Excerpt

Katherine

I’m fire starved of oxygen. A rosebud locked in frost.

I’ve spent my life in a cage, cloistered by politics and social maneuvering. A prisoner to expectation. Yet I’d give anything to be a certain man’s slave. I can’t breathe, can’t bloom until he makes me his.

My breath fogs the car window. I slash lines through the condensation, the freezing air outside seeping into my fingertip. Details of the world beyond flicker through. I’m almost there.

A year ago I wouldn’t have recognized the woman I’ve become. That was before I discovered Crave. Before Demitri ripped the inhibitions clean off my body the first time he undressed me with his icy-blue eyes in the club that fateful night.

My skin heats with the mere thought of staring into them. The cab slows to a stop in front of the hotel entrance. He’s only steps away now. Waiting for me with a plan. He always has a plan.

I pay my fare and hurry toward the entrance as quickly as I can in my stilettos. Thick snowflakes have begun to coat the sidewalk. Holiday bells ring faintly in the distance, and warm white lights wrap around the trees lining the busy street. The ambience tugs at my nostalgia for something more intimate. Someone to share a little of that magic with. But Demitri is too calculating for fairy tales. He’s far too focused to let anything as superficial as a holiday distract him from getting what he wants. All I can do is hope it’s me he wants tonight.

I take the elevator up and pause in front of the hotel room he reserved for tonight. I lift my hand, resting it silently against the door.

“Tonight,” I whisper with a short nod.

Tonight will be the night. It has to be.

I exhale and hover the keycard over the sensor. It flashes green with a beep, and my heart does a hard thump as I open the door. Darkness fills the hallway leading into the suite. I walk toward the light inside.

Demitri paces into view. His tall, broad frame makes a daunting shadow on the opposite wall. His physical strength doesn’t frighten me because he’s never used it against me. If anything, I ache to know how he could.

He speaks into his phone, disrupting my budding fantasy. His tone is loud and brusque. I have no idea what he’s saying, but the conversation sounds tense.

The door closes loudly behind me, and he halts his pacing. His gaze travels up and down the length of my body, warming me from the inside out. He rattles off more of his conversation in his native Czech, his tone a little less angry.

My focus is trained on his expression as he continues to pace. His light skin and hair, his chiseled features. A jaw that could cut through ice…and his lips. Full and framed with the promise of unimaginable pleasure.

I slip my heels off, one at a time. He lowers himself into the chair in the corner of the room. He doesn’t have to say a word. One look and I know what he wants.

I walk toward him and kneel, ensuring my knees are a few inches apart and my mini dress is pulled high and taut. I place my palms on my thighs the way he likes. I resist the urge to stare up at him like a puppy and instead focus on the floor. At his dark leather shoes. The peek of gray socks that’s shadowed by the deep-blue suit pants he’s wearing. I’ve only ever seen him in a suit. He runs Crave, and while it might be a sex club, he’s professional as hell as about it.

“Čau,” he finally says before hanging up. He closes his eyes, sighs, and opens them again. “Kitten.”

I smile. “Sir.”

He runs his thumb back and forth over his lower lip, looking more pensive than hungry suddenly. “I didn’t know if you’d come.”

“It’s just a little snow. It’ll take more than that to keep me from our lessons.”

His brows wrinkle. I’m not sure what it means, so I look down again. This time I focus on the pattern on the chair’s ruffled upholstery. Gold and blue. Expensive. Not like the red leather at the club. There’s no thumping beats here either. No depraved acts on display. Just us. The sound of our breathing. My heart beating in time to the pulse between my thighs. My thoughts drift to the first time I set eyes on Demitri there. He had no less effect on me then.

“What are you thinking about, krásná?” Demitri’s voice is gentle, like a caress. I close my eyes and feel it skitter across my skin. Beautiful.

“I’m not allowed to say,” I murmur.

We’ve been meeting this way for nearly a year. Every few weeks he arranges for lessons I’ve come to live for, anticipating each one like a child waits for Christmas. He’s claimed damn near every spot on my body with his thick fingers and his gifted mouth. Without a doubt I’ve enjoyed every minute, but I’m teetering on the edge of desperation now. He won’t tolerate begging, otherwise I’d chain myself to the bed until he took the last of me, giving me the ultimate gift.

He’s silent a moment. “You can tell me your thoughts without begging.”

I open my mouth to speak, but my lips are trembling and I fear my voice will too. My thoughts are an avalanche threatening everything I wish tonight could be.

He glides his foot over the carpet, between my knees, adding pressure to one side so I spread a little more for him. Then he lifts the toe of his shoe to touch my sex through my panties. The contact is blunt, the perfect amount of pressure to send a hard hit of desire through my veins. I inhale sharply.

“Answer me.” His voice hardens with the command, which only makes me crazier.

I curl my hands into fists. I’m so wound up. It’s been too long like this. What more do I need to do to show him my dedication? My commitment to being his and only his?

“I—I can’t sleep, Demitri.”

“Excuse me?”

I swallow hard and wince at the disapproval in his tone. “Sir.” Fuck. Always with the rules. “This is torture.”

“Is it? Do you think you know what torture feels like, kitten?”

For me, that’s the only word that can sum up this agonizing journey to pure submission.

“All I can think about is what it’s going to feel like. I’m obsessed with it. I can’t think straight. I can’t hold a conversation with someone without fantasizing about it.”

He shifts forward so he’s resting his forearms on his thighs. I fix on the sexy way his arms look under the rolled-up sleeves. His skin is a peachy white, his blond hair too light to compete with the corded muscles that run over his incredible body—the body I’ve yet to fully see and appreciate.

“What do you fantasize about?”

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Misadventures - Recommended Reading Order

(spicy standalone stories that can be read in any order)