair then led her to a swirling chair in the front of the salon for a haircut. “What do you want me to do this time? Same cut?” Minnie asked. Violet wore a short pixie hairstyle, a bit longer on the sides curling up onto her cheeks. It framed her face beautifully and didn’t take her long for her to fix, which Violet loved.

“Yes. Let’s keep it the same, maybe trim the ends, shape it a bit.”

Minnie nodded, wielding her shears.

“I thought about what you said last time, Minnie, that my hair was getting more curl. I did notice that the other day when it was wet. Like the underside was acting different, curlier.”

“Yeah. It’s probably menopause. Changes the hair patterns. You know how I’ve told you the texture of your hair can change every seven years? Menopause does it too. Uh huh. It’s the hormones.” Minnie stepped back to look at the task before her.

Violet watched her eyes widen in the mirror, and her stomach felt as though she’d just been told she was sitting on a live bomb. “Um, Minnie, did you say
menopause
?” She squeaked in disbelief.

“Yeah, menopause.”

“You can’t be serious.” Surely this was another of Minnie’s harebrained ideas, the way she thought if she just bought enough tickets she could win the lottery.

“Nope.” Minnie whispered conspiratorially, “The hairdresser is always the first to know.” She narrowed her eyes and nodded with the confidence of an ancient soothsayer.

“But, I’m not even in my mid-forties yet,” Violet stammered.

Minnie shrugged. “Hey, sometimes it happens early. With me, I was…” Minnie launched off into the lengthy story of her own body’s reactions to “the change.” Violet suppressed a shiver, while trying to process this new information and appear interested in Minnie’s account at the same time.

Studying herself in the mirror, Violet took an inventory. Some age spots. Maybe she could get some cream for those. A few wrinkles around the eyes, but not many. She already used a cream for those. Okay, usually she forgot, but she had one somewhere in her medicine cabinet. Running a finger under her chin she noticed the skin was looser than it once was. There was an infomercial she kept seeing on TV about a miracle neck cream, and Lord help her, she needed it.

She frowned at her reflection, vowing to step up her fight against aging. Crap, she probably needed to exercise more too.

Damn. Getting older is a bitch.

Beyoncé blared in the car, and Violet gyrated to the catchy beat. Ever since her divorce nine months ago, she’d been feeling more like her old self. Her teenage self. While the end of her marriage had depressed her, it had also liberated her. With no overbearing husband to squash her personality, which had been described as vivacious in her younger days, Violet felt as if she had a second chance at life. And she planned to make the most of it.

She’d lost twenty pounds and rediscovered a libido she thought had disappeared ages ago. During the last five years of her marriage to Marvin, sex had fallen by the wayside. When it had happened, Violet had accepted her lack of carnal activity as part of life. She’d convinced herself she didn’t need it and had effectively shut down her body’s needs, replacing sex with food.

Now that she was single again, her sex drive had begun to thaw out of the deep freeze in which she’d buried it. The music played on, and her hips wouldn’t be still. She bopped in her seat all the way to the club. She was playing tennis with her friend Leta today. A game on the clay court beat a trip to the gym any day.

When she arrived, she greeted Leta and they played two sets. Leta won both, but Violet didn’t mind. She was more of a social player than a competitive one. Truth be told she liked the companionship more than the tennis, but she needed the exercise so it was a great trade-off. Plus, she also didn’t mind the admiring stares she’d been getting from some of the male players on nearby courts. Maybe she should consider playing mixed doubles…

After the match, the women went to the locker room to clean up. Once they were showered and refreshed, they made their way to the main dining room. As Violet walked past the entrance to the men’s grill, she glanced inside and found herself staring straight into the eyes of none other than Stuart Swearingen.

His blond hair, long on top, short at the neck, gave him a youthful and devastatingly handsome appearance. He wore a starched, white button-down shirt that highlighted his deep tan beautifully. He raised an eyebrow and flashed her a cavalier smile with the confidence of a man who knew his affect on women—namely, making them weak in the knees.

Startled, Violet gave him a nervous smile in return and rushed past the doorway.

“What’s gotten into you?” Leta asked.

“Nothing,” Violet hissed. Then, “I’ll tell you once we’re sitting down.” She looked over her shoulder worried someone might hear.

Violet and Leta sat down and ordered some iced tea and chicken salad for lunch.

“So what was going on back there?” Leta asked.

“Nothing really. It’s just that Stuart Swearingen was back there. Do you know him?” Violet attempted indifference but was afraid it failed miserably.

“Who doesn’t know him?” Leta waved her hand in front of her face.

“I mean, do you
know
him?” Violet persisted.

“I’ve met him a few times.” Leta shrugged. “Why?”

“I don’t know.” Violet giggled. “He’s so hot.”

“Violet, you have a crush on him!” Leta laughed.

Violet blushed. “Okay, maybe I do.” She tossed her napkin in her lap with a flourish. “So what?” she asked with mock defiance.

“Well, I could care less, but he’s awfully young.” Leta said in a sing-songy voice.

“I don’t see why that matters,” Violet said, brushing Leta’s words aside. “It never hurts to window shop,” she said, then changed the subject to Leta’s mother-in-law who was coming to town the next day, much to Leta’s chagrin.

An hour later, Violet hugged Leta goodbye, then made her way back to the ladies’ locker room to grab her bag of tennis duds. Standing in front of her locker, her mind wandered to all the errands she had to run, what she needed from the store… She was creating lists in her head when a breeze drifted up her arm, and she felt a presence behind her.

“Violet.” A gruff voice sounded in her ear, and an alarm bell rang in her brain. With her body still facing the lockers, she turned her head ever so slightly to see who it was.

It was
him
. Good Lord, what was
he
doing in the ladies’ locker room?

“Yes?” Her voice warbled, and her knees threatened to buckle.

“I waited until your friend was gone. I wanted to talk to you.” Stuart Swearingen rasped in her ear. He was right behind her, centimeters from touching her.

“You did? Why?” Violet’s heart raced and her muscles tensed. What could he possibly want with
her
? A part of her was outraged he had the gall to enter the women’s dressing room unannounced and sneak up behind her, but another part was fascinated and intrigued by his odd behavior. It wasn’t fear she felt exactly, but excitement, a shot of adrenaline coursed through her veins.

“It’s been a long time,” he growled.

“Yes, it has,” she answered nervously. “You’ve grown up quite a bit.”

He chuckled. It was a deep throaty sound and made her legs quiver. “I guess I have, and you’ve never looked sexier.” Heat rose between them as he closed the distance separating them. “I’ve seen the way you look at me.” His breath was moist on her neck.

Mortified, Violet snapped, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He chuckled and took one of her hands in his. “Yes, you do.”

Violet took a step backwards to close her locker, and her derriere bumped against his pelvis, sandwiching his erection between them. He lifted her hand to his lips and planted a kiss on the inside of her wrist. Goosebumps surfaced on her skin, and she shuddered with delight.

“Have you ever considered being a sub?” he asked.

“A what?” she responded.

He pulled her to him and nuzzled her neck. “A submissive. I like to dominate.” He spun her around to face him, then placed his hands on her waist and pulled her to him. To her surprise, he bent his head and touched his lips to hers. His mouth captured hers, and his tongue darted between her lips, invading, exploring. Violet’s pulse raced and she found herself returning the kiss, following his lead. She melted into his arms, giving in to his passionate embrace. A warm, hazy cloud of longing settled over her and she couldn’t remember the last time she’d been kissed like that, but it had to have been years.

Then he stepped away, leaving her breathless and wanting.

“Let me know if you’re interested.” With that, he pressed a business card into her hand, threw her a sexy wink then strolled out of the women’s locker room as if it was his private boudoir instead of a public lavatory for members of the opposite sex.

Violet stared down at the card in her hand. Clutching it in her palm, she gathered herself and somehow walked to her car on unsteady feet.

* * *

On the way home from the club, her mind whirled and she tried to make sense of Stuart accosting her in the ladies’ locker room. She had never had a man approach her so brazenly, much less kiss her like that, so she had no frame of reference for such behavior. The experience was shocking, but that’s what made it all the more thrilling.

Continuing to puzzle over his intentions, she sat at a small desk in the kitchen and opened her laptop. The only clue she had was when he said he liked to dominate. The first internet search for “submissive” provided unsatisfactory results, but when she added the word “dominant,” a whole new world opened up. She started reading blogs about the dominant/submissive lifestyle, and pieces of the puzzle began to fall into place.

Margaret came into the room and pulled a diet soda out of the refrigerator. “Hey mom. Whatcha doin’?”

Popping her head up, Violet instinctively slammed the laptop shut. “What? Who me?”

Margaret gave her a funny look. “Yeah, you. What were you doing, Mom, watching porn?” She joked.

Violet rolled her eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous. Just checking the weather. We really need some rain. My tomatoes…” she trailed off.

“Hey, what’s for dinner?” Margaret asked. Violet noticed the clock on the microwave said 5:49. Wow, she’d been immersed in a kinky world on the Internet for hours.

Smiling, she stood up and clasped the computer to her bosom. “Why don’t you order a pizza for us, sweetheart?” Violet said and headed for her bedroom.

In her room, Violet locked her door and perched on the bed. She continued reading until her head felt like it would explode. Then she took off her reading glasses and attempted to process the information she’d found.

It sounded like being a sub was a sexual thing. A sexual thing where one’s “master” dominated them in all sorts of ways, including bondage, beatings, hard-core sex, even humiliation. Her nerve endings felt as though they were on the outside of her skin. Stuart wanted to do all that to
her
? It seemed incredibly difficult to believe he had that kind of interest in her.

But the thought of being helpless, at his mercy, brought a tingle to her whole body, especially the spot between her legs. In fact, the idea aroused her more than she had been in ages, and she reached her hand down and stroked her pussy, something she had almost forgotten how to do.

But what about the pain? She wasn’t sure if she would like being hurt, being flogged and whipped didn’t sound very sexy, but the idea of being bound and unable to do anything to stop his advances—now that was hot!

Taking a deep breath, Violet contemplated how much of this forbidden world she wanted to know about firsthand. Did she dare call him?

The idea of being Stuart’s submissive frightened her. Violet worried about how this would affect her reputation if anyone ever found out, plus there were the concerns about her physical safety. Not to mention the fact that she was too old for him. It was one thing for older men to date younger women, but when older women went out with younger men, people talked, and she had a good ten years on Stuart. But none of her qualms could compete with the allure of being Stuart Swearingen’s sex slave, even if only for a brief encounter. The man was incredibly attractive, and what he proposed was beyond enticing.