MasterinMelbourne

Master in Melbourne

Sindra van Yssel

In Australia to get a break from an
abusive ex-husband whose obsession has turned to stalking, the last thing Zoe
is looking for is another relationship involving whips and chains. But then she
runs into former Australian football player Nick Carrady. He’s sexy and the
perfect gentleman—and a Dom. And Zoe’s submissive longings are reemerging—the
ones that got her into so much trouble in the first place back in Texas.
Fortunately all Nick can ever be is a hot, kinky vacation fling.

Nick finds the little American sub
hot as hell. Her past means he has to be careful as he pushes her limits, but
he has only a little time for bondage, flogging and sexual healing before she
heads back to Texas. He has to convince her that the past doesn’t have to
dictate her future, and hope that his passion and skill as a dominant lover can
overcome her history and the ten thousand miles that’s about to come between
them.

Master in Melbourne

Sindra van Yssel

Chapter One

Zoe Calder sighed and stuck another coin into the slot
machine at the Crown Casino. She’d set herself a limit of twenty Australian
dollars, but she was considering going over. It was only money, after all, not
that she had a lot of that to spare. But the machine did take credit cards. And
hell, she’d spent nearly that buying drinks at the bar.

She’d come to Australia on something of a lark, ostensibly
to do a little family history research. Her great-great-great-grandfather had
gone to Australia from California in the 1850s, trying to strike it rich in the
Victoria gold rush after making a modest but unspectacular living as a
prospector for a few years stateside. In Australia, he’d gotten himself into trouble,
as usual, running afoul of the authorities over gold licenses. Only a timely
night out drinking had kept him from being at Ballarat with the other miners
the fateful Sunday morning when troops had stormed the stockade. A score of
protesting diggers died in the aftermath, and others became heroes, but Norman
Calder had ended up a footnote.

“On such little events does life turn,” Zoe muttered to
herself dramatically, because it was something she could imagine Norman Calder
saying. She pushed the button on the slot machine, her row of cherries broken
by a nasty diamond. Ugh. That was it for the twenty dollars. It would be nice
if just once the darn thing would go
ching-ching-ching
and a fistful of
coins would come out. It was more fun using a five-dollar bill to pay for soda
in the machine at the grocery store.

Still, this is supposed to be fun. I have rotten luck.
Like meeting Stu. If only I hadn’t been stupid enough to trust him.

The real reason she was in Australia was to get herself as
far away as possible from Stu Reston, her ex-husband. A restraining order
hadn’t been enough, but he’d never find her in Melbourne. The only people who
knew she was there were her parents, and she hadn’t told them the real reason
because they looked at her with disbelief when she tried to tell him what Stu
was doing.

She’d seen his car parked across the street late at night,
the glow of a cigarette letting her know of his presence and reminding her of
the burns she’d suffered at his hand. BDSM, he claimed, but it went way past
that, and there was nothing safe, sane or consensual about it toward the end.
Maybe there never really was. She veered back and forth between blaming herself
and blaming him, but he was a bit unhinged from the get-go. That was part of
what had made him enticing, dangerous and mysterious to a younger, more foolish
version of herself.

There was a part of her that had wanted some of it, but it
had gone way too far, and she wasn’t ever going to trust that part of her
again. The bruises had faded. She still had a few scars on the outside, and
plenty on the inside.

An old man with lifeless eyes sat down next to her and
started feeding the slots.

She got up to get another drink, and maybe a few more dollar
coins so she could have a few more chances to get lucky. She didn’t want to sit
next to the old man, who looked as if he should be putting his money into new
clothes rather than a slot machine. He didn’t smell so good either.
I could
sit down somewhere else and still play.

Nah. Wasn’t that my mistake? Making what I knew was the
wrong choice, but hoping it would work out anyway?
The thought stalled her
from getting more coins, but didn’t deter her from the drink. Her hotel wasn’t
that far away, a short little tram ride. She had a daily pass in her pocket.
All she needed to be able to do was stagger. She’d not gotten so much as tipsy
since she ran away from Stu, but today getting totally bombed seemed an
excellent idea. She headed to the bar.

“A gin and tonic,” she informed the bartender, and regretted
that too. Just what every country wants, a drunk American visiting. But the
bartender made it quickly, and once it was in front of her she felt she had to
pay for it. And once she paid for it, well, she figured she might as well drink
it. She asked for her change in twenty-cent pieces. Not using the credit card
made her feel more virtuous, and the twenty-cent machines made her money last
longer.

She finished her drink and wandered past the cluster of
poker tables. They seemed to attract a better class of gamblers, although a few
wore that same blank expression she saw on faces at the slots. She knew and was
good at a number of card games, but she’d never learned anything much about
poker, and she was pretty sure sitting down at a table and trying to pick it up
would be even more foolish than playing the slots. Ditto for the baccarat
table. There was an elegant woman in an evening gown there. Maybe she knew what
she was doing. Everything Zoe knew about playing baccarat, which wasn’t much,
came from watching Peter Sellers in the original
Casino Royale
movie.

The woman’s low neckline reminded her of an ad she’d seen
the night before in the alternative newspaper advertising a fetish weekend at
some nightclub. It was only two blocks from her hotel. When she saw the ad
she’d immediately thought that it could all be different, better, with someone
else. The picture of the woman in the leather teddy, and a man with a jaunty
leather hat and black straps in an X across his chest holding her around the
waist, stirred something deep inside her. It started in an hour. But she’d
never seen any fetish or BDSM event that admitted drunk people, and there was
no way she could get sober in time. She smiled.

I’m safe. Even from myself. Tomorrow morning I’ll get up
with a headache and go do something useful, like go to the zoo.

She headed again to the slots. The world was moving around
on her, and she was getting seasick from looking at it. She closed her eyes on
the escalator. The place looked snazzy, she gave it that. Chandeliers, track
lighting, brass moldings. They should make all the men wear dinner jackets and
all the women wear evening gowns. That would make the atmosphere match the
décor. She supposed it would also drive half their business away.

She hit the bottom of the escalator before she realized it
and stumbled forward, her momentum carrying her off. She opened her eyes and
tried to keep her footing, but she hadn’t completely succeeded when she hit
something solid. She looked up as she felt two strong arms lift her to her
feet.

The man in front of her was tall, six foot two at least,
nearly as big as Stu. His chest was broad and solid. Hell, even the stomach
she’d accidentally planted an elbow in felt like a wall. His black
short-sleeved collared shirt exposed indecent amounts of hard muscle. His face
was handsome and tanned, and his dark hair was just long enough to hint at
waviness. She stared into his dark eyes, mesmerized for a moment. She’d always
had a weakness for big, strong men. It had been her undoing, but she was drunk
enough not to care.

“You’re not wearing a dinner jacket,” she told him.

“That’s true, I’m not. I rarely am.” Nice. Smooth. Good
going.

Nick Carrady had come to Crown Casino to meet his mate
Steve, but Steve hadn’t shown and wasn’t answering texts. Typical. He’d watched
the woman plunking coins into a twenty-cent pokie, her enthusiasm catching his
eye. Her joy of life set her apart from the habitual gambling addicts. She’d
gotten up a time or two to get a drink, and with each coin she put in the joy
faded a little. She wasn’t gambling big money, but her experience seemed like a
microcosm for the lives of the people who got hooked.

She was curvy and a few inches shorter than the average
woman, and she felt soft and cuddly against him for the brief moment he held
her. Her hair was the color of honey and hung straight to her shoulders. She
was obviously drunk, and from the accent, American. She was none of his
business, really.

It was hot out, a typical January day in Melbourne, and yet
she wore a long-sleeved turtleneck sweater and jeans. She’d look better in a
sleeveless shirt and shorts, or better yet, a skirt, and yet he’d kept watching
her, fascinated, barely paying attention to the more provocatively dressed
women who walked by him.

When he’d finally decided that Steve wasn’t going to make
it, he thought he’d head up and see if he could find where she went, maybe
strike up a conversation. After that, who knew what might happen. He had at
least an hour to kill before Kelly’s opened its doors to Indigo, the semiannual
fetish event that took over the club for a couple of weekends a year. Heck, if
the woman was interesting, he might skip the whole thing.

Instead he’d spotted her coming down, obviously intoxicated,
and he’d moved to the base of the escalator to catch her.

“Sorry for running into you that way,” she said in a sweet,
soft Texas drawl. “Didn’t mean to.”

“No worries,” he said.
You’re soft and pleasant,
actually. Want to go again?
But he wasn’t going to put a move on her, as
much as he wanted to. She was way too drunk to make decisions about who to go
to bed with. He should go and leave her be, but he didn’t want to. “C’mon, I’ll
get you out of here.”

“I’m gonna play the slot machines some more,” she said.

“Slot machines? Oh, the pokies. You didn’t look like you
were having much fun before, don’t you think you can give them a pass?”

“Can if I want to. Don’t want to, though.” She pushed him,
palm on his chest, but there was no oomph to it. She gave up and walked around
him instead.

Well. That was rude. He caught up to her in one easy stride
and put his arm around her waist, steering her toward the exit.

“Hey!”

“Mates don’t let mates gamble drunk,” he said.

“I’m not your mate.” She giggled and relaxed, letting him
guide her. “We’re not mating.” She giggled some more. “Want to?”

“I only look good to you because you’re drunk.” He held her
closer as they got to the revolving doors. He got the feeling if he let her get
into a different pie slice of the door, she’d scamper away.

“No, I’m pretty sure you’d look good to me sober. So where
are we going, tall, dark and handsome?”

My place.
But he knew it wasn’t going to happen.
Maybe she’d forgive him when she woke up, but he wouldn’t forgive himself. “I’m
guessing you have a hotel?”

“Yep.” She giggled. “With a queen-size.”

“Then we’re going back there, and I’ll put you to bed.”
Alone,
more’s the pity.

“How are you going to keep me there?”

With rope.
But he didn’t say it. Chances were she
wasn’t kinky, and even if she was he didn’t want to lead her on. “I expect
you’d fall asleep.”

“Ha! I’m not as think as you drunk I am. You’d need to tie
me down.”

Then again, maybe she is. But she’s absolutely as drunk
as I think.
“Where is it?”

“Little Collins Street. I’m Zoe, what’s your name?”

“Nick. Where on Little Collins?”

“It’s called the Barclay. You know where that is?”

He did. “We can take the tram. C’mon, this way, cross the
street.”

She leaned up against him, the side of her breast brushing
against his side. She felt really good. It had been a long time since he’d
walked this way with someone, and there was something very intimate about it.
Anyone watching them would have thought they were lovers.

“How long have you been here?” he asked.

“A couple days.”

“Well, welcome to Melbourne. Tram will come in a few
minutes, most likely.”

She nodded and looked up at him. “How did you know I have a
ticket?” Her eyes narrowed. “You don’t have two, do you?”

He laughed. “No, I don’t even have one. There’s almost no
chance of getting caught, and it works out better to pay the fines than buy the
tickets.”

Her nose wrinkled. “That doesn’t sound very honest.”

“Be a bit of a detour to go buy a ticket now, wouldn’t it?”
He wasn’t actually in the habit of riding the tram without a ticket, although
plenty of people did.

“I suppose.”

Her body felt nice and warm against him. Extra warmth was
the last thing he would have been looking for on a summer day usually, but in
this case it was more than pleasant. She didn’t seem to mind being close
either. Probably because she was drunk. The way she was dressed, everything
covered, didn’t fit with the idea of a woman who’d offer to “mate” with a
stranger. Not that he would have objected if she were sober. He wondered what
her story was. There was only one way to find out.

“So, what brings you here? Business or pleasure?”

She didn’t answer right away. Apparently she needed to think
about it. “Pleasure, I suppose. I thought I might mix in some business. Mostly,
I needed to escape.”

“Escape? What are you running from, Zoe?”

Apparently he’d hit home with that, perhaps closer than he
intended. She glared at him and pursed her lips tight. He didn’t think he’d get
an answer at all, but after a few seconds her face relaxed and she said, “A
crazy ex-husband. I figured he wouldn’t follow me all the way here. If he does,
I bet you could take care of him.” She squeezed his arm. “Except he usually has
a gun. Under his jacket, shoulder holster during the winter. In the summer it’s
on his hip.”

He nodded, remembering it was winter in America. The idea of
someone openly carrying a firearm in the bright lights of the casino was
incongruous. The thought of someone threatening the snuggly girl he had his arm
around brought out every protective instinct, but he wasn’t too worried about
Zoe’s ex. If she’d gone without telling him, he imagined that it would be close
to impossible to track her down halfway around the world.

“What do you do for business?” he asked.

“I’m an illustrator, when I’m not too busy being an office
clerk. I do books on animals sometimes. Sometimes I do children’s books. I was
going to spend some time at the zoo, painting wombats and koalas, but somehow
now that I’m here I don’t feel like it. It’s strange too, it’s not like I’ll
pass this way again probably. It’s my only chance. But I don’t feel like
painting. Or even drawing.”