When they were in the lift, Aaron let out a breath. “Well, I wouldn’t want to be Mr Rich right now.”“No,” Mirage smirked. “Gabriella is going to rip his balls off.”“He is vindictive,” Aaron cautioned her. “Stay wary.”“Always.”They dropped Will and Aaron back at their offices before taking the limousine to the rehearsal studios. Mirage checked her phone. There was a message from Vice which simply read. “All good?”She wrote back. “Kicked Mr Rich in the balls.”His reply came swiftly, indicating that he and Victor were on a break. “Good girl.”“That Richard guy is a dick,” Alexei commented mildly.“Yeah,” she agreed, sliding her phone away.“My mother wants to meet you.”She flushed. “Does she?” She was not sure what Victor had said about the relationship.“She keeps telling Victor and Vice to bring you to a family lunch.”“There are family lunches?” She was surprised. Vice and Victor had not been to one during the time she had been staying with them.“We try for weekly, but it is r
Mirage laughed breathlessly, her ability to draw in a deep breath limited by the constriction of being slung over Victor’s shoulder. He turned his head and bit her behind, making her shriek and giggle like a maniac.“Shit,” he said. “The door is closed.” He released his grip on his jeans so that he could open the door, and they slid down to his ankles.“Oh, goody,” she seized onto his arse. “Someone skipped their underwear this morning.”He laughed, stepping out of the jeans, and kicking them into the room. “I went for a swim,” he told her. “They are out on a chair, drying.” He lowered her onto the bed and laid his body out over hers, as he kissed her, his tongue stroking against hers. “I do like it when you wear skirts,” he reached between them, pulling her underwear to the side so that he could slide against her intimately and she drew in a shaking breath.“I probably need a shower,” she said. “I have been dancing all afternoon.”“You taste salty,” he dragged his tongue along her co
She slid into the limousine and felt a twinge. Three days so far, she thought with a small smile, at the memory, and her body had not forgotten them. Just the thought of it made her hot, despite her exhaustion. She lay out along the seat as Alexei slid into the back. “You really shouldn’t lie like that when he is driving,” Alexei commented as he put on his seatbelt. “If there is an accident, you would get seriously injured.” She groaned and dragged herself up before dropping into the seat on the other side of the car to Alexei, leaving the middle seat empty. She put on her seatbelt and dropped her handbag onto the spare seat. “So tired,” she told him, leaning her head back against the headrest and closing her eyes. “I am not surprised,” he replied with sympathy as the limousine driver started the engine. “Your schedule is pretty hard core. Radio interviews in the early hours of the morning, photo shoots and TV appearances midday, sound checks in the afternoon, and then the show fro
It took about an hour, during which the news stations had gathered, and crime-scene tape extended around the area. She stayed in the limousine at the behest of the police, until they were ready for her and Alexei to leave. As she moved from the limousine to the back of the police car, she could hear the yelled questions of the reporters rise in pitch, reacting to the realisation that she was there, and saw the flash of their cameras. The police eased the car through the crowd as they pressed their cameras to the windows taking photos. “Idiots,” the policeman muttered. “Are you in trouble?” Mirage whispered to Alexei. “Me?” He looked surprised. “For shooting,” she prompted. He grinned and shook his head. “Nah. It is easy to change plates on a car, harder to hide bullet holes. I did the police a favour. They have taken my gun for forensics, but they will have it back to me in a couple of days. In the meantime, I have my back-up weapon in the safe at the hotel, so it is all good.”
Alexei opened the door to her room and did a quick tour of the interior. “All good,” he told her.“Thanks Alexei,” it no longer seemed odd to have him check her room before she entered it. “Where is the damn light?” She felt for the light switch and could not find it. It seemed that every hotel kept their light switches in different places, designed to baffle her in the darkness.“Here,” he turned on the switch. “Ah, no that is the bathroom one.” At least she was not alone in her bafflement.“It is okay, hotel lighting always makes my eyes funny after a busy day,” she told him. “I will just be brushing my teeth and going to bed anyway.”He shrugged. “Alright, I will see you in the morning?”“Thanks. Goodnight,” she saw him to the door and waited until he got onto the elevator before closing and leaning back against it with a sigh. It had been a gruelling day that had begun very early in the morning with a red-eye flight, followed by radio interviews for the commuters on their way to
“Okay,” she agreed. Victor lingered for a moment as if reluctant to hang up, and she heard Vice’s voice just before the phone disconnected. She sat for a long time holding her phone to her ear as if it held the ghost of their voices, her heart pounding, and then she drew in a deep breath and slid the phone onto the bedside table before picking up the receiver on the landline and pressing the concierge button.“Concierge,” the man answered brightly.“Hi, I am expecting visitors in about two hours,” she said, her voice was hoarse. “Vice and Victor, my producers. Please give them a door key and let them up. I may be in the bath when they arrive.”If he found it odd that she would be receiving visitors or taking a bath after midnight, he did not let on. “Certainly, Miss Mirage.”“Thank you.” She hung up, and sat staring at her phone, its screen blank. A bath, Vice had said.She rose obediently and went into the bathroom, starting the bath whilst she used her cleansers to remove the traces
Victor was woken when his phone rang at eight am. He groaned. Less than four hours of sleep was torturous, he thought, but it wouldn’t be the first time that he and Vice had worked under such deprivation.Mirage was still out, he noted, the sleeping pill still working to keep her in the oblivion of unconsciousness, but he saw Vice’s eyes open a slit and close again as Victor moved. Mirage’s head was on his bicep, so he rolled onto his back and felt blindly for his mobile. Aaron’s name appeared on the screen.He accepted the call. “Hey.”“It is me,” Aaron told him. “I am downstairs.”“It is Aaron,” he said to Vice. “He is downstairs. I will call the concierge to bring you up,” he said to Aaron. “We will order room service. Vice and I are going to need a lot more coffee than this kitchenette holds.”“I have got go cups here,” Aaron said.“I love you,” Victor said easing his arm out from under Mirage. Vice had his arm over her, and he snuggled in closer with a sigh, which was, Victor tho
Victor had just closed the bathroom door when the doorbell rang. He admitted room service and sent them to where Aaron and Vice were both on calls. As they set out the food, he pulled the bed into order, and opened the closet, flicking through the clothing inside. Typical tour wear, he noted. Her crew would have the costumes for stage, so her closet contained two extremes – outfits for interviews and comfortable wear for around the hotel.He selected from the latter and eased into the bathroom. He sat on the edge of the bath and watched Mirage in the shower. She stood unmoving under the spray, her face tilted up into it, and he was certain that some of the water running down her cheeks were tears.He needed to keep her moving, he thought. If he allowed her to dwell, she would disintegrate. It was a double blow, he thought, to her – the threat, and the rape. He did not know how he would hold up under such a thing, but he suspected not as well as she had done so far, and certainly not a
Vixen stacked her boxes against the wall in the new apartment. Office. Apartment. Whatever. She was relatively sure that Thomas did not know about this building, as his sexuality had been Gregory’s closely held secret. She knew that Gregory had made Andrew make the purchase disappear off the books. The accountant had been very helpful from his sandy, sunny, retirement.And that was all that mattered. That she and her boy toys would be safe.“Alright?” Shadow paused by her, carrying a box. He had taken off his shirt, pushing it into his waistband, and his face was sweaty, his arms and chest dirty as the dust from the boxes mixed with his sweat, leaving behind streaks.She smiled at him with false brightness. “Fine.”He was still worried about her.She had made choices that she did not regret, but they had come with a cost, and she had paid it. Broken boy toys, she thought, and a broken Domme. But she was a Fixer, and she would f-king fix herself, along with her boys.She saw the number
Raven opened his laptop on his normal Friday morning table after checking that its surface had been wiped free of spills and crumbs. He was glad of the quiet moment - it had been a chaotic week of packing up Vixen’s apartment. They had hired a moving truck and moved the furniture out themselves, a b-tch of a job, but they had not wanted any trail that someone could follow to the office building, so had decided that it was better not to hire removalists and keep the move off record.They had also hired an architect to begin putting together plans for the band’s apartments in the building, and the smaller ones that they would lease out to others. There were eighteen floors, plus the basement level in which the sex club was located, so the building would eventually be a good income for them, though, from what Gregory had left Vixen, they probably wouldn’t need it.It had been fun and interesting to explore the building and basement with Vixen and Shadow, to spend an evening drinking cham
The approach to Gregory’s house was blocked off, and the news reporters had been pushed back to a point beyond view of the house, where the trees were set back from the road, leaving a gravel edge convenient for parking. Shadow had to park far back from the blockade, behind rows of news vans, support vehicles, a couple of ambulances on standby, and the cars of curious passers-by, and they worked their way through news crews and thrill seekers alike as they made their way to the police-guarded rope.“Anything?” Raven asked Shadow who had his phone to his ear, redialling Vixen’s phone for the one hundredth time since the news story. He rose onto his tip toes, craning his neck, searching through the crowds of police and SWAT officers behind the barricade, looking for Vixen. “What colour was her hair today?”“Rings out,” Shadow shook his head. His face was pale. “I can’t remember man,” he added. “Blonde, I think. Though my mind has totally shut down, and maybe that was yesterday? Blonde,
Vixen touched her brow as she drove between the rows of police cars and black SWAT vehicles to the gates. “No need to stand to attention, fellows,” she murmured under her breath. There was a flurry of activity around her. Speed was of the essence, she knew. There was always the risk that one of Thomas’ associates would drive up the road and spot them. All it would take was one phone call at the wrong time.“All good Tempie?” Claudia said in her ear.“Just admiring the view,” Tempie replied. “Lots of beef on the side of the road today, makes a girl a bit hungry, you know?”Claudia chuckled. “Keep that spirit up, Tempie. Not long now, hey? And then this will be done.”Tempie wound down the window at the gate and pressed the intercom button, smiling for the cameras, as if a man in camouflage was not crawling along the side of her car. The gates opened, and she eased her way forward, hoping that there were no limbs or other body parts in her way and bracing for a bump and a scream.In the
“Look, Tempie,” he gripped her shoulders, pulling her until she had no choice but to look at him, using his strength against her for the first time, but trying to be gentle about it. “I’ve got police contacts, and some big shit is about to go down. I don’t want you there when it happens. I care about you and Shadow. I don’t want to see you both mixed up in this.”“Gregory’s dying,” she replied calmly. “I’m not leaving him to die alone, Raven, with just employees around him.”“Tempie,” he pleaded, lowing his head until his forehead rested against hers. “Listen to me for once. Please. Don’t go.”“Raven, I need to get dressed,” she shrugged his hold off, and her disregard enraged him. He had tried asking nicely, he thought, he would have to insist.“For f-k sakes,” he growled. “I’ll chain you to that f-king bed if I have to Tempie. You are not going.” He caught her back up. “It’s too dangerous. You. Are. Not. Going. That’s it. Final.”“Raven!” She pulled away from him sharply and pulled
Midday Friday, Raven was stalking a surveillance target when his phone rang. He glanced at the display. Vice. “Hey,” he said putting the phone onto speaker so he could take photos if the target came into sight.“Raven, sweet boy.” It was Nicola, Vice’s mum. Raven checked the read out on the phone. Definitely Vice’s number.“Nicola,” he said warmly. “Have you stolen Vice’s phone?”“No, I am looking after it for him,” she replied. “Something has happened Raven. I am guessing that you have not been listening or watching the news.”“No,” Raven felt a cold fist close around his heart. He put the camera down and picked the phone up, taking it off of speaker. “What happened, Nicola? Are Vice and Victor okay?”“They are fine,” she assured him. “But we are at the hospital. Miranda was shot this morning.”“Holy f-k.” Raven was shocked. “Is she okay?”“She lost a lot of blood, but she is a strong girl. It was a shoulder wound. Some man from her recording label who has been causing her grief. He
“Alright,” Vixen told herself as the gates to Gregory’s house opened to admit her. “It is easy.”“We will be here with you,” Detective Callahan said in her ear. Vixen adjusted her hair to cover the earpiece. It was skin coloured and barely noticeable, but if she were caught with it, it would not only give away the entire plan, but also her part in it.“That is nice, but we both know there is nothing you can do if I get busted. Not without giving away twelve months of investigation, right? So, you are not going to come riding to my rescue if I get into trouble.”“Have you changed your mind?” Claudia sounded strained.“No,” Vixen eased the Ferrari into the parking spots. “No. This will make Miranda safe, and you promised to leave Gregory alone, so no, I have to do this.” She drew in a deep breath and fixed her lipstick, before picking up her handbag, and opening the car door.She adjusted the mask on her face, and flicked her hair over her shoulders, before strolling up to the front doo
Kissing Shadow was no different to kissing a woman, at least the mouth part, Raven thought. Sure, there was a slight prickle of stubble where there was not normally, but Shadow’s lips were soft, and his mouth hot, his tongue against Raven’s was no different.But Raven was used to being the taller partner, to leaning over someone, being the one to lean back in order to kiss was new. To grip a man’s hips and tug him closer was new too. To feel Shadow’s hard on against him, different.Shadow could kiss as well as he gave head. His hands cupped Raven’s face, the big palms warm against his skin, and he sucked on Raven’s tongue in a way that made desire curl up from the soles of Raven’s feet into his groin and his heart pound faster against his ribs.It was like being bound to Vixen’s bed, the balance of power had shifted in the experience, and Raven’s responsibility diminished. Shadow might be a sub, but his experience and size made him dominant between them.Shadow eased the kiss, brushin
In the morning, Vixen left the two boys curled up in bed. Raven’s eyes opened briefly as she left the shower, before he closed them again. Shadow wrapped an arm around his waist, pulling him closer, and snuggled into Raven’s dark hair.“Aww,” she leaned over to deliver them kisses, breathing in the warm scent of their skin. “Snuggly boys.”“Don’t go,” Raven tried to pull her back into bed, but she laughed and eased away with lingering kisses.“I must, my pet.”Raven heaved a sigh. “It’s not even eight.”“Do you have to work today?” She wondered as she sat on the edge of the bed to lace up her boots.“Should do,” he muttered, lured to the edge of sleep by Shadow’s hot body against his. “Have a surveillance job that gets active around ten.”“Should I set you an alarm?” She offered.He groaned pressing his face into the pillow. She took that as a yes and programmed the smart device on the bedside to wake him at nine thirty.She paused in the doorway in order to look at them with a feelin