In the Zone

by Sierra Cartwright

  “Tuesday?”

  “You’re off today and tomorrow, right?”

  She fumbled her keys as she tried to slide them into the ignition. He’d unnerved her. Good. “I won’t settle for anything less than everything you have to offer.”

  “I’m not sure what you’re saying.”

  He leaned into the car’s compartment, so close he inhaled the freshness of feminine scent. It was all he could do not to unfasten her belt, pull her out of the vehicle, drive her back to his place, put her on her knees, and claim her as his. “I want more from you, Alani. This has been fun, but I want more.”

  “What more can I possibly give you?”

  “Your complete submission and trust,” he said. “Wear my collar. You have my number. Call me and tell me you’re mine.” Before she could respond, he closed the door.

  He stepped back and folded his arms across his chest and watched while she took a couple of breaths.

  His behavior had been intentional rather than accidental.

  She hated being left alone, and he’d made no promise to contact her or see her outside the club. He wasn’t sure he could keep to that. He wanted her hot little reddened ass bent over his bed so he could fuck her hard. Staying away from her would be more difficult for him than it would be for her.

  She backed out of her spot without looking at him.

  He dragged a hand through his hair, hoping he was playing her well, praying he hadn’t just made the biggest mistake of his life.

  Chapter Twelve

  Rat. Fink. Bastard.

  Kukae.

  Alani was still furious the next day.

  She hadn’t heard from Master Nathaniel. He’d wanted her to make the first move. She’d flippantly told him he had her number. On principle, she couldn’t call him. And he had to know how much she hated it when he didn’t contact her.

  He demanded more from her, and she had no more to give.

  They’d agreed to scene together, and she didn’t want to change the rules just because he did, just because the sex had been spectacular, just because he made her submit and launched her into subspace.

  After she’d arrived home from spending the night with him, she’d cleaned her house, and she’d even scrubbed the toilets and done the laundry. She’d caught up all the bookkeeping work for her clients, made a trip to the grocery store, and finally watched a movie with her phone in her lap.

  She’d slept fitfully for less than five hours. She’d woken constantly to check for nonexistent messages.

  An hour ago, she’d finally given up, thrown back the covers, climbed groggily from bed, then dressed and headed for the gym.

  She’d tossed her phone in the locker. Let him go to voice mail. If he called.

  She hit the treadmill and tried to outpace her thoughts. Even with music blaring in her ears she couldn’t forget their time together.

  Damn him.

  Her anus was still tender from when he’d inserted the glass plug and then fucked her. Her pussy was still tender from the brutal strop. She still had a vivid red welt on her butt.

  That’s what she wanted more of: his punishments, not his ridiculous emotional entanglements.

  Confound the man.

  She turned up the speed on the treadmill. An eight-mile-an-hour pace wasn’t sustainable for more than a couple of minutes, but she hoped it would be long enough to exhaust herself so she could sleep tonight.

  She ran hard, concentrating on each step and the beat of the music.

  Her breaths became ragged, her footfalls harder. But she kept the grueling pace.

  It didn’t help.

  All the thoughts she’d deliberately shoved away rushed at her, faster than the belt on the treadmill.

  He was leaving. Soon. He hadn’t said how long he’d be gone, but the fact was this was his life. He enjoyed what he did.

  He’d made no pretenses about that.

  She’d agreed to play with him mainly because he was leaving. She would be able to enjoy scenes without any emotional entanglement. At the time, it had seemed like a perfect arrangement.

  Other than his ridiculous demand, nothing had changed. He hadn’t called, and that was fine—it didn’t matter to her. They were at a standoff. He wanted more; she didn’t want a relationship.

  But damn it, she’d liked being in his home. She’d enjoyed showering together; she had loved eating breakfast with him, and it didn’t hurt that he was an excellent cook.

  Why couldn’t he be satisfied with the way things were?

  Finally, she backed off the machine’s speed, setting it to two miles an hour for a five-minute cooldown. She was still trying to catch her breath as she walked into the dressing room. She opened her locker and avoided looking at her phone.

  Once she was dressed in a pair of yoga pants and a soft long-sleeved T-shirt, she grabbed her phone and keyed in her password.

  There were no messages.

  She leaned against the bank of lockers, unable to breathe.

  Since yesterday she’d been giving herself constant pep talks, telling herself it didn’t matter that he hadn’t called. But it did.

  She squeezed her eyes shut. She’d see him at work tomorrow night. That meant she only had to get through one more day.

  She’d survived breakups before. And this wasn’t even a breakup. After all, they’d had no commitment, even though it was now clear he wanted one.

  She’d seen collars in his playroom, but he’d only put one on her to attach a leash.

  A hot flush chased up her face.

  She looked around the locker room. A few other women were changing. One was heading for the showers, and two others had just come in, chatting animatedly about the spin class they’d just taken. They all looked normal. She’d be willing to bet none of them had crawled naked across the floor while their master followed holding a leash.

  Master?

  When the hell had that thought entered her mind?

  Master Nathaniel might be a dom, but he wasn’t her dom, her master. She was a masochist, as he’d pointed out, not a submissive.

  So why did the memory of being leashed, of kneeling for him make moisture flood her pussy?

  Determinedly she pushed away from the lockers, grabbed her gym bag, and slung it over her shoulder.

  She wasn’t any man’s sub.

  That resolved, she went home. She was driving herself crazy. By the time she went back to the club tomorrow, she’d be insane. Being alone with her thoughts, her memories, her what-ifs was a bad, bad plan.

  She called a couple of friends and arranged to meet them later at a neighborhood bar for happy hour.

  For the first time in days, she donned jeans and sensible wedges instead of stilettos and skirts. She stuck a baseball cap on her head, skipped the mascara and lipstick, and grabbed a purse the size of a small country before calling a taxi. She left her phone at home, and she didn’t share any stories about her personal life, even though the girls sensed something was up and pried repeatedly.

  That night, she turned off her phone before bed.

  She didn’t care whether or not he called.

  She told herself it meant nothing that she slept in Master Nathaniel’s T-shirt or that she woke up with a damp pussy following a dream about him.

  The dream bothered her.

  Instead of her traditional masochistic fantasies, this was a submissive dream. She was at his home, waiting in the middle of the kitchen for him to return. She was on her knees on the hard floor. Her legs were spread wide, leaving her exposed.

  She was wearing very little. A thin but sturdy black leather collar was fastened around her neck. A lacy black shelf bra cupped the underneath of her breasts and left her nipples exposed. Silk stockings, a garter belt, and, of course, ridiculously high heels completed the outfit.

  In the dream, her hands were behind her neck. She had her chest thrust forward, and her head was lowered with her gaze focused on a specific spot on the floor.

  Her breaths were ev
en and easy as she waited. She had no idea where he’d been. She was just patiently, happily waiting for him to open the door and step through the threshold, over six feet of raw masculine energy.

  And when he did…

  Wordlessly, he closed the door, locked it, and then walked toward her. He lifted her hair with one hand. Then he ran the pad of his thumb over her collar. “Mine.”

  Just from the anticipation, from his touch, his single word, she’d gotten aroused. She wanted to behave perfectly for him.

  Even the memory of the dream caused an instant visceral reaction.

  She was in bed, tangled in the sheets and Master Nathaniel’s T-shirt, and she was aroused. Her clit felt like it had a pulse of its own.

  She recalled his warning at the bar that she wasn’t to touch herself or orgasm without permission. But since they hadn’t spoken since Sunday morning—and for all she knew, he might already have left the country—she tossed back the bedcovers and reached her hand between her legs. She pulled back her clitoral hood and stroked the swollen nub.

  Alani moaned.

  In the past, she’d had dreams that left her horny, but she’d never experienced anything like this.

  She reached over to her nightstand and dragged out a vibrator.

  Memories and fantasies tumbled in her mind. She remembered him bending her over the desk in his office and spanking her bare bottom; she imagined him ordering her onto his kitchen table so he could chastise her.

  She turned on the vibrator and moved it over her pussy.

  She recalled the sight of a welt on her thigh and the image of her crawling in front of him as he held her leash.

  She wanted more.

  She wanted him.

  A powerful orgasm clawed at her. She dug her heels into the mattress and lifted her hips. She turned the vibrator speed up a notch and slid it inside her vagina, searching for her G-spot. She continued to rub her clit.

  All of a sudden, the climax overtook her. With a scream, she came.

  She tossed aside the vibrator and lay there, chest heaving.

  Now that she’d been satisfied, she expected to be able to banish him from her mind. But he was still there, maybe larger than ever.

  She forced a couple of breaths past her clenched teeth and turned off the vibrator.

  Clearly lying in bed thinking about him wasn’t helping.

  She had a few clients to call, and she should pay bills.

  Refusing to feel sorry for herself, she glanced at the clock. Only a few more hours until she was due at the club. Only a few more hours until she saw Master Nathaniel.

  Her heart rate accelerated again—this time with excitement—and she felt less anxious than she had in the last couple of days.

  She’d never been affected like this.

  Calling on her usual sense of self-discipline, she dug into her bookkeeping work. Several clients had uploaded information to her secure online storage. She grimaced when she saw that her least favorite customer, a housekeeping service, had uploaded their business checking account statement and a pile of receipts and bills, some of them past due. The woman who ran the business cared deeply about doing a good job for the people she took care of, but she was a bit scattered, and some of the receipts were months old. Keeping that set of books was a constant challenge, but today she welcomed the work.

  Determinedly she began by reconciling the woman’s business checking account.

  Alani worked without breaks, meaning she had time for a run before getting ready for her shift at Zones. She grabbed her music player, selected her dance tunes—she liked the tempo—dressed in shorts and a tank top, and headed out the front door of her apartment. She jogged down the block before turning onto a greenbelt trail.

  The Rockies loomed in the distance, and a few high clouds hung overhead. The day was blisteringly warm. She would have been considerably smarter to have gotten out of the apartment earlier. Still, the weather added a layer of punishment, and that suited.

  Other than the idea of seeing Master Nathaniel, for the first time, she didn’t relish the idea of going back to work. Now that she’d tasted his lash, his uncompromising discipline, she wanted more.

  He’d seen through her when she’d scened with Master Richard, and she’d gotten into plenty of trouble for her show of boredom.

  The truth was, she liked being with someone like him, but she wasn’t sure how into others she was.

  So that left her… Where?

  She followed the path as it looped back toward her apartment.

  She turned up the volume of Adele’s latest hit and increased her pace, feeling the burn in her legs.

  Alani didn’t want to quit Zones, but after being with Master Nathaniel, she wasn’t sure whether or not she wanted to play with other doms. Maybe she would change her requirements and play with female doms. At least that would be different.

  By the time she got home, she was gasping.

  Even though intuition said there would be no messages on her phone, she still checked.

  Resisting the urge to throw the silent thing across the room, she headed for the shower. She intended to get in and out quickly, but she ended up soaping her body slowly, running her palms across her tender breasts and down her stomach. She recalled the way he’d treated her after the beating at his house.

  There were worse things than submitting to him.

  Unbelievably the earlier orgasm hadn’t left her satiated. She slumped when she realized only Master Nathaniel gave her the satisfaction she craved.

  She stayed under the spray until the water ran cold. She touched herself and imagined Master Nathaniel was playing with her.

  She had never been this obsessed with a man. It was unhealthy. It wasn’t her, and she couldn’t permit it.

  With only a towel wrapped around her, she went into the guest bedroom and selected an outfit, a lacy camisole with spaghetti straps, a PVC bolero jacket, a scandalously short skirt, thigh-high stockings, and a bright red garter belt. She skipped underwear; let Master Nathaniel get a peek at what he was missing.

  She drove to work and was disappointed when she didn’t see his SUV there. Then she saw Master Marcus’s sedan in the parking lot. She thought he wasn’t due back from Mexico for a few days.

  Her heart skipped a beat.

  Was he back because Master Nathaniel had left? Without a word?

  Jaron, the club’s head of security, opened the door for her.

  “Master Marcus would like to see you right away.”

  “Oh?” The last time Master Marcus sent for her, it hadn’t been good. “Thanks.”

  He tipped an imaginary hat in her direction.

  She entered the club with a sense of trepidation. Willow was behind the reception desk.

  “What have I missed?” Alani asked, feeling as if she’d been gone forever instead of just a couple of days.

  Willow glanced around quickly before answering. “Master Marcus is back early from Mexico. Karyn is still there.”

  “Seriously?” The two had been committed for years. She’d had no idea anything was wrong.

  “It shocked us all,” Willow said. “Including, I think, Master Marcus.”

  Before Alani could ask about Master Nathaniel, Master Marcus exited the office area. He spread his legs and folded his arms across his chest. “I’ve been waiting for you, Alani.”

  “Yes, Sir. Jaron said so. I was headed directly to see you.”

  “Instead you two are gossiping on my time?”

  Alani swallowed. She’d forgotten about his computer access to the club’s security cameras.

  Willow grabbed the reservations book. “Sorry, Sir,” she said.

  Master Marcus turned and headed back to his office. Alani and Willow exchanged a quick glance, and then Alani followed him.

  He was already seated in front of his desk, the same desk where Master Nathaniel had blistered her ass. Had it only been a few days ago?

  “Close the door,” he said.

  She wa
sn’t sure whether or not to remove her coat. Nerves skittered up her spine. What the hell was going on here?

  “I wanted to check in with you. Before I went on vacation, you had the choice of a write-up or a leave of absence. You agreed to retraining, and Master Nathaniel was to have assisted in that.”

  “Yes, Sir.” She shifted in her seat, suddenly wishing she’d worn panties. She’d dressed to taunt Master Nathaniel, not realizing she’d be called into the owner’s office.

  Despite the fact he’d been on holiday, he looked pale. He was an extraordinarily good-looking man, and she’d never seen him look this way, his eyes narrowed as if battling a headache. “I have spoken with Master Nathaniel, but I want to hear from you. I understand you participated in a public demonstration last week, and you did well.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I also understand you had a few scenes with club doms and that you were fully engaged.”

  She nodded.

  “I want to know, Alani, what you want out of Zones?”

  “Sir?”

  “You were hired as a professional sub. You know I question whether or not that’s what you really want.”

  A cold sweat drenched her back. Despite everything, was she being fired?

  “You’re an asset to the management team,” he continued. “I plan to restructure some things around here. I’m no longer willing to work the kind of hours I’ve been working. I think it’s important for at least one of the owners to always be on-site, at least on the weekends. Master AJ is agreeable to being here more often.”

  “I’m sorry, Sir.” She drew in a steadying breath. “I’m not quite sure what you’re saying.”

  He ran a hand through his hair. She noticed the shadows around his eyes.

  “Willow is certainly able to handle more responsibility, and so are you.”

  “I see,” she said, even though she still wasn’t sure where he was going.

  “We’d like to put a management team in place to handle more of the day-to-day operations. You, Willow, Jaron. Even if you agree, I will ask you to fill in when needed, in scenes, in demos. It’s strictly your choice. If you wish to have a small participation in management and remain as a sub, I’m completely happy to accommodate you.”