ICE QUEEN (Part 1)

 They call her the Ice Queen. At the exclusive BDSM club known as The Zone, Mistress Marguerite is a legend. Tyler Winterman has been fascinated with her since he’s known her, though the rules of their world say they shouldn’t share more than mutual admiration. He is her male counterpart, one of the most powerful male Doms practicing at The Zone.

Tyler is convinced she is a “switch”, a closet submissive, but the truth will be even more remarkable than the theory, changing their lives in ways neither of them anticipates. Having no equal except one another in their skills at stripping a sub’s defenses bare, these two Dominants will turn their considerable talents on each other and discover that who is Master and who is slave doesn’t matter, not when two souls have found their mate.

“Catch a tiger by the toe, eeny, meeny, miny, mo.”

 

Marguerite glanced up from her purchase order for more Vinca Rose Oolong as her hostess, Chloe Marcel, came into the kitchen area. Genevieve Wisner, her other wait staff person, slid by in front of her with a tray of teacups as Chloe propped a hip on the doorframe. Fortunately, Gen was a tall woman, whereas Chloe was a tiny thing, not even five feet tall, and committed by genetics to look fourteen years old though she was nearly twenty-eight. Marguerite had discovered her working a kiosk at the mall that sold a wide variety of body piercing jewelry. She’d liked the woman’s easy manner that drew customers to her side like old friends, the selection of high quality jewelry, and the fact that Chloe, while passionate about piercings, only had one. A navel piercing that she rarely revealed by her clothing choices without having to manually turn up the edge of her blouse or slide a thumb in her waistband. Marguerite had also liked the simmering mischief in her eyes. However, since hiring her as hostess for Tea Leaves, informally known in the Tampa area as the Tea Room, she’d learned to be wary of it.

 

“What are you going on about, Chloe?”

 

“I’m thinking about better parts of a tiger than his toes.”

 

Genevieve rolled her eyes, setting down the tray. “She’s in one of those moods, M.” She used her favorite nickname for their boss, having pointed out more than once that Marguerite’s cool reserve and authoritative presence would qualify her to head up the MI-6 of the James Bond movies. “She’s comparing men to animals again.”

 

“It’s not like we get many here, you know.”

 

“Men, or animals?”

 

Chloe grimaced at her. “This is a terrific, lovely place, Marguerite, but we do need to figure out a way to market it to men of marriageable age. Or at least the age of sexual interest.”

 

“Got it.” Gen nodded. “For men, that would be age twelve until corpse.”

 

“I’ll plan a construction workers’ convention here just for you, Chloe.” Marguerite tapped her pen on the desk, considering the matter while Gen grinned, placing the tea cups from the Coalport set carefully in the sink water to hand wash them, as they did with all the porcelain sets. “Do you think they’d prefer something manly, one of our strong black teas served up in a reproduction YiXing? If clay was good enough for the samurai, it should be good enough for them. Of course, since the samurai left their swords outside the tea house, we might ask our guests to leave their tool belts at the door.”

 “Maybe everything else but the tool belts.” Chloe grinned wickedly. “Here, take him today’s sample.” She took away the dish towel and pressed a tiny cup into Gen’s hand. “You go take a look and tell me if I’m right or not. Money isn’t the only thing oozing off this guy. I’d have given him a lap dance if he’d said another word in that voice, or kept looking at me with those tiger eyes.”

Genevieve made a resigned face, but obediently went back out the swinging door.

 

Chloe looked toward Marguerite. “Even more intriguing, he says he’s here to meet with you. And that you’re expecting him.”

Though the apprehension curling in Marguerite’s stomach at Chloe’s description had already raised her suspicion, the hostess’s words confirmed it. He was an hour early. Marguerite suppressed a surge of resentment, laced with a bit of uncomfortable panic. She’d wanted time to close up the shop. While she’d wanted the strong foundation of meeting on her own turf, he’d taken that edge by coming when she would have to be something different from what he knew, revealing a side to her she’d not intended to give to him.

 

But then, it wasn’t the first time Tyler Winterman had unsettled her. Why had she decided to approach him to help her resolve her dilemma, knowing that about him?

 

Pride, in a simple word. If she had to do this--and she'd been told it was required--she wouldn't do it paired with someone whose skills were less than her own. Her hope was that she wouldn’t have to embrace the task at all, which was the less galling reason she’d invited Tyler here. He might agree with her plan, and go along with it. If he didn’t… well, she preferred not to address that at the moment, especially when a flush swept her skin like the brush of a heron’s wings at the thought, making her heart flutter strangely and the muscles in her thighs tighten.

This was a mistake. One she could not gracefully undo.

 

Genevieve re-entered, a smile playing around her mouth. “Beware the day Chloe comes in here and compares a customer to a bull. We’ll have to run out there and collect all the china cups before the metaphor becomes reality. She’s right. That one’s a tiger. I feel ten times prettier, just having talked to him.”

Gen didn’t know the half of it. Tyler was an Old World gentleman, always rising when a woman entered the room. She’d seen him kiss a woman’s hand as naturally as an English duke, and he saw to the welfare of the woman with him at any given moment with the easy authority of a man who believed it was his responsibility to look after that woman’s well being. That essence was what Gen had picked up. Anything female felt enormously feminine in his presence, as if his sweeping glance put her in skirts, corset, décolletage, piled up hair. Marguerite knew all of that. Felt it and so much more that disturbed her about Tyler.