Page 1 of Mr. Sandman (Country Love Collection #14)

Chapter One

“Ms. Monroe… if you’re ready.”

I blinked twice. If I was ready.

Was I ready?

“Yes.” I reached up and clasped my throat, betraying that my voice truly sounded like it was made of gravel.

I felt my pulse race underneath my fingertips. Anticipation. Fear.I rose from the plush leather chair in the waiting room and adjusted my purse on my shoulder, the soft designer leather brushing my fingertips.

There was still time. I could still leave. Still walk back out the door, down the low-lit hall to the elevator that required a keycard to access and a passcode to reach this floor of the club.

God. Who was this person? I’d never walked away from anything.

Myheels sank into the rich Persian carpet under my feet, and I rose up straight, chin tilted high. For a second, it felt like quicksand under my feet, rooting me tighter the more I thought about walking away.

I wouldn’t leave. Not now. Not after months of wanting and hoping. Waiting and testing. I’d been given a million and one opportunities to turn back. To change my mind. I’d taken none, and I wouldn’t start now.

I stepped off the carpet onto the marble floor, my heels landing with a soft click… like the cocking of a gun. My head rose. My spine straightened. And my heart felt housed in my throat—nerves I hadn’t felt in years bubbling to the very edges of my skin.

“This way.” Katherine’s blank stare was a masterpiece of professionalism.

In fact, everyone I’d worked with on my request had been models of decorum and discreteness.

It tempered my nerves each step of the way.

Maybe what I was asking… what I wanted wasn’t that out there. That was what I told myself, at least.

There were far more debauched fantasies than mine.

Still .

The hallway felt longer than it was. A labyrinth of gilded mirrors and ornate paintings.

Erotic paintings, on closer inspection. The classical style almost masked how the couples were engaged in various sexual acts.

The very last painting was a woman staring up into the heavens as three men pleasured her.

My breath caught, and my steps slowed for a split second, absorbing the… unearthly scene and feeling a low coil of heat start to spring low in my stomach.

“Through here, you’ll enter into a restroom where you can freshen up.” Katherine stood poised at the single door crowning the end of the hall. “There, you’ll find another door into your room. There’s a button on the nightstand for when you’re ready.”

“Thank you.” I held my head high and entered through the door like I was entering a courtroom. Poised and prepared for whatever came. Ready to do whatever it took to come out on top.

The door closed behind me, and I spun at the soft click. The sound was almost imperceptible except to a woman whose nerves felt like they were standing on the edge of a cliff, wondering if the next few hours would prove that I could fly… or just how far I’d fallen.

I swallowed over the lump in my throat, my gaze snagging on my reflection in the mirror. Long, tight black skirt. White blouse. Silver blazer. Sexy had never looked so severe.

I set my bag on the counter, the heavy chain clinking on the marble.

My hands went to the pins in my hair, the thick, dark waves pulled back in a severe knot.

One by one, they clattered onto the marble too, softer but with just as much weight as the chain.

The irony of the woman in my reflection wasn’t lost on me.

I had everything. My name was on the building—the youngest senior partner at Pearson, Nixon, and Monroe. I was as close to being a celebrity as a lawyer could get. I had the penthouse apartment. The red-soled shoes. The one-of-a-kind Mercedes.

But everything had a price.

To succeed in my world, I couldn’t stop pushing against that glass ceiling.

Pushing back against everyone who wondered when I was going to settle down.

Have kids. Tumble back down the mountain I’d fought so hard to climb.

As soon as I stopped pushing for success, the chauvinistic sharks in Armani suits would swallow me whole.

I couldn’t even take my eye off it. Not even for a day.

Not even to let my hair down.

I pulled the last pin out, and the thick, heavy waves spiraled down over my shoulders, long and loose and free. Instantly, my face softened. Years of stress and stoicism drained from my expression like a burst dam.

No one saw this side of me. The vulnerable side. The compliant side. The side that wanted to let go of the reins. I hardly saw this side. But I needed a release. Not just any release. I needed my control ripped from my desperate, petrified hands.

So, I came here… to the skyscraper that glittered in the desert of downtown Chicago.

To the Mirage.

A club to most. A sex club to some. But for me?

For the most exclusive clients who could pay for it?

The Mirage was home to a carnal concierge.

One request submitted with payment. Then, it could be days…

weeks… even months until they found and vetted someone within their network who wanted to fulfill the same fantasy.

It wasn’t money paid for sex. It was money paid for a safe but anonymous connection.

It had taken three weeks and two days for my request to be confirmed.

For a date— for tonight to be chosen.

I skimmed over my attire, contemplating for a moment if I should undress but then decided against it. I didn’t want to make any decisions tonight… that was the whole point. I wanted to be dominated. Destroyed. Desired.

I needed something brutal and erotic and beautiful. For one night. If the Mirage was a carnal concierge, then I was the kinky Cinderella who wanted one night of fantasy.

I ran my fingers through my hair and opened the door to the suite. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting. No, that’s a lie. I was expecting something akin to Christian Grey’s red room: dark lighting. Dark covers. Toys of torture tucked along the walls and in drawers.

This wasn’t anything like that.

It wasn’t bright, but it was well-lit. The decor wasn’t dark and shadowed, as though what happened here needed to be hidden; it was rich and gilded and ornate, like the suite was taken straight from a modern-day Versailles.

Marbled surfaces and golden fixtures. The impression was that what happened here was meant to be exalted… treasured.

The soft sounds of classical music registered in my ears, just enough to keep the silence at bay. I snagged my lower lip between my teeth and let my inspection travel over the details in the room. Like the light switches, they all had dimmers.

I thought about it, but I didn’t adjust those either. No decisions.

I walked toward the four-poster bed directly in front of me, framed like a giant cage with no walls.

My pulse thrummed in my chest. I was afraid to step into this cage, not because I wouldn’t eventually be let out…

but because I didn’t think I’d want to be.

The warm coil in my stomach ti ghtened when I saw the gold button positioned on the nightstand.

Air pulled deep into my lungs, and I forced myself to remain calm.

If anyone at my firm learned about the want that twisted and knotted deep in my stomach… I shuddered to think about it. Jack, Donald… all the other partners at my firm… I’d never hear the end of their misogynistic mocking.

I continued to stroll through the room, my fingers grazing over the embroidered pillows and velvet fabrics. I knew I was stalling, but my heart was starting to race, and I wasn’t used to that sensation.

Not when I walked into a courtroom. Not when I defended celebrities.

Not when I made decisions affecting the future of the entire firm.

It never raced, because I had my emotions locked in a choke collar.

I’d learned early on that the more you cared, the more people took advantage, and the more it hurts.

That to succeed, I couldn’t be soft or vulnerable or wanting.

But here I could. I would.

When I reached the full-length mirror in front of the bed, I shivered, imagining what it would soon reflect.

Me.

Them.

I came here—went through all of this—in search of the same heaven pictured in that painting in the hallway. The same obliterating ecstasy without judgment or obligations. Without worry. Without weakness.

I came here for that same dream. For three strangers to share me .

For so long, I’d thought it was me. That I was just too much for any man.

Too powerful. Too authoritative. Too imposing.

I’d resigned myself to believe that success hadn’t just come at the expense of a relationship, but of sex, too.

One man couldn’t control me… because I didn’t want to be controlled by one man because… fuck the patriarchy.

But then, I’d made the mistake of letting Jack and Don pick the location of our quarterly partner’s meeting, and they’d chosen the Mirage.

Of course, we’d held the meeting in the PG13-rated lounge on the main floor, but not before they’d regaled me of their memberships to the exclusive sex club upstairs.

About halfway through the meeting, a woman walked in and sat at the bar. A few minutes later, two other men joined her, and then they all headed for the elevator upstairs to the club. Private rooms. All sorts of fantasies.

We left that night, but I couldn’t stop thinking about that woman and her two men.

Maybe I was too much for one man. Maybe I couldn’t be controlled by one man.

But two? Three? Four? Like everything else in my life, I overthought the possibility and all its scenarios until I settled on three.

Two wasn’t enough; four seemed like overkill.

I needed three. If it was good enough for Goldilocks, it was good enough for me.

I returned to the nightstand and traced the rim of the gold button.

When I was ready to call him… Mr. Sandman.

That was what they called him. The one behind it all. The one who would make my fantasy come true. Mr. Sandman .

Almost like a switch, all my thoughts and wonderings flipped off, and my finger pressed down like there was some other kind of gravity weighing it onto the button.

Mr. Sandman, bring me a dream.

Six words—a prayer that was sure to send me straight to hell.

Mr. Sandman, please bring me three.

Maybe burning was my kind of heaven.