Read Online Xtreme by Ruby Laska - Free Book Online

unsurprised. “Fine. But before we go, I have a gift for you.”
    He reached into his collar and brought out a leather band. It was expertly crafted, the stitching along the edges of the butter-soft leather even and tight, the buckle sculpted of silver. But it was too large to fit her wrist and much too small to be a belt, and she looked at him questioningly.
    â€œMy property,” he murmured, betraying his own excitement in the tenor of his voice. “You’ll wear my collar.”
    Then, very gently, he lifted her hair away from her neck and slid the band around. It glanced teasingly against her skin, settling against her collarbones until he picked up the ends and clasped them. He slid the buckle slowly over the end of the band until it was just short of tight and fastened it. Then he turned her in his arms so she was facing the mirror.
    She gasped.
    Chelsea had always known that men enjoyed looking at her. It had been a painful knowledge, having its roots in the early trauma of the photo sessions with Roy. In time, she learned to use her looks to get the attention she wanted when she wanted it, but she never would have called herself beautiful.
    Until now.
    Her hair fanned out over her shoulders, and her eyes blazed with lust and excitement. Her lips were swollen and ripe, her skin pink with heat and need. The dress was merely a backdrop for the collar, she saw now. It clung to her body like a second skin, the neckline leaving a perfect slim crescent of skin under the collar. And now shesaw something she had missed before: a silver plate attached to the front of her collar was engraved with his monogram.
    â€œI have never collared a woman before you,” Ricardo murmured. “I doubted that I ever would in my life. But after Boris died I…” he paused, collecting himself before he could go on. “I was forced to consider that I could lose you. I will not allow that to happen. And it has…hastened this pronouncement, Chelsea. I love you. I do not say that lightly.”
    Then he kissed her—the softest brush of his lips, the faintest stroke of his tongue. She melted against him, longing to lose herself in the embrace, but he held her off.
    â€œAnd now you shall show all those other men that you belong to me.”

CHAPTER SEVEN
    He opened the restroom door and stepped aside, holding it open for her. He took her hand and held it as a dancer might lead his partner and she stepped through, the narrow skirt of the dress making it impossible to take any but the smallest steps.
    One of the men glanced over and saw her and did a double take, nearly falling off his stool. Then he let out a wolf whistle that silenced conversation. All eyes turned to see what had caught his attention, and the bar went silent except for the raucous, tinny music coming from the ancient jukebox.
    Then the song ended and the silence was total.
    â€œWell, fuck me,” one of the old men growled. “I ain’t seen pussy like that since ’Nam.”
    Chelsea’s hand tightened on Ricardo’s arm. Surely he would punish the man for disrespecting her like that? She knew the power in his muscular arms, his large hands; she both feared for the man’s safety and—in that unfamiliar, dark place inside her where the taste for vengeance lived—was excited by the prospect of seeing him thrown to the ground. Not injured—she only wanted him humiliated as she had been.
    Except…
    The way her body was responding was not the agony she might have expected.
    Long ago, in that dank little room where Roy Huber had forced her to pose, where the flash of his camera had felt like a hammer to her soul, she’d had no protector, nowhere to turn. Each time the camera clicked she felt like a tiny piece of her was taken, as though she was slowly being worn down to nothing. Her body ceased to be her body, her “special, private places”—the term her mother had taught her before she