Little Red Riding Crop (4 page)

Nora strode down the hall to the black door with red knob. After one quick breath, she turned the knob, stepped inside and felt her jaw hitting the floor.

When she finally picked it up again, she could only manage one single sentence.

“My goodness,” Nora said to The Dame, “what a big … crop you have.”

Brad escorted Nora to the door of the Black Forest.

“So what are you going to tell Kingsley?” he asked, running a hand up and down Nora’s arm.

“I’ll tell him the truth. I met The Dame. I talked to The Dame. The Dame promised to stop poaching King’s people if King promises he’ll stop sending spies into Black Forest.”

“Very good. What if Kingsley asks what The Dame is like?”

Nora grinned up at Brad, up at the mysterious Dame
who no one ever saw but everyone had heard of.

“Like I said, I’ll tell him the truth. I’ll tell him The Dame is amazing in bed.”

“You can also tell Kingsley The Dame will send Hunt back to him if Kingsley’s willing to give the poor boy two days off a week.”

Nora nearly sagged with relief.

“You’re giving Hunt back? I’m a better lay than I thought I was.”

“Top five of my life. Definitely.”

“Thank you, Sir. You’re not so bad yourself.”

With a final grin thrown over her shoulder, Nora left the club and headed back to the real world, to the streets of Manhattan, the streets she couldn’t wait to leave behind. All the way back to her house in Connecticut, Nora thought of Brad and the brilliant ruse of The Dame–the club-owner no one ever saw but who ruled her dark little world from behind the sheer curtains of Black Forest. She’d somehow earned Brad’s trust, earned a glimpse behind that curtain. And more importantly, had earned her month off, her month in Europe.

She barely slept that night while trying to decide where she’d go, what she would do with all her time off. The next morning she packed fast, grabbed her passport and decided to book a ticket at the airport. Fate would decide her next move. She’d pick a destination based on the next flight out when she got there.

At Kingsley’s townhouse, she picked up her last paycheck for four weeks and parked her car in his garage. In the cab, she told the driver to take her to JFK and drop her at any gate she wanted. Nora leaned back in
the seat and closed her eyes. Freedom … she’d earned a month of freedom. No boss to tell her what to do, where to go, what things to do, what people to beat. Exactly what she wanted, right? So why did she feel so uneasy?

The cab jolted as it hit a bump and Nora opened her eyes.

“What happened?”

“Sorry, Miss. Construction. Had to take a detour,” the driver said.

Nora nodded and looked out the window. To her right she saw none other than the entrance to Black Forest. She shifted uncomfortably in her seat as memories of Brad inside her body caused desire to well up inside her hips and stomach.

The cab started to inch forward and Nora let out a “Stop!”, saying the word before she even knew why.

The driver slammed on the brakes. Nora grabbed her suitcase and threw a hundred through the window.

“I’m getting out here. Thanks.”

Nora half walked, half ran to the door of Black Forest and knocked until her knuckles turned red.

The door flew open.

Brad stood staring at her. The stare turned into a smile that turned into a laugh that filled the Black Forest.

“My … what a big smile you have,” Nora said, trying to rein in her own idiotic grin.

Brad grabbed her by the arm, pulled her into the club, and slipped his hand under her skirt.

One kiss on the lips turned into another and another.

“Why …” he whispered, as his mouth trailed down her body, “all the better to eat you with.”

If you enjoyed
Little Red Riding Crop
, then you’ll love
The Siren

The first book in The Original Sinners trilogy by Tiffany Reisz
is available now - turn the page to start reading …

Some love stories you never forget.

Some books will change your world.

Be prepared … this is one of them.

She tore herself from the man she adored, who transformed her, who possessed her … who would have destroyed her
.

Now she is adored by a man she must not have
.

She thinks she knows what it means to be pushed to her limits
.

She’s wrong
.

Turn the page to begin a love story you will never forget

Numbing.

As an editor Zach often forced his writers to dig deep, cast aside the obvious and find the perfect word for every sentence. And the perfect word to describe this book release party he’d been forced to attend?
Numbing
. Zach stalked through the party saying little more than the occasional hello to various colleagues. He’d only come because once again J.P. had twisted his arm, and Rose Evely—the guest of honor—had been a Royal House writer for thirty years now. What a ludicrous party anyway—someone dimmed the lights to create a nightclub sort of atmosphere but no amount of ambience could turn the banal hotel banquet hall into anything other than a beige box. He wandered toward a spiral staircase in the corner of the room to surreptitiously check his watch. If he could survive two hours at this party, maybe it would be long enough to placate his social butterfly of a boss.

Scanning the crowd, he saw his twenty-eight-year-old assistant, Mary, trying to talk her new husband
into dancing with her. J.P. stood with Rose Evely. Both J.P. and Evely had been happily married to their respective spouses for decades but nothing stopped J.P. from chivalrously flirting with any woman who had the patience to listen to his literary rambles. Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves at this miserable party. Why wasn’t he?

Once more he glanced down at his watch.

“I can save you, if you want,” came a voice from above him. Zach spun around and looked up. Smiling down at him from over the top of the staircase was Nora Sutherlin.

“Save me?” He narrowed his eyes at her.

“From this party.” She crooked her index finger at him. Zach’s better judgment warned him that climbing that staircase could be a very bad idea indeed. Yet his feet overruled his reason, and he mounted the steps and joined her on the platform at the top. He raised his eyebrow as he cast a disapproving gaze over her clothes. That morning at her house, she’d worn shapeless pajamas that concealed every part of her but her abundant personality. Now he saw on full display what his mind had before only imagined.

She wore red, of course. Scarlet red and not much of it. The dress stopped at the top of her thighs and started at the edge of her breasts. She had miraculous curves that the dramatic floor-length red jacket she wore over her dress did nothing to hide. Even worse, she wore
black leather boots that laced all the way above her knees. Pirate boots and a roguish grin on a beautiful black-haired woman … for the first time in a long time Zach felt something other than numb.

“How do you know I want to be saved from this party, Miss Sutherlin?” Zach leaned back against the railing and crossed his arms.

“I’ve been watching you from my little crow’s nest here since the second you walked in. You’ve said maybe five words to four people, you’ve checked your watch three times in as many minutes, and you whispered something to J.P., which, guessing from the look on his face, was a death threat. You’re here against your will. I can get you out.”

Zach cocked a self-deprecating smile at her. “Unfortunately, you’re right. I am here against my will. I have to wonder, however, why you’re here at all. Didn’t I give you homework?” he asked, remembering his rash decision this morning to give her one chance to impress him.

“You did. And I was a good girl and finished it. See?” He tried and failed to look away as she reached into the bodice of her dress and pulled out a folded piece of paper and handed it to him. The paper was still warm from her skin. “This is it?” he asked, seeing only three paragraphs on the page.

“Don’t judge a book by its mother. Just read.” Zach glanced at her once more and wished he hadn’t. Every
time he looked at her, he found something else to attract him. Her jacket had slipped down her arm and her pale sculpted shoulder peeked out. Sculpted? His petite little writer had some muscle to go along with her impressive curves. Tougher than she looked.

Remembering himself, Zach turned from her, tilted the page into a patch of light and read.

First she noticed his hips. The eyes might be the windows to the soul, but a man’s hips were his seat of power. She doubted he’d chosen those perfectly fitted jeans and that black T-shirt that belied the tautness of his stomach for the purpose of flattering his lower body, but he had and now she lost herself in the thought of caressing with her lips that exquisite hollow that lay between smooth skin and elegantly jutting hip bone
.

She had to meet his eyes eventually. With reluctance she dragged her gaze to his face, as dignified and angular as the rest of him. Pale skin and dark Brutus-cut hair contrasted with eyes the color of ice. Glacial, she decided his eyes were—they spoke of hidden depths. A stark beauty, he was a man made to be admired by intelligent women. Lean and tall but with the substantial mass of an athlete, he was utterly masculine. The world had fallen away in his presence and now that he was gone, she was left in the equally potent presence of his absence
.

Zach read the words one more time trying all the
while to ignore the annoyingly pleasant image of Nora Sutherlin caressing his naked hips with her mouth.

“I’ve noticed you usually shy away from long descriptive passages in your books?” he said.

“I know people think erotica is just a romance novel with rougher sex. It’s not. If it’s a subgenre of anything, it’s horror.”

“Horror? Really?”

“Romance is sex plus love. Erotica is sex plus fear. You’re terrified of me, aren’t you?”

“Slightly,” he admitted, rubbing the back of his neck.

“A smart horror writer will never put too much detail in about the monster. The readers’ imaginations can conjure their own demons. In erotica you never want your main characters to be too physically specific. That way your readers can insert their own fantasies, their own fears. Erotica is a joint effort between writer and reader.”

“How so?” Zach asked, intrigued that Nora Sutherlin would have her own literary theories.

“Writing erotica is like fucking someone for the first time. You aren’t sure exactly what he wants yet so you try to give him everything he could possibly want. Everything and anything …” She enunciated the words like a cat stretching in sunlight. “You hit every nerve and eventually you’ll hit the nerve. Have I hit any nerves yet?”

Zach clenched his jaw. “Not any of them you were aiming for.”

“You don’t know what I was aiming for. So what do you think of the writing?”

“Could be better.” He refolded the page. “You use ‘was’ too much.”

“Rough draft,” she said unapologetically. She stared at him with dark, waiting eyes.

“The last line’s the strongest—’
the equally potent presence of his absence
.’ ” Zach knew he should give the page back to her but for some reason he stuck it in his pocket. “It’s good.” She gave him a slow, dangerous smile.

“It’s you.”

Zach only stared at her a moment before pulling the folded page back out.

“This is me?” he asked, his skin flushing.

“It is. Every last long, lean inch of you. I wrote it right after you left this morning. I was, needless to say, inspired by your visit.”

Swallowing hard, Zach unfolded the sheet again.
Brutus-cut black hair … ice-colored eyes … jeans, black shirt …
It
was
him. “Excuse me,” Zach began, trying to regain control of this conversation, “but didn’t I repeatedly insult you this morning?”

“Your kvetching was very fetching. I like men who are mean to me. I trust them more.”

She tilted her head to the side and her unruly black hair fell over her forehead, veiling her green-black eyes.

“Forgive me. I might be speechless right now.”

“Your orders,” she said. “You told me to stop writing what I knew and start writing what I wanted to know. I want to know … you.”

She took a step closer and Zach’s heart dropped a few feet and landed somewhere in the vicinity of his groin. “Who are you, Ms. Sutherlin?” he asked, not quite knowing what he meant by that question.

“I’m just a writer. A writer named Nora. And you can call me that, Zach.”

“Nora then. I’m sorry. I’m not used to being hit on by my writers. Especially after verbally abusing them.” Nora’s eyes flashed with amusement.

“Verbal abuse? Zach, where I come from ‘slut’ is a term of endearment. Want to see where I come from?”

“No.”

“Pity,” she said, sounding not at all surprised or disappointed. “Where should we go then? I promised to save you from this party, didn’t I?”

“I really shouldn’t leave,” Zach said, terrified what would happen the second he found himself alone with Nora.

“Come on, Zach. This party sucks and not in the good way. I’ve had pap smears more fun than this.” Zach covered a laugh with a cough.

“I must admit you do have a way with words.”

“So you’ll edit me then? Please?” She batted her eyelashes at him in mock innocence. “You won’t regret it.” Zach glanced up at the ceiling as if it could give him
some hint of what the hell he was getting himself into. Nora Sutherlin … He had only six weeks left in New York until he left for L.A. Why was he even considering getting involved with Nora Sutherlin and her book? He knew why. He had nothing else in his life right now. He liked Mary and enjoyed working for J.P. But he’d made no friends in New York, no connections of any kind. He hadn’t allowed himself to even consider dating. One day he’d taken off his wedding ring in a fit of anger and couldn’t find a reason to put it back on. He wouldn’t consider inflicting himself on any woman right now. At least working with Nora Sutherlin might give him a much-needed distraction from his misery. She seemed like the type of woman who’d help you forget about your headache by setting your bed on fire.