Unraveled Together Read online

  Like it or not, she was right . . . Whatever was inside the package might perhaps amuse me, given the pretty girl who delivered it. And as the concept of amusement had been foreign to me for more than half a decade, I decided to go for it. I ripped open the package.

  A manuscript.

  Unraveled, by Miranda Stone.

  I opened it at a random page, read a few lines, and as the explicit words hit me, the room started to spin, and I gripped the desk to steady myself.

  “Thank you, Mary Ellen, that will be all,” I said, my cock harder than it had been for ages, and my heart thumping so loudly that it was all I could do not to let my composure slip completely and betray the red-hot excitement surging through me.

  The second Mary Ellen left the room, I started at the beginning of the manuscript—the story of a headstrong submissive who had countless lurid BDSM adventures—and read on, mesmerized, without stopping until the very end.

  Then I picked up the phone.

  “Peterson, drop everything you are doing and get me every last bit of information you can find me on a writer named Miranda Stone.”

  A few days went by, during which I thought of nothing but the manuscript, and of Miss Miranda Stone. Was her book autobiographical? Was it the real-life story of a genuine submissive’s adventures in the kaleidoscopic world of BDSM? Or was it simply the fictionalized and fevered fantasies of a vanilla girl with a vivid imagination?

  Peterson completed his background check and, with the additional assistance of some of the private investigators in my employ, assembled an extensive dossier on Miranda Stone, including pictures of her snapped at various stages of her life.

  I mulled over every word, every piece of information, obsessively, committing the salient details to memory.

  Miranda Veronica Stone, twenty-eight.

  Born in Lenox Hill Hospital to Luke Stone, conceptual artist, now deceased, and the former Clare Curtis, a great beauty and once a catwalk model.

  Sister, Lindy Rosamond Stone, nineteen.

  Education: Sarah Lawrence, majoring in English literature.

  Intern at the Hollywood Reporter.

  Freelance journalist specializing in celebrities, after which she became an author. To my surprise and delight, I discovered that she was not a novelist but a ghostwriter. And not just any ghostwriter but a celebrity ghostwriter of some note, a best-selling ghostwriter with three published autobiographies under her belt.

  So had Miranda jettisoned ghostwriting in favor of writing erotica to capitalize on a trend? Or was Unraveled a confession, a declaration of her true sexual orientation—or even a come-on to a prospective Master?

  When I discovered that she had perfect credit, $820,000 on deposit at Signature Bank of New York, and lived in a two-bedroom apartment in Hoboken (rental, $3,600 a month), it seemed safe to assume that she was not in any dire financial need and wasn’t motivated by money to publish Unraveled. I felt hope build within me that her “novel” was actually an autobiographical account of the real Miranda and her sexual exploits as a submissive.

  On that score, the next subject covered by the background report: Miss Miranda Stone’s boyfriends . . .

  According to the dossier, Miranda, an alluring girl if ever I saw one, judging from her photographs, had only ever had one boyfriend, a certain Warren Christopher Courtney, now fifty-two.

  So Miss Stone favored much older men, did she? Promising . . .

  I phoned Peterson and instructed him to compile a dossier on Warren Courtney forthwith, and in detail.

  Two days later, and the dossier on Warren Courtney was in my possession.

  I studied it with extreme interest and memorized the salient facts.

  Warren Courtney, fifty-two.

  Boston-born Realtor.

  Harvard educated.

  Avid sportsman, in particular winter sports, and three-time Cresta Run champion. Impressive, though I’d achieved that twice myself.

  A playboy.

  Girlfriends galore.

  Never married.

  No children.

  Warren Courtney, fifty-two to my forty-five. A millionaire, but his money was merely a drop in the ocean next to the assets of Hartwell Global Media. Besides, his dalliance with Miranda Stone took place over ten years ago.

  I tore open the envelope marked “Photographs Don’t Bend,” and when the image of Mr. Warren Courtney leapt up at me, I felt like ripping up his photographs, never mind not bending them.

  Because whether I liked it or not, Mr. Courtney was movie-star material. As tall as I am, with piercing blue eyes, broad shoulders, gleaming white teeth, a strong, muscular body, and charisma rippling from every pore.

  Bastard!

  But according to the report, they were only together for a month (strange, that—her decision or his?) and she hasn’t been with him for over a decade, so put the photographs away, RH, and quit being so fucking competitive.

  There was no evidence on record that Warren Courtney was a dom, no sightings at BDSM clubs, no dates with known submissives. Besides, his macho posturing didn’t necessarily indicate that he was a dom, as sometimes strident alpha-masculinity is merely a smoke screen cloaking mammoth insecurity and is not the real thing at all . . .

  Instead of speculating further on Mr. Warren Courtney, I sifted through the rest of Miranda’s pictures once more, studying each one with an almost-forensic intensity. Miranda at three, strawberry blonde, blue-eyed, adorable, a Raggedy Ann clutched in her arms, smiling into the camera. Miranda at five, sweet, winsome, a living doll in every way. And then Miranda at thirteen, a cheerleader, an all-American girl, but exuding something else, something different, something I hadn’t yet quite been able to define, to nail down, to understand, but which I hoped fervently meant that she had an innate propensity to do as she was told and to luxuriate in her own obedience.

  Miranda at her first prom, already showing signs of becoming beautiful, Miranda graduating college, solemn and sophisticated. Then Miranda in a series of photographs clearly taken by a professional photographer hoping to submit them to a modeling agency; Miranda, her red hair glossy and lustrous, her blue eyes dreamy, her smile sensual, her entire image that of a glamorous pinup, a siren whose photographs graced the walls of American soldiers about to go to war in Europe and whom they worshipped because she was so womanly, so enticing.

  Finally (and I would have been lying to myself if I hadn’t admitted how much they excited me), photographs of Miranda in a minuscule red bikini. Legs not overly long, but everything, from her voluptuous figure to her translucent skin and her glittering smile, exuding sheer, naked, unadulterated sex.

  I knew then that when I finally met her, my biggest challenge would be to mask my mounting passion for her with the veneer of dominance, which might succeed in arousing her as much as she aroused me.

  I thought about how to approach her initially; should I be direct, call her and tell her I’ve got her manuscript and want to publish it right away, but need to meet with her immediately? Maybe a bit too urgent, a bit too desperate for a dom. Better still, call Stuart Carstairs, owner of Blockbuster Books, and tell him I want to sign Miranda up to ghost my autobiography? Hardly likely, but a good opening gambit. Dishonest, though, and not my usual way of operating. Or should I find some other way of meeting her, as if by accident? Not difficult if I got Peterson or one of the others to track her schedule so that I could show up somewhere she was bound to be and then let everything unfold that way. But if I did that, I’d be openly pursuing her, and as a dom, I mustn’t be caught by her doing that—if I did, I would appear needy, subservient, everything a submissive woman doesn’t want in her dom.

  Her dom? Could I be Miranda’s dom? It had been long since I had allowed myself to dream that dream, to dream that I could one day find my perfect submissive—a woman who craved being controlled, commanded, punished, corrected
, nurtured, cared for, and, above all, loved—my polar opposite, the woman who yearned for everything I had to offer her, not material, of course (I’ve been that route), but sexual and emotional. Could my dream finally become reality at long last?

  Mary Ellen buzzed me and put through a call from Monaco, interrupting my musings on Miranda. About time. There were still meetings to attend, acquisitions to make, companies to buy, auctions to win, everything that was part and parcel of my life as owner and CEO of Hartwell Global Media. At that moment, I resolved not to allow myself to degenerate into some teenager, mooning over a girl named Miranda Stone whom I hadn’t even met . . .

  Ten minutes later, a call from none other than Miranda, herself, and all my resolutions were out the window. First, the revelation that she hadn’t wanted her sister to deliver her manuscript to me at all, nor did she want me to publish it. In fact, she had a publisher already and didn’t even want me to know about it at all.

  “You haven’t read my manuscript yet, have you, Mr. Hartwell?” she said, clearly trying to project a self-confidence and an air of entitlement. Underneath, though, she was obviously anxious to get her manuscript back from me. Naturally I drove as hard a bargain as possible and flatly refused to return it to her, unless she met my very specific demands.

  I held the whip hand, and we both knew it. I had in my possession her erotic manuscript, which she’d planned to publish under a false name, and with just one phone call to the right gossip columnist, I easily could have exposed her and tarnish her career as ghostwriter forever.

  Not that I would have done that, but it didn’t hurt for her to believe I might. The more powerful a submissive woman believes a dominant to be, the more eager she becomes to submit to him.

  So—even though we were only talking on the phone at that early stage—I pulled out all the stops: the extra-deep voice, the sternness, the formality (“Miss Stone” this, “Miss Stone” that). In short, I played the strict headmaster to the hilt, and my guess was that as much as she made a show of fighting back, I was feeding into Miss Miranda Stone’s deepest, most secret fantasies.

  Although she made a stab at resisting my demand that she come to Hartwell Castle forthwith and read me the manuscript, she very quickly agreed that the following afternoon, she would present herself to me and read aloud the sexiest, most salacious chapter of Unraveled, word for word, moment by moment, spanking by spanking.

  I had won, and the victory was sweet. I knew that when she read the chapter to me, she would blush from head to foot, and her shame and embarrassment would be almost too much for her to endure. For me, on the other hand, it would be everything I needed it to be: arousing, titillating, and at the same time it would tell me everything I burned to discover.

  I had always prided myself on my patience, aware that patience was an integral part of the skilled dom’s weaponry, and I assured myself that in this situation, I would be no different. Truth be told, though, I couldn’t wait to have Miranda Stone here, in front of me, reading her erotic novel out loud, partly to subject her to erotic humiliation—an ever-present element in real-life BDSM. And, of course, also so that I could watch her like a hawk and then come to a final judgment as to whether Unraveled was merely fiction or the work of a woman who was the real thing and who had experienced every single steamy moment in real life.

  Chapter Three

  Robert Meets Miranda

  Twenty-four hours after I first threw down the gauntlet and demanded that Miranda present herself at Hartwell Castle, she arrived there, dead on time.

  I was eminently aware that the prospect of meeting me must have terrified her. And I relished the thought, because like any dom worth more than a dime, I understood only too well that part of the impetus that made a submissive surrender was the undeniable truth that, deep down, she relished the frisson of fear that a dom is able to ignite in her.

  It was also highly effective for a dominant to play the heavy father now and again. The stern judge about to issue a sentence. The implacable ruler of a country, captivated by the fairest of fair maidens, but determined to put her through a number of hoops before he finally softens and makes her his own.

  Aside from playing those roles to the hilt, I’ve always believed that the best doms are akin to rock stars, able to cast a spell on a submissive woman through their force of will, their power, their sheer animal magnetism, and to simultaneously intimidate and beguile her.

  And just as every rock star has an opening act, on this occasion, there could have been no better opening act for me than the formidable Tamara Hatch, my housekeeper and a woman who had transformed intimidation into an art all her own, and who would set the tone for what I hoped would transpire between me and Miranda.

  Consequently, I was glad that Mary Ellen, who had been so sweet, so sunny, so well-disposed toward Miranda, was out of the office on some errands, because her very presence would have soothed Miranda’s trepidation at our first encounter, whereas Mrs. Hatch’s would serve to increase it. And if Miranda were as genuinely submissive as I hoped she might be, her deep-seated feelings of trepidation at the prospect of meeting me would also serve to excite her.

  A minute or two before the meeting was scheduled, Tamara Hatch deposited her on the threshold of my office, a sour expression on her face, probably caused by coming face-to-face with Miranda and discovering how beautiful and how very feminine she was.

  As for me, I sensed immediately that Miranda was everything I’d ever dreamed of in a woman. Spirited, sexy, intelligent, and sparky but with a hint that she might well be deeply and inherently submissive.

  And so I played the moment for all it was worth. Instead of instantly rising to greet Miranda when Tamara delivered her to the threshold of my office, I left her standing there while I ignored her completely and instead engaged in a long and (truth be told) meaningless conversation in Russian, just to impress her with my fluency in the language. Next I had a second, even longer conversation regarding a few paintings on which I was bidding and, just to hammer home to her the extent of the financial resources at my disposal, made no bones about the stratospheric sum of money I was prepared to pay for them.

  I knew only too well that if she really was the genuinely submissive woman that her explicit manuscript led me to believe she might be (and after all, could a woman write so realistically about her BDSM experiences at the hands of a strong and resolute Master if she hadn’t experienced them herself?), like most women with even a hint of submissiveness in their makeup, she would love nothing better than a dom who challenged her. And I intended to do just that.

  On the other hand, she was so sweet, so fragile, yet so sincere, that I was momentarily tempted to jettison my plan to make her read the most explicit section of her erotic novel aloud to me. But then I reminded myself that, above all else, a submissive woman needed consistency from her dom. I had told her that I wouldn’t return her manuscript unless she read the chapter of Unraveled to me aloud, and I had to stick to that, no matter what; otherwise, she’d lose trust in me.

  Don’t overplay it, though . . .

  So I decided to switch gears and first delve into her personal life, her history, instead.

  “Tell me about your father,” I said, because I’ve found that submissives often have deep-seated father issues lurking somewhere in the depths of their psyches.

  And sure enough, Miranda Stone definitely had those issues writ large, with a father hunger so deep, so repressed, that she cried out for a strong, loving, authoritative man to resolutely take her in hand and demonstrate that he cared enough about her to devote himself to nurturing her, guiding her, dominating and disciplining her.

  The way in which she told me about her father (clearly a devious son of a bitch who was utterly detached from his daughter) was so moving, her pain and her dignity while telling me so palpable, that I felt like a prize bastard for having put her through the exercise.

  So
instead of enforcing my demand on her right then and there, I did the gentlemanly thing and escorted her on a tour around the estate instead.

  As I did, I took the opportunity to study her further. Her hourglass figure, as I had already observed from the photographs, was flawless, and even the austere vintage Chanel suit she was wearing didn’t obscure it. But as her A-line skirt was full, I couldn’t check out whether her ass was round or broad, flat or pointed—just that it filled out the skirt, which was fine by me.

  She was far from tall, but I wouldn’t have called her petite, because how could you call a woman with such big breasts petite?

  Walking around the castle with her, through rooms I hadn’t entered since—well, since Georgiana—I couldn’t help but be overcome by past memories, both positive and negative. But instead of filling the sudden silence with inane nervous chatter, as people usually did, Miranda had the good sense to keep quiet.

  When she did say something, or made a comment about the castle or the grounds, I was impressed at how intelligent she obviously was. And—more important—how very turned on she was by me; when I took her hand, and held it extra tightly in my grip, she caught her breath, and when I sat close to her in the golf cart and, just for a millisecond, rubbed my thigh against hers, she gave a start, clearly as overcome by erotic excitement as I was. From as far back as I can remember, I was always adept at disguising my emotions, so I effortlessly succeeded in hiding them from her. Until, of course, I slipped and told her far, far too soon just how beautiful she was, and then wished I hadn’t.

  After we toured the house, Miranda and I sat by the lake together, and just when I thought she was ready to capitulate and read that chapter of Unraveled to me aloud, she suddenly switched gears.

  “Toss for it?” she challenged, and I was so captivated by her gutsy ploy that I immediately agreed to it. But I still wasn’t going to let her have everything all her own way, so I wrested some of the power from her and got back some of the control (and how I relish being in control) by handing her the Double Eagle coin, all eight million dollars of it, to toss.