Big Bad Doms Box Set (BDSM Romance) Read online

  “My lovely, did your Master leave you out here?” The suited man that filled the doorframe had a deep Scottish accent, and he demanded an answer.

  “Yes Sir,” she found herself answering instinctively as if she was back in second grade. Her fear started to rise again; she knew she was in so much trouble. If this man called the police, they might find the gun and that would cause a whole lot more trouble.

  “Well, he’s breaking house rules my lovely, and you will, no doubt, have earned yourself a nice little punishment for speaking without permission. You will have to come inside or you’ll bring the police down on our asses.”

  Well that surprised her; she knew why she didn’t want the police here, but why didn’t he? Realistically, it wasn’t her business and she knew she just had to follow his directions until she could get the hell out of there. The guy smiled wickedly, which was dead sexy, and stood back against the door to let her through, but she still had to retrieve the gun.

  On all fours, she crawled forward a couple of steps, surprised to hear him say, “That’s a good girl, stay on your knees. It may grant you mercy.” What was he? A mean school teacher? She crawled until her body covered the gun before pretending to buckle as if she’d caught the palm of her hand on a stone. She reached down and discreetly tucked the weapon into her waist band. Staying on her knees, because it seemed to be expected of her, she crawled across the cold courtyard floor. As she got closer to the door, the dull thud of club music registered in her ears and the smell of alcohol and cigarettes filled her senses. Great. A party.

  “That’s it, my lovely,” the tall dark stranger praised as she crawled over the threshold of the club. Once inside, he pulled the door closed. He quickly reset a code as she sat back against her heels and dusted the grit off her hands.

  Double great. She was locked in now.

  Once the Scottish man was done with the door, he bent down and rested back on his haunches with his arms over his thighs. “You’re a canny wee lass.” His dark eyes twinkled in the dim light.

  She was receiving all sorts of signals from him. Signals that made her want to stand and kick him in the family jewels. Determined to keep quite so she could get the hell out of there, she lowered her eyes trying to avoid his gaze.

  “Maybe if your Master doesn’t come back for you soon, I’ll take you for myself,” he added seductively. He seemed to stare at her for the longest time. Abruptly, he rose to his feet. “Well, perhaps another time,” he finished with a wishful sigh before walking back towards the party.

  Creepy. She shuddered. As soon as he was out of sight, she stumbled to her feet. “Who does he think he is, God?” she said indignantly. He was like the hot high school teacher whose subject you only took just so you could gaze at him for three hours a week. Yeah, well, whatever. She needed to find her way out of here as quickly as possible.

  She needed to escape, get some money, buy some food and find somewhere to bed down for the night. “God Tilly you’re so blonde sometimes,” she chastised herself. Here she was, at some type of party, with a crowd of maybe a hundred people. She guessed half of them must be women. That meant handbags, purses and money. God, her heart rate rose, the cold metal pressing into the palm of her hand. Slipping it from her waistband, she put it back into her pocket. She had to find the cloakroom. All venues had one, and they were normally by the entrance. Stilling herself, she took a deep breath, puffed out her cheeks, exhaled slowly, and looked around for an exit. Shit. She was suddenly even more anxious. If she went through the crowd to the cloakroom, there would be too many people who could see her and that meant, too many people who would be able to identify her. Hell. She had to move, staying in the utility room, wasn’t a option.

  Eyeing up the door to the kitchen, she decided to find another way around to the front. It might be a little more risky and might take longer, but the chances of fewer people seeing her made it more worthwhile. She leaned against the swinging door and ducked into the deserted kitchen. With her adrenaline pumping, she quickly scanned the area, but all she could see were polished marble surfaces and wall-to-wall shiny kitchen cupboards. “Thank god,” she sighed with relief—she’d spotted another exit on the opposite side of the kitchen. Making her way over to it as fast as she could without running, Tilly’s worn out court shoes made faint clipping sounds.

  It wasn’t until she reached the steel door on the other side that she thought about filling her pockets with food. Stupid, stupid, stupid. She quickly doubled back and found the big double-door fridge. She braced the seal to quiet the peeling suction as the door opened and was rewarded with a bank food. “Oh my god,” she breathed in bewilderment. She hadn’t seen this much food in months. Her mother had always kept a full fridge; it had been a gift she’d always taken for granted. Now though, she was homeless, and this full fridge of food was a pirate’s bounty. Suddenly aware of how starving she was, she unscrewed the top off a bottle of orange juice and drank greedily. She reached in taking and eating a slice of ham then grabbed a block of cheese, nibbled a corner and slid it into her pocket. She filled the pocket already containing the cheese with some soft rolls and tucked half a smoked sausage into the other pocket next to the gun. She then began to panic; the longer she stayed stationary, the more likely she would be caught. She took one last mouthful of the orange juice, slid it back in next to the milk, and quietly closed the door.

  With her heart thumping loudly in her chest, Tilly cautiously eased the steel door open and poked her head out into a carpeted corridor which totally surprised her. She didn’t expect to see cream shag pile. Unsure if she was going the right way, she thought about going back and heading through the crowd, but decided that wasn’t a viable option, so that meant her only choice was to go forward and hopefully find the cloakroom.

  Tilly slipped into the passageway, keeping close to the walls for the first tentative steps, knowing she was heading in the right direction when the music faded a bit behind her. She had only walked a few steps when she came across a painted-panel door. “Bingo,” she muttered childishly to herself.

  Slowly and with care, she turned the heavy brass handle and gingerly pushed the heavy door open. But it wasn’t the cloak room, it was…Wow, she mouthed into the silence. The room had to be the manager’s office, which meant it was where the money should be kept. She felt a pang of excitement in her belly, she’d be eating for weeks at this rate! With the sound of muffled music still behind her, she carefully, just as a precaution, pulled the gun from her jacket pocket and stepped inside the office.

  Chapter Three

  Cam wrapped a towel around his waist and wiped away a ring of steam from the mirrored wall that spread the expanse of the black marble counter top. The hot spray had washed most of the evening’s disappointment from his skin. He foamed up his chin and started working his cutthroat razor in smooth strokes down the hard angles on his jaw when he heard his door open.

  Absently he just figured it was Harvey. Harvey had an appetite for things in multiple, especially now he smirked. Cam figured Harvey was looking for keys to a suite; the lucky bastard must have lined up a couple of club subs and was planning for a long night. Wiping the excess foam off his face, he waited expectantly for his brother to shout some witty one-liner at him through the door to his quarters, but heard nothing instead. He frowned with his hand on his bottle of Boss, listening more intently. Someone was going through his desk. Neither Harvey, nor any of the employees would ever go through his desk.

  Hastily shuffling paper work around on the desk, Tilly couldn’t figure out how anyone could work in the mess. God, time was of the essence. Anyone could walk in at any moment, and she couldn’t find a key for a safe or petty-cash box or even a pile of loose change. Shit.

  “Can I help you?” Cam asked, with as much decorum as he could muster when finding a stranger rifling through his desk.

  Tilly turned on the balls of her feet, aiming the gun towards the voice that had just come in through the side door. “Holy fuck!” sh
e cried out in surprise. The guy standing in front of her looked like a friggin’ super model. He was tall with thick dark hair, neon blue eyes, a perfectly square jaw, and a six pack you could beat a tune on. And, oh my, he was naked except for a towel that hung loosely off his hips.

  “I’ve been told I’m good sweetheart, but I would never be pretentious enough to rate myself above the good lord.” His brows furrowed, trying to source the reason why a down and out was pointing a shooter at him, not to mention how she even got into his club.

  In addition to his good looks he was obviously a smart ass. “Give me your money,” she said in a high-pitched squeak. Shocked and surprised at her own tenacity, she had no idea where those words came from. Her hands were sweating and shaking, her knees felt weak.

  “No.” He spoke the word, low and clear. Never in his life had he given in to threats and he didn’t intend to start now. Leaning against the doorjamb, he crossed his arms over his chest, his feet over his ankles and turned those blue eyes on her.

  “W…What?” she found herself stammering, distracted by his nonchalant behaviour. She shuffled from one foot to the other, flexing her grip on the gun. He had to do as she told him. She held the gun, and that was how it was meant to work. Hold the gun, point it at the victim, they give you money, and then you run. That’s how she’d envisioned this going. Never in a million years had she planned on her victim defying her.

  “I said NO,” he repeated sternly

  “You…you…have to. Can’t you see I’m holding a gun?”

  “First, you demand my money, and then you insult me,” he replied indignantly. She was getting impatient and twitchy, that meant she was desperate and dangerous. By the way her hands shook and the way she shuffled from foot to foot, he knew that also meant she was unpredictable.

  The man-god pushed off the doorjamb with his shoulder and started walking towards her. God he was sexy as hell. His arms swayed with his gait, and his eyes burned into her making her feel small and insignificant, but she stood her ground; she needed money, she needed to put food in her stomach. Jerking the gun from side to side, she knew she needed to step up her game.

  “I’ll shoot, if you come any closer. I swear I’ll pull the trigger.” She backed up matching him step for step, until she was backed up against the wall.

  “No you won’t. If you were going to shoot me, you would have done it as soon as I disturbed you.” God she had sprit; to walk in and hold someone at gunpoint took guts. He looked through the layers of grime that shadowed her heart-shaped features and knew with a little food and a bath she would be a knock out. Bright, intelligent champagne eyes meet his, plump heart-shaped lips parted and quivered as her breath quickened. He raised his hands slowly to shoulder height as he walked steadily towards her.

  The man-god’s voice was deep and no more than a whisper. What was wrong with him? He should have been frantic, panicked and backing away from her but instead, he was calm, controlled and nearly within arm’s reach. “Then I’ll shoot myself.” Panicking, she turned the gun to her own temple.

  That brought him up short, stopping him right in his tracks. He lifted his hands higher and backed up a couple of steps as he growled an order. “You will not do that.”

  She repeated his words mentally. You will not do that? Why not, I beg you not to, or please don’t? No, his words were a command…a demand…an order. ”Why?” she found herself asking absently.

  “Because there’s always another way,” he replied calmly.

  “Yes there is. Give me your money, then. That’s the only other way.” Her voice didn’t sound like her own, it was full of fear. For the life of her, she didn’t know where her bravado was coming from.

  “I told you, I won’t do that.” He was calm, controlled, but authoritative, and although he held his hands up, he took a tentative step closer. “I can help you, if you give me the gun,” he reasoned.

  “One more step mister and I swear I’ll pull the trigger.” What was she saying? Why did she say that? Life was meant to be easy, carefree and fun for a woman of twenty-two. Never in her wildest dreams did she ever imagine when she scored the gun that she’d be threatening to take her own life. Never, ever did she envision she’d be trading her life in for a loaf of bread. “I mean it, so help me God, I will pull the trigger.” She raised her voice, determined to make him realise how serious she was.

  “No, you won’t,” he whispered smoothly and slowly as his hand reached forward.

  “Cameron we have a situation. We have a...” It was Harvey. But as he opened the door to the office, his sentence was cut short by the sound of a dull gunshot.

  *****

  “You really should call the police Cam. She had a gun. Fuck, brother, she’s unhinged. If the gun hadn’t misfired, her brains would have been all over your carpet.” Harvey’s raised voice drilled into Cam harder than the finger poking him in the chest.

  “I know brother, but I don’t believe she meant to shoot,” he tried to reason and stepped back out of poking reach and out of his bedroom.

  “How could she have not meant to shoot you? She had a gun,” Harvey repeated angrily, following Cam out of the bedroom.

  *****

  Oh god her hand hurt. It was burning; it felt as if someone held a flame to it for no other reason than to torture her. She tried to wriggle her fingers, but it was obvious her entire hand had been bandaged. Straining her ears in the unfamiliar surroundings, she tried to listen, but the voices had trailed off and become muffled. The two men must have left the room. She chanced opening her eyes a slit and breathed in relief. She was on a bed—a really big bed, she noted. The room she was in was very masculine. Antique walnut furniture flanked the far wall between the butternut cream walls and the heavy blood-red drapes.

  Trying to place where she was, she rested up on her arms, staring out through the crack in the door. There was that man again, pacing his office and talking avidly to another guy. She still felt exhausted and flopped back onto the bed, covering her face with her arm. What had she become? Never, in her wildest dreams did she ever think she would handle a gun. She had threatened him too, hadn’t she? Then, she had turned the gun on herself! She hadn’t meant to pull the trigger, but that other man had entered the room, and well, she didn’t really know what had happened. The gun had just gone off.

  Tears started to sting her eyes and spill over the brim of her lower lashes. She should be dead she realised. Her life had dipped to an all-time low, but she’d always hoped she could find a way to turn it around. Never, not even once, had she ever contemplated taking her own life—not even when she had to sleep on a park bench.

  Tilly turned her head into the soft silk pillow and tried to bring her legs up. “What?” she cried on a sob. Her right ankle had ben shackled to the bedpost. She tugged her ankle against the chain, but she couldn’t budge the iron strap encircling her foot. Sitting up in a confused daze, she grabbed the steel chain with her good hand and pulled hard. Unfortunately, the chain had been firmly padlocked to the bedpost. Shit.

  “How are you feeling?” Cam asked gently.

  Holy hell, it was the man she’d pointed the gun at. He’d put trousers on now though; perfectly tailored trousers, that hung off his hips, emphasizing his muscular thigh muscles. Swallowing as her eyes travelled up his tight tanned body to his hard-set jaw, she looked into his deep blue eyes.

  “You chained me to the bed?” she retorted, deliberately not answering his question in case she started to cry again. She didn’t want to show this man any weakness. Watching him cross his thick arms over his broad chest, she thought she saw the side of his mouth twitch.

  “Yes I did. Now answer my question. How are you feeling?” he repeated with more gravel.

  She wanted to ask why he cared, wanted to know his name, wanted to ask if the police were coming, wanted to ask who had bandaged her hand. Hell, she had a lot of questions, but his tone demanded an answer. “I’m okay, thank you,” she answered sweetly with a smile.

>   He walked closer; the sway of his hips challenging the fabric of his black slacks to stay fitted to his body. She noticed, for the first time, that he smelled simply edible.

  “You’re a lucky girl to still have your brains in that pretty head of yours. Whoever sold you that gun tampered with the bullets. When the hammer connected with the cap, it disintegrated. Luckily for you, the bullet was inferior, and it discharged back up the barrel.” His smile was soft, but not long-lived. “My friend knows a great deal about fire arms.” He rested his hand very gently over the top of her bandage and continued. “Your hand was burned little one, but my doctor reassures me that with the proper care there should not be any permanent damage.”

  She couldn’t figure out how he knew she was going to ask about his knowledge of the gun being tampered with. It made her wonder if he was a mind reader. She could listen to him talk for a life time. He was so dreamy. Her musings were halted immediately as his words sunk in. Shaking her head, she thought perhaps she didn’t hear him correctly. “You had a doctor come here to look at me?” she asked incredulously. How long had she been out for? Had she been shackled to the bed when the doctor examined her? Had the police been called?

  “Yes, I did. Let’s just say she has a reason to be discreet.” He gave her a crooked smile, in an attempt to relax her.

  There was that smile again. It heated her in a way, she wasn’t entirely opposed to. How stupid could she be? The police were probably coming any minute and all she could think about was his gorgeous smile. “So how long until they get here?” she asked, swallowing back her fear. Thinking about armed robbery, she internally questioned how long a sentence that little misdemeanour carried. She wondered, whether she could plead insanity due to lack of a food? Surely her desperate situation would win her some brownie points when it came to court? Where would they send her? Would she be made to share a cell with a mass murderer or a baby killer? Would they beat her? Her imagination began to run wild and she began to twirl her fingers nervously through her knotted hair to stop herself from losing it and freaking out. There was nothing she could do about the situation. She had done the crime so she guessed she was at his mercy.