He kept walking, out of the building, right to his truck while engaging.
“Branch,” Aryas said as greeting.
“It’s done,” Branch replied, beeping the locks on his truck.
“Message conveyed?” Aryas asked for confirmation.
“Absolutely.”
“Good. Send me a bill.”
“Will do. Later.”
“Later.”
Branch disconnected, swung up in his truck and drove away.
Eleven months later …
Branch parked directly in front of her house.
It had just gone two thirty in the morning.
He got out of his truck, his eyes to the home in front of him, not for the first time noting that the Willo Historic District of Phoenix was the shit.
Especially her place.
Second house from a dead end that led to a thick, tall hedge beyond which was a parking lot off Central. The location gave the property an odd sense of quiet, even right in the city close to a busy street like Central, and also a definite sense of privacy on that dead end.
He kept his gaze on her place, the abundant tall trees and full shrubs around her house making it look like something not out of Phoenix, but from the East Coast.
Her water bill had to be off the charts.
She had a ton of planters bursting with flowers decorating the front steps of her bungalow.
Yup.
Definitely off the charts.
His eyes turned right.
She didn’t have a garage, just a carport, but she didn’t need one with those trees shading the house and her lot. When summer hit Phoenix and temperatures hit 115, her place would be thirty degrees cooler, a little oasis in a vast desert valley.
He walked up the front walk but took the path that led along her front porch to the side. Her drop-top white Fiat was parked under the carport, Branch headed by it, seeing the interior was red and white, sporty, cute, such a girl car, it was a wonder it didn’t reach out and smear lipstick on his jeans when he walked past it.
Two side doors to the house, one from the floorplan he’d downloaded he knew led to a laundry room, the one closer to the back of her house let you into her kitchen.
He saw the moon gleam off the pool beyond the house, but just barely due to the foliage and plant-covered pergolas that acted as covered pathways between house, carport and the small studio that stood at the back side of her property.
He stopped at the door to the kitchen and made a decision.
He’d inspect the studio later.
He picked the lock to her house.
He moved in and turned immediately to disable the alarm at the panel, feeling his mouth get tight when it didn’t buzz.
She hadn’t set it.
She didn’t even have a badge in the window that said she had an alarm.
She also didn’t have a dog.
And further, she didn’t have motion sensor lights outside.
But she did have a fucking car that sat under an open carport that screamed a girl lived there.
He drew in breath, turned to face the kitchen, and went completely still.
The floorplan showed the house had three sections of rooms, each section running the length of the house. One side office, laundry room, kitchen. Down the middle, living room opening directly into dining room opening directly into a family room. Other side, guest room, bathroom, small study, Arizona room jutting off the back. The bottom-level ceilings had been lowered so a master bedroom, with a walk-in closet and master bath, could be set in the attic.
None of the rooms was big except the master.
But in that day of great rooms where kitchens were open, large and part of the house, Branch hadn’t been prepared for this room to be so small, downright snug, filled everywhere, even if he was seeing it by moonlight, with shit that declared boldly a person who liked cooking lived there.
There was a small breakfast nook beyond the counter with the sink that faced the big picture window at the back of the house. There was a little table there, only space for two ladder-back chairs on each side. Plants hung from hooks in the ceiling and sat on high stands, making gazing out the window seem as if it were done through a jungle of leaves.
This was not a kitchen.
This was a kitchen in a house that someone had made a home.
Branch turned and exited immediately, pulling in oxygen when it seemed his breath might turn shallow, and his eyes hit on the studio.
A better place to start.
He moved there, noting the plantation shutters on the windows had been carefully closed. No one could see inside. Not from any angle.
He picked the lock, went in, pulled his small Maglite from his pocket and shined it around the space.
He knew this was her playroom before he’d entered but right then he saw that she didn’t hide it under sheets and tarps, just behind shutters.
Branch shifted the light around, seeing a horse, a bench, a table, all of them good quality. It cost a mint to outfit a good playroom and she didn’t make do. She’d been investing. Making smart purchases that would look good, stand strong during play and last a while.
Fashionable sink in the corner set in an attractive wood vanity, two matching tall, slim cupboards on each side.
He moved there, looked through the vanity and cupboards. Thick towels. Washcloths. Wet wipes. Soap. Bottles of anti-bacterial foam. Cleaning supplies. A large box of condoms. A little basket filled with some cosmetics—powder, lipsticks, gloss. Another filled with first-aid supplies—Band-Aids, bottles of antiseptic, tubes of ointment, gauze, cotton.
He closed the door to the cupboard, turned and shined the light around the room. Moving across the space, he noted hooks on the walls, in the ceiling, eyes in the floor, all looking sturdy. Whoever put them in might have wondered why or he’d been hers. But whoever that was knew what they were doing.
There was a tall cabinet and a large dresser across the room, both in the wood that made up the vanity and the cupboards. It all matched, was heavy and dark but attractive, giving the space the definite feel of a playroom, not a dungeon. It was stylish and handsome, even warm, somewhere you’d want to stay awhile.
He didn’t think as he opened the top cupboard doors of the cabinet and shined the light in, feeling what he found there in his dick.
Cats. Whips. Switches. Flogs. Paddles. Some straps. Some harnesses. All hanging from hooks. All well organized and well maintained. All also excellent quality. Not many, but again, quality, not quantity, was what she was clearly going for.
He closed the doors and crouched down to the two drawers at the bottom of the cabinet, opening them. The top one had silk ropes, some chains, shackles, cuffs. The bottom drawer was full of leather straps with cinches attached.
Branch straightened, moved to the dresser. Nothing littered the top, so he opened the first drawer.
What he found there made his balls draw up.
Carefully placed in what looked like purple silk-lined, custom-made grooves were her toys. Plugs. Cocks. Vibrators. The first two in an impressive range of lengths, girths, and shapes. If they had them, remotes were placed at the side of the toy they controlled. There was also a complicated cock ring, rabbit ears at the front for clit stimulation, and a strap that would lead between the balls to a bullet that could be inserted in the anus, all of it obviously vibrated—triple the fun.
She liked ass.
Not many of her kind didn’t.
He didn’t think on that either.
He closed the drawer, opened the next, and found baskets, carefully organized and containing a large variety of necessary items. Lubes. Oils. Gels. Lotions.
Next drawer down he found scarves and eye masks, no sensory deprivation, no ball gags, no hoods.
Putting a hand in and touching the fabric, Branch noted she had a fondness for silk and all of them were either dark purple, deep blue, or black.
He also noted in an intense way that almost made him feel something,
not only in his dick and balls, but somewhere else, that she had her shit tight.
She knew who she was. She knew what she liked. And what she liked wasn’t common or vulgar, as many people might see it (but he didn’t, he still couldn’t deny he liked the way she obviously played it).
There was an elegance to her style.
It wasn’t about ball gags and he didn’t find a single strap on.
She got the life.
But she did it her way.
Yeah, that definitely almost made him feel something.
Almost.
The next drawer down, he found more harnesses, these for smaller uses, balls, cock, jaw. There were also two carved boxes he pulled out and opened, their original use was for rings or jewelry but she’d put four cock rings in the purple velvet in one and a number of gleaming nipple clamps with and without chains tangled against the blue silk lining in the other.
He put the boxes back, closed the drawer, straightened and took one last look around.
It was a well-equipped playroom. She could get creative and be clean and safe doing it.
He cast his eyes down to the top of the dresser, lifted his hand and swiped it along the top, shining his flashlight on his fingers when he was done.
Dust.
She hadn’t been in there in months.
He drew a breath in through his nose, switched off the light, and turned his attention across the studio toward the wall beyond which was her house.
Aryas had made him an offer.
He needed to make a decision.
So he needed to go there.
He went there.
The inspection he made of her house was cursory. She liked furniture. A lot of it. She liked it to be comfortable. She liked knickknacks, all of which, if he’d paid much attention, something he didn’t do, likely had a story or meant something to her.
The Willo district might have been set with land purchases made in the Victorian era, but homes hadn’t been added until the ’20s and ’30s. Her bungalow, his research had told him, had gone up in the late ’20s.
Still, she decorated like that particular queen was going to rise up, make a visit and cast her judgment.
The heavy, cluttered, busy, flowery, frilly, fringy shit was not Branch’s style.
Then again, he didn’t have a style and he wasn’t moving in.
He was just deciding if he wanted the woman who lived there to fuck him.
So how she decorated didn’t factor.
On this thought, he moved from the living room up the narrow, steep-angled stairs that had been added at the front of the house when the attic had been converted.
The stairs led to a landing that had one of those plush lounge chairs women liked, a marble-topped table and standing lamp, all illuminated in that moment by the only window to the space that was original; the others were two sunlights set in the ceiling. Those sun lights would let in light, but with her trees, they wouldn’t bake the room.
He turned to take the last short flight of steps that went from a right angle to the other stairs and saw her four-poster bed.
It was colossal.
Definitely made for the space, not something you got in a store.
Branch wondered if she’d had it made.
Then he wondered why he wondered.
With that, he stopped wondering and walked to the bed.
She was sleeping, smack in the middle of it.
Her huge mass of dark curls were easily visible against the light sheets and her small body barely took up any of the large mattress.
He looked away immediately and did the checks he needed to do.
Silk ropes hidden under the bed, tied securely to the feet of the footboard and headboard. Nothing but a vibrator for her in the left nightstand (also excellent quality and a premier brand).
The bathroom off the left side of the room was sunken, the ceilings in the eaves of the house, so the large, oval tub with jets at the end was recessed even further, in the floor and down two steps. The shower at the top, though, was big enough for two (or three).
And the room was pale green and baby pink and also decorated busy, frilly, flowery, so over the top, it nearly made Branch smile.
Nearly.
The walk-in closet to the other side of the room was close quarters, nowhere near as big as the bathroom (but still large), two steps down and stuffed full of clothes.
In fact, he’d never seen so many clothes. And shoes. Shelves and shelves of them. And handbags.
She kept her playroom neat and organized.
Her closet, however, was a disaster.
He found what he was looking for, silently slid it out, made sure the closet door was tightly shut and again engaged his flashlight to look into her toy chest.
He almost didn’t bite back the low whistle when he saw how she liked to play in the intimacy of her bedroom.
Picking up a huge, black plastic phallus, he stared at it, his teeth in his lip to bite back his reaction.
“She likes to test a man’s manhood, that’s for fuckin’ sure,” he muttered.
Unbidden, thoughts of that cock shoved up his ass while he was in her massive frilly bed in her frilly room in her frilly house, maybe with his face stuffed in her wet pussy, Branch dropped the toy, closed the chest and pushed it back where it was meant to be.
Without delay, not looking at her sleeping in bed or making a sound, he exited the house, locked up behind him and walked to his truck.
He got in, fired his baby up, turned around in her drive without switching on his headlights, and he was all the way down her street before he turned them on.
He drove to his condo, parked in the underground parking and took the stairs at a jog up to the fifth floor.
He let himself into his place.
He had a TV. A DVD player. A sectional. A coffee table. Two stools at the bar (even if he was the only one who’d sat on either of them). And a bed in the one bedroom with a single nightstand and one lamp.
He had blinds.
He further had dishes. One pot. One skillet. One pint glass. And a set of four forks and spoons but only three knives he bought at Goodwill. He also had a bread knife, a butcher knife, and a toaster.
These, and some clothes, belts, and shoes in his closet, his truck and his gear that was stored somewhere else were all his worldly possessions.
He could move in with Evangeline Brooks in her frilly house in an hour, not needing his furniture, not having any problem at all with leaving it behind.
On that thought, he went to the packet on his coffee table and upended it.
One DVD fell out.
Aryas’s handwriting in red marker was across the clear front.
Watch this, it said, and call me.
PRAISE FOR KRISTEN ASHLEY
“I adore Kristen Ashley’s books. Her stories grab you by the throat from page one and … continue to dwell in your mind days after you’ve finished the story.”
—Maya Banks, New York Times bestselling author
“Kristen Ashley’s books are addicting!”
—Jill Shalvis, New York Times bestselling author
“Kristen Ashley captivates.”
—Publishers Weekly
“There is something about Ashley’s books that I find crackalicious.”
—Kati Brown, Dear Author
“When you pick up an Ashley book, you know you’re in for plenty of gut-punching emotion, elaborate family drama, and sizzling sex.”
—RT Book Reviews
“Reading a Kristen Ashley book, it’s a journey, an adventure, a non-stop romantic thrill ride that is absolutely unparalleled in the romance world.”
—Aestas Book Blog
“Nobody starts a book off better than Kristen Ashley. And while I’m on it, nobody ends a book like Kristen Ashley, either. Precious. Poetic. Perfect.”
—Maryse’s Book Blog
“Kristen Ashley books should really have a separate rating scale as they truly stand in a book
universe of their own.”
—Natasha is a Book Junkie
“Any hopeless romantic would devour everything Kristen Ashley has to offer!”
—Fresh Fiction
“My addiction to Kristen Ashley books intensifies with every book I devour.”
—Vilma’s Book Blog
“Kristen Ashley books should come with a warning that says, ‘You may become addicted to KA books.’”
—Night Owl Reviews
About the Author
Kristen Ashley is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of more than fifty novels. She lives in Arizona and can be found at kristenashley.net, or sign up for email updates here.
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Acknowledgments
One: There Could Only Be One
Two: Rainbow?
Three: Black Box
Four: Lost and Never Found
Five: Courtesy
Six: Miracle of Miracles
Seven: Too Delicious to Be Real
Eight: Soixante Quinze
Nine: Alpha
Ten: Clawing Right Under His Skin
Eleven: Baby
Twelve: Lipsticked Lips
Thirteen: Took Us Deep
Fourteen: Senseless
Fifteen: Flawed Perfection
Sixteen: Dream Come True
Seventeen: Remained Standing
Eighteen: Bitch of a Mistress
Nineteen: Make It All Okay
Twenty: I May Already Have Landed
Epilogue: The Tangle That Was Them
Preview: The Farthest Edge
Praise for Kristen Ashley