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“What doyou mean Shawna’s not here?” Kimberly looked at Annalise as if she’d spoken in a foreign language. “She’s always here. She never calls in. What’d she say? Where is she?” The questions wanted to keep coming, but she snapped her lips closed and waited to hear what Annalise had to say first.
“She’s a no-show,” she replied with a helpless gesture. “She was supposed to be here a half an hour before we opened to help unbox last night’s shipment. I was hoping you knew where she was.”
“No-show?” Kimberly gasped as if Annalise had just told her Shawna was a murderer. She pulled out her phone and started rapid-fire texting. “Shawna doesn’t no-show.”
“I know,” Annalise said, sounding equally worried and peeking at Kimberly’s phone anxiously as they waited for a response. “I called her cell. She doesn’t have a landline, but I didn’t want to worry her parents and call them. They’re her emergency contact.”
“I have her brother’s number,” Kimberly said. “I’m texting him now. If Devon doesn’t know where she is, then he’ll go to her place and find her. They’re really close.”
Three hours later and Kimberly was ready to climb the walls. Shawna was missing. Her brother had responded to her text within five minutes, and ten minutes later, he texted that he was on his way to her place to check on her. The only thing she heard since then was a curtNot here. I’ll keep looking and let you know.Then nothing.
The salon felt like a morgue without Shawna’s presence. She was a stunning black woman who wore her natural hair in a glorious afro like a crown of glory. With bold, bright colors and gold bangles and arm bands, Shawna had a personality as vibrant and vivacious as her appearance, and if one more client asked Kimberly where her friend was today, she was going to break down and cry.
Devon strode through the double glass doors of the salon, looking like the cover ofEbony Magazine, and if Kimberly weren’t so worried, she’d be a puddle on the floor.
“Kimberly?” The look of fear in his eyes confirmed the worst of hers. “She here? Please tell me she’s here.”
Unable to trust herself to speak, Kimberly only shook her head mutely and reached for his hand. A look of tenderness washed over his face as he caught the worry in hers, and he squeezed her fingers tight. Devon kissed the back of her hand and held it there for a moment, then Kimberly lost the fight against tears, cupped his cheek with her free hand for a second before he met her eyes, and the two of them gave up trying to be brave and embraced. They clung for a moment, and Kimberly knew the whole salon was probably watching, but she didn’t care.
“I know she was seeing somebody new. I told the police, but they aren’t listening. They said it hasn’t been long enough.”
Kimberly cursed. She knew in some circumstance the twenty-four-hour rule didn’t apply, but in too many cases, even a week wouldn’t generate much involvement.
“She’s seeing that new counselor too, isn’t she? Aren’t you guys seeing the same guy?”
“She told you?” Worry temporarily trampled by shock, Kimberly gaped at Devon. She knew the twins were close, but come on; did she have to tell her brothereverything?Devon shrugged apologetically. “Sorry.”
“Yes, she’s seeing a new guy,” Kimberly grumbled as she felt her cheeks catch fire. “And yes, we see a counselor but not the same person. She sees a woman in another building. What does counseling have to do with anything?”
“She was depressed, right?” he asked. “Something was wrong, something she wasn’t able to talk to you or even me about. Dammit. I knew I shouldn’t have left her alone about this. And why was she so depressed when she was in a new relationship, huh? A new relationship she was hellbent on keeping secret from us.”
Now there’s where he was wrong, and Kimberly wiped her face blank and hoped he was too distracted to notice. She did know about Shawna’s new relationship. She knewallabout it and knew exactly why her friend kept it a secret from her brother.
Devon was a Dom. A sexual Dominant—a Dungeon Master at the only BDSM club within a fifty-mile radius. And he had no idea his precious twin was a sexual submissive. And she wanted to keep it that way. Her new boyfriend introduced her to the scene and opened her up to this new side of her sexuality. That’s why she’d sought counseling; she was trying to come to terms with the feelings and memories that the sessions with her lover were invoking.
Now that Devon had made her think of it, Kimberly could think of nowhere else to look. Shawna hadn’t told her the guy’s name or given her more than general descriptions, like “he’s so hot,” so she didn’t have much to go on other than he was a sadist. Which was more than a Dominant, from what Shawna had explained.
Kimberly had a solid place to start looking though. The Lion’s Den. Devon was only there on weekends, so Shawna and her boyfriend had been going during the week. Shawna had been after her to join her at the club for weeks, and it’s not like Kimberly wasn’t curious. She’d already agreed to go with Shawna next month to their beginner’s night. Kimberly had read enough erotica and picked up enough from the things her friend had confided that something began to take root. For a bizarre moment she felt like The Grinch because she got an idea, an awful, wonderful idea.
Looks like I have some shopping to do after work, she mused as Devon turned away to start questioning the staff. She had fetish-wear to buy.
CHAPTERFOUR
Kimberly strodeinto The Lion’s Den feeling like Catwoman on ecstasy. She was dressed in a long-sleeved, patent-leather bodysuit with a scooped neckline that went down to practically her belly button. The magic of the fabric kept her large breasts plumped up on her chest and looking like they were ready to burst over the top with her first deep breath. She’d doubled down on her hair and makeup, and as the top in her field of beauty, she could say with unbiased confidence she looked damn good.
The six-inch spike heels she wore were of the same black as her suit, and the sharptap-tap-tapthey made as she strutted her way across the room turned every eye in her direction.
Including those of her therapist.
Kimberly froze. Then she marched her ass right over to him. “What the hell are you doing here?” she demanded in a harsh whisper as soon as she reached his side, his expression dumbfounded. She nodded furiously, absurdly smug to see her heels made her at least an inch taller than him. “This is fraud, or malpractice, or you’re breaking your Hippocratic Oath or something. You can’t be here.”
He just stood there and gaped at her. Like a guppy.
She pinched him.
“Ow! Cut it out.” That snapped him out of it. Dean—she could think of him as Dean now, the jerk—rubbed his arm and frowned at her as his eyes ran over her face like he’d never seen her before. She’d have been flustered and flattered if he’d looked at her like that under any other circumstance. Hell, she’d be naked already under any other circumstance. But here, like this? She felt betrayed.
“I’m not asking you again,” she warned him and crossed her arms. Did she know before she’d done it that her breasts would swell even farther out of her top? Yep, she sure as hell did. Feminine power unfurled heat in her belly when his mouth dropped open at the sight. She tapped her heel while she waited for his brain to reengage.
