Taking Turns (Turning #1)(11)

Henry Walcott really is a man who has everything and needs nothing. But he’s sentimental about Sixties pop music, especially if it’s on vinyl. So I was in the bookstore that day to pick up a 45 that I had asked the owner to try to find for me.

Rochelle was in there at the same time. When I walked in she was chatting with the owner, so I decided to wait my turn over in the used book section.

That’s when things started to unravel, I think. That innocent trip to the used book section. That prominently displayed first edition copy of Nicole Baret’s The Longing propped up, front and center, inside the rare books case.

The Longing. It was an urban legend up until nineteen seventy-nine when a whole cache of books was found in an attic. It had been rumored that only two hundred copies were printed and that attic had all two hundred of them.

It makes me wonder… did Ms. Baret self-publish them? No publisher came forward to claim them. Ms. Baret died two decades before from an overdose while she was at a sex club. And if she did self-publish them, was there more than one printing? How could all two hundred copies of The Longing still be boxed up in someone’s attic when the book was legendary? Everybody knew about it. So how could they know about it, if no one ever read it?

It was such an intriguing mystery in so many ways.

“Do you think it’s real?”

I remember whirling around in the store, startled by her soft voice. She was wearing a long dress made of pale yellow velvet that day, even though it was hot outside. It was low-cut, so her cleavage was ample and there was no way—I don’t care who you are, man or woman—to avoid looking at it, it was that beautiful.

When I got over her tits, I looked up into her blue, blue eyes and recognized her from the carnival. “I don’t know. I heard they were all auctioned off at Christie’s thirty years ago.” I stopped and shook my head. “I just don’t know who would sell it. And here?” I crinkled my nose. “I love this store, it’s great and all, but how did The Longing get here?”

That’s how it all started. With me trying to be a good daughter, and then Rochelle, asking me, a girl who had everything and needed absolutely nothing at all, about that book.

A book I really did need.

I bought it. There was no way I wasn’t going to buy it. I paid eleven thousand, two hundred, and seventy-seven dollars for it. The owner thought I was nuts. He talked about it every time I went in the store for the next three months.

But by the time three months passed, Rochelle and I had already started making plans.





When Smith Baldwin came into the closet to release me, my head was pounding. I was scared and nervous. Mostly nervous. But he was nice. I think. I don’t know him, but I think that was him being nice. The way he dressed me, chose my clothing—my shoes, my coat, even, and then that jewelry. When he fastened the clasp on that gold collar around my neck I got a chill through my whole body and knew… that all the decisions I had made to get to this moment in time were justified.

The walk downstairs was exhilarating. I was so sure he knew I was up to something. But maybe he thought my shuddering body was just fear? Or nerves? Or a combination of both? Because he was silent until we stepped out of the elevator and Elias Bricman asked Smith if he wanted him to take over.

“No,” was all he said.

A very firm no.

Then it was a whirlwind of activity and I tried not to notice people I really wanted to notice. All eyes were on Smith as we left. He’s the kind of man you can’t help but notice.

He’s also the kind of man you don’t demand attention from.

When he promised the guest of honor that he’d be back, a little stab of jealousy pained my heart. Would he go back for her? But no, I decided as we walked to the waiting car and he opened the door for me. No, he told her to start without him.

I have an idea of what they do down there in the basement. Rochelle was very upfront about what this deal was. Smith Baldwin, Quin Foster, and Elias Bricman were her partners in a very dirty game called Taking Turns. And since she was already in a game with them, she wasn’t allowed down in the basement levels of Turning Point Club to play a different game. She had never been down there. Three years she’d been dating them and she had no idea what it looked like.

Of course, we spent long nights imagining. It’s not hard to imagine naked bodies slick with sweat. Various bondage apparatuses. Groans, and moans, and orgasms.

I slip a finger between my legs, the soft silk of the red dress I’m still wearing fluttering along the skin of my hand, then my arm. I’m so wet. That one touch from Smith had me so wet. And the way Quin fumed at me. So softly and so hard at the same time.

Did you miss me? God, I missed you.

Why the f*ck would Rochelle walk away from that?

She would never tell me. Just said she was done and left it at that. But she didn’t want them to think too hard about her disappearance and that’s where I came in.

The replacement.




My alarm goes off on my phone and I realize I’ve been sitting here in the dark since I walked in the house after Smith dropped me off. When I got in the car he asked me where I lived and told the driver when I answered. But other than that, he never said another word until we pulled up in front of my townhouse down on Little Raven Street near Coor’s Field.

When the car stopped, I said, “Do you want to know my name?”