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‘Good, that’s good. You’ll take your punishment, yes?’
‘Yes!’ he groaned as she raised the whip again.
‘Right answer.’ The girl grinned and trailed the whip’s leather lightly down between his quivering white buttocks. ‘Now that’s good, now we’re starting to understand one another. Because you’ve been a very bad boy, ain’t that right?’
‘That’s right,’ he muttered into the pillow. He was sweating and his eyes were closed.
The woman watched him, judging her victim. Sure he was sweating, it was a hot night. Damp and clammy and airless—welcome to a summer’s night in England, folks! The windows were closed though. She’d opened them earlier and shut them pretty damned quick; the constant roar of the traffic was an annoying distraction.
So he was hot. She was pretty fucking hot herself. Rubber might light the man’s candle, but it was a bitch to wear on a humid night. Just for the hell of it, she gave him another swipe with the whip. He gave a faint cry, flinched and strained against his bonds. Hell, anyone would think he wasn’t enjoying this. She sure hoped he was—it was costing him enough, after all.
Actually it was costing her too, in terms of energy and stamina. After an evening of wining, dining and shagging, she now had to get down to the add-ons, the not-so-little extras that the man tied to the bed required.
Most men, you did an escort job for them, they expected a bit of straightforward hanky-panky too, and that was cool. This client had more specific needs and he was one of her regulars. Her reputation as a dominatrix was legendary. Her speciality was what this client wanted, and the price had been fair, she had to admit that, and the price was all that mattered.
Take the money and run, she thought.
But now she was tired. She wanted to crawl into bed with her man, get some kip if it was possible in this heat. When he closed his eyes again she glanced at her watch. The extra hour he’d paid for was nearly up. Soon she’d be out of here; soon she’d be home.
Whack!
Oh, how he writhed. She sort of enjoyed that, to tell the truth, when they writhed. Just a bit. But she’d been doing this S & M gig for so long that it was beginning to bore her. Once the thrill had been in doing it, socking it to the punters. But she was a married lady now, and maybe this was not the sort of thing that a married lady ought to do—not even with her loving husband’s consent, which she’d always had…
The woman frowned. And maybe, just maybe, this was a thing that a loving husband ought to have a bit of a problem with: how was that for a thought?
This was something that kept popping into her brain more and more often. Did he love her so much, if he could be so fucking cool about his wife dancing the horizontal tango with strange men and then whipping them into a frenzy, and then coming home to him?
But the money was good, and money was always tight, and oh how she loved the money. Money to buy Biba dresses and Bill Gibb blouses, boots by the Chelsea Cobbler, waistcoats by Kaffe Fassett, and going to shows and dinners up West: she loved all that shit. So she did things sometimes that didn’t make her proud. Like whipping this punter’s snowy-white arse and wishing she was gone.
Time to draw their little sesh to a close now. Thank God.
Tenderly she leaned over and released the leather cords that bound his wrists to the headboard.
‘There you go honey, that’s all for tonight,’ she cooed in his ear.
And the bastard turned and whacked her right across the jaw.
Agony exploded in her head.
The girl went flying off the bed and fell to the floor. She sat up on the expensive carpet amid a tangle of shoes, trousers and shirt. Her eyes were filled with tears of pain. She could feel her heart beating hard against her ribs with the shock of it.
Fuck, where had that come from?
She clutched her jaw and staggered back to her feet, staring down at him in disbelief. He’d collapsed back on to the bed, face down. As if what he’d just done was nothing. As if hitting her, hurting her, was nothing.
As if she was nothing.
She’d dropped the whip but now she snatched it up again with a grunt of rage. Bastard punters! They were like tigers in a circus act: you were the trainer and you never let your guard down, you never turned your back, you always had to keep control—or they’d maul you as soon as look at you.
She waded in with the whip again. This time she put a lot of force behind it. This time she was angry. She was the sadist here, wasn’t she? Or that was the act, anyway. And he was supposed to be the masochist. He didn’t do the beating up, she did.
‘Better,’ he moaned happily, rolling over to display an erection the size of a baby’s arm. ‘That’s better, sweetheart, oh yes…’
And then he grabbed the hem of her rubber dress, nearly pulling her off balance, and held it over his nose and mouth. Twisted bastard. He always did that with her. Always.
She was so tired of all this.
It wasn’t that big a thrill any more.
Seconds later, he came all over the thousand-thread-count Egyptian cotton sheets.
She watched him, her jaw hurting, her face carefully blank to hide her fear and disgust.
Boy, she was sick of all this.
Ten minutes later, she was out of there. She left the room with a big bundle of notes and a bad taste in her mouth—oh, and a jaw swollen to the size of a watermelon.
All in a day’s work.
It was raining by the time she left the snazzy hotel in Park Lane. The smartly uniformed concierge gave her a knowing look and a nod as she emerged from the lift in reception and went towards the revolving door. She’d been there before, she was no trouble, he wasn’t about to make a fuss.
Whatever the guest wanted, the guest got—that was his motto. A Roller to take them to the theatre? Certainly, sir. Champagne at a hundred quid a pop and a whole tin of Beluga caviar on the side? Mais oui, bien sûr. A nice tart to share it with? No problem at all.
And she was a nice tart. Tall, slim and with skin dark as cocoa. A shock of dreadlocks framing her gorgeous face. She gave him a grin. You couldn’t get churlish looking at that grin, although it faded quickly and she seemed to wince.
Flamboyant dresser, too. Trailing a purple boa, toting a big carpetbag and wearing skin-tight denim hot pants. One of those cool-looking but very smelly Afghan coats flapping loose around her and big hoops of gold clattering at her ears. Could dress a bit smarter, but then it was late: few guests about, only him and the boy on reception, so all was well and why rock the boat?
Really, who gave a shit?
‘Get you a cab?’ he offered.
The grin returned. ‘What, you think I made o’ money, boy?’
‘Bet you’re making more than me.’
‘Ha! Don’t I just wish that was true. Nah, it’s okay, honey. My man’s pickin’ me up.’
He nodded and smiled at her. Yeah, she was a nice girl. No harm in her at all. Stressed-out businessmen, tired travellers, they needed the release of a bit of female company now and then. It wasn’t for him to judge. It was for him to say yes, sir, of course, sir, anything you want, we can get. Discretion was his watchword. Can-do was his attitude. It made him one of the best concierges in London.
He watched her swing through the revolving door and vanish into the rainy night. And then he thought of his own grown-up daughters, girls around the same age as this one, his precious girls tucked up safe at home where they ought to be at this hour of the night, and he thought: Fuck it. What a sodding way to make a living.
She walked quickly, head down against the rain, heading for the usual corner, around which her man would be parked up in his ancient Zodiac, waiting for her. Asleep, probably, stretched out across the single front sofa seat.
They loved that sofa seat; they’d made out on it a time or two, but really he enjoyed that more than her. She preferred their bed: good old-fashioned bread-and-butter lovemaking; no risks, no thrills, just deep warmth and contentment and waking up together in the morning, which they could do now that he no longer worked permanent nights, thank you God.
She was going to have a nice hot bath first. Wash the day away. Then crawl into bed, snuggle down. Forget the whole evening. She was good at doing that; she’d had plenty of practice. Keep her chin turned away and he wouldn’t see the redness, the swelling. Maybe while she was in the bath she’d hold a cold flannel against it. That’d soothe it. She’d be careful to take the flannel away when he came in, brought her a glass of wine as was his usual practice. He was a good husband. Even if a little too forgiving of her profession.
It wasn’t the first time a punter had walloped her, she wasn’t about to get all girly and hysterical about it. She wasn’t about to tell her loving husband that it had happened, either—he’d want to rip the bastard’s arms off.
No, what she was going to do was forget it.
All in a day’s work, and that was a fact.
You took a knock, so what?
There were footsteps behind her. High heels. Another working girl, heading home after a long day, poor bitch. She glanced back, saw who it was, and stopped walking with an exasperated sigh.
‘Fuck it, I can’t talk now…’ she started to say, and then she was hit for the second time that night. It was beyond a bloody joke, that’s what it was. But when she fell this time she wasn’t falling on to Axminster. This time her head hit the pavement with a crack and suddenly the darkness came.
Chapter 2 (#ulink_17f7335c-930d-5ee7-ab43-026c2f919820)
Annie Carter was standing at the top of the stairs in the Palermo Lounge, looking down at the shell of the place that had once been her late husband Max’s favourite club. The builders were in—and running late. They were taking the curtains on the small stage area down. Huge red velvet drapes, a bit faded now, a bit tired-looking, like the rest of the club.
As she watched, a man up a ladder took out a hammer and chisel. He chipped loose the big gold letters ‘MC’ at the apex where the curtains joined together. He threw them down to his mate. The M hit the floor, and shattered.
And how’s that for an omen? she thought with a pang of the old sadness.
There was so much to be done, so much to think about. The brewery had been in and agreed—after some hum-ing and ha-ing—that they would continue to supply liquor to the club. The drinks licence was, after all, already in place. The dance floor—which was a total fucking mess at the moment, broken up and knocked all to hell—was going to be relaid, and there were going to be strobe lights, the works.
But first the red velvet curtains, the plaster cherubs, the flock wallpaper, all that old dated tat, had to go.
Sorry Max.
She’d hired a good accountant, set out her aims. She planned that this club—and eventually the two others, the Blue Parrot and the Shalimar, which were currently standing empty—were going to earn her a good living, support her and her small daughter in some style. That was the plan, anyway.
Of course, the first thing the accountant had done when he’d seen last year’s books, peering at her over his pince-nez spectacles, was to suck in his breath.
She got this all the time. From the brewery bosses. From the builders. Now from her accountant. She was a woman in a man’s world, and all the men in it thought she couldn’t cope.
‘It would appear the business has been running at quite a loss,’ he said, giving her a pitying glance.
‘Or could it just be that the profits haven’t been finding their way into the accounts?’ she suggested.
He’d shrugged, nodded. ‘Certainly, that could be the case.’
Ha! Certainly, that was the case. He’d departed, leaving her sunk in gloom. But then she had a stern word with herself. Okay, she’d been shafted—royally worked over. But now she had to pull it all back together, even if the going was tough. Hell, she was used to tough.
She had lost her husband. She had loved gang lord Max Carter almost beyond life itself, and losing him had cut her to the heart. But she still had her daughter. She still had Layla. And that was in no small part due to American mob boss Constantine Barolli.
Annie frowned.
When they’d last spoken, Constantine had said he’d be back from his home in New York soon to see her. But three whole months had passed. Three months without a word, without a telephone call, with nothing. She felt furious, rejected, and she knew she’d made a bloody fool of herself into the bargain by asking him to call her. Because, guess what? He hadn’t.
‘Fuck it,’ she muttered, her hands clenching around the wrought-iron banister. She closed her eyes for a second and instantly she could picture him—a smooth, slickly suited Mafia don, with armour-piercing blue eyes and a commanding aura, a tan and startling silver hair.
The silver fox.
The rumour was that his hair had turned from black to silver overnight when he was in his twenties and had been told that his mother and brother were dead, victims of a deliberate hit by another Cosa Nostra family in his native Sicily. That’s what they called him on the streets of New York, the silver fox. And like a fox he’d slipped away.
Hell, she’d probably panicked the bastard, been too keen too soon. And, of course, he’d run straight for the hills. She’d blown it. Fuck it.
She went up the second flight of stairs to her office and slammed the door closed behind her. She slumped into her chair behind the desk. Once it had been her late husband’s chair; now it was hers. Now she was in charge of the East End manor that he had once ruled.
It was a very different manor now. A very different firm. Times had changed. Gone was the old respectful Kray and Carter style no-drugs-but-plenty-of-the-hard-game rule of the Sixties. Now there was an active—and often violent—drugs scene in London.
Annie had made it clear from the start that she wanted no part of that sort of trade—but she had been quick to see how the firm could profit from its impact. The Carter firm was all about legitimate security now; the firm controlled an army of enforcers working all over London and Essex, keeping order at venues.
And shit, how it paid. The money was rolling in.
Even better, it was all above board. She’d come close once to going down, and she was never going to risk it again, not with Layla to consider.
So now it was her who took payment from the halls and arcades and shops, her boys who gathered at Queenie’s—Max’s late mother’s—house, to meet with her and receive their orders.
As it turned out, everything had worked out pretty much okay. The boys had accepted her, and they had also accepted that Jimmy Bond—who had been Max’s number one back in the day—was history.
She thought about that.
Yeah, they had accepted her, but she was concerned that it wasn’t a full acceptance. It was an acceptance of her role as Max’s widow, that was all. She knew her position was tenuous. These were hard men, men who’d grown up on the wild side—out on the rob, out on the piss; they took no shit from anyone. Legitimate business had been a shock for them, but—so far—they’d swallowed it. Or had they? She was never sure.
She looked down at her thumb, where Max’s ring glinted. A square slab of royal blue lapis lazuli set upon a solid band of gold embellished with Egyptian cartouches. Yes, he was long gone, but it calmed her to look at the ring, the symbol of his power and authority.
Only now, more and more, it was reminding her of another ring, the diamond-studded one that Constantine Barolli always wore.
Ah, what’s the use?, she thought. It’s done.
He’d gone, and he wasn’t coming back.
Now she had a job to do, and that was good. She had to lose herself in getting the clubs up and running again. She was lucky to have an interest, a business that demanded so much of her time, because, if you were busy, you couldn’t think too much of how you had fucked up your chance of a great love affair by playing it all so disastrously wrong.
There was a tap at the door and Tony, her driver and her minder, poked his bald head around it. The crucifixes in his cauliflower ears glistened bright gold in the summer sunlight streaming in through the office window.
‘First of the girls is here, Boss,’ he said.
She was interviewing staff now. Bar staff, kitchen staff, cleaners, dancers. Not the dancers that had been here before, swinging their enormous naked tits about for all to see. No, these would be discreet go-go dancers, twirling and whirling in fringed white bikinis on tiny strobe-lit podiums around the new dance floor.
She didn’t want the dirty-mac brigade coming back in here. She wanted a better class of clientele, and she was going to make sure she got it.
Annie sighed. Tucked all thoughts of Constantine away.
He’s gone for good, she told herself. So forget it, okay? Move on.
She got her mirrored compact out of her handbag and dabbed away the shine from her nose. Then she applied a slick of scarlet lipstick and paused, staring at the image reflected in the mirror; the steady dark green eyes, the arched black brows and thick black lashes, the good olive-toned skin, the straight fall of thick, cocoa-brown hair, the wide, sensuous, painted mouth. It was a face that could, in fact, be called beautiful.
Then why didn’t he call?
She let out an exasperated sigh and closed the compact with a snap. Dumped it back in the bag, gave Tony a brisk smile.
‘Right. Send her up, Tone.’ She had fifteen girls to see this afternoon and opening night was just three weeks away. Best to crack on. Distract herself. Get on with it.
