Hunted by Ella Ardent Page A

mezzanine to your room.” He tugged the room key out of the little pocket in the dress. “Better hurry. You don’t want to miss your flight.”
    “Are you going to miss yours?”
    “No. But I get to have to have a few hours’ sleep first.” He touched a finger to the tip of her nose. “No such luck for you.”
    “You planned that, too.”
    His smile was quick and wicked. “Of course.”
    “The others might beat you,” Shara had to say.
    Damon shrugged. “I don’t care if I have to steal you.” The determination in his expression told her it was true, and it gave her a little thrill of pleasure.
    “Maybe none of you will catch me.”
    “I think that would disappoint everyone involved.” He caught her face in his hands then, trapping her head in his grip, then kissed her slowly and thoroughly. Shara was dizzy at the possessive power of his kiss and a little bit unsteady on her feet when he released her. She liked that his breath was coming quickly, too. She would have hated to have been the only one so turned on by their game.
    “Don’t miss your flight,” Damon said, his voice rough, and Shara hurried away, afraid she might do just that.
    Actually, if Damon hadn’t been one of the hunters she’d chosen, she might have been tempted to miss her flight on purpose, just to stay at the resort with him.
    That thought had to be the result of a lack of sleep. She wanted this fantasy. She’d paid for it.
    And it was going to be incredible.
    * * *
    The silence was ominous, to Amy’s thinking.
    She’d sent the picture of Rex to his partner, Michelle, on impulse and in anger. She’d immediately known nothing good would come of it and she’d probably regret what she’d done.
    She’d expected trouble immediately.
    It hadn’t come.
    Rex hadn’t said anything.
    She’d gone to Windswept, sure the shit would have hit the fan by the time her assignment was done. But everything seemed perfectly routine on her routine.
    Was it possible that Michelle didn’t care?
    Amy had to think that a photo of Rex, the master of control, bound helpless, with jizz on his belly after his own unwilling orgasm would challenge the view of anyone who found him hot. That she’d been able to do it to him had seriously messed with her own view of him as the greatest Master of all.
    Not to mention how it had confused her view of herself. Did she really have the makings of a dominatrix like Athena? She wanted to believe she did, but had never expected to feel so conflicted about what she’d done to Rex.
    She’d thought she’d be proud of herself.
    Instead, she felt like she’d trashed something really important.
    And she could lose everything. She didn’t want to get fired from The Phoenix. She wanted to move in forever. But with one click of her thumb, she’d put everything at risk. In a real sense, she wanted Rex to retaliate, to remind her of her place.
    But she came back from Windswept to learn Rex had gone to the Caribbean resort of The Phoenix. Amy had been sure of a reckoning, then. He’d be going home to Michelle. They had to talk about it. She watched her phone nervously, waiting for trouble to erupt.
    Again, there was only silence.
    Amy was sure there was a storm brewing. She was so distracted she actually told Steele she wasn’t going anywhere on her days off.
    That, she realized later, had been her mistake.
    She had locked the door of her room in Athena’s townhouse, turned on the shower and peeled off her clothes before she realized she wasn’t alone. A man dressed all in black stepped up behind her at the mirror, like a shadow. He seized her quickly, his grip strong, gagged her and shoved her into a constrictive black tube. Amy was bound helpless and silenced, though she rolled across the floor in a futile effort to free herself. The assailant laid his hand upon her, then she heard his whisper.
    “Time to share a little information, Amy,” he said and she recognized the low thrum of Steele’s voice. “Turns out