Shades of Pleasure: Five Stories of Domination and Submission by Tawny Taylor

painfully, that he was getting hard with her
looking like that. And suddenly he had the craziest idea.
    He’d blackmail the sexy and mysterious little office manager
too.
     
    Elena was pissed. And scared. And ready to start crying all
over again.
    Oh hell. The tears were flowing and she wasn’t going to even
try to stop them anymore. Maybe she could guilt-trip Kyler into giving back her
keys.
    It was freezing outside, but she didn’t feel the cold. She
was so freaking furious her insides were an inferno. How dare Kyler take her
keys and leave her here to freeze! What did he think he was going to accomplish
by doing that? Keep her home Monday? Not a chance.
    There were other means of transportation to be found. She
could call Ashley and ask her to come back and pick her up tonight. And
then…she’d be forced to come up with some feasible explanation for why she
didn’t have her keys and why it had taken her so long to realize they were
missing.
    And then there was the issue of getting over to see her
brother tomorrow. He was in the hospital again. She had several errands to run.
She couldn’t ask Ashley to ferry her around all weekend.
    This was so unfair! The battle between these two assholes
shouldn’t involve her. She shouldn’t be facing these kinds of complications.
Jerks! Bastards! Conniving, lowlife scumbags!
    She stomped her foot then, giving Kyler’s shiny black Jaguar
a glare, decided it was in need of a little facelift. Of course, she’d give
Kyler a warning first. Let him decide.
    Plastering what she hoped was an evil
you’re-so-going-to-be-sorry-for-this grin on her face, she knocked on his
window. “Give me my keys, or I’ll make your car look like it just went through
a hail storm…with hailstones the size and shape of my foot.”
    He didn’t look threatened.
    The window silently slid down. “Just get in the car. We need
to talk.” His breath made little white puffs in the air.
    “Hell no! Why would I go anywhere with you?”
    “Because it’s better than freezing.”
    “Believe me,” she growled through gritted teeth, “I’m not
cold.”
    “You will be.” Looking way too chipper, and much too
handsome, he patted the seat. “Get in. Let’s talk. I promise we can sort this
whole thing out.”
    Sort it out. Hah. He had no idea. There was no sorting
anything out. At least not for her.
    He, on the other hand, could avoid trouble pretty easily, by
taking whatever proof he had about Matt Becker’s plans to the Powers That Be.
    She supposed, if he wanted to be a jerk, he could easily
implicate her in the scheme too. That was, if he had no proof that she was
being blackmailed into helping the Regional Sales Manager.
    Shit, what was she worried about? She’d be gone no matter
what. And even if she was somehow able to avoid going to jail, she wouldn’t be
able to afford the atrocious premiums to keep her health insurance, and bills
for her brother’s treatment would mount to the freaking sky in no time.
    Because of her secret, she couldn’t file bankruptcy.
    Welcome to the world of around-the-clock bill collectors,
judgments, garnisheed wages.
    She so didn’t want to go there again. Desperately. Which was
why she was in this position in the first place. But it seemed there was no
avoiding it now.
    The chill in the air had finally seeped inside her body, not
so much cooling the fury churning within her, but adding another layer of
sensation on top. She suddenly felt weary, tired of being the strong one, the
one with all the answers. For once, she wanted someone else to take over, tell
her everything was going to be okay, like she did for her brother. To shoulder
all the pressures.
    It was hell being a surrogate mother to a teenager with a
debilitating, long-term illness that made health insurance more vital than a
paycheck. But that was what she was, and nothing was going to change it.
    “Get in. I’m not the selfish bastard Becker is, but I can’t
let you do this to me.”
    She knew