Excerpt from Bondage Included

“When you are two going to stop the furtive glances and just fuck already? This dancing around the issue is making my ass tired,” Eva complained to André.

Adriana giggled and ducked behind a pillar. Eva was pushing André pretty hard. He hated it when women used ‘inappropriate’ language.

“And don’t even pretend you don’t know who I’m talking about, Boss, because everyone has seen you guys making googlie eyes at each other. It’s the talk of the club.” Eva poked him a little more. “You two sit on the couch and talk all night, damn near every night. You do remember this is a sex club, right? It’s called that because people have sex here. If you want to talk and hold hands and shit, you go to a church social.”

“Are you finished?” André glared at Eva.

“Not really. I was kind of on a roll, but since I need a steady paycheck, I’ll shut up now.” Eva smiled sweetly.

“You know she won’t scene with me. That’s the word we use in polite company—‘scene’, not ‘fuck’.”

Adriana couldn’t see his face, but she knew the exact expression he was using with Eva. She turned away and clamped a hand over her mouth to keep him from hearing her laugh.

“She doesn’t like that I’m under contract with the girls. Until that changes, she won’t allow our friendship to become sexual.” André kept his volume low, but it still carried.

God, she loved his voice. She could listen to it for hours, which was a good thing because Eva had been telling the truth. Most nights she spent holding hands and talking to André. It was pathetic. She wanted so much more, but he was being a stubborn ass. He wasn’t in love with those girls, but he wouldn’t break their contracts either.

“She’s a smart woman. Your subs are mean, spiteful witches. Do you have any—?”

With her heart pounding in her chest, Adriana rushed to the bar beside André. She couldn’t allow Eva to finish that sentence, no matter how true it was. “Hi!”

André turned and greeted her with a huge smile on his face, which promptly disappeared the moment he saw she was wearing simply a towel. His head bounced up and he started examining the ceiling tiles. “Hi… I um, I have some important matters…in my office. I’ll be in there, if you need me…once you’re, um, clothed and…yeah.” He practically ran toward the executive offices.

“Damn, I wish I had that on tape. The big bad Dom of DiscipliNation stammering like a school boy because you stood next to him in a towel. You should screw that man and put him out of his misery,” Eva teased Adriana.

“If I do, I’ll never have him all to myself. I refuse to be one of many, Eva. We’ve talked about this.” She had to stand her ground.

“I still say you’re wrong, but watching the misery you’re putting that man through has become my reason for coming to work each day, so who am I to say stop?”

“You’re bad. You were pushing his buttons by cussing like a sailor. That’s not how you normally speak. Why do you do it?” Adriana had to ask.

“Because I can. And you’re one to talk. The man practically came in his pants seeing you dressed like that. Is this your latest strategy?”

“No, this was me keeping you from causing even more trouble. You were about to tell him things I’ve told you in confidence. Things you promised me you wouldn’t share with anyone.” Adriana gave Eva her most fierce death glare.

“Someone needs to clue the man in on the crap his subs have been pulling. He is the owner of this club. He has a right to know that his perfect angels are really Satan’s trolls.” Eva reversed the death glare and shot it right back at her.

“It would be their word against mine. André couldn’t take my side without making it ten times worse. Besides, he couldn’t assume it was one of them. He’d have to consider every club member if he investigated their pranks and the last thing he needs right now is another worry. Just let it drop. I’m a big girl, I can handle this.”

“You’re an idiot who is in love with a bigger idiot, but I’m a fine one to talk. My love life is more of a disaster than yours. Okay, I’ll keep my mouth shut.”

“Thank you. And I need a favor.” Damn this is the worst timing.

Eva eyed her wearily. “What’s happened now?”

“One of the trolls put Nair in my shampoo bottle. I sweated enough for three women in our pole dancing class tonight and need to shower. Can I borrow yours?”

“This is me biting my tongue.” She shook her head and reached under the cabinet for something. A moment later, she handed Adriana a key. “Locker three-twenty-eight.”

“Thanks, Eva. You’re the best bestie a girl can have.”

* * * *

André sat in his office with his head cradled in his hands. Fuck, how had his life gotten so out of control? His business was bringing in millions of dollars a year and more than that, he was proud of what he’d accomplished. He’d established safe havens all over the country for lovers of kink to come and learn from each other. The friends he’d made along the way had become his surrogate family.

None of it mattered to him anymore. All he thought about was Adriana Parma. The crack Eva had made about a church social had hit a little too close to home. Adriana was a sweetheart. She deserved to find a good man, one her family would admire, so she could settle down and have babies. In almost every conversation they had, she talked about her family, her large, Italian, ‘in your business’ family. It was a concept that over the years had become almost foreign to André.

His roots were French Cajun and he’d grown up in a large, ‘in your business’ type family. Unfortunately, they didn’t approve of his business and thus he was dead to them. Of the hundreds of people sharing his familiar DNA, only Amanda and Trixie would speak to him. He never discussed it and he tried hard to never think about it, but it hurt. For years after their rejection, he’d felt as though he’d been stabbed in the back. It had since, mostly, healed. He and his band of other misfits had joined together and built their own family, one that believed in acceptance. Most days it was enough.

It didn’t matter how much he clicked with Adriana. It didn’t matter that when he was with her, he was at peace. He refused to claim his happiness at the expense of hers. She loved her family fiercely and would never be happy without them. André couldn’t be in the same room with a family, any family, and not feel the pain so deeply he struggled to breathe.

Excerpt from Bondage Unlimited

As the music started and the wedding party began to take their places, Giovanni Parma couldn’t believe his eyes. His attention should have been on his sister, Adriana. It was, after all, her big day, yet his gaze was fixated on her bridesmaid.

She couldn’t possibly be the same woman he’d fallen in love with back in college. The same woman that he dreamed of night after night and the same woman who he’d run out on the day after he’d taken her virginity.

His brother Alex elbowed him in the ribs. “What’s your problem? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“Who is that girl?” He tipped his chin in the girl’s direction and whispered as calmly as he could manage.

Alex shrugged. “Some friend of Adriana’s. I think she’s the bartender at DiscipliNation.”

Gio’s eyes went wide. “The bartender at a kink club?” He scrutinized the woman again. “No way. What’s her name?”

André, his sister Adriana’s soon-to-be husband, was one of the founding partners of DiscipliNation, a chain of sex clubs and a highly profitable sex-toy line.

“What the fuck’s your problem? Did you forget what we do for a living, asshole? Don’t be judging her.” Alex shoved him hard and scooted away from him on the church pew.

His brother didn’t understand and he wasn’t about to explain it to him. Not here anyway, in the middle of his sister’s wedding ceremony. Gio couldn’t care less what she did for a living. He just found it hard to believe that the girl he’d known in college would go anywhere near a sex club. She wasn’t like that.

The girl turned her head and looked as if she was scanning the bride’s side of the aisle. He felt her gaze fall on him and he froze like a deer in the headlights. He would have crawled under the pew and hidden, if it hadn’t already been too late.

There was no doubt about it. Eva Anderson was only a few dozen feet away, breathing the same air and smiling at him sadly. Fuck.

Her long blonde hair, tiny waist and deep blue eyes he’d never forget. Especially her eyes. So expressive. Six years ago, they’d been wary but optimistic. Now, they just looked sad, resigned even.

How in the hell had she gone from majoring in education to tending bar at a kink club? He had the sickening feeling he’d played a role in the switch.

Wait a minute… Why wasn’t she shocked to see him?

He hadn’t been around much since his sister had started dating André, and if Adriana knew about the connection between Gio and Eva, she would have said something. Lots of somethings. Lots of loud, ugly somethings. And he would have deserved every last one of them.

Alex nudged him. “She cleans up well, doesn’t she?”

“She’s stunning.” But she always had been. He would sit in class and stare at her, unable to draw his gaze away.

“Our sister, you dolt! Who the fuck is this girl that has your tongue dragging the ground? You’re embarrassing me, bro. You act like you’ve never seen a woman before,” his brother ridiculed him.

Gio ignored Alex. He was just talking shit anyway and Gio had better things to think about—like what to do about Eva. Beautiful, innocent, straight-laced Eva, now working in a kink club.

He’d known he’d screwed up, had regretted it every day since, but until now, he’d had no idea how much. Emotions he’d thought long buried came crashing back. She was even more beautiful than he remembered but just as unattainable. Eva was so far out of his league, he couldn’t believe she’d ever given him the time of day.

Gio had been attracted to her looks at first. He hadn’t thought it would be hard to get what he wanted. She was a fish out of water, quiet and shy, keeping to herself. She hadn’t seemed to have a social life. When she hadn’t been in class, she’d been studying or doing volunteer work. The more he’d learned about her, the more intrigued he’d become. She’d been unlike any girl he’d ever known.

Eva had been homeschooled and raised in a strict environment. She’d been the first woman in her family to go to college. It was a responsibility she hadn’t taken lightly. She’d acted like the future of every woman in her family counted her on doing well.

“Hello?” Alex waved a hand in front of Gio’s face.

Gio looked around. Everyone was standing, but him. Shit! Eva really had him rattled. How in the hell was he going to face her?

* * * *

Eva had known that Gio would be at the wedding. How could he not attend his sister’s big day? Yet, she hadn’t expected it to affect her so. She’d come to terms with him leaving long ago—or so she’d thought.

One look at his handsome face, dark hair and striking ebony eyes, and it had all come flooding back.