Raven's Seduction (The Pleasure Pros #1)

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M.T. Stone

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Raven’s Seduction
Book 1 in The Pleasure Pros Series

This book is a work of fiction.  Names, characters, places
and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used
fictitiously.  Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons,
living or dead is purely coincidental.

Copyright © 2014 by M.T. Stone.
  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce,
distribute or transmit in any form or by any means.  For information
regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the publisher.

Steamy Nights Publishing

www.SteamyNightsPublishing.com

First Edition – October 15
^th
, 2014

This book is dedicated to my parents and family.
 
Without them none of this would be
possible.
 
I would also like to
thank the wonderful fans and friends who supported
My Nights With Kate
and the rest of the
Jack
Ryker
series
.
 
You guys made it fun to write and I
thank you!

Thank you to Megan
Hershenson
for her
efficient editing as well as thoughtful suggestions.

The Author recognizes all trademarks of any companies, products
and services mentioned in this work of fiction.

“You never know how strong you are, until being strong is your
only choice.”

-
Bob Marley

No one should feel old at age twenty-nine.
 
After being stuck in a rut for nearly
five years, I was willing to try almost anything.
   
From the moment I heard
Gunner’s voice, my hormones took over and led me on the wildest ride of my
life.
 
Within the first few days, I
realized it was all an elaborate trap.
 
Unfortunately for me… there was no going back.

Raven

As I wilted into the driver’s seat of my
sports car, my bottom felt completely numb and my mind was still abuzz.
 
I had never quite understood the whole
pain and pleasure thing.
 
People who are into pain and bondage are
total freaks;
at least that’s what I used to think.
 
Then I met Gunner… the man who changed
everything.
 
After our first weekend
together, I knew that he had unleashed something within me that could never be
repressed.
 

He quickly became an obsession or maybe even
an addiction.
 
No matter how hard I
tried, I could not get him out of my head.
 
If someone had tried to describe the feelings that he had dredged up from
deep within me, I never would have believed them.
 
The fear, the panic, the exhilarating
pain and the intense pleasure that I have experienced since our first night
together have changed me forever.
 
How can I possibly go back to the way things
used to be?
 
How could anyone?

~~~

As a young woman, I was always strong or
strong-headed, as my father liked to call it.
 
Most of my friends had parents to lean
on, but my father had been sick for as long as I could remember due to the time
he spent in Vietnam.
 
I put myself
through college by working two jobs.
  
By the time I graduated, I had already established myself as a real
estate professional.
 
The real
estate market was booming at the time, so the money was incredible.
 
My natural networking skills not only
landed me a ton of listings, but a sexy husband as well.
 
Perry was the quintessential
entrepreneur… smooth, charismatic, and very driven.
 
I was immediately attracted to him for
all of those reasons and more.

The sex was incredible right from the
beginning, but so were the fights, as the two of us butted heads
endlessly.
 
I’ll never forget the
day that I found out I was pregnant.
 
After trying every different type of birth control pill, I hadn’t been
able to find one that didn’t make me feel like shit.
 
Since I was the one who had chosen to
use an alternative method of birth control, he blamed me for the pregnancy.
 

Having another human being inside of me began
to change my priorities for the better.
 
I became much less concerned by how much money I was making and more
interested in establishing roots.
 
Unfortunately, that didn’t mesh with Perry’s five-year plan.

“How are we going to reach our goals if
you’re at home taking care of a kid?” he asked in a flurry of rage.

“I set my own hours, Perry!
 
I can work around it.” I tried to assure
him, but it was clear from that very first day that things would never be the
same.

I had always known that raising a family
wasn’t a huge priority for him, but I had failed to realize that he was
adamantly opposed to the idea.
 
When
he insisted that having an abortion or giving it up for adoption were my only
two options, I chose option three… divorce.
 
My parents helped me get settled into a
two-bedroom apartment and were there to help me after my little girl was
born.
 
They had assumed that Perry
would remain part of our lives after she was born.
 
They hadn’t fully comprehended the
gravity of our split.
 
Perry wanted
nothing to do with either of us.

The birth of my daughter coincided with the
start of the great recession, so my income dropped by seventy percent while I
struggled to adapt to motherhood.
 
If it hadn’t been for the court mandated child support, I never would’ve
made it.
 
From a young age, I had
always known exactly what I wanted and had been laser focused.
 
Now piece-by-piece, my entire life had
been either ruined or dismantled.
 
For the first time ever, I felt like an utter failure.
 
I found myself struggling just to make
it through the day.

As if my misery level wasn’t high enough, my
father took a turn for the worse and died about six months after Hannah was
born.
 
At least he got to know her for a little while.
 
I’m sure many women share a special bond
with their father, but Dad and I were especially close.
 
Mom was hard on both of us and that
seemed to be what drove us closer together.
 
We always sought refuge in each other
whenever there was tension at home.
 
Believe me, there was always
plenty of tension.

After he was gone, I fell to an incredibly
low point in my life.
 
It took every
bit of my strength to take care of Hannah and work part-time.
 
Most days I actually felt relieved that
the real estate market remained so dead, as it meant that I didn’t have to
leave the house.
 
I began avoiding
people, preferring to spend time alone with Hannah.
 
After several months of letting calls go
to voicemail, the calls slowly stopped coming.
 
Some of my friends gave up on me; others
got married or moved away.
 
In my
lowly state of mind, I didn’t care and had no inclination toward finding any
new ones.
 
A year after Dad died, I
found myself in almost complete isolation, and baby talk had become my primary
language.
 

In an effort to stave off the feeling of
losing my sanity, I joined a single mother’s support group.
 
It made sense that it would be easier to
make friends with other women who were going through similar situations.
 
The meetings were a little boring,
sometimes even depressing, but I did meet a few nice people.
 
The one who I really clicked with was
Amber.
 

Amber was a tall redhead with roughly the
same build as me.
 
We both liked to
complain about the post-motherhood problem areas throughout our mid-section,
but in reality, we had both been blessed with good genetics.
 
She had a sarcastic sense of humor as
well, so we were like two peas in a pod right from the start.
 
Two
peas in a pod
, another saying my father used to favor.
 
God
I miss him.

Three Years Later

A cold, dreary winter had given way to a
cool, miserable spring.
 
Amber and I
sat at our favorite little coffee shop on a Friday evening, getting our
caffeine fix before going out for the evening.
 
Our kids were both at her house where
her niece was babysitting, so we had the whole night to burn.
 
We were dressed to kill, just in case we
decided to hit the clubs.
 
I thought
back to how much fun the clubs had been a decade earlier.
 
Everything seemed fresh and new back
then.

Unfortunately, the past few years had left me
feeling as if I was past my prime.
 
The thought of going out to the clubs in search of Mr. Right left me
with a hollow feeling.
 
Even though
I still wanted to find love, it had been a long time since someone had caused
the slightest flutter in my heart.
 
The exhilaration of a sizzling hot relationship seemed as if it had
become nothing but a far-fetched dream.
 
I really shouldn’t feel this damn
old.
 
I’m only twenty-nine.

Judging by Amber’s demeanor, I could tell
that she felt exactly the same way.
 
The fact that we had each other was cool, but we were both craved the
type of excitement that could only be found in the opposite sex.
 
As bleak as my personal life felt, Amber
was always convinced that hers was even more pathetic.

“At least you have a rich baby-daddy,” she
spouted while taking sip of her vanilla latte.
 
“The loser who knocked me up doesn’t
have a pot to piss in.”

“Having money doesn’t make my ex any less of
a loser.” I couldn’t help but roll my eyes.

“Maybe not, but it’s easier to put up with a
loser who helps pay the bills and takes care of Hannah every other weekend,”
she countered.
 
“I need to find
myself a sugar daddy.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s been your primary
goal the entire time I’ve known you,
hun
.”

“Oh shut up,” she chided me and began fussing
with her straw.
 
“It’s not easy
finding a sugar daddy who’s interested in a thirty year old single mom.
 
Most of them are trying to escape their
own baggage.”

“I know, sweetie, I just like messing with
you.
 
I love how defensive you get.”

“Hey, the truth hurts. It’s not like I don’t
feel pathetic enough already.”
 
Amber gave me that cute little pout that made her look like a little
girl.
 
She was so adorable with her
fair skin and generous sprinkle of freckles.
 
“Hey, maybe we should go to group
tonight, instead of a club,” she added after a moment of silent reflection.

“Dressed like this?
 
I don’t think so.
 
Besides, that place has been boring me
to tears lately.”
 
I sat there for a
moment before lightning struck.
 
“Maybe we should start our own group.
 
At least then we could hand pick some
fun members.”

“Get some cool people like us?”

“Exactly.”
 
As
if we’re cool.

As we sat there kicking around ideas, a woman
about our age came in with her daughter in one arm, dragging along a whiny
young boy with the other.
 
The
little boy was convinced that he needed an energy drink, but his mother was
dead set against it.
 
“Your father
will kill me if I give you one of those right before he picks you up,” she told
him.
 

After a spirited debate, she was finally able
to get him to settle for a giant chocolate chip cookie
.
 
I’m so glad Hannah
doesn’t behave like that.

“That looks awfully familiar,” Amber said as
the woman kissed her kids goodbye and passed them off for the weekend.

“Yeah, she is obviously one of us,” I
surmised, as she slumped into a chair at the next table and gave us a sigh.

“You look familiar,” she said, studying my
face and trying to look past the black wig I was wearing.
 
“You used to be on those billboards all
over the city.”
 

“Her name is Raven and I’m Amber,” Amber
interjected, trying to throw her off course.
 
She knew the last thing I wanted to talk
about was my former glory days at the top of the real estate world.

“Raven, now that’s an interesting name,” she
replied, giving us a suspicious look.

“I’m sorry, that’s my bar name.
 
We use them when we are talking to guys
we don’t know,” I told her.
 
The
black wig and new name were part of an experiment that had been suggested by my
therapist.
 
She thought if I could
reinvent myself, maybe I could get my life back on track.
 
Throwing on a wig and adopting a crazy
nickname seemed like an easy way to kick-start the process.
 
Obviously, it was a pretty thin
disguise.

“That’s cool, but they sound sort of like
stripper names,” she said, thinking for a second.

“Hey!” Amber retaliated. “My grandpa gave me
the nickname Amber when I was a little girl.”

“Because of your red hair, I’m sorry,” she
said with a sorrowful look.
 
“If we
are going to use bar names, then mine will be Polly.”

“Polly?” Amber questioned; obviously thinking
it was a boring choice.

“Because my ex always said I reminded him of
the girl Jennifer Anniston played in
Along
Came Polly
,” she confessed. “I’m kind of a free spirit.
 
It drove him nuts.”

“A free spirit, huh?
 
You might be exactly who we are looking
for,” I told her.
 
“We were just
sitting here talking about starting a club for single moms.”

“One that’s actually fun,” Amber added.

“I could definitely use some fun,” Polly
replied, shaking her head and looking generally pathetic.

“Then you can help us out.
 
We’re trying to figure out something fun
to do on the weekends,” I said.
 
“We
both feel like we’re slowly dying.”

“So what are you going to name your club?”
she asked.

“The Single MILF Club,” I blurted out as it
popped into my head.

“That sounds so nasty!” Amber countered with
a surprised look on her face.
 
Polly
simply smiled and shook her head.

“I know, but the
Single Mom’s Club
sounds just as boring as the one we already
belong to.
 
I think we should spice
it up a bit.”

“I don’t think we need an official name.
 
Let’s just go out and have some fun,”
Polly suggested.