Free 9781631055027DealersChoiceHoltNC by Desiree Holt Page A

to bring this up and she wanted his full attention.
    “Reulas.”
    Her boss was still engrossed in searching for something in one of the file cabinets.
    “I want to talk to you about something. And it’s important. Can you please stop a minute and pay attention?”
     He turned to her and grinned. “I pay attention to you all the time. How could I help it, the way you order me around?”
    Fee snorted. “That’ll be the day. I’d like to meet the person with enough guts to give you orders.”
    Reulas extracted a folder, closed the cabinet drawer and dropped into the chair in front of her desk. In jeans and a tee shirt, his blond hair pulled back with a rubber band, he looked as far from the owner of an exclusive BDSM club as it was possible to be. Hardly anyone ever saw him that way, but Club Fantasy was closed during the day. Usually it was just the two of them. The cleaning service and the helpers didn’t arrive until late afternoon.
    Fee knew tonight, in his signature navy slacks and silk shirt, with his game face on, he would be the imposing dungeon master that people respected and often feared. He ran a tight ship. People who came to Club Fantasy to play respected the rules or they didn’t get to play again. But in the six months she’d been working there, Fee had discovered that beneath the face he presented to the world was a warm, compassionate individual, a person he showed only to a few select people. She’d give anything to know what his backstory was.
    “Okay, what’s so very important here?” He nodded at her computer and the stack of folders on her desk. “Too much to do? You seem to be managing everything nicely.”
    “Of course I am.” She glared at him. “Despite my excellent recommendation you would have fired my ass if I wasn’t.”
    He nodded. “The paperwork and booking records for Fantasy have never been in better order. And Lila tells me you’re becoming an expert at doing the membership interviews.”
    “I appreciate that. But…” She wasn’t sure how to really tell her boss what she wanted. Would he turn down her request? Tell her she didn’t know what she was asking?
    “But what? Spill it. You have my undivided attention.”
    “You’ll admit I make good choices here, right? Good decisions? Good suggestions?” She leaned forward. “Wasn’t I the one who persuaded you to let Tanner Sloat introduce his card game? And didn’t it turn out to be the success I told you it would?”
    Reulas rested one booted foot on the edge of the desk and used it to tip himself back slightly in the chair. He studied Fee as if analyzing every inch of her.
    “I do. So tell me what it is you’re having such a hard time spitting out? I hope you aren’t going to piss me off. You’ve made yourself so invaluable around here that I can’t just dump your ass out the door.”
    She laughed. “You always try to sound so tough.”
    “And it works, too. With everyone but you. Come on, Fee. You’ve got me in a receptive mood. What’s your heart’s desire?”
    She picked up a pen from her desk, fiddling with it to steady her nerves and gave Reulas one of her best smiles.
    “I want to play at Fantasy.”
    “No.” The chair legs came down with a thud. “Absolutely not. No way in hell.”
    “But why?”
    He nailed her with his famous Reulas stare. “Fee, just because you’ve observed doesn’t mean you’re ready to jump into the waters. There’s a lot more involved than just playing in a private room for an hour.”
    She frowned. “Of course. I know everything that goes on here. It’s hard to miss it. You invited me to the last three performance nights. You’ve even had me monitor the rooms occasionally. Didn’t you think I had a natural, healthy curiosity about it all? Didn’t you think I’d ever want to experiment with it myself? Be tempted by it?”
    Reulas reached across the desk and took one of her hands. “Fee, Fee, Fee. It isn’t just the activities themselves. It’s the state