Excerpt from
First Look (Risk Series, #1)
Copyright 2020 Ava Claire
~
(Flashback)
“Do you know what happens in that house on the hill, little girl?”
My Uber driver had been ignoring all my signals from the moment I slid into the backseat. Everyone knows when you answer, ‘How’s it going?’ with a single word, followed by turning your attention back to your cell phone, you’re not trying to hear anyone’s life story or share your own. He walked right past that, holding me hostage for the longest 20 minutes of my life.
Because my flight landed in Reno after night drenched South Lake Tahoe, I only got a dark outline of mountains, pitch black stillness where the lake was supposed to be. The only bonus on the windy trek from Reno International Airport to the casinos at Stateline was the shuttle driver was not in a chit chatty mood. He focused on the curves, and I got to listen to my tunes and get psyched for my final destination.
Unfortunately, the shuttle ride was quickly followed by a last leg with a driver who was too busy asking me where I was from (North Carolina, though I hadn’t been home since I graduated from college in 2004) and why I was dressed so scandalously.
The only scandal was his eyes, which had been working over my black teddy jacket, crimson bodysuit, and leather leggings from the minute I clicked my seatbelt.
Well, that and the fact that I hadn’t been a little girl in a long time.
I lifted my eyes to meet his leering ones in the rear view mirror. “Do you know what happens when I press this SOS button in the app?”
His gaze narrowed, but he promptly returned to the task at hand. “I was just making small talk,” he muttered.
I could have called his bluff, especially since we both knew that was bullshit. He was just like every other man who helped himself to my body, whether I was dressed in a bodysuit and leggings or a sweatshirt and jeans. Whether I was in a bikini or a flannel and my favorite ratty pair of sweats. Catcalls from open windows, winks on the sidewalk, gazes that lingered on every curve before settling on my eyes and letting me know just how badly they wanted to fuck me.
I learned early on that grinning and bearing it just let assholes think their behavior was okay, so I saved my smiles and energy for people who deserved them.
I flipped back over to my browser, the cryptic website for Risk replacing my annoyance with excitement. Reno may have been Vegas’ country bumpkin sister, but it had one up on it’s glitzy, overpriced sibling...it was an hour and a half from a sex club that I put on my to-visit list. A sex club that was tucked in the Sierra Nevada mountains, where every naughty dream one conjured up could come true.
I raced my hands through my ebony locks, drifting in and out of the tousled waves before I hit the side of my head that was buzzed short. My mom, who just so happened to be my hopefully temporary roommate, called it ‘G.I. Hoe’—military precision on one side, ready to spread ‘em on the other.
Yeah.
I didn’t find it very funny either.
And from the sparse, black and white images that filled out the gallery page for Risk, this wasn’t a place for laughter, thank god. Finding a venue to explore your kink as a single woman was easier said than done. From the Bay Area to the East Coast, all I could find were clubs filled with men who thought all it took was ‘Hey’ to get in my pants. And if I had the urge to let go, trusting someone enough to submit, my accompaniment was snickers from the sideline. Or worst, taunts from those who were more about pain and degradation than the art of domination and submission, urging my partner to push my limits.
Hit me harder.
Fuck me until I scream.
Make me cry.
It was almost enough to make me give up on it all. Invest in battery operated tools and really yummy fiction books because porn was definitely a no go.
And then a friend told me about Risk.
Biting my lip as my excitement turned erotic, quickening my pulse and making me tap my foot impatiently, I flipped over to my Google Maps application, confirming that we were three minutes away.
The sedan eased off Pioneer Trail, careening down a residential street until it hit a back road that was as quiet as the car. I wasn’t sure if I was expecting some gothic castle like House on Haunted Hill or Beauty and the Beast, but the only thing it had in common with either of those stories was the wrought iron gate, a physical obstruction to keep people out.
Or keep people in...
