Holding Hannah Read Free

to breathe entirely. “…and I’ll be happy to show you exactly what those rings are for.”
    Her mouth op ened, but instead of telling him off or even just laughing—a secondary instinct, which was beginning to bubble up ticklingly inside her—no sound came out. Heat stole up into her face; Sam’s smile only broadened.
    “You look very warm in that jacket,” he coaxed. “ Let me help you take it off.”
    From outside the room and somewhere down the hall, her boss called, “The tour is continuing, Miss Alder! Where are you?”
    Tearing herself away from Sam’s hypnotic-like charm felt as physical as tearing away part of her own skin. He still reached the door ahead of her and grandly opened it, grinning as he did so, to let her pass. What had, she had no doubt, started off as teasing began to feel more like hunting. Her heart quickened, her palms sweat. She rubbed them once against her skirted thighs and chanced a quick glance back.
    He was staring at her butt, a light of devilish appreciation dancing in his dark eyes.
    “And how many safety exits are there?” Goodson was asking as he and Marshall moved on, leaving the first floor apartments behind and heading back down the hall toward the ballrooms.
    With her nerves already highly rattled, i nteresting aspects of the architecture began now to jump out at Hannah. Like the wall sconces. Each carving was unique and depicted either a man or woman, and sometimes both, in very adult situations. Hannah startled when she finally looked at one long enough to notice what it was—a man with an obvious erection, perched on his knees with arms outstretched to either side and weighted with books on each open palm. For some reason, it reminded her strongly of the scales of justice. In the next, however, a stern-looking woman sat on a throne with some kind of whip in her hand, two scantily-clad female attendants at either side of her and a man pretending to be an ottoman under her feet.
    Hannah peered closer, picking out what looked like welt lines on the buttocks and thighs of all three submissives—a pang of sheer and unexpected lust jolted through her loins—and the next thing she knew, Sam had moved in closer too.
    She felt the heated brush of his breath caress the shell of her ear. “It’s called a flogger. Have you ever seen one before?”
    A squirm of wanting tickled at the pit of her stomach. She tried to laugh, thinking he was joking, but it came out sounding breathless and squeaky. “What kind of resort is this again?”
    “It’s specialized.”
    She looked at the flogger again and then backed away from him. When he gestured, she continued the tour, only now that she had seen the sconces, her eyes seemed geared toward finding other small oddities. Like the costume boxes stacked up in a room marked ‘Wardrobe’. Each was labeled something that her mind began to twist until her stomach was twisting right along with it—flapper, princess, infant, sissy boy, drop-seat pajamas, sultan/harem, nun/clergy, school girl, Victorian maid, proper maid, sexy maid, butler. An unmarked box sat partially open by the door and she couldn’t resist stealing a peek under the unsecured flap. A black leather mask stared balefully up at her from where it lay atop a carefully packaged whip. Hannah jumped back, crashing into Sam, who caught her elbow before she could fall.
    “Careful,” he said, his dark eyes glittered with knowing laughter.
    Her face flamed ; her skin tingled, up her right leg and down her left arm, and suddenly all she could think about was the fact that Marshall and Goodson had moved on again and she and Sam were once more alone. She hurried to find the others, fleeing from the mostly empty Wardrobe and straight into the gift shop with its neat stack of boxes filling up one corner and row after row of naked mannequins filling up the other. Empty shelves divided the space into eight or so aisles and glass display cases created a horseshoe-shaped checkout counter