Enthrall Climax Read online

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  Enthrall Climax

  Copyright © 2018 Vanessa Fewings

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from the author.

  This story is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity and are used fictitiously. All other characters, and all incidents and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.

  Cover design by Buoni Amici Press

  Cover photo from DepositPhoto: Risia

  Formatted by: Champagne Book Design

  Book edited by Debbie Kuhn

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Epigraph

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Also by Vanessa Fewings

  About the Author

  “Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.”

  —André Gide

  For those of you who fell in love with Enthrall,

  this story’s for you.

  HE WAS DETERMINED TO LOSE me.

  Driving recklessly along the strip of road that is Highway 17, his silver BMW turned sharply, skidding toward the sheer drop.

  Righting his car, preventing it from striking the rock face on the other side, he pressed on relentlessly, his speed increasing ever more dangerously. Richard Booth Sheppard was outrunning his past.

  Outrunning his pain.

  I’d tailed him in my Benz helicopter all the way from his home in Malibu—and no doubt his gaze kept darting to his rearview mirror to see if I was still there. I’d land on the bastard’s car roof if that’s what it took.

  He broke away, taking a sharp turn around the curve of the mountain.

  My jaw clenched as I gripped the controls and banked around it, following directly above him, chasing my best friend into the darkness, filled with terror at his precarious situation. One slip of focus and his car was going over.

  My prediction seemed realized when the BMW spun out of control.

  It flew toward the cliff, dust flying around its wheels as he braked hard, causing it to skid toward the drop-off. My throat tightened, heart pounding against my ribs as I prepared for him to disappear.

  I watched the car fishtail perilously close to the edge—stopping just short as though my will alone had saved him.

  Full of fury, Richard shoved his door open and stomped towards the cliff’s edge. He stood there, his blond hair being tussled by the blast from the chopper’s blades, unperturbed by the close call due to his asshole daredevil ways.

  I landed the Benz.

  Climbing out, ignoring the dust in my eyes and the sting of fuel burning my throat, I left those spinning blades behind and stormed towards Richard—grabbing him by the shoulders and thrusting him against the BMW’s door, trying to snap him out of his death wish.

  He slid down the side of the car with no fight left.

  I knelt down and yelled into his ear over the noise of the engine, saying I needed him, we all did, promising that it would get easier and that he needed to trust me and let me deal with whatever was hurting him. I’d carry his pain.

  His suicide would always be one moment away. Hard choices had to be made. Ethics would be flung by the wayside over an endeavor so audacious lives would be forever changed and innocence irreversibly shattered.

  It was time.

  She was out there. A young woman who could be trained as a submissive, a remarkable female who alone would soothe Richard’s pain and give him a reason to live, a reason to fight back.

  A reason to love.

  I had to find the one woman who could enthrall him beyond all measure.

  Damn the consequences.

  WHY WAS CAMERON TELLING ME this now?

  Staring across the restaurant table at his vexed expression, I sensed a rare melancholy rising. Or perhaps it was regret. I’d been the woman Cameron Cole had searched out and then given to Richard.

  Returning to this subject was like setting off a bomb in our midst. Though I understood his reasons for fulfilling what he’d believed to be his only choice. Five months ago, Cameron had thrown me into the path of his best friend and I’d become Richard’s lover, our relationship forged by Cole himself.

  We’d all spiraled toward a perilous edge, very much like that highway Richard had been tearing down, because the worst possible outcome had happened—Cameron had fallen in love with me himself.

  Maybe this was why he’d chosen the Auden Bistro and Bar at The Ritz Carlton near Central Park, so we’d not argue about the mistakes we’d made. Cole’s chestnut gaze held mine with a riveting precision.

  Quite simply, Cameron was mesmerizing—not only for his devastating beauty but his dazzling charisma. He was in his early thirties, but he looked younger.

  Damn him for being such a catastrophic force, his ferocious will fulfilled with the ease of a master negotiator. With his tousled midnight-black hair a contrast to his clean-shaven jaw, tonight he looked even more extraordinary in his black tuxedo, seemingly molded over his well-toned form by a Savile Row tailor to perfectly fit his broad shoulders and towering height.

  The same height he used to intimidate me into surrendering in every conceivable way, with his every word and action designed to lure me further under his spell.

  I’d become his obsession—and he was mine.

  His subtle cologne wafted over me as a sensual reminder of his mystic. The scent reminded me of his power, not only when he wielded his authority around the boardroom, although there was plenty of that, but in the privacy of our home where he ravished my body, bringing overwhelming orgasms one after the other. It wa
s in the way he mastered me with the ultimate domination of a man who knew the art of blinding pleasure.

  He arched a curious brow, proving he knew I didn’t like to revisit our past. I hated going back to the time I had no control over my life. The time he’d pretended I meant nothing to him. Those endless days with him gone had seen me drowning. I’d fallen hard for Cameron, the lover I couldn’t have, and my heart had cracked open leaving me vulnerable.

  I’d never been meant for him…this man who circled the rim of his glass gracefully with the tip of a forefinger. It was an unconscious erotic prelude to what would happen later in the evening. He liked to circle my clit in the same fashion with a disciplined concentration, his dark gaze studying me while I trembled through the pleasure. The thought of it made me shiver.

  My gaze roamed over the silver platter full of empty oyster shells. The taste of the ocean was still on my tongue, along with the lingering taste of doubt.

  Why was he bringing up Los Angeles now?

  He gave me a reassuring smile and his expression turned to one of devotion, making me melt like that first day I’d laid eyes on him. The measure of his beauty was only rivaled by the depth of his complexity—a kaleidoscope of mysteries waiting to be discovered. His profound knowledge endlessly wowed me. His friends both admired and feared him for his fierce intellect. Sparring with him was ill-advised.

  I loved Cameron deeply and couldn’t imagine my life without him. I respected his directness, his strength and his ability to say the right thing at the right time.

  “Any thoughts?” He pushed me to react to his monologue.

  “All that’s forgotten.”

  His gaze saw the truth in my lie. He gave me a look of defeat.

  Cameron liked this restaurant and I pretended to like it, too. We’d finished off a bottle of Chateau Lafite and my toes had curled at the price. Even now my past chased after my present with the rawest memories of poverty. Still, I wasn’t ashamed of all of that because it ensured every rich experience was lived with an awareness of this privileged life. It made everything special.

  He reached for his glass of eaux-de-vie Hennessy Ellipse, which had been delivered to our table as a complimentary liquor because he was a Cole, related to tea baron Raif Cole, though now Cameron ruled the empire hailed as one of the beverage world’s major players. Everyone treated Cameron very well and even if they didn’t know who he was they respected him because of the regal way he carried himself. He was a man who ruled a room as soon as he stepped into it.

  Cole had plucked me out of my ordinary life working at an art supply store in West Hollywood, and as a waitress at The Cheesecake Factory every weekend. He’d employed me as a secretary at Enthrall with the salary of my dreams at his secret and very exclusive BDSM club in Pacific Palisades. He’d specifically hired me to work for Richard Sheppard, his assistant director and the man I’d inevitably fall hard for.

  Richard had swept me off my feet with his remarkable Harvard intellect, his worldliness, and his dashing good looks and dreamy smile; his seemingly perfect life lived out in his vast, beachfront house in Malibu. All his feigned happiness had been a façade for decades. He’d carried guilt over his fiancée’s death after his father had taken down the New York Stock Exchange and the American economy with it.

  I’d done what I’d been brought in to do and relieved much of that agony. I’d apparently saved his life, but doing so had almost devastated mine.

  What I could never have known was Richard’s breaking point before all of that, the incident Cameron had just shared with me—the truth of what went down on that dark night along Highway 17.

  Richard had been close to taking his own life that night and it had been Cameron’s relentless pursuit that had saved him and inspired his devilish plan.

  “This is me apologizing,” Cameron said, nudging away his glass.

  “You did it to save Richard. We both did.”

  “Everyone warned you off me. Even I did.”

  “What’s going on with you, Cameron?”

  He studied me as though gauging my reaction. “Last night…”

  Oh, so this was why we’d taken a detour from our journey to the party.

  “I liked it.” My limbs shuddered as I recalled the way he’d taken me. My heart skipped a beat at the memory of how breathless he’d made me and how hard he’d made me come.

  I watched him carefully as that uncharacteristic confusion marred his face, his irises dilated to black as though he recalled…his unyielding strength as his virile fucking turned ferocious, our bodies covered in perspiration as we rolled around on the sheets, totally enraptured with each other.

  Our passion had turned dark.

  I yearned to see his true nature set free, even though I had been warned by others of his secret proclivity, and last night I’d glimpsed a man possessed with something that went beyond the rawest passion.

  My wrists bound together behind my back with his black silk tie, my face pressed into the pillow, his grip on the back of my neck shoving me into it, me catching each breath as though it were my last, his savage fucking, his feverish control over me causing my limbs to quake because even before this—before all of it—he’d unleashed his true power, revealing his gift for melding pleasure with a crazed torment that sent me hurtling into an unspeakable ecstasy.

  I licked my lips to tease him. “Death by fucking.”

  “The last time you spoke those words I locked you away and applied three days of hard therapy. So watch yourself.”

  “You were giving me what I asked for.” Begged for. “I want more…”

  He glared at me. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”

  “I do.”

  His gaze broke from mine and he lifted his phone to read a message. “Sorry.”

  I cringed at the interruption to the conversation I’d been psyching myself up to have. Last night he’d relented, proving that our relationship was evolving and that our bond was strengthening. I was ready to satisfy him. Even if it meant facing off with the worst kind of pain. His penchant was legendary, but I’d endure anything for him.

  His silence dragged out the tension as he sent his text off.

  “Is it Shay?” I glanced at his phone.

  “Yes.”

  Shay Gardner was his head of security and right-hand man. They were as close as brothers after they’d bonded while in Afghanistan during a dangerous mission to rescue Cole’s brother Henry. Even now Cameron refused to discuss it.

  “Shay’s arrived.” He shrugged. “He wants to know why we’re not there.”

  I reached for my wine glass. “Me too.”

  This detour was making us late.

  “I thought we’d explore your reason for keeping us a secret at work.” He sat back and narrowed his gaze.

  “Changing the subject?” I threw him a playful smile.

  “That other matter is closed.”

  “Cameron—”

  “Mia.” He leaned forward. “Can I get you anything else? More water?”

  To my left sat a full glass of sparkling Perrier. My shoulders slumped in disappointment.

  How had Richard described Cameron? “He loves to watch you burn.”

  What Richard hadn’t told me was that Cameron was the one who would light the fire and then stand back to savor your awakening. Those memories of once believing Cameron and I could never be still lived on in my nightmares. That was why going against his wishes was so damn hard. I wanted to please him.

  I wanted, no, needed him in my life.

  He’d been my light in the storm and I wasn’t ready to turn my gaze away from the beacon that had saved me.

  Cameron finished off his drink. “Perhaps your reluctance to tell your friends about us is related to how we met? You’re concerned you’ll reveal too much?”

  “When I’m ready to let them know I’m dating you they won’t need to know the details. I’ll say we met at my last job.”

  And that was true…Cameron had strolled
into the coffee room at Enthrall when I’d been hanging out with his dominatrixes Scarlet, Lotte, and Penny. It had been a party atmosphere, right up until he’d walked in and thrown everyone into a spin with his alpha-dominance.

  “I’ve already explained,” I said, lowering my voice. “I want a promotion at work from within my department. I’ll prove I’m successful on my own merit.”

  “You’d be treated very well if people knew about us. Better than you are right now.”

  “What have you heard?”

  “Merely an observation.”

  I imagined he was referring to his executive assistant Susan, and the way she’d taken a dislike to me after catching a flirtatious grin I’d given Cameron in the Cole Tea Shop. My boss Dana was a class-A bitch, too, though I didn’t tell Cameron. It would be nice not feel Dana shooting daggers at me throughout the day, but I wasn’t the only one who experienced her bullying. She was hard on everyone.

  Maybe he’d picked up on my mood after those long days spent in the marketing department in my little cubicle. I’d been given a shot at the corporate world and I wanted to prove I could make it.

  Cameron went quiet, as though hoping I’d puncture the silence and talk myself out of this so we could walk into the Peninsula Hotel tonight as a couple. Part of me wanted to see Dana’s jaw hit the floor when she realized who I was with. Her caustic comments about my clothes grated on my nerves. Maybe I leaned a little too much toward a bohemian style with my silk blouses and flowing skirts, but it was my way of holding on to the old me.

  I reached across the table and placed my hand on Cameron’s, giving it a squeeze. “Why are we here?”

  His brows rose. “Ms. Lauren, I am officially offering you an executive position in my department. The salary is generous. The hours favorable. I’ll match your 401K.” He smiled at that.

  Considering he was a billionaire and we were months from tying the knot it was kind of funny.

  “The perks are never-ending…” He suppressed his amusement at his insinuation. “I’ll give you Fridays off to explore other interests.”

  “Other interests?”