Bonds of Courage

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Book: Read Bonds of Courage for Free Online
Authors: Lynda Aicher
Tags: Romance, Contemporary
her eyes. Then she nodded.
    A round of cheers went up, and the man swooped her into a tight hug that appeared both crushing and tender. Vanessa sucked in another breath when the couple met in a long kiss passionate enough to have Holden shifting in unease.
    He was standing there with a bag over his head, his hands bound to his belt like a prison inmate, and it was the sight of the pure love and devotion of a couple he didn’t know that made him uncomfortable? Yeah, he needed his head checked for sure.
    In the next second the group seemed to descend on the couple in a round of hugs, congratulations and backslaps. He looked to Vanessa when she didn’t move to join in. Her lips were compressed into a thin line, a frown marring her forehead. The shock of seeing it had him wondering about the cause. Was it something from her past or was it about this couple specifically?
    He pressed closer. The desire to encircle her in his arms and hug the sorrow from her was overwhelming. Since he couldn’t do that, he tilted his head down and pressed a small kiss to her crown through the mesh opening. Her hair was silky, a clean floral scent permeating from it.
    She snapped her chin around, eyes wide to reveal a stark vulnerability that stopped his breath. It was covered by a glare before she turned back to the group, but that didn’t stop him from zeroing in on the brief crack in her icy shell.
    In the next instant, a smile wiped away all traces of anything but happiness on her face. The sudden change left him staring. Did she do that often? The lightning-quick morphing of emotions didn’t seem to faze her at all.
    She unwound the leash from her hand and dropped the end to the ground. “Stay here. I need to congratulate them.” She didn’t wait for his acknowledgment before moving off to join the cluster of people surrounding the couple.
    This was not what Holden had expected when she’d cuffed him and led him from the office. Yet he didn’t question it. Not when he buzzed with the knowledge that his chaste kiss had affected her. For a second, she’d let her guard down. He doubted that happened often, but it proved that he could give her something too.
    He stood exactly where she’d left him, his spine straight, eyes never leaving her. There was no fuzzing out now, not when his Mistress was almost lost in the middle of a group of people he didn’t know.
    His Mistress. The term struck a chord in him that strummed with pleasure. This—her—was what he needed. This was exactly what he’d been looking for since he could define what it was he wanted. And now that he’d found her, he sure as hell wasn’t letting her go.

Chapter Four
    Vanessa strode down the long hallway, her toes pinching in her heels with every step she took. One would think that three hundred dollar shoes would be comfortable enough for her to wear for thirteen hours without killing her feet. Wrong. But hell, they were killer cool, made her legs look incredible and hadn’t hurt at all when she’d put them on at six that morning.
    The hiss of a whip, followed by the high crack as it hit its target, flowed up the staircase from the Dungeon below. She inhaled the pungent scents of leather, sweat and sex that filtered over the fainter aroma of lemon from the disinfectant the club used.
    She opened the door to the private room and entered, Holden’s leash clinking against the door frame before she swung around to close them in the room. The night hadn’t gone as planned, and it annoyed her more than it should.
    Her linen blouse clung to the moisture on her back and she really wanted to remove her suit jacket, but before she could even think of relaxing she had to deal with the mess she’d started. A hot bubble bath in her Jacuzzi tub had her name written all over it.
    Why in the hell had she thought doing this with Hauke would be a good idea?
    She reached up and snatched the hood off his head in a brisk movement that did little to appease the ire that simmered

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