WanttoGoPrivate Read online

  Want to Go Private?

  M.A. Ellis

  Obsessed with exploring the kinkiness she buried years ago, Isabel starts to imagine that the sexy, biceps-to-drool-over bartender at her favorite pub is dropping hints about bondage. But fantasy suddenly becomes reality when she finds herself draped over the bar, wrists tied to the beer tap, begging for release.

  Chris has an uncanny knack for sensing when one of his customers might be down with a little discipline and a lot of submission, and he suspects Isabel is primed for both. When he overhears her plan to hit a new round of dating sites, he’s forced to make his move and uses his talents as a BDSM blogger and chat-room Dom to his full advantage.

  From bar to blog to bedroom, Chris employs tricks and toys to help Isabel recognize the undeniable truth. He’s the only Dom she’ll ever need.

  Ellora’s Cave Publishing

  www.ellorascave.com

  Want to Go Private?

  ISBN 9781419935374

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  Want to Go Private? Copyright © 2011 M.A. Ellis

  Edited by Pamela Campbell

  Photography and cover design by Syneca

  Models: Omar and Shannon

  Electronic book publication October 2011

  The terms Romantica® and Quickies® are registered trademarks of Ellora’s Cave Publishing.

  With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the publisher, Ellora’s Cave Publishing, Inc.® 1056 Home Avenue, Akron OH 44310-3502.

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  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the authors’ imagination and used fictitiously.

  The publisher and author(s) acknowledge the trademark status and trademark ownership of all trademarks, service marks and word marks mentioned in this book.

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  Want to Go Private?

  M.A. Ellis

  Dedication

  To the Florida contingent—too many to name, but you know who you are, which parts you played keeping me on track, and the places you all hold in my heart.

  Chapter One

  What were the chances? Really? With the sheer number of single males populating the various dating sites the girls had urged her to join, what where the chances Isabel would throw in her parameters and he would show up on her top-ten, most-compatible list?

  She looked at his picture, a stance so relaxed it almost bordered on cockiness, not sure whether to click on his profile or not. Was there a chance he wouldn’t remember her? She highly doubted that. James, god rest his soul, had paid triple to protect their anonymity. She remembered how the man had tried to maintain a cool demeanor when her late husband had placed the envelope of crisp hundred-dollar bills in his hand, but she had seen the miniscule lift of his brow, the undeniable sign of surprise. No. Despite the passage of time, he couldn’t have forgotten the weekend he had spent on the Cape, tutoring her and fulfilling one of James’ whims.

  Isabel sighed. The past three years seemed like a lifetime. At the less-than-advanced age of thirty, she had been truly fortunate. Her whirlwind romance, the dream wedding, the jet-setting lifestyle, the adoration on a daily basis. It had all been wonderful until one tiny skin imperfection had turned into something much, much worse. The weeklong getaways to exotic locales were replaced with hours in the oncology ward coping with treatment after treatment. Until it became quite clear the man who ruled more than a few private worlds and whom her universe revolved around, wasn’t going to win what he jokingly referred to as the “hostile takeover”.

  He had always said she had been his rock. Not even as she’d stood at his graveside and watched the shiny mahogany coffin lowered into the ground had she crumpled. He had made her promise she wouldn’t grieve more than half a year and, at the time, she readily agreed for his benefit. They’d never been traditional in any aspect of their relationship and she thought it would be reasonably easy to honor that request, as it had been to acquiesce to others, but it hadn’t. With his death she’d had a sudden need to latch on to some semblance of normalcy. To revert to the somewhat conservative manner in which she’d been raised, convinced that was how things should be. What type of man would actually be able to understand her periodic desires without considering her a freak? Or worse?

  After a few months navigating through a series of free dating sites, an effort that resulted in less than a handful of winks and nods, here she was. Considering a premier venue that one of the women on the Arts Council had suggested, she’d expected to find an unending array of men like her late husband. Corporate giants. Men who wanted beautiful, accomplished hostesses on their arms and in their beds. Gentlemen with multimillion-dollar net worths. Not that she needed that. James had left her excessively well-off. But she needed companionship. Someone who could carry on an intelligent conversation. Someone normal.

  What she found instead was the impetus of a distant, buried memory. A temptation of sorts. An extremely dominant male in sheep’s clothing. Three years ago it had been Brooks Brothers. From his profile pic, today it was Affliction.

  What she hadn’t listed as one of her online “wants” was a dominant male who wasn’t a total prick. But that one trait had been rolling around her mind more and more often of late. She liked to chalk it up to months without sex, but in the dead of night, when her body hummed with sexual frustration, she knew it was more than the physical act. Watching had been James’ turn-on, not hers. As a loving wife and grateful partner, she had played along with his suggestion. But that weekend had shown her what she truly craved—a short period of freedom from her responsibilities. It had forced her to give up her control. And the man staring up at her had provided just that.

  “Dear god.” She minused down the current screen in an attempt to effectively block his image from propagating another round of forgotten fantasies. It really was getting beyond ridiculous. She covered her face with her hands and shook her head, heat flooding her cheeks despite the fact she was totally alone and sitting in bed. Maybe that was the problem. Maybe she should be at the kitchen counter scoping out her online options, not lying between two layers of eighteen-hundred-count, Egyptian-cotton sheets. The kind that felt way too good when a girl shimmied out of her tank top and panties and tossed them to the floor, the top sheet offering just the right amount of softness and friction as she snaked her hand between her thighs and gently brushed her clit. “Shit! The kitchen it is,” Isabel groaned. She moved her laptop, tossed back the sheet, swung her feet to the floor and headed toward the door. She should just forget about the “kink factor” as James had called it. She told herself it was the stereotypical masked bad-boy image that beckoned her, that had sparked the embers of remembrance, but it wasn’t that. It had been the feelings that she was struggling to keep locked away that had her thinking he could make all her desires a reality once again. And when he was through, she could turn her attentio
n back to an average man.

  But you don’t want an average man. An average man isn’t going to satisfy you in the long run, Izzi.

  The prudent thing to do would be to block him from her online profile. If he had been interested, he would have contacted her. And she wasn’t about to chase him. Her once-low self-esteem had risen to a level that would never allow that.

  But was a simple email considered pursuit? Her mind was telling her it most definitely was but the little pulses between her thighs made it hard to ignore her baser instincts. She could ask the girls…if she wanted them and everyone else they would immediately text to know exactly whom she lusted after. There would be absolutely no chance at a nonchalant inquiry. Her friends were way too sharp for that. And one of them, only one of them, knew not only her secret, but how to read Isabel like a book.

  Maybe it was time for a male perspective. Not on the whole bondage thing but the manly point of view where first contact was concerned. She picked up her phone and checked the time. Two hours before she was to meet her two best guy friends at On The Left to watch what would hopefully be a victorious game four for her hockey team. She could grab a shower now and be there super-early to snag their favorite seats at the bar. The guys undoubtedly expected that anyhow. They both possessed the propensity toward fashionable lateness, which most people found a giant pain in the ass. But Isabel had learned tolerance. Oh, she’d definitely bust their balls. Then she’d swear them to online-dating secrecy and pick their collective brains.

  She was fairly certain they wouldn’t be proponents of her succumbing to what might be construed as begging for a date, no matter how much they thought she really needed to get laid. And there would be the usual cougar comments, although she was pretty certain a difference of three years didn’t warrant that moniker. But since her husband’s death, she did tend to be drawn to younger men. The girls found it completely acceptable. Sam and Stanley, not so much. Isabel believed their attitudes had something to do with brotherly instincts. Both had come from families with no daughters and loved the idea of having a surrogate sister. They all but glowed when she asked for a male opinion and swore it proved she wasn’t a total brainiac.

  She smiled and headed for the bathroom. Despite all the obstacles and unknowns that had been thrown her way over the past few years, of all the things that had tested her strength and resolve, one thing was quite certain—she was a smart woman. If they thought she should go for him, she would. Smart women could always manage to have things on their own terms. At the end of the day she wouldn’t settle nor would she be used. At the end of the day, she’d find the man of her dreams.

  * * * * *

  Chris Greene’s sonofabitch of a day suddenly became brighter as a familiar scent drifted across the bar and wound its way downward to where he was wrestling with a hex nut in the sink. He usually hated the way the overhead fans forced the amalgamated aromas of sweat, cologne, hair product and perfume his way. But every now and again he got a little reprieve from the horrific blend. As he did now.

  He heard the scrape of wood against tile, not having to think too hard to imagine the way Isabel’s pert breasts would be giggling, just a little, as she situated her body on the barstool. Let the other guys drool over the DDs or bigger. Give him just a handful of all-natural boobage and he was a happy man.

  “Hey, Chris. How goes the battle?”

  He grinned at her tone. She was undoubtedly in guys-night-out mode. She was more relaxed, less classy…but not in a morally lax sort of way. Gone was the higher pitch to her voice that was generally present when she was listening then imparting advice to her girlfriends’ tales of woe. Body language was one thing, but it was his experience that voice idiosyncrasies were way more telling.

  Deciding it was past time to call the owner of the bar and let him get in touch with a real plumber, Chris stood and met her gaze, returning her wide smile.

  “How’d you know it was me, Izzi?” Had she been with her girls, he knew she would have responded with some tasteful comment about how fine he looked bent over. He’d caught on to her various personas months ago and he honestly enjoyed all three of them. The one she used when she was out with her friends and was expected to be mildly flirtatious, the one she adopted around her guy pals and the one he’d been privy to only once. The one he had fixated on. The one where her guard was dropped and her true emotions were right there in her pale-green eyes for anyone who cared enough to notice. And by his account, few of her friends really took the time for that. They liked her, no doubt about that. Some even loved her. But he doubted that any of them could sense just how conflicted the woman truly was.

  Then again, none of them had spent years behind a bar learning to read people like the open books most of them were.

  “Shoulders every guy would die for and a butt any woman would covet. Who else but you, Atlas?”

  He laughed and leaned forward to facilitate her now standard kiss on the cheek. She’d come up with her pet name for him during the last Super Bowl when he was trying to maneuver through the line of women waiting in the narrow hallway for the restroom.

  Holy shit! Atlas has nothing on you! she’d said, eyes wide as they darted from his arms to the keg he carried on his shoulder then back to his eyes. He’d offered her a quick wink, something else that had been standard on his part, but was now reserved for her. Part of him wanted to fuck her that day, but getting to know her on a friendly level from across the bar had made her so much more appealing. And sexy. So had the fact she never came in with anyone except her girls or her two guy friends.

  “You here for the game? Meeting up with Siegfried & Roy?”

  “You’re so bad,” she replied, leaning to one side to hook her purse under the bar. Clothed in her lucky long-sleeve T-shirt, it was a cleavage-free night but that didn’t quash her sex appeal. He’d seen enough nipple slips and beaver shots to last a lifetime. What he fantasized about these days was the woman who was once again upright, and perusing the bar menu as if she hadn’t read it hundreds of times before. She looked at him over the upper edge, all but her eyes hidden from view, and a stab of desire rocked him. He cleared his throat, trying to push the image of her on her knees, staring up at him with exactly that expression, to the recesses of his mind. And if she were just on her knees, his cock a millimeter away from her mouth, that would be fine. But in his mind, she wasn’t just kneeling there with her hands resting on his knees for balance. No, her hands weren’t free. Not by a long shot.

  “Do you have a sore throat?” she asked in a genuinely concerned voice. “This back-and-forth change in the weather is really wreaking havoc with people.”

  “I’m fine. What’re you in the mood for?” he asked in an unintentionally husky tone.

  She dropped the menu and gave him a puzzled look. He waited, forcing himself not to shift his feet or offer up one of his teasing winks.

  “I…um.” A slight tint crept up her neck and into her cheeks. “I don’t know. Good judgment, maybe. A little profound advice. The ability not to take my friend’s innocuous words as innuendo?”

  She forced a laugh and Chris shook his head, not ready to let her off the hook just yet. He liked the way she looked with a little more color in her cheeks. She was apparently a bit more tightly strung than he had realized if an innocent enough comment made her think naughty things. He wasn’t averse to her mind taking that path.

  “What makes you think they weren’t intended as you took them? Maybe for once, I’m in a flirting mood.”

  “Men like you don’t flirt,” she offered, reaching for the menu again. “Not with women like me.”

  “Don’t we?” Chris replied, opening his hand wide and forcing the menu she’d been studying flat against the top of the bar.

  “No,” she quickly replied, sitting up straighter as she stared at his splayed fingers before looking him square in the eye.

  He didn’t miss the way her pupils enlarged, or the slight hitch in her breathing, but the rest of her featur
es remained completely controlled. Which was so fucking hot he wanted to wrap his hand in her hair and force her head backward.

  “Then tell me. What do we do?” He shifted forward and held her gaze, knowing full well she’d be the first to look away. Women usually did.

  “You guys kick ass and take names,” she said.

  “So, we like a little control. Is that a bad thing, Isabel?” He waited to see her response. To both the “control” comment and the use of her real name. He’d suspected for quite some time she was the perfect candidate for engaging in a little D/s experimentation, but as the saying went, he never shit where he ate. And while he’d love to get her alone and see if his suspicions were based in fact and not a figment of his kink-ridden imagination, he wasn’t about to break his personal rule of patron-to-partner initiation. That wouldn’t end well from an employment standpoint. But he had some other irons in the fire, ones he thought were going to pay off if the rest of the free world would just admit they liked a little “slap my ass” after they shut off their Fox News.

  “No. It’s not a bad thing at all,” she finally replied before blinking and breaking eye contact.

  It took a moment for him to backtrack to the initial question. His question. The one that had to do with the issue of control.

  Her girlfriends talked a good game. They might be down for the occasional untutored spanking, but that’s where it would end. He’d be willing to wager that Isabel was different. The beauty of it all was he knew the words to listen for. The subtle phrases, whether practiced or genuine, that alluded to an interest in things just a little less mainstream.

  “Hello, beautiful. You been here long?”