Thank You!

Today is "Cyber Monday" in the US - a day dedicated to online shopping, and today I'd like to say thank you to all of you, the awesome readers who support ebooks. I have three awesome thank you "gifts."

1. Get Elemental Pleasure for free!
2. Enter for a chance to win $50!
3. Read the first chapter of "D is for..."

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Sneak Peak of "D is for..."

It was an invitation, a reminder, and a threat, all bundled into one short message.

Master Hadrian,

We’re distressed you were unable to join us for the mandatory meeting of all Las Palmas Oscuras members. Your presence was missed. If you’re interested in continuing your membership, please call—at your earliest convenience—to discuss the activity which was announced at the meeting.

The Overseers

Hadrian quickly copied the number at the bottom of the message, knowing that any second now it would disappear from his inbox. Self destructing email, cryptic messages and vague threats—he’d expect nothing less from a secret sex club.

He rolled his exercise ball into position and took a seat at the quartz topped desk, stretching out his left leg. His knee protested and he winced. Turning forty had apparently been a signal to his body to begin malfunctioning. 

He had a vague memory of another email about an all-club meeting to discuss something. He hadn’t been to Las Palmas—LA’s most exclusive BDSM club—in six months, so hadn’t paid much attention to the original message. He wasn’t avoiding the club, and he didn’t want to lose his membership, but driving down to the gorgeous Malibu estate wasn’t as straightforward as it used to be.

Plus his new assistant ruled his schedule with an iron fist, and he wasn’t about to ask the enthusiastic and ruthless—possibly even ruthlessly enthusiastic—22 year old to coordinate his weekends at a sex club.

He checked his calendar. Nothing for an hour. Well, technically his schedule said “brainstorm new technology.” Samuel must have added that. Hadrian had never scheduled time to brainstorm. All his good ideas came to him while he was doing something else. Like a program running in the background.

Slipping a beta tester handsfree device the size of a raisin into his ear, Hadrian checked on the progress of the code checker program he was running, then rose from the ball-turned-desk-chair, stretched and went to the wall of windows. His office had one of the best views in the house.

The pacific ocean raged against the cliffs below, water pounding against dark rock, the elements both diametrically opposed to one another yet forever linked at the shoreline.

Phone in hand, Hadrian typed in the number, even as he turned to look at the massive picture hanging on the wall behind his desk.

In it a young, fit man lay on the beach, his legs in the air. An equally young, fit woman was balanced above him, her hips braced on his upraised feet. Their hands were clasped, the man’s elbows locked, his lack of shirt displaying well defined triceps, bulging pecs and rippling abdominal muscles. The raised her upper body in a cobra pose, all while suspended above the man. Her slimly muscled arms were a match for his, and her legs, stretched out behind her, were corded with muscle. The pose looked effortless, yet it was a display of strength, her core muscles drawn tight to keep her legs extended, her arms flexed to hold upper body in the elegant backward arch.

The man was smiling up at the woman, whose face turned away from the camera as she looked out at the water. Her dark hair lay across her bare shoulders, and the bikini style workout wear, similar to a beach volleyball uniform, showed miles of tanned, toned skin.

“Hello, Hadrian.” He was so lost in his thoughts that he hadn’t notice the ringing had stopped.

“Master Mikel.” Hadrian jerked his gaze back to the ocean outside the window. “I got your message.”

“Good. Good. I was sorry we didn’t see you.”

“Should I make an excuse or just admit I didn’t pay attention to the first message?”

Mikel laughed, as Hadrian had hopped. “Truth, Hadrian. Always truth.”

“Of course.” It was one of the sacred rules of BDSM play—truth, and it’s partner trust—were necessary, not optional.

“Truth is actually why we called the meeting.”

“Oh?” 

“We’ve been lying to ourselves, all of us.”

That certainly wasn’t what Hadrian had expected to hear. “What do you mean?”

“We’re complacent, hiding from our real needs, our real desires. We no longer tell ourselves the truth.”

“Right.” Hadrian had no idea where this was going, but his spidey scenses were tingling.

“Master Leo, Mistress Faith and I came up with a game.”

“That sounds…alarming.”

Mikel laughed again. “Oh yes, oh yes.” His chuckled faded, and Hadrian waited for him to offer some reassurance, but he didn’t. “You remember the checklist of course.”

“Not at all.”

Mikel sighed. “The list of things you could do to, with and for a sub?”

Hadrian didn’t bother to search his memory. He didn’t want to think back to when he’d joined. “Go on.”

“Each member completed a checklist, and we kept a copy. Over the past year we’ve noticed that everyone has become…uninspired.”

“Complacent?”

“Yes, that. And boring.”

“Boring?”

“Sadly, it is true.” Mikel breathed out a long-suffering sigh. “Las Palmas is not a country club, not a weekend resort. It’s a place where our darkness can, and must, run free.”

“There’s plenty of dark stuff that happens, at least there was last time I was there.” Hadrian had seen some crazy things at the club, especially in the iron court.

“It’s not enough. So, we have the game. The checklist game.”

“You still haven’t given me any specifics.”

“Each member has been assigned a letter of the alphabet.”

“And what do they do with that letter?” Hadrian tried to ignore the picture his brain had thrown up of a 3D puppet style letter K in rope bondage. X-rated Sesame Street.

“You will take your checklist, and that of the submissive we assign you, and explore every kinky, toy and fetish listed for your letter.”

If Hadrian had been a computer his screen would have frozen. “Uh.”

Mikel laughed. “I knew you’d enjoy it.”

“Wait, did you say you assigned the submissive too?”

“Yes. Everyone has been assigned a partner, or partners, unless they’re bonded.”

Hadrian dropped onto a low white couch facing the windows, ignoring the protest in his knee. “You’ve assigned everyone a partner, and they have to work through one letter of the alphabet with that partner.”

“Yes.”

“And everyone agreed to this?” The members of Las Palmas were all wealthy and successful. They were hardly the type of people to meekly toe the line when someone told them what to do.

“If they wish to remain members, yes.”

That explained the threat in the email. “I see.”

There was a beat of silence before Mikel spoke. “Do not use this as an excuse to leave.”

“Maybe it’s time.” Hadrian had been a member for ten years, but they’d been a long, difficult ten years. The Hadrian who’d joined Las Palmas was very different than the man staring out at the ocean.

“Or maybe it’s time for you to give in to the beast. Stop playing, ah, Clark Kens.”

“Kent. Clark Kent.”

“Yes, Clark Kent. It’s time to be Superman.”

“Rope carrying, crop wielding Superman?”

Mikel laughed.

Hadrian stuck out his left leg, rubbed his knee. The most exciting thing that had happened to him recently was hiring Samuel and the subsequent takeover of his schedule. Maybe it was time to remember that he hadn’t always been a tech geek—or at least he hadn’t always been just a tech geek. “What’s my letter?”

“Ahh.” Mickel’s voice was thick with pleasure. “I’m so glad you’re going to play. The letter D needs you.”