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  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Acknowledgments

  Enamored

  Chapter One

  Marc Wilde was ready to go out and have some fun. He’d shaved his head with clippers like he did every few days and donned his go-to off-the-clock look: dark jeans and a tight black T-shirt that showed off his full-sleeve tattoos, which he usually kept hidden under long-sleeve button-down shirts. If he was on a video-conference, he’d remove his ear piercings, but he always put them back in when it was time to play.

  His best friends and partners at the Brooks Wilde Chase Fund had their drivers chauffeur them into the city to his penthouse so they could get wasted. He and Roman had planned a fun surprise for Trevor’s bachelor party.

  Tonight was gonna be a good time.

  “We can’t do anything Elisabeth would be upset about,” Trevor warned them as they left Marc’s penthouse suite in Manhattan for one of the city’s finest strip joints.

  “She’s your submissive, you own her, she doesn’t own you,” Roman said under his breath.

  Trevor just shrugged. “She owns my heart. Can’t help it.”

  Marc shoved his elbow into Roman’s side before Roman could retort.

  He could see another argument brewing, it was all that those two seemed to do ever since Elisabeth had chosen Trevor over Roman. It always started as friendly teasing and deteriorated into Roman going off and sulking while Trevor cursed into his glass.

  But not tonight. Tonight, for fuck’s sake, Marc was going to make sure they had a damn good time. And he sure as hell wouldn’t let Roman ruin it by being a sore loser.

  Yeah, he could understand a bit. Marc wasn’t interested in Elisabeth, but he couldn’t help but feel jealous that Trevor finally found a woman to spend the rest of his life with. Not just any woman—a beautiful submissive who wore his collar as well as his ring.

  A woman who wasn’t just marrying him because he was Trevor Brooks of the Brooks Wilde Chase Fund. Women knew they were billionaires, it wasn’t a secret. When they went to WhipperSnapper, the BDSM club in the city they frequented, he could practically hear the rumors about them swirling in the air as they entered.

  Everyone called them the BAD Boys, which stood—a bit insultingly, Marc thought—for Billionaire Arrogant Doms. Fuck it. Maybe Marc was a bit arrogant. Why shouldn’t he be, if he could flunk out of community college and still end up a cofounder of the hottest hedge fund around? He earned his wealth through blood, sweat, and tears.

  But it was Roman and Trevor’s tight, long-standing friendship that kept their company going through thick and thin. And right now, while the money was thick, the blood was getting thin. There was real animosity brewing on Roman’s part because of Trevor’s upcoming nuptials, which Marc had no control over. Not having control made Marc uptight and tense. No wonder he was a Dom.

  “Tonight, guys, let’s have a good time. No bullshit. All right?” Marc slipped the bouncer a Benjamin and the velvet rope opened to them.

  Inside, they had a table reserved right up front, where they could be close enough to see the perspiration on the strippers’ limbs as they writhed around the poles like beautiful but dangerous snakes.

  “On me,” Marc announced, handing Trevor and Marc a thick wad of tens and fives to slip into G-strings.

  A chilled bottle of Dom Pérignon arrived, with glasses.

  “Let me guess,” Roman teased. “You’re going to water it down with some ice.”

  “Shut up,” Marc laughed. “That’s just for my scotch. Gimme a break.” He handed the half-naked waitress a tip and told her to keep it coming.

  “Yes, sir,” she replied.

  Marc eyed her appreciatively. The word “sir” rolled off her tongue easily. “Think she’s a kinkster?” he asked nobody in particular.

  “Nah,” Trevor said. “Just jonesing for tips.”

  “She can have my tip,” Roman deadpanned, and Trevor laughed. Thank God. Finally, his two best friends were laughing with each other again. With the ice broken, the men drank and watched the strippers dance for a while.

  “I’ve reserved a lap dance for you, my friend, in honor of your bride-to-be.” Marc raised his arm and signaled for the beautiful woman in the back to come forward.

  Trevor shook his head, despite the almost full bottle of Dom he’d consumed. “I can’t, Elisabeth might get jealous.”

  “No, sir, I won’t.” Elisabeth appeared and grinned at Marc, clearly happy he’d invited her along to surprise Trevor at his bachelor party.

  Trevor looked up in shock. “Elisabeth? What are you doing here?”

  “I practiced for a week, learning how to give a good lap dance. Will you let me show you?”

  “Fuck yes,” Trevor laughed. “Wow.”

  Elisabeth looked hot, wearing practically nothing, her long dark hair spilling over her shoulders. “I’m happy to serve my Master and future husband,” she said, and straddled him, slowly swaying and moving her breasts tantalizingly close to Trevor’s face.

  Marc glanced over at Roman to see if he was as mesmerized as he had been for a moment there, and found Roman gone.

  “Have fun you two, I’m gonna hit the bar,” Marc said. Had Roman left? Maybe it was for the best. Roman thought he was still in love with Elisabeth, which at this point in the game—the night before the wedding—was just hurtful to everyone involved.

  How was Roman going to stand up as one of Trevor’s best men and give them the blessing and toast they deserved?

  Marc turned sharply at the rap on his shoulder. Roman.

  “Why did you invite her, man?” Roman asked. “We couldn’t have one final boys’ night out, really?”

  “There will be plenty more time for the BAD Boys to go play,” Marc joked. “Seriously, look how happy he is. You’re Trevor’s best friend, and you guys go so way back. Don’t let this ruin everything. Be happy for him.”

  “Elisabeth should have been mine. Trevor can’t give her the pain she really gets off on, not like I can.”

  “And Elisabeth had a taste of that and she knows what she’s choosing. She made a choice already. It’s a done deal. She doesn’t want to be with you, man. But someone else will. Both of us will find someone, someday. Have faith, brother.”

  “You’ve already got a woman for company, at least,” Roman said. He’d ordered his double scotch neat at the bar and wasn’t even pretending to look at the strippers anymore.

  Marc laughed. “What, Lauren? Mistress Lauren, who is as unsubmissive as they come? Yeah, she’s fucking hot, but just because you’ve been saying for the past five years that we should quote ‘fuck and get it over with’ unquote, doesn’t mean it’s happening. But you . . . you have a different sub to train every month. Every girl wants to train with the best, that’s you, my man.” He clapped him on the back, hoping to cheer him up.

  “I’ll be going to Trevor and Elisabeth’s without a date,” Roman said, so quietly Marc almost couldn�
�t hear him over the music.

  “You can bring a date. Any sub at WhipperSnapper will be happy to fuck you, much less go to one of the biggest weddings of the year.”

  “I think I’d prefer to be alone, so I don’t have to dance or pretend to be happy.”

  Marc ran his hands over his scalp, the feel of the tiny stubble soothing him, as it always did. “Please, Roman. Hire an escort, some gorgeous model who you can take home and fuck and leave in the morning. It will make you feel better to have someone to boss around at least at the party.”

  Roman growled, but then he shrugged. “Fine. But it’s for appearances only.”

  “Speaking of, I should probably hire an escort too.”

  “Yeah right.” Roman snapped his fingers and his glass was refilled. The beautiful young bartender didn’t even roll her eyes at the finger snap when she saw the tip he laid down. “Bring Lauren like usual. How else are you going to have fun if she’s there with some other dude?”

  Marc hadn’t thought of that.

  The thought of Lauren—the only other person in the world he considered his best friend besides Trevor and Roman—dancing and flirting and who-knows-what-else with another man made Marc inexplicably jealous.

  Yes, she was beautiful, with her long red hair and curves that made him dizzy with desire, especially when she was laced up tightly in a corset that pushed out the pale white globes of her breasts as if to taunt him.

  As if to say: You can’t touch me. No man can, because I make the rules.

  But he had no stake in her. Marc and Lauren always took other lovers, and had never even kissed, because they were friends. Only friends. He laughed, remembering the time he and Lauren had a contest on who could drink the most shots. As he was pounding shots she just pretended to and tossed the drink onto the grass instead of in her mouth. Took him four shots to figure it out. Lauren spent the rest of the evening laughing at his drunken antics. Two Doms can make great conversation but the sex would be nothing short of confusing and most likely unsatisfying for them both.

  There was no way in hell Marc would ever be a submissive, not even for a woman as amazing and sexy as Lauren. It just wasn’t in his nature. And if he knew Lauren—which he did, quite well—she probably felt the same way.

  But still, Roman was right about one thing at least—Marc needed to ask Lauren to be his date to the wedding. At least then he knew they’d both have an awesome time. They always did together. And if he found a cute bridesmaid to hook up with at the end of the night, she’d understand and wouldn’t even blink twice over it. That’s how they’d always been.

  “You’re thinking about what it would be like to fuck her, aren’t you,” Roman said, setting his empty glass down.

  “No. I was not. I was thinking the opposite—how we’ve never fucked and never will. We’re both Doms and I don’t have a submissive bone in my body. That’s what I was thinking, all right?”

  Roman shrugged. “Call me sexist, but I think—”

  “Sexist,” Marc interrupted.

  “Shut up. You may think this is sexist, but shut up and listen anyway. In my experience, and I have a lot of it, most women—not all, I admit—but most women have at least a little submissive hiding away in there.”

  “But not Lauren.”

  “You’re probably right,” Roman said. He looked back over his shoulder, where Trevor and Elisabeth were having their own private bachelor party. “But you can test that theory, just for fun. To see if Mistress Lauren is able to submit to a man.”

  The idea of it sent a rush of adrenaline running through Marc’s veins. He’d imagined what it would be like to have Lauren as a lover, as a sub, but imagining was as far as it went.

  “There’s no way,” Marc shook his head. “What am I supposed to do, just go up to her and be like, Hey Lauren, I know we’ve never hooked up and that you’re a Dominatrix, but I’d like to run an experiment where you serve as my submissive for a while, just to see how it goes. Oh, and I’m going to fuck the shit out of you.”

  Roman laughed, a rare thing to hear from him. “Something like that, only with a little more finesse.”

  “You can’t bullshit a bullshitter. Lauren knows all my tricks. She won’t fall for anything, nor would I want her to. Being a Domme is who she is.”

  Roman shook his head. “Trust in my theory, man. You’re right, she’s smart. So invite her to be your date, as friends, and then figure out a way for Lauren to lose a bet.”

  Lose a bet?

  “Let me guess, you already have an idea,” Marc said. Hopefully, Roman would have an idea. Because right now, Marc was lost.

  “Make a bet, and whoever loses has to be the other person’s slave for a week.”

  “She’d never do that.”

  “I bet you five grand that Lauren will take you up on your bet in a heartbeat, because she wants you as badly as you want her. She’d love the chance to have you tied up on her bed, at her mercy. But you need to make sure you don’t lose. Lauren’s gotta lose, and you’ve got to take it very seriously. Make her your sub, make her live with you and serve you and get fucked by you.”

  Marc coughed. He had an erection just listening to Roman talk about the idea. What the hell?

  “Scotch on the rocks,” Marc called to the bartender. He wouldn’t be able to get up and go anywhere at the moment without embarrassing himself. “Five grand, huh?”

  “That’s right. If—rather, when—Lauren agrees to a bet that involves the loser submitting for a week to the victor, you give me five thousand dollars.”

  “Make it ten K, I could use the money to cheer me up when she laughs in my face,” Marc said.

  Roman shook his hand. “Deal. Let’s go to WhipperSnapper.”

  “What about the bachelor party?” Marc looked back over at the table where Trevor and Elisabeth had been. They were gone, most likely off fucking each other in some poor stripper’s dressing room.

  “Told you not to invite the bride,” Roman grumbled. “Fuck it. Let’s go.”

  Marc tipped the bouncer to get him and Roman into WhipperSnapper, the BDSM club they frequented in Manhattan. Although no one would turn away the BAD Boys. They usually met up there a few times a week, and Marc came even more frequently so he could hang out with Mistress Lauren.

  Their booth in the back was empty, unofficially reserved for them at all times. Any newcomer who tried to sit there was reseated by the Dungeon Master, who walked around wearing a crossing guard’s vest, checking in with couples scening and making sure everyone was having fun and things didn’t get out of hand.

  Sometimes people tried to break NYC regulations and fuck in the club, especially the newbies—but the lifestylers and the Dungeon Master always put the kibosh on that. WhipperSnapper was kinky, for sure. One only had to look at the Saint Andrew’s Cross on the wall near the tables or the scantily-clad young sub hanging in the cage above their heads to see that.

  But there were so many semi-private places, like the dungeon rooms—complete with impressive arrays of implements on the walls to borrow—that it was easy for couples to forget they weren’t actually alone.

  Mistress Lauren wasn’t considered one of the BAD Boys because she wasn’t a billionaire and she wasn’t a boy. But she could fit the definition of Arrogant Domme, even if the arrogance part was only an act.

  In real life, Lauren was the kindest, more caring person Marc knew. She was always welcome at their booth—in fact, Marc thought of it as her booth as well.

  And she was sitting there now, a male submissive kneeling at her feet. He wore only a harness and a shiny black thong that left his ass cheeks bare and little to the imagination, and he appeared to be quite honored to be holding Lauren’s soda for her while she ignored him, watching the scenes around her with interest. Or maybe she was looking for someone . . . Marc, perhaps?

  Her eyes seemed to light up
when Marc and Roman walked to their booth.

  “Don’t spill my drink,” she warned them as they stepped over the submissive to sit with her.

  “I’d buy you a new one,” Marc promised, and gave her a respectful kiss on both cheeks. “Anything for you.” He grinned since the “anything” was just an overpriced soda, because the so-called bar at the club didn’t serve alcohol.

  “Of course anything for me. I deserve it! Where’s the bachelor?” she asked, looking over their shoulders for Trevor. “Was he afraid to take me up on my offer for a last-night-of-freedom spanking?”

  Roman snorted. “Like Trevor would ever let you spank him.”

  “His loss,” she shrugged.

  Marc took a quick sip from her soda. “Coke Mafia gets his cut,” he said.

  Lauren shook her head but let him take another sip before he handed it back to the man who had been holding it. “I need to beat someone soon or I’ll die of boredom.”

  The submissive at her feet looked at her with excitement.

  “Not you, LeatherButt,” she said. “You don’t even feel anything anymore, that fine ass of yours has been paddled so many times.”

  “Please, Mistress Lauren? You can do whatever you want to me. Anything, I swear I’ll be good.”

  “Drink,” she said, and he lifted the straw to her ruby-painted lips, which looked so kissable and yet dangerous . . .

  Stop. Stop thinking that way about Lauren. He focused instead on the music blasting throughout the club instead, tapping his foot to the heavy beat.

  Okay.

  Roman kicked him under the table. Fuck.

  “I think Trevor and Elisabeth decided to make their own bachelor party,” Marc said, rubbing his shaved head. “You’re going tomorrow, right?”

  “Of course!” Lauren laughed. “I wouldn’t miss the wedding for the world.” She turned to Roman. “And you’re the best man, right?”

  “Guess so,” Roman said.

  Lauren raised her eyebrows, which were a darker red than her long auburn hair, cut in a decidedly Domme look with short bangs, like a redheaded Cleopatra. “Roman, you need to get over Elisabeth. Move on. Or at least, please, let them move on and be happy. Do you have a toast prepared?”