Intellectually she’d conceded Lana’s point. Emotionally was another story. She’d lost herself in one relationship. She didn’t want to do it again.
“Do you believe human beings are capable of learning?” Lana asked. “Or are they doomed to repeat the same mistake until they die?”
“Psychology major?”
“I took a few classes is all.”
“Of course we can change.”
“And when you saw what was happening with Jason the Jackass, you ended it.”
She sat back.
“You and Master Marcus have discussed a power exchange, yes?”
“We have.”
“Do you have safety words?”
Julia nodded, and Lana asked, “Does he honour your wishes?”
“He’s been a Dom, a beast, but he’s never crossed a line.”
“Do you love him?”
“I…” Julia’s hand shook as she held the cup.
Lana finished off her pastry then wiped her hands together before reaching for Julia’s untouched cinnamon roll. “So why is he paying for Jason’s mistakes?”
Julia was silent for a full ten seconds, absorbing the impact of that barb. “That hurt.”
“Yeah. You’re not the only one hurting. I’ve never seen Marcus more melancholy. Ah, that’s his nickname. Marcus the Melancholy!”
“You saw him?”
“At the Den. Great party last weekend.”
“Was he…?”
“He was alone. He wouldn’t answer any questions about you.” Lana looked at Julia. “I’m your friend, and I’ll love and support you no matter what. But I can tell you that Brian—”
“Barry.”
“Whatever. He didn’t make you happy. Neither did the Hairball. I think Master Marcus did, but only you know that. It’s all your choice, Jules. If you have fears, have him help you set something up so that you aren’t afraid. Running away isn’t going to make anything better. But if you want to settle for dishwater when you can have a really hot Dom, that’s your choice.” She squeezed Julia’s hand. “Mind if I finish your cinnamon roll? We had a really hot scene last night, and I’m ravenous.”
* * * *
Marcus was navigating unchartered territory.
He fucking missed Julia. The days, weeks hadn’t made it better.
He’d meant it when he’d told her not to call until she was willing to wear his collar. He was tired of her running, of her not allowing their relationship to progress naturally.
But he’d had plenty of time to regret his lack of flexibility.
No doubt he should have handled it—her—better, given her more time, tried to talk, allowed her to leave. He could have continued to push, but slower, more gently.
In his adult life, he’d never had a sub desperate to get away from him before, and he’d had no idea what in the hell to do when she’d insisted on leaving. As a Dom, he’d always been confident of his next steps. As a business owner, he never questioned his decisions. But here, as a man who’d screwed up with a woman who meant something to him, he had no clue what to do next. And he’d painted her into a corner with his ultimatum. Good move, Cavendish.
He wasn’t much for brooding, but he’d done plenty of it. At some point, he was going to have to take action. He just hoped he didn’t snap first.
When he arrived home on Saturday afternoon, he entered the foyer then froze in place, disbelief stunning him.
Julia was there, on her knees, in the proper position. She was mostly dressed appropriately, in a short skirt and tight white T-shirt that revealed she wore no bra beneath. He understood. She was making the first move, but she needed to be free to leave if he rejected her.
The sounds of her breathing, nervous little gulps, hung precariously on the electrically charged air. This wasn’t easy for either of them.
He entered the condo, trying to figure out what the hell to say so he didn’t screw up again. He closed and locked the door, then dropped his keys on top of hers. Seeing them together in the same bowl restored the natural order of things. He hung up his coat next to hers. Damn, he’d missed her stuff being in his space, and the small messes she left behind everywhere she went. “I told you not to come back until you were willing to wear my collar.”
“I know, Sir.”
“Stand up, girl. And look at me.”
She did. Her eyes were wide, her lips slightly parted. She’d never looked more beautiful.
“Join me in the great room. Wine?”
“Please.”
When he returned, she was perched on the edge of a cushion, her hands twisted in her lap. This was not the spitfire Julia he was accustomed to. “Why are you here?” he asked, offering her the glass.
“You’re not having one?”
“No.”
She accepted with a smile of gratitude, and admitted, “I miss you, Sir.”
Until now he hadn’t known his own breath was strangling him.
“If it’s okay, I’d like to tell you why I left.”
He moved to the fireplace and rested his elbow on the mantel, giving them both some physical distance.
She met his gaze. “I was in a vanilla relationship with a very dominant man. I vowed never to allow myself to get in that situation again. Being called a sub made me remember all those feelings. It’s taken me a long time to realise that he was borderline abusive. He wasn’t a Dom.” She took a drink of the wine. “There was no power exchange.”
“I have no power other than the power you give me.”
She looked at him over the goblet’s rim.
“And everything is negotiable. Even if you agree to do something once or a dozen times, it’s still open to discussion.”
“I am sorry. I should have talked to you. I showed you a tremendous discourtesy.”
“For my part, I pushed you too hard, too fast. Ultimatums do not belong in a D/s relationship. I screwed up, Julia. I’m not perfect. I wish I were.” He scrubbed a palm over his head. “I apologise. If you need more time, you’ve got it. I appreciate your coming here today. I want you to be my sub, to make a commitment, and I can guarantee you I’ll keep asking. You can refuse, but I will bring it up again and again. I can’t let you go, Julia. Somewhere along the line, I fell in love with you. I love you, Julia.”
She blinked. “You love me?”
“I didn’t know it was possible, but yeah. I love you.”
“I’m done running, Sir. I’m not saying I won’t get scared and be tempted to flee. But I’m saying I want to wear your collar.”
He stayed where he was for a moment. “Do you know what you’re saying?”
“Yes. I’m saying I love you. That’s a solid base. I’m sure we’ll have miscues, but every relationship does. I want to be your sub. I want to make a commitment to you. I will do my best to honour our power exchange. I will be honest with myself and with you.”
“We’ll go shopping for an official collar later.”
“I was hoping you’d make me a leather one, Sir. With your company logo on it.”
His cock hardened. “Julia Lyle, you’re perfect. For now, we’ll use your old collar.”
“Thank you, Sir.”
“Remove your clothes.” He loved the sight of her beaded nipples, then her shaved cunt. “Leave the rest.” The garter belt and stockings and shoes just simply aroused him. Scraps of black lace and silk…? Fuck. He was done for. “Kneel and lift your hair out of the way.
He took her temporary collar from the closet and returned to her. “It stays until I fashion your new one.”
“Even at work on Monday?”
He realised she’d been asking for clarification and not to protest. “I’ll try to be done, but if I’m not, you’ll wear this one.”
“Yes, Sir,” she said.
“Ask me.”
“Please, Sir. Will you collar me?”
He fastened it in place and checked the fit.
“Perfect,” she assured him. “Thank you, Sir.”
<
br /> “I want to hear you call me Master.” Until now, he’d thought that was pretentious. But it fitted their new relationship, and it meant something to him. She’d used the term of respect in the heat of passion, but she’d never said it and meant it.
“My pleasure, Master,” she said, sincerity laced in her tone.
He’d never felt this way, so proud and simultaneously humbled. She left him in awe.
“You need to be spanked for running away,” he said, his voice gruff.
“And after that, then will you fuck me?” She blinked. “Please, Master?”
“How many do you deserve?”
“As many over-the-knee spanks as Sir decides is appropriate.”
“Don’t think I didn’t notice that, sub.”
“Of course, Sir.”
“Twelve of my best, Sub. Get upstairs, get the tawse, and get on your knees.”
She leapt up. Before she ran up the stairs, she paused, turned back, and walked over to him. She kissed his cheek and reached for his cock, giving it a hard squeeze. He grabbed her hand, stopping her determined up and down motion. “You have a thing or two to learn about being a good submissive.” And he’d have let her do it another minute or so if he hadn’t been afraid of ejaculating in his jeans.
“Sir is going to have all the time he wants to teach me.”
A minute later, he joined her in the playroom and sat in his chair. “Over my lap, girl.”
She extended her palms and offered him the tawse. She had already learnt a thing or two, he observed.
He warmed up her ass with a few vigorous rubs. “You haven’t been beaten in a long time,” he said. “Your skin is unblemished.”
“I presume Sir intends to change that.”
He did, indeed. He blazed the first kiss of the tawse above her knees. She cried out, but she reached for the chair leg to keep herself in place.
“One, Sir,” she said.
“Don’t count. Just accept your spanking.”
“Thank you, Sir.”
He systematically landed the blows with precise execution, one on top of the other until he reached her buttocks. Then, as she gasped and cried and screamed, he blistered her ass. He wasn’t angry. He’d never touch her in anger, but he sure as sunshine had a message to deliver.
When he was finished, he dropped the tawse and pulled her into his arms.
She sobbed into his shoulder, wetting his T-shirt. “Thank you, Sir. Thank you.”
“You did well.”
“I need you in me, Sir.”
He carried her to the bed. He was naked in less than thirty seconds, and he returned to her wearing a condom.
She spread her legs, and her slickness proved how ready she was for him. He entered her, sliding in, feeling as if he were being welcomed home.
When he was balls deep, she sighed, a deep, satisfied sound, one that reverberated through him.
She had one arm around him, and the other on her collar.
He fucked her hard, dragging an orgasm out of her. “Mine,” he said.
“Yours, Master,” she screamed.
The he did her slow and deep. “Mine.”
“Yours, Master,” she said almost dreamily, coming again.
Her shudder rocked him. Her pussy milked him.
“May I be on top?” she asked.
He reversed their positions. He liked seeing her breasts with the tight little nipples, her expression, and his collar around her throat. She rose up. She caught his face possessively between her palms. Oh, yeah, he loved this woman. This time she fucked him, and she said, “Mine.”
Also available from Total-E-Bound Publishing:
Bared to Him
Sierra Cartwright
Excerpt
Chapter One
“Which floor?”
“Twelve, thanks,” Myka said slightly breathlessly. He’d patiently held the elevator door open while she hurried across the lobby of the downtown Denver office building. She’d been at lunch too long—the quarterly gathering with her college girlfriends had been too scandalously delicious to leave. As the waiter had brought a second glass of wine for each of them, they’d shared stories of their sex lives—the thrills and droughts—and now she was running late for a meeting with a client.
The man pushed the button for the twelfth floor and then fifteen, presumably for his. The elevator doors slid shut.
“How’s the book?”
Self-consciously she moved the bestselling paperback behind her. “I just borrowed it from a friend.” Borrowed it? Prised it from Kathleen’s unwilling fingers was more like it. Everywhere Myka went, it seemed people were talking about the book, and, after some of her friends’ confessions over lunch, Myka had been desperate to read it. She knew little about BDSM, yet what she knew intrigued her. But where would she find a man into that kind of kink? Her last boyfriend had freaked out and left when she’d brought out scarves and asked him to tie her up.
“Do you know anything about the book?” he asked.
She took a second look at him. He was taller than her, by at least six inches, and that said something since she was unusually tall. In heels, she wasn’t used to looking up at many people.
He appeared to be in his late thirties. His dark hair had a smattering of appealing grey at the temples. It added to his distinguished good looks.
His eyes were a startling green. She had the odd sense that he saw through her tough exterior into her innermost secrets.
She knew she was staring, but she couldn’t look away. His scent seemed to brand the air—something crisp and outdoorsy, a stamp of primal male power and intrigue. Even his clothing captured attention.
Myka made a decent living as a financial adviser, and she recognised quality. The suit that had been exquisitely tailored to fit his toned body cost at least a month of her salary.
“So, do you?”
She was lost. “Do I what?”
“Do you know anything about the book?”
He captured her gaze. Instinct told her to look away, but she couldn’t. Unnerved, she stepped forward so she could exit quickly. “It’s hard not to,” she said. “It’s being talked about everywhere.” Realising she was in danger of babbling, something she did not do, she countered, “Have you read it?”
“I haven’t read it, no. There’s no need.”
A bell dinged, signalling that she’d reached her floor. “No need?” she asked.
“I live the lifestyle,” he said.
The doors slid open.
He moved forward, crowding her space. She’d have to brush past him to exit. He pressed the button to keep the doors open. “Look me up if you’re curious.”
This man, tall and broad, had an air of easy command, as if he was accustomed to issuing orders and having others obey. She had an insane urge to treat him with respect he’d yet to earn. She felt her body grow warmer.
He stepped aside, and she exited the elevator. The doors slid closed.
“You were on the elevator with Phillip Dettmer? Hello…? Earth to Myka…”
She looked at Lori, the firm’s receptionist. Lori had been with Lawson Financial almost as long as Myka had been. “That was Phillip Dettmer?” Though it was fruitless, she looked back towards the closed elevator doors.
“Yeah. The one. The only. The unbearably sexy.”
Myka knew the name—who in Denver didn’t? He was legendary when it came to buying businesses, whether they wanted to be bought or not. He owned stakes in the local baseball team and was rumoured to be a billionaire. From his air of confidence, she certainly believed it. Of course she knew the name, but she didn’t follow the local media enough to have recognised his picture.
Lori was making an elaborate show of fanning herself with a manila file folder. “Every time I see him, he makes me want to do things that are immoral.”
Myka had a similar sense. “Do you see him often?”
“He has a business associate in this building. If the switchboard announces he’
s in the building, I try to catch a glimpse of him.”
“He asked about the book.” Myka held up the paperback. “He wanted to know if I’d read it.”
“You talked about sex with Phillip Dettmer? In the elevator? Get out!” Lori dropped the manila folder.
“Not about sex exactly.”
“Just about kink?”
She didn’t tell Lori that he’d invited her to look him up. It didn’t escape her notice that he hadn’t given her a business card or any other way to reach him. If she wanted to contact him, she’d have to be determined. And maybe he wasn’t serious, anyway.
“I’d get naked with him in a second. Colour me green with jealous monster,” Lori said.
The phone rang, and Lori answered, sounding like a consummate professional, even though she gave Myka a wide smile and a big thumbs-up.
Myka continued to her office and shut the door. For a moment, she leaned her shoulders against the wood. Her heart was racing, and she couldn’t seem to banish the scent of him.
Good God, she had this kind of reaction, and he hadn’t even touched her.
She took a deep breath then smoothed her skirt as she walked to her desk to hide the book. She had a meeting in less than five minutes. Her voicemail notification was blinking madly, and she still had investments to research before going home.
All afternoon, the meeting in the elevator teased her thoughts. She couldn’t wait to get back to the privacy of her loft.
A couple of hours later than she’d planned, she arrived home. She skipped dinner and opted for a glass of wine, instead.
At home, she went into her office, placed the book on the desk and then powered up her computer to learn what she could about Phillip Dettmer. There was page after page of information, from his business dealings, to his charitable endeavours, to his numerous romances, some of them with actresses and models, even one with an heiress. It seemed as if none of his relationships had lasted more than a few weeks.
He looked heart-stoppingly hot in a tuxedo on the red carpet. He was fuck-me gorgeous in jeans and a brown leather bomber jacket. And, oh God, in a swimsuit with the surf behind him… Phillip Dettmer definitely worked out. The picture was grainy—probably a paparazzi shot—but she could see the dark hair that arched downward, disappearing into the waistband of his swim trunks. And he’d invited her to make contact with him!
With This Collar (Mastered) Page 18
