Reborn (13 page)

He had his hand on the handle when he realized that his life wasn’t that much different from what his uncle’s had been. His uncle ran the bar, drank, smoked, and sat around his house and read. Max wanted to say that he didn’t give a fuck, but he was nearly thirty years old; it could be that he was starting to give a fuck. He looked through the French doors across the small patch of yard to Mary’s house; he thought he saw motion through the living room windows, but it was too far to see clearly.

His toast popped up in the toaster, making him jump, and he cursed himself for being a damn fool. He liked his life the way it was; just because John and Mary seemed to have found each other and were getting on well didn’t mean that he should start bemoaning his fate and gettin’ dark and depressed.

He looked down at his arms, at the full sleeves that covered him. What kind of father would he be, anyway? What kind of husband? Other than Mandy, John, and his uncle, he’d never cared for anyone too deeply. The staff at the Box and at the bar were his family, and now there was Mary and Lille, too, though he doubted Lille would stay. Although she could tend bar and fuck like a damn succubus, she did not seem like a woman who would be content with a small life in a small town. Eventually she’d leave. Getting attached to her in any way would be a mistake. But that shouldn’t be a problem, he reminded himself, given that he really didn’t like her anyway.

Max thought of his mother, vacant-eyed and pale, sitting up in bed covered in a crocheted quilt, obsessing over the man who had left her. Max shuddered, his skin crawling. He would never give someone that kind of power over him, not ever.

CHAPTER
Ten

Lille hadn’t noticed a security guard in the lot on her previous visit to the Box, but there was one there when she arrived. A thin black man in a blue security uniform was sitting in a golf cart near the entrance, hands on the dash, radio playing.

Pulling her Mercedes into a space near the building, Lille checked her lipstick before stepping out of the car. She’d changed into what she considered to be suitable attire for a Sunday at the sex shop, a belted red knit dress and strappy platforms. She’d left her hair down and soft, but her lips were bold, come-and-get-me red to match the dress.

She approached the security guard, who watched her with amused appreciation.

“Hello.” She smiled and held out her hand for him to shake. “I’m Lille Marceau. I’ll be working here.”

“Hanley James.” He shook her hand briskly and gave a little nod of his head. “Heard there was a new girl. Seems I’ll be working here, too.”

“Were you just hired?”

“A few days back by a young man named John. He was here just a little while ago.” The older man had a slow, considering drawl that made Lille suspect he was a local.

She liked him, though she couldn’t quite put a finger on why. He just seemed like a person who asked nothing of anybody and was generally amused by the foibles of the world.

“Has there been any trouble?” She looked around the parking lot. The sun was hiding behind some clouds at the moment, and the wind was brisk. One other car sat in the lot, a Chevy truck.

He shrugged. “Not much goin’ on. That boy Jordan is still here, but so far no customers.”

Lille shrugged. “It’s early on a Sunday.”

“Prob’ly get some protesters after church lets out.”

“Protesters?” Lille paused in the act of digging her phone out of her bag. She intended to text Carl and let him know she was here. “Why are there protesters?”

Hanley looked mildly amused. “Well, ev’rythin’ that happened here called attention to this place, is all. On the news and everything. There’s some folks that don’t think they want a place like this in town.”

“Really?” Lille pursed her lips. “Well, then, I suppose we’ll have to make the most of that.”
All the more reason to go virtual,
she decided with satisfaction. “It was nice to meet you, Hanley.”

“Nice to meet you, too, Miss Lille.”

Lille checked her phone as she walked up the stairs onto the porch. She’d had the mannequin on the inside changed; now it wore black leather pants and a dog collar as it crawled up an antique chaise.

Lille opened the door, smiling briefly at the sign, before going inside.

She immediately noticed that someone—probably Jordan and the kid Mary had mentioned last night—had added to the display of costumes, dressing a mannequin posed on top of a rack of clothes in a naughty nurse uniform and adding a display case full of other costume supplies.

Lille slid off her sunglasses, dropping them carelessly in her purse. Phone in hand, she approached the long counter in back. Jordan was sitting behind the counter, his iPad in front of him.

He looked and smiled when he saw Lille. “Hello, gorgeous.”

Lille frowned; he looked tired. “Mary and John should have scheduled someone to take the day shift.”

He blinked. “Nah, Kaylee’s job at the hospital has been keeping her pretty busy. Until we hire someone new, we’re taking turns with double shifts. The new kid was helping while I napped in Mary’s office, but he took off about an hour ago.”

“Kaylee is the girl who was attacked?”

“Yeah, can you believe that?”

Lille could and much worse, but then she’d had a different childhood. She eyed the young man with the huge gauges and the ridiculous T-shirt. She would bet that he’d had a fairly interesting childhood as well.

“What’re you watching?” She set her red bag on the counter and leaned over to see.

“
The Tourist
.”

“I love that movie.” Lille nodded at the iPad.

“Me, too.” Jordan leaned closer to her. “I think it’s a re-creation of
The
Odyssey,
when Odysseus returns from his journey in disguise.”

Lille hadn’t read the
The Odyssey,
though she’d seen the movie
Ulysses
once or twice.

“Maybe,” she agreed. “I can see that.”

“And Angelina Jolie is old-Hollywood beautiful in it. Like you.”

“Why, thank you.” Lille nodded her head graciously. “Now, I have a proposition for you.”

Jordan sat up straight and rubbed his hands together. “Now you’re talking.”

“Easy, darling, not that kind of proposition.”

“Pity.”

“Yes.” She laughed. “But I think you’ll like this one just as well.”

Half an
hour later, she had explained her
plan to post videos of the shop on the store’s website and have a launch party at Max’s pub on Halloween. Carl still hadn’t arrived, though she’d texted him twice.

Only a handful of customers had come into the store: two sorority girls looking for costumes for a Halloween party, and an older man who’d browsed through the bondage section.

“It sounds like a great idea. Who’re you thinking will do the videotaping?”

Lille shrugged. “Carl said he had someone. He was supposed to meet me here this morning.”

“Carl was?”

“Yes.” Lille heard a note of doubt in his voice. “Why?”

“He’s not usually late.”

“He was partying with a band from Shreveport last night.”

“Oh.” Jordan shrugged. “Partying is like Carl’s superpower. That wouldn’t have kept him from being late.”

“Should we be worried?”

Jordan laughed. “About Carl?”

“Yes . . .”

Just then the door swung open and a purple-haired girl with a nose ring and an outfit that looked like it belonged to one of the Spice Girls blazed into the store. She immediately lifted a video camera in front of her face and began sweeping the room.

“Oh, hell ya, this place is awesome.”

Next to Lille, Jordan was frozen, his face arrested as he stared at the girl’s purple miniskirt and fishnet tights.

“Carl asked me to come by,” the girl said as she wandered around the store, then focused in on the statue of the mermaid riding the winged horse.

“This is great. She got a name?”

Jordan cleared his throat. “Pandora.”

“Pandora’s Box? Awesome.”

The girl abruptly shut her camera off and marched toward them, her smile radiating goodwill and endless enthusiasm.

Lille saw her face clearly for the first time and noted that the girl was at least part Asian; Lille guessed that she hadn’t always had an easy life. Lille wasn’t certain how she knew that; maybe something about the look in the girl’s eyes—a wariness that came from experience. This place seemed to attract misfits of one kind or another.

“I’m Kim Chan.”

Lille shook her hand, noting that the girl had a strong grip and an abundance of rings.

“I’m Lille—one of the managers.” She looked at Jordan, but he still seemed frozen. “And this is Jordan.”

“Hey.” The girl held out her hand, but he didn’t seem capable of a response. “Is he okay?” she asked Lille.

“I’m fine,” Jordan cut in; he held out his hand. “You’re just the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”

Lille’s eyes widened. She and Kim looked at each other in astonishment.

“Seriously? You’re standing next to a blond Jessica Rabbit.” The girl gave him a doubtful look.

“Not my type.” He looked at Lille. “No offense.”

“None taken,” she replied wryly.

“Well.” Kim seemed to want to gloss over the whole incident. “Thanks. Listen, Carl told me to meet him here, but I haven’t been able to get ahold of him.”

“None of us has.” Lille frowned at her phone.

“He said we were going to start a web series about this place.” Kim looked around again, unconsciously bringing up her camera.

“Yes, it’s an idea I had,” Lille explained even as the girl trained the camera on her face.

“So what’s your name?”

“I just told you.”

“For the video. Introduce yourself,” the girl ordered impatiently.

Lille didn’t know it, but her eyes flashed with both irritation and fear. She straightened, angling her chin. She hadn’t quite thought that she would be front and center.

“I don’t want to be the focus of this. Mary is the owner. John handles the day-to-day.”

The girl waved that off with a careless hand. “You’re the goddess. You’re the only one they’ll see.”

Lille was afraid of that.

“Just introduce yourself.”

Lille fought an internal battle, her fourteen-year-old instincts fighting with her business sense. Her father was out of prison. There was no indication that he was actively looking for her, or that he even remembered her, and yet, old habits died hard and old fears even harder. But it would be good for the store, and Lille didn’t like to be anything but a success.

She turned her gaze to the camera, her green eyes bright, arrogant, and just a little distant.

“I’m Lille.” She paused, not wanting to give her last name.

Jordan chose that moment to chime in: “The fetish queen.”

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thank you to my wonderful editor, Alexandra Lewis, for all her hard work and to Lauren McKenna for giving me the opportunity. Y’all are the best.

Look for the next installment in the Fetish Queen series:

Part Two: Infamous

In this scintillating second part of the Fetish Queen series, Lille and Max go wild for each other as conflicts arise and the dark secrets of Lille’s past are revealed.

Lillehammer Marceau has a secret past—one that has haunted her, one that not even her best friend, Mary, knows about, one that includes a Russian gangster for a father. It’s left her with commitment issues and a fear of trusting anyone too much.

Lille has always been dominant and daring, hiding her fear behind a mask of confidence and bravado, even when the web series she creates about life at the Fetish Box becomes an Internet sensation and she gains more attention than she ever wanted. She believes she can keep her façade intact and still enjoy the pleasures of being with Max, but some men, it seems, won’t be controlled for long . . .

Available April 28, 2014, from Pocket Star eBooks

Can't get enough Fetish Queen? Get the next two installments in the series, below!

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