Falling Hard (Billionaires in Disguise: Lizzy, #1) by Blair Babylon

dresses, gorgeous stuff
that would have trailed the ground behind her, hung on six taller
racks. The leather, lace, and snakeskin fetishwear scented the room
with saddlesoap and cowhide under the more common smells of laundry
detergent and dry cleaning chemicals. The shoe racks smelled like
the cedar bags stuffed in all the shoes.
    All Lizzy’s outfits matched because she was
the only size zero, short, in the dresses and size five in the
shoes, so the shoppers just matched everything for her. She liked
the blue dress. Lizzy’s eyes were pale blue, almost gray in the
sunlight, and electric blue reflected in her irises and made them
look bluer. Theo’s thick, black eyelashes were so wasted on a guy.
And The Dom’s sapphire blue eyes were so wasted on a guy. And she
could go on.
    Sadness trickled down her back again. The Dom
wasn’t ignoring her, just busy.
    Maybe she should make an appointment with
him, just to talk about nothing in particular.
    Or get him alone in a play room.
    She rolled her eyes at herself. That canny
coyote wouldn’t be so easily tricked.
    Lizzy snagged her printed schedule from the
bench and glared at it again: Two guys, which was one more than she
usually saw on a weeknight.
    The second name on the list, her eight
o’clock appointment, was a name she recognized, “Bruce Lee.” He had
started off as a skinny, painfully shy guy but had gained thirty
pounds of hard muscle working out over the last year. He liked her
to marvel at his katas for their hour. She played the adoring fan
for him, giggling and hopping in elation. He was a nice guy, just
lonely and desperate for approval like most scientists.
    Like most of her clients, “Bruce” had thought
that he wanted blow jobs when he had signed up at The Devilhouse,
when he had actually needed a cheerleader. Most people would
probably be shocked and pretty disappointed at how little sex
occurred in The Devilhouse.
    “Bruce” had asked her to attend his brown
belt test in a couple weeks, and she was seriously considering
going even though it was a breach of The Devilhouse’s Terms of
Service. The TOS was to keep them safe, but she felt safe meeting
“Bruce” at his dojo and providing some moral support. She had to
make sure he understood the continuing limitations of their
relationship, and she was pretty sure that he did. He was almost at
that point that two of her previous clients had reached, when she
told them that they didn’t need her anymore and to go out in the
world and knock ‘em dead.
    The first name on her schedule in the seven
o’clock time slot was new: “Thomas Hobbes,” like the English
philosopher.
    God, what a dorky fake name. Lizzy was really
hoping that the name didn’t mean that the guy reveled in being
nasty, brutish, and short. Well, it was a just an initial meeting,
which meant that she was interviewing him to see if he got a
provisional place on her roster, and that was all.
    A new guy appearing on her schedule was
weird. She had closed her list months ago because she was making
plenty of money and didn’t want to overbook herself. Maybe it was
an emergency. Some contractors had been quitting lately, just
natural turnover, nothing unusual. She could clear it up later.
    Georgie was waiting around the corner, also
studying her schedule. She was wearing a long, black formal and a
tiara.
    “What’cha got for today?” Lizzy asked
her.
    “An English tea service and restrained
flirtation with ‘Lord Alfred,’ then a drinking game with ‘Boston
Bob.’ Every time the Red Sox hit a homer or catch a pop fly, we do
a shot.”
    “Guess it’s a good thing I drove.”
    “Hell, yeah. Good thing that tomorrow’s
sociology test got postponed. I already watered down the bourbon so
I won’t end up barfing my guts out.”
    Clicky footsteps clattered like someone
hurrying in high heels. They looked up.
    Someone barged around the corner and
high-heeled-skidded to a stop in front of Lizzy and Georgie.
    Lizzy looked way, way,