TakingonTabytha Read online

  A rush of images flashed in Tabytha’s mind, overwhelming like the pounding waves. Hours, days seemed to elapse in seconds.

  The mystery was solved, the fantasy unfolded.

  She knew—she knew it all.

  Abruptly she felt Harlan letting go of her hand. He was snapping his fingers in front of her face.

  “Tabytha, can you hear me?”

  She opened her eyes.

  What in blazes?

  He looked as stunned as she felt. Something in his eyes cut straight through her to the core, those damn laser beacons.

  Had he somehow been able to see what was in her mind?

  “I have to go.” She was on her feet, stuffing the recorder in her purse, feeling totally flustered, totally un-cool, totally un-Tabytha.

  “But your interview.”

  “Forget it. I’ll run the Arbor Day piece I’m working on.”

  She headed straight for the door now, no looking back. She tried not to think about it on the way out, but there was no avoiding the knowledge he was watching her with those eyes of his, still locked and loaded, studying the sway of her ass under her pencil skirt, unavoidable given her shape and need for speed.

  Those buttocks were well covered now but not in that damn fantasy.

  There they’d been thinly veiled in silk, the twin globes aggravatingly obvious to the man on horseback, the one who had ridden up behind her.

  The one she had tried in vain to outrun. The one she hadn’t really wanted to outrun.

  Yes, Harlan had fed her mind enough to fill in the blanks of his little thought exercise.

  And she’d done it with a vengeance. As it turned out the rider had been no stranger. He had been her husband…and he’d come to settle an earlier spat between them with something other than words.

  Namely a firm spanking over his knee, his hand cupped against her bottom again and again with a power and purity that would make her squirm and beg to be taken on the sand. And taken she had been, his thick, hard cock piercing her, pushing its way through her hot wetness as she squeezed helplessly, shamelessly against him with the walls of her canal, making her ache from the tips of her breasts all the way to her tingling toes.

  Such a familiar feeling, though she’d never lived it before to her knowledge, that wonderful captivation, his fingers interlaced with hers, holding her down, arms overhead, locking her with all the firmness of steel but all the gentleness of love. Lips kissing, suckling, enjoying her flesh, never getting to the bottom of her mysteries, never tiring of having, owning.

  This so-called husband had had a bloody familiar face too.

  One she was going to have a very hard time getting out of her mind.

  Oh yes, she was going to have to do a lot of debriefing tonight and she would not be doing it alone.

  Reaching for her cell, she hit speed dial.

  She got voice mail.

  “Martinique, Code One.” She employed their time-honored code for an immediately needed guy-crisis session. “ASAP.”

  Chapter Two

  You would have thought the café had caught fire.

  In a way it had, Harlan mused as he watched the quixotic, snarky, sexy-as-hell blonde make a beeline for the door.

  She had to know she was waving a red flag in front of a bull. What the hell had she seen with her eyes closed, anyway? The imagery exercise was one of those open-ended deals, designed to cut through a person’s conventional arousal sphere to the unconscious. Honestly, he’d expected her to make a joke of it, rubbing it in about seeing UFOs or dancing harem girls.

  Instead she’d freaked, but not before getting noticeably hot and bothered. Her pulse had shot up, her breathing had gone totally shallow and when she had opened those beautiful green eyes, they had been anything but emerald cool anymore.

  It was all he could do to keep from reaching across and taking those lips, kissing the truth right out of her.

  So why hadn’t he?

  Respect for the sovereignty of the press?

  Bullshit.

  The minute he’d heard it was Tabytha Quillen who wanted to interview him from the City Times he’d perked right up, making it his special mission to rock her world.

  Tabytha represented everything free and wild and feminine, the total opposite of his existence, so tied down and controlled, pardon the pun.

  He had the club, where BDSM players let down their hair. He had the alternate sexuality foundation and the society as well as his investments. As a hobby he worked with submissives, helping them understand their sexuality in ways that allowed them to keep self-esteem and sanity.

  Other than Trina, his right-hand associate, he was used to deference, almost ad nauseam.

  That was how it had been with the monks too, back when he was taking all that training in sexual discipline and meditation.

  But Tabytha represented a god’s honest challenge, a woman determined to make a fool of him. There was no way he could back down now. Something had been tapped inside him and he would find out what.

  Ego, Trina would call it, the downfall of every lion.

  It might have all turned out as a lark, but Tabytha had actually responded more strongly to the imagery exercise than any woman he had ever met.

  Maybe it was the intense way he had set it up. He really could see her on that beach. She was so goddamn beautiful, not just because of her face and her body, though they were certainly to die for. She had inner radiance. He had wanted her so fiercely. He was the rider, he had become that unknown sexual pursuer, and that had never happened before.

  So what had she seen exactly?

  Were they sharing a fantasy, the two of them?

  No mystery what would have happened on his end. He had been ready to hop off that horse, seize hold of her and kiss her into oblivion. Because they weren’t strangers, they were partners somehow, and her running was a game…a complicated way they played with each other.

  That kiss would have burnt her down to the ground and yet it was something they did often, even daily.

  “My lord,” she would have panted.

  And he would have whispered in her ear the consequences of her escape and the reward he was to enjoy for his capture of her.

  She would go across his knee. Her buttocks mockingly covered in that soaked chemise, her buttocks twitching, taunting and silently crying out their wicked secret.

  The fantasy-world version of Tabytha liked to be spanked.

  It made her hot and ready to be taken.

  She liked her hands held down too, and when it pleased her lover, she accepted his bonds, his ropes and chains on her luscious body. And she was no stranger to the erotic lure of the whip either.

  The little vixen, she liked the petty arguments, liked to tease him and run so he could come after, so he could feel the fire burning inside him that made him drive to capture her all over again.

  That absolute unspeakable ecstasy of being inside her too, like he had felt a home, a sheath for his cock, a resting place for his soul. By god, there were no words for the absolute perfect feisty submissive who needed time and again to be reminded who he was and how he loved her and how he would burn heaven and hell to keep her from the hands of another man.

  He would have it no other way. She would come for him, she would moan and beg and surrender and she would kiss and caress only him. She would curl up in his arms, seek his protection, his counsel, and in so doing she would be his perfect partner.

  It was true.

  Tabytha Quillen was his on that other world.

  She was his queen, his goddess.

  And his absolute property.

  Harlan downed the rest of his forgotten espresso, cold and bitter, and pulled out his wallet. Leaving a tip wasn’t necessary but he felt a little guilty because he was about to break the cardinal rule of Nouvelle Java.

  A silly rule, but contrary to the myths about dominant men, Harlan paid attention to civilities.

  “Trina,” he said in a low voice, having hit the number
one speed dial on his sleek black phone, a model not available to the general public. “I want you to do me a favor.”

  Naturally Trina had her own agenda. “You’re calling me already? That was a quick interview. Or did you chicken out?”

  “The interview was what it was. What I need you to do is invite Tabytha Quillen to the club tomorrow night at eight o’clock for dinner.”

  “Why didn’t you ask her yourself?”

  “Because that isn’t how it’s done. I want you to make a formal call, from my office.”

  Trina sighed. “Okay, fine, play the mysterious Dom.”

  “But don’t call right away.” Harlan cursed himself for the slight anxiety in his voice. She would pounce on it for sure. “Wait until this evening.”

  He heard her breathing, no doubt grousing. “You know I’m not your dating service, right?”

  “I’m not dating her, and you’re cruising for a spanking, missy.”

  As if their relationship would ever cross professional boundaries. BDSM was a joke between them, nothing more.

  “Promises, promises,” she quipped. “Don’t forget your four o’clock teleconference with the new Japanese investors.”

  “Oh joy, can’t wait.”

  The only thing he wanted to think about right now was Tabytha. The way she smelled of spring rain and wildflowers. And the way she pursed her lips and furrowed her brow a little when she was thinking. She was so damn adorable.

  He wanted to inhale her scent, nibble on her earlobes and whisper to her all the things that would happen between them. He wanted to hear the halfhearted noes, which he would kiss out of her, caressing and undressing and teasing her gorgeous body until she begged him to take control, to own her orgasms, to mingle the pleasure and the pain, to bind and release her, to take her into the magical, semi-evil world of domination.

  And then he wanted her back for more, star struck, lost, utterly dependent on the lovemaking needs he’d awoken inside her.

  In short, Harlan wanted her as his love slave.

  Heading to the door, he made a second call to Trina.

  “I want her in black. All black. And I don’t care how you tell her, work it into the conversation if you have to. Just make it happen.”

  A lot of ifs. First Tabytha Quillen would have to show up. Then she’d have to stick around past dinner for the fun part. At that point he could find out if she’d be a team player.

  The luscious little green-eyed blonde in silk lingerie or maybe satin and lace, jet black, her creamy breasts straining at the flimsy cups, her delicate pink lips and smooth sex beckoning under the panel of her maddening little panties.

  Would she be a good girl, obedient and eager, or would she be naughty and wear white or red?

  Harlan had handled his share of naughty girls, made them squirm and beg.

  Whatever she wore, she’d be taking it off.

  On that much you could bet her newspaper career—and his as a dominant.

  * * * * *

  “Seriously,” said Martinique, sometime after midnight as she passed the gelato across the overstuffed zebra couch in the living room of her upscale loft. “You could have at least gotten his number.”

  Tabytha sighed as she accepted the medicinal offering. Martinique St. Claire believed in settling nothing without gelato—chocolate chip—washed down with wine, Pinot Noir preferably or a good Zinfandel at least, and always drank from crystal stemware given by an ex.

  Personally, Tabytha had never had anyone give her crystal stemware, but Martinique had managed to furnish her entire life based on failed relationships.

  Certainly she had furnished enough anecdotes for Tabytha’s columns over the years.

  “I’m really not sure where the Taby-fied me ends and the real me picks up anymore.” Martinique always loved to complain, though she loved the attention more.

  Martinique St. Claire was born to radiate energy, absorbing and reflecting it with a fierce equality to make a physicist jealous. Tabytha thought of her as her own tropical island and indeed her name sounded like one. A Caribbean place, complete with annual carnival, pink and yellow fireworks in the gentle blue sky, a sensuous, half-naked dance, never quite legal, but not the sort of thing you could really win a conviction on.

  The fact that she was actually born on Antigua was strictly a coincidence. Her father, an English lawyer, had spirited away her island mother during Martinique’s second year of life and she’d grown up in Philadelphia from that point forward.

  Tabytha had met her in college and it was love at first sight. If by love you meant instant fire-meets-water chemistry.

  “I’m Tabytha,” had announced the young blonde with a pen tucked behind her ear and a pair of nerdy glasses. “Your new roommate.”

  Martinique had looked her up and down the way one looks at a street urchin, a poor unfortunate from the days of Dickens. “Not with that getup you aren’t. Please, tell me I have overslept and it’s Halloween?”

  Tabytha had assured her it was still September, the first week of classes. Martinique had rolled her eyes. “Help me, Hecate.”

  Even then Tabytha had loved Martinique’s randomly referencing ancient mythologies.

  Tabytha promptly impressed her with a biographical rundown of her own.

  Within a month they were bosom buddies, sharing everything from outfits to music. Never guys, though, their tastes were too different.

  “You like to talk sex, I like to do it,” Martinique had summed it up years ago.

  Still, Tabytha would be lost without her best friend, which was precisely why she’d invited herself over tonight to decompress after her scary, strange meeting with Harlan Blake, Esquire.

  Martinique had been immediately biased, of course, having run across a picture of him in the online album of a friend of a friend. She was a hairdresser who reported the man was not only hot as hell, he was totally standup, all of which was leading Martinique to come back to the same point over and over.

  Why had Tabytha run out on him just when things were getting interesting?

  “Or you could have given him yours,” Martinique added now, going for the jugular. “You do have a personal cell, in case you forgot. It’s one of those things you never use like your—”

  Tabytha waved her off with the monogrammed spoon, a gift to Martinique from the head of some computer company, or was it a duke?

  “Don’t you dare make any references to my anatomy, Nikky, I take care of it just fine.”

  “Take care of it? I bet you don’t even know where to find it anymore, although Mr. Blake seemed to remind you. So tell me details, what actually happened? When you held hands and he went all Yoda on your ass…”

  Tabytha rolled her eyes. “Honestly, you should be the writer not me. There wasn’t any Yoda stuff. He just told me I was on a beach and—”

  “He told you? A man told you?” Martinique’s wide eyes scared her straight.

  “He didn’t tell me, I gave permission.”

  “So you wanted to be mind-fucked then.”

  “Would you stop being a cross examiner for one minute, Nikky, it was a silly thing, I was walking on a beach in this gown, there was a breeze and I was…barefoot.”

  Martinique was snickering.

  Tabytha knew that last part would get her going.

  “I swear to god, Nikky.”

  She covered her mouth, employing slender, cocoa-colored fingers, electric-blue tipped. “Sorry.”

  “He said it was this other world, where beauty reigned, and he said I was the most beautiful. And he told me…I wasn’t alone.”

  “You never are in a mind-fuck dream.”

  “A man was following me,” Tabytha ignored her. “He was a rider on horseback. Harlan just had me imagine the man coming closer and closer and left it up to me who he was, what he wanted me for and…”

  “And?”

  Tabytha swallowed. “He knew me. He was…my husband. He took me in his arms and kissed me. Seems we had a habit of playin
g this way often, I would kind of run off on him and he would catch me.”

  “Now I see the BDSM coming in,” said Martinique, downing the rest of her wine and pouring some more.

  “Not BDSM, just…”

  Martinique’s brow shot up. “Just what?”

  Tabytha drained her glass too. “He-he liked to spank me. It was his way of showing his love. And it made me hot, I don’t know why, but it did.”

  “It is hot. I assume he was fine, this dream spouse?”

  “Yeah, well that’s the problem. He looked like Harlan Blake.” Tabytha winced, waiting for the inevitable grilling. “I know, I internalized my desire, blah, blah, and then I ruined the whole thing before we could hook up in real life.”

  Martinique looked somber. “You know he claims that he can touch women’s souls, right? Spells it out right on his website, assuming they want to submit? Maybe you two really did mind-fuck. Like my grandmother always said—”

  “No quoting voodoo please.” Tabytha covered her ears. It was bad enough what the wine was doing and the endorphins from the chocolate making her relive the whole damn scenario for the millionth time. Not to mention all the little memorized expressions on Harlan’s face she couldn’t get out of her mind, the playfulness around the eyes and the way his lips moved when he was thinking.

  “Did you have sex in the fantasy?”

  “Well, it was all pretty fast and I opened my eyes before I could get lost in it but…yes. Harlan Blake took me.”

  There, it feels good to say it, Tabytha thought. She had just made the first step to ridding herself of any residual effects.

  Martinique looked thoughtfully at her glass. “You remember Tommy Owens, don’t you?”

  Tabytha regarded her friend, perfect cinnamon beauty, almond eyes, the blend of two cultures, a feminine phenomenon waiting to be unleashed, in the right hands. “You mean the handcuff boy, senior year?”

  “Yes. He was all gung ho, wanting to chain up some lucky lass. I was all set to give it a go and you talked me out of it.”

  “Well, he was all wrong for you, just using you to brag to his frat brothers.”

  “Is that all it was? Or did you have a design on those cuffs for yourself?”