Master in Shining Armor Read online

  Titles by Sparrow Beckett

  Masters Unleashed

  Finding Master Right

  Playing Hard to Master

  To Have and to Master

  Master in Shining Armor

  Masters of Adrenaline

  Stealing His Thunder

  Fueling His Hunger

  Pushing Her Limits

  Master in Shining Armor

  Sparrow Beckett

  INTERMIX

  NEW YORK

  INTERMIX

  Published by Berkley

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014

  Copyright © 2018 by Sparrow Beckett

  Excerpt from All’s Fair in Love and Mastery copyright © 2018 by Sparrow Beckett

  Penguin Random House supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to continue to publish books for every reader.

  INTERMIX and the “IM” design are trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  ISBN: 9780451492135

  First Edition: August 2018

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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  Contents

  Titles by Sparrow Beckett

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Excerpt from All’s Fair in Love and Mastery

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  “What in the actual fuck?” Juliet murmured under her breath as she reluctantly turned off her ignition.

  Either this was a joke or someone was wasting her time.

  From the outside, Catacombs was nondescript, blending in with the other warehouses that lined a dreary street in an obscure industrial park Juliet hadn’t even known existed. With cinder-block construction, the club had a black steel door and no front windows.

  There wasn’t even a sign on the building.

  She would have thought she had the wrong place if she hadn’t double-checked the address.

  How could this club make enough money for a big renovation if no one could even tell what it was from the street? She made a mental note to address curb appeal when she met with the owner.

  Briefcase in hand, she straightened her blouse and knocked on the scuffed metal door, not entirely sure anyone would hear her. Only seconds passed before a man yanked open the door. Tall, with broad shoulders, the guy was good to look at. His longish red hair contrasted with his startling green eyes. He had a sexy smile too.

  Hellooo . . .

  “Hi, I’m Juliet from Stride Designs.”

  “Hi, Juliet from Stride Designs. I’m Grant from Catacombs. Come on in.”

  “Grant?” She frowned. “I have a nine o’clock with the owner. William Ellis?”

  “He’s not in yet. But I’ll show you the plans and stuff. He’ll be here . . . soonish.” Grant glanced over her shoulder as though expecting Mr. Ellis to make a sudden appearance.

  As Juliet followed him in, she glanced at her watch. Nine a.m. sharp. Hopefully, the man didn’t have an ongoing issue with punctuality, although from what this guy had said maybe it was common for him. As the only public face of her family’s business and one of the main designers, she was too busy to deal with people who couldn’t make their appointments on time.

  “Is he . . . often late?” she asked cautiously, not wanting to offend, but needing to know so she could plan for it their next meeting—if there was one. She hadn’t brought extra work with her to fill the wasted time.

  Grant chuckled. “Yeah. But don’t worry, he left his notes.”

  Inwardly grumbling, she followed the man through the almost lightless main area of the club, into a small office down a hallway. One side of the room was covered with blackout blinds. A desk sat in the middle of the space with an office chair behind it. At least she assumed it was a desk. Every square inch was covered with . . . mess. Papers, mugs that looked half-full, an oddly large assortment of rulers—some broken. Not a single inch of actual desk showed through the chaos.

  She inhaled deeply through her nose and let it out slowly through her mouth. It was a meditation trick she’d learned during her yoga phase. It was the only part that had stuck and she used it to quell her frustration with difficult clients.

  Grant shuffled through a mound of papers, looking confused. “Hmm. It’s around here somewhere.”

  On the corner nearest Juliet, she spotted a crude floor plan . . . drawn in purple. The page was full of scribbles and measurements written with question marks.

  Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.

  She picked the page up, cringing. “Is this it?”

  “Ah. There it is.”

  “Purple,” she muttered, half-convinced it was colored pencil.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. Um. Too bad he didn’t use one of these rulers.”

  Grant smirked. “It probably didn’t cross his mind to use them for that. He didn’t tell you what kind of club this is, did he?”

  What kind of club? The info she’d received had been incomplete and oddly vague. She’d assumed it was a nightclub. It certainly wasn’t a golf club. “No. Why?”

  A shadow caught the corner of her eye and she turned toward the doorway. Another broad, well-muscled man, with too many tattoos, had basically made a door of himself. This guy had messy reddish-blond hair and a day’s growth of blond stubble along his square jaw, as though he’d been out partying all night and hadn’t bothered to go home yet. Her spine straightened in response to him. He looked a lot like Grant, but a bit older, and a bit . . . harder.

  The guy was offensively handsome—the kind of guy who chewed women up and spat them out and didn’t think about them again. No one had any business looking so sexy and . . . fucking magnetic? . . . in a sloppy T-shirt and worn jeans. She could tell he was one of those guys who was a huge narcissistic asshole who never thought of anyone but himself. His eyes were the same startling green as Grant’s, too, but the expression in them was very different. She felt like he was mocking her.

  “You’re the project manager from Stride?” he asked.

  “Yes, I’m Juliet Callahan,” she said stiffly. “You must be Mr. Ellis.” br />
  “Will. Nice to meet you.”

  Yeah, sure it was. He seemed to be assessing her . . . laughing at her maybe, as if he thought she was a joke.

  She swallowed, feeling very off kilter, and she dropped her aloof professionalism into place like a shield.

  Fuck this guy. Just because he was stupidly hot didn’t mean she’d let him laugh at her.

  “Your associate was just showing me your . . .” She waved his purple-inked sheet of paper.

  “Plans?” he finished for her.

  “Yes. Shall we get started?”

  He took a sip from the to-go cup she hadn’t realized he was holding—some fancy coffeehouse across town. Getting to their meeting on time had been less important than going for designer coffee? Nice.

  “Any questions?”

  “Definitely.” She hesitated a moment. “It’s hard to tell without an actual blueprint, but I think there’s going to be some problems with this layout, Mr. Ellis,” she said, opting not to drop the formality and call him Will. She didn’t want to get overly familiar with this man. “You have the restrooms tucked into a strange corner of the club. They will be hard to find. And the bar should be more prominent, to encourage people to buy drinks when they come in.”

  “I don’t want to encourage that.”

  “Also, what are all of these divided side rooms for? Usually, storage areas are more open concept.” She registered what he’d said. “You don’t want people to buy drinks?”

  “No. It’s not really a drinking club.”

  “Um . . . okay. Well, what about the dance floor? You don’t have much open space . . .”

  “It’s not that kind of club either.”

  She sighed, getting frustrated. “Well, we can discuss all that later. However, I can see at least three fire code violations here—”

  “I’m sure there are ways to fix that without changing much of my design.”

  “Mr. Ellis, I’ve been doing this a long time—”

  “You don’t look old enough to have been doing anything for a long time, but Konstantin recommended you, so I assume you must be very good at your work.”

  “Well, yes—”

  “Then I trust you to figure this out.”

  She narrowed her eyes. For all the disorganization of his office, he was most definitely the boss. When it came to her work, she was used to being in charge. The way the man was taking control of the conversation, steering her, raised her hackles.

  After a deep breath, she smiled politely. “I’ll do my best to meet your needs . . .” Shit. Had that sounded like an invitation? His gaze on her was half interest, half amusement.

  “ . . . but we do still have to deal with reality, Mr. Ellis. There are regulations that need to be followed.”

  He pointed to the paper. “This is what I want. I expect you can find a way to do it. Money isn’t an issue. Make small adjustments to my plan if you have to, but that’s the general idea. That’s what I want. Make it happen.”

  This man . . . She ground her teeth together. “What, exactly, is this place?”

  He moved to the window and opened the blinds. No wonder he kept them closed—they were barred and looked onto the parking lot.

  Sighing, he turned and leaned his back against the wall beside the window. “Catacombs is a private BDSM club. You do know what BDSM is, I hope?” He watched her carefully.

  Heat crept up her neck, spreading to her cheeks which she was sure, with her complexion, were bright red. It took a moment to find her voice. “Um. Yes, I know what it is.” She didn’t live under a rock.

  His lips quirked as though he found her amusing. “Is it a problem for you?”

  Her ears were hot, and she could feel her face turning from red to purple. She cleared her throat. Considering what her take-home would be from this project, she wouldn’t even care if it was a brothel. “No, Mr. Ellis, it won’t be a problem.”

  Since he didn’t invite her to sit, she moved a stack of papers off a hard wooden chair and perched them on the edge of the overflowing desk before helping herself to a seat.

  He took the chair behind his desk, looking as arrogant as any fancy CEO she’d worked with over the years, even though his office space lacked the usual trappings of wealth. It was as if he was above worrying about appearances.

  “So,” she plunged on, hoping to forestall any more talk about kinky things, “the plans that you gave me only include this floor. From the outside I would have guessed the building had two floors—maybe three. Are we leaving the upstairs alone or are there other tenants?”

  He sat back and scratched at his stubble. The man grew good stubble, she could give him that much. He had a strong jaw, too, nice lips, intense green eyes. And the hand he was scratching that stubble with was . . . big. Wow.

  Owning a place like this, though, whatever he was into, she definitely wasn’t interested in trying. And she definitely wasn’t into being a notch on this man’s bedpost.

  “There are private rooms upstairs. I guess you could take a look and tell me what you think. Although the main floor has been mostly cleared out for this, and those rooms haven’t been. I don’t know how delicate your sensibilities are.” His gaze held a challenge that made her bristle.

  Guys like this always thought she was so prim, just because she cared about having a tidy appearance. She was just as worldly as the next woman.

  “I’m sure I can handle it, Mr. Ellis.”

  “Please, call me Will. Calling people Mr. Ellis around here gets too confusing with my business partner being my brother.”

  “Doesn’t he want to sit in on this?”

  “Grant,” he called, the deep boom of his voice startling her. “Do you want to sit in on planning meetings?”

  The only response was a bark of rude laughter from the next room.

  “See? Grant’s kind of an asshole, by the way. He’ll bang you in the back room if you let him. And he won’t call.”

  “Your brother’s virtue is entirely safe with me, I can assure you.”

  He snorted. “I can assure you that my brother is completely without virtue,” he said, matching her tone. “Sorry, you’re stuck with just me.” He smiled a real, dazzling smile.

  Juliet, stop checking him out! This man’s idea of foreplay probably includes jumper cables.

  “I guess it would be a good idea to give you the full tour. Of course, we’ll finish clearing everything out before construction starts, but we’re not shutting down until then, so most of the equipment needs to be available for use up until that point.”

  He stood and grabbed the keys off his desk then walked away as though he was used to everyone trailing him like obedient puppies.

  From what she knew about BDSM, Will had to be one of those Dom guys. He had an arrogance she would have expected from one . . . but he didn’t dress in fancy suits and he wasn’t clean-shaven, so maybe she was wrong?

  “So, have you owned Catacombs for a long time?” she asked, determined to focus on the job and not the man.

  “We started it up about five years ago. We didn’t have much money to sink into it at the time, so we added things as we could. Now that we’re well into the black, we can afford better.”

  Well into the black? That boded well for Stride. It was always nice to take jobs where money wasn’t impossibly tight.

  “So, what kind of feel are you going for? Something more upscale?”

  He grimaced. “I wouldn’t mind owning something upscale, but considering the building we’re working with, the location—and considering me—I don’t think that would be a good fit. I was thinking something more practical. Clean lines, concrete, and steel.”

  “So, a more futuristic feel?”

  “More like industrial and easy to clean.”

  Charming.

  He chuckled and for some reason
the sound made her think of what sorts of things he probably did to women in this place. Her cheeks heated yet again, which annoyed the hell out of her. She wasn’t the kind of woman who went around blushing, but something about this guy said that although he’d been mostly polite, he wasn’t generally so civilized.

  She strode after him, her Louboutins click-clacking on the nondescript floor. Stride could do so much better than this. It was always fun to take on a reno where the space was so raw—almost like a blank slate. Even just tearing out the horrible bar would make a world of difference.

  “The bar stays,” Will said as if on cue, barely glancing over his shoulder as he issued the order.

  Damn.

  “Do you really think that’s a good idea? I mean, when you’re doing a remodel sometimes it’s best to start from scratch so that you’re not trying to force existing elements to fit the new design.”

  Ugly existing elements. Ugly, ugly.

  “Nah, this thing holds too many memories. It would be a shame to get rid of it.” He patted it like most men would pat their dog. She could only imagine what kind of memories a bar would hold in a place like this. Probably memories of the unsanitary variety.

  “You were saying you wanted to downplay the sale of alcohol. This bar is a prominent, heavy piece. Could I interest you in a few other ideas?”

  Turning, he narrowed his eyes at her. “I suppose you could tell me your other ideas, but they’d have to be pretty fucking spectacular for me to change my mind.”

  His use of profanity in a business meeting shouldn’t have surprised her, and yet it still took her aback.

  “I’ll do my best to dazzle you,” she said, managing to curb most of the sarcastic tone her pride was urging her to use.

  He smiled at her nastily. “You go ahead and do that, Stride. It’s what I’m paying you for.”

  Rather than be worried about losing this contract and wanting to suck up, she kind of wanted to slap him, yet wasn’t sure why. He hadn’t said or done anything horribly shocking, and yet tension hummed between them. It set her teeth on edge.

  Okay, so maybe she was a prude compared to these people, but then again weren’t most people prudes compared to these people?