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Happy Saturday, everyone. I'm finally coming out of my pandemic funk after a long, dark, non-productive 12 months. Excluding for Absolutely Alpha in collaboration with my besties, Meredith and Morganna, and, Cowboys for a Cause, for which we made another donation of royalties to Feeding America this month (thank you! thank you!), it's been a long dry spell.
The big news is that my muse returned from wherever he went to hide from March 2020 to February 2021. When I checked my calendar, I see I've cranked out 70k words in the past few weeks.
Now, some of you might say 70k, that's a whole book, where is it? But if you know me, anything under 80 is a short story. LOL
I'm in the home stretch of editing Devil's Playground then it's beta time, professional edits, and the big finish, release day.
Thanks for being so patient.
As a treat, here is another little sneak peek at my cover and a sexy snippet to whet your appetite for more. :)
Warning: NSFW excerpt ahead...
“Oh, my god!” she exclaimed in a whisper while trying to take in everything at once. “Nick Devlin isn’t just a man who likes to take the lead; he’s a dominant.” When her gaze landed on the eight-foot wooden cross on the opposite wall with a leather whip draped over one of the arms, she added, “and, a sadistic one, evidently.”
The X-shaped cross, which she’d learned in Paris dated back to biblical times, reached almost to the ceiling and dominated the room. When she noted the fleece-lined leather cuffs secured to it, her imagination ran wild.
“My, oh my, Mr. Special Agent, aren’t we full of surprises?”
The swats to her ass, the hair pulling, the way he’d pinned her wrists to the bed, and his intensity made more sense now.
Cari knew she should have come in, turned off the annoying alarm and left without snooping, but, seeing this, there was no way she could resist a quick look around.
Coming to the center of the room, she slowly turned in a circle, taking in the leather swing suspended from a sturdy-looking chain in the corner, the padded leather table against the back wall along with a throne, a six foot tall free standing wooden frame, and a spoked wheel. She hadn’t ever seen anything like it, but from the restraints bolted into the wood, she could image its purpose.
There was a row of spanking benches almost identical to the one she had personal experience with. The number told her this wasn’t for his kinky pleasures alone. Why else would he need three of the same benches and all this other stuff unless he invited friends over to enjoy it too?
“Holy Pete!” she breathed. “The caterers, the extra cleaning, the urgency… He’s having a Fantasmes-style BDSM party here tonight!”
She pictured the room overflowing with his guest with and every piece of equipment in use from the prayer bench with a kneeler, like in a confessional booth at church, to the leather-covered device with the large, flesh-colored dildo mounted to the top. Oh, boy!
Next to it stood a western saddle. Her vivid imagination instantly filled in a scantily clad cowgirl with her feet bound to the stirrups. It had a hole cut in the center of the seat. Unable to contain her curiosity, she walked over and took a peek inside. Recessed within was another fake cock, but also some sort of mechanical housing. A cord ran along the floor to a plug on the wall. The purpose of these two devices was obvious—pure riding pleasure.
With a softly uttered, “Yeehaw,” she continued her self-guided tour.
The equipment along the last wall was more widely spaced. It included wooden stocks, like they used in medieval times. Beside it was something similar, but made of metal with more holes than for a neck and two hands. Sitting low to the floor, it would require the person locked inside to kneel on all fours. Of all the pieces, this one looked the most restrictive and the scariest.
The final two items were a pair of floor mounted wooden posts, one about waist high and the other taller than she was. The shorter one looked like it belonged outside a saloon in the old west, but she couldn’t figure for the life of her what they were for.
Having come full circle, she crossed to one of the two stations spaced across the expansive room. It consisted of a tall storage cabinet, a mini-fridge which she could see through the glass door, Nick had fully stocked with bottled water. Next to them stood a set of open shelves stacked high with thick terry cloth towels, fuzzy blankets, and a big bowl of Dove chocolates.
She took a piece and considered it at length. “In case someone needs a snack?” Perplexed by this item, along with so many of the others, she tossed it back in and crouched to peruse the bottom shelf.
Like at her old gym in Brooklyn, where the rules called for do-it-yourself cleanup after using the equipment, it contained cleaning supplies including wipes and paper towels. Unlike her gym, there was a first aid kit tucked in the back. Yikes!
“It seems the big, sexy devil thought of everything.”
Cari stood, smiling as a little laugh fluttered up from her chest. After seeing what he enjoyed in his free time, Devil suited him so much better than Devlin.
She moved to stand in front of the cabinet, the contents of which were the only things in the room not visible at a glance. “What dirty secrets are you hiding,” she whispered to the double doors.
As compelled as Pandora to see the contents of her box, Cari open the doors and swung them wide.
Her shock upon seeing the room, only slightly diminished her reaction to the volume of sex toys contained within, more than she’d ever seen in one place.
Filled with leather cuffs and collars, dildos and plugs, and weirdly shaped toys for which she could only guess their purpose, one of the four shelves held bins of rubber suction cups and clamps in all different sizes and varieties. Hooks covered the interior side of both doors, from which hung an array of paddles, floggers, and canes. Ouch!.
What caught her interest most, because of its mammoth proportions, was the bright purple butt plug on the center shelf. She picked it up, laid it in her palm and assessed its weight, which was considerable. When she curled her fingers and couldn’t get them around the widest part, Cari had to wonder how any human’s ass could accommodate such a thing.
“If you’re looking for the broom closet, Scarlett, you won’t find it in here.”
She froze, her heart lurching in horror at being caught where she shouldn’t be, with a giant toy from a cabinet she had no business in, by the man she’d been doing her best to avoid for the rest of her life.
Closing her eyes, Cari hoped beyond hope that the floor beneath her feet would open and swallow her whole. But of course, because she had no luck at all, it didn’t. Which left her to figure out a way to face the owner of the house who was paying her to clean, not snoop, without him recognizing her.
She was so screwed.
Coming Spring of 2021
