The Velvet Ribbon Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title page

  Copyright

  Club Aegis

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Also available - A Wanting Heart

  Also available - Love Is Danger

  Coming soon - Passion's Last Promise

  Also by Christie Adams

  About the author

  The

  Velvet Ribbon

  Club Aegis

  Christie Adams

  Blue Topaz Books

  Copyright © 2016 by Christie Adams.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the address below.

  Blue Topaz Books

  [email protected]

  www.bluetopazbooks.com

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  Edited by Julie Naughton

  Cover by Syneca Featherstone

  Book Layout ©2013 BookDesignTemplates.com

  The Velvet Ribbon / Christie Adams (4th edition)

  ISBN 978-1-910791-24-0 (Kindle)

  ISBN 978-1-910791-25-7 (ePub)

  Club Aegis

  Aegis—the shield of Zeus, and by extension, a means of protection. The men and women who are members of Club Aegis have all played their part in protecting their country. They work hard…and they play hard. Their lives are not always easy—and sometimes they have to put their lives on the line, not just for their country but for those they love.

  Available now

  The Velvet Ribbon

  Love Is Danger

  A Wanting Heart

  Next in series

  Passion’s Last Promise

  1

  The sound of heels on hardwood provided the metronomic fanfare that alerted Alex to the imminent arrival of Beth Harrison—his executive assistant, right-hand woman and, of late, source of growing frustration. He looked up from the correspondence in his hand, eyes narrowing at her approaching reflection in the tinted window that gave him a panoramic view over London.

  Those damn fuck-me shoes! A muscle tensed in his tightly clenched jaw. While her working wardrobe went from black to white, with every shade of grey between, her footwear was downright rebellious—immaculate heels, never less than four inches in height, in a myriad selection of styles and eye-catching colours.

  Which ones today? It was a question that crossed Alex’s mind every morning. He’d never considered himself to have any kind of shoe fetish until Beth came to work for him. Every morning it was the same, and the litany of colours was ever-expanding. As for today—would it be the peacock blue? Or the metallic purple, perhaps? He was rather fond of the latter.

  No, today it was a new pair…new to the office, at any rate. The vivid red patent leather heels, with an ankle strap adorned with an eye-catching bow, were incredibly flattering to her slender feet and shapely ankles…and those gorgeous legs clad in sheer black nylon with seams straighter than an arrow. Oh, the fantasies he’d had about having those legs wrapped around his hips while he sank his cock into her lush body, felt her contract hard around him, heard her panting cries as he spilled inside her at the moment of her climax…

  His eyes continued upward, taking in the flannel-grey pencil skirt, the way the fabric clung to her curves, so fitted that it gave her hips an ultra-feminine sway as she walked. He experienced a sharp, momentary twinge of disappointment; for the lines to be that smooth, there was no way she was wearing stockings. He tried to curb his disappointment that beneath the skirt, there would be no tantalising exposure of creamy skin at the top of her thighs.

  She wore the crisp, snow-white cotton blouse with the top buttons undone, hinting at a delicious cleavage. The long sleeves were fastened at her delicate wrists with mock cufflinks. French-manicured nails tipped elegant fingers that clasped a notebook and pen.

  And then there was her face: heart-shaped, lightly made-up, alluring green eyes behind unremarkable spectacles, all crowned by luxuriant, upswept brown hair threaded with gold, and not one strand out of place. In the three years that she’d been his assistant, he’d never seen her anything less than cool, calm and utterly professional.

  What he’d give to see her come apart under the force of the orgasms he could give her.

  He really shouldn’t harbour such thoughts. Ten years his junior, Beth had never, as far as Alex knew, been married. He, on the other hand, had an unpleasant, expensive and thankfully long-distant divorce behind him, which made him too old and too cynical for someone as lovely as his assistant.

  “Yes, Mr. Lombard?” Her voice was as composed as ever.

  Three bloody years, and she still wouldn’t call him by his given name—it was always Mr. Lombard or Sir. His thoughts lingered on the second option and what it brought with it—the prospect of her calling him that as her Dom, along with the equally enticing prospect of his collar adorning her elegant neck.

  None of which was ever going to happen, for so damn many fucking reasons. She was the best executive assistant he’d ever had—in light of his strictly hands-off approach when it came to his staff, there was no way he’d date her. He was also pretty sure she wasn’t a sub, but even if she had been, he knew he couldn’t give her everything she’d need from her true Master.

  And if Beth had been a sub, she would have deserved so much more than a training arrangement with a broken Dom or an emotionally meaningless scene at the club. He could never give any sub more than that. Not now, not for a long time in the past…and not for the foreseeable future.

  “Mr. Lombard?” There was a frisson of concern in her soft, clear voice now—it shattered his obsessive train of thought and brought him back to cold, hard reality. He shifted his focus to the present and tried to ignore how he was turned on by the thought of stripping her of everything except those heels and having her kneel before him.

  “I’m sorry, Beth,” he found himself saying absently. “Have we had any more information about the Robertson-Wolfe contract yet?”

  “Nothing yet, sir. I’m keeping a look out for incoming emails.”

  Shit, shit, fucking shit, damn! Why the hell did she have to call him that now? “Thanks, Beth,” he growled, trying to ignore the fresh images in his head. “Let me know as soon as anything comes in.”

  For a moment, Beth debated whether or not she should enquire about her boss’s wellbeing; she decided to err on the side of caution and beat a hasty retreat.

  The strangest look had flickered across Alexander Lombard’s face when she’d answered his question about Robertson-Wolfe, but her sense of self-preservation prevented her from pursuing it with her panty-droppingly attractive, six-foot-three, man-mountain ex-military boss. Gossip a
mong the staff insisted that he’d served in the Special Forces, and that after he’d left the military he’d spent some time working in “private security”—whatever that really meant.

  Beth wasn’t sure about the Special Forces part of it, but he still carried his military experience in his bearing. And although the details remained elusive, she did know he shared a history in security with his best friend, Cameron Fraser, who came into the office on a regular basis and was due to call in that very morning.

  She kept the sigh to herself until she returned to the outer sanctum that was her office. Whatever was riding Alex these days, it wasn’t getting any better.

  Sex. It had to be sex, she realised a few minutes later, seated once again at her desk. Or, more accurately, a lack of sex. He hadn’t asked her to order flowers, or book tables for two at his favourite restaurants for about six months, all told—if he wasn’t dating, he wasn’t getting laid, and not getting laid was bound to make such a virile alpha male grouchy.

  Beth almost snorted. Grouchy? A bear with a sore head, toothache and rampant haemorrhoids would be less grouchy than Alex Lombard had been at times recently. She looked at the clock; it was just after eight-thirty, and she knew he would have been in the office since before seven. He hadn’t had any coffee yet; she eyed the pristine espresso coffee maker in the corner of her office, next to the grinder, wondering if he’d notice if she switched to decaffeinated beans in an attempt to make him less tetchy. She shook her head. What was that saying again? The road to hell is paved with good intentions…

  He was on the phone when Beth went in with the small cup of liquid dynamite; she had learned early on that hot coffee took precedence over everything else. He was in the middle of an animated conversation in fluent Italian, his voice deep and bone-meltingly sexy. How could a voice have her hormones leaping to attention so easily? It didn’t seem possible, but the spear of need that ripped through her body appeared to indicate otherwise.

  That was why she always maintained an air of formality when she addressed him; if she started calling him by his given name, it would be the beginning of the end. Mr. Lombard kept her from getting all dewy-eyed and moonstruck about Alex.

  Beth loved her job. She’d gone along to the interview expecting it to be for a regular executive assistant’s role, but it had turned out to be so much more—leaving aside the calls to florists and restaurants, which she made for him as a favour. Right from the start, Alex had made it clear that he didn’t expect her to waste her talent or her intelligence on simply providing refreshments, dealing with the mail and running errands.

  Instead, he’d given her a list of clients of her own—a subset of his own exclusive portfolio—and after an initial period of intensive training and mentoring, he’d allowed her to run with it. He trusted her judgement in all things. She valued that trust, and well…making an extra cup of coffee or the odd phone call wasn’t such a hardship, was it?

  The last six months aside, Beth was uncomfortably aware of a steady stream of women who had paraded briefly through her employer’s life—all quite a bit younger than her, judging by the voices on the other end of the phone calls she’d fielded, and none of them had lasted much longer than about three months, if she recalled correctly. She’d heard the gossip about Alex having been married, and that the marriage had supposedly gone spectacularly sour; ever since then, she’d been fighting her natural impulse to “fix” him—her Fairy Godmother instinct.

  “Good morning, angel! And how are you this fine day? Is the brute in?”

  Wrapped up in her work, Beth hadn’t realised how quickly the morning was going until the cheerful male voice greeted her. She recognised it instantly; it belonged to Cameron Fraser, another walking mountain of testosterone. He swept into the office like a force of nature, straight to her desk, and lifted her hand to his mouth to place a gallant kiss to the back of it—she couldn’t help but smile at the old-world charm.

  And where Alex was dark, moody and could be downright scary, Cam was all blond hair, blue eyes and muscular charm by the bucketload, packed into six feet and one inch of immaculately attired masculinity. Attractive, yes, but as far as Beth was concerned, he didn’t quite have the same charisma as her employer.

  “I’m fine, thank you, Mr. Fraser,” she smiled up at him, rising from her seat. “Yes, Mr. Lombard’s expecting you—can I get you some coffee?”

  “Don’t go to any trouble on my account, Beth—I’ll see myself in.”

  Had Beth been a fly on the wall, she would have seen a completely different man lean his hip on the corner of Alex’s desk; Cam, another former Special Forces operative, could be every bit as cold and ruthless as his friend if the need arose. When it came to business, they meant business, and like Alex, Cam too was a Dom.

  “So have you taken her as your sub yet?” Cam asked the question seriously, knowing full well what the answer would be—one of the first things he’d done on entering the outer office had been to check for the presence of a collar.

  “Don’t go there,” Alex growled without even turning around.

  Cam gave an exasperated sigh. “Are you going to give me that crap again? About just training them because that’s all you have to offer them? Alex –”

  “I can’t and you fucking well know why!”

  Cam swore under his breath. The tightly controlled anger was getting old now. For years he’d witnessed his friend settling for perfunctory scenes with subs or just training them, instead of finding the one with whom he could have a true emotional connection. Yes, he knew why Alex was acting this way, could even understand it after a fashion, but Cam knew that Alex needed more, even if the man shied away from it like a virgin confronted with a St. Andrew’s Cross. Going back to the counsellor was the answer, but that would mean Alex actually confronting the fucking question…

  “Why the hell not? Hasn’t it occurred to you that she might just be –”

  “I don’t date my employees!”

  “Then maybe it’s time you started. Beth’s perfect sub material—always so eager to please, moves like a dream, she’s classy and elegant. If you don’t, I will.”

  That made Alex swivel his executive chair around to face the other man. “Like hell you will, Fraser.” The statement came out just short of a snarl.

  Cam raised a speculative eyebrow to go with the slightly crooked, smug grin; his ex-military buddy only used his surname when Cam had put a particularly large burr under his saddle. “I thought that would get a rise out of you, old man.” From time to time, he liked to remind Alex of his seniority, in terms of both age—all of two years—and former rank. “So when are you going to do something about it?”

  Any response the other man might have made to that challenge was put on hold when the subject of their animated conversation came in with two steaming mugs of coffee. As she turned to leave, Cam fired an “I-told-you-so” look at her employer.

  Alex waited long enough for the door to close behind her. “Your point?” he demanded, his tone more than a touch acerbic.

  “You didn’t even have to ask her. Cheers!” Cam raised his mug before downing a hearty swig of the steaming brew. “And she makes bloody good coffee as well.”

  The conversation turned to business, the original reason for Cam’s visit. Before Alex had started Paduan Ventures—named for St. Anthony of Padua, the patron saint of lost articles and those who seek them—he and Cam had been partners in a security consultancy. After the incident that still cast a long shadow over him, Alex had walked away from the company, leaving Cam in sole charge; since then, Cam had developed the business into a substantial concern with clients located all over the world.

  Given the nature of the business Alex was in now, security was a major concern. Some projects had been going awry lately, so he’d called Cam in to conduct a full investigation.

  Once all the arrangements were made, Cam turned the conversation back to the woman in the outer office—or tried to.

&
nbsp; Alex scowled; he’d been doing that a lot lately. “Don’t you have work to do, Fraser?”

  “Nothing that can’t wait five minutes. It’s Friday—are you going to the club tonight?”

  Cam was referring to Aegis, the discreet private club where he and Alex could let the dominant sides of their personalities out to play. While Alex had still been a regular visitor over the last six months, indulgence in terms of taking part in the scene was something that he had avoided, preferring instead to nurse a Scotch or two before disappearing back to his city-centre apartment.

  “Maybe.” His tone was as noncommittal as his response.

  “I’ll see you there.” Cam’s voice was determined. “And for fuck’s sake, will you play with at least one sub tonight? You’ll be losing your touch.”

  “Will you get the hell out of here?”

  Cam grinned wickedly as he opened the door. “Okay, I get the message—see you later!”

  After saying goodbye to her employer’s friend, Beth checked the time—lunchtime at last. She could switch off from work for a while and jot down the ideas that had been flitting through the back of her mind. She had just enough time before she went to the coffee shop for lunch with some of the girls from the office.

  The ideas were for her latest attempt at breaking into the writing business. Realistically she knew the odds were against her, but for Beth writing was almost a form of therapy, a way of exorcising a longing that, on more than one occasion, she’d been told was downright perverted.

  She wanted to know what it was like to submit to a Dom.

  Books and the internet were as close as she’d got; writing was her way of taking part in that intriguing world. She read novels, of course, and at times her imagination was prone to running away with her, but she wasn’t kidding anyone. If she were that brave, she’d be living the lifestyle instead of just writing about it. Where she was and where she thought she wanted to be were two entirely different places, and in between them was the massive wall she’d built to protect the very part of her that wanted to be on the other side of that wall. It scared her to death, but at the same time she wanted it so much.