by Savanna Fox
“Fuck.” Roughly, he scrubbed his body with soap that smelled of lemon and eucalyptus.
He and Lily had always been a mismatch. In the beginning, lust and love overcame the barriers, but now their marriage seemed to be nothing but barriers. Did some other man—a man better suited to her, a man her damned parents would approve of—have her passion? Her love?
It sure wasn’t like she needed Dax. She might look like a princess—fair, elegant, and delicate—yet she was smart, capable, and had an iron will. He admired her independence, couldn’t imagine being with a clingy, dependent woman, and yet . . .
His parents had been so absorbed in themselves and each other, they’d barely noticed him. Lily had a full life without him. He was a self-sufficient guy—a loner, some folks said—and it wasn’t like he needed to come first with Lily. It had been enough that she loved him, that they got together whenever they could and had a great time together. Now it seemed they’d lost even that. Or that she was giving it to some other guy.
He fisted his hand in anger and frustration and thumped it against the tiled wall of the shower, wishing he could punch whoever the hell Lily might be fucking.
Women came onto Dax, but he believed that if you said marriage vows, you stuck to them. Or else you split.
He turned his face into the shower’s needle-fine spray.
Was it that time? He’d hung in there over the past year, hoping they were just going through a rough patch, but he couldn’t take it any longer. He had to find out what the hell was going on. With her, and with them. As for him . . . Did he still love Lily? He’d never met another woman who made him feel the way she had in the early days, when he’d been crazy enough to hope that with her he might find the things he’d always secretly dreamed of: love and safety, a home and family. Over the years, growing up, he’d abandoned some of those dreams. He wasn’t cut out to be a dad; Lily’s clinic had become her “baby” and she put it ahead of everything else; neither of them was the type for a conventional home life. Still, he’d believed in their love, and it sustained him when they were apart. It got him through Afghanistan.
The thought of losing Lily was gut-wrenching. But maybe he already had.
When she got home, he’d put the questions out on the table, hear her answers, and fucking deal with them like a man. Resolved, he turned off the shower, reached for a towel, and dried off.
He ran a comb through his hair. Lily would think it needed cutting and so would her uptight parents, but that was their problem. Nor would he shave off the beard he’d grown. Chances were, this marriage was going to blow up. “Shit.” Love, marriage, dreams. Should have known all along he wasn’t that kind of guy.
His muscles as taut as when he’d climbed into the shower, he strode jerkily to the closet and pulled on jeans and a tee. He checked his smartphone and found a text from Lily.
Working late. If you’re back, have dinner without me.
He hurled the phone onto the bed. Working late, or with a lover, or just avoiding him? She didn’t want to talk to him or she’d have phoned. But he wanted to talk to her. Damn it, he had to know the truth. He wanted to settle things tonight.
Her Kindle sat on her bedside table. He flicked it on. This time, she wasn’t in the middle of a book; the device opened to show several covers. One book, with a choker-style necklace on the cover, was titled Bound by Desire. More erotica? He opened it, skimmed the review quotes at the beginning, and his eyes widened. BDSM? Lily had chosen to read BDSM? Was she, maybe, into this kind of sex?
No, he couldn’t imagine it. She was no submissive; hell, she always had to be in control.
Well, not in the bedroom. There, in the beginning, he’d been the teacher. Once she’d caught up, he’d always thought they were equals. Had she fantasized about being dominated? About dominating? Did she get off on tying a man up? On spanking him? Had she found a man who satisfied those needs?
Dax grimaced. “Oh, fuck it.”
He ripped off the clothes he’d just put on, donned waterproof running gear, and headed out to try to release some tension. Though in some ways he preferred the pristine whiteness of the snowy north, he had to admit there was a lot to be said for being able to run outside rather than on a treadmill in a gym.
The rain still pounded down, dusk was falling, rush-hour traffic was at its peak. Lights from cars, streetlights, and buildings slashed in jagged patterns through sheets of rain. Dax’s shoes thumped the pavement, splashing water. He headed across the Cambie Street Bridge, noticing the construction cranes with multicolored Christmas lights. Festive. The opposite of his mood.
He ran through Yaletown and into the West End, on Robson Street. Strings of sparkly white lights looped through the boulevard trees, clothing store windows showed party wear, and pedestrians chattered excitedly as they headed to restaurants and parties. He turned right on Denman, crossed West Georgia, and ran into Stanley Park.
The thousand-acre park, much of it undeveloped, was a frequent destination for him when he was in the city. A paved, six-mile seawall ran along the outside. This Christmas Eve, the seawall and the road beside it were quiet.
Normally, running outside made him feel free, powerful, and connected to nature. Tonight, nothing was going to make him feel good. He tried not to think, only to mindlessly push forward. He returned over the Burrard Street Bridge, then along the seawall on the south side of False Creek. By the time he got home, he’d run roughly ten miles.
He opened the condo door, dripping with rain and sweat. Doubting Lily would be home yet, he still called, “Hello?” No response.
Again, he headed for the shower, and again he dried off and dressed. He still felt like crap, but at least he’d worn off some nervous energy and filled an hour. He’d also worked up a bear of an appetite.
He rummaged through the delivery menus in the kitchen drawer, and phoned in an order for butter chicken and lamb vindaloo. Food at the mining camp was plentiful and decent, but basic. Then he took a beer and Lily’s Kindle, and settled at the table in the dining nook, facing the view over False Creek. It was night now, but Vancouver never got truly dark, not with all those streetlights, apartment lights, vehicle lights. He missed the midnight black of nights in the bush, broken on clear nights by crystal stars and a glowing moon, sometimes even by the rippling, dancing sheets of colored northern lights.
When he and Lily had gone house shopping after he left the army four years ago, his pick was a place with a yard, close to a park. The house was old, rundown, but he’d liked the natural setting. Lily had pointed out that his new career as a bush pilot meant he wouldn’t be home much. She didn’t have the time or interest to deal with a fixer-upper house and a yard, nor did she want a long commute to work. They’d settled on this condo: easy care, a ten-minute walk to her Well Family Clinic, and within nice running distance from Stanley Park and from Pacific Spirit Park up by the university.
Turning away from the cityscape, he started to read Lily’s book. Normally, he chose outdoor stories or thrillers, either real life or fiction. Bound by Desire didn’t exactly hook him. A woman who was tired after a stressful business trip checked into a ritzy hotel, went to the bar for a drink, and flirted with a stranger, then accepted his invitation for dinner. She found him commanding and charismatic. Dax thought he was a bit of an asshole.
The building-door buzzer sounded and Dax took delivery of his dinner, put the takeout containers on the table, and found a fork. For a few minutes, he just ate, enjoying the taste of savory spices. Then he turned back to the book.
The couple ate dinner and put away two bottles of wine, flirting all the time. For dessert, he ordered a rich chocolate cake, and they shared it.
The cake was sinfully delicious, yet after only two bites, Cassandra found herself sliding the plate over to Neville. “You finish it.”
Watching the pleasure on his face as he ate it was even more enjoyable than tasting it herself. But after only a few more bites, he shoved it aside. “Come to my room.”
>
She gazed into his piercing black eyes. Truly, he was the most compelling, sexy, utterly masculine man she’d ever met. Decisive, powerful, charismatic. She’d always been drawn to strong men who weren’t threatened by a confident, successful woman. But never had she been as attracted as she was to the man seated across from her. Her body craved him so badly her panties were soaked. And her judgment, which almost always proved reliable, told her she could trust him. “I might be persuaded,” she responded, hoping her coy comment might win one of his dazzling smiles.
Instead, his black brows rose. “Persuaded? That’s not my strong point.”
She frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Cassandra, I’m a dom.”
“A what? You mean, uh, sexually? Like with BDSM?” She’d never been with a dom. The idea—okay, it titillated her, especially with a man as sexy as Neville—but it also horrified her.
“Exactly. And you’re a submissive.”
She jerked back in her seat. “I certainly am not!” At work she was known as a ball-breaker; no way would she ever submit to a man.
“You’re in denial.” He nodded. “Yes, I thought so. It will make tonight even more interesting.”
Glaring, she said, “If you think I’m going to let you, uh, let you . . .” What did doms do? Tie women up? Beat them?
“Let me? No, you’ll beg me to.”
Damn. So much for having great sex tonight. “You’re wasting your time. I’m not into that kind of thing.”
A slight smile edged his lips. “You say one thing but I can read you, Cassandra. You don’t enjoy vanilla sex.”
“Well, no. I mean, it’s nice, but . . .” Though she’d had sex with a dozen men in the past year, each experience had been too damned bland.
“Something’s missing, that you want very badly. There’s no spice, no fire, no passion. You feel like you’re standing outside your body, watching. You never truly connect intimately with your own body or with your partner. There’s no intensity. You climax, but it’s like a sneeze, a ripple. It doesn’t wrench you apart and make you scream.”
She squeezed her legs together, barely able to stop herself from squirming with arousal. Yes, that was what she wanted. Intensity. “All right.” Her voice sounded husky. “I wouldn’t mind spicing up my sex life. Playing a few kinky games. I thought you might be into that.”
“Playing games. That’s really not my thing.” He leaned forward, and she was unable to look away from his dark gaze. “Being a dom is not a game, it’s who I am. My true nature. As, I believe, being a submissive is your true nature.”
“No.” It was perverted, that kind of sex. She was a liberated woman.
“Let me show you.”
That deep voice, his compelling gaze . . . She found herself shifting her weight, as if to rise and go with him. He drew her, the way no one else ever had; something about him made her want to obey him, to please him. Struggling against an almost overwhelming urge, she said, “I can’t. It’s not me.”
“Then we’re done here.” He took the napkin from his lap and tossed it on the table. “A pity. We’d be good together. Imagining it has kept me hard since we first sat down.”
Hard. His cock would be as strong, as powerful as the rest of him. God, how she wanted him inside her. She wanted amazing orgasms—for him as well as herself. But he was rejecting her. How could she let him walk away? “You said you would show me. I don’t think that will happen. But maybe we could, uh, try one or two things? Nothing too, uh . . .”
“The relationship between a dominant and his submissive begins with a negotiation.”
That was encouraging. Sort of. At least he believed in negotiating, rather than just dictating terms. “But I’m not your submissive. Can’t we negotiate something else? Some non-vanilla sex, for tonight?”
He studied her, face impassive and eyes glinting with some emotion she couldn’t read. Was it annoyance? Humor? Desire? “You want to dip your toe in the deep waters of my world.”
“I guess I do. Without being in danger.”
“A sub never faces danger. Safe, sane, and consensual is the fundamental rule. And the sub has a safe word. If she speaks it, the dom stops immediately, without question.”
“Hmm. That’s reassuring, but it’s still way too much for me. Can’t we just have some kinky sex?”
After long, silent moments of staring at her, he finally said, “What is it about you, Cassandra?”
“How do you mean?”
“With any other woman, I would have walked away. But in you, I see so much. I see things you don’t let yourself acknowledge and I want to help you find your true self, your deepest pleasure. I’m drawn to you.”
Did he really mean it? “I’m drawn to you, too.” In ways she understood, for his charismatic personality and pure male sexiness, and in ways she didn’t understand, like a desire to please him and win his smile.
And now that smile flashed, so dazzling that it made her catch her breath. “Then you will come to my room and dip your toe, perhaps your entire foot. And once you’ve done that, I believe you will want to dive from the highest diving board.”
His meal finished, Dax rinsed the takeout containers and put them in the recycling. Noticing that the kitchen faucet had a persistent drip, he got the tool kit from the back of the hall closet and replaced the washer. Then, with another beer in hand, he took Lily’s Kindle to the living room and flicked on the gas fire.
His wife was a strong, independent woman like Cassandra. Had she too met a man who made her want to dip her toe in a taboo world of dominant-submissive sex? Or was it the connectedness and intensity that appealed to her? How had he and Lily lost that?
He settled in the recliner and began to read again.
When Cassandra stepped out of the bathroom, she was dressed as Neville had instructed, wearing only her thigh-high black stockings and four-inch-heel shoes. Proud of her toned, voluptuous body, the idea of flaunting it in front of him sent tingles of heat racing through her, as did the idea of a night of kinky sex games with this man.
He stood beside the king-sized bed in the bedroom of his luxurious hotel suite, watching her with a gleam in his dark eyes. He’d taken off his tie and suit jacket, undone a few buttons at the neck of his white dress shirt, and rolled the cuffs up his forearms. His powerful body was supremely masculine, his style casually elegant. His voice, when he said, “Come here, Cassandra,” was anything but casual, though. It was deep and commanding.
That tone of command sent quivers of arousal racing through her blood.
Just slowly enough to make a point, she strolled toward him.
He frowned. “I’m not sure you really want this. Perhaps you should go.”
After stripping off her clothes for him? Not likely. She wanted sex, kink, orgasms. “I do want it. Honestly, Neville.”
He shook his head. “Here, you call me master.”
“M-Master?” Her voice squeaked in disbelief.
“I agreed that tonight we only play games. But we’ll play them by my rules.”
How badly did she want a night’s walk on the wild side, sex that made her cry out with the intensity of her release? If he could give her that, she’d call him whatever he wanted. Besides, she still felt that inexplicable desire to please him and win his approval. “I’m sorry, master.”
“That’s better. Now my pet, I have jewelry for you. Let’s see how you like it.”
From a black case, he took a wide collar, black leather studded with what had to be rhinestones. It was sleek, sexy. Oddly, though, it had a ring in the center. “It’s lovely, but what’s the ring for?”
He studied her, his lips pressed together, then said, “There are a few things we need to get clear, and—”
“I’m sorry,” she said, tongue in cheek. “I forgot to call you master.”
“Cassandra.” He said it icily. “If you want to dip your toe in my world, you will respect me.”
“I do. And I respect that you’re a
dom. But this is hard for me to relate to, because I’m not a submissive.”
“Forget the labels, and forget your fears. Put yourself in my hands. I and only I know your deepest needs and desires, and will fulfill them. Put your pleasure in my hands.” His deep voice caressed the word “pleasure” in a lingering way that made her skin quiver with need.
“I can do that.” There was something about Neville that made her suspect he knew how to bring a woman to screaming climax.
“Realize, though, that in order to achieve the deepest, purest pleasure, you will also experience pain. You can handle it, can’t you, my pet?”
Another thrill of excitement rippled through her. Spanking? Maybe nipple clamps? Tonight, she wanted to push the bounds a little. “Yes, master.” Somehow, the term came more easily each time she said it.
“Good. Now here are two simple rules. You will not question me, or even speak unless I give you permission. And you will obey my commands. Disobedience will bring punishment.”
“Punishment?” The word flew out of her mouth, and she quickly said, “I’m sorry, master. I shouldn’t have spoken.”
“Indeed.” He reached into his bag and drew out a black leather object with a handle and a flat, heart-shaped head. Perhaps he read the question in her eyes because he said, “This, pet, is a paddle. One that will set the sweet cheeks of your fine ass on fire.”
She’d anticipated spanking, but with his bare hand. Flesh on flesh seemed sexy, but leather . . . Not that he’d use the paddle on her, if she never disobeyed him. All the same, the sight of that heart-shaped leather head sent a tingle across her skin, a forbidden thrill racing through her blood. Maybe just the tiniest hint of disobedience, to get a taste of what the slap of leather might feel like on her tender flesh . . . One quick flick would hurt, but surely not too much. Just enough to break her through to a new level of sensual awareness and excitement.
