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  I considered her, completely baffled by how determined she was to shut me out. Allie was a different breed of woman. She seemed completely unaffected by my fame, my power, and my money. It made me ever the more curious about her, and why exactly she saw me differently.

  Truth be told, I began to wonder if she saw the real me, and that’s what this was all about. I couldn’t begrudge her for thinking the worst of me, because I already knew she was a far better person than I. “Do tell, why can’t I give you gifts if I’d like to?”

  Her chin lifted, eyes showing so much distaste. “I want to be respected here at Holt. I’ve worked hard to get where I am, and I don’t want to be known as the woman that the boss sent flowers to.”

  I heard what she said, and I respected her thoughts, though my mind stayed focused on the softness of her cheekbones and my desire to touch her. I kept my hands stuffed in my pockets, fighting off the urge. “Is it really so awful to be known as the woman I’m currently interested in?”

  She gave a firm nod. “Yes, because the word currently says it all. As in at some point I’d be replaced and I would still be your employee. ’Nuff said.”

  I didn’t respond to her statement, because I wouldn’t lie to her. I respected any woman I touched. I never made them promises I couldn’t keep. And I was always straightforward that I didn’t do long relationships—most lasted no more than a month. But I wasn’t asking for a relationship, I was asking for a date to dig a little bit deeper into this woman captivating my every thought and surprising me at each turn. Apparently, she’d rather eat a nail than consider that a possibility.

  Why? ran through my mind. Over Henry?

  Because I was her boss?

  Because she thought I’d replace her?

  It seemed like she was grasping at any excuse to reject me. When I ruled one obstacle out, she threw up another one. It looked an awful lot like bitterness. It bothered me that I saw this in her now. Darkness belonged in me, not someone like her.

  “So…let’s keep this strictly professional, okay?” She shifted on her feet, moving a little closer to the door. “Do we understand each other?”

  “I understand perfectly what you’re saying.” I zeroed in on her pouty lips, and she reacted promisingly, tugging at her lip with her front teeth. That’s where she confused me. What she said and the way she acted didn’t match up. Her sensual looks were blatant, and I couldn’t ignore them now. “I promise not to make you feel uncomfortable again in such a way.” But I wouldn’t agree to keep things between us professional. I wanted her.

  “Okay, good. I’m glad we’ve come to an understanding.” She exhaled a long breath, turning to leave my office. “I guess I’ll go now.”

  I couldn’t help myself; I reached out and grabbed her wrist. A dangerous move on my part, as it could be considered sexual harassment. But I had to know if I read her wrong. If the signs she showed me with her body were somehow created in my mind because she refused me.

  I loved a challenge.

  I wouldn’t be a stalker.

  The second my fingers wrapped around her skin warmth spiraled down my spine. My cock swelled as I heard the hitch of her breath, saw the dilation of her pupils, and felt the tremble of her body. Pure, unadulterated desire in its rawest form swept through the room, making it harder to draw the warm thick air into my lungs.

  I tightened my grip, needing to hold onto her. She softened with a yearning, striking me straight into the chest. There, I saw vulnerability and it yanked me so hard I nearly found myself pulling her straight into my arms. “Again”—I dragged my finger across her wrist, controlling the carnal urges storming into me—“I’m sorry for upsetting you. That was never my intention.”

  She looked at her arm when I removed my fingers. Head bowed, and avoiding my gaze, her voice became raspy. “As long as we understand each other, I’ll forgive you.” She turned to leave my office, and I noticed the slight waver in her step and how her legs were close together. I knew her cunt was wet and that her clit was swollen and throbbing.

  I watched her every move the way a predator would watch his prey, studying to understand her. Now I knew all I needed to about Allie. She was a liar, and she wanted me as much as I wanted her.

  The game changed in that second. Allie wasn’t a submissive I played with under contracts. She also wasn’t a dominant woman I dated in the public eye. She was something else entirely, and I wanted to know more about this woman who kept calling me out, demanding I do better, and who made me fight to stand beside her instead of kneeling at my feet.

  Allie could run.

  But she was mine to catch.

  Read on for a sneak peek at another Club Sin title from Stacey Kennedy:

  Commanded

  Available from Loveswept

  Prologue

  Eyes cast down. Rope. Naked flesh.

  Sawyer Quinn studied the bound submissive before him. The tight bindings squeezed her flesh in the proper way so that the black hemp rope accentuated the curves of her feminine body. Even though she was enticingly beautiful, his cock mourned the action tonight.

  Tonight, he mentored the Dominant Max on suspension bondage. Sawyer observed the artful ropes that captured the dark-haired submissive named Amanda. He didn’t linger too long on her rosy, erect nipples, though, as she most definitely belonged to Max.

  Keeping a close eye on Max’s proficiency as he bound Amanda’s knee, Sawyer leaned against the dungeon’s stone wall for support. Black leather couches surrounded glass coffee tables, and wrought-iron sconces dimly lit the room. The best of BDSM equipment decorated the square room, with St. Andrew’s Crosses, spanking benches, ropes hanging from steel support beams, and much more. Club Sin was a five-star BDSM club, and Sawyer happily renewed his membership each year.

  Under his careful examination, Max fumbled with one of the knots before undoing it to try again. Max tended to become frustrated during their training sessions, being too hard on himself for not getting it right the first time. Sawyer knew Max was trying to stay focused as he corrected the error—not an easy task when you have someone looking over your shoulder.

  All in all, Sawyer thought, Max had done well.

  Throughout the fifteen years Sawyer had been practicing BDSM, he noticed two different types of people who enjoyed bondage. One type included those who tied up their lover to add kink into their sex lives. The other type included those who had a bondage fetish.

  The people with a fetish got off on seeing their lover wrapped in rope, just as Sawyer did when he bound a woman. Sawyer had first trained with knots in his early twenties. Then he had focused on Shibari before moving on to suspension bondage. Over time, bondage had become second nature to him. He could bind a woman to increase her pleasure as easily as he could tie a shoe.

  The loud slaps of a leather flogger against flesh echoed across the dungeon from the spanking bench across the room. Sawyer stayed focused on the task at hand, seeing that Amanda kept her eyes closed while Max continued working over her body. Max knotted the rope at pressure points that he’d learned from Sawyer during their first training sessions.

  Pleased by Max’s care of Amanda, Sawyer took note of the crowd, while soft music came from the speakers above his head. It didn’t surprise him to find newer members watching the scene. He couldn’t spot Club Sin’s owner, Dmitri. Nor could he see any of his fellow Club Masters—Kyler, Miles, Aidan, and Porter—all of whom Dmitri had appointed to help run the club, oversee the submissives in the dungeon, and educate the members.

  His fellow Masters were highly experienced, and the training aspect of the scene stole away the passion and intensity. Those who watched Max and Amanda tonight did so to learn.

  Nevertheless, his students enjoyed themselves.

  One quick look between Amanda’s thighs under the light and he saw her wetness. Sawyer grinned to himself, understanding their mind spaces. When he bound his ropes around a woman, locking her into his care, his cock hardened. Always.

 
Now, though, his dick lay soft and unaffected in his jeans. Needless to say, since he wasn’t doing the binding, a little boredom had begun to settle in. When he had first earned Master status in Club Sin, he’d taken great pride in teaching others. While he still enjoyed playing with casual submissives, the joy of mentoring other Doms had diminished.

  “There,” Max said, breaking into Sawyer’s thoughts. “She’s good, right?”

  Sawyer pushed off from the wall, moving toward Max to see his handiwork. Amanda’s erect nipples indicated the level of heat burning through her. Yet her arousal was not Sawyer’s concern. “Do your bindings feel all right, sweetheart?”

  “Yes, sir.” Black pupils had overtaken her blue eyes.

  Sawyer chuckled. A breeze from the wind could make this sub come. “I’m glad to hear it. You’re doing well.” Looking over his shoulder to the young, blue-eyed, baby-faced Dom, Sawyer commented, “I shouldn’t have had to ask the question. Ask your sub. All right?” At Max’s firm nod, Sawyer examined the bondage with a keen eye. “Excellent knots. Well done.”

  “Thank you.” Max smiled with a Dom’s arrogance.

  When Max didn’t say anything more, Sawyer tilted his head at Amanda, raising his brows. Max realized his misstep, quickly adding, “Thank you for letting me practice this tonight, Amanda. You were outstanding, darling.”

  Her breath whooshed between her swollen pink lips. “You’re welcome, Master.”

  Master.

  That one word told everyone in Club Sin whom Amanda belonged to. Sawyer never yearned for a sub to address him that way. The responsibility of having a full-time sub didn’t interest him. Casual relationships suited him better because of his demanding work schedule and busy life.

  He studied his students, pleased that they were enjoying the art of ropes. Sawyer returned to his place against the wall, then said to Max, “The more you play with Amanda the better you’ll be attuned to her. But when dealing with bondage, always ensure she’s comfortable—you have to ask. Understood?”

  “Got it.” Max’s posture stiffened, making him appear taller, as he admired his work. He ran his palm over Amanda’s rounded stomach. She leaned her head against her bound arms stretched high above her. Max stroked her leg, which was bound at the knee, leaving her partially suspended. “I like you this way. So beautiful. All mine.”

  When Amanda shuddered, Sawyer took it as his cue to leave. What they both needed now was a good quick fuck. He gave Max the go-ahead with a nod of his head, pleased by the other Dom’s use of tender, rewarding words toward his sub. Sawyer then turned and strode off into the crowd, finished with his instruction of the scene.

  Sawyer didn’t travel too far, though, as he wanted them to be in sight just in case he was needed. Being a Club Sin Master meant protecting a submissive’s well-being. That was a responsibility he’d become proud of. He’d worked hard to achieve that respect—even if he did find himself lacking the enthusiasm he’d once had.

  Only when he reached the black leather couch, ready to take a seat, did he realize his phone was vibrating in the pocket of his jeans. He thought it best to stay focused on Max and Amanda, and he ignored the call, figuring he’d return it later. But the vibration continued, and now he wondered if there could be a problem he was unaware of. He grabbed the phone out of his pocket. “Hello?”

  “Son, it’s me,” said his father.

  The chill in his dad’s voice straightened Sawyer’s spine. “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s your sister.”

  “Is she okay?”

  “No, she’s not.” A pause. “Someone beat her up. It’s bad, son. Ashlyn needs you.” His father’s voice cracked, filling with heavy emotion. “Your mother needs you. We’re at Sunrise Hospital. Please get here as soon as you can.”

  Before he could even end the call, Sawyer ran for the door, somehow aware that, in this split second, his life had just changed forever.

  Chapter 1

  “She’s lucky to be alive.”

  Sawyer heard his father’s statement as he took in the sight before him. Even after a full minute of standing in the hospital room he couldn’t process seeing his little sister, Ashlyn, lying in the bed. The harsh scent of antiseptic in his nose, the beeping noise coming from the monitor, and the morphine drip attached to the needle in his sister’s hand all faded into the distance as the beaten state of her face filled his vision.

  Black and blue bruises covered her cheekbones. Cuts and scratches spread over every inch of creamy white skin, and stitches outlined the right side of her mouth. Only her long brown hair remained untouched, and that lay beneath the bandages on her head.

  Consumed with a wrath foreign to him, Sawyer inhaled a sharp breath through his nose, controlling the desire to explode. He fisted his hands and turned to his parents, Beth and Roger Quinn, asking the obvious: “Where is Travis?”

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, son.” His father—a few inches shorter and slightly softer in the middle, with a full head of salt-and-pepper hair—continued in a stony voice, “We need to wait for Ashlyn to wake up. We can’t make assumptions about who attacked her.”

  Sawyer heard what his father said, but the darkness rushing into his Roger’s hazel eyes contradicted his words, a confirmation to Sawyer and what he suspected. Travis, Ashlyn’s boyfriend of three months, had done this to her.

  His father added, “The police are involved and are interviewing friends and acquaintances to see if anyone knew anything or saw anything out of the ordinary.”

  “This attack is brutal, and based on what I’ve seen, it looks personal.” As Sawyer spoke he gestured to his beaten baby sister. “Look at her, for Christ’s sake.” Sawyer was a cop, and he’d seen it before. A beating like this, so intense and violent, typically involved someone the victim knew. “We all know Travis is capable of this and more.”

  Travis was an up-and-coming mixed martial arts fighter and had the skills to beat someone into unconsciousness. Sawyer suspected Travis had used steroids on more than one occasion, and he’d seen evidence of Travis’s ’roid rage from time to time. It had never been directed at his baby sister before, though.

  A sob ripped from Sawyer’s mother’s mouth. Noticing the pallor on her face, he moved toward her, offering comfort. His chest constricted as he wrapped his arms around his mom’s slender frame. “Please don’t cry, Mom.” Nothing broke him more than to hear her weep.

  “Look at what he’s done to her.” His mother sobbed against Sawyer’s chest, her short curly blond hair tickling his neck as she clung to his black T-shirt. “How could he do this?”

  Anger bit into Sawyer like a sharp blade while he examined his battered sister. So sweet, so tiny, and so young—she had turned twenty-two only three weeks ago. He was eleven years older, and he had always tried to protect her. His parents hadn’t planned on having a second child—given his mother’s endometriosis, they had thought that conceiving again after Sawyer’s birth would have been impossible. They were shocked when they found out about her pregnancy, but Sawyer was overjoyed that he’d have a playmate, even if it was a much younger sister.

  “He’ll be arrested.” Sawyer gently rubbed his mother’s back. “Don’t doubt that.”

  “How will she recover from this? My poor baby…”

  His mother’s despairing voice made Sawyer vividly imagine pummeling Travis. Sawyer rejected the thought; as a member of the police force, sworn to serve and protect, he had to let justice be served through the law. Having served in the military and now as a member of Las Vegas’s SWAT team, however, he’d found that sometimes his morals got in the way of what his heart wanted to do, and right now what his heart wanted was to make Travis feel pain.

  He held on to his mother tightly, feeling her trembling beneath his arms, and it made Sawyer realize just how Travis had broken into a happy life full of happy memories. In his line of work, he often saw people who experienced horrific childhoods. Not Sawyer and Ashlyn. Their dad, a white-collar worker, had al
ways exceeded the role of a father. His mother, a stay-at-home mom, lived through her children. Travis had brought darkness into the Quinn family.

  Sawyer wouldn’t forget that.

  A sound of someone clearing his throat came from the hospital room’s doorway, making Sawyer turn. He saw a fellow Dom and good friend, Kyler Morgan. Tall and muscular beneath his police uniform, Kyler radiated power.

  A coil of tension escaped Sawyer, as Kyler was precisely the man he needed to see tonight. He gave his mom a final hug, then pulled away. “I need to speak to Kyler for a minute. Go be with Ashlyn. She needs you.”

  “Yes. She needs me.” His mother sounded robotic, not thinking, only acting.

  As she sat down in the chair beside the bed and reached out to hold Ashlyn’s hand, his father greeted Sawyer’s friend, then asked his son, “Shall I come with you two?”

  “Stay with Ashlyn and Mom. We’ve got this.” Determination sent Sawyer walking forward, and Kyler followed him out into the hallway. A few doors down, far enough away to keep any conversation between him and Kyler private, Sawyer stopped and ran his hands over his face, feeling a bit defeated. Fucking unbelievable. An hour ago, he’d been teaching a less-skilled Dom the art of suspension in an erotic playground. But one phone call had changed everything.

  “Fuck, man,” said Kyler. “I’m sorry this happened. What have you learned from your sister?”

  “Nothing yet.” Sawyer lowered his hands, staring into Kyler’s compassionate blue eyes. “They have her sedated.” Images of his sister fighting for her life blasted through his mind, making his insides shake. “She’s fucking beaten to a bloody pulp. It’s clear that Travis didn’t want to kill her—he wanted her to hurt.”

  Kyler leaned against the cement wall, thrusting a hand through his light brown hair. “I’ve learned from the cop who arrived on the scene that Ashlyn managed to get herself into the bathroom and locked the door. She told the nine-one-one operator that her boyfriend attacked her.”