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Chapter One
"Catch a tiger by the toe, eeny, meeny, miny, mo. " Marguerite glanced up from her purchase order as her hostess, Chloe Marcel, came into the kitchen area. Genevieve Wisner, her other waitstaff person, slid by in front of her with a tray of teacups as Chloe propped a hip on the doorframe. Fortunately, Gen was a tall woman, whereas Chloe was a tiny thing not even five feet tall and committed by genetics to look fourteen years old though she was nearly twenty-eight. Marguerite had discovered her working a kiosk at the mall that sold a wide variety of body-piercing jewelry. She'd liked the woman's easy manner that drew customers to her side like old friends, the selection of high-quality jewelry and the fact that Chloe, while passionate about piercings, only had one. A navel piercing that she rarely revealed by her clothing choices without having to manually turn up the edge of her blouse or tug down her waistband. Marguerite had also liked the simmering mischief in her eyes.
However, since hiring her as hostess for Tea Leaves, informally known in the Tampa area as the Tea Room, she'd learned to be wary of it.
"What are you going on about, Chloe?"
"I'm thinking about better parts of a tiger than his toes. " Genevieve rolled her eyes, setting down the tray. "She's in one of those moods, M. " She used her favorite nickname for their boss, having pointed out more than once that Marguerite's cool reserve and authoritative presence would qualify her to head up the MI-6 of the James Bond movies. "She's comparing men to animals again. "
"It's not like we get many here, you know. "
"Men, or animals?"
Chloe grimaced at her. "This is a terrific, lovely place, Marguerite, but we do need to figure out a way to market it to men of marriageable age. Or at least the age of sexual interest. "
"Got it. " Gen nodded. "Age twelve to ninety. "
"I'll plan a construction workers' convention here just for you, Chloe. " Marguerite tapped her pen on the desk, considering the matter from her side office while Gen grinned, placing the teacups from the Coalport set carefully in the sink water to handwash them, as they did with all the porcelain sets. "Do you think they'd prefer something manly, one of our strong black teas served up in a reproduction YiXing? If clay was good enough for the samurai, it should be good enough for them. Of course, since the samurai left their swords outside the teahouse, we might ask our guests to leave their tool belts at the door. "
"Maybe everything else but the tool belts. " Chloe grinned wickedly. "Here, take him today's sample. " She took away the dish towel and pressed a tiny cup into Gen's hand. "You go take a look and tell me if I'm right or not. Money isn't the only thing oozing off this guy. I'd have given him a lap dance if he'd said another word in that voice, or kept looking at me with those tiger eyes. " Genevieve made a resigned face but obediently went back out the swinging door.
Chloe looked toward Marguerite. "Even more intriguing, he says he's here to meet with you. And that you're expecting him. "
Though the apprehension curling in Marguerite's stomach at Chloe's description had already raised her suspicion, the hostess's words confirmed it. He was an hour early. Marguerite suppressed a surge of resentment, laced with a bit of uncomfortable panic. She'd wanted time to close up the shop. While she'd wanted the strong foundation of meeting on her own turf, he'd taken that edge by coming when she would have to be something different from what he knew, revealing a side of herself she'd not intended to give to him.
But then, it wasn't the first time Tyler Winterman had unsettled her. Why had she decided to approach him to help her resolve her dilemma, knowing that about him?
Pride, in a simple word. If she had to do this - and she'd been told it was required - she wouldn't do it paired with someone whose skills were less than her own.
Her hope was that she wouldn't have to embrace the task at all, which was the less galling reason she'd invited Tyler here. He might agree with her plan and go along with it. If he didn't. . . Well, she preferred not to address that at the moment, especially when a flush swept her skin like the brush of a heron's wings at the thought, making her heart flutter strangely and the muscles in her thighs tighten.
This was a mistake. One she could not gracefully undo.
Genevieve re-entered, a smile playing around her mouth. "Beware the day Chloe comes in here and compares a customer to a bull. We'll have to run out there and collect all the china cups before the metaphor becomes reality. She's right. That one's a tiger. I feel ten times prettier, just having talked to him. " Gen didn't know the half of it. Tyler was a Southern gentleman, always rising when a woman entered the room. She'd seen him kiss a woman's hand as naturally as an English duke. When he was with a woman, he saw to her welfare with the easy authority of a man who believed it was his responsibility to look after her. That essence was what Gen had picked up. Anything female felt enormously delicate in his presence, as if his sweeping glance put her in skirts, corset, decolletage, piled-up hair. Marguerite knew all of that. Felt it and so much more that disturbed her about Tyler.
"Marguerite?" Chloe spoke. "Is this guy some kind of trouble you need me to get rid of? I could tell him you had to leave early, let you slip out the back. " There was no running from this. Maybe that was good. Yes, she decided. It was good. Time to face up to it. Destroy the illusion her mind had created that had made her avoid him for nearly two years. Maybe that was her true motive in inviting him here.
Facing this task would uncover the man behind the myth, and then she could firmly place him on the shelf with other bedtime stories.
"This isn't one of your extreme tests for yourself, is it? Marguerite, you've actually gotten paler. "
"Don't be ridiculous. He's a man, not a leap from an airplane at ten thousand feet. " Though suddenly, the first time she had done the latter seemed less daunting than this situation.
"Need a chair or a whip to face your tiger, then?" Genevieve dispelled the moment with a twinkle in her eyes.
Marguerite rose. "With my two circus clowns in the wings, I feel fully protected from any wild beast. "
"Cute. " Chloe did smile then, though Marguerite felt their attention follow her closely as she moved to the kitchen door.
She looked back at them, summoning the cool, tranquil expression they knew. "I'll be back in a moment. "
Courtesy demanded she acknowledge his presence, even if she couldn't meet with him for the next thirty minutes. But perhaps courtesy was not what was called for here.
She didn't notice men the way Chloe did. When she allowed herself to notice them as sexual beings, it was in the boundaries of The Zone, the BDSM club she frequented. It was a part of her life Chloe and Gen knew nothing about. When she chose her submissive for the night, she focused on his eyes, looking for signs of a need that she could not describe in words. And they recognized her as the Mistress that could fill that need. She never lacked for a partner.
But Tyler she noticed, despite the fact he was not a submissive. He was well acknowledged as one of the most powerful and sought-after Masters at The Zone by the female submissives.
Whenever she was close enough to feel the heat of his energy, which seemed to be whenever they were under the same roof, even at a club as large as The Zone, she felt his dangerous edge. The ruthlessness and resolution moved like an intriguing shadow just beneath the surface. Something in his eyes made her feel she could need him, and he would take care of those needs, of anything she needed.
