Bound to be Tempted: Emergence, Book 4 Page 26

  “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.

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  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  Samhain Publishing, Ltd.

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  Bound to be Tempted

  Copyright © 2015 by Becca Jameson

  ISBN: 978-1-61922-643-2

  Edited by Christa Soule

  Cover by Angela Waters

  All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: April 2015

  www.samhainpublishing.com