A Date With A Dom
A prelude to
Requested Surrender
Riley Murphy
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DATE WITH A DOM ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
DATE WITH A DOM Copyright © 2014 Riley Murphy
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A Note From Riley
For those readers who don't know. This is David and Lacy, my hero and heroine in Requested Surrender. These dates take place prior to their story officially starting. Think of it like I'm giving their backstory a small stage to shine before their real story happens. The first four scenes in this prelude, I offered as free reads on my website, but now I've included not only two extra scenes, I've added a sneak peek at the first chapter of Requested Surrender as well.
I hope you like these guys as much as I do. And as always, thank you for picking my books up and reading them. Your support means the world to me.
Riley
The First Date
Lacy Pembrook stared across the candlelit table, into the nicest hazel eyes she’d happily drown in, and lied. “I’m worried that if we give this a try, as you’ve suggested, we’ll blow our chances at a friendship and then where would we be when the gang wants to get together?”
David Hollan inclined his head even as his gaze pinned her. “Is that what you’re worried about?”
Hm. Even though those words were more a statement than a question she chose to answer it by continuing to fib. “Absolutely. You seem like a really nice guy.” Nice was understating what he seemed to be. Interesting, deep, mysterious and fuckalicious were all descriptions that came to mind, but she kept those to herself. “I just think this is a case of better safe than sorry.”
“And I think” —Uh oh, he was leaning forward and bracing his arms on the table, turning that piece of furniture that had acted as the perfect buffer between them into an open-air stage. At least that’s what it felt like— “sometimes when you’re sorry, it’s better than being safe.”
Okay, screw the fact that he was currently crowding her and making her nervous. She ignored the sensation. “How is that even possible? Ask anyone and they’d agree that being safe beats being sorry every time.”
“Not everyone.”
She tilted her head and hiked a brow at him. She was sure any second he’d say he was only kidding, but he didn’t.
“Not even you, providing that you were with me.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
That word skated over her causing tiny tingles to fall like a line of dominoes tumbling down her spine as another pat phrase came to her. Curiosity killed the cat. It killed. The cat. Don’t ask. Don’t…ugh. “I think I’ll need you to explain that one to me.”
“All right.” He took his time pushing his plate aside, moving the flickering candles to the left and folding his napkin neatly before he tucked it under the edge of his dish. “Tell me. What would you have to have done in order to be sorry?”
She shrugged. Unless this was a trick question, it was a no brainer. “Something wrong.”
“Exactly.” He stared at her.
She stared back. “And?”
“How can you learn and grow without making mistakes? In fact.” He put his large, warm hand over hers and squeezed. “If you played it safe all the time, wouldn’t you get to the end of your life and be sorry looking back?”
And there it was. The very reason she didn’t—no, scratch that—she wouldn’t get involved with a man like him. He was dangerous on every level. “I feel like you’re overthinking the phrase.”
His hand tightened. Not too much, but enough for her to notice. “And I feel like you’re under-thinking it.”
She gently pulled away from his grasp and picked up her wine glass. What did she have to worry about? This was a harmless dinner. No more than that. She needed to relax. She was free to enjoy herself. Yeah, she needed to lighten up. “I thought a Dom like you would want his submissive to be good and obedient all the time.”
“I do.” He leaned back and splayed his hands on the table. The action made him appear bigger and more in control than before. Although how such a thing was possible, she had no idea.
“See, safe is good and good is what you’re after.” She waved her glass, dismissing him, before she took a sip of her delicious pinot noire.
“Isee.” He slapped the table in a catchy ratta-ta-tat beat and then abruptly stopped. “But the question is, do you?”
His eyes drilled into her. Their probing heat almost caused her to choke on the wine that slid down her throat like a wave of sand. Carefully, she put her glass down and wished with all her might she hadn’t ordered the bouillabaisse. She knew from experience that dish would take a good twenty more minutes to arrive. Relax. There’s nothing between you, remember?
“Look, David, I’m not Colin and I’m certainly not Jo. In fact, not that I like to share this tidbit about myself a lot.” She bent forward and whispered, “but I was a slave once and it didn’t work out well for anyone but the guy who collared me.”
He laughed. The fucking guy laughed and, when he did, she wanted to laugh too. She didn’t know why. Here she was sharing an intimate detail about herself and he thought it was funny? “Why are you laughing?”
“You’re funny.”
“I wasn’t trying to be.”
He did a double-take which was worse than if he’d laughed again. “I’m sorry, it’s just if you truly understood the concept, I highly doubt you’d call your former Master ‘the guy.’”
“You’re right,” she sniffed. “I was being nice. I usually call him Fuckwad.”
Silence. Not the good kind either. This was the kind that landed around you with foreboding. If this had been written in a book it would be called foreshadowing. And the way he looked at her? Lethal. Brutal. “I was kidding that time.” Not really, but his silent censure was freaking her out.
“I’m glad.”
There was too much thinking involved when she spent time with him. That was the problem. Picking up her wine she took a big gulp, looked away and then looked back. The guy hadn’t moved a muscle. Not one. He just remained invested, interested and watchful. Damn. “I suppose if we were to have a trial run and see where something like this goes, you’d have a whole pile of rules.”
David leaned back and relaxed. She was finally coming around to his way of thinking. “Not especially.”
“Real
ly? But I thought…I…”
“Let me guess. You thought I’d be ordering you around and making you do things while you were naked.”
“No. Actually I thought I’d fall under your spell and get naked and do all kinds of things as I’d anticipate your every need.”
That sealed the deal. She would be his. “Interesting.”
“Yeah?” She plucked up her glass and licked the rim before she took a sip. The provocative action got him surprisingly juiced. “And here I was thinking that something like that would be boring to a guy like you.”
She was fishing here. He didn’t know why but he’d let her reel him in until he caught sight of the bait. “Could be. So what did you have in mind?”
The waiter brought their salads just then and David thanked him, but never took his eyes off her. “Well?” he prompted.
“One date night like this a week for eight weeks so we can get to know one another better. To see if something like this will work for us.”
He was willing to negotiate, but hardball was the only game he played. So, with that in mind he was going to tell her flat out no. He wasn’t going to wait eight weeks to get his hands on her. But then he saw the gleam of triumph in her eyes before she could mask it and he knew. She expected this to fail. She wanted him to say no.
He tamped down the rush of adrenaline surging through him with the thrill of the hunt and said, “Great idea.”
“Yeah, I know you’re probably disappointed—wait, what? You think so?”
“Sure.” He pointed to her salad and asked, “Would you like some bread with that?”
“No I—”
“Those are pine nuts in there. Not sunflower seeds.” He chewed a mouthful of greens and swallowed. “Now, I think you’re onto something here. We need to go slow, but…”
“Yes?”
He loved how her eyes widened and her cheeks filled with color. The pinkish flush made those round eyes of hers sparkle like sapphires in the sun. “They’ll be unlimited texting in between those eight dates. There has to be, don’t you agree?”
She downed her wine. Poor thing. Clearly she didn’t have a plan for the direction this conversation had taken. “No I don’t agree. That sounds like a bad idea. Suppose I’m working or visiting with friends. Unlimited sounds kind of creepy to me.”
“Eat your salad.” He spoke softly hoping to put her at ease. “It’s not as if I’m going to stalk you or anything. I may want to send you a text to say good morning and then one the same day saying good night. What’s wrong with that? If I’m forced to limit the amounts of texts I send, I might not be able to say what I want, when I want to you.”
She looked like this was killing her to admit, but he gave her credit when she grudgingly managed. “All right, that doesn’t sound too unreasonable.”
“Exactly. So it’s a deal?”
The way her tongue moved around in her closed mouth as she eyed him, it was as if she were cleaning her teeth with it. Then her lips parted with a smack-like kissing sound and she nodded. “Deal.”
“Perfect.” He looked down and stacked his fork with a cherry tomato, cucumber and crouton. “Then there’s only one thing left to discuss. Exclusivity.”
“For me or for you?”
He finished chewing before he swallowed. Desperately trying not to cough. “Excuse me?”
“What?” She popped a cherry tomato into her mouth and bit down with a satisfied sigh. “It’s a legitimate question.”
“It’s not polite to talk with your mouth full.”
“O-hay.”
It was his turn to sigh, but not with delight when he’d heard her push out that “okay” response around the tomato she was eating. “And to answer your question, it applies to both of us,” he said, as he put his fork down and waited.
“All right. But when you say exclusivity, does that apply to an impromptu cybersex session? Say if I just stumble upon a random stranger in a chat room and I wanted to experience the thrill of sex with them without the danger. I mean, I could just do it and you’d never know because you’re not a computer whiz who can go forensic on a hard drive, are you? Only asking because I’d like to get the rules down so I know.”
He found himself once again mimicking one of her earlier actions when his tongue, behind closed lips, slid over each tooth while he counted to ten. It had been a long, long time since he’d had to count higher than three when he was with a woman. And here he was, not with just any woman, but a woman he was deeply attracted to. Fuck. He reminded himself that she was purposely trying to get under his skin. What was she so afraid of?
“Although it’s admirable you want to get the rules down, it’s pointless if you’re going to break them.”
“Enough said. That pretty much answered my question anyways.”
Oh yeah. She was definitely trying to rattle his chain. He grinned and shook his head, “You got guts. I’ll give you that.”
“Why?” Her eyes danced. “Because I’m not letting you intimidate me?”
“I’m not trying to intimidate you. So, no. I think you’ve got guts because you’ve taken the first big step in our ‘trial relationship’ without me having to say a word. That takes courage and I admire you for it.”
“I did? You do?” She leaned forward and frowned. “What did I say?”
“You like the thrill of sex without the danger. I’ll be your random stranger. We can have sessions via texts. We’ll be sexting.”
She snapped straight up and blinked. “No, we won’t. How can you be a random stranger when I know who you are? It’s not possible, besides…it’s…it’s…”
He reached across the table and patted her hand. “Exactly what you wanted and the best part? You won’t be breaking any rules.”
The waiter arrived right then with their dinner. The way Lacy studied her food after the server put it down in front of her would make one think she’d never seen clean-the-kitchen soup before. Once they were alone David asked, “Is everything all right with the order?”
“No.” She looked up and he spied the worry in her eyes. “I don’t like it one bit.”
He knew what she was referring to but he pretended he didn’t. “Should I call the waiter back so we can change it then?”
“Change what?”
He indicated to her bowl. “Your order.”
“Oh. Oh! No, I’m good with this. It smells yummy. What I’m not good with—”
“Would you like some more wine?”
She nodded and then picked up her spoon. “As I was saying, what I’m not good with is this whole sexting thing.”
He was careful to turn the bottle so the wine wouldn’t drip on the table cloth. Putting the pinot down, he sat back. “What are you good with? Having cybersex with random strangers?”
Her mouth dropped open and she looked to the right as if some other patron in the restaurant was going to come to her aide. No one did, so he waited until she snapped her mouth shut and turned back to glare at him. “I walked right into that one, didn’t I?”
He grinned. “Try marched.”
Just as he’d hoped all the tension went out of her and she shook her head. “I was only kidding about that, by the way.”
“Well, I wasn’t.” He commandeered her attention and didn’t let go. Then before she got around to denying the idea, he pushed to sell it. “Trust me, I’ll make sexting fun.”
The air was electric between them. Charged with an energy that was almost palpable as she searched his face for several moments. Then like a puff of smoke colliding with the wind, one instant the tension was swirling, and the next it was gone. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”
He waited until she looked down at her dish before he whispered, “You’ve agreed to date a guy like me and that’s all you’re afraid of?”
She looked up and he winked, deciding he enjoyed watching her squirm. He was nowhere near to figuring her out yet, but he had learned one thing. Lacy Pembrook rarely ever squirmed. That was going to change
now that he was in her future.
“Bread?”
She may have shaken her head, but she reached for a piece anyway. A second later he was positive she didn’t even know she was chewing on it as she was probably too busy chewing on what she’d inadvertently gotten herself into. Eight dates and unlimited sexting. Damn, this couldn’t have turned out better for him if he’d planned it.
Their Second Encounter
1 hour and 12 minutes after their first date ended.
A text session.
Buzz
Lacy’s eyes snapped opened and she frowned. It had to be midnight. Who’d be sending her a text at this hour?
David.
“Oh brother.” Suddenly visions of him texting her morning, noon and night telling her to do all kinds of nasty things came to mind. She never should have agreed to this, but then, had she really agreed or had he backed her into a corner with no way out?
Snatching up her phone she took a deep breath and read.
Hi.
Hm, not what she’d been expecting.
Hello.
Are you in bed?
She rolled her eyes. Here came the sexy.
Yes.
Do you like football?
She frowned and thought for a millisecond before she replied.
No. Well, sort of, but only if the game is close and there’s less than 4 minutes on the clock.
She sent that and expected him to vehemently defend that All-American pastime but was surprised again when she got back.
Baseball?
Okay, was he planning on taking her to a game or something?
Sort of. Providing it’s the last inning and the teams are tied.
What about golf?
She shook her head and felt like texting, “What about you telling me? What this is all about?” Instead she answered.
No.
What about pudding? Do you like pudding?
She laughed. She couldn’t help it. This conversation was so bizarre—actually intriguing—that she sat up and scooted back against the headboard, dragging the warm duvet cover with her.
A Date With A Dom: Prelude to Requested Surrender Page 1
