Page 2 of Her Royal Master (Master Me #1)

I hadn’t liked using prostitutes, but Samson insisted it was better than picking up a handful of the random eager women ready to throw themselves at the royal pack of playboys.

After all the scandals I’d caused and been dragged through over the last ten years, staying out of the public’s eye with the sexual proclivities of this group wasn’t a bad idea.

If the press got a whiff of the prince’s fetishes—and mine—the royal family would take yet another hit in popularity and the queen would have my ass.

She already blamed me for Kaspar’s corruption.

I’d introduced Kaspar to the BDSM scene, yes. But the drugs, alcohol and non-stop partying were all him. Not that I hadn’t done the same when I was twenty-two. Before my father died, and I really went off the deep end.

The brunette took in the scene with a cool and assessing gaze, as if memorizing every detail. Her eyes landed on me, and her expression sharpened as if she knew exactly who I was.

That’s right, baby. The Devil Duke is on board.

The girl had done research. And right then, at that moment, I knew I’d be the one to make sure she didn’t put it to use.

I slid off the wall where I’d perched and stalked over to the line.

Samson held the files on the girls. I positioned myself behind him as the girl reached him, and looked over his shoulder at the paper.

“Allegra Vivaldo?” Samson asked.

She nodded. “Yes.”

Shadow’s tail thumped against the deck. What do you know? He liked her. My dog was usually a one-man show. He’d bonded to me as a pup and took no interest in anyone else. Shadow’s interest only increased mine.

As Samson checked her documents, I measured the copy of her Italian passport against her face.

Superficially, she matched the girl in the photo.

Beautiful. Long, thick brown hair. Sultry brown eyes.

But she sure as hell wasn’t five foot nine.

More like five four. And that yes had sounded distinctly American.

“Italian, hmm?” I allowed skepticism to show on my face.

She was good. I only saw a flicker of panic before she hit me with a haughty, bored expression. “Sì.”

Shadow stood and circled around Samson to sniff her. Instantly, her mask fell away, and her face split into a breath-taking smile. “Hi, boy.”

Definitely American.

She held the back of her hand out for Shadow to sniff. He licked her hand.

Her whole body went soft. She dropped her bag, leaned over and gave my dog the full treatment, crooning nonsense as she stroked his face and ears. When she looked up at me, her face was friendly, almost shy. “Is he yours?”

I folded my arms across my chest, defending against the urge to bust out of my dom-asshole role. I wasn’t the nice guy. Everyone knew that. I was the original party boy, before Kaspar. The tattooed trouble-maker, the black spot on the Halsburg name.

But her fresh-faced innocence disarmed me. “Shadow,” I said.

“Ooh, of course, you’re Shadow, because you’re a furry black dog, aren’t you?” she crooned, rubbing Shadow all over.

It was ridiculous and adorable, and Shadow loved it.

Only because of his approval, against my better judgment, I let her pass when Samson waved her through.

I should have demanded she prove herself right there.

Should have thrown her off Sweet Surrender , because I knew she wasn’t who she pretended to be.

But she was an enigma. A puzzle I needed to solve.

A smart, sexy woman with an agenda. I’d keep a close eye on her.

Whatever her objective, I wouldn’t let it play out.

I owed my family that much after what I’d let happen last year with Madison.

The check-in complete, Kaspar took over, herding the women below deck to his playroom—a dungeon on the sea.

He’d wedged a king and queen bed mattress side by side to fill the entire length of the room and had hardware mounted above it on the ceiling for bondage.

The wall opposite the bed featured a bevy of implements, each lovingly displayed on hooks or brackets, like pieces of art for the women to examine.

The giddy ones giggled. Marina looked bored. Allegra—if that was her name—turned white as a sheet. Someone hadn’t read through her paperwork before signing.

Fuck. I should find it funny. Whatever trick she was trying to pull had just flipped her.

Except the protective dom in me rose up, not wanting any woman to be touched against her will.

I had to fight the urge to take her hand and lead her to the door.

To tell her, Listen, sweetheart, you don’t belong here.

You’re going to get scared and hurt. So get off the Sweet Surrender before it’s too late.

“Strip,” Kaspar commanded, sweeping a finger over one of the other girl’s collarbone. “All of you.”

“I, uh, have to pee,” Allegra burst out.

Kaspar made an impatient gesture toward his ensuite bathroom, and she hightailed it in, but not before she threw a nervous glance over her shoulder at me.

That’s right, little girl. Be afraid. I have your number.

~.~

C helsea

O h God, oh God, oh God. What in the hell did I get myself into?

I took as long as I could in the bathroom, trying to figure out what to do.

The yacht had only lifted anchor a few moments ago.

Maybe I should just confess everything, and get them to turn around before it was too late.

Why in the hell hadn’t Marina told me Prince Kaspar was a sexual deviant?

Seriously? She didn’t think I needed to know that I’d be tortured and fucked for three days straight? Because it kind of made a difference.

Torture wasn’t my thing.

I was in way over my head. And for some reason, I had a feeling the prince’s unsavory cousin, Darius, had a bead on me.

Unsavory and sexy. He was even more drool-worthy than the tabloid photos portrayed him, and he’d been their darling for the last ten years.

His dark curly hair covered his ears in a shaggy cut, setting off his square jaw and dimpled chin.

He wore a black fitted t-shirt that molded to his bulging muscles.

Tattoos covered his arms. Yeah. His sheer magnetism pretty much made my ovaries throw eggs down like grenades.

Unlike the others, he appeared sober and stood back from the group like he had a supervisory role. And he’d had a suspicious eye on me from the beginning.

Did he know I was here for a scoop?

A thrill of danger ran through me; not the gut-clenching fear over what whip the prince wanted to use on me, but something more akin to excitement. Ambition. What if I could get the real dirt on the dangerous Devil Duke? I’d score the best story on the royals in a decade.

I reapplied lip gloss and took a critical look at myself in the mirror.

You can do this. Take your clothes off, and go out there with your eyes wide open. How bad can it be?

I stepped out and froze. Cold sweat trickled down my ribs as I watched them buckling the other call girls into wrist cuffs mounted on the wall above the beds.

“You, over here,” one of the boys commanded me. His accent was thick Austrinian.

I forced my feet to move, my face flaming over my nudity. I climbed gingerly into place where he pointed and held up my wrists to be buckled. But when he put on the collar, I couldn’t keep it together.

Damn my irrational fear of strangulation.

“I’m taking this one,” the Devil Duke announced when I fought the collar and complained it was too tight. And he tossed me over his shoulder and walked out.