MasterofVelvet

Kirstie
Abbot

Former SAS officer Adam Granger has
wanted Beth Harrison ever since she came to work for him, but he fears dating
his luscious assistant might prove awkward.

Beth’s been attracted to Adam from
the start. Alpha male through and through, he is the model for the fictional
Dom in the novel she’s writing. But getting involved with her boss? Probably
not a good idea.

When Beth is mugged on her way
home, she finds herself in Adam’s arms and in his life. She discovers that he
is the Dom she’s always wanted, but ghosts from his past have come back to
haunt him, putting his business and his life at risk. Beth’s life is threatened
and Adam must do all he can to protect what he holds most dear.

Inside scoop
: In addition to
lots of experimentation with BDSM and a yummy almost-ménage, there are
references to a violent, non-consensual sexual encounter.

A Romantica®
erotic romantic suspense
from Ellora’s
Cave

The brisk, precise click-click-click of heels on hardwood
alerted Adam to her presence—Beth Harrison, his executive assistant, right-hand
woman, and of late source of growing frustration. He looked up from the
correspondence in his hand, eyes narrowing at her approaching reflection in the
tinted window that gave him a panoramic view over London.

Those damn fuck-me shoes
! With that thought, a muscle
tensed in his tightly clenched jaw. While her working wardrobe went from black
to white and through every shade of gray between, her footwear was downright
rebellious—immaculate heels, never less than four inches in height, in myriad
eye-catching colors.

Which ones today
? he wondered. The peacock blue, the
metallic purple—no, as he turned around he saw that she was wearing a new pair
today, red patent leather with an ankle strap adorned with an eye-catching bow—and
incredibly flattering to her slender feet and shapely ankles, gorgeous legs
clad in sheer black nylon with seams straighter than an arrow.

His eyes continued upward, taking in the flannel gray pencil
skirt—the fabric clinging like a lover to her hips and thighs and so fitted
that it gave her hips an ultra-feminine sway as she walked. He experienced a
sharp momentary twinge of disappointment—for the lines to be that smooth, there
was no way she was wearing stockings. He tried to curb his disappointment that
beneath the skirt, there would be no tantalizing exposure of creamy skin at the
top of her thighs.

She wore the crisp white cotton blouse with the top buttons
undone and hinting at delicious cleavage, the sleeves long and fastened at her
elegant wrists with mock cufflinks. French-manicured hands held a notebook and
pen.

And then there was her face—heart-shaped, lightly made-up
with alluring green eyes behind unremarkable spectacles, all crowned by upswept
lush brown hair threaded with gold and not one strand out of place. In the
three years that she had been his assistant he had never seen her anything less
than cool, calm and collected.

It was little wonder that the staff down the corridor called
her The Ice Queen, something Adam knew he needed to put a stop to, since it had
come to his notice at the end of the previous week.

Ten years his junior, Beth had never, as far as he knew,
been married. Adam on the other hand, had an unpleasant, expensive and
thankfully long-distant divorce behind him.

“Yes, Mr. Granger?” Her voice was as composed as ever.

Three bloody years, and she still wouldn’t call him by his
given name—it was always Mr. Granger or Sir. His thoughts lingered on the
second option—the prospect of her calling him that as her Dom, and the prospect
of his collar adorning her neck.
Don’t go there, Granger
. The tightly
controlled little voice warned him off, reminding him of his completely
hands-off approach to the best executive assistant he’d had since he’d set up
AG Acquisitions—reminding him that for three damn fucking years, he’d been
picturing her in his bed, her hair tousled, his collar round her beautiful
neck, the soft curves of her bottom a delicious pink after he’d administered a
sound spanking.

“Mr. Granger?” There was a frisson of concern in her soft,
clear voice now—it shattered his obsessive train of thought and brought him
back to cold, hard reality. He shifted his focus to the present and tried to
ignore how he was turned on by the thought of stripping her of everything
except those heels and having her kneel before him.

“I’m sorry, Beth,” he found himself saying absently. “Have
we heard anything about the Wolfe-Obsidian Partnership deal yet?”

“Nothing yet, sir. I’m keeping a lookout for incoming
emails.”

Shit, shit, fucking shit, damn
! Why the hell did she
have to call him that here? “Thanks, Beth,” he growled, trying to ignore the
fresh images in his head. “Let me know as soon as anything comes in.”

For a moment, Beth debated whether or not she should inquire
as to her boss’s well-being. She decided to err on the side of caution and beat
a hasty retreat.

The strangest look had flickered across Adam’s face when
she’d answered his question about the Wolfe-Obsidian deal but her sense of
self-preservation prevented her from pursuing it with her six-foot-five,
man-mountain, panty-droppingly attractive ex-military boss. Gossip among the
staff insisted that he’d been in the Special Forces and that after he’d left
the military he’d spent some time working in “private security”, whatever that
meant.

Beth wasn’t sure about the Special Forces part of it but he
still carried his military experience in his bearing and although the details
remained elusive, she did know he shared a history in security with his best
friend Dan Chesterfield, who came into the office on a regular basis and who
had an appointment that very morning.

She kept the sigh to herself until she returned to the outer
sanctum that was her office. Whatever was riding Adam these days, it wasn’t
getting any better.

Sex. It had to be sex, she realized a few minutes later,
seated once again at her desk. Well, a lack of sex, at any rate. He hadn’t
asked her to order flowers or book tables for two at his favorite restaurants
for about six months—if he wasn’t dating, he wasn’t getting laid and not
getting laid was bound to make such a virile alpha male grouchy.

Beth almost snorted. Grouchy? A bear with a sore head,
toothache and rampant hemorrhoids would be less grouchy than Adam Granger had
been at times recently. She looked at the clock, it was just gone eight-thirty,
and she knew he would have been in the office since before seven. He hadn’t had
coffee yet—she eyed the pristine espresso coffeemaker in the corner of her
office, next to the grinder, wondering if he’d notice if she switched to
decaffeinated beans in an attempt to make him less tetchy. She shook her head—
what
was that saying again? The road to hell is paved with good intentions…

He was on the phone when Beth went in with the small cup of
liquid dynamite. She had learned early on that hot coffee took precedence over
everything else. He was in the middle of an animated conversation in fluent
Italian, his voice deep and bone-meltingly sexy. She really had to stop
thinking of him like that. It wasn’t doing her any good at all.

That was why she maintained an air of formality when she
addressed him. If she started calling him by his given name, it would be the
beginning of the end. “Mr. Granger” kept her from getting all dewy-eyed and
moonstruck about “Adam”.

Beth loved her job. Although she carried out certain tasks
for Adam that might cause some to see her as his secretary, she was so much
more than that—something he had been at pains to impress upon her at the
interview. Adam had a large portfolio of clients. Beth dealt with the less
complex acquisitions contracts for those clients whose business Adam preferred
to keep within the confines of his own office—nothing illegal or remotely
suspect, just clients with a preference for keeping out of the public eye as
much as possible.

The last six months aside, Beth was uncomfortably aware of a
steady stream of women who had paraded briefly through her employer’s life—all
quite a bit younger than her judging by the voices on the other end of the
phone calls she’d fielded. None of them had lasted much longer than about three
months, if she recalled correctly. She’d heard the gossip about Adam having
been married and that the marriage had supposedly gone spectacularly sour. Ever
since then, she’d been fighting her natural impulse to “fix” him—her fairy godmother
instinct.

“Good morning, angel! And how are you this fine day? Is the
brute in?”

Wrapped up in her work, Beth hadn’t realized how quickly the
morning was going until the cheerful male voice greeted her. She recognized it
instantly—it belonged to Dan Chesterfield, another walking mountain of
testosterone. He swept into the office like a force of nature, straight to her
desk and lifted her hand to his mouth to place a gallant kiss to the back of it.
She couldn’t help but smile.

And where Adam was dark, moody and could be downright scary,
Dan was all blond hair, blue eyes and muscular charm by the bucket-load, packed
into six feet three inches of immaculately attired masculinity. Attractive yes,
but as far as Beth was concerned he didn’t quite have the same charisma as her
employer.

“I’m fine, thank you, Mr. Chesterfield.” She smiled up at
him, rising from her seat. “Yes, Mr. Granger’s expecting you—can I get you some
coffee?”

“Don’t go to any trouble on my account, Beth—I’ll see myself
in.”

Had Beth been a fly on the wall, she would have seen a
completely different man lean his hip on the corner of Adam’s desk. Dan,
another former Special Forces operative, could be every bit as cold and
ruthless as his friend if the need arose and when it came to business, they
meant business. And like Adam, Dan too was a Dom.

“So have you taken her as your sub yet?” Dan asked the
question seriously, knowing full well what the answer would be—one of the first
things he’d done on entering the outer office had been to check for the
presence of a collar.

“Don’t go there,” Adam growled without even turning around.

Dan gave an exasperated sigh. “Man, you are going to have to
do something and soon. I know I’ve said this before but you know she’s perfect
sub material—always so eager to please, moves like a dream. She’s classy and
elegant. If you don’t, I will.”

That made Adam swivel his executive chair round to face his
friend. “Like hell you will, Chesterfield.” The statement came out as just
short of a snarl.

Dan raised an eyebrow to go with the smug grin. His
ex-military buddy only used his surname when Dan had put a particularly large
burr under his saddle. “I thought that would get a rise out of you, old man.”
From time to time, he liked to remind Adam of his seniority, in terms of both
age—all of two years—and former rank. “So when are you going to do something
about it?”

In the office outside, Beth had no idea that she was the
subject of an extremely animated conversation. She was wrapped up in doing some
research for Adam and didn’t realize how quickly time was passing until a
friend from a law practice on a different floor in the same building rang her
to see if she was free to grab some lunch in an hour.

Arrangements made, Beth then went to make coffee for her
employer and his friend. Unlike Adam, Dan liked his coffee white with sugar.
And after she delivered the beverages, she remained blissfully unaware of the
I-told-you-so look that Dan fired at Adam.

“And your point is?” the latter said, his tone acerbic.

“You didn’t even have to ask her. Cheers!” Dan raised his
mug before downing a hearty swig of the steaming brew. “And she makes bloody
good coffee as well.”

The conversation turned to business, the original reason for
Dan’s visit. Before Adam had started AG Acquisitions, specializing in sourcing
high-value gemstones, jewelry and fine art for wealthy—usually foreign—clients,
he and Dan had been partners in the consultancy firm that Dan still ran, and
had expanded into a substantial concern with clients located all over the
world.

Given the business Adam was in, security was a major
concern. Some deals had been going awry lately so he’d called Dan in to conduct
a full investigation into security.

Once all the arrangements were made, Dan turned the
conversation back to the woman in the outer office—or tried to.

Adam scowled. He’d been doing that a lot lately. “Don’t you
have work to do, Dan?”

“Nothing that can’t wait five minutes. It’s Friday—are you
going to the club tonight?”

Dan was referring to the discreet private club where he and
Adam, as Doms, were able to indulge their preferences. While Adam had still
been a regular visitor with his friend over the last six months, indulging in a
scene was something that he had avoided, preferring instead to nurse a Scotch
or two before disappearing back to his city-center apartment.

“Maybe.” His tone was as noncommittal as his response.

“I’ll see you there.” Dan’s voice was determined. “And for
fuck’s sake, will you play with at least one sub tonight? You’ll be losing your
touch.”

“Will you get the hell out of here?”

Dan grinned wickedly as he opened the door. “Okay, I get the
message—see you later!”

* * * * *

After saying goodbye to her employer’s friend, Beth checked
the time— lunchtime at last. She could switch off from work for a while and jot
down the ideas that had been flitting through the back of her mind.

Beth’s hobby was writing, not in the hope of ever having
anything published but purely to exorcise a longing that, on more than one
occasion, she’d been told was downright perverted.

The Ice Queen wanted to be dominated.

Oh yes, she knew that was what the younger girls in the
office called her. They were probably convinced that she was some cat-mad,
shriveled-up old spinster. If they ever got their hands on her notebook or her
laptop, they’d soon be disabused of that idea.

Or would they? Her shoulders fell slightly. If she was that
hot and that brave she’d be living the lifestyle instead of just writing about
it. Where she was and where she thought she wanted to be were two entirely
different places—and in between the two was the massive wall she’d built to
protect the very part of her that wanted to be on the other side of that wall.
It scared her to death, but at the same time she wanted it so much.

And she knew exactly who she wanted for her Dom—that was yet
another reason to address him as Mr. Granger. There wasn’t a cat in hell’s
chance that he was ever going to assume that role for real. Even if he had a
tendency toward that sort of thing, she was the last woman he’d take for his
sub. Without her glasses she was as blind as a bat and while she wasn’t out-and-out
overweight, her curves were a little more ample than the media tended to
prefer. Over the years, she’d learned well how to dress to impress. And to
camouflage.