Mirror of My Soul by Joey Hill (book club recommendations .TXT) 📕

changing room where she could tend him and examine him more thoroughly,

Mac’s expression sobered. “Violet, that note said she went to see her brother.”

“That’s what it said.”

“Hmm. You remember when we investigated her for the S&M killer case?”

Violet pulled her attention away as Tyler and Leila disappeared behind the door. “I remember.” She would never forget the case that brought Mac into her life and almost took him from her forever. The bullet and lash scars he bore were a permanent

reminder of even the strongest man’s mortality to a woman’s madness. While she wasn’t ready to relinquish her anger with Marguerite Perruquet, she realized that a good part of the fury provoked by watching Tyler willingly expose himself to the risk had been galvanized by those terrible memories. She felt like she needed a large cup of wine and a mind-numbing dose of sex.

She knew where to get both fortunately. She wanted to immerse herself in the

vibrant life of the man she loved so much, so that the turmoil inside her breast and all the nightmares raised by the evening’s events could be laid to uneasy rest again.

“He’ll be fine, sugar.” Taking her hand, Mac pulled her down the steps to close her in his arms, lifting her off her feet. Violet wrapped her thighs around his waist with a helpful hitch from him.

“More than I can say for you.” Cocking her head, she eyed him narrowly. But she couldn’t deny the sudden, urgent bite of savage lust that was the body’s natural response to threat and survival. “You’ve been a pain in my ass tonight.”

“I won the wrestling match fair and square. Though I think Hank’s been showing you some new hand-to-hand tricks.” His lips quirked, eyes heating as she rubbed against him, digging her nails into his neck when he would have lowered his grip to her hips. Obeying, he stopped, keeping his hands at her waist. As her lips hovered just over his without moving, he remained motionless even as his cock thickened, hardening.

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Mirror of My Soul

“Not this one.” Her hand went down between them, cupped and kneaded him as

he suppressed a groan. “But you’ll beg hard tonight before you get to come in my pussy. And I might fuck your ass first to remind you what obeying your Mistress’s orders means.”

“I love you.” His lips parted, showing teeth. “My cock and everything else is all yours, Mistress. Always has been, always will be. I’ll serve your pleasure however you want it.”

When her fingers passed over the bullet scar at his abdomen and shadows gathered in her blue eyes, his arms tightened around her. “She’s not a killer, Violet. She’s a very troubled lady but I’ll lay good money she’s as crazy about him as he is about her. It’s going to be okay.”

Violet squeezed her eyes shut, nodded. “God, I’m never going to stop wanting you.

Loving you. But what…” She shook her head, trying to drive lust back a bit. As much as possible with the muscled, two hundred-pound body of her large husband so close, his cock strong against his snug jeans. “What was that about her brother?”

“Her brother’s dead, sugar. Remember? He killed himself at age fourteen. With

their mother.”

15

Joey W. Hill

Chapter Two

Get Violet or Leila to tend those cuts.

That had been the hardest sentence of the note to write. She’d never allowed herself to cosset her subs, left that to The Zone staff she’d paid to do so. But she had wanted to do it for Tyler. Had wanted to touch each bruise and cut, every welt. Place her mouth over them like a mother wolf, feel his hands touch her, hold her, exchange comfort.

What was she? Who was she?

She sat down on the concrete block ledge of the roof of the Bank of Florida building, the tallest building in the city, a monolith that overlooked a panorama of glittering lights this late in the evening. Swung her legs over the edge so they dangled, braced her arms and stared down hundreds of feet to the street below.

There would be fewer wind currents on a dive from a building like this versus a jump from a plane. A BASE jumper, those daring skydivers who preferred to do their jumps from a stationary structure such as a building, bridge or cliff, would relish the challenge. Leaping out among a forest of buildings, testing the body’s ability to work with the small amount of wind and the chute to find a way safely to the ground.

She was tumbling in such currents now, her chute twisted, tangled, not sure of her heading, unable to prevent herself from smashing into any surrounding structures. Yet she kept thinking about Tyler. Tyler at the bottom, Tyler able to catch her despite terminal velocity. But she’d hit that bottom so long ago and not died. Not technically.

She dreamed of David at least once or twice a week. His eyes a mirror of her own, their two bodies locked together, rolling end over end toward some unknown

conclusion. His end had come but hers had not. And one night not too long ago when she dreamed her dream of falling, it was not David’s eyes she’d seen but a tiger’s. But the look in them was the same. Unconditional love, the desire to protect. She’d known it in her brother’s eyes, knew it was real in the dream as it had been in life, but she didn’t know if she was imposing it as dangerous, wishful thinking on Tyler.

Drawing her knees up, she rested her weight just on her buttocks, the soles of her feet over the edge. Forward and back, forward and back like one of those children’s toys that once were so popular, the ones that had rounded bottoms and could never fall down, never be knocked over. There had been a punching bag like that, too. No matter how hard it was hit, it came back up for more.

She felt a